A totally biased and unreasonable list of blogs that I think you might enjoy reading.
ESPN is reporting according to the ever popular “multiple, unconfirmed sources” that Bo Pelini will be named head coach early next week.
Turner is still my #1 choice but when your #2 choice is this guy, things could be worse (see 2003 coaching search).
However, rumors are only rumors until T.O. says something.
Writing for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, A.J. Hostetler covered a magic show that took place at the Science Museum of Virginia on Wednesday. Members of Richmond’s International Brotherhood of Magicians Ring 180 performed tricks that delighted the crowd and demonstrated various scientific principles
….The magicians performed several tricks that seemed to defy gravity. [Lou] Dean made two ropes into one, fellow magician Harry Gallant made apparently unconnected colored pompoms tug at each other, and [Watt} Hyer somehow slowed a slug as it fell seemingly unimpeded through a blue tube.
A cube magically halted halfway down a string held by magician Larry Rohr. Yet when visiting home-schooler Emily Wigglesworth held the string, gravity kicked in and the cube easily slid down.
Click here to read the article. And, once there, to view a nice slideshow of the tricky stuff, click on the link that says “Magic.” There are pictures of some of the magicians, including the above mentioned Larry Rohr. The first picture in that slideshow is the one of Rohr holding a gravity-defying rope that appears on Page 2 of today’s Metro section, accompanying Hostetler’s piece.
The picture of Larry at the top of this post is one I shot of him last month at the National Folk Festival. He loves being in a crowd and it usually doesn’t take much to get him to do a few tricks for children.
Longtime generous friend and stalwart fellow Frisbee-golfer, Larry is a colorful character who I have written about several times in other contexts over the years. Below there are five links to stories and other pictures of Larry “Wolfman” Rohr.
Those interested in contacting Larry Rohr, perhaps to hire him to perform at a party, etc., please call (804) 233-2295.
“The recent GOP transportation plan…required localities to pay for improvements by raising taxes,” wrote the Loudoun Times-Mirror last February. Above: where the money goes, Billions for highways to carry tiny women driving huge SUVs, little for buses.
Continue reading " Cuccinelli’s Version Of Transportation Plan Raised Local Taxes "
Working late here, with some trash TV on in the background. Another VH1 rehash. But then this clip comes on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-bvgv3g__Y
It’s an amazing performance, and (I think) a fair analog of the man. He starts out a little off and hesitant. Gets stronger, but some doubts remain. And then, he gets [...]
Four people have been arrested in conjunction with the death of Redskins player Sean Taylor.
Miami-Dade police department spokeswoman Linda O’Brien identified the men as: Venjah K. Hunte, 20; Eric Rivera Jr., 17 [pictured]; Jason Scott Mitchell, 17; and Charles Kendrick Lee Wardlow, 18. O’Brien said that the exact charges for each had not yet been [...]
Rockingham County Republican Committee Chairman Mike Meredith believes the quick rise of Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, within the GOP ranks is good news for conservatives.“It’s a great thing,” Meredith said of Obenshain’s new position as a minority whip, “because he’s got a vision. He’s got principles, and he’s got integrity.”-from the DNR
I have to agree [...]
Continue reading " Mark Obenshain quickly positions himself in republican leadership "
I love when I am lectured about the “Evil Western Culture.”
Savages
Note the irony of the author’s name.
The greatest king of all-time — Evel Knievel — is dead. Long live the king.
And yes, I’m still upset that I lost my Evel Knievel toy back in the early ’70s. I think a friend stole it.
I like Sen. Joe Biden, although I’m not surprised he’s not going anywhere in the presidential race. Biden, by his own admission, loves to talk…and talk, and talk, and talk. In his last presidential foray back in 1988, he talked some words that didn’t…
Continue reading " Joe Biden: I’ll impeach Bush if he attacks Iran without Congress "
Cosco Busan Repairs Originally uploaded by freeside510 Seems that China has decided to keep American military platforms from visiting Hong Kong and other Chinese ports of call. Andrew Gray of Reuters tells us, China blocked another U.S. ship.C…
Crossposted from dailykos - it was updated there before being posted here
after watching and listening to the Republican debate this week, I want to revisit an issue on which I took some flak before. After the Virginia elections I commented in a number of places, including one of my own diaries, that I expected we should expect to continue to see the Republicans attack on immigration. In Some good news from Virginia, written on election night, I noted
Now the bad news. It looks like the attacks on illegal immigration had some salience, especially in Prince William County. Thus I expect to see Republicans across the country start trying to use this as a weapon.
And in comments on that thread and elsewhere I pointed out that things like the races in Prince William County and a few other places would give some Republicans hope that the issue of immigration could still serve as a magic bullet.
Two days after the election Markos took the position that using immigration had failed. In his front page story Demonizing immigration didn’t do the trick he quoted Mort Kondracke and argued that demonizing immigrants would be harmful to the Republicans.
This was on top of previous stories, such as that on the day after the election entitled Yup, immigration not the GOP’s savior in which he quoted from Amy Gardner’s front page Washington Post story entitled In the Ballot Booths, No Fixation on Immigration, and his election evening diary entitled Beaners in which he argued that the Virginia Republicans, despite basing a large part of their campaign on immigration, “got crushed.” In fairness, he updated that diary to point at the one I wrote and one by Andrew C. White entitled We lost in Stephentown because we both reported some evidence of the effects of the anti-immigration approach.
Let me reiterate what my concern was. It was not that Corey Stewart won reelection as County Board Chair in Prince William County running almost solely on the issue of immigration. It was that he increased his percentage margin over Sharon Panjak from what it had been in the special election when he took office. I also saw what I thought was some evidence of the effect on Jay Donahue’s attempt to unseat Rust in Herndon, the original ground zero in Virginia on immigration, and some possible spill over in the Senate race in Stafford and further south that Al Pollard narrowly lost.
I never argued that the anti-immmigrant approach was necessarily going to be all that effective. Rather, I thought that there was enough success at which some Republicans could point that it would continue to be used as a cudgel, beating up on those who could be considered “other” - because the Republicans had no other arrows in their campaign quiver.
Skip forward to the CNN YouTube debate. Not only did we have the disgusting exchange between Giuliani and Romney on who presided over more sanctuaries, thereby attempting to turn a noble word into a pejorative, we had Tancredo bragging that everyone was trying to out-Tancredo Tancredo, we had Duncan Hunter bragging about his wall.
I hate to say I told you so. . . actually, no I don’t. Unless and until we see a massive rejection of this approach, some Republicans will continue to use it. After all, Corey Stewart is making noises about the statewide Virginia Republican party, which effectively is now a toxic waste dump. While he claims he is concerned about other issues, realistically does anyone doubt that given what he will view as his own success that one issue he will continue to push is that of immigration? And today a Court rejected a law suit against the Prince William Police being able, solely on suspicion, to demand proof of immigration status from people - the judge said those suing had not demonstrated they had suffered any harm and thus lacked standing to sue (I am writing about this from a brief report on the radio as I drove home this evening). And there are rumors now that Stewart might assay an attempt for a nomination for statewide office (most probably Lt. Governor, since George Allen and several others are positioning themselves to figh it out for the top spot).
While I think in general the overall positions of the Republican field are pretty noxious, I do think McCain and Huckabee deserve some credit for the positions they took on the issue, given the nature of the most activist segment of the Republican base. It is unfortunate that even as he was legitimately defending the treatment of illegals in NYC while he was mayor Giuliani had to do a “so’s your old man” routine on Romney on the issue of sanctuary - that diminished the real effect commenting about what he had done in the past could have had on the debate. Think of it: if 3 of the top four Republicans had been willing to reject the demagoguery associated with this issue, we might have had some hope that it would not continue to poison our political discourse, and we might be able to talk about meaningful solutions to the real problems we have.
We will unfortunately continue to have to deal with the issue. It is not that I think that Republicans will win many races on this issue, but in some cases it might make a difference. But the discussions about it will suck oxygen away from discussion of other more important, more salient issues. Were those other issues - health care, bankruptcy, foreclosures due to subprime mortgages, education, etc - more prevalent, the Republicans would be in far deeper trouble than they already are.
They may not WIN on immigration, but there is some evidence that by using it as a distraction they might be able to lessen the otherwise overwhelming losses which currently loom on the horizon for next year.
I do not advocate our becoming Republican-lite, on this or any other issue. That was never the intent of my remarks, on election night or subsequently. I thought what I was doing was pointing out that we need to be prepared for this issue continuing to be part of the political discourse, and that we need to turn it back against those who use it, as I think was actually done somewhat effectively by Huckabee, although I would not make such large distinctions between adults and children as he did. There is still the danger that the focus will become that these illegals are forcing wages down for good “American” workers - and that might be used as an attempted wedge into the African-American community.
We should always be prepared, to anticipate what our opponents might do, so that we are not surprised.
Peace.
UPDATE I just flipped on ABC Evening News, in time to catch a story about a day laborer from Honduras working on a job in Princeton NJ who got mauled by the homeowners’ dog. The laborer won a quarter million settlement, and the dog has been ordered put down (this part on appeal), but meanwhile it has turned into a nasty thing on immigration, because the day laborer is an illegal. And we have this as news coverage, and Stephanopoulos led into the story with reference to spat among the Republicans on immigration during the debate. . .
Continue reading " I hate to say I told you so, but [updated] "
Not Larry Sabato has a post on the Clinton office bomber today. He’s not completely right (the man wanted mental help and doesn’t seem to be bouyed on by partisan rhetoric), but he’s on a right track anyway.
Ben tells “right wingers” to stop “attacking” Hillary, because he thinks it encourages such things. It [...]
If I read this correctly, § 18.2-488 of the Virginia State Code makes burning the flag of the United States or of the Commonwealth of Virginia a class 1 misdemeanor, but only if you “burn with contempt”. Burning the flag while celebrating is still legal.
§ 18.2-488. Mutilating, defacing, etc.
No person shall publicly burn with contempt, [...]
Continue reading " It is illegal to burn the flag of Virginia (but only if you’re angry). "
Here’s the situation. You’re 15. You are bored, you take nude pictures of yourself, and put them on the internet. You are promptly arrested.
What kind of bizarre, dystopic universe did this happen in? Pittsburg, PA!
A 15-year-old girl has been arrested for taking nude photographs of her self and posting them on the Internet, police said.
The [...]
Continue reading " Girl posting pics of self is booked for kiddie porn. "
It seems that the RPV has backed off its earlier plan to have presidential primary voters sign a loyalty oath before casting their ballots.
A committee at the party’s annual winter retreat voted overwhelmingly to rescind the request to the State Board of Elections regarding the Feb. 12 primary.
As I said before: yawn.
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On a related note, [...]
I was working out at the YMCA last night and on one of the televisions Deal or No Deal was on. Closed captioning wasn’t on, but you don’t really need it for this show.
The woman was down to the last box - it was either $100 or $1 million. She decided to take the deal, [...]
Here’s another opportunity to help out the Philip Forgit campaign. Tomorrow (Saturday, December 1) join Philip as he marches in these two parades:
Warrenton Holiday Parade - Meet at 915 am at corner of Mocking Bird and Clay in Old Town Warrenton.
Fredericksburg Christmas Parade - Meet at 4:15 pm at the corner of Princess Ann and [...]
James Finn Garner, political satirist, author of Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, and a friend of this blog, has alerted me to a video he’s posted at YouTube. ‘S pretty funny…
Sez James of the premise of his new book, Recut Madness: Favorite Movies Retold for Your Partisan Pleasure, (due out in May 2008)
In these days when a person can read newspapers and watch networks that do nothing but reinforce their previously held views, why should they have to endure uncomfortable ideas in the movies ? With a laptop and the right software, opposing viewpoints can be whisked into the dustbin, leaving minds amused and unconflicted.
Continue reading " You Can Sing About Rainbows, and Not Imply You’re Gay "
According to PilotOnline, Norfolk’s Norview High School has been included as one of America’s Best High Schools, based on rankings done by U.S. News & World Report.
Forty-one Virginia schools were recognized but no others in South Hampton Roads.
And, of course, Norview is home to Virginia’s Teacher of the Year, Tommy Smigiel.
Congratulations all around!
I am sure there is a rational explanation for why Chap Petersen would first appear and actively support Doug Denneny (D) for US Congress in the 11th VA CD at Doug’s campaign kickoff party: And then immediately turn around and…