Oil prices hit a record $105.10 a barrel Thursday, a day after a surprise drop in U.S. crude supplies and a decision by OPEC not to boost production.

The price of spring wheat has more than doubled since January. The March futures contract closed at up $4.75 at $24 a bushel, the record price for any US wheat contract.

You might think, given the economic news, that school systems would be worried about how they're going to pay for increasing costs but no, not here in the Fayetteville-Manlius NY district. Here the issue that brought out a record number of people to vote yesterday was a new $4.6 million high school athletic stadium with FieldTurf. And what a supreme clusterfck it was.



A few weeks ago, while I was in Ohio, Jim mentioned I would be coming home to a sign in the front yard (we live on a main road and we're usually fairly festooned at election time). A good friend had asked if he could put up a sign like the one in the photo and that was how we learned there was even going to be a vote. From that point on signs began springing up everywhere, most of them professionally made and in favor of the stadium.

The first sign was stolen and JP replaced it with a huge handmade sign, one side of which said "There's a big difference between 'need' and 'want'" and how could anyone disagree with that?

Anyway, that's about when the news crews started showing up and I knew things were officially out of hand.

Now I will admit that in the almost twenty years we've lived here I have only voted once before on a school budget. Having no children and not being particularly knowledgeable about the schools I haven't really felt qualified but the fact that the voting takes place at one elementary building with horrible access has been a big reason I don't vote.

With all the media attention and all the curfluffle you would think the administration would have anticipated a big turnout and added a second voting location but of course they didn't. The traffic was a nightmare all day and a friend called last night about 8:30 to tell me she was looking at a 20 minute wait to vote. The amount of gas wasted and exhaust generated by idling vehicles was obscene and there's absolutely no reason on earth why this isn't done by mail in the first place.

And we get to do it all again in May because, and this is the fundamental reason I voted against the damn thing, they tried to sneak this in before we even see the budget for the coming year and the tax hike that's likely needed just to cover existing costs. Lovely!

Last night's tally: 4,213 'no' and 2,296 'yes'