Hackey Blog Post: “Celebrity Look-a-Likes”

As everybody talks about the physical similarities between the best looking VP candidate in American history and one of the smartest writers in television, it looks like we overlooked our own batch of look-a-likes in South Carolina.

Take Jimmy Kimmel and Joey Millwood for example.

One is one of late night’s most popular talk show hosts — especially among the younger set who doesn’t care about what animal Joan Embry of the San Diego Zoo is toting around.

The other is a mild-mannered newspaper man who offed a fifteen year House incumbent/committee chairman by 19 votes in the primary and looks to be the next District 38 representative in the South Carolina House.

Except for the “Before” and “After” photo effect, it’s hard to tell who’s who.

If you have a South Carolina look-a-like like we had here or the FITSNews folks did here, drop us a line at otherbrooksbrother@gmail.com to let us know.

– Bo Burdette

Request from a Rock Star

So, everyone is talking about how impressive Governor Palin was last night and how her speech was the convention highlight so far and how fabulous she looked.

All of those things are true, but I decided to go down a different road today.

We got a note last night from one of our favorite legislators, Nathan Ballentine. He asked for a little help, and on this I’m happy to do what I can.

He wrote:

Even though I’m a Gamecock (note: who thoroughly enjoyed Saturday night’s game), the decision to invite Jeff Davis (Clemson) to be this year’s speaker at the Irmo Community Prayer Breakfast was not difficult.

If you’ve ever heard him speak before (“PAW” – Passionate About Winning), you know he will be well received.

If you are able, a mention on your site would greatly help the event as each of you have a wide readership in the Midlands (statewide, national for that matter).

As info, this is NOT a fundraiser. This is not political/partisan. There are no speeches. At most, we recognize local officials.

The event simply pays for itself and any leftover funds are retained for next year’s event and/or distributed to local area churches.

Thanks for any assistance you can give.

As for the details, this year’s Irmo Community Prayer Breakfast will be Thursday, September 25 beginning at 7:30 a. m. at Gateway Baptist Church. The cost is $8.00 per person, and if you’re interested in attending, visit Representative Ballentine’s blog post here.

Of course from what I hear, it may be the Tigers who need a prayer breakfast more. Just kidding:)

– Mary Claire Forrester

It’s Versatile for State Government but not for SC’s Schools

Well, the ballots have been cast and counted.

Receiving 1610 votes, SC’s PACT replacement will now be known as PASS or the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards.

The other four finalists were:

• STARS – State Test of Achievement and Readiness for Success (1,432)
• STEP – State Test of Educational Progress (1,383)
• PAL – Palmetto Assessment of Learning (1,190)
• SCYE – South Carolina Yearly Evaluation (429)

The five choices garnered a whopping 6044 total votes which seems to equal the level of interest in improving the state’s educational embarrassment.

While I personally liked one of the other suggestions, the winning moniker is appropriate.

When this test falls on its face and we continue promoting a failed system, we can “PASS the buck.”

Like I said, we don’t need to know what our kids know or how they stack up. What matters is the test’s name.

– Wilson Charles

ABC News Uncovers Presidential Campaign Shocker.

With Biden getting picked as the Democrats’ number two and people trying to figure out the Republicans’ VP choice, it’s no wonder this went unnoticed.

On August 27 from the DNC convention, Terry Moran of ABC’s Nightline dropped a bombshell that Senator Barack Obama is more historic than anybody thought, reporting that he is “the son of a black man from Kenya and a white man from Kansas.”

He added, “No matter what your politics, that is a moment for the history books.”

You ain’t kidding. I didn’t even know that was possible.

That pretty much trumps any news about Governor Palin and her family “situation.”

– Bo Burdette

Sad, but True.

I’m not one to beat up on one of South Carolina’s home teams, but this was too good true to pass up.

Would you really call an opposing team’s coach (Nick Saban, Frank Beamer, Mark Richt, and Bobby Bowden) to ask for help winning?

Clemson head coach Tommy Bowden did yesterday.

That’s like Barack Obama calling Rick Davis and asking him how to beat John McCain.

– Matthew Willis

Overpaid and Stepping Down.

Once ranked as “one of the most over-compensated bank executives in America,” RINO Mack Whittle announced that he will step down as president and CEO of the South Financial Group (holding company for Carolina First Bank) by the end of the year.

He will remain on the board through the end of his term which expires in 2011.

Whittle came under fire for his stock’s performance which reported $16.8 million in losses for the second quarter.

The company’s stock closed today (9/2/08) at $7.00 per share — up $0.20 from Friday (markets were closed yesterday for Labor Day).

– Wilson Charles

New for Your Reading Pleasure.

In case you didn’t notice, there were some changes to the state’s political webscape over the long weekend.

First, we’ve been trying to Twitter more. We first began using it in February of this year, but it was so new, there weren’t a lot of folks doing it. Now, with more people climbing on board Twitter, it makes more sense. I doubt we’ll reach the posting frequency of the legislators who understand how valuable a tool it is, but we try to add commentary when we can. We hope you’ll follow us, follow the people we follow, and follow the people who follow us.

Second, after months of hints of a redesigned site, FITSNews finally came through. It’s a good look with divided sections and links to all things FITSNews — including the FITSNews store, but we hate that the blogroll didn’t make the redesign cut. We hope that as the FITS folks work out any issues with the new design, they’ll make it easy to find old posts. With the amount of original content on that site, it would be a shame not to be able to search for it. Nevertheless, we’re excited to see how the new FITSNews grows over the weeks and months ahead.

Third, with The Shot closing its doors in June, Wesley Donehue and his people retooled the concept by adding new news aggregator in the form of Political Net News that offers South Carolina/national political news and blog coverage. The blogroll made the new version, and according to Donehue’s description of “5 Reasons We Are Launching a SC News Aggregator,” the new site will be unbiased, offer relevant news early in the morning with updates throughout the day, and have multiple ways to follow the updates.

There is still a lot of growing for the Internet to do, and we hope you find its evolution and uses as interesting as we do.

– The OBB