Official Sources: Huntsville Hospital gets low patient safety rating, patients’ lives at risk

Realistically, what does that mean for you, your loved ones or friends if – God forbid – they’re hospitalized at Huntsville Hospital?

It means that when you, your loved ones’ or friends’ are a patient in the hospital, you or they could get an infection, or some other serious bug or problem while being treated for something else entirely different. And by so doing, it could make your stay more unpleasant, and in fact, could increase the risk of complications of your treatment – up to, and including your death – was well as increase the length of your stay, among other factors.

What does that mean for the Hospital?

Because insurance companies and Medicare/Medicaid have STOPPED paying for the treatment of preventable problems that are a direct result of hospitalization, it means that Huntsville Hospital will be stuck with the bill (the costs of treating their own mistakes upon you while you’re there)… and will try to pass the cost along to you to recoup the cost of the loss, which is a DIRECT result of their own sloppiness.

Huntsville Hospital has essentially become a monopolistic monstrosity of an enterprise, gobbling up numerous hospitals in the North Alabama region, including BOTH hospitals in Decatur, the only hospital in Athens, the only hospital in Red Bay, Helen Keller Hospital in Tuscumbia area of the Shoals, and the only hospital in Lawrence county.

Meanwhile, Huntsville hospital has fought tooth-and-nail to keep other hospitals OUT of competition in the Huntsville market, and spent untold millions of dollars in a protracted legal battle against Crestwood Hospital – and continues to spend millions to prevent Crestwood Hospital from offering services that would benefit the entire city and county.

Such anti-competitive practice has all been accomplished by and through the state of Alabama‘s Certificate Of Need Board.

The commentary of Mr. Burr Ingram – Huntsville Hospital’s official mouthpiece – which is contained in this article is entirely and wholly unwarranted, and weasel-like.

Not only that, but Huntsville Hospital is NOT a Nursing Magnet Hospital.

There are many things Huntsville Hospital is not.

And sadly, quality is one of them.

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Watchdog Report: Consumer Reports gives both hospitals in Huntsville low safety ratings

Published: Thursday, July 12, 2012, 9:06 AM     Updated: Thursday, July 12, 2012, 9:30 AM

By Challen Stephens, The Huntsville Times

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – Consumer Reports magazine ranked the two hospitals in Huntsville as the least safe in Alabama. But the magazine’s list of hospitals is far from complete.

“We were kind of perplexed at some of what it reported,” said Burr Ingram, spokesman at Huntsville Hospital. “When you think about it, it’s fashionable for everyone to rate hospitals. And Consumer Reports is the latest to use public data that is available.

“But at times, it’s difficult to know how these ratings come about.”

Huntsville Hospital, The Huntsville Times

The magazine’s August edition lists scores in four safety categories. Both Huntsville Hospital and Crestwood Medical Center received low marks for poor communication with patients and for high rates of infection. Both received mediocre marks for high rates of re-admission and unnecessary scans.

Yet the report ranked

Alabama State House Committee OKs Home Brew Bill

Finally!

Little by little, in some regard, Alabama is moving into the 21st century.

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House committee approves bill that would legalize home brewing of beer

By Mike Cason | mcason@al.com
February 20, 2013 at 5:35 PM

MONTGOMERY, Alabama — The House Economic Development and Tourism Committee today approved a bill that would allow those 21 and older to make home brewed beer, wine, mead and cider for personal use.

Rep. Mac McCutcheon, R-Huntsville. (Robin Conn/The Huntsville Times) 

The bill, by Rep. Mac McCutcheon, R-Huntsville, would limit the total production to 15 gallons every three months.

The committee approved the bill after a public hearing, putting it in position for consideration by the House of Representatives.

Several home brewing enthusiasts spoke in favor of the bill.

Jason Sledd of Huntsville told the committee he took up home brewing as a hobby last year.

“At the time, I had no idea what I was doing was illegal in the state of Alabama,” Sledd said.

Sledd said he learned home brewing was illegal after joining a home brewers club.

Rep. Berry Forte, D-Eufaula, said he was opposed to the use of alcohol because of what it had done to some family members. He asked Sledd whether he brewed beer in front of his children.

Sledd said he did, and said he was teaching them the responsible way to use alcohol.

“They will have years of experience of seeing an adult drink alcohol and not being intoxicated,” Sledd said.

Joe Godfrey, executive director of ALCAP,

Alabama is USA’s 2d most religious state

Alabama also ranks up there in poverty, divorce, sexually transmitted diseases, lack of a high school education, spousal abuse, and…

Thank God for Mississippi, eh?

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Gallup: Alabama 2nd most religious state in America

By George Talbot | gtalbot@al.com
on February 17, 2013 at 10:51 AM, updated February 17, 2013 at 12:31 PM

Alabama ranked as the nation’s second most religious state in 2012, behind Mississippi and tied with Utah, according to a new survey by Gallup.

The Washington, D.C.-based polling firm found that 56 percent of Alabama residents identified themselves as “very religious” – based on saying religion is an important part of their daily life and that they attend religious services every week or almost every week.

Alabama trailed only Mississippi, its Deep South neighbor, where

The Dirty Dawgs…

Those dirty Georgia Dawgs…

Crappy Writing in Huntsville’s nearly defunct newspaper

Critique with explanation follows the story.
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Huntsville police searching for man who entered family’s hotel room, took laptop and fled

By Kelly Kazek | kkazek@al.com
November 10, 2012 at 8:59 AM, updated November 10, 2012 at 10:39 AM

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – A family was asleep in a hotel in the 3000 block of University Drive when

The only thing that sucks harder than Alabama’s economy, is Governor Bentley.

Let’s be absolutely certain about a few things.

Number One: Alabama Governor Robert Bentley is – as a politician – a liar, thief and utter incompetent who is shitting on the people of Alabama and wiping his dirty ass with the United States Constitution.

Number Two: Alabama Governor Robert Bentley is – as a politician – a racist.

Number Three: The majority of the state’s Republican leaders are also incompetent boobs, liars and racists.

Number Four: I have utterly NO respect for the man Robert Bentley. Not as a politician, not as a human being. NONE whatsoever.

I predict Alabama will only be better off only AFTER he leaves… the dirty rotten scumbag.

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Alabama has the worst economy in the Southeast. Wonder why? (Joey Kennedy)

Published: Thursday, October 25, 2012, 11:30 AM     Updated: Thursday, October 25, 2012, 12:17 PM

By Joey Kennedy | jkennedy@al.com

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley-R, with HB 56 sponsors Sen. Scott Beason-R, left, and Rep. Micky Hammon-R, right, still defends the state’s terrible immigration law, despite the clear damage it has caused to Alabama’s economy. (AP)

Remember when the Legislature was steamrolling through that overreaching, harsh, toughest-in-the-nation immigration law in 2011? The sponsors said not only would be be mean enough to make individuals and families so miserable they’d self-deport, but also would boost Alabama’s economy and put good ol’ red-blooded, U.S. citizen Alabamians back to work.

Odd report this week, then, from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, which said Alabama has the worst economy in the Southeast. Worse than Louisiana. Worse than South Carolina. Heck, worse than, my goodness, ThankGodforMississippi

Makes us proud, doesn’t it?

There is a saving grace. While Alabama’s economy sucks more than any other in the Southeast, it’s only the fourth worst economy in the United States. Yea us! We’re No. 47!

The outlook for Alabama isn’t that sunny, either, the report says. Unemployment is down to about 8.3 percent, from last October’s 8.8 percent, but economists attribute that to jobs that have simply disappeared, not to jobs having been created.

That, too, can be traced to the immigration law, which left farmers, construction companies, restaurants and other labor-intensive industries looking for workers, then settling for fewer of them when Alabamians failed to fill the jobs.

A University of Alabama economist was ridiculed by state officials and others when he said

The Oracle at Delphi: Mitt Romney’s direct tie to increased unemployment in North Alabama

The average reader may not be aware that there was once a huge Delphi plant in Limestone county, Alabama, which facility was located directly across from Calhoun Community College.

Mitt Romney owned a significant interest in a firm that profited by laying off workers, dumping their pensions, moving to China, and then profiting rapaciously from the TARP bailout. That large plant – one among many, with the largest one being in Alabama – was the Delphi Steering Gear facility in Tanner, near Decatur, in Limestone County.

It was one of North Alabama‘s LARGEST employers – with emphasis on “was.”

The men & women who made careers there, whose labors enabled their children to attend college, provided their families’ clothing, groceries, housing & healthcare, and provided for their own retirement, and which was a union shop, was shuttered several years ago.

Most of what news I recall about it centered around how corporate traders, not unions, were wanting even more & more profit when they were already profitable. Time and time again, the workers took cuts in benefits & pay to keep their jobs for as long as they could… all to no avail.

Like a gazelle savaged on the plains of the Kalahari Desert in Africa, that once prosperous plant has been laid to waste, and there are only industrial skeletal remains. Even the human buzzards, scavenging metal for recycling from the industrial carcass, have left. For many years now, the hollow exterior hulk, instead of employees, materials & labor, has been drawing cobwebs, dust & rust. And soon, like all things left unattended, it too will crumble.

There are no taxes paid to Limestone county, or to nearby Decatur, Athens or Huntsville, or to Alabama for roads, schools, police & fire protection. But there is an even greater issue, one which is exceedingly more weighty and sorrowful. As a result of it all, there is no hope, there are no jobs, and there is no future.

Here’s the even more disturbing part: Mitt Romney had his hand in that pie.

And yet the saddest and most perplexing part is, that most Alabamians will vote for the GOP nominee/candidate.

Following the economic investigative report are historical local news reports that show the progression about the issue (which validate the economic investigative report by Greg Palast), from the:
• Decatur Daily,
• Huntsville Times,
• Associated Press,
• Athens-Limestone News Courier,
• Saginaw News (via MLive.com), and
• Wall Street Journal,
dating 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009 & 2010.

For the benefit of the reader, Greg Palast is an economist and financial investigator turned journalist whose series on vulture funds appeared on BBC Television’s Newsnight. He is the author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (Penguin) and, most recently, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps (Seven Stories). For additional information about him, his website is: http://www.gregpalast.com.

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Mitt Romney’s Bailout Bonanza

Greg Palast, October 17, 2012   |    This article appeared in the November 5, 2012 edition of The Nation.

This investigation was supported by the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute and by the Puffin Foundation. Elements of it appear in Palast’s new book, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps (Seven Stories). Research assistance by Zach D. Roberts, Ari Paul, Nader Atassi and Eric Wuestewald.

2012 GOP Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Mitt Romney’s opposition to the auto bailout has haunted him on the campaign trail, especially in Rust Belt states like Ohio. There, in September, the Obama campaign launched television ads blasting Romney’s November 2008 New York Times op-ed, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” But Romney has done a good job of concealing, until now, the fact that he and his wife, Ann, personally gained at least $15.3 million from the bailout—and a few of Romney’s most important Wall Street donors made more than $4 billion. Their gains, and the Romneys’, were astronomical—more than 3,000 percent on their investment.

It all starts with Delphi Automotive, a former General Motors subsidiary whose auto parts remain essential to GM’s production lines. No bailout of GM—or Chrysler, for that matter—could have been successful without saving Delphi. So, in addition to making massive loans to automakers in 2009, the federal government sent, directly or indirectly, more than $12.9 billion to Delphi—and to the hedge funds that had gained control over it.

One of the hedge funds profiting from that bailout—
$1.28 billion so far—is Elliott Management, directed by 
Paul Singer. According to TheWall Street Journal, Singer has given more to support GOP candidates—$2.3 million—than anyone else on Wall Street this election season. His personal giving is matched by that of his colleagues at Elliott; collectively, they have donated $3.4 million to help elect Republicans this season, while giving only $1,650 to Democrats. And Singer is influential with the GOP presidential candidate; he’s not only an informal adviser but, according to theJournal, his support was critical in helping push Representative Paul Ryan onto the ticket.

Singer, whom Fortune magazine calls a “passionate defender of the 1%,” has carved out a specialty investing in distressed firms and distressed nations, which he does by buying up their debt for pennies on the dollar and then demanding payment in full. This so-called “vulture investor” received $58 million on Peruvian debt that he snapped up for $11.4 million, and $90 million on Congolese debt that he bought for a mere $20 million. In the process, he’s built one of the largest private equity firms in the nation, and over decades he’s racked up an unusually high average return on investments of 14 percent.

Other GOP presidential hopefuls chased Singer’s endorsement, but Mitt chased Singer with his own checkbook, investing at least $1 million with Elliott through Ann Romney’s blind trust (it could be far more, but the Romneys have declined to disclose exactly how much). Along the way, Singer gained a reputation, according to Fortune, “for strong-arming his way to profit.” That is certainly what happened at Delphi.

* * *

Delphi, once the Delco unit of General Motors, was spun off into a separate company in 1999.

Alabama Veterinary Board Quietly Rejects Proposed Rule Limiting Spay/Neuter Clinics

State board rejects rule that could close nonprofit spay/neuter clinics

Kim Chandler | kchandler@al.com

Posted:  10/10/2012 2:36 PM

MONTGOMERY, Alabama – It was a victory this afternoon for nonprofit spay and neuter clinics as a state board quietly rejected a proposed rule that animal advocates said would have effectively shut the clinics down.

The Alabama State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners unanimously voted to reject a proposed rule related to the ownership and operation of veterinarian equipment and operations.

The vote followed a passionate public hearing in which

Alabama’s Quandary: Nur$ing Homes, or Home Care?

It’s almost like trying to patch a roof while it’s leaking.

—

October 04, 2012

This Week in Alabama Politics

By Steve Flowers
It is basic public policy that you either have to raise taxes or reduce government services. It has become a cardinal sin in Republican politics to even say the word tax much less enact any increase in revenue. Our legislature is now overwhelmingly Republican and they are real Republicans. They take their no new tax pledge seriously as does our Republican governor. Therefore, when the dicing and crafting of the 2013 budget was being processed, new revenue enhancement measures were not on the table. It is doubtful that you will see any tax increase proposals anytime soon in the Heart of Dixie.

The state’s new budget year begins this week. It will be horrendous. There are draconian cuts to basic state services. Alabama has a constitutional amendment that mandates a balanced budget. We are in dire straits but at least we are not deficit spending like other states. California is teetering on bankruptcy.

This past year’s budget was bad. Teachers and state employees pay was cut this time last year. However, if you think that last year was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet. This is the year that the chickens have finally come home to roost. The federal stimulus manna from Heaven has provided a lifeline salvation for several years but those dollars are gone. This fiscal year may well be the worst dilemma since the Great Depression.

My contention is that it is worse than the Depression years. During that era the state

Massachusetts declines prosecuting Amy Bishop for her brother’s death

UAH shooter Amy Bishop wants trial on brother‘s killing to prove ‘loving and caring relationship’ with him (updated)

Published: Tuesday, October 02, 2012, 9:22 AM
Updated: Tuesday, October 02, 2012, 11:59 AM

By The Associated Press

BOSTON — The former University of Alabama in Huntsville professor sentenced to life in prison last week in a shooting rampage that killed three of her colleagues wants to go on trial in the 1986 death of her brother in Massachusetts.

Madison County corrections officers escort UAH shooter Amy Bishop to a courtroom for her plea hearing on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011. (The Huntsville Times/Glenn Baeske)

Court documents filed by Amy Bishop‘s lawyer say she objects to a decision by Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey to decline to prosecute her in the killing of 18-year-old Seth Bishop.

Attorney Larry Tipton says Bishop wants to prove at trial that she had a “loving and caring relationship” with her brother and that the shooting was accidental.

David Traub, a spokesman for the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office said this morning that the filing was “legally meaningless.”

Roy Miller and Robert Tuten, who helped defend Bishop in her Alabama criminal case, said they thought it was highly unlikely that Alabama would ever release Bishop to face charges in Massachusetts.

“It’ll be a cold day in hell when Alabama

Amy Bishop gets off scot-free in brother’s murder

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Ex-Alabama prof won’t be tried in brother’s death

By JAY LINDSAY Associated Press  / September 28, 2012

FILE – This Feb. 13, 2010, file booking photo provided by the Huntsville, Ala., Police Department shows college professor Amy Bishop, charged with capital murder in the Feb. 12, 2010 shooting deaths of three faculty members at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Bishop pleaded guilty to capital murder charges in an agreement that will send to her prison for the rest of her life and make her ineligible for the death penalty. A judge scheduled jury selection for Monday, Sept. 24, 2012, as a trial is still required under Alabama law because Bishop admitted to a capital charge of murder. (AP Photo/Huntsville Police Department, File)

BOSTON (AP) — A former Alabama professor convicted of fatally shooting three colleagues won’t face a Massachusetts murder trial in the 1986 death of her brother after prosecutors withdrew their indictment.

The announcement Friday by the Norfolk district attorney follows Amy Bishop’s sentencing this week to life in prison without parole for the killings at the University of Alabama-Huntsville in February 2010.

In a statement, Michael Morrissey said the life sentence his office would have pursued in the killing of 18-year-old Seth Bishop was identical to the punishment she received after her guilty plea in Alabama, so there was no need to move forward.

‘‘We will not move to have her returned to Massachusetts,’’ Morrissey said. ‘‘The penalty we would seek for a first degree murder conviction is already in place.’’

The office withdrew the indictment ‘‘without prejudice,’’ meaning Morrissey could reinstate it if something went wrong in the Alabama sentence, though he said he considered that unlikely.

Amy Bishop, convicted of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, appears on the cover of the January 2009 cover of the Huntsville R&D Report.

Bishop said

Alabama Man Tweets Jokes about Killing the POTUS, finds out it’s NOT a joke. What an idiot.

From our “Yes, Some Folks are Really that Stupid” files comes this recent item.

Oh well… folks in Alabama aren’t known for being the sharpest knives in the block, anyway.

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Birmingham man charged after tweeting threats to kill President Barack Obama

Published: Sunday, September 23, 2012, 3:57 PM     Updated: Monday, September 24, 2012, 10:06 AM

By Kent Faulk — The Birmingham News

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — A Birmingham man was arrested and charged with posting messages on Twitter threatening the life of President Barack Obama.

Jarvis M. Britton, 25, of Birmingham, was charged late Friday with making a threat against the president, according to court documents. The complaint against Britton was filed by the U.S. Secret Service in U.S. District Court in Birmingham.

Britton was arrested after having made three threatening comments aimed at the president in June and then again on Thursday, according to an affidavit filed by Phillip G. Holley, special agent with the U.S. Secret Service in Birmingham.

Holley stated he had received a report from an anonymous citizen on June 30 that Britton was using his computer to make threats against the president.

The agent stated he interviewed Britton on July 2 and determined that Britton had tweeted two messages on June 28 and one on June 29 that talked about killing the president.

According to Holley’s affidavit, Britton’s June 28 tweet stated

Nazi War Criminal found hiding in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA… City of Brotherly Love.

AP Exclusive: Philadelphia man target of German Nazi war crimes probe; will fight extradition

By Associated Press, Published: September 23, 2012

BERLIN — Germany has launched a war crimes investigation against an 87-year-old Philadelphia man it accuses of serving as an SS guard at the Auschwitz death camp, The Associated Press has learned, following years of failed U.S. Justice Department efforts to have the man stripped of his American citizenship and deported.

Johann “Hans” Breyer, a retired toolmaker, admits he was a guard at Auschwitz during World War II, but told the AP he was stationed outside the facility and had nothing to do with the wholesale slaughter of some 1.5 million Jews and others behind the gates.

The special German office that investigates Nazi war crimes has recommended that prosecutors charge him with accessory to murder and extradite him to Germany for trial on suspicion of involvement in the killing of at least 344,000 Jews at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in occupied Poland.

The AP also has obtained documents that raise doubts about Breyer’s testimony about the timing of his departure from Auschwitz.

The case is being pursued on

FOR SALE (cheap!): Alabama Voter Information. Cost? Only 1¢

Here’s another item from our “Stupid things governmental idiots in Alabama do” files.

When I registered to vote, I refused to give my phone number.

After all, it’s not required by law.

Isn’t it nice to know that you’re valued so little by the state’s officials?

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Alabama sells voter information, for one penny

Published: Thursday, September 13, 2012, 6:45 AM / Updated: Thursday, September 13, 2012, 7:48 AM

By Rena Havner Philips, Press-Register

MOBILE, Alabama – For one penny, a political candidate, or even a private company, can buy from the state the name, address, even cellular telephone number if a person submitted it, of any registered voter.

And for $30,000, it can get

Disgraced Alabama Jurist Roy Moore disgraces himself… again. This time, during UAH Professor Murderess Amy Bishop’s guilty plea.

Perhaps it was the Almighty calling him, eh?

I can hear the dialogue now:

“Roy… don’t run again, son. You’ve already embarrassed Me enough, and shown what an idiot you are. So do me a favor, go back home, and go fishing in the lake, instead.”

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Chief Justice candidate Roy Moore apologizes after cell phone rings during Amy Bishop hearing

Published: Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 5:49 PM / Updated: Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 5:49 PM

By Paul Gattis, The Huntsville Times

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — As a packed courtroom hung on every word uttered as Amy Bishop pleaded guilty today to capital murder, one sound briefly drowned out all others.

Roy Moore’s cell phone.

It’s still true: Alabamians are “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”

One must understand the audience to whom Mr. Archibald writes his Birmingham News OpEds.

They’re the same ones who found hometown favorite criminal Richard Scrushy – monikered as “America’s First Oblivious CEO” – “Not Guilty” of violating the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, who to date, remains the solitary individual ever charged with its violation. Alice Martin, then Federal Prosecutor for the Northern District of Alabama, who failed to obtain a guilty verdict in the case, could have moved the trial to New York City – home of Wall Street – or “in Washington, D.C., or in New York City where pecuniary intricacies are understood,” but rather chose Birmingham, Alabama as the trial venue. John C. Coffee, professor of securities law at Columbia Law School, accurately said of the case, that “much of the information was over their heads” and jurors were “sick of trying to understand evidence that was beyond them.”

This remark – right, or wrong (but mostly right) – remains true for Alabama:
Citizens in the state are “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.“

In context of course, historically, one should recognize

Huntsville Judge Donna Pate Sentences Daniel Ray Proctor to TWO Life Sentences on Theft

Alabama‘s prison system will again be pushed to the taxpayers’ breaking point by stupidity such as this sentence. It is extreme – even with the increased severity of punishment required for habitual offenders.

This is the so-called “Three Strikes and you’re out” law in action.

Realistically, “Three Strikes and you’re out” only applies in baseball games. But someone thought it sounded cool, and morphed it into a law in California. Subsequently, California’s prison population has exploded because that state adopted that law. They’ve now seriously modified it. It may be time to rethink sentencing guidelines in Alabama. But the likelihood of that happening is practically negligible.

Thanks to our legislature, this man will now burden every honest Alabama taxpayer.

That’s not to say he and others like him should not be punished, but rather acknowledges the failure of a pop-culture-driven bumper sticker slogan to effectively remedy, ameliorate or mitigate criminality. In essence, there is little or nothing done to correct, and much done to punish. Oddly, every state has a “Department of Corrections,” rather than a ‘Department of Punishments.’ There’s a reason for that, and it’s because there is a two-fold purpose (to punish and correct), with the higher one being correction.

Yet standing in stark contrast is the as-yet-untried, and officially indefinitely delayed case of Amy Bishop, the Harvard PhD-educated biology professor who went on a shooting rampage and killed three, and wounded three other colleagues at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). Even though she has a track record of mental instability,

Support Schools & Private Enterprise, Drink Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Whiskey

Having apparently not blogged about this, I find myself remiss that I so negligently – if inadvertently – omitted this news story… which I’m about to bash.

Before I proceed however, Alabama‘s governor, Dr. Robert J. Bentley, MD (a retired dermatologist), when he was campaigning for the office, on Thursday, June 17, 2010 vowed that, “I will forgo a salary as state representative for the rest of my term and will not accept a salary as Governor until Alabama reaches full employment.” To his credit, he has lived up to that vow, and has only accepted what is legally mandated – $1.00/month as representative, and has been reimbursed for minimal incidentals or travel-related expenses. The state’s records show he has collected about $2,100 in travel reimbursements during his term as governor. Alabama’s governor’s salary is about $112,000; and so far, as governor, he has only been paid $2 in salary.

Part of the irony of liquor, taxes and employment is that Dr. Bentley is a Southern Baptist. And for many years he has been a deacon at First Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa. As a denomination, Baptists are well-known and avowed tee-totalers, who continue to badmouth beverage alcohol. I suppose in some way, they could be considered modern Prohibitionists. But here, in this scenario, Alabamians – whose population is significantly Protestant – have enjoyed the jobs and money that making whiskey provides.

I suppose, however, that the irony is not lost on others, for the Amish grow tobacco, yet eschew its use. Similarly, many religious Afghanis (most who practice Islam) have grown marijuana and/or opium poppy to provide for their households, yet use neither. The discussion of the ethics of such decisions would be fascinating – at least it would be to me.

Now, on to the news.

It’s not the news, per se, but the atrocious writing which aggrieves me so.

Actually, the plant will be near Decatur, Alabama. More specifically, it will be located in the Mallard Fox West Industrial Complex, along Alabama Highway 20 in Trinity, Alabama. The complex is located in Lawrence County, which is the adjacent county WEST of Morgan County.

Location of Mallard Fox West Industrial Complex in Lawrence, County, Alabama

But this raises another question, and it is this: If someone wrote that New York was in Los Angeles, you’d think them insane, right?

Well, why then would you not think the same for those who make such egregious errors as is so blatantly displayed in the following headline, and story?

DAMN IT, MAN!

GET IT RIGHT!

And

Booze News You Can Use: Cullman, Alabama city officials delighted with alcohol tax revenue

For many years, Cullman, Alabama – a tiny town in Central North Alabama, founded by German immigrants in 1873 – had been “dry,” which is to say that there were no legal sales of beverage alcohol in the city.

In fact, the city had been dry for nearly half its existence, having experienced “wet” and dry periods aside even, from national Prohibition.

There had been various referendums in 2004, 2002, 1992, 1990, 1986 and 1984, with the closest vote in 1984, when alcohol sales were voted down by a mere 159 votes.

Cullman had also been the butt of national jokes & mockery because it had the only dry Oktoberfest in the United States. That all changed in 2011, and for the 30th celebration of Oktoberfest that year, celebrants were able to legally sell & enjoy the consumption of beer, wine & liquor.

What is particularly fascinating about this entire ordeal – local prohibition in small-town Alabama – is that it is representative of

Off duty cop in hoodie gets roughed up in Montgomery, Alabama

Shades of Trayvon…

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Off-duty Montgomery police officer claims racial profiling over hoodie incident at mall

Published: Monday, April 23, 2012, 10:56 AM     Updated: Monday, April 23, 2012, 11:44 AM

By Kent Faulk — The Birmingham News

MONTGOMERY, Alabama — A Montgomery police officer claims in a lawsuit that he was off-duty in plain clothes at a Montgomery mall last month when security officers assaulted him after ordering him to remove his sweatshirt hoodie.

Terence Scott, 26, filed the lawsuit April 11 in Montgomery County Circuit Court against ERMC, a Chattanooga, Tenn.,-based company that provides security for Eastdale Mall. The lawsuit also names one security guard and two other unnamed security guards as defendants.

Eastdale Mall is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit that seeks unspecified amounts in damages.

Efforts to reach an attorney for ERMC have been unsuccessful this morning.

Among the claims in Scott’s civil lawsuit are negligence, assault and battery, wantonness, and that security guards used