Arrogant Politicians, Genealogy, and More

The legislature's committee rejected several ballot measures that overwhelmingly passed on town meeting day. They would have instituted term limits and limited taxpayers' money going to pensions, etc., of public employees. Essentially it boiled down to this: a bunch of elitist, arrogant, power-thirsty career politicians (such as Rep. Howard, Alderwoman Davis, etc.), don't want we the people to be able to stop them from maintaining their iron grip on our state. These scum need to be reminded who's in charge. We need to, statewide, institute term limits, I think, to get rid of career politicians. I'm half tempted to run for office in response but I find politicians so distasteful and am a bit out of my comfort zone in large crowds, so I will have to give it more thought.

Genealogy can be fun: I did quite a bit of research some time ago and traced my father's family back to the 9th century in England (actually to a Dane in England, the Danes controlled much of England at the time). Doing more research, particularly on the people related through all the marriages with people outside the family, etc., has turned up several interesting items: in two different ways I'm distantly related to Thomas Jefferson (my favorite founding father and president), I'm related to Robert E. Lee, one of the men who died at the Alamo and his brother (also related obviously) died at the Goliad massacre. One relative was one of the first settlers of the town of Craftsbury, Vermont, another lead an important raid on some Indian raiders on a town in the early Colonial days in New England and won, one of my ancestors was tried for witchcraft in CT and was found not guilty, nearly every adult male member of my family alive at the time fought in the American Revolution, I'm related to a colonial governor of Maryland, and the first members of my family came over in the 1630's, followed in the decades after by many more cousins. There's still more to research but the records are incomplete for the remainder so I suspect little more will turn up. My mother's side is far more difficult to research but I am related to one of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention from a New England state, another served with General Washington as an assistant/aid, one was closely involved with Paul Revere and other Sons of Liberty. My mother's family can likewise be traced to the 1630's in America, but I have not researched all the marriages, etc., to see other connections and possibly earlier dates.

I've been giving thought, due to things going on with myself and my family, the picture nationally, financial reasons, etc., that I may give up on going to Alaska, at least in the near future. Which puts me on the land hunt and the hunt for a job to pay for said land. I'm thinking I'd be best off in the Northeast Kingdom for land, though the climate is a bit worse for growing certain fruit trees and nut trees than central Vermont. I've been after some park ranger jobs but so far have not heard anything back.

If anyone is interested in some land (19.99 acres with no property taxes or building permits required, about 160 miles from Fairbanks by road) in Alaska I may be open to selling it for what I've got into it (with the combined payments and downpayment I've paid, looking at about $3,000 or thereabouts) as downpayment then I could transfer the contract with the state to the buyer (I've already got the state's contract assignment/transfer form in case I find a buyer) and the buyer would have some pretty low minimum payments for another 8 years or less. Might help towards the downpayment on some land down here, I figure when I do move up there, there will be more land available. If it doesn't sell, I'll simply have that 20 acres waiting up there unused.

By the way, I apologize to any readers for requiring comments to be approved before posting (and I know I don't check often enough), but I've been getting so many spam comments (which I'm quite certain extend from my post on the Sea Shepherd terrorists, they're known for this juvenile type activity and I started getting blasted immediately after that). I simply had to do something to put a stop to the spam.