And we continue to pick on America's most successful retailer. Today I read a CNSNews article about the NEA and AFT urging back-to-school shoppers not to patronize Wal-Mart. (The NEA's stand is here, and the AFT whines here.)
Interestingly enough, I saw a lot of people in Wal-Mart Sunday. And a good number of them were shopping for school supplies. And I'd love to see somebody "adopt" a local Wal-Mart and protest - they'd get a face full of me.
In local Wal-Mart news, the company is buying a small portion of the 200 acres they were slated to buy for their Somerset County distribution center. In a move to enhance development in the area, the land will be turned over to the Somerset County Sanitary District for building a new water tower and drilling new water wells. Currently, development in the Princess Anne area is on hold due to lack of a good water supply, so these new wells will allow a 90-home development to commence, for starters.
But there's no guarantee that the remainder of the 200 acres will be purchased as the decision has been put off until January - just in time to see if the Maryland General Assembly overrides Governor Ehrlich's veto of the Fair Share bill that targets Wal-Mart for insufficient employee health insurance coverage.
Speaking of private property, I noted in a post right after the Kelo decision that I had put my name on the Castle Coalition mailing list. Well, today in my mailbox there laid a copy of Liberty & Law, the newsletter of their parent organization, the Institute for Justice. Some interesting reading on school choice, freeing hair braiders from state cosmetology licensing, and other privacy rights topics. But I think the majority of it can be found on their website...my suggestion is to have an snail mail opt-out clause like I do for my credit statements. They can send me the magazine as an e-mail much more cheaply than sending me the paper copy that I'll read and most likely toss out. (No offense to them, I'm a recovering pack rat.)
At the end of the post, a standings report of sorts:
As of tonight, my Tigers are 53-60, a season low 7 games under the .500 mark. Their "tragic number" for division elimination is 29 and for playoff elimination is 39.
The Toledo Mud Hens are a bearer of much happier news, they're 71-46. The magic number for them to clinch a playoff spot is 21, and 20 to clinch their 2nd International League West Division title in 4 years.
Delmarva's hanging on to first in the South Atlantic League's North Division at 29-15. They have a magic number of 24 to win their first division half since 2002. They had a 5 1/2 game lead a week ago, now it's down to 3 games as they are on their final southern swing of the season (barring playoffs.) We're trying to set up an all-Maryland battle for the SAL North title as Hagerstown won the first half.
