Virginia Political Blog aggregator
Saturday, April 29th, 2006
Kudos to Waldo for putting together a Virginia Political Blog aggregator. All your favorite Virginia political blogs in one place.
Very handy.
Archive for April, 2006
Profoundly Conflicted Editor
Saturday, April 29th, 2006
Roanoke Times, 4/29/06, Pg Va 7: Editorial: Never again. The RT Editor lamenting about our lack of direct action to stop the genocide in Darfur.
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Talk about bipolar! The Editor and his associates aren’t talking anymore about Sadam Hussein’s genocide against the Kurds! All they want to talk about now is the negative consequences of getting involved in a war.
Even the media’s multi-daily reporting of our 2,800 military casualties are never compared or related in anyway to the 3,000 Americans killed on 9/11 or the number of Iraqi’s eliminated by Sadam’s genocide.
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So, after years of media focus on "Blackhawk down" these left-wing folks want US intervention in Darfur. Can you just imagine the headlines as US troops kill thousands of black insurgents and the associated collateral black civilian deaths and injuries? Who will be blamed for genocide then?
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Can you image the media feeding frenzy with Jesse Jackson, Al Twana Sharpton, Maxine Waters and all their associates. Just reflect for a minute on the Black Congressional Caucus’ nasty reaction to the US airlifting Aristede out of Haiti last year!
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If The Editor is so anxious to get the US involved, why doesn’t he have his friend Hillary run for President on a platform of sending the 82nd & 101st Airborne Divisions into Darfur!
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Talk about bipolar! The Editor and his associates aren’t talking anymore about Sadam Hussein’s genocide against the Kurds! All they want to talk about now is the negative consequences of getting involved in a war.
Even the media’s multi-daily reporting of our 2,800 military casualties are never compared or related in anyway to the 3,000 Americans killed on 9/11 or the number of Iraqi’s eliminated by Sadam’s genocide.
-
So, after years of media focus on "Blackhawk down" these left-wing folks want US intervention in Darfur. Can you just imagine the headlines as US troops kill thousands of black insurgents and the associated collateral black civilian deaths and injuries? Who will be blamed for genocide then?
-
Can you image the media feeding frenzy with Jesse Jackson, Al Twana Sharpton, Maxine Waters and all their associates. Just reflect for a minute on the Black Congressional Caucus’ nasty reaction to the US airlifting Aristede out of Haiti last year!
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If The Editor is so anxious to get the US involved, why doesn’t he have his friend Hillary run for President on a platform of sending the 82nd & 101st Airborne Divisions into Darfur!
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Daily Press Editorial Page: Last Redoubt of the Senate
Saturday, April 29th, 2006
As the Virginia Senate slowly moves to acknowledge reality, they have the consolation of bouquets still being thrown their way by the Viceroys of Asphalt at the Daily Press editorial board.
Here's how they assess where the three budget players are: With a governor on a steep learning curve, his tactics tattered, his land-use [...]
A Look To My Past
Saturday, April 29th, 2006
Wedding day. January 19, 1921. The two handsome people seated in the center of this aging and somewhat faded photograph are my father's parents. At the time, if memory serves, he was a World War I veteran and a then-lumberjack (in the vast forests of northern Wisconsin) and she was or had been a housekeeper. A simple beginning to a marriage that would soon produce my father and eventually ... me.
I have fond recollections of my grandfather. He eventually settled in a fine home in Gresham, Wisconsin, out of which my brothers, sister, and I had some great summer adventures. A rather gruff old guy, he spoke with a guttural German accent (this part of Wisconsin was originally populated mostly by immigrants from nordöstlich Deutschland, and Indians) and is remembered as having a fine cigar with him at most times (I carry on that tradition - to a lesser extent).
I didn't know my grandmother. She died at a young age, before my father went off to carry on what almost became another family tradition - fighting Germans - this time in World War II. And she rarely came up in conversation in all the years my father and I were together. So Ida Majeske Fuhrman's life has faded into history. Our loss.
So many years have passed since this photo was taken. So many triumphs. Tragedies. Good times and bad. A lot more good than bad. Thanks to them.
Fill Your Tank, Get a Check
Saturday, April 29th, 2006
Ragnar at Bearing Drift has a head-shaking post about the Republican plan to give every American a $100 gas rebate check. Last night, on The News Hour, David Brooks called the idea "stupid on stilts" and a "parody of stupid."
I Appreciate Good Writing
Saturday, April 29th, 2006
Paula gets peeved with me (there's a news flash) on infrequent occasions over the fact that I never finish reading 80% of the books I start. About four in five I'll slam shut at one point or another and declare it worthless and going nowhere.
But I'm the kind of person who doesn't intend to waste any more of my time than is necessary on mediocre literature. And the book stores are overflowing with dull, monotonous, predictable, unenlightened, unenlightening prose written by authors who have no business being published. Included are a number of the most popular authors in America. Steven King (too often) comes to mind.
Well, I started reading E.L. Doctorow's "The March" last night. Here's the first sentence:
I can't think of another author writing today who could have pulled that sentence off without it drifting into meaningless hokum.
If the second sentence is as good as the first, who knows, I may finish this book.
Well, I started reading E.L. Doctorow's "The March" last night. Here's the first sentence:
At five in the morning someone banging on the door and shouting, her husband, John, leaping out of bed, grabbing his rifle, and Roscoe at the same time roused from the back-house, his bare feet pounding: Mattie hurriedly put on her robe, her mind prepared for the alarm of war, but the heart stricken that it would finally have to come, and down the stairs she flew to see through the open door in the lamplight, at the steps of the portico, the two horses, steam rising from their flanks, their heads lifting, their eyes wild, the driver a young darkie with rounded shoulders, showing stolid patience even in this, and the woman standing in her carriage no one but her aunt Letitia Pettibone of McDonough, her elderly face drawn in anguish, her hair a straggled mess, this woman of such fine grooming, this dowager who practically ruled the season in Atlanta standing up in the equipage like some hag of doom, which indeed she would prove to be.Again, that's the first sentence. The plot is beginning to take shape. Important characters are introduced and gain definition. Much of the preliminary ground is covered.
I can't think of another author writing today who could have pulled that sentence off without it drifting into meaningless hokum.
If the second sentence is as good as the first, who knows, I may finish this book.
They Don’t Really Mean It
Saturday, April 29th, 2006
In 1992 liberals were anguishing over the fate of starving children in Somalia. Remember? In response to the evening network news footage showing emaciated babies dying in refugee camps, President Bush (the elder) sent in the Marines to bring order to the chaos and to see to it that the children received food and medical treatment. We were there doing good.
The next year however brought conflict to Mogadishu. Resistance. Our military sustained 91 casualties - including 18 killed - at the hands of a local "warlord." Suuport for our presence in Somalia immediately evaporated and President Clinton withdrew all U.S. troops.
Starving children be damned.
In 2002 the United States Congress voted overwhelmingly to authorize President Bush (the younger) to go to war against Saddam Hussein and to end the suffering of the Iraqi people. Those in favor of war included a sizeable number of liberal Democrats. (link)
Iraq was summarily invaded and Saddam's military forces were destroyed.
Then began the occupation. As soon casualties began to mount as the result of relentless terror attacks against American and newly formed Iraqi units, the Democrats in this country turned against the war, with a growing number of party leaders demanding that we immediately evacuate the country. To cut and run.
Somalia all over again.
Well, they're starting it again.
Now the liberals are shedding tears over the fate of starving children in Darfur (that would be just west as the vulture flies from Somalia), and, as hard as it is to believe, they are demanding that we intervene there. Some are even willing to spend a few minutes in jail to show how committed they are - this time:
Anyway, now the left is demanding that we intervene in Darfur.
But do they really mean it this time? Or is this just more of the same feel-good hand wringing, muddled thinking, and cowardly bluster for which these people are becoming famous? After all, the citizens of Baghdad are suffering every bit as much today as are the people of Darfur but the left demands that we retreat from Iraq. "Misery and death? Executions and bombings? That's too bad. We're sustaining casualties. Bye bye."
If we listen to this bunch and send troops to the Sudan, it won't be long, once a teenager with an AK-47 successfully injures an American soldier, before this same crowd will be decrying the slaughter that WE brought about there and will be calling for a withdrawal of our troops. Again.
So let them whine. Let them stage their insincere protests. Put up with their meaningless editorials. They have proven their inability to back up their talk with purposeful resolve. They will cut and run again. Guaranteed.
The next year however brought conflict to Mogadishu. Resistance. Our military sustained 91 casualties - including 18 killed - at the hands of a local "warlord." Suuport for our presence in Somalia immediately evaporated and President Clinton withdrew all U.S. troops.
Starving children be damned.
In 2002 the United States Congress voted overwhelmingly to authorize President Bush (the younger) to go to war against Saddam Hussein and to end the suffering of the Iraqi people. Those in favor of war included a sizeable number of liberal Democrats. (link)
Iraq was summarily invaded and Saddam's military forces were destroyed.
Then began the occupation. As soon casualties began to mount as the result of relentless terror attacks against American and newly formed Iraqi units, the Democrats in this country turned against the war, with a growing number of party leaders demanding that we immediately evacuate the country. To cut and run.
Somalia all over again.
Well, they're starting it again.
Now the liberals are shedding tears over the fate of starving children in Darfur (that would be just west as the vulture flies from Somalia), and, as hard as it is to believe, they are demanding that we intervene there. Some are even willing to spend a few minutes in jail to show how committed they are - this time:
Moran arrested at Darfur protestAnd leftist Congresspersons aren't the only ones getting in on the act. Here's an editorial from the Roanoke Times this morning:
By Peter Hardin, Richmond Times-Dispatch Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON - Rep. James P. Moran, D-8th, was one of five members of Congress arrested yesterday in a peaceful protest at the Sudanese Embassy.
The lawmakers were protesting the Sudanese government's role in atrocities in the Darfur region.
"The Sudanese government is carrying out a horrible genocide in Darfur," Moran said in a statement. "They are rebuffing attempts to allow U.N. forces into the region that would bolster the African Union soldiers currently struggling unsuccessfully to quell the violence."
Also arrested were Reps. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., a Holocaust survivor and founder of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus; Jim McGovern, D-Mass.; John W. Olver, D-Mass.; and Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas; and six other protesters. (link)
Never, again and againWow, does that reek of sincerity.
Two years ago, President Bush and Congress condemned the atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan. Sticking a label of genocide on the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people didn't save lives.
Nor did the futile gesture last year by the U.S. to support the African Union as the preferred force to enter Darfur with 7,000 insufficiently trained and poorly equipped troops.
The murders, rapes and massive diaspora of millions of people continue unabated; disease spreads, food runs short. Shamefully, two years after the world recognized the genocide, Darfur remains a horrendous crime scene, and conditions worsen. (link)
Anyway, now the left is demanding that we intervene in Darfur.
But do they really mean it this time? Or is this just more of the same feel-good hand wringing, muddled thinking, and cowardly bluster for which these people are becoming famous? After all, the citizens of Baghdad are suffering every bit as much today as are the people of Darfur but the left demands that we retreat from Iraq. "Misery and death? Executions and bombings? That's too bad. We're sustaining casualties. Bye bye."
If we listen to this bunch and send troops to the Sudan, it won't be long, once a teenager with an AK-47 successfully injures an American soldier, before this same crowd will be decrying the slaughter that WE brought about there and will be calling for a withdrawal of our troops. Again.
So let them whine. Let them stage their insincere protests. Put up with their meaningless editorials. They have proven their inability to back up their talk with purposeful resolve. They will cut and run again. Guaranteed.
We’re Getting There
Saturday, April 29th, 2006
The feds are starting to round up all our illegal aliens:
Agents nab 14 illegals in Loudoun14 down. 11,000,988 to go.
By Keyonna Summers, The Washington Times
Federal agents arrested 14 illegal aliens Thursday in Virginia ... ( link )
Silly Me
Saturday, April 29th, 2006
I guess I'm cheap. I would have done it for $17 (if they were willing to take a personal check):
Jury awards $1.7M to woman spanked on jobSo spanking is a no-no. Is there nothing sacred these days?
By Juliana Barbassa, Associated Press Writer
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- A woman who was spanked in front of her co-workers in what her employer called a camaraderie-building exercise has been awarded $1.7 million.
Janet Orlando, 53, was subjected to sexual harassment and sexual battery when she was paddled on the rear end two years ago at home security company Alarm One Inc., a jury ruled Friday. (link)
Howard Dean’s Surrogate Speaks
Saturday, April 29th, 2006
I thought I was reading the blathering from some Democratic politician. Turns out, I was:
Al-Qaida leader: U.S. 'broken' in IraqSounds like the whinings of Jack Murtha, doesn't it? It's impossible these days to tell the difference between those who are working toward America's defeat in the war on terror and ... al Qaeda members.
By Lee Keath, Associated Press Writer
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Hundreds of suicide bombings in Iraq have "broken the back" of the U.S. military, al-Qaida's No. 2 said in a video posted Saturday - the latest in a series of messages from the terror network.
The video by Ayman al-Zawahri, posted on an Islamic militant Web forum, came within the same week as an audiotape by al-Qaida's top leader Osama bin Laden and a video by the head of al-Qaida's branch in Iraq - a volley of messages by the group's most prominent figures. (link)
Beauty and the Blogger
Saturday, April 29th, 2006
Most beginning bloggers worry about a blogroll or a snappy slogan. Kerry Dougherty worried about her picture.
The Virginian-Pilot will soon have four bloggers.
The Final Thoughts Of A Dying Man
Friday, April 28th, 2006
If you are a regular reader of this page you know of my connection with coal mining.
If not, look back at the archives and learn.
I grieved along with others during the time of the Sago mine disaster, maybe more so because I had actually spent time inside that particular mine.
One Wise Girl has a post up at Kilo Sparks It up about a letter that has recently been released by Randall McCloy, the
Standing on your soapbox
Friday, April 28th, 2006
I wrote a piece over at my Applepeels blog about the relevancy of Apple's Computer's computer business. Over the years Apple has seen a decline to 2.3% in their worldwide market share. This is in spite of having possibly the...
Upcoming War in the 50th
Friday, April 28th, 2006Since nobody seems to have mentioned it, for the upcoming 50th district race, Jeanette Rishnell has announced that she will be a candidate for the Democratic nomination. According to her profile on VPAP, she is a mortgage company employee from Manassas Park. Aside from that, I don't know anything about her. Thoughts anyone?
Losing the Online War?
Friday, April 28th, 2006Arguably, one could say that the Virginia blogosphere is dominated by Democrats, but are we falling behind on another front? The VA Democratic Party site hasn't been updated at all in recent week. Let's try something, perhaps a facelift to invigorate the party's netroots. There hasn't even been a Demo Memo since March 9th.
On the other hand, look at the options on the RPV site: an RPV spotlight, frequently updated news postings, a store, links to advisory councils and committees, even seperate calendars for House and Senate members who are hosting events. Anne B. Crockett-Stark has even gotten in on the trend and changed her site, with updates and expansions upon the previous links as well as new features. One interesting note that is highly indicative of the GOP's vulnerability, The RPV only has a meager $28,390 on hand, compared to $166,723 on hand for the Democratic Party of Virginia.
On the other hand, look at the options on the RPV site: an RPV spotlight, frequently updated news postings, a store, links to advisory councils and committees, even seperate calendars for House and Senate members who are hosting events. Anne B. Crockett-Stark has even gotten in on the trend and changed her site, with updates and expansions upon the previous links as well as new features. One interesting note that is highly indicative of the GOP's vulnerability, The RPV only has a meager $28,390 on hand, compared to $166,723 on hand for the Democratic Party of Virginia.
Ugh
Friday, April 28th, 2006You all know the Duke potential rape scandal. I don't know if she's telling the truth. I don't know if these boys hurt her or if it were someone else. But I do know that just because she was raped before (it was never proven that/if she told a false story, from what I've read, she just didn't pursue charges due to the hardship and lack of evidence) it does not mean she can't be raped again. Sure, she could have put herself in a bad position but SHE'S not responsible.
If she's lying now, it will come out. Her past and the things that happened to her in the past should not haunt her. That's just disgusting.
Chief Justice Hassell addresses Sabato 101
Friday, April 28th, 2006
The CD has this report on Chief Justice Hassell's appearance before Professor Sabato's PLAP 101 class. (In my day, it is GFAG 101.)
One of the things he is quoted is saying was this:
"According to Hassell, half of the population will encounter the judicial system at some point in their lives and half of these will not be able to afford good lawyers.
Hassell said he requested the General Assembly to give the judicial system an additional $25 million to pay court-appointed attorneys. He received about $8 million.
Virginia has the lowest amount of compensation for court-appointed attorneys in the nation, according to Hassell.
'That is just wrong, wrong, wrong,' Hassell said."
One of the things he is quoted is saying was this:
"According to Hassell, half of the population will encounter the judicial system at some point in their lives and half of these will not be able to afford good lawyers.
Hassell said he requested the General Assembly to give the judicial system an additional $25 million to pay court-appointed attorneys. He received about $8 million.
Virginia has the lowest amount of compensation for court-appointed attorneys in the nation, according to Hassell.
'That is just wrong, wrong, wrong,' Hassell said."
Best record in baseball
Friday, April 28th, 2006
For the record, the best record in Major League Baseball belongs to the Cincinnati Reds.
Just wanted to point that out, since Reds fans have had little to enjoy in recent times.
Just another day in Roanoke
Friday, April 28th, 2006
If there are any other blog authors out there who would like to meet up, come on down. There is a group of local bloggers, me included, who are getting together tomorrow for the first time. The individuals involved run the whole gamat of blog types. From what I understand there has been a meeting of the Floyd area bloggers already. So even if you want to learn about blogging, or want to meet one
