The numbers keep going up - post election notes

I began writing this post last night only to be dumped by the weather -- both my Internet and cable TV connections went down about 10 PM, most likely due to the ice storm that hit our state. So I enjoyed an old fashioned election night via listening to WAKR AM's Larry States.

Last night at this time, the counter in the right hand column of this blog had not yet reached half a trillion dollars. Today it has gone beyond that -- amazing how fast a billion dollars can be spent by our insane governmental "leaders." This is what I had written before the power went off:

Not talking about the election returns this evening, but the numbers of dollars spent on the useless War in Iraq. You can see them ticking away to the right of this post. We are fast approaching 500 billion dollars. That's half a trillion not spent on health care, education, low-income housing, science research, developing green technologies and so on.

Soon after I began this blog, I found the counter you see embedded here and at that time it was around 350 billion. But dollars wasted isn't the worst aspect of this war. It's the loss of life and not only soldier lives. Every Iraqi death creates more potential terrorists among the survivors. No wonder McCain feels the need to stay there for 100 years.

Woke up this morning to find that Hillary had taken 3 out of 4 states, doing extremely well in Ohio. I wasn't surprised. Most people I had talked to were voting for her, although they also expressed admiration for Barack Obama. Many folks continue to want both of them on the ticket.

In local news, we are thrilled that Issue 8 passed and that public transportation will not be diminished in Akron.

Saddest election story is the defeat of Louise Heydorn for county council. Full disclosure -- Louise is a colleague of mine. I can attest that she is an outstanding leader: bright, collaborative, science-minded and a diligent worker. She has been the only Republican on Summit County's council for many years and had been working to develop green initiatives for our county.

She was defeated by John Widowfield, a conservative endorsed by the local Republican party. I wonder if Heydorn was hurt by Independents and Republicans crossing over to vote in the Democratic presidential primary. I hope she picks herself up and runs again in the future -- come join the Democrats, Louise! We need women of your character and intelligence to represent us.