Push and shove ...
He who hesitates is lost, goes the saying, and Gov. Beverly Perdue has told legislators that their hesitancy in passing a state budget is losing about $5 million a day for North Carolina in revenue and savings from tax increases and budget cuts.
... shooting the gap
If North Carolina faced a budget gap of "only" $1 billion or so, then the case for tax increases being made by Governor Perdue and her fellow Democrats who control the legislature would lose steam.
Hold that knife
The elderly, the disabled and the mentally ill have some strong advocates for their well-being, and good folks they are. But in a budget crisis such as that facing North Carolina, programs to help those groups can be, and in fact are, vulnerable.
Shaky support
We know about foreclosures, and unemployment, and the pressures in the job market due both to the shortage of jobs and the competition for them among the qualified and the over-qualified.
Beach Plan bingo
The General Assembly has to put North Carolina's property insurance house in order, even if doing so isn't popular.
Four of the brave
The N.C. National Guard, and four families, lost good men in Iraq last week. This state continues to bear a heavy war burden.
A paper clip, please, sir?
Thanks, Mr. District Attorney, for putting our minds at ease. The folks who run the Wake County courthouse may be begging and borrowing for office supplies, but Colon Willoughby says they won't be stealing.
UNC searches
The controversy over Mary Easley's jobs at N.C. State University raised the curtain on some standard operating practices of big-time university administration that, when the spotlight shines on them, don't play well with the public.
Raleigh Roadshow
All viewers of the PBS series "Antiques Roadshow" have had the same dream: You show up with a painting or a pot or a ukulele and one of the breathless Roadshow appraisers goes over your merchandise (previously housed in the attic) and says, "Well, for purposes of a retail sale, I would value this at $1 million."
Health struggle
If there's anything scarier to Americans amid this horrid economy than the prospect of losing a job, it's the other shoe that often drops at the same time -- losing health insurance.
100 candles
A century already? N.C. Central University began its institutional life with a chartering 100 years ago, a fact that was noted in campus celebrations June 30. It was back then the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua for the Colored Race.
They're out there
There will be a full moon rising this week, sometimes known as the thunder moon, or moon of the yellow fly. Why not call this the buggy moon?
The operator
An alleged Ponzi scheme with a sort of headquarters in a Caribbean nation is curiously connected to Raleigh because William Wise, the man whom one official says was running it, enjoyed at least some of the trappings of his wealth while living in the Olde Raleigh neighborhood.
Purty picture
Would it be right for the Louvre to throw a towel over the Mona Lisa? For Rodin's works to be dressed in double-knits in the name of modesty?
Seeking paths
The once-hot immigration potato is on the table again. Consulting recently with Democratic and Republican lawmakers at the White House, President Obama made it clear he wants Congress to wrestle with, and formulate a policy for, dealing with the current and surely future illegal immigrants in the United States.
Logic that punishes
Old ways die hard, and the North Carolina Senate recently showed that the adage still applies. A slim majority of senators struck down a sensible attempt to fine-tune the law that allows public school teachers and administrators to punish students by hitting them.
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