WOOOOOO!!!

The TV commercial for the Ric Flair Scratch-Off from the North Carolina Education Lottery...

I'm sorely tempted to insert a "Space Mountain" joke in here somewhere :-P

EDIT 3:18 a.m. EST 09/23/2009: I am just now discovering that this game is not called "Ric Flair Scratch-Off" as I had originally thought. Instead it is officially known as... Wooooooo!

As if this state didn't have enough people imitating Ric Flair, heh-heh...

That's it. I'm definitely going to buy at least one of these tickets. Not to scratch off, just to keep and hold onto because, well... a Ric Flair-themed state lottery scratch-off game called "Wooooooo!" is just too clever to pass up on owning one.

This will be the hottest-selling scratch-off game since the lottery started up here almost four years ago, I would wager an RC Cola and a Moon Pie on it. Maybe we'll see the entire Four Horsemen appear on a ticket sometime down the line :-)

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Bev Perdue giving lottery money back to North Carolina schools

Bev Perdue - who for as long as she is Governor of North Carolina will be referred to on this blog as "WORST GOVERNOR EVER!" - is returning $38 million to the school construction proceeds from the North Carolina Education Lottery, which she raided back in February

(However there's still $50 million from the lottery's reserve funds that Perdue isn't paying back yet).

Does Bev Perdue have any clue at all about the mess she has caused for this state's public schools? Probably not. Here in Rockingham County plans to build four much-needed new schools were thrown into turmoil because the construction funds earmarked from the lottery were swiped by Perdue so that she could play games with the state's budget problems. Many other school systems across North Carolina were also hit by Perdue's monetary mayhem.

I would imagine that in the greater scheme of things, Perdue's unwise fiscal planning has cost the state more than whatever financial pain North Carolina may have eluded in the short term. And it will likely as not fall to the local governments and school systems to deal with the ramifications of the fault of state officials in Raleigh.

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Bev Perdue's lottery looting costs county 4 schools

That "North Carolina Education Lottery" that we've had for going on three years now? The one that was supposed to do nothing but supplement, you know, education in North Carolina?

Well, our newly-minted governor Bev Perdue has raided the lottery's reserve fund of $50 million. And then she took another $38 million that was marked for new schools construction, and applied it to the state's budget shortfall.

And now because of her fiscal shenanigans, Rockingham County won't be getting those four new schools that it direly needs.

I have spoken to quite a few people in this county over the past few days who are, to put it mildly, extremely honked-off that this has happened.

The members of the Board of Education aren't taking this quietly either. According to the above-linked article Tim Scales has remarked "You don't want to know what I've got to say about it." Reida Drum and Steve Smith have likewise expressed frustration...

Upset about Perdue keeping lottery funds, board member Reida Drum said she could not believe the governor actually ran on the platform of supporting education.

"If I saw her surrounded by teachers one time in her campaign ads, I saw it 600 times," Drum said. "I think we should send word to her that we thought she was supposed to be an education governor."

Board member Steve Smith agreed.

"If we don't do something, we're just saying it's OK," Smith said.

The board voted 7-4 to send a letter to Perdue, state legislators and the North Carolina School Board Association expressing their disagreement with the decision to keep funds intended for the benefit of the state's school systems.

I sincerely regret having to say this, but I fear the months and years to come will bear it out to be accurate: there stands to be no foreseeable significant improvement of North Carolina's educational infrastructure. Partly it's because of the economic mess this state is in right now along with the rest of the country. And partly it's because North Carolina has followed the same track as most other states that began their lotteries on the good faith that the money would be applied to education. I can think of only one state off the top of my head - that being Georgia - which has for the most part wisely administered its lottery proceeds. All of the rest have ultimately used money from the lottery for other purposes than improving education.

We might as well have never had the lottery to begin with. And I say that as one who has gone on the record numerous times over the years as being in support of the lottery.

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The North Carolina Lottery is one year old today

Yes, today marks the one-year anniversary since state-sponsored gambling finally came to the Tarheel State. We have indeed come a long way from the days when you could go to jail here for buying a copy of Penthouse Magazine.

In all seriousness though, I don't know if the lottery has had much of an impact... at least yet... on state education. If North Carolina was smart we would manage the lottery proceeds like how Georgia does theres, what with their Hope Scholarship and all. That, and bolster our teachers' pay a lot more than they're getting now (and they more than deserve it).

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