“In late March, the town council of Kilmarnock, Virginia, voted 4 to 2 to keep in place zoning laws that would effectively block the payday loan industry from expanding in their town. Fifty citizens — an impressive turnout in a town of just 1,244 — crowded into the council meeting to plead with elected leaders not to change the town’s zoning laws to let Advance America, one of the largest payday lending companies in the country, set up shop at the local Wal-Mart complex. ‘I think they practice usury,’ said Frank Tomlinson, the council member who led the opposition to the proposed zoning change. ‘They loan to people who have their backs against the wall, and then they quite frankly stick it to ‘em.’” [editor’s note: It’s clearly time for someone to write a defense of these alternatives to the banking megacartel … and I’m just the one to do it - SAT] (05/06/08)