Topic: Hawaii

W. Va.’s Sen. Byrd to relinquish powerful committee chairmanship

By Turner McCullough Jr. | November 15, 2008 |

U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd, W.Va-D

As the tumult of the general elections continues to unfold, there are also small moments of change taking place. Small, that is, in the attention they have garnered in our local political scene. However, one such event must be given proper notice. The most senior member of the senate has announced he will relinquish his position as appropriations committee chairman on January 6, 2009. I speak of the 90-year old senator from West Virginia, Robert C. Byrd,He the most senior member of the senate, having served in that august deliberative body for 50 years.

There has been concern that his frailty has compromised the effective exercise of that position in carrying out the Democratic Party’s agenda in the senate. Byrd has been a stalwart advocate and defender of his party, adherence to The Constitution and its civil liberty protections and a generous benefactor to West Virginia. He will continue to serve in The U.S. Senate and on the Appropriations Committee itself. His past is not without some dark shadows, but his long senate career has been one more of illumination than disdain. The senator’s statement is presented below. «Read the rest of this article»

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Tectonic plates shake, rattle and roll South American coastline

By Christine Anne Piesyk | August 16, 2007 |

UPDATE (8:18 a.m.): With new data and information coming in by the minute, we now know that the death toll in Peru has climbed to 337, with nearly 1500 injuries reported and ever worsening news still coming in from the outlying areas of the rural and the adjacent rural communities. The city infrastructure is a mix of new architecture and old buildings, some still damaged from prior quakes over a decade ago. The outer areas are dominated by one story clay block buildings without the structural supports characterizing buildings in more modern communities. It is also winter in Peru, and these seaside communities frequently drop to the 30s and 40s overnight.  «Read the rest of this article»

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