| By Alvin Engelke
 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
Rev. Paul Williams filled his regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. church.
The mercury fell to zero in the Creston area in spite of political talk about global warming and reasons why new government regulations should be established to control and regulate ordinary citizens while the "elite" can flit around in their Lear jets, stretch limousines, etc. It was learned that the polar ice caps on Mars have been melting and the rate has increased during the last 6 years. Liberals would claim that it was "W's" fault but cooler heads would conclude that increased solar activity that has changed earth's weather likely affected the red planet as well.
Joe Miller who has been filling on for his father Johnny Miller, who underwent gall bladder surgery, reported that the metallic subhuman primates in the Joker section who were left outside Sunday evening lost some essential parts because of the cold.
Jerry Murphy, Pearl Bollinger, Casper Shuman, Lewis Jones, S. P. Beckner, Jim Bailey, Duane Carper, Carlos Padilla and Bobby Ray Starcher were all attending to business in Creston.
Nick Lockhart was visiting Brian Johnson and Danny Lockhart.
Alvin & Nancy Engelke attended the winter meeting of the Republican Executive committee at Bridgeport. The highlight of the meeting was a talk by Prof. Russ Sobel of WVU explaining why West Virginia continues to fall behind the rest of the nation in economic prosperity. Not so many years back West Virginia rated above Georgia and North Carolina but they became business friendly while West Virginia only does slogans.
As a result of the $405 million judgment against Columbia and Chesapeake, spokespersons for the latter have said they are "reviewing their commitment to West Virginia". Of course when Chesapeake paid $2.9 billion for Columbia Natural Resources, $700 million was set aside to cover the lawsuit so, to date, Chesapeake isn't out a dime and one local resident has been approached by two of their lease men looking for tracts to drill. Of course the company only wants to have leases that allow for paying net royalties after expenses have been deducted.
It was noted that as a result of the testimony in the lawsuit the State of West Virginia and the affected counties were defrauded of the corporate taxes, severance and personal property taxes on $800 million in gas sales. The state attorney general has often spoken about how "the robber barons" stole from West Virginia. Now it is put up or shut up for him for he can either collect the sums due and protect ordinary taxpayers or he can do nothing and coddle the out of state billionaires who were caught red handed in a fraud.
Those at Grace Keafeaber's birthday party included Amy, Brian & John Siegrist and Greg, Becky (Rena's daughter) & Becky and Ashley from Gilmer County, Kathy & Bernard Harris, Pat Keafeaber, Melissa Ferrell, Jeremy Harris, Carl & Donna Ferrell.
Mary Reno was visiting Austin Westfall.
Jeremy Harris, Carl & Donna Ferrell were dining at the fancy new Italian restaurant near Camden Clark Hospital. Jeremy got all excited when he determined that the waitress was flirting with him.
The other day a cattleman went out to check on his herd and noticed that one of his favorite cows, who happened to be expecting, was missing. He went on a hunt and found her with a fine new calf in the woods but she and the calf were worn out as three coyotes were circling looking for a tasty meal. A Mr. Remington equalized one of the exotic varmints and the other two fled the scene as they knew they would have an allergic reaction to hot lead. Someone else noted that they trapped one that had an ear tag that said "Property of State Farm Insurance".
The price of corn and the push by environmentalists for more corn whiskey to be put into gasoline continues to cause turmoil. The increase in the price of tortillas in Mexico has been well publicized while now the head honcho of Tyson Foods has come out against the present reality. Not so long back while their buddies were in the White House renting out the Lincoln bedroom they tried to shut down the companies that produce poultry in West Virginia.
The price of local Penn grade crude rose to $54.50/bbl and the cold weather will, no doubt, help lower the volumes that are in storage reservoirs. Bob Phillips who spent the weekend in Kentucky reported that he saw drilling rigs everywhere.
The folks down at the Mouth of the Elk have been keeping a rather low profile even though the great august body (the Legislature) is in session. It seems that the gambling legislation has now been well greased so that the out of state gambling interests "can solve all of West Virginia's problems." For sure the billboard companies will get to put up more of the "problem gambler" ads.
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