Commentary
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675 entries. 163,007 words.
2006-01
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Mission Statement.
2006-01-20.
I’m starting this blog as a response to Greg Krehbiel’s Crowhill Weblog. Greg Krehbiel is a conservative Roman Catholic advocate. This by itself wouldn’t be enough for me to start a blog, but unfortunately, the Crowhill Weblog ranks fairly high in a Google search for “Krehbiel,” so anyone searching for information about the Krehbiel family name would find Greg Krehbiel and his blog to be one of the first ambassadors of the surname.
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The Crowhill Irony.
2006-01-20.
When I first came across the CW (the Crowhill Weblog) in a Google search, I was amazed at the irony I found. Here was a man proudly displaying his family crest and using the “crow hill” translation of Krähenbühl in his domain name. At first glance, I thought it was pretty cool.
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Solving Catholicism.
2006-01-21.
[Originally posted January 3, 2006.]
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Congrats Camille!.
2006-01-21.
Congratulations to Camille Krehbiel for making the freshman honor roll at Deer Creek-Lamont in Oklahoma! I don’t know who she is or, quite frankly, where that school is, but I thought I’d pass along some kudos anyway. (Honestly, I’m not sure I could even find Oklahoma on a U.S. map… I think it’s one of those vague “middle-of-the-country” states.) The Enid News and Eagle reported this outstanding accomplishment.
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Nice Job, Lynda!.
2006-01-21.
Congratulations also to Lynda Krehbiel-McLain for her “exceptional” solo singing performance in Beethoven’s Fantasy for Piano, Chorus, and Orchestra, as reported in Orchestra captures essence of Beethoven [link corrected] by columnist Gail Westerfield for The Island Packet. Again, I have no idea who this woman is or where the performance took place, but since she is not spouting any unusual rhetoric that I’m aware of and simultaneously shining a positive light on the Krehbiel name, she deserves a mention on my unabashedly pro-Krehbiel blog. Way to go, Lynda!
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Sue Rocks Aspen.
2006-01-22.
If anyone happened to be in Aspen last night, let me know how Sue Krehbiel did. See Weekend entertainment: music, more in the Aspen Times: “A house concert in Carbondale will feature Justin Roth, with Sue Krehbiel and Frank Martin opening, tonight. Appetizer potluck at 7 p.m. and music at 8 p.m.” I’m betting she rocked the house.
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On Materialist Rhetoric.
2006-01-22.
I’m reeling a little from GK’s January 20 post, Arthur C. Clarke on magic. Where in the world did this topic come from? He’s debunking that famous quote, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” as if Mr. Clarke just said it yesterday and not, like, 50 years ago.
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Disconnection.
2006-01-23.
[Originally posted January 4, 2006.]
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Randy’s Review.
2006-01-23.
Check out David Boren: an Oklahoma legend, an article for Tulsa World by Randy Krehbiel, a World Staff Writer. I don’t know what it says because you have to be a member to read it, but I’m sure it’s a great article. From the first two sentences, it looks like a music review, which seems like something Krehbiels have a long history of doing.
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Best Wishes, Sarah.
2006-01-23.
In an article dated Christmas Day, Troops celebrate as they prepare to deploy, the Idaho State Journal writes that Army reservist Spc. Sarah Krehbiel, a single mom with a 3-year-old son, is mobilizing for active duty in February. The article indicates that “the Army’s not saying where the Pocatello- and Twin Falls-based outfit’s headed, but war-torn Iraq looms as a definite possibility.” Sad to see her having to leave her son behind like that.
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Scott Headed to Kansas State.
2006-01-24.
According to the Kansas City Star, stand out high school offensive lineman Scott Krehbiel is heading to Kansas State to play college ball. (And get an edumacation, too, I suppose.) See Cats land offensive line recruit.
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Dissecting Crowhill Spin.
2006-01-24.
[Originally posted January 4, 2006.]
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Professor Wars.
2006-01-25.
Yesterday, the Crowhill Weblog referenced UCLA controversy might herald new front in culture wars, an article by Gwendolyn Driscoll. Perhaps you can guess GK’s viewpoint on the matter. Ten points if you picked, “college professors should only be robots programmed to recite conservative-government-regulated teaching curriculums.” (It’s remotely possible that I’m not stating his viewpoint fairly.)
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An Open Letter to AFA Chairman Donald E. Wildmon.
2006-01-25.
To: Donald E. Wildmon Chairman, American Family Association
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Congrats to Rip.
2006-01-26.
Congratulations to Rip Krehbiel for making the 8th grade Honor Roll in Indian Hill Middle School! I don’t know who he is, but if I did, I’m sure I’d say it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. Keep up the great work!
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Reviewing Mark Steyn.
2006-01-26.
[Originally posted January 5, 2006.]
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Lee Tells It Like It Is.
2006-01-26.
Associate Dean of Students Lee Krehbiel imparted sage wisdom in the ISU Bengal Online about student employees’s limited greivance options at Idaho State University. See Student employment rights non-existant at ISU. It’s interesting to see how many Krehbiels around the country are involved in education.
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The War On Culture.
2006-01-27.
[Originally posted January 6, 2006.]
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NBC Webcasts Book of Daniel.
2006-01-27.
NBC will be webcasting an unaired episode of The Book of Daniel tonight at 8PM. Please join me in sending kudos to NBC for continuing to make this novel program about faith and family available to both audiences who value creative story-telling in an otherwise dreary television landscape, and to Americans who enjoy the freedom to choose their viewing habits without interference from strong-armed lobbyist organizations.
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Sorry, Ranting About Daniel Again.
2006-01-27.
I would like to take this opportunity to rebuke entertainment journalists worldwide. I am referring, of course, to the somewhat dated news that NBC has cancelled The Book of Daniel. Another slew of articles appeared in my news reader on the subject today, and each was predictable down to the letter, being nearly word-for-word copies of the original news story from earlier this week.
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A Skirmish In The War On Culture.
2006-01-29.
Fighting in the Culture War is pretty draining. I’ve been having a “debate,” if you can call it that, with a person on the Blog of Daniel comment boards. I’ll call her Baptist X, since her viewpoints seem to be fairly representative of the typical conservative Southern Baptist Christian.
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Great News For Liberals.
2006-01-29.
Whoa, I had almost forgotten about the Crowhill Weblog. GK’s been flying under the radar lately, just posting links to articles (half of which were sent in by other people). But now it’s time to put on my “Crowhill media watchdog” hat again, for it is my sworn duty.
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Latest News From The Front.
2006-01-30.
Here’s my wisdom for today: People are really touchy about their religion, especially on the Internet. Provocative comments or questions about someone’s religious tenants are almost always viewed as a direct assault on the individual.
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Civility Irony Revealed.
2006-01-31.
[Originally posted January 7, 2006.]
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2006-02
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Crowhill on SOTU.
2006-02-01.
Imagine my surprise to find a parody of the SOTU on the Crowhill Weblog (The crowhill version of the state of the union speech). When I read it, I was shocked right down to my socks; it was actually kind of funny. And here’s the really scary part: I actually agree with some of his points.
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Academy of the Martial Arts.
2006-02-02.
Yesterday’s Crowhill post, “Boy” defined as “obstacle to female-defined success”, contains some alarming content.
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Another Musical Krehbiel.
2006-02-02.
American choir shares German town’s sorrow with gift of song is a touching piece about the Bethel College Concert Choir being the first to sing in Bad Reichenhall (Germany) after a roof collapse killed 15 people, mostly children, a week earlier. Of particular note to Krehbiels was “the male octet Open Road’s rendition of “Lord, be near me,” an original piece by Moundridge senior and Open Road member Joel Krehbiel.”
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Fred Backs Joe.
2006-02-02.
I missed this news from a few days ago: Molex CEO Fred Krehbiel seems to like Republican Joe Birkett for lieutenant governor of Illinois. He contributed $10,000 to his campaign fund. See Governor raises $15.5 million, and scroll way down to the bottom.
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Busted.
2006-02-03.
Ruh roh.. I’m busted. I guess I’ll have to be a little more civil now. :) It’s pretty amazing how fast things happen in the ol’ blogosphere.
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Wry Henry.
2006-02-03.
I just saw this little insight into the personality of music critic Henry Edward Krehbiel in A Met Broadcast Moment.
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Grrls Rock!.
2006-02-03.
[Originally drafted January 9, 2006.]
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The Church’s Shaky Foundation.
2006-02-04.
[This is a complete rewrite of something I first wrote on January 11, 2006.]
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Send More WalMarts.
2006-02-05.
Oddly enough, I agree with GK’s assessment about Those Cartoons. Muslim protesters, carrying signs about slaying and butchering Europeans while burning down Danish consulate buildings, are not exactly painting their culture in a very positive light. Muslim leaders, too, are suspect, as this opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph points out:
The complained-of cartoons first appeared in October; they have provoked such fury only now. As reported in this newspaper yesterday, it turns out that a group of Danish imams circulated the images to brethren in Muslim countries. When they did so, they included in their package three other, much more offensive cartoons which had not appeared in Jyllands-Posten but were lumped together so that many thought they had.
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Insensitive Mark Steyn.
2006-02-06.
Here’s another opportunity for me to review an article by Mark Steyn, ‘Sensitivity’ can have brutal consequences. I’ll summarize it so you don’t have to read it.
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Sam Swims To Second.
2006-02-06.
Sam Krehbiel and the Macomb High School Bombers placed second in a swim meet last Thursday night, missing first place by two points (I think–I don’t really understand swim points). See MHS swimmers edged in meet competition for the exciting details. A tough loss, but I’m sure it was fun for everyone involved (everyone who likes swimming, that is).
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Tacky Cartoon Resignation.
2006-02-08.
I can’t find much of anything to write about today except the Danish Cartoon Incident and the Coretta Scott King funeral. And there’s not much to say about the funeral except that it was awfully tacky of Democrats to use it as a political soapbox. So…
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Thoughts On The War On Culture.
2006-02-08.
I’ve been thinking about this War on Culture. It seems to exist on many different parallel hierarchies. (In software, it could be represented with a TreeView control.)
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Drawing The Line.
2006-02-09.
I think it’s about time to draw a distinction between sensitivity toward religion and denial of information. So many MSM reports about the Danish Cartoon Incident contain disclaimers that say, “we will not show the cartoons because they aren’t relevant to the story,” or something like that. Then they go on to describe the cartoons as “offensive” and run a lot of quotes from outraged and insulted Muslim leaders over the horror of it all.
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AFA Missed A Memo.
2006-02-10.
In Little Christs and little Mohammeds on the world’s stage, GK muses that Christians generally don’t respond when they’re insulted, because of the difference between Jesus’s sacrificial death and Mohammed’s glorified life. I see his point, but somebody forgot to tell the AFA–they sure throw plenty of hissy fits when they perceive Christians being mistreated. Granted, Mr. Wildmon’s idea of “mistreatment” is, of all things, exposure to public radio waves, but the principle is the same.
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Republican Womb Patrol Warming Up.
2006-02-12.
Just before Samuel Alito was confirmed, I quipped elsewhere.
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More Cartoon Musings.
2006-02-13.
I continue to muse about the Danish Cartoon Incident, which is growing into a full-scale Cartoon Intifada (uprising). I don’t like link-fests, but here are some recent articles on the subject that I’ve found interesting.
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Saddam\’s Trial.
2006-02-14.
This is only tangentially related to the culture war, but how much longer will Saddam be allowed these ridiculous childish outbursts? (See Hussein throws tantrum on return to court and Hussein: I am on hunger strike.) I can’t recall a more laughable “trial” in my lifetime. Does anyone actually think Saddam–the same guy who always did anything to save his own skin–will starve himself to death?
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Cartoon Intifada Part Of The Project?.
2006-02-14.
Warning: If you are already bummed about where the world is heading, do not read this.
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Yay For Ohio.
2006-02-15.
This has been a very slow day for news. (Unless you like reading about birdshot and political conspiracy theories, that is.)
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Kookiness All Around.
2006-02-16.
It’s comforting to know that there are just as many kooks on the right as there are on the left. For liberals, there’s the kooky Michael Moore. For conservatives, there’s the kooky Ann Coulter.
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Abuse Photos.
2006-02-16.
Another tough day to find anything to comment on. Muslim protesters continued to protest, and “journalists” kept trying to uncover a Cheney scandal.
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Banning Kale.
2006-02-20.
One of the more popular (secular) arguments I hear against same-sex marriage appeared recently on the Crowhill Weblog (Why same-sex marriage isn’t just about somebody’s “rights”). It goes something like this: By allowing same-sex marriage, the same-sex philosophy is forced onto people who don’t agree with it because they have to “accommodate” it. This argument usually comes in response to a “live and let live”-type statement.
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Tuesday Smorgasbord.
2006-02-21.
A smorgasbord of topics today as I sit here in agonizing pain from a strained neck muscle.
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Actually Profiling Sounds Kinda Good.
2006-02-22.
Today, conservative bloggers are berating Democrats for their obvious hypocrisy in objecting to the Dubai Port Sale when they previously objected to any sort of profiling against Muslims. I hate to admit this but, um, they’re right. About two things: 1) Democrats are being blatantly hypocritical (but then, they’re politicians), and 2) My objection to the Dubai Port Sale is indeed based solely on the fact that we’re talking about the UAE, so I guess I’m engaging in profiling like everyone else.
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Coming Soon: DaVinci Riots.
2006-02-23.
I’m stupefied by the irony and ignorance found in Barbara Nicolosi’s Da Vinci Code ‘Dialogue’? No Way! The thinking process that goes into concluding that the people who made The DaVinci Code “hate Jesus” and “wanted to bash Christians” is exactly the same thinking process that goes into concluding that a handful of Danish cartoonists insulted Islam and should literally be killed for blasphemy.
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Awesome Sarcasm.
2006-02-23.
I wish I’d written this: Bob Cesca: South Dakota: Where Rapists Live Forever!
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Friday Smorgasbord.
2006-02-24.
No one story has jumped out at me today, so here’s a link-fest of random cultural interests.
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“Gobbley” Quotes.
2006-02-25.
I just reconfigured the blog to use the ISO-8859-1 charset so those silly “smart” quotes work right. I’m always having to change them back to “dumb” quotes and half the time I forget when pasting text so weird gobbley characters get into my writing. It’s a real pain.
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Revised Mission Statement (2006.02.24).
2006-02-25.
I originally started this blog as a response to Greg Krehbiel’s Crowhill Weblog. GK is a conservative Roman Catholic. That by itself wouldn’t be enough for me to start a public blog, but the Crowhill Weblog ranks fairly high in a Google search for “Krehbiel,” so anyone searching for information about the Krehbiel family name would find Greg Krehbiel and his blog to be one of the first ambassadors of the surname.
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Bears Pay For Parental Negligence.
2006-02-26.
There’s nothing interesting happening nationally, so I thought I’d mention a local outrage here in Richmond.
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Okay Steyn, Now What?.
2006-02-27.
By Thomas Krehbiel *
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Comment-Spam Policy.
2006-02-27.
I deleted an obvious spam comment today. Oddly enough, it linked to what appeared to be a free fundamentalist Christian book. I wonder if Jesus would consider spam an appropriate evangelical tool?
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Bear Mom Speaks.
2006-02-28.
By Thomas Krehbiel
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The Terminology War.
2006-02-28.
By Thomas Krehbiel
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2006-03
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More Thoughts On The Bear-Slayer.
2006-03-01.
By Thomas Krehbiel
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Zogby Poll.
2006-03-02.
This isn’t really cultural, but Mrs. Krehbiel wanted to make sure I didn’t miss Zogby’s survey of U.S. troops: A Letter From The Troops.
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Coulter On The Oscars.
2006-03-03.
I think I’ve got Ann Coulter figured out now. My mistake was categorizing her as a pundit or analyst or journalist, when she’s really just a stand-up comic for conservatives. An insult comic, actually.
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A Most Unusual Abortion.
2006-03-05.
Here’s an odd item from recent Virginia news: Woman shot self to induce abortion.
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Belated Oscar Bashing.
2006-03-06.
It’s Oscars time again, and we all know what that means: Time for conservative pundits everywhere to phone in and bash Hollywood! (Just pretend I finished this before the Oscars.)
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Evidence Of Gallagher\’s Beliefs.
2006-03-07.
By Thomas Krehbiel
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Torturous Civil Rights Activists.
2006-03-09.
By Thomas Krehbiel
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Kneejerking Back At Kos.
2006-03-09.
Grrr. This makes me sound like a wingnut again, but this Daily Kos post pisses me off: U.S. To Close Abu Ghraib. “Georgia10” tells us that the U.S. is turning Abu Ghraib back over to the Iraqis, and then commences preaching about the “culture of abuse and maltreatment” in other U.S. prisons.
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Islamic Law & Order.
2006-03-10.
From Michelle Malkin: Free Muhammad Al-Asadi. Malkin discusses a Yemeni newspaper editor facing a potential death sentence for publishing those Danish cartoons (he covered them with big black X’s and condemned them, too, but that doesn’t seem important to the prosecutors). Here’s the part I really enjoyed.
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The Cycle Continues.
2006-03-10.
Here’s a notable poll: Gallup: More Than Half of Americans Reject Evolution, Back Bible. (The title is, of course, misleading.) I haven’t seen it done yet, but I’m sure Intelligent Design proponents will soon begin using these poll results to validate their thesis, using the age-old scientific principle which states, “If most people believe X, then X must be true.”
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Unified Christian Theory.
2006-03-13.
It’s rather annoying to me when people mis-characterize the different denominations of Christians and Christianity. It frequently happens when people mistakenly assume all Christians are part of Pat Robertson’s army of zombies. But it can also happen in other ways.
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NASA Speaks On Global Warming.
2006-03-14.
By Thomas Krehbiel
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AFA Marching Again.
2006-03-15.
It’s always fun to rag on the Totalitarian Family Association: US anti-gay group launches boycott of Ford. Don Wildmon, raging American patriot, is inciting his flock to stone… I mean… boycott Ford Motor Co. I first encountered him back in January when he took credit for denying Americans the freedom to watch whatever shows they want on their own televisions. Now he’s trying to deny Americans the opportunity to help Ford claw its way back into the global automobile market.
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Malkin\’s Media Experiment.
2006-03-15.
By Thomas Krehbiel *
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Ban Ambien.
2006-03-16.
Part 1 in a Special 4-Part Series: Random Thoughts Of Thursday
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Media Bias Exposed.
2006-03-16.
Part 2 in a Special 4-Part Series: Random Thoughts Of Thursday
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Eskow and Hitchens Have It Backwards.
2006-03-16.
Part 3 in a Special 4-Part Series: Random Thoughts Of Thursday
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The War Against Introverts.
2006-03-16.
Part 4 in a Special 4-Part Series: Random Thoughts Of Thursday
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Introducing Katrina Vanden Heuvel.
2006-03-17.
I’ve never heard Katrina Vanden Heuvel before, but I’ve often heard her name mentioned on conservative sites. Not very kindly, either. Now I understand why.
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‘Ware That Tricksey Media.
2006-03-21.
I always enjoy deciphering how stories get distorted by the people that report them.
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Christian Faces Death In Afghanistan.
2006-03-21.
This story has been making the rounds in the last couple days: An Afghan man, Abdul Rahman, is on trial for converting to Christianity and faces the death penalty if he doesn’t repent. This is a rare story that is uniting bloggers from both the left and right in their wondering about how this reconciles with the new and improved “democratic free people” of Afghanistan we’ve all been told about. The story is also a nice reminder of why strict Islamic law should not be allowed to spread.
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Correction To Vanden Heuvel Sniping.
2006-03-22.
I must make a small retraction/correction. A while back I sniped at Katrina Vanden Heuvel for spreading rumors on CNN about “the slaughter possibly of innocent women and children” during that Operation Swarmer thing. I called her comment “purely inflammatory and completely baseless.” Well, today I came across this disturbing article on Daily Kos: Iraqi police report details civilians’ deaths at hands of U.S. troops.
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georgia10 Makes The List.
2006-03-22.
(Heh.. I just discovered georgia10 is a “her,” not a “him,” so I am quickly revising my text.)
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PunDippety Specifics.
2006-03-23.
I’ve been challenged to point out exactly why it’s self-evident why I inducted georgia10 into the PunDip Hall of Fame yesterday. Today I’m thinking maybe I was a little too harsh on her – she’s a youthful idealist, after all, and apparently has no understanding yet of how the life-crushing machinery of the cold, cruel world actually works. Maybe I shouldn’t squash her Utopian dreams so soon in life.
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SusanG Inducted Too.
2006-03-24.
I’ve identified another PunDip on Daily Kos: SusanG. No substance, just entertaining prose. Maybe PunDip isn’t the right word.
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Entertaindit Balance.
2006-03-24.
Since I’ve been ragging a lot on Daily Kos writers lately, I suppose I should be fair and balanced and identify some conservative Entertaindits too. I’ve already mentioned Ann Coulter a few times, which was a no-brainer. But overall I find that it’s much harder to locate Entertaindits on conservative blogs.
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PZ Myers On Easter And Drywall.
2006-03-24.
I find that PZ Myers at Pharyngula generates a mixed bag of reactions from me. On one hand, I find his thoughts on evolution pretty solid and interesting. On the other hand, I find his thoughts on religion pretty childish and annoying: War on Easter!
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On Al-Haramain and Government Wiretapping.
2006-03-24.
(Today’s been very dull, if you hadn’t noticed.)
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It\’s Mock georgia10 Monday.
2006-03-27.
Georgia10 continues her supremely intellectual “liar, liar, pants on fire” personal vendetta against the president: Liar in Chief. I shall dumb down my writing to a level she can understand.
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Evangelicals On The March Again.
2006-03-28.
They’re at it again… GOP Blogger Mark Noonan thinks that Fundamentalist Evangelicals represent all of Christianity: “Tolerant” San Francisco. Once again, Fundamentalist Evangelical Salesmen are rolled out as the essense of Christianity, the all-knowing, all-seeing Truth of Jesus, not to be questioned, not to be argued with. Forget those loser Episcopalians, Catholics, Presbytarians, Methodists, Mormons, and Mennonites… if you want the Christian perspective on anything, just go to the loudest Evangelicals you can find.
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Civil War or No Civil War?.
2006-03-28.
With everyone trying to define exactly whether Iraq is in a “civil war” or not, as if the label should somehow affect our opinion of what goes on there, I thought it would be a fun project to see how many Americans are murdered every day in our country. I think we can all agree that there is currently no civil war in America, but most people recently have been citing “dozens of Iraqis” dying every day as an irrefutable measure of a civil war. So let’s see how the numbers stack up.
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Video Game Violence Scrutinized.
2006-03-29.
A rare article about kids and video games that actually puts blame where it belongs: Rebecca Hagelin: Video game violence and our sons. (Hint: It’s not on the video game industry.)
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georgia10 Smitten By Real Security.
2006-03-30.
Well, well, it looks like the great georgia10 is quite smitten by this newly unveiled Democratic “Real Security” “plan:” Real Security, Part II. So smitten, in fact, that one has to wonder if she is not on the Democratic party payroll (the word “shill” comes to mind). She even calls it “tough and smart,” a verbatim recitation of the party line.
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Borders and Waldenbooks: Dead To Me.
2006-03-30.
In the wake of today’s announcement that Borders and Waldenbooks will not stock an issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it shows some of those Mohammad cartoons on its cover (uh.. I dunno where I read it, just look it up on Google News), I will no longer be frequenting their establishments. (Not that I ever did before, but that’s beside the point.) Take that, you stupid lemon-eating Sharia-lovers!
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On Immigration.
2006-03-31.
I suppose I should comment on immigration, since it’s the hot topic of the week.
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2006-04
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Only Two Doors?.
2006-04-03.
Here’s another one of those Pharyngula posts of the annoying variety: Doors. PZ’s making the slightly ignorant assumption that there are only 2 “doors” to choose from in life. (Ie.
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georgia10 Wins 2005 Koufax Awards.
2006-04-04.
Well, well. (He says with undisguised contempt.) The 2005 Koufax Awards, apparently a celebration of the most melodramatic anti-conservative blogs (I have to speculate, since there is nothing on that page indicating what the Koufax Awards actually award *), has voted georgia10 the Best Commenter of 2005. So congrats to her.
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Liberals v. Conservatives.
2006-04-04.
I read this today: Dennis Prager: Who hates the other more - liberals or conservatives? The answer, according to Prager, is liberals, but I think he’s a little biased. From what I’ve seen the hatred goes both ways, but the means of expression is very different.
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Get The Door, It’s Jesus!.
2006-04-05.
A very special guest-blogging appearance by Mrs. Krehbiel:
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On Kerry\’s Iraq Plan.
2006-04-05.
HuffPo’s been awash with celebrity bloggers today: John Kerry: A Plan for Getting Iraq Up on Its Own Two Feet.
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No Love For South Park.
2006-04-06.
I haven’t read a word in any of my daily blogs today about South Park, which is weird. Not too long ago, every conservative blogger in the world was constantly harping about the “creeping Sharia watch.” (Liberal bloggers ignored the whole thing.) Anything even remotely related to a Muslim forcing prehistoric Islamic laws on the rest of us was major, major news. So last night South Park, the only show I’ve seen that even comes close to touching this subject, runs the first of a two-part parody about the Cartoon Jihad and nothing?
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Comparing and Contrasting.
2006-04-06.
Just so you know, georgia10 is now literally writing fiction for dKos: The Week the Gloves Came Off. It’s not much different from what she was doing before, actually. I think she could learn a few debating tricks from Al Franken: An Evening with Ann Coulter: Opening Statement.
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Malkin Grudgingly Approves Of South Park.
2006-04-07.
Malkin finally jumped on the bandwagon today: South Park And Cartoon Jihad. I think I see now why conservatives have been so slow on this – it must really infuriate them that South Park, of all things, is leading the charge against worldwide dhimmitude, while their own efforts so far have produced bupkis. :)
- Commentary
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Still Immigration Protests?.
2006-04-10.
Okay, the immigration bill was scrapped last week, so why are people still marching in protest today?
- Commentary
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The Nerfed Palm Sunday.
2006-04-10.
Yesterday I went back to church for the first time this year. I stopped last year for a variety of reasons, most selfishly because I rather liked having Sunday morning to myself. But I digress.
- Commentary
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What Would Cenk And Bob Do?.
2006-04-11.
No doubt you’ve heard about this past weekend’s articles from Seymour Hersh and The Washington Post, exploring the possibility that the Bush administration is planning nuclear strikes against Iran.
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Something For Everyone.
2006-04-11.
No matter which side of the political fence you’re on, you’ll find something to like in this post!
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What Would Cenk And Bob Do? (Part 2).
2006-04-12.
Mrs. Krehbiel noted that I didn’t provide a comprehensive solution to the Iran crisis.
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Bad Krehbiels.
2006-04-12.
It’s a very sad day to be a Krehbiel: Krehbiel sentenced in sexual assault case - Grand Junction Sentinel. Throw the key away, I say. Or better yet, just execute him so we don’t have to pay for him to rot in jail.
- Commentary
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Cartoon Wars, Part II.
2006-04-13.
I’ve been trying to research whether Comedy Central actually did censor Mohammad in last night’s South Park. Fortunately, National Review Online did so for me, and it sounds like Comedy Central did, in fact, refuse to show it, which is a huge relief. I was pretty annoyed when they blacked out Mohammad (especially since he was “just standing there looking normal”) and I would have been really super annoyed if I’d found out that Matt and Trey had censored themselves.
- Commentary
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Reframing Iranian Appeasement.
2006-04-13.
Here’s another HuffPo attempt to “reframe” Iran as the victim of BushCo’s aggression: Bill Scher: Reframing The Iran Debate. This one, at least, presents some supporting evidence, but ultimately I didn’t find it very compelling.
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Cenk Stinks.
2006-04-14.
More impassioned pleas for Iranian appeasement from HuffPo: Cenk Uygur: If You Liked the Iraq War, You’ll Love the Iran War.
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Back In A Bit.
2006-04-16.
Mrs. Krehbiel and I are heading out for a much-needed vacation this week, so you’ll have to fend off Iranian Appeasement and the persuasive but not entirely factual writings of georgia10 and Cenk Uygur without my help for a little while.
- Commentary
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On Price Gouging.
2006-04-24.
RedState uses the classic “if you don’t like the gas prices, don’t buy any” argument in discussing whether or not price gouging is good or bad: The Twilight Zone Comes To The Debate Over Gas Prices.
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Nightly News Watch.
2006-04-25.
I’m officially renaming NBC Nightly News to NBC Nightly News For Dummies. Last night, I saw one of the most asinine news reports ever. (Yes, even more asinine than the unending “Long Road Back” series.) Here it is: Road trip reveals impact of gas prices.
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Malkin\’s Hasty Generalization.
2006-04-26.
Mrs. Krehbiel has noted that I tend to rag on liberals more than conservatives, so this one’s for her: Michelle Malkin: The victims of illegal immigration. I tend to like Malkin’s blog because it’s mostly news and links that you never see in the media, but I find that when she writes opinions, they end up sounding a little shrewish.
- Commentary
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Reminder: Iran Deadline Looms.
2006-04-26.
Lest we forget about Iran in the midst of our Pain At The Pump(TM): Iran ‘will harm U.S. if attacked’. This Friday, the IAEA will be reporting back to the UN about whether Iran is going to comply with the UN’s demand that they cease their enrichment program. I think you can guess what the report is going to say.
- Commentary
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Move Along, Nothing To See Here.
2006-04-27.
Today I’m too lazy to write about anything. Except I just watched some of NBC Nightly News About New Orleans For Dummies, and found it pretty silly overall. I’m pretty sure NBC doesn’t even send reporters anywhere but New Orleans anymore.
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Introducing: The Party Afraid Of Death.
2006-04-28.
I was reading this yesterday: A Q&A with Ramesh Ponnuru on The Party of Death. While perusing the author’s pro-life remarks, a complementary Republican party nickname occurred to me: The Party Afraid Of Death. It seems fitting.
- Commentary
2006-05
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The Matt Margolis Connection.
2006-05-01.
Here is a quote from the GOP Bloggers “about us” page.
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May Day Survived.
2006-05-02.
If you’re rabidly opposed to any form of immigration, and are looking for ways to hastily generalize the actions of a few individuals to encompass all 12 million illegal immigrants, you will undoubtedly want to visit Michelle Malkin’s blog to gather ammunition for your logically fallacious argument: The Day To Hate Republicans and Borders? What Borders? and The Pictures You Won’t See.
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Malkin Screeches More Propaganda.
2006-05-03.
More Malkin immigration hysteria: Reconquista is real. I might even go so far as to call it “screeching,” a word she would no doubt find incredibly offensive. In this particular rant, she applies her trademark “hasty generalizations” along with a dash of “appealing to fear” in order to drive home her point that we are under attack from Mexico.
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God\’s Get Out Of Jail Free Card.
2006-05-03.
Here’s my theological thought for the day: In response to bad news, some people will say things like “don’t worry, God has a plan for you” or “oh well, it’s all part of God’s plan” or “it’s what God wants.” This sort of philosophy tends to come from a certain prominent persuasion of American Protestants which shall remain nameless.
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Hot Air Worthy Of Name.
2006-05-04.
Yet another example of either spin, propaganda, or ignorance from a blogger (this one happens to be conservative) at the new, aptly named, “Hot Air:” Pare Amnistia Ahora! The Cero Peso Campaign.
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The Sisters Afraid Of Death.
2006-05-04.
Hot Air “director and producer” Bryan Preston also gives out free(?) advertising for Ramesh Ponnuru’s book: The Party of Death.
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Sisters Must Face Harsh Reality.
2006-05-08.
Quick followup: Michelle Malkin ever-so-quietly remarked that Andrea Clarke Has Died. Yes, under the care of the newly installed pro-life Dr. Lentz, she died anyway. No word yet on whether the sisters will be issuing an apology to the hospital ethics committee for interfering in their business, or whether Hot Air “director and producer” Bryan Preston will be complimenting the hospital for making the tough but absolutely correct decision to declare Andrea’s case futile.
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Atwar Bahjat.
2006-05-08.
(See Atwar Bahjat, Revision 2 above.)
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Atwar Bahjat (Revision 2).
2006-05-09.
(Forgive me while I experiment with different ways to revise blog entries.)
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Levin Pummels Straw Kennedy.
2006-05-09.
I find it illuminating to note when political commentators use the techniques of propaganda. Mark Levin, writing in his National Review blog, recently beat the crap out of an imaginary straw man: Patrick Kennedy & Double Standards. (I found the article via.
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BushLiedPerchesDied.
2006-05-09.
DailyKos says: Bush lied about that perch. Which was based on the reporting of Americablog, which says: Bush tells German paper he caught the largest fresh-water perch in world history. Which was based on the “reporting” of the Stacy Taylor Show on KLSD-AM in San Diego.
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Minutemen Being Watched.
2006-05-10.
By Thomas Krehbiel
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Blogging Back: Death And Delegation.
2006-05-10.
I’m not popular enough to get many comments (sniff), but even if I were I wouldn’t spend much time responding to them, because I figure blog comments should be the territory of the readers. If I find noteworthy comments, though, I’m going to start blogging about them (or maybe that should be blogging back at them), so in that spirit here are some responses to Vince:
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Slow News Week.
2006-05-12.
There is shockingly little to write about. Something big and controversial happened on American Idol the other night, but unfortunately, it was not a large explosion killing everyone involved, so I won’t be exploring that here.
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The Week In Counterterrorism.
2006-05-12.
Mrs. Krehbiel seemed surprised the other night when I mentioned there was evidence that the insurgency was losing in Iraq. In the conservative blogosphere, these types of news bits are reported all the time, along with the obligatory snarking that the liberal, pro-terrorist media is “suppressing” it. Personally, I just think that television media doesn’t consider anything news unless there is eye-popping video to go along with it.
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Data Mining: Government vs. Private Sector.
2006-05-15.
Here’s something I don’t understand about the whole NSA wiretapping thing. Everyone is pretty outraged about the government collecting data.
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Miller v. Webb.
2006-05-15.
In the Virginia Democratic primaries coming up on June 13, it’s Harris Miller vs. Jim Webb. One of those two will go on to challenge George Allen for VA Senate in November. (It’s sort of like American Idol, except it isn’t stupid.)
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Today In Counterterrorism (15 May 2006).
2006-05-15.
A step toward the return of U.S. troops. Since last summer, 39 more Iraqi combat battalions have been rated “Level 2,” for a total of 75 battalions. “Level 2 units gather their own intelligence, conduct their own planning and are deemed ‘in the lead’ during combat operations.” Independent Operations and the Iraqi Army.
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More Miller v. Webb.
2006-05-17.
Didn’t get around to posting this yesterday: Following up on my post from Monday about Jim Webb and Harris Miller…
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Malkin On O\’Reilly.
2006-05-17.
Another one I didn’t get around to posting yesterday.
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Malkin Goes To 7-11.
2006-05-18.
More ignorant anti-immigrant propaganda from Malkin: Michelle Malkin: 9/11, the Pentagon, and our borders. She thoughtfully discusses (ie. rants about) how some of the 9/11 hijackers got fake credentials at an illegal alien “day-labor” hangout in a 7-11 parking lot.
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Early Propaganda From The Miller v. Webb Debate.
2006-05-19.
Interesting post from The Richmond Democrat (aka. Jim Webb shill headquarters): Breaking! Disaster at debate for Harris Miller!
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My Review Of The Miller v. Webb Debate.
2006-05-20.
Disclaimer: I am not at all qualified to judge political debates.
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SusanG Jumps To Conclusions… Again.
2006-05-22.
I think I’ve made it clear in the past that I’m not a fan of DailyKos (especially georgia10 and SusanG.) They’re Their [oops] goal, after all, is to “crash the gate” (a euphemism for overthrowing the government), presumably by any means necessary. Here’s another reason why they are an untrustworthy propaganda machine, from last Friday: Gitmo: The Hell You Can’t Escape By Dying. SusanG quotes an AP story about prisoners attacking guards trying to stop an attempted suicide, and then writes.
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Malkin Embraces Greed.
2006-05-22.
I see Michelle Malkin has fully subjugated her journalistic integrity to Greed… today her RSS feed only contains two-line summaries, so you have to go to her web site to read all of the posts. There, you are subjected to DoubleClick sidebar advertising which on this particular page refresh includes ads for Microsoft Windows Live (beta) and GameTap. No doubt it’s also dropping some cookies on my computer and tracking my IP address and browsing habits.
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Miller v. Webb: Observations.
2006-05-23.
Back to Webb and Miller for a bit. I never did finish my review of the debate, but it’s old news now.
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Summary Of George Allen\’s Voting Record.
2006-05-24.
In my continuing effort to figure out what the heck to do with my votes in June and November, here is my home grown summary of some of George Allen’s Voting Record, as reported by Project Vote Smart. I just picked categories that seemed interesting to me.
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Deducing Webb\’s Platform.
2006-05-24.
Since Jim Webb and his supporters aren’t going to do it for me, I guess I’ll have to deduce his platform for myself.
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Miller\’s Agenda.
2006-05-24.
Just to be thorough, here is a link to Harris Miller’s Agenda page, complete with bullet points and detailed explanations. (It’s even available in Spanish.) Ahh, that was easy.
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Webb\’s Positive Campaign So Far.
2006-05-24.
To illustrate my “Webb supporters are just anti-Miller opponents” observation from yesterday, take a look at this sample.
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Rebellious George.
2006-05-25.
In case anyone was worried, I’m now convinced that George Allen is, in fact, the devil. On Hardball last night, the “aw shucks, I’m just a good ol’ Virginia boy” routine was particularly nauseauting. (By the way, do appearances on shows like Hardball during an election campaign count as election advertising?
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Blog Advertising Exposed.
2006-05-25.
How profitable is punditry? The other day I was ragging on Michelle Malkin for forcing me go to her ad-driven page. She uses the “big name” advertisers like Doubleclick and Fastclick.
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Yikes! A Strike Against Miller.
2006-05-25.
Much has been made of Harris Miller’s ITAA lobbying career. Since I’m a programmer, Information Technology is probably the single most important issue in any campaign for me, so I did a little browsing on their web site to get a sense of what the ITAA actually lobbies for. From all the negative press they were getting, I was bracing myself for something truly evil.
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Question Authority (and Bloggers).
2006-05-26.
A commenter wondered what was wrong with DailyKos making money. I don’t mind Kos making money from his blog, but I think it’s important to understand the motivations of any opinion writer (especially ones in positions of public influence). I think most people would assume that a community-driven “revolution,” as dKos is perceived, is a selfless, non-profit effort (I know I would).
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My IT Background.
2006-05-26.
A commenter wondered how I could possibly be ignorant of H1Bs and the ITAA.
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H-1Bs And The Virginia Senate Race.
2006-05-28.
I saw some comments about me on another blog that made me laugh. Just for the record, I’m not in any way affiliated with Harris Miller, Jim Webb, or George Allen. I’m certainly not an “apologist” for any of them.
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Memorial Day Observance.
2006-05-30.
I observed over the weekend that there is apparently an unspoken rule that anyone with a blog is required to make a Memorial Day post. So here’s mine, a day late: I don’t know anyone that died in a war. My grandfather was wounded in WWI, but did not die, for which I’m quite thankful.
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Where’s The Outrage?.
2006-05-30.
I guess even bloggers have a hard time getting back into the swing of things after a 3-day weekend. The blogosphere seems to be working hard to manufacture outrage today.
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Miller\’s Attack Ad.
2006-05-31.
I saw Harris Miller’s attack ad last night, which was described by Jim Webb’s campaign as “brutal, cynical, [and] negative.” (This from the people who always refer to Miller as “Corporate Lobbyist” Miller.) The first part of the ad talked about Miller’s platform (with specifics!) of firing Donald Rumsfeld and something else I can’t remember. And then as an after thought, it added that Jim Webb supported Republicans in 2000. Not exactly the cut-throat negative attack I was led to expect.
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Infosys Single-Handedly Destroying America.
2006-05-31.
Following up on More H-1b abuses from American Techno-Politics, wherein it was stated that 2,392 H-1B Programmer/Analyst jobs were approved by the DOL in 2005 for under $30k salary (or $15/hour).
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2006-06
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Kabul Riot Explained.
2006-06-01.
Again I’m compelled to recommend the Counterterrorism Blog as an alternate view of sensationalized terrorism-related events in the news. They are surprisingly non-partisan and thoughtful in their reporting. They generally just stick to the facts and explain them thoroughly, which is incredibly refreshing in this day and age.
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Haditha Thoughts.
2006-06-01.
So Michelle Malkin and her subsidiary Hot Air are still out in front on defending the marines of Haditha. Their “citizen journalism” machine is really working overtime. Oddly enough, though Malkin et al frequently cite moonbats slavering over the incident, I haven’t seen much of it myself.
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The Fightin’ Seventh.
2006-06-02.
Well crap. Looks like I’ll have to start researching two more Congressional candidates. I had previously thought I wouldn’t have to worry about the 7th district because Eric Cantor didn’t have a challenger, but then I read this Breaking News about 7th CD on Virginia Centrist.
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An Analysis Of WW\’s Propaganda Machine.
2006-06-02.
Sorry, this is really long.
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Progress With Iran?.
2006-06-03.
I’ve been encouraged by recent news regarding Iran. Russia and China appear to be getting on board with sanctions against Iran, and that’s definitely a good thing. The U.S. offer of talks with Iran – if they suspend their nuclear enrichment – is a good step.
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National I Don\’t Feel Like Blogging Day.
2006-06-05.
I’m officially designating today, “National I Don’t Feel Like Blogging Day.” There’s not much new going on anyway.
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It’s The End Of The World….
2006-06-06.
Since I have the good fortune to be working with a SQL query that takes about 15 minutes to execute, I have some spare writing time today. Sadly, just like yesterday, there is nothing particularly interesting to write about. Today’s trend in blogosphere conversation: D-Day and End Times.
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Quick Demon Book Review.
2006-06-07.
I was reading the excerpt from chapter one of Ann Coulter’s new demon book (released on 6/6/06, get it?, hyuk hyuk) on Townhall.com: Ann Coulter: On the Seventh Day, God Rested and Liberals Schemed.
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BlogPac Good or Evil?.
2006-06-07.
I saw this post a few days ago: BlogPac: For the Netroots, From the Netroots. It’s advertising a site where you can donate to so-called “netroots” candidates, or to this thing called “BlogPac,” which is basically a bank account to fund the MyDD/DailyKos people in improving the “image” of the netroots. (Also, buried in the middle of a paragraph, they also “need to be paid for the work [they] do.” Caveat emptor.)
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Win-Win In San Diego.
2006-06-07.
There were primaries in many states yesterday, but by far the result generating the most spin today is the infamous Bilbray-Busby race to succeed Duke “Jailbird” Cunningham.
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Zarqawi Mania.
2006-06-08.
As I begin typing this, it’s only 8:06 AM in Virginia. Since I’m sure that Zarqawi will still be leading the news at 8:06 PM and beyond, let me be among the first to say… omg I am sick of hearing about Zarqawi already! Can’t we leave the job of making him a martyr to the jihadists??
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Constitutional Amendments.
2006-06-08.
Crowhill is back in my reader after some down time, and via. The phony baloney moral rules of liberalism I saw this post: On the gay marriage amendment.
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The Right Words For The Right Occasion.
2006-06-08.
Uh oh, the Virginia Democratic blogosphere is self-destructing again over the “jewbaiting” thing.
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WWJ[N]D?.
2006-06-09.
A quick note about our illustrious 7th district Rep. Eric Cantor: Last night, he voted against the Markey amendment protecting Net Neutrality (along with the majority of other Republicans). What Would James [Nachman] Do?
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Hardball Post-Mortem.
2006-06-09.
I didn’t have any new insights after the Webb/Miller Hardball “debate” last night. Not surprisingly, Webb won the charisma battle. Miller looked kind of shifty and nervous again.
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The Spy Who Spews Hot Air.
2006-06-09.
In a predictable display of immaturity, Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air division sent a “spy” to the Yearly Kos convention. So far, the plant has been struggling mightily to find things to mock… I mean… report on (for a second there I almost forgot that Malkin and co. carry the weighty credentials of “Fox News Analysts”). Infiltrating Yearly Kos: Post 1, for example, contains nothing but… erm… hot air.
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A Story About Fearsome Activist Judges.
2006-06-09.
I haven’t said much about the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment, but I’d like to say a few words about it now.
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Who\’s Duping Who?.
2006-06-11.
Here’s my humorous Virginia politics observation for the day.
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What To Watch In The Primary.
2006-06-11.
I won’t make a prediction on the Virginia Democratic primary Tuesday, because I don’t know anything about politics, and the outcome is relatively unimportant in the global scheme of things anyway. For me, the most interesting thing to observe about the primary results will be whether or not the Virginia Democratic blogosphere represents the typical Virginia Democratic voter. If Webb wins, the VD blogosphere (hyuk, hyuk) echoes the sentiments of “mainstream” Virginia Democrats.
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Haditha Marine Speaks.
2006-06-11.
Good news from Haditha for a change: Marine Says Rules Were Followed. I’d like to officially apologize for initially jumping to the conclusion that those marines were guilty, based solely on initial media reports. (They could still be guilty, but I should know better than to rely on the media for facts.) Anyway, I’m more and more hopeful that the civilians in question were collateral damage instead of murder victims.
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The Revolution.
2006-06-12.
Last night, I watched some of the History Channel’s series The Revolution. It was interesting to me because, much to my chagrin, I had previously not known much about the American Revolution. I noticed something odd though, when viewed through modern eyes: America was basically founded by liberals.
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Kos Power Watch.
2006-06-12.
It’s probably no surprise to regular readers that I don’t think very highly of Daily Kos. They have a sweet siren song, but they’re just power hungry elitists like everyone else in politics. In case you’re wondering, here is georgia10’s advice if you want to be endorsed by the Kos power elite: A Single-Step Guide For Democrats.
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The Best Offense Is A Good Suicide.
2006-06-12.
TomPaine.com gets a wag of my finger for spreading this blatant propaganda from the lawyer of some Gitmo detainees: A tunnel without end. I agree that when those 3 detainees hanged themselves, it was a sign of desperation – but it was desperate defiance, not depression – you know, the kind of thing an enemy combatant might do. Seeing as how suicide vests are such integral parts of terrorist combat tactics, it seems like a no-brainer that we should take an Islamist suicide as an act of aggression.
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Weather Happening In Gulf, Experts Shocked.
2006-06-13.
Here’s a quick impression of tonight’s NBC Nightly News For Dummies:
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Gaza Strip: No Place For A Picnic.
2006-06-13.
I really feel bad for anyone living in the Gaza strip: Beach deaths ’not Israel’s fault’. The alleged Israeli missiles that hit that beach family turned out to be.. Palestinian landmines. Palestinians should seriously reconsider their government selection.
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Rove Fuels Childish Wingnuts.
2006-06-13.
It’s started. I guess this will be the story of the day: Let the gloating begin: Rove cleared in Plame case. This exemplifies why I think Malkin and Kos are two sides of the same coin: Childishness.
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Mild Voter Apathy.
2006-06-13.
Democracy in action: At 5:30 PM, after the polls had been open for some 11 1/2 hours, Mrs. Krehbiel was voter #30 and I was voter #31 in our precinct.
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Post-Primary Pondering.
2006-06-14.
I’m pretty disappointed in the primary results, but probably not for reasons anyone would expect. Jim Webb is as good of a candidate as anyone else, and his Reagan Democrat status can only help him in the battle against George Allen.
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Post-Primary Partying.
2006-06-14.
Virginia bloggers are predictably taking credit for getting Jim Webb elected in the primary.
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Scientists Gore An Inconvenient Truth.
2006-06-15.
This is one area where Crowhill and I agree: Scientists respond to Gore. On An Inconvenient Truth, apparently some Canadian climate experts think… let me get this right… “Gore’s circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic.” Ouch!
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Amateur Webb-Bashing Already Started.
2006-06-15.
Two days after the primary, Virginia conservative bloggers are already jumping into the mix with their own amateur campaigning, bashing Webb and telling us why Virginians shouldn’t vote for him.
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Why I Don\’t Think We Invaded Iraq Just For Oil.
2006-06-15.
Someone recently asked me how I could possibly believe we didn’t invade Iraq just for their oil. (You know who you are!) At the time I didn’t have a ready answer, but here’s some reasons.
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Virtucon Tries A Red Herring.
2006-06-16.
Here’s an example of the seedy underbelly lying beneath George Allen’s “good ol’ boy” exterior – an example of the kind of “common sense leadership” he inspires in his campaign workers: Webb Campaign Steals Marvel Comics “How-To” Art For Flyer. I suppose we’ll be seeing quite a bit more of this kind of rhetoric in the near future.
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An Inconvenient Motivation.
2006-06-16.
Thanks to Dave T. for pointing this out: An embarrassment to Australian science. Apparently the guy that wrote that article bashing Gore’s movie has a monetary interest in debunking global warming. Doh!
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The Sock Puppets Are Winning.
2006-06-16.
Virtucon, apparently the unofficial insult comic blog for the Allen campaign, informed us that Virginians Like Their U.S. Senators – Both of Them. Looks pretty grim. For some bizarre reason, Virginia seems to like having a sock puppet for a Senator.
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The Dixie Chicks Witch Hunt.
2006-06-19.
I’ll admit I’m not a Dixie Chicks fan (though their latest album is pretty good). Most of the Chicks’ material is about girlie stuff – you know, how men are lyin’ cheatin’ bastards and so forth – that doesn’t particularly resonate with me. And – I hesitate to mention this because it might brand me a terrorist-sympathizer – I’m not fond of bluegrassy country music in general.
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How To Spin A Non-Indictment.
2006-06-19.
Compare and contrast.
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The New Boss.
2006-06-19.
The Episcopal Church elected a new Presiding Bishop Sunday. Oh yeah, and she’s a woman. This is perceived as a bold move by American Anglicans.
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The Senate Debate Wars, Episode I.
2006-06-20.
Sigh. Can’t politicians ever agree on anything?
- Commentary
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Long-Range Missiles Are So 1986.
2006-06-20.
I’ll admit I don’t know much about North Korea or why it’s part of the “axis of evil.” (Other than the information found in the excellent documentary Team America: World Police.) Maybe I should read up on that. Especially because of recent news that North Korea is getting ready to test a missile that could potentially reach the west coast. Huh?
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Repeal The Stamp Act!.
2006-06-21.
It would appear that the majority of people in the ECUSA (U.S. Episcopal Church), like our forefathers of the American Revolution defying the Stamp Act of 1765, prefer to thumb their noses at Mother England and the Windsor Report. Maybe that’s a slight over-dramatization of it, but it certainly doesn’t look like there’s much enthusiasm in the General Convention for apologizing about the consecration of Gene Robinson or the blessing of same-sex marriages, let alone reversing those actions. So I guess that means a schism of some sort is inevitable.
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Stamp Act Repeal, Part II.
2006-06-22.
I blogged too soon about the ECUSA – the General Convention, at the last minute, caved in to Mother England. In response to the Windsor Report, the House of Bishops voted to “exercise restraint” in electing bishops “whose manner of life presents a challenge” to the Anglican Communion. While not technically a ban on electing gay bishops, it could be interpreted that way, because it would now take a super amazing gay priest to justify wading through all this political fallout again.
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Well-Intentioned Authoritarian Lunkheads.
2006-06-22.
I got an email recently exhorting me to wear red on Fridays to show my support for our troops. I am sure it was intended to be a friendly gesture of patriotism. But that being said, I was outraged!
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Markos Gains The Moral Bilgewater.
2006-06-22.
I think of Markos as a shrewd latter-day dot-com entrepreneur trying to exploit progressives (actually, it’s more like he’s successfully exploiting progressives). But then I saw Monday’s Midday open thread, and started to think that his dot-com success must be pure luck, because he’s clearly prone to sticking his foot in his mouth. It pains me to point out the same thing that Little Green Footballs did, but lest it be forgotten amidst all the “Ko$ola” accusations swirling around (which I might comment about later) this bit of Kos wisdom deserves to be highlighted again.
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This Week In The Senate Race.
2006-06-23.
A new Zogby poll shows Allen leading Webb by a mere 5.3 points. Democrat blogs are validated, Republican blogs will talk about why political polls are irrelevant. (Isn’t it funny how opinion polls are so useful to support a position, but useless for opposing a position?) Anyway, don’t get too excited, because most people feel Zogby is not a very reliable poll.
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Malkin Coordinates Lockstep Attack On NY Times.
2006-06-23.
It seems sort of ironic that right after wingnut bloggers got done accusing liberal bloggers of “going into lockstep” and “coordinating attacks” and blindly following Markos’s marching orders and whatnot, we find Michelle Malkin, icon of the rightwing blogosphere, encouraging her readers to write the NY Times to express her outrage: NYTimes Blabbermouths Strike Again. GOP Bloggers follows orders: Fight Back Against Media Traitors! Who else will fall into lockstep and repeat Malkin’s call to write to the NY Times?
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Disturbing Daily Kos Analogy.
2006-06-26.
I won’t comment on the so-called Ko$ola scandal, since you can read about it in excruciating detail elsewhere (see background below). Suffice it to say it just reinforces, albeit circumstantially, my existing suspicions about Daily Kos.
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Cut-and-Run Iraqis?.
2006-06-27.
I don’t really feel like writing today (it’s been raining like crazy here on the East Coast, which sucks all the life out of me), but here’s a quick observation: Watching the politics of Iraq is amusing sometimes. I’m pretty sure that Republicans and Democrats and all of America want the exact same thing – for the Iraqi army to defend their own country – yet somehow it’s a divisive, partisan issue. Lately, it looks like the Iraqis might trump everyone by kicking us out.
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Don\’t Tread On Israel.
2006-06-28.
Anyone who thinks the U.S. is a warmongering power should take a look at Israel and rethink that position. It’s not very humanitarian of me, but I kind of admire them for their response to Palestinian terrorists snatching one of their soldiers over the weekend and holding him hostage. Israel basically said, “We will not negotiate – either give him back NOW or we will take him back.” And they meant it.
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Pagan Flag Worship Still An Elusive Dream.
2006-06-28.
Just for the record, I think the flag protection amendment idea is just as silly as the marriage protection amendment idea, if not more so. Why on earth does a flag need so much protection? And why the flag and not anything else?
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Senate Debating The Wrong Metric?.
2006-06-28.
The war in the Senate over the “war” in Iraq was about timetables – Democrats wanted a timetable, but Republicans didn’t. I think “time” was the wrong metric, though. Democrats should have been questioning Iraq in terms of “deliverables.” Ie., what exactly constitutes “victory” in Iraq?
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The Dullest Of Blog Entries.
2006-06-30.
They say the difference between a “real writer” and a “struggling writer” is in their ability to write when they don’t feel like writing. So in that spirit, I am now writing a blog entry even though I don’t particularly feel like it and there is nothing particularly interesting to write about.
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2006-07
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Last Week In The Virginia Senate Race.
2006-07-03.
Dick Wadhams, campaign manager for George Allen, and Steve Jarding, spokesman for Jim Webb, spent the week trading insults over the flag burning amendment (Allen is for it, Webb opposes it). The unfortunately-named Wadhams was trying to bait Webb into “blowing up” by deliberately pushing his buttons. As far as I can tell, nothing in the way of intelligent debate occurred.
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The Lynchmobosphere Stalks The NY Times.
2006-07-03.
I’m pretty baffled about the outrage over the NY Times “revealing” the government’s SWIFT-monitoring program. And as if the SWIFT thing weren’t enough, Michelle Malkin and the puppet minions of the “wingnutosphere” were even further enraged when the NY Times published photos and locations of Donald Rumsfeld and other’s vacation spots. It turns out the NYT did so with Rumsfeld’s permission, but Malkin et al were not deterred in staging a full-scale assault: They’re protesting at the NYT building and publishing the home phone numbers and addresses of NYT editors in retaliation.
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North Korea Tests Catapults.
2006-07-05.
Looks like North Korea is now rivaling Iran for the Tinpot Dictator Of the Month award. But for some reason I still have a hard time taking the ol’ Democratic People’s Republic of Korea seriously. Maybe it was that whole “I’m so rone-ry” song in Team America: World Police that did it.
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Smackdown Tonight.
2006-07-06.
There’s an all-out smackdown happening tonight on MSNBC: The debate between People-Powered Hero Ned Lamont and the Evil, Traitorous Joe Lieberman. They are facing off soon in the Connecticut Democratic primary.
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Thursday\’s Random Links That Don\’t Suck.
2006-07-07.
Let’s face it: 99.9% of the hyperlinks you follow on the Internet lead to content that sucks. To combat this phenomenon, I’m presenting a few topical links that don’t suck.
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Friday’s Random Links That Don’t Suck.
2006-07-07.
Yeah, I know, I’m being lazy today.
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Taking The Plunge.
2006-07-10.
I don’t normally write much on weekends, but I’m accepting the challenge of the “Weekend Without Echoes” proposed by SLANTblog for July 21-23. Not that my participation means much. But I think it’s a great idea, even if it’s kind of sad that it requires an “event” to get people to stop being snarky.
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Alternate View On Dwindling Church Attendance.
2006-07-10.
I’ve always found it annoying when people disparage religion as if it were a hopelessly outdated fad (“that’s soooo 1950s”). Lately I find it even more annoying when conservatives disparage the Episcopal Church. It reminds me of high school cliques – Catholic writers refer to the Episcopal Church the same way that football jocks refer to the chess club.
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Weekend Senate Update.
2006-07-10.
I didn’t see Webb and Allen on Stephanopoulos yesterday, so I don’t have any comment about it. I’ve already made up my mind about the Senate race anyway. There’s no point in confusing the issue by listening to the candidates.
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Monday’s Informative Links.
2006-07-10.
Another in my new series of lazy blogging link-fests, otherwise known as “the things I didn’t have anything to add to.” Feel free to skip if you don’t care what I think is informative reading.
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Thoughts On Slavery Reparations.
2006-07-11.
Yesterday I linked to a story about reparations over slavery. It was also mentioned on the bastion of multicultural sensitivity, Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air blog.
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Israel At War?.
2006-07-12.
My knowledge of the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict is limited, but recent news seems to suggest that the U.S. probably backed Israel for no other reason than the fact that they were the only ones around that didn’t act like impetuous toddlers: Israel sends tanks into Lebanon after Hezbollah attack. Golly, that was a poorly constructed sentence. Thankfully I don’t use a grammar checker.
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Disgusting But Predictable Hypocrisy From RedState.
2006-07-12.
This is pretty funny. It’s hard to quantify the amount of hypocrisy in this RedState post: Disgusting: DCCC Uses Dead Soldiers to Raise Money. Republicans have been using the deaths of Americans on 9/11 for political gain about, oh, every day since 9/11.
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Wednesday’s Informative Links.
2006-07-12.
I actually collected these yesterday and forgot to post them.
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Sad Story From Chincoteague.
2006-07-13.
On the radio this morning I heard about a 16-year-old Chincoteague teen with Hodgkin’s Disease who refuses to undergo a second round of chemotherapy treatment, because the first round didn’t work and he didn’t tolerate the chemo very well. He wants to pursue alternative treatments, and his parents support him. It’s a sad story, but to my way of thinking, not terribly controversial.
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Thursday’s Informative Links.
2006-07-13.
Oh, lovely: Israel: Hezbollah plans to move abducted IDF soldiers to Iran. And: Hezbollah escalates the war in Lebanon, launches rocket attacks in Haifa. Now Bush is giving up secret wiretapping? Specter touts deal on eavesdropping review. Have aliens replaced the president? As Israel and Lebanon meltdown, there’s progress in Iraq: Transfer of Security Responsibility in Muthanna Province. A general’s review of Gitmo: McCaffery on Guantanamo, which summarizes McCaffery’s full memo. The preceding links have been deemed “not to completely suck” by Thomas Krehbiel’s patent-pending content rating system. The system rates the relative merit of Internet content in terms of originality, non-partisanship, grammar, and educational or research value.
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An Island For Israel?.
2006-07-14.
Nothing to talk about today except Israel and Lebanon. I can sum it up pretty quickly: They’re, um, shooting at each other. Again.
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Friday’s Informative Links.
2006-07-14.
Good behind-the-scenes info on Middle East happenings: Important overlooked news on latest Hezbollah attacks. It’s always fun to abuse Ann Coulter and televangelists: Jesusless: The Church of Conservatism. Is it humanly possible to be more narcissistic than this? Woman arrested after 911 call for ‘cute’ deputy. The preceding links have been deemed “not to completely suck” by Thomas Krehbiel’s patent-pending content rating system. The system rates the relative merit of Internet content in terms of originality, irony, non-partisanship, grammar, and educational or research value.
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Israel On The March.
2006-07-17.
Guess what? Israel is invading Lebanon. Well, kind of.
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ADD Media And Belligerentive Bloggers.
2006-07-18.
Apparently an outbreak of war between two countries only warrants a few days of major media coverage. The CNN feed today mainly covered Bush’s un-newsworthy epithet and details of Westerners “fleeing” Lebanon. Pretty much nothing from CNN about the fighting itself or any of the politics surrounding it.
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The Baffling Case Of Bush And The Stem Cells.
2006-07-19.
I’m baffled over this stem cell thing going on in Congress right now. Which is not unusual: Congress generally doesn’t make much sense to me. But I digress.
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Surely He Can\’t Be Serious.
2006-07-19.
I normally consider the Counterterrorism Blog an excellent source of (real) news and insights. This post is no different: The Israeli Incursion into Lebanon: Strategic Considerations. But I have to wonder about one seemingly incongruous point Mr. Gartenstein-Ross makes.
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Happy Thoughts On Capital Punishment.
2006-07-20.
On the radio this morning, they were discussing the impending execution of Brandon Wayne Hedrick, who chose to die by the electric chair instead of by lethal injection. It’s been a big story here in Virginia for the last few days. The guest commentary on the radio show came from the leader of some group opposed to capital punishment.
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Mathematically, Still On The Brink.
2006-07-21.
Back in March, I mathematically concluded that 117 Iraqis would have to die every day for the situation in Iraq to be correctly labeled a “civil war.” The numbers are getting close, but they aren’t there yet. According to a recent report, 14,000 Iraqis have died in the first half of 2006. That works out to an average of around, say, 75 deaths every day.
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Time To Start Wrapping It Up?.
2006-07-21.
Ruh roh: Worst Case Scenario: Hezbollah’s Conventional Forces. When Bill Roggio says the results of ground fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah are “disquieting,” it makes me a little nervous. According to his sources, the Hezbollah ground forces are much stronger than anyone expected.
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Welcome To My Weekend Without Echoes.
2006-07-22.
A Virginia “Weekend Without Echoes” post by Thomas Krehbiel
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Creating Content From A Substantive-less Blogosphere.
2006-07-22.
A Virginia “Weekend Without Echoes” post by Thomas Krehbiel
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The Moral Authority Of The Bible.
2006-07-22.
A Virginia “Weekend Without Echoes” post by Thomas Krehbiel
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My Virginia Representatives In Action.
2006-07-23.
A Virginia “Weekend Without Echoes” post by Thomas Krehbiel
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More From Chincoteague.
2006-07-24.
I heard an update on the story of that 16-year-old from Chincoteague this morning on the radio: The state is forcing him to undergo chemotherapy again. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has a few more details: Teen loses bid to pick treatment. They still don’t say what the odds of successful treatment are, but Jimmy Barrett on the radio implied they were not too good.
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The Silence Of The Left On Israel.
2006-07-24.
I’ve seen some mutterings, most recently at CJR Daily, about why the liberal blogosphere is ignoring the Israel/Hezbollah/Hamas conflict going on right now. To me, it’s pretty simple, and I’m a little surprised it isn’t common knowledge. It has nothing to do with the “complexity” of the Middle East.
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Hopefully, CNN Is Just Confused.
2006-07-26.
I was home sick yesterday, and I saw a somewhat distressing report on CNN. The British anchorwoman reported that Condoleeza Rice had offered a cease-fire proposal to Lebanon that included an international peacekeeping force and a prisoner swap. Nooooooo!
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Not A Slam Dunk For Me Yet.
2006-07-26.
Naomi Oreskes recently wrote a piece in the LA Times telling us about the most recent scientific consensus on global warming: Global Warming – Signed, Sealed and Delivered.
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Yesterday.
2006-07-28.
Yesterday I found basically nothing interesting in the news or blogosphere. I wrote a few paragraphs about Dude, Where’s Your Independence? but when I got home I decided not to embarass myself by posting it because it suffered from what I like to call “pointless rambling crapiness.” So today I’ll just give you the link and say I found Jarding’s attack on George Allen kind of childish.
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Somalia The New Afghanistan?.
2006-07-28.
Now here’s something interesting that nobody’s talking about: Somali minister assassinated. By “interesting,” I really mean “scary,” but at least it’s not the same old “more ways that the UN and the mainstream media hate Israel and love terrorists” news from the Middle East.
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ThatViralMarketerEmily.
2006-07-28.
Some weeks ago, I saw a post somewhere in the Virginia blogosphere about ThatGirlEmily’s blog. I jotted down the link on the 19th and wrote: “I think it’s contrived, but it’s compelling in a can’t-look-away-from-the-train-wreck kind of way: That Girl Emily, the blog of a woman’s revenge against her cheating husband.” It never ended up on my blog, though, because it’s more “pop culture” than “culture wars” material.
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Where’s An EMP When You Need One.
2006-07-31.
I was reading over this typically excellent QandO post, Israel and Qana and “net wars,” and pondering some ways to counter Hezbollah’s advantage. (That advantage being, of course, that they can kill civilians whenever they want without any consequences.) It’s looking more and more like brute force isn’t going to work in a modern war with Islamic terrorists, thanks to the ever-present international media scrutiny.
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2006-08
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Resistance Is Futile? Part 1.
2006-08-02.
This is the first in a three-part ramble on global warming, which ironically begins on a day when it was close to 100 degrees here in Virginia.
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Imbalance In Casualty Coverage.
2006-08-02.
There’s been a lot grumbling in the right-wing blogosphere over how much more attention the media is paying to the civilian casualties in Lebanon as opposed to the civilian casualties in Israel. Most accuse the media of a pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic bias, as is their stock-in-trade.
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Resistance Is Futile? Part 2.
2006-08-02.
This is the second in a three-part ramble on global warming. See also Part 1.
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Resistance Is Futile? Part 3.
2006-08-03.
This is the third in a three-part ramble on global warming. See also Part 1 and Part 2.
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Presidential Semantics.
2006-08-04.
The local feud between SLANTblog and Skeptical Observer has inspired me to remove the following “big name” feud blogs from my newsreader: Daily Kos, GOP Bloggers, Hot Air, Little Green Footballs, Michelle Malkin, and RedState. Daily Kos has been living in a vacuum-sealed Leiberman/Lamont bubble for months now. The other four pour out non-stop snarkiness, day after day after day after day, and it’s gotten pretty tiresome.
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Conspiracy Theories On The Rise.
2006-08-08.
On the way home yesterday, I heard Mac Watson (voted Richmond’s most annoying talk show host) talking to callers about conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11. I was compelled, because Mac Watson normally only talks about incredibly superficial topics during the time I drive home (yesterday I left later than usual). I was further intrigued, because I had also read a CNN story yesterday about how conspiracy theorists were supposedly gaining more credibility because a couple of people with college teaching credentials are on board with the theory.
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If Ned Wins….
2006-08-09.
Blogspot readers: This is yet another post that didn’t get posted on the first try. Yes, Blogspot sucks that much. But hey, it’s free.
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It’s Pandemo-Ned-ium.
2006-08-09.
I haven’t read any news or commentary yet today, mostly because I don’t particularly want to hear anyone gloating about Ned Lamont. His primary win is pretty depressing news.
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All This Spin Is Making Me Dizzy.
2006-08-09.
I just dropped Media Matters from my news reader, thanks to this ridiculously insulting post-primary propaganda: Fox News’ Cameron misrepresented election returns to argue that Lieberman had support among “blue-collar” voters. I thought Media Matters was a media watchdog blog that pointed out instances of conservative bias, but as I’ve grown to suspect and as that post clearly shows, it’s really a media watchdog blog that highlights failures to promote liberal bias.
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People’s Republic Of The Democratic Party?.
2006-08-10.
There’s a lot of scary language in the discussions from Democrats about Lieberman running as an Independent. Everyone is basically calling Lieberman a scurrilous traitor for not succumbing to the will of the Democratic Party. It’s very disturbing – I think it’s because I always thought our elected representatives were supposed to represent The People, not The Party.
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Zen Terrorism.
2006-08-10.
This terrorist plot to blow up planes over the Atlantic doesn’t make much sense to me, when you consider that media coverage is a terrorist’s greatest ally.
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Cockroach Victory.
2006-08-11.
Just when you thought there wasn’t enough propaganda in the world, here comes Hezbollah declaring victory in their little war against Israel. Not only is it a little premature, but it’s sort of like cockroaches declaring they’ve won because they survived a nuclear bomb. Their countryside is ruined, their city’s destroyed, half their population is dead, but they can still crawl out of their underground hiding places and raise their creepy forelimbs in a cheer, so they think they’ve “beaten” the enemy.
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Shut-Out Eleven Straight Years.
2006-08-11.
Reading about terrorist tactics on the Counterterrorism Blog is amusing sometimes. According to an article by Evan Kohlmann, terrorists have to travel to distant camps to “train” for mixing and sneaking liquid explosives onto airplanes, and they’ve been working on this plan since 1995. I mean, come on.
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Cease-Fire Sounds Doomed.
2006-08-14.
News that Hezbollah has told the Lebanese army that they’ll have to pry their (Iranian) guns from their cold, dead fingers doesn’t bode too well for the cease-fire: Lebanon’s ‘real’ soldiers are put in their place. But then one might argue that there shouldn’t even be a cease-fire, because Hezbollah hasn’t returned the two kidnapped Israeli soldiers and won’t be abiding by any International laws or U.N. resolutions anytime soon, and will continue to take hostages and launch rockets whenever they feel like it.
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Missing Egyptians Caught… In Richmond??.
2006-08-14.
Nice. They caught all of the 11 missing Egyptian students: All Missing Egyptian Students in Custody. I’m glad they caught up with the last two, but, erm, what were they doing in Richmond?
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My Understanding Of Hezbollah.
2006-08-15.
Since I’ve thrown all the “big name” liberal blogs out of my reader, I’ve been evaluating various other left-leaning blogs, looking for one or two that aren’t so obsessed with Ned Lamont. Anyway, today I ran across this post on The Agonist: Imagine.
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The War Reviews Keep Coming In.
2006-08-15.
Bill Roggio thinks Hezbollah scored a huge victory: After Action Report: Winners and Losers in the Hezbollah-Israel War.
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What I’ve Learned From Allen’s Racial Slur.
2006-08-16.
I’ve learned… a new racial slur! Though I’m still not quite clear what ethnicity it’s supposed to demean. Indians?
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Media Reports Of Lebanese Reconstruction.
2006-08-17.
I’ve seen several media reports discussing the reconstruction in southern Lebanon, all of which seem to go out of their way to mention that Hezbollah is right there to help out the poor displaced citizens with food, medicine, and money, while everyone else’s relief efforts are slow and ineffectual. The implication, of course, is that Hezbollah is a powerful organization, and much better suited to govern southern Lebanon than anyone else.
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Other Important News.
2006-08-18.
Now that the situation with Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon is completely solved, we can turn our attention to other important news. No, not Iraq, silly. I mean the all-important JonBenet Ramsey case!
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NY Times Reports Haditha Non-News.
2006-08-18.
Blogspot readers: This was originally posted August 18, 2006, 11:14am, but didn’t make it to Blogspot the first time.
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Explicit Complicity.
2006-08-21.
I was reading a CNN story about the recent Israeli commando raid into Lebanon, and this quote jumped out at me.
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The Next Move In The Iranian Chess Match.
2006-08-22.
Let’s check in with Iran to see how the diplomacy to stop the next World War is going. Previously, the UN offered a package of incentives to Iran for them to stop enriching uranium, with the unprecedented support of Russia and China. I don’t remember ever hearing what the incentives actually were, but presumably it was good stuff.
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Webb Pulls Even… Somehow.
2006-08-22.
This is pretty amazing: Despite Webb’s under-funded non-campaign, a new SurveyUSA poll shows he’s now basically tied with Allen, 48-45. Not that I’m complaining, but how does he do it? He did the same thing to Harris Miller in the primary – no money, no advertising, no message – and he still won.
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Just Get It Over With.
2006-08-22.
The big story here in Richmond is whether Ricky Gray will receive life in prison or the death penalty for the Harvey family murders. The jury is currently in its second day of deliberating punishment (it took them all of 30 minutes to decide he was guilty).
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Bring On The Sanctions.
2006-08-23.
Great news! Iran is still leading us toward the next World War! They refused the package of incentives the UN offered for them to give up nuclear enrichment, offering instead a meaningless counter-proposal.
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A Look At Iraq, Part 1.
2006-08-23.
I’ve been thinking about Iraq lately. For some reason, this week seems like a good time to re-evaluate what’s going on there.
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Reason Prevails In Prague.
2006-08-24.
I, for one, am glad they kicked Pluto out of the Solar System, rather than re-defining the planets to include it. The last thing our Solar System needs is a tenth planet named after Xena, Warrior Princess.
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A Look At Iraq, Part 2.
2006-08-25.
Last time, we learned that, for our own interests and those of the civilians in Iraq, we can’t leave until the Iraqi government can function on its own. Otherwise, we leave Iraq ripe for takeover, just like Somalia is now.
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Slow Monday.
2006-08-28.
Ye gods, there’s nothing at all to write about. The Islamic Courts Union continues to take over Somalia, making them a possible future target in the war on terror. The media continues to desperately hope that a massive super-hurricane blows into New Orleans this season.
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High School Bible Study?.
2006-08-28.
Here’s something different from the usual body counts and scare-mongering hurricane watches: While skimming over Ahh, the Tolerance of Mudcat Sanders on LeanLeft, I saw that one of the platforms of the Democratic Party in Alabama is to teach Bible literacy in public schools. I can’t verify whether that’s actually true or not, since nobody gave me a convenient link to follow and the Alabama Democratic Party web page is hopelessly complicated, but let’s assume it’s true.
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Sharia Creeps Into Zanzibar.
2006-08-31.
I’m sure my throngs of adoring fans have wondered what’s up: It’s been a combination of a slow news week and a busy work week. Anyway, today I noticed this curious example of impending Sharia law on CNN: Zanizibar Muslim leader: Ban Freddie Mercury party. I, for one, was personally offended by this news because Queen is one of the most musically-talented and technologically-superior bands in history, and any move to ban a celebration of their members or their work is tantamount to crushing the human creative spirit under the iron bootheel of fascism.
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Ernesto, Day 1.
2006-08-31.
We’re hunkering down for Ernesto here in Richmond. In the spirit of those brave bloggers who fought off the looters and stayed online in New Orleans last year, I’ll also try to stay online and report on this disaster.
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A Pause To Scold Blogspot.
2006-08-31.
On the off chance anyone is reading this from a Blogger or Feedburner RSS feed, you might be wondering about the seemingly random order of posts. For example, this post that I wrote first thing Monday morning would have just shown up in the RSS feed today (Thursday). The reason?
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Ernesto, Day 1 Update.
2006-08-31.
A quick update. The radio said Ernesto was racing toward the coastline, now at tropical storm strength. They said it will be impacting our weather starting tomorrow morning, so it’s vitally important that we stay tuned to Richmond’s Morning News with Jimmy Barrett for all our weather-related news.
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2006-09
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Ernesto, Day 2.
2006-09-01.
Back for a second. Will post while I can. Ernesto is still bearing down on us.
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Ernesto Wrap-up.
2006-09-05.
Sadly, Ernesto timed its appearance to coincide with Labor Day weekend, so several great comedic posts went unwritten by this not-very-dedicated blogger. You’ll just have to trust me when I say they would have been hilarious. Unless you don’t think parodies of frenetic media coverage of natural disasters is funny, or you suffered some unfortunate personal loss of life or property from the storm, in which case you probably would have been shocked and enraged by my lack of sensitivity.
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Same Propaganda, Different Week.
2006-09-05.
It’s still hard to find anything meaningful to write about in all this political blather over Iraq. Republicans say we have to stay in Iraq to stabilize the region and fight the growing terrorist threat, blah, blah blah. Democrats say we have to leave Iraq to stabilize the region and the terrorists will die out, blah, blah blah (and, by the way, fire Rumsfeld).
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Aw, Leave The Poor Guy Alone.
2006-09-06.
It seems like everyone thinks Donald Rumsfeld is single-handedly responsible for everything bad that’s happened over the last 5 years, and simply removing him from office will immediately restore the world to the happy Utopian paradise it was before 2001. Personally I think people are giving him a little too much credit. It’s like an owner firing the head coach of a losing football team in the middle of the season in the hope that it will “spark” the team to win more.
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Taliban Who?.
2006-09-07.
I am shocked – shocked! – that nobody is talking about Katie. (At least nobody in my daily reads.) Perhaps it’s because she behaves just like any other generic anchor chained to a news entertainment business that’s desperate for ratings.
- Commentary
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The Fronts Are Everywhere.
2006-09-08.
President Bush has been pouring on the rhetoric lately and claiming that Iraq is The Front in the global war on terror, or something to that effect. I think that’s a bit misleading. I agree that it’s one of the fronts in “the war,” but I think there are quite a few other fronts, too.
- Commentary
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Rush On The War.
2006-09-08.
Rush Limbaugh sounded off on Katie’s “free speech” segment last night, because if there’s one thing Rush Limbaugh needs, it’s a public forum to express his opinions. Overall I thought his spiel was okay, but he snuck in a couple of head-scratchers.
- Commentary
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My 9/11 Tribute.
2006-09-11.
As you know, today is the anniversary of William Wallace’s defeat of the English at Stirling Bridge. Let’s all take a moment to remember where we were on that fateful day.
- Commentary
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George Allen On The Radio.
2006-09-11.
Oh… I heard George Allen briefly on the radio this morning (you can find the interview at WRVA’s site, if you have the slightest interest in anything a politician has to say). I don’t remember much of anything he said during the interview, except something about trying to be a father figure for one of his neighbor’s kids who had lost his father in the Pentagon attack on 9/11 (gag), but I explicitly remember the way he ended the interview.
- Commentary
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The Virginia 9/11 Memorial Post Toll.
2006-09-11.
Humans have a particular fascination with Death Tolls, so in that spirit, I’d like to create the Virginia 9/11 Memorial Post Toll.
- Commentary
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Olberman Isn’t Above Spin, Either.
2006-09-13.
Keith Olberman’s This Hole In The Ground speech is making the rounds of liberal blogs. The Agonist went so far as to call the speech “true courage.”
- Commentary
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A Couple Of Links.
2006-09-13.
It’s been a busy day building SSIS custom data source components, plus there’s nothing new or interesting happening in the world today, unless you’re interested in why Anna Nichole Smith’s son died.
- Commentary
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Bits From The News.
2006-09-14.
Links = Laziness.
- Commentary
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Updated Mission Statement, September 2006.
2006-09-15.
I noticed I hadn’t updated my mission statement on the Blogspot front page in ages, so here’s a new revision, which was largely stolen from my introductory Weekend Without Echoes post, which could probably be considered some sort of irony.
- Commentary
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It’s Time For An Exciting Senate Update!.
2006-09-15.
In case you’re wondering what’s going on in the Virginia senate race, here’s a quick update: Jim Webb’s staffers made fun of something George Allen said, which was echoed and amplified in the Virginia liberal blogosphere. Then George Allen’s staffers made fun of something Jim Webb said, which was echoed and amplified in the Virginia conservative blogosphere. This process has repeated itself about seventy-three times.
- Commentary
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Debate Watched Successfully.
2006-09-18.
It was sometimes hard to hear the debate/dual-interview on Meet The Press over Mrs. Krehbiel’s virulent cursing whenever George Allen spoke, but I observed: George Allen is definitely a professional politician; that is, he failed to answer almost every single question directly. Instead, he recited Bush’s talking points almost word-for-word. I also happily noted that Jim Webb has made great progress in cutting the “ums” out of his speaking.
- Commentary
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Who Broke Up With Who?.
2006-09-19.
Looks like the media focus for today is the important topic of whether or not President Bush will get into a fist-fight with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the hallways of the UN. Serious Jerry Springer fans want to know.
- Commentary
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Busy Days.
2006-09-21.
Busy, busy, busy. No time for frivolous things like the legality of torture.
- Commentary
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Friday Wrap-up.
2006-09-22.
Let’s see, what’s been happening this week? I haven’t been paying much attention actually. Looks like a plan will be going forward to try the Gitmo detainees without having to re-write GC Article III.
- Commentary
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The Ethics Of Allen-Bashing.
2006-09-25.
Good news, everybody! According to former teammates, Allen used the “N-word” in college.
- Commentary
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A Glance At Military Commissions.
2006-09-28.
Another busy work week with it being the end of the fiscal year and all. Not much time to decipher the news of the day. After just a glance, I think I’m okay with the new bill to allow military commissions for terrorists.
- Commentary
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More Lamentation On The State Of Democracy.
2006-09-29.
Here’s one good thing about researching the potential Senate candidates and making your voting decision early in the year: You don’t have to pay attention to the actual campaigning, which is really just a big playground fight between the opposing campaign managers and has little or nothing to do with the candidates themselves. The drawback, of course, is that you get to watch the quality of public discourse plummet to new lows during the time you’re waiting to vote, and you come to the inevitable realization that elections are decided not by issues, but by manipulation of mass media. The key to victory, it seems, is to ensure that the media spends more time covering an accusation than a refutation, and lean on the average voter’s lack of political knowledge.
- Commentary
2006-10
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Recent Discourses In Politics.
2006-10-02.
I guess that old joke about incumbents having to be caught with a dead girl or a live boy to lose an election isn’t so funny anymore, in light of Mark Foley’s resignation following hinky emails to teen page boys.
- Commentary
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Musharraf On Tour.
2006-10-03.
Pakistani President Musharraf has been making the talk show rounds on his book tour lately. (One has to wonder how the president of an entire country has the time to write a book and go on a tour, or why he would need the money or the publicity, but that’s a different story.) He seems like a nice man and an intellectual on television, but who knows what kind of person lurks behind that quaintly amusing accent. He’s said more than once that the deal he made with the Taliban in Waziristan is in everyone’s best interests, and that the Taliban will uphold their agreement to end violence, but Bill Roggio observed otherwise yesterday: Pakistan’s Problems in Waziristan and Beyond.
- Commentary
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Foley Thoughts In Context.
2006-10-04.
Somehow, a Congressman’s instant messages are getting just as much attention as a madman shooting five Amish schoolgirls in the head, execution-style.
- Commentary
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Welcome To Web 2.0.
2006-10-05.
I saw on Crowhill that one of Michelle Malkin’s videos (something about Islamic violence) got pulled from YouTube. This struck me as funny. :) And not just because Malkin, a la the best war profiteers, is personally profiting from the culture wars.
- Commentary
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Welcome To Web 2.0, Part 2.
2006-10-05.
A short addendum to my post on Malkin’s video getting pulled from YouTube: 1) Now that I’m home, I can verify that there is a “Flag as Inappropriate” link right below each video, though admittedly you have to login to use that feature. (Not a problem for bots.) 2) I don’t dispute that dhimmitude was the motivation for wanting to yank Malkin’s videos, I just don’t think YouTube submitted to dhimmitude so much as they submitted to a flaw in the peer-review system.
- Commentary
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My First Activism.
2006-10-06.
I’ve never been much of a political activist, but this Marshall/Newman Amendment proposal here in Virginia annoys me. You know, the one that supposedly amends the Virginia constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.
- Commentary
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North Korea Back In The News.
2006-10-10.
Last we heard from North Korea (or, as the bloggers have suddenly started calling it, NoKo), they were test-firing medium- and long-range missiles over the Japan Sea. (The long-range missile failed.) Now, apparently they’re exploding nuclear weapons underground. There is some question from seismologists about whether it was really a nuclear explosion and not just a conventional explosion, though.
- Commentary
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New Study Hard To Believe.
2006-10-11.
There’s this new study out that claims 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war, where it was previously estimated to be somewhere around 50,000. I find it rather hard to believe, especially considering their method of research: Walking around to private homes and asking the people that live there. Human nature dictates that people always exaggerate, and I’m quite sure that the average person doesn’t keep accurate records of the number of people dying around them anyway.
- Commentary
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Kinda Small For A Nuke.
2006-10-16.
According to FOX News, the U.S. is now confirming that North Korea did in fact detonate a nuclear device the other day. (There was some question about it before.) They say it was around 1 kiloton, though, which is really small for a nuke. (For comparison, Hiroshima was 13-16 kilotons and Nagasaki was 20-22 kilotons, and the B83, currently the most powerful U.S. nuke, is 1.2 megatons, or 1,000 times more powerful.) That may sound like it’s no big deal, and from a military standpoint, it isn’t.
- Commentary
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Book Burning Coming Soon.
2006-10-17.
There’s an attempt underway by some of the more desperate elements of the Virginia conservative blogosphere (aka. Allen’s A-Team and co.)–who not too long ago wrote, “let’s get back to the issues”–to focus on the campaign issue of racy content in Jim Webb’s novels. The gist of the argument is that Webb’s personal credibility as a Senator should be scrutinized because of the questionable conduct of fictional characters in his books.
- Commentary
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Fretting Over North Korea.
2006-10-18.
The solution to North Korea remains elusive, and the situation appears on-pace to escalate into a really, really bad scrum someday. Most liberal blogs advocate abandoning the six-party talks and negotiating with them one-on-one, but I fail to see how that’s a position of strength, or how that would solve anything. (Besides, that’s apparently what Clinton did, and it didn’t work either.) It sounds more like giving in to a toddler throwing a tantrum to me.
- Commentary
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Unusual Abortion Followup.
2006-10-20.
Here’s a followup to an incident I commented on several months ago about a woman who shot herself in the stomach to induce an abortion. Apparently the felony case against her, which could have resulted in up to 10 years in prison, was dropped because of some legal technicalities.
- Commentary
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On Michael J. Fox.
2006-10-27.
I’ve been silent lately partly because of a newfound fascination with World of Warcraft, and partly because of a complete lack of interest in writing about campaign politics, which seems to be the dominant topic in the world lately. But here’s a few quick blurbs.
- Commentary
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On New Jersey.
2006-10-27.
On the recent New Jersey decision: My marriage doesn’t feel the slightest bit different. It’s very difficult for me to wrap my mind around how people can honestly believe the Republican line that marriage is “under attack,” especially from something as infrequent as gay marriage (as opposed to, say, rampant divorce). It seems like people with such beliefs would have trouble with basic motor coordination, let alone any kind of higher cognitive thoughts.
- Commentary
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On Webb’s Novels.
2006-10-27.
My opinion about Allen’s people using Webb’s novels against him is the same as it was when it was just some silly blogs doing it. It’s borderline-fascist anti-art propaganda, but a predictable desperation smear tactic. (I’m sure if Allen wrote fiction, Webb’s people would be doing it too.)
- Commentary
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Rush And Ann On Fox.
2006-10-30.
I saw somewhere that Rush and Ann were up in arms for being demonized over speaking up against Michael J. Fox’s commercial, because (according to them) part of the liberal strategy is to use people with disabilities to advance the liberal agenda so everyone will feel sorry for them and cave in.
- Commentary
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New Lease On Life For Hubble.
2006-10-31.
I’m heartened to see NASA announce plans to repair the Hubble telescope. Granted, it only extends the lifetime from 2009 to 2013, but since we have shuttle flights going up there anyway and we have the capability to fix it, I don’t see why we shouldn’t keep it running as long as possible. (Personally, I’d place a higher priority on the telescope than the space station, but that’s just me.)
- Commentary
2006-11
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Allen’s Stalker.
2006-11-01.
I hate to complain when awkward situations come up for George Allen, but this security incident has all the markings of a setup. I mean, a left-wing blogger, inspired by Michael Moore’s stalker movie Roger and Me, tries to ask Allen an awkward question (by shouting at him) right in front of the press? Come on.
- Commentary
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Kerry’s Unfortunate Misstatement.
2006-11-02.
This is old news now (or should be, at least), but I couldn’t post yesterday.
- Commentary
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The Three Amendment Proposals.
2006-11-02.
Last week, I came across this: Did you know there is more than one ballot amendment? To my surprise, I didn’t know there was more than the minority-hating amendment on the ballot. There’s actually 3 amendments.
- Commentary
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Last Stand In Somalia.
2006-11-03.
While everyone here is busy making nasty political ads, Bill Roggio reports that Somalia is about to fall completely into the hands of the bad guys: The Somalia Showdown.
- Commentary
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The Big Game.
2006-11-07.
For people who enjoy the “game” of politics, today is like the Super Bowl. Pundits have spent months hyping the game, analyzing every possible matchup, and making learned predictions, and the coaches have drawn up elaborate plans and strategies for victory. Today the fans are packed into the stadium and everyone else is glued to their televisions.
- Commentary
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Freedom Is On The March… Away From Virginia.
2006-11-08.
In the harsh light of the morning after the political and media orgy known as Midterm Elections, we can now see that 57% of Virginia voters supported changing the constitution to make second class citizens out of unmarried couples. One has to wonder how many of those voters actually thought they were voting to prevent gay marriage. Idiots.
- Commentary
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Random Post-Election Thoughts.
2006-11-13.
Thank God it’s over.
- Commentary
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A Dissertation On The State Of Iraq.
2006-11-21.
It’s almost impossible to imagine a satisfying result in Iraq anymore.
- Commentary
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Tuesday Links.
2006-11-28.
I’m weary of opining, so I’m going to fall back on throwing out some links to stories that I found informative.
- Commentary
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On Free Will.
2006-11-29.
Scott Adams (the Dilbert guy) has a thing about free will. He visits the topic often on his blog, and this post of his is supposed to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that free will does not exist.
- Commentary
2006-12
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More Republican Distractions.
2006-12-06.
Perhaps this is another example of the Bush administration trying to distract attention away from Iraq: On the same day that the Iraq Study Group is releasing its uber-hyped report advising a withdrawal from Iraq by 2008, CNN is spamming the news that Vice President Cheney’s lesbian daughter is pregnant. Oh, those tricksy Republicans.
- Commentary
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Car Fires.
2006-12-11.
This is completely off-topic, but on the traffic report this morning I heard about another “car fire” slowing down traffic in the Richmond area. As it turned out, when I drove past the affected area, there was no fiery car to be found and traffic was completely normal, but that’s not the point here. Actually, it’s part of the point.
- Commentary
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Today’s Laughing Stock.
2006-12-13.
I first saw this mentioned by Vivian Paige. This is not a sarcastic bit from the Daily Show. This World Net Daily article is real: Soy is making kids ‘gay’.
- Commentary
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The Agonist Goes All Wacko.
2006-12-13.
This is an outrage: Sovereignty and Somalia. I’m appalled that The Agonist is trying to characterize the Islamic Courts Union’s takeover of Somalia as a good thing. More than that, he’s saying it’s good for the people of Somalia.
- Commentary
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The Downside Of Accountability.
2006-12-26.
You may have noticed I haven’t had much to say lately. :) The election is over, and the news is pretty much the same thing day in and day out, and the various fights between high-profile bloggers are not terribly interesting after the first 723 iterations.
- Commentary
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Sample Of Virginia Blogosphere Activity.
2006-12-27.
The Virginia political blogosphere is (mostly) a cesspool of incestuous, self-indulgent children with dreams of working from home so they don’t have to get a real job. There, I said it. The secret’s out.
- Commentary
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Sun Tzu And The Art Of Blog Warfare.
2006-12-27.
I flippantly mentioned SWAC Girl in my last post, who is a relatively new fixture on the Virginia political scene. I’ve seen her special brand of conservative thought in the Virginia Political Blog aggregator from time to time, but I haven’t read her posts too extensively. (They generally got tiresome after the first sentence or two.) I just figured she was yet another rabid George Allen supporter with too much spare time on her hands, trying to turn to the new-fangled Internets blog medium to get her pre-Women’s Suffrage message out before the elections.
- Commentary
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Virginia Blogosphere Sample, Part Two: The Smackdown.
2006-12-27.
Update: Waldo has taken down the Virginia Political Blogs aggregator. Sort of. He just renamed it Waldo’s Virginia Political Blogroll: “A totally biased and unreasonable list of blogs that I think you might enjoy reading.” He promises, “The number of blogs in my blogroll will drop substantially before too long.” Pretty hilarious.
- Commentary
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Scandal Body Count Rises.
2006-12-28.
I’m finding this “Waldo scandal” and its aftermath really entertaining. I must be incredibly bored this week. Anyway, I apologize for talking about this again, but it’s like watching a train wreck.
- Commentary
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On Virgil Goode.
2006-12-28.
In an effort to get back “on topic,” I offer my 2 cents on Rep. Virgil Goode: I think he’s entitled to his opinion, and I don’t think his opposition to Rep. Keith Ellison swearing on a Koran is grounds for censure. I just think it makes him (Goode) stubborn and wrong. But he’s not my representative so it doesn’t really matter to me.
- Commentary
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Playing Catchup On The Debate.
2006-12-29.
I’ll admit I’m playing catch-up on this Virgil Goode story. Sorry, I haven’t really been paying attention to the blogosphere much, well, most of this month. :)
- Commentary
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A Dream Fulfilled.
2006-12-29.
My dreams of getting a mention on The Daily Whackjob have finally come true! (Just for the record, I know I was being redundant, but Mrs. Krehbiel relies on me to summarize the entire content of the blogosphere for her. :)
- Commentary
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To Ignore Or Not To Ignore.
2006-12-29.
Wow, this is fun. I haven’t written this much in a while.
- Commentary
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Crooks and Liars and Elves and Unicorns.
2006-12-30.
The occasion of Saddam’s largely meaningless demise gives us at least one colorful example of extreme partisan blogging from the left: The Farce Goes On.
- Commentary
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On Riverbend.
2006-12-30.
Alice and Mrs. Krehbiel both took me to task for criticizing Iraqi blogger Riverbend, so I went and read over some of her blog today. I have to somewhat shamefully admit that I haven’t read her work in a while.
- Commentary
2007-01
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Year End Loose Ends: Haditha.
2007-01-01.
I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time, since it was a story I was following with some interest throughout the year. I read recently that four Marines involved in the alleged killing of 24 civilians at Haditha are now being charged with murder.
- Commentary
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Year End Loose Ends: Somalia.
2007-01-01.
Somalia seems to confirm that Iraq is the model for warfare of the future.
- Commentary
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Silly Microsoft Clipart Doodle Comics!.
2007-01-01.
Ripped from the Virginia blogosphere headlines.
- Commentary
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Migrated To New Blogger.
2007-01-02.
Administrative note: If you haven’t noticed, I migrated The Krehbiel Strikes Back over to the “new and improved” Blogger service, and I have no idea what impact that might have on the reader’s experience. I do know that it has made it much more difficult and tedious for me to post, though, since they completely changed the Atom interface without warning me ahead of time.
- Commentary
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New Years Blogging Resolutions.
2007-01-02.
Here’s a few of my news years blogging resolutions so I can refer to them later.
- Commentary
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On I’m Not Emeril’s Religion Of Peace.
2007-01-03.
Old Dominion Blog Alliance member I’m Not Emeril recently wrote a defense of Virgil Goode’s suspicions about the religion of Islam. Fellow ODBA member SWAC Girl wrote that it was a “well-researched article on the subject that needs to be read.”
- Commentary
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When Bloggers Attack Keith Ellison.
2007-01-03.
From the SWAC Pack
- Commentary
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Layout Changes Ahead.
2007-01-04.
Administrative Note: I am currently playing with new Blogger layout templates so the appearance of the blog will undoubtedly change randomly and without warning. Hopefully I won’t destroy any of the content in the process.
- Commentary
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Henrico County Government For Dummies.
2007-01-04.
I’ve written this cheat sheet to learn more about my local government.
- Commentary
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The SWAC Defenders Of Freedom And Goode.
2007-01-04.
I’m continuing to monitor communications from the SWAC bloggers, because it’s fun, and, you know, Waldo censored them, so there’s no possible way for you guys to see their blogs anymore. Anyway, it’s pretty informative stuff. Pat Robertson revealed that God will allow a major terrorist attack on a U.S. city later this year–what revelations will come from the SWAC Pack?
- Commentary
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The Goode Position.
2007-01-06.
Virgil Goode and his supporters apparently want to keep the immigration debate on the front burner. So let’s take a peek at it.
- Commentary
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Iraq versus Highways.
2007-01-08.
I keep telling people that serving in Iraq is probably safer than driving to work on Interstate 95 every day, but nobody seems to believe me.
- Commentary
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Of Canadian Sharia And Tolerance.
2007-01-08.
Elle at In-Politically Correct, one of the Virginia SWAC Bloggers, wrote this surprisingly good post: Sharia Law in Canada?
- Commentary
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Virginia Bills Under Consideration.
2007-01-09.
In my effort to learn more about local and state politics, I’ve been perusing some of the new bills that the Virginia General Assembly will be discussing, and I came across this interesting gem: From our good friend and Catholic police state advocate Bob Marshall, of the recent Marshall/Newman Amendment fame, comes a new bill proposing to automatically make abortion illegal in Virginia if Roe v. Wade is overturned federally. Does he know something we don’t or is he just being optimistic?
- Commentary
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A Post-Mortem On Discussion.
2007-01-10.
There comes a time when “discussion” is no longer fruitful. I tried to challenge some of the beliefs of the SWAC Bloggers on In-Politically Correct today, but I guess I’m wasting my time. I tried to be polite on their blog but I don’t need to do that so much here.
- Commentary
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On Indonesia And The 10% That Support Suicide Bombings.
2007-01-10.
I mentioned in my last post that I didn’t know much about the state of terrorism in Indonesia, so I did a little web research.
- Commentary
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A Small Clarification.
2007-01-10.
I just noticed that I had written yesterday, “Religion is just a hook used to recruit people who would otherwise be common criminals.” I didn’t mean to say religious people are common criminals, obviously. :) I meant that common criminals can be drawn into terrorist groups through the use of, say, radical Islam.
- Commentary
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Wherein I Shut Down The Debate Again.
2007-01-10.
It’s really tempting to make up a cute graphic and a cheesy slogan to put at the top of my posts regarding the SWAC Bloggers.
- Commentary
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Something Less Confrontational: The Speech.
2007-01-11.
I was sick of hearing about the President’s stinkin’ speech several days before it was even delivered, and the speech blogstorm is mostly over by now anyway (that speech was soooo 12 hours ago!), so I’m not going to add much more about it.
- Commentary
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An Excuse For A Silly Sketch Comic.
2007-01-12.
Now that I’ve exposed the SWAC Propaganda campaign, it should come as no surprise that this post from In-Politically Correct condemning the Democrat’s stem cell research bill and supporting amniotic stem cell research is missing a few key facts that would help an objective reader make an informed decision on the stem cell issue.
- Commentary
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Twelve A Day?.
2007-01-12.
Sheesh. I can’t hardly get through one misleading SWAC Blogger post before another misleading SWAC Blogger post shows up in my reader: Political Correctness Will Kill Us … Part 8. I can’t keep up!
- Commentary
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How To Cherry-Pick From A Reagan Speech.
2007-01-13.
“Tonight, I want to speak to the people of the Soviet Union, to tell them it’s true that our governments have had serious differences, but our sons and daughters have never fought each other in war. And if we Americans have our way, they never will.
- Commentary
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Theories About Bush’s New Way Forward.
2007-01-13.
The pundit shows have been hammering the same message over and over again, which is basically, “Bush must be insane to threaten Iran and Syria.” Democrats and even some Republicans appear to be conveying the same message.
- Commentary
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This Just In: Olbermann Is Annoying.
2007-01-13.
I don’t just hate Leftophobic propaganda from Staunton. For example, I also find Olbermann’s “special commentaries,” which should more accurately be described as, “angry, personal attacks against President Bush to get ratings,” really annoying. One expects those kind of rants from Rightophobic bloggers, but from the host of what is advertised as a “news” show?
- Commentary
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Nancy Pelosi and Big Tuna?.
2007-01-16.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually saw something interesting on RightsideVA (one of the SWAC blogs) over the weekend: Congress starting to smell “Fishy” already… I’m surprised this issue isn’t getting more attention, but I guess “the surge” is eclipsing everything else right now. Not to mention the new season of 24.
- Commentary
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What’s In A Label?.
2007-01-16.
A SWAC Blogger implied in a comment on his blog that I was “throwing out” words like bigot, xenophobe, and Islamophobe, perhaps suggesting that I was “smearing” them or had no sense of what the words meant. Vince mentioned something similar in a comment here. So I want to go back to my earlier post for a minute, where I wrote, referring to the SWAC bloggers: ‘Just about every word out of their mouths offers further proof that they are quite deserving of the harsh labels “bigot,” “Islamophobic,” and/or “xenophobic.”’
- Commentary
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Frank Hargrove Defense Watch.
2007-01-17.
Hanover Delegate Frank Hargrove’s embarrassing remarks are well-documented. Supposedly they even made national news. I won’t repeat what he said because I wouldn’t want to be accused of “macacing” anyone, but I thought they were hilarious.
- Commentary
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I’m Not Emeril’s Religion Of Peace, Part 2.
2007-01-18.
For those that missed it, Alton Foley (“I’m Not Emeril”) left a comment responding to I’m Not Emeril’s Religion Of Peace on my creaky old home page last night. My response follows his comment.
- Commentary
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Frank Hargrove Defense Watch, Part 2.
2007-01-18.
Barticles, a blog which for some reason is now appearing as an opinion column on the Richmond Times-Dispatch web site (did I miss something?), wrote that “most responses support him [Hargrove].” I don’t know where he’s getting that information from, because so far I’ve only counted four clear Hargrove-supporting posts going through the BlogNetNews aggregator for the Virginia blogosphere.
- Commentary
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Oh My, A Chinese Satellite Killer.
2007-01-19.
Wow, I just saw this: U.S. official: Chinese test missile obliterates satellite. That’s some scary stuff right there. The only consolation is that it only has a 25% success rate so far.
- Commentary
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When Google AdWords Fail.
2007-01-19.
While browsing the blogosphere, I came across this hilariously ironic sight at the top of West of Shockoe, a left-wing blog in Virginia.
- Commentary
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CAIR Tries To Pull An AFA Trick.
2007-01-19.
I agree with Squeaky Wheel’s thoughts about CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim lobbyist group with suspected ties to terrorism) being upset about the new season of 24: Islamic PC Police Attack ‘24’ While Continuing To Ignore The Cause and Focus On The Symptoms. CAIR should get over it. Offended Muslims should watch something else.
- Commentary
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Semantics Over Candles And Signs.
2007-01-20.
I’ve criticized the CASTLE bloggers (aka. oasis + launchpad) a lot lately so I figure it’s only fair that I also say I approve of their campaign to use candles and signs to show support for the troops, as reported in the Staunton News Leader: Candles support troops; signs call for victory. There’s not a thing wrong with it, and I applaud their conviction.
- Commentary
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Silly Sketch Comic: Delegate Hargrove Mends Fences.
2007-01-21.
[…]
- Commentary
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Thoughts On The Next President.
2007-01-22.
With the presidential race “heating up”–or, as I like to think of it, “just barely getting started”–I figured I should take some time to ponder what kind of president appeals to me.
- Commentary
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Joe Blackburn Challenges Walter Stosch In The 12th.
2007-01-23.
Continuing my effort to pay more attention to local politics, I see Not Larry Sabato is reporting that 12th District Virginia State Senate incumbent Walter Stosch will be challenged in the Republican primary by one Joe Blackburn. I don’t know anything about this Blackburn guy, but here is his campaign website, such as it is: www.joeblackburnforsenate.com. He says he’s a “commonsense conservative,” whatever that means.
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Modern Secession.
2007-01-23.
I sometimes wonder what kind of political situation would be so divisive that states might try to secede from the Union again. This came to mind again recently when Virginia legislators proposed that the Commonwealth acknowledge the wrongs of slavery, and a flood of pro-Confederacy people bubbled up to the surface here in the Virginia blogosphere. I have to admit I was a little shocked and awed at the vehement, almost violent reactions of some of these Virginians.
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Hard-Hitting SOTU 2007 Observations.
2007-01-24.
Here are some hard-hitting SOTU observations you won’t find anywhere else! (Mrs. Krehbiel also contributed to this list, though she probably doesn’t realize she was doing so.)
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Civilian Reserve Corps?.
2007-01-25.
One other part of the State of the Union address that jumped out at me was the president’s call for a Civilian Reserve Corps.
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Virginia Guardsmen Fall.
2007-01-25.
It’s been reported in the local news a lot, but it’s well worth noting again that two of the twelve soldiers who died in the Black Hawk helicopter crash near Baghdad this past weekend were Virginia Guardsmen: Va. copter-crash victims recalled.
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Virgil Goode: Cervical Savior.
2007-01-25.
RICHMOND, VA - Pregnant women of America can sleep sounder knowing that Virgil Goode is the only Congressman willing to take a stand against the growing problem of Muslims slapping gynecologists. As reported by Spank That Donkey, a wave of Muslim violence directed at male gynecologists has recently spread across the country of France, with nearly a single incident being reported in one Paris hospital. In that incident, an enraged Muslim, upset that his wife was treated after childbirth by a male doctor instead of the female doctor that he requested, attacked his wife’s gynecologist, hurling verbal insults, and viciously slapping and shoving him.
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Walter Stosch and PayDay Loans.
2007-01-26.
Continuing my observations of local politics, I perked up this morning when I heard Virginia 12th District General Assembly Senator Walter Stosch talking on the radio about his bill to repeal the Payday Loan Act here in Virginia. Apparently it’s not going so well; he didn’t seem optimistic about the bill’s passage.
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BlogAd Revenue Revisited.
2007-01-29.
Last year I looked at how much the big name bloggers make in advertising. I thought it would be fun to revisit that subject to see how things might have changed in the new year, so I went back over to BlogAds and looked through their price list.
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Moving .NET Web Projects.
2007-01-30.
I’ve had some annoying problems opening other people’s ASP.NET web projects from Visual SourceSafe. By default, it sets up the local IIS directory in C:\Inetpub\wwwroot regardless of the location of the solution directory. I prefer setting up a virtual directory that points to the actual project location, which for me is on the D: drive.
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Olbermann Rhetoric Busting.
2007-01-31.
I saw another of Olbermann’s “Special Commentaries” last night. This time he tried to fact check the president’s SOTU claims of foiling four terrorist plots. One could almost imagine Olbermann’s outrage at the very idea of the president taking credit for any positive steps in the global war on terror, and his single-minded conviction to overturn those claims of counterterrorism success, no matter how far he had to stretch for evidence.
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2007-02
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Biden Announces, Shoots Foot.
2007-02-01.
Sen. Joseph Biden announced his official intention to run for president in 2008 and simultaneously ensured he will lose every Democratic primary all in one fell swoop: Biden Says He’s In…Again.
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Times-Dispatch Discusses Virginia Diocese Split.
2007-02-02.
Mrs. Krehbiel pointed me to these two Richmond Times-Dispatch articles with opposing viewpoints on the recent Episcopal Church split here in Virginia: . . .
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Obligatory Football Post.
2007-02-05.
Two quick, off-topic football notes in honor of the Super Bowl: 1) The Super Bowl MVP voting process is hopelessly broken. The real MVP was Kelvin Hayden, who intercepted an errant pass from Grossman and ran it back for the final Colts touchdown, putting the game away. Before that interception, the Bears were (amazingly) still one big, lucky play away from winning the game, and even had some momentum following their last field goal.
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Global Warming Beliefs.
2007-02-05.
I’m concerned that some people still misunderstand my position on global warming. I think the misunderstanding is a result of black-and-white thinking on the subject – that is, that one must either believe global warming is a myth or one must believe that humanity will be extinct in the next ten years. My position is somewhere in the middle of a continuum between those two extremes.
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John O’Bannon’s Vote On Life.
2007-02-06.
In local politics: Vivian Paige reported that Bob “Virginia Is For Catholics” Marshall’s bill HB2797 defining that “life begins at the moment of fertilization” was defeated 53-43. I was glad to see that my Virginia representative John O’Bannon was among those voting against the bill.
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Accuracy In Media Not So Accurate.
2007-02-06.
My conscience dictates that I post this small retraction: Last week when I was rambling about Keith Olbermann, I linked to what I called an “interesting article” on Accuracy in Media (AIM) which suggested a link between the post-9/11 anthrax mailings and al Qaeda.
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As The Virginia Blogosphere Turns.
2007-02-07.
For those interested in blog operas (did I just coin a phrase?), another sophomoric effort to discredit well-known Virginia blogger Waldo Jaquith is taking place, courtesy of the more volatile members of Virginia’s Republican blogosphere (which, unfortunately these days, is almost all of them). Instead of a boring, chronological linkfest, I’ll try to document the saga with funny and representative quotations from the participants.
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Henrico County Tidbits.
2007-02-09.
It’s been a rather busy few days at work, but I wanted to quickly mention a couple of things I heard today about Henrico County.
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Eric Cantor: Not My Fault.
2007-02-13.
Still in a busy work cycle, so not much time for blogging. I know it’s a bit late for this, but since Eric Cantor is my representative, I should probably make a comment about his antics on Hardball last week. My comment is: Don’t blame me – I voted for the other guy.
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CASTLE Jumps The Shark (UPDATED).
2007-02-20.
Starting to get back to normal here at work, so I can actually keep up with my news reader again.
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Confederacy Museum Name Change.
2007-02-20.
This should get the Virginia neo-Confederates riled up: I heard on the radio this morning that the Museum of the Confederacy here in Richmond is thinking about removing the word “Confederacy” from its name after it moves. Apparently they’ve found there is some sort of negative connotation in continuing to glorify the Confederacy 140 years after the rest of us noticed the war was over. Who could have guessed?
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Virginia Marine Falls: Lance Cpl. Daniel Morris.
2007-02-22.
I’m embarrassed at how late I am to mention this, but here goes: This year I’m trying to do what little I can to honor fallen soldiers from Virginia by making a brief note about their passing. It’s not nearly as much as they deserve.
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Let’s Trade.
2007-02-22.
Not surprisingly, Virginia Republican bloggers (eg. Virginia Virtucon and Bearing Drift) don’t like Jim Webb (D-VA) very much. I personally don’t like or dislike him: As long as he doesn’t screw anything up before the next election cycle, he’s doing a good-enough job for me.
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What Happened To The Virginia Blog Carnival? (UPDATED).
2007-02-26.
Is it just me, or has the Virginia Blog Carnival had a decidedly right-wing slant to it lately? The last four especially have been awfully heavy with conservative snark and propaganda. I always thought the Carnivals were supposed to be non-political… maybe that rule only applies when Republicans are in power.
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An ActBlue Day For Virginians (UPDATED).
2007-02-26.
Ugh. Looks like RK is bringing ActBlue and the sordid world of partisan Internet fundraising into Virginia politics: Time to Act Blue in Virginia! Woe be unto those Democrats who fall out of favor with the almighty Lowell Feld, because he will undoubtedly only let voters insta-donate funds to the candidates he approves of.
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2007-03
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CNN Is Fast.
2007-03-01.
It’s nice to know that CNN is on top of the news. They are so good, in fact, that they can pose a thought-provoking question and then answer it for you all in the span of 10 minutes.
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Dueling Virginia Blog Carnivals.
2007-03-04.
SWAC Girl has the latest Virginia Blog Carnival up. Lest anyone think I bowed to peer pressure or something, I actually didn’t submit that post of mine you see on there, but thanks for the mention anyway. I’m somebody!
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Virginia Is For Ann Coulter Lovers.
2007-03-05.
This just screamed out for a quick post. Going completely against her character, Ann Coulter said something controversial, and some liberal bloggers are trying to organize a letter-writing campaign to her advertisers.
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Webb’s Bill And Iran.
2007-03-05.
I heard on the radio this morning that Sen. Webb (D-VA) introduced a bill that will prevent the President from going to war without Congressional approval. Of course, as the story unfolded throughout the day, it turned out that Webb’s bill will just prevent the President from using the 2002 Iraq authorization for action against Iran “in some cases,” which is quite a bit less bold than the 2-second morning radio sound bite led me to believe. (FOX News has more on the story.) I don’t disagree with the idea, though I have my doubts about it passing in the current political climate.
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Aggregators Galore.
2007-03-06.
A couple of Virginia conservative aggregators popped up recently: Conservativa and the Old Dominion Blog Alliance (ODBA) Aggregator. These are now competing with the more non-partisan Waldo’s Virginia Political Blogroll and BlogNetNews.
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Virginia Fallen: Staff Sgt. Robert Stanley and Sgt. Michael C. Peek.
2007-03-08.
I’m continuing to briefly mention fallen soldiers from Virginia as my own personal homage. I heard about these on the radio this morning.
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Those Infernal Blog Carnivals Again.
2007-03-09.
If you’ve been paying attention to the Virginia blogosphere, you know that my thoughts a while back on the Virginia Blog Carnival have been mischaracterized as an attack, a complaint, and even “whinage” by various blogs in the last week or so. None of that bothered me–that’s the nature of partisan bloggers, after all. But then I stumbled upon this exchange in the comments of The Richmond Democrat.
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Stosch To Debate Blackburn.
2007-03-13.
Quick note: Not Larry Sabato is reporting on a brewing catfight (aka. debate) between Virginia General Assembly 12th District Senator Walter Stosch and primary challenger Joe Blackburn at the James River Republican Women’s Club.
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On General Pace’s Comments.
2007-03-14.
Quick Observation: I completely disagree with General Pace’s recent remarks, but I respect him for standing behind his morals and not caving in to the apology witch hunt. One should never have to apologize for one’s beliefs (even if they’re misguided :). Pace did acknowledge that he shouldn’t have brought his personal feelings into a policy discussion, which I thought was an appropriate response.
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Slashdot Advises Future Criminals.
2007-03-15.
This caught my eye: Don’t Google “How To Commit Murder” Before Killing. Slashdot makes it sound like The Powers That Be can call up Google and Microsoft and get a list of your searches to use against you in a court case, but that’s not what happened. The police seized the defendant’s computers and simply looked at their search history, which is usually recorded by default where anyone can look at it.
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Roggio’s Daily Reports.
2007-03-16.
I’ve always enjoyed Bill Roggio’s counterterrorism blogging efforts–he’s one of the very few bloggers I would actually consider calling a journalist. He’s now writing daily Iraq reports for The Weekly Standard blog. I recommend reading them; his reports are always full of good nuts-and-bolts information that you hardly ever hear from the more sensationalistic, sound-bite-oriented news outlets.
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Light Blogging.
2007-03-23.
I apologize for the paucity of blogging from me lately. Recently expanded duties at work has left me with precious little time to read the news during the day, let alone comment on it. I’ve got a huge backlog of topics I want to write about, but I’m having a hard time finding the energy to sit down at home during the evenings and write about them.
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Counter-Protesters Gone Wild.
2007-03-23.
I had set a personal goal not to dissect SWAC propaganda anymore, but I stumbled on this post while pruning down my news reader last night: Anti-war protester complains about D.C. march. I can understand the desire to counter-protest and show support for troops, and I can even understand distaste for the more violent, corporate pacifists out there.
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Bush Scandals Need Help.
2007-03-26.
I’ve been meaning to write about this for ages. As dramatic political scandals go, I have to say that the Bush administration is falling far short of the entertainment goals established by the Clinton administration.
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Don’t Forget About Iran.
2007-03-26.
Seemingly lost in the midst of Gonzales-gate is the recent abduction of 15 British sailors by Iran. Iran claims the British were in Iranian territory, while the British and Iraq claim they were in Iraqi waters. (Not to scare anyone, but the incident sounds vaguely reminiscent of the impressment of American sailors by the British which eventually led to the War of 1812.
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Only In Virginia.
2007-03-27.
Only in Virginia will you find Republican bloggers criticizing a Democratic senator for carrying a loaded weapon around Capitol Hill…
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The Chocolate Jesus.
2007-03-30.
I hope all the people who keep saying that Muslims are the only ones who freak out when people offend their religion are taking note of incidents like this. Oh, but there weren’t any riots, burnings, or killings, people will say. The end result is the same, though: Intimidation of minorities and stifling free thought.
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2007-04
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Bill Richardson Handicaps His Own Campaign.
2007-04-03.
So far, I like the second-tier 2008 presidential candidates a lot more than the first-tier candidates. One of them, Bill Richardson, has just signed a bill allowing the use of marijuana for medical purposes in New Mexico, according to CNN. At the risk of sounding cynical, this sounds like something that will probably doom him to remain in the second tier.
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Dennis Miller’s New Radio Show.
2007-04-03.
Out of curiosity I listened to Dennis Miller’s first radio show over the weekend. I’ve always been a fan of his comedy, but I think he jumped the shark somewhere during the Dennis Miller Live show on HBO. (It was hip and edgy at first, but by the end he was doing that high-pitched giggling thing way too much.)
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Nancy Pelosi Talking To Syria??.
2007-04-04.
I’ve tried to give Nancy Pelosi the benefit of the doubt, since she’s the first woman speaker and all. I didn’t make much of a fuss over that Big Tuna incident where she allegedly exempted one of her constituents from having to pay the federal minimum wage. I didn’t say anything about her demanding a huge, expensive, gas-guzzling military jet for her and her entourage to fly around the country in.
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Virginia Fallen: Staff Sgt. Jason Arnette.
2007-04-09.
As usual, I’m very late on this, but I wanted to briefly mention: Amelia County native Staff Sgt. Jason Arnette was killed by an improved explosive device in Iraq on Sunday, April 1, 2007. From the Times-Dispatch: ‘“He not only gave his life for his country, he died doing what he wanted to do,” his mother, Michelle Arnette, said last night from her home in Amelia.’
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Followup On Nancy Pelosi In Syria.
2007-04-10.
I wanted to follow up real quick on Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Syria. I took Alice’s advice and read a little bit from Media Matters on this subject and did indeed find that Republicans and talk radio/talk blogs were (imo) blowing things way out of proportion. They probably still would be if it weren’t for the Don Imus “controversy.”
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After Virginia Tech: Who To Blame?.
2007-04-17.
There are a lot of jumbled thoughts in my head after the Virginia Tech shooting yesterday. One infuriating aspect of the media coverage has been the almost constant attempts to shift blame away from the shooter. “What went wrong?” they ask, as if the shooter was just another victim.
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After Virginia Tech: Professor Liviu Librescu.
2007-04-17.
I first heard about this man on the radio this morning, and have subsequently seen many blog posts about him. This is one blog meme that I’m happy to keep propagating, though.
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After Virginia Tech: Media Death Toll Obsession.
2007-04-18.
There are a lot of jumbled thoughts in my head after the Virginia Tech shooting on Monday. One of them is about the media’s grisly obsession with record-breaking death tolls.
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After Virginia Tech: Self-Defense.
2007-04-24.
There are a lot of jumbled thoughts in my head after the Virginia Tech shooting last Monday. One of them is about personal self-defense.
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V Beach At Gallipoli.
2007-04-25.
Sometimes I like to go to Wikipedia and click random links until I find an interesting historical article. That probably sounds boring, but keep in mind that I’m easily entertained (especially when I’m at work behind a firewall that won’t let you browse anywhere fun).
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Joe Blackburn Endorsed.
2007-04-26.
Here are some things I saw today about our very own Virginia Senate 12th District Republican primary coming up on June 12.
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World Intellectual Property Day.
2007-04-26.
Happy World Intellectual Property Day! The theme this year is “Encouraging Creativity,” so I’m celebrating by creating the intellectual property you are reading right now. By the way, if you think America is going overboard celebrating World Intellectual Property Day, check out Uzbekistan: They have activities planned for an entire month!
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A Good Meme.
2007-04-30.
[…]
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2007-05
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Partisan Bickering Stinks.
2007-05-02.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m weary of all the partisan games over the Iraq “war” funding bill. Both Republican and Democratic legislators alike are acting thoroughly childish, imho.
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Not Larry Sabato vs. BlogNetNews.
2007-05-07.
This is interesting (to me, at least): I see that Not Larry Sabato turned off his RSS feed to keep BlogNetNews, an aggregator, from syndicating his content. NLS, ever the self-promotional salesman, has been a long-time critic of BNN’s new “influence” ranking, undoubtedly because it does not always rank him #1. Apparently NLS tried to remove his feed from BNN’s aggregator, but BNN refused to remove him, and that led to the drastic step of turning off the feed.
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America’s Funniest Home Jihadists.
2007-05-10.
Is it really necessary to be scared of home-grown terrorist cells when part of their strategy is making copies of their jihadist videos at the local video store? I choose to point and laugh at them instead: Look at the silly amateur jihadists! Is that the best you can do?
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I’m On The List!.
2007-05-11.
Holy crap! I’m on Richmond Democrat’s list of the top 98 Virginia political blogs! Only 12 blogs did better than me!
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The Stosch Sentinel Arrives.
2007-05-12.
Quick notes from the Virginia Senate 12th District Republican primary race (which is effectively the election, since I seriously doubt if there’s going to be a Democratic challenger from this area): VCAP wrote a nice summary of the Walter Stosch v. Joe Blackburn debate.
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Virginia Influence = Comments?.
2007-05-13.
Looks like Daily Whackjob exposed the secret to gaming the BNN Influence rankings this past week – SWAC flame wars! :) It pretty much confirms that comments weigh heavily in the Influence formula. (But only comments SOME blogs’ comments – Too Conservative, for example, had 53 comments on a recent post but is nowhere to be found on the Influence list.
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Endorsement Minus Accountability.
2007-05-14.
Doesn’t it somewhat devalue the meaning of the phrase “Endorsed by Raising Kaine” when you have the readership vote on who to endorse? It seems to lack a certain amount of accountability.
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Already?.
2007-05-15.
An important and influential figure in society dies, and the defensive battle lines are drawn mere minutes after the news: “It will be interesting to see how the left and the MSM will treat this.”
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Hanger v. Sayre Highlights Why Politics Is Depressing.
2007-05-15.
Since seemingly half of the Virginia political blogosphere resides in the Shenandoah Valley, a lot of bloggers are talking (aka. bickering) about the upcoming Republican primary between incumbent Emmett Hanger and challenger Scott Sayre for the 24th District Virginia Senate seat. The CASTLE bloggers in particular are working hard to get Scott Sayre elected.
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Avoid People Powered Machines.
2007-05-16.
A quick consumer report: Mrs. Krehbiel and I are so mad at a company called People Powered Machines right now that we can’t even enjoy today’s death of Jerry Falwell.* We bought a reel mower from these people just to try one out, but it didn’t work on our yard, so we sent it back, and they charged us some kind of restocking fee in addition to all the shipping costs. So it cost us some $60+ to try to be more environmentally friendly. What a total rip-off.
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Virginia Fallen: PFC Murphy, SSG Kiernan, SGT Cauthorn, SGT Frazier.
2007-05-16.
I heard on the radio this morning that a soldier from Lynchburg, Private 1st Class Chris Murphy, was killed in the ambush that also resulted in 3 kidnapped American soldiers. From the Times-Dispatch: “He was very dedicated to this,” she said. “He said he had made the right decision and was thinking of making a career of [the military].”
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Falwell’s Legacy.
2007-05-16.
To clarify my previous comments on Jerry Falwell: I’ll give him credit for being a great businessman, a great politician, and a great propagandist, but I will give him no credit whatsoever as a moral authority or Christian ambassador. I think he and Pat Robertson and James Dobson and Don Wildmon and all their ilk, like the Roman emperors of old, have hijacked Christianity in a quest for money and power and influence, and in the process sullied the reputation of all well-meaning Christians around the world. The saddest part about Falwell’s death for me is that his empire probably won’t be diminished one bit.
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Ron Paul Challenges People’s Thinking.
2007-05-16.
I watched the second Republican “debate” last night (I’ve seen all the debates so far), and a couple things jumped out at me. (I put debate in quotes, of course, because they are not debates at all in the traditional sense. I’m not sure what you’d call them.
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Coulter and Falwell BFF.
2007-05-17.
Hey, Ann Coulter stood up for Jerry Falwell.
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That VT Shooting Game.
2007-05-18.
Two quick thoughts on the Virginia Tech shooting game that’s been in the news here almost constantly. First, based on the snippet of footage I saw on the local news last night (I have not visited or even looked for the actual site), it is an outrageous affront to the video game industry to call it a “video game.” What I saw might have been impressive back in 1979. Even putting aside the emotional blackmail component, the guy should not be paid anything because the game clearly sucks.
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Redefining Amnesty Again.
2007-05-18.
Words are funny, especially in politics. They rarely mean what Webster intended them to mean. For example, to Republicans, a “timetable” is an un-American, troop-hating, defeatist surrender plan.
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1/2 Hour Train Wreck.
2007-05-21.
Has anyone else seen that 1/2 Hour News Hour on FOX? We stumbled onto another episode last night. It’s obviously targeted toward the loyal Rush Limbaugh fan who also owns signed, dog-eared copies of every Ann Coulter book, but I can’t even imagine a diehard dittohead laughing at any of the jokes.
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Is Taxation a Purchase or Extortion?.
2007-05-22.
Today’s random zen government thought involves taxes. I’ve observed – on blogs and in real life – that a lot of people seem to think that paying taxes also implies receiving some kind of preferential treatment or getting a say in how the government does business. They equate paying taxes with, for example, buying shares of stock in a company.
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Virginia Fallen: PFC Gautier, CWO Moore.
2007-05-25.
I’m not quite sure why I keep doing this. It’s actually quite depressing, but it feels wrong not to make an effort to shine a little bit of light on the people getting killed over there in Iraq, regardless of one’s political views about the situation.
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Blog Humility Lesson.
2007-05-25.
Today’s lesson in blog humility: Don’t forget that real, flesh-and-blood human beings can read your blog, even long after you’ve completely forgotten what you’ve written. If, for example, you hastily whip off a snarky personal criticism about someone from another state that you read about somewhere in the news, there is a distinct possibility that a year or so later they will read what you wrote and not be very happy about it. Then you’ll be really embarrassed about your callous insensitivity to their plight.
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Stosch/Blackburn Roundup.
2007-05-26.
The Hanger/Spammer…er…Sayre race in the 24th District is getting all the blog press here in Virginia, but there’s also a thrilling Republican primary race going on here in the 12th Senate District. (Thrilling in the sense that nobody seems particularly interested in it.)
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Early Retirement.
2007-05-30.
Cindy Sheehan has “resigned” as the face of the anti-war movement, two days after announcing that she left the Democratic Party.
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Ringside In The 24th District Primary.
2007-05-31.
Grab the soda and popcorn, it’s getting ugly in the Virginia 24th district primary race! Republitarian just reported that candidate Scott Sayre’s wife has been charged with driving while intoxicated – not once but twice. SWAC Girl called the report “slanderous,” although I think she is using a different dictionary than mine, because that word sort of implies “false,” which would require some sort of contradictory evidence to the DWI claims.
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CAPTCHA Enabled.
2007-05-31.
I’m sorry to say that I just turned on Blogspot’s “word verification” for comments.
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Adventures With The Virginia Courts Case Information System.
2007-05-31.
Regarding the DWI charges against Mrs. Sayre, Republitarian cited: “Case # for first offense GV03000972-00. Case # for second offense GT063034-00.” I don’t live in the 24th, but I thought it might be fun to do a little fact-checking on this today. (I applaud Republitarian for giving voters the means to independently verify these claims.) I fired up the Virginia Courts Case Information system and started looking.
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2007-06
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Meanwhile, Back In The 12th.
2007-06-02.
Back here in the relatively uninteresting 12th Senate District, the Republican primary is all about taxes and spending. Stosch claims he’s an “effective cost-cutter”, while Blackburn claims Stosch is telling “one old fairy tale after another.” I have not done any fact-checking on either claim, because frankly I find the subject of taxes and spending incredibly dull.
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A Point Of Commonality.
2007-06-05.
I don’t care for much of anything I see From On High, but I have to admit this is pretty funny, and I agree: On Those Waterless Urinals.
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Top Eight Following CNN Debates.
2007-06-06.
I’m trying a silly little experiment this presidential election. I’m keeping scorecards on the mainstream presidential candidates and numerically rating each one in a variety of categories. This allows me to select the next president mathematically.
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Virginia Blog Presidential Endorsements.
2007-06-08.
I’m updating from time to time. See notes below.
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There Was Sarcasm? Really?.
2007-06-09.
Sometimes it’s impossible to refrain from pointing out the ironies found on Bloggers 4 Sayre. Here’s an amusing self-contradictory quote from Yankee Phillip.
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Stosch v. Blackburn 12th Senate District Updates.
2007-06-10.
Elephant Ears reports on campaign fundraising in the 12th Senate District. Not surprisingly, incumbent Walter Stosch is leading in this department.
The Virginian Federalist reports that Stosch’s latest mailer accuses Blackburn of “mud slinging and sleaze.” *
I received a mailing from a place called Leadership for Virginia which is endorsing Walter Stosch and pushing hard for anyone and everyone to vote in the primaries. “There will be no Democratic candidate,” it reads. “The outcome will determine your Virginia State Senator for the next four years.” (emphasis theirs)
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From Equality Virginia.
2007-06-11.
For anyone who might still be making up their mind about Stosch v. Blackburn and is wondering about their position on social issues as opposed to taxes, Mrs. Krehbiel received this bit of information in an email from Equality Virginia (who is endorsing Walter Stosch).
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Vote Rocked (Updated).
2007-06-12.
Well, I participated in American Democracy this morning. Somehow it doesn’t leave me feeling as patriotic as it probably should. I think it has something to do with the creepy old lady that’s always there handing out the “I voted” stickers when you leave.
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Uh Oh.
2007-06-12.
[…]
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Post-Primary Observations.
2007-06-13.
I’m not a political expert, but here’s some of my observations about the 12th District and 24th District primaries. (I didn’t pay much attention to any other primaries.)
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Great Reference.
2007-06-14.
750 Volts has compiled a very nice summary of Virginia Senate races coming up this November. Check it out, it’s a great reference.
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Ann, Elle, The Flu and The Dog.
2007-06-14.
A while back, pseudonymous blogger “Teddy Roosevelt” popped up* in the Virginia blogosphere to oppose the rhetoric from Bloggers 4 Sayre. He delivered a shocking bombshell (superfluous writing used for dramatic effect): On June 2, Teddy alleged that “Elle” of In-Politically Correct is really Ann Taetzsch, Staunton Republican Committee Chairperson, and “General Grievous’ Dog” is really Augusta County Chairman Kurt Michael. Several other Virginia bloggers picked up on the news and repeated it, and it now seems to be regarded as established lore.
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Immigration Reform Not Quite Dead Yet.
2007-06-15.
Some time ago, I theorized that immigration might be a spark that causes another group of states to try to secede from the Union. Now, with all the continuing uproar over the latest attempt at immigration reform, I’m starting to wonder if I might have been onto something. Republicans here in Virginia are seriously ticked off at politicians in Washington for even hinting at thinking about talking about “comprehensive” immigration reform again.
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Did The News Leader Spurn Sayre Or Vice Versa?.
2007-06-16.
(I’m trying something new here. It’s loosely modeled after various media watchdog blogs like Media Matters and NewsBusters.)
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So Much For The Hamas Government.
2007-06-19.
I’ve been focused a lot on Virginia lately, so I haven’t paid much attention to anything going on in the rest of the world. However, I did note that the Fatah-Hamas Palestinian government imploded, to the surprise of, um, nobody. For reasons that are not terribly clear to this writer, Hamas started taking over Fatah government buildings in Gaza, then Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas declared a state of emergency and dissolved the Hamas government.
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Did Bloggers 4 Sayre beat the ODBA?.
2007-06-20.
In a June 19 comment on The Virginia Federalist, Spank That Donkey claimed that 18 Virginia conservative bloggers came together for Bloggers 4 Sayre, topping even the Old Dominion Blogging Alliance. In fact, as of June 20, 2007, the ODBA aggregator contained a total of 44 blogs. Furthermore, a closer examination of Bloggers 4 Sayre through June 11, 2007 reveals that only 10 of the 18 bloggers listed posted more than once, and the majority of all posts were written by just 3 bloggers.
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Easy As Pi To Refute.
2007-06-21.
Here’s something I’ve never seen before: I saw a link on Waldo’s blog to a post showing that the Bible says Pi is 3.0.
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Has Jim Webb flopped?.
2007-06-23.
Summary
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Brace For More Negative Ads.
2007-06-25.
I see that the Supreme Court has allowed political “issue ads” again. Personally I don’t see how those sorts of ads are helpful to society, but I guess it’s free speech (assuming you’ve got enough money to buy the ad time, that is). I suppose we’ll be bombarded by even more negative advertising from the big money lobbyists now.
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Are illegal immigrants safe from civil remedial fees?.
2007-06-26.
(This was inspired by a bit of information in a blog post or perhaps a comment I saw somewhere in the Virginia blogosphere recently, but unfortunately I can’t find it anymore to give that person credit. Sorry.)
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Immigration Frenzy.
2007-06-28.
I’m late on this, but I guess the big national story is the dreaded immigration bill living to fight yet another day. Here in Virginia, where the conservative blogosphere has been pleading on a daily basis for people to call their senators and oppose the bill, the initial response seems to be stunned disbelief. (Both Virginia senators voted for cloture the other day.)
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Name Change.
2007-06-28.
I’m officially changing the name of this blog to “Krehbiel Commentary.” I’ve long disliked “Krehbiel Strikes Back” because 1) I’ve been trying to evolve away from needless sniping, and 2) it was pretty nerdy-sounding.
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2007-07
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North Korea Tardy.
2007-07-02.
I saw this last week: Back in February, North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear reactor within 60 days in exchange for economic aid. It’s now June and the reactor is still running, though it should be turned off “within a few weeks.” Government operations are not known for promptness, but surely they should have found the “off” button by now? Okay, it’s probably more complicated than that, and granted, there was some kind of hold-up with some North Korean money being frozen by the U.S. (I hope we didn’t give them any counterfeit $100 bills by mistake, hyuk, hyuk).
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DUI Woman Helps Roads.
2007-07-03.
I drove past the jackknifed tractor trailer that had shut down all lanes of 95 North in Richmond this morning; I heard on the radio that the woman who caused the accident was charged with DUI.
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Holiday Reminder.
2007-07-03.
With National Pyromania Appreciation Day… I mean… the 4th of July coming up tomorrow during a particularly dry summer, I’d like to urge everyone to please point their primitive explosive devices away from my yard. Thank you.
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Media Accidentally Reports Fiction In Iraq.
2007-07-03.
QandO has an important observation about terrorist propaganda and the news media. A few days back there was a story about 20 beheaded men found near Baghdad. QandO reports that the MNF-I (Multi-National Forces in Iraq – that’s the good guys) investigated and found the story was completely false, yet several news outlets reported it anyway (including CNN, as you can see from the link).
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Contrasting Story Titles.
2007-07-05.
This unintentional pairing of story titles from a CNN news feed made me chuckle.
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Glasgow Terrorists Worth A Good Laugh.
2007-07-05.
I’m of the opinion that the vast majority of terrorists are cowards and imbeciles, and we need not fear them. I know it doesn’t fit the administration’s talking points, but I happen to think that when I go about my daily business, I’m much more likely to die in a car crash than from a terrorist bomb. So I hope the government will forgive me for being more vigilant about watching my fellow drivers on 95 than watching for terrorist activity.
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Bolling’s Op-Ed On Immigration.
2007-07-09.
Much of Virginia Lt. Governor Bill Bolling’s recent op-ed on immigration makes sense. There’s a couple of things I disagree with, though.
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Aggravator Exposed.
2007-07-11.
I was surprised to discover this evening that Cobalt6 has a link to my “UvAggravator” on their front page. I guess they got it from a referrer link. Anyway, it’s a feed aggregator I’ve been working on which currently collects some 150+ feeds from the Virginia blogosphere.
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Shameless BlogNark Plug.
2007-07-11.
I just added two more posts to my new pet blogging project “Virginia BlogNark.” One examines spin from SWAC Girl, and the other examines rumors from The Conservative VOICE.
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ABC World News Last Night.
2007-07-12.
Last night’s ABC World News was annoying. The top story was about Michael Chertoff’s infamously irresponsible “gut feeling” about an impending terror strike this summer and the super scary “elevated chatter” going on. I couldn’t help but recall that the government and the media has informed us about this same “elevated chatter” every summer since 9/11.
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Lingamfelter Op-Ed On Driver Fees.
2007-07-13.
Interestingly, I noticed that Black Velvet Bruce Li copied an editorial from the Manassas Journal-Messenger written by Virginia Del. Scott Lingamfelter (R-31st), and actually praised his efforts. Lingamfelter did make a pretty reasonable argument to try to calm down some of the hysteria over the new civil remedial fees for Virginia drivers.
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A Quick Wag Of My Finger.
2007-07-13.
I disagree with SWAC Girl on most things. But I also can’t condone the rantings of Cobalt6 writers, especially when they rail against her personally. I certainly understand that it’s infuriating to see grown adults writing things that seem deceptive or counter-intuitive, but childish name-calling is not the way to win over an audience to your point of view.
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Now Where Will They Go?.
2007-07-14.
I’m sure everyone knows by now that BlogNetNews has a new look. If you look up in the corner you’ll find something rather ironic. Maybe it was there before but I just noticed it today.
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I Could Have Been Famous!.
2007-07-14.
Curses! When I was studying HB 3202 back in June (by, you know, reading it) I noticed where the Governor had struck the part that had out-of-state drivers paying the same fees, but I didn’t think anything of it because I was more interested in debunking how the bill would affect illegal immigrants. If I’d known it was going to be a “MAJOR KAINE SCANDAL!!!” (with three whole exclamation points!!!) I would have mentioned it back then.
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New on BlogNark.
2007-07-17.
I added a new post to BlogNark tonight about GoodbyeKen’s fictitious Centreville bomber (where I lived as a kid, coincidentally). I’ve also added several new candidates and endorsements, most puzzling of which is Not Larry Sabato endorsing Hillary Clinton for president. (Btw, an NLS commenter was asking Ben for a list of Virginia endorsements – I gots all yer dataz at BlogNark, dude.) You can now subscribe to an RSS feed of new endorsements as I find them, and I’ve started a del.icio.us feed of “Nark-worthy” posts I encounter in the Virginia blogosphere (that is, posts that scream out for a closer examination of spin and misinformation).
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Retractable Emails.
2007-07-17.
This is not strictly political but I suspect partisans and politicians would be very interested in this. :) I heard about a free email service on WRVA (that is perhaps the longest, ugliest url I have ever seen) this morning called “BigString.” Basically it allows you to change or retract emails after you’ve sent them. (The name comes from yanking back your embarrassing drunken emails with a “big string.”) I haven’t investigated exactly how they do this (ie.
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Haditha Testimony.
2007-07-18.
I saw a post go through the Virginia blogosphere yesterday declaring that the “Haditha hoax is falling apart.” It turns out this was actually the declaration of noted journalist Rush Limbaugh, after having read some opinion column at a newspaper nobody has ever heard of. I have also seen several reports this year from a place called “NewsMax” repeatedly stating that the Haditha Marines will be exonerated any minute now, but I haven’t given them much credence since the NewsMax organization has a very clear bias in this case. At any rate, the accumulation of conservative-themed rumors finally inspired me to investigate what we really know about the Haditha case.
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The Torturous CNN YouTube Debate.
2007-07-25.
We only watched about 45 minutes of the YouTube “debate” Monday night in the Krehbiel household before giving up. I tried to watch a little bit more of it tonight on the DVR, thinking I should at least make an effort to watch the entire thing before commenting on it, but I just couldn’t take it seriously. It was incredibly inane.
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2007-08
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Barack and Pakistan.
2007-08-02.
Note: I think it’s about time for me to declare blogging bankruptcy. I am defining this somewhat like email bankruptcy, except it is a declaration that I will never, ever be able to find time to write polished blog posts on the subjects running around in my head. So I’m going to revert to a more stream-of-consciousness format.
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Information Overload.
2007-08-07.
I’m not really dead, but I’ve been suffering from information overload, so I reduced my news intake for a little while. This past weekend, in fact, I didn’t watch any news or read any blogs. It was surprisingly refreshing.
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Regarding The Surge.
2007-08-07.
Regarding the recent surge in good news about the surge that I keep hearing about, how will we know it was the surge that worked and not simply the passage of time? The answer, I suspect, is that politicians and pundits will tell us so, which is not much of an answer. But if that will allow us to finally declare victory in the “war” that we decisively won over four years ago, I’m all for it.
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Missed Debates.
2007-08-09.
I’ve missed several presidential debates in the past week.
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Karl Rove Resigned.
2007-08-15.
I took a couple days off from work so I missed Karl Rove’s resignation. (He’s one of the reasons why I think presidents are mainly just figureheads.) It’s hard to get really excited about his resignation because even a casual examination of the political landscape at any level shows that there is an army of Karl Rove disciples from both parties waiting and hoping to replace him.
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Fun With Word Parsing.
2007-08-15.
I don’t think Riley (Not O’Reilly) meant it this way, but it sure sounds like he’s saying in this post that a comparison between the mentally retarded and Rush Limbaugh’s audience is “belittling” to the mentally retarded – which is a roundabout way of saying that the condition of mental retardation is actually an improvement over the condition of a Rush Limbaugh listener. That logic probably needs to be tweaked a little bit before it goes into any Republican newsletters. Yes, I used the words “mental retardation” in a sentence, so I am by definition making fun of them.
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Run Away! From WRVA.
2007-08-22.
I’m back from another mini-vacation, which will probably be my last until Christmas time. Next time I’ll have to aim for a job in the Iraqi Parliament. Har har.
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Free Speech Is Such A Pain.
2007-08-23.
Saw an interesting post on Just a Bump in the Beltway about how Bush choreographs all of his appearances so there are no dissenters in the crowd. That’s not really news, but it’s good to be reminded of how unreliable television is. Obviously I disagree with elected leaders constructing their own cult of personality, but allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment.
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Why Renewing Your Domain Name Matters *.
2007-08-26.
Say, I wonder if anything interesting is happening in the Virginia political blogosphere? Guess not.
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What If The Surge Is Working?.
2007-08-28.
I didn’t think the surge would do much good, but there is growing momentum for thinking that it is. And believe it or not that’s a Good Thing. Whether it’s real progress or just the media saying it’s progress, the results are basically the same (for us): We win the information war, America looks good, the terrorists look bad, our soldiers are winners instead of losers, etc., etc. I have little doubt that Petraeus’ September report will show that the surge is working, because really, what other report would he give?
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An Alternate Viewpoint On Miss S.C..
2007-08-30.
Okay here’s an intellectual challenge for you. Everyone in the blogosphere, television, and radio jumped – no, leaped – no, sprinted full speed and dived headlong – onto the bandwagon of calling that South Carolina teen pageant contestant all kinds of stupid for her awkward answer to what should have been a straightforward question.
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2007-09
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The Larry Craig Irony.
2007-09-01.
Life is filled with irony. It is rather ironic that mere days after the untimely death of Richard Jewell, a man whose reputation was destroyed by the collective incompetence of the media after the Atlanta Olympics bombing in 1996 – a man whose untimely death was recently reported widely by the media almost as if they were trying to seek atonement for their previous misdeed – we now see Sen. Larry Craig’s reputation and career being destroyed by the exact same media.
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Riley Now Writing For The New Dominion?.
2007-09-01.
A quick story: Back in the 1990s when I was writing Amiga software, we sent our products to magazines for reviews. Most of the time, we basically told the reviewer what to write, because the reviewers were usually too lazy or too rushed to really look at the software. You may be surprised to learn that we usually got good reviews.
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Redacted.
2007-09-06.
I have mixed feelings about this upcoming Brian De Palma movie Redacted that everyone’s talking about (by everyone I mean some pro-war activists, who are raving about how De Palma should be locked up for treason). The film supposedly dramatizes the real-life incident of former Pfc. Steven Green planning the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl.
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Can Bloggers Attack Without Question Marks?.
2007-09-06.
Who knows? I certainly don’t. But you never know.
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Turning Them Loose In Herndon.
2007-09-07.
Am I the only one that wonders about the wisdom of shutting down that Herndon Day Labor Center where (supposedly) illegal immigrants hang out? I mean, I would think it’d be better to keep the lawless Mexicans out in the open where you could see them, as opposed to wandering around the neighborhood with no money and no job looking for houses burglarize. (‘Cause Mexicans are criminals, ya know.) Not to mention losing the ability to keep tabs on all the people that hire the lawless Mexicans.
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A Different Viewpoint On The Missing Nukes.
2007-09-07.
Having worked with federal employees, I have a slightly different take on that story about the B52 and the missing nukes: You mean they found out they were missing in ONLY 4 hours?? Congratulations on a job well done!
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On That MoveOn.org Ad.
2007-09-11.
Just for the record, I don’t like MoveOn.org. But seriously, how is their attack ad against General Petraeus any different from any number of other attack ads from any number of other lobbying organizations? Isn’t this the free political speech we wanted in the U.S.?
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U.S. News Needs More Gravitas.
2007-09-11.
I forgot to post this yesterday. Sometimes the top news coming out of the United States is a little embarrassing when compared to the rest of the world…
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Against The Grain.
2007-09-11.
As I did last year, I’ve got to go against the grain today. Along with all the somber “we won’t forget” posts, and the partisan “we’re still at war” posts, consider this: We should take time, especially on this media-sensationalized day, to remember the victims of all terrorist attacks around the world, both foreign and domestic. And while you’re “always remembering,” don’t forget that lots of Americans have died in terrorist attacks that didn’t occur on 9/11, and those families deserve every bit as much sensationalized attention as the 9/11 families, and you and I are largely ignoring their unintended and almost certainly undesired sacrifices.
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On Ahmadinejad Speaking at Columbia.
2007-09-25.
President Ahmadinejad Delivers Remarks at Columbia University
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Well I Bombed The Civics Quiz.
2007-09-26.
I missed 14 of the 60 questions on this “simple” civics quiz (spotted on United Conservatives of Virginia), which would have barely gotten me a D back when I was in high school (which is roughly the grade I typically got in government classes, come to think of it). I got killed on the topics of philosophers and economics. (“Keynesian economists”?
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2007-11
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Henrico County Candidates.
2007-11-01.
Haven’t seen anyone post a handy list of Henrico County candidates for November 6, so here you go. Web sites linked where known. Otherwise a Google link is provided.
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Daylight Savings.
2007-11-06.
I just want to go on record saying that I greatly prefer the “spring forward” clock change to the “fall back” clock change.
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Know Your Candidate Names.
2007-11-06.
Fyi, to anyone voting in the Brookland district: Make sure you know who you’re voting for by name before you get to the voting booth. They just list the names on the screen, not the party affiliations or incumbency. Ie.
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2007-12
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NIE About Face.
2007-12-07.
I haven’t read that NIE report, but it seems awfully strange that our intelligence community has made a complete 180-degree reversal of their findings about Iran. Also, I can’t help but recall that the intelligence community was duped by Sadaam into thinking Iraq had WMD… it seems possible that Iran is duping the same intelligence community into thinking they shut down their nuclear weapons program.
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Sub-prime Buyout.
2007-12-08.
A lot of talk radio people are complaining about the government helping people out of their subprime mortgage woes, saying it’s not fair to people who took out responsible loans. Well, that’s true. But I look at it more in terms of a government trying to keep the country’s overall economy running smoothly, which seems like a more important concern for the whole population.
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The Blogs Are Back In Town.
2007-12-08.
I see that many of the same Virginia bloggers that brought us the entertaining and divisive Bloggers 4 Sayre are back for an encore performance with Bloggers 4 Jim Gilmore. I wonder if they’ll write anything about their candidate this time. Hyuk, hyuk.
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U.S. Intelligence Pwned?.
2007-12-11.
It seems that Great Britian shares my concern that Iranian counter-intelligence pwned U.S. intelligence when the NIE declared that Iran stopped their nuclear weapons program in 2003. This quote is funny: “[A British source said,] ‘It’s not as if the American intelligence agencies are regarded as brilliant performers in that region. They got badly burned over Iraq.’”
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So That’s What Christmas Is.
2007-12-17.
I see that there is much outrage amongst Republican bloggers over 9 Democrats voting no on H. Res. 847, a bill recognizing Christmas as an important holiday to Christians.
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2008-01
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Life A VR Simulation.
2008-01-04.
Funny, we were just talking about this recently in the Krehbiel household: Scientist Suggests We Explore ‘Universe is a VR Simulation’ Theory.
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Weather Wisdom.
2008-01-09.
Embracing global warming because it’s warm today is just as silly as refuting global warming because it’s cold. Partisans, please stop. It’s embarrassing.
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New Hampshire Independents.
2008-01-10.
In the 2008 New Hampshire primaries, 42% of registered Independents voted Democratic and 34% voted Republican. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#val=NH
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Stosch and O’Bannon Bills.
2008-01-10.
Like everyone else in the Virginia blogosphere, I’ve been getting a bunch of RSS items from Richmond Sunlight this week. Let’s see what my illustrious representatives are working on.
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Candidate Ratings.
2008-01-11.
I don’t think a president needs too many skills. Delivering a good speech and bartering with foreign leaders is about it. Other than that, I figure the actual work of running the country is delegated far down the chain of command and the president himself is just a figurehead embodying the spirit of America to the rest of the world.
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Gun Show Loophole.
2008-01-23.
I’m generally in favor of gun rights, but I’m not obsessive about it. I think I’m in the minority on that in Virginia. The only other opinions here seem to be the extreme right-wing we-need-to-stockpile-guns-to-prepare-for-the-zombie-apocolpyse opinion and the extreme left-wing ban-access-to-all-items-that-might-conceivably-cause-injury opinion.
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Meet The New Boss….
2008-01-28.
Since I first saw SWAC Girl’s post welcoming Spank That Donkey to the ODBA, I couldn’t help but think that there was going to be trouble in that organization. Could Spank and Shaun Kenney – bitter rivals on opposite poles of Virginia Republicanism – co-exist together in the same organization?
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The Outrage!.
2008-01-31.
I can understand why I wasn’t invited to the second annual Richmond Blogger’s Day. After all, I’m just, oh, a blogger who lives in Richmond. (Well, Henrico County – but close enough.) In response to this outrageous insult, I pledge not to vote for you, Lt. Gov.
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2008-02
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The Worth Of The Virginia Primary.
2008-02-02.
Many bloggers here are hoping (a bit desperately, I think) that the Virginia presidential primiaries on February 12 will matter. I’m skeptical.
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Afghanistan Update.
2008-02-02.
I heard a researcher from the Counterterrorism Blog on the radio this morning talking about Afghanistan. Apparently the Taliban fighters are conducting their own “surge” there. He also discussed the continued lack of freedom and human rights in the post-Taliban Afghanistan – in particular he mentioned a journalist who was sentenced to death for circulating a flyer asking why women couldn’t have multiple husbands under Islam.
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Crowhill Returns.
2008-02-02.
Hey I forgot to mention this: Cousin* Greg Krehbiel is back at blogging over at the Crowhill Weblog after taking some time off. Welcome back!
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Superbowl Prediction.
2008-02-03.
Here’s what I want to happen: Patriots jump ahead early, Giants fight back and finally pull ahead late in the game, Patriots pull it together and win on final heroic drive.
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Slightly Different Analogy.
2008-02-03.
Ann Coulter: “Are you too busy boning up on Consumer Reports’ reviews of microwave ovens to spend one day thinking about who should be the next leader of the free world? Are you familiar with our ‘no exchange/no return’ policy on presidential candidates? Voting for McCain because he was a POW a quarter-century ago or Huckabee because he was a Baptist preacher is like buying a new car because you like the color.”
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Primary Results Spreadsheet.
2008-02-06.
In case anyone is interested, I’ve been keeping an Excel spreadsheet summarizing the 2008 primary results. I made it because I couldn’t find anything on the web that gave a chronological summary. You can find an HTML copy of it here: 2008 Presidential Primary Results.
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Iranian Test Missile.
2008-02-10.
I heard about this alarming story in passing on WRVA the other day, so I did a little digging to find out what really happened. As far as I know, this story was wholly ignored by American media in the face of Super Tuesday.
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Primary Eve.
2008-02-11.
Despite keeping a semi-watchful eye on the 2008 presidential race for what seems like an eternity, I have no idea who to vote for tomorrow. There are huge negatives with each one of the remaining candidates.
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HowManyOfMe.com.
2008-02-16.
Heard about this nifty site on the way home from work yesterday.
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Fidel Who?.
2008-02-20.
I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I don’t know why we’re supposed to hate Cuba and Fidel Castro so much. Whatever caused this lingering animosity happened way before I was born, and all that’s left now is a vague sense that today we’re supposed to celebrate the news of the official end to Castro’s regime. I realize they’re godless Communists and all, but I was born too late to really appreciate the Cold War thing.
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Time for a Double-Take.
2008-02-23.
Thanks to the alertness of Daily Whackjob, I just learned that Ben Tribbet spoke in Manasass on a panel about ethical blogging. I think we all remember where we were when we first read Ben’s finest example of ethical blogging: “GILL’S LOGO IS AN ISLAMIC SYMBOL” and his thoughtful analysis, “WOW!!!!!!” (That fifth exclamation point really sold me on the story… I wouldn’t have believed him if he’d only used, say, three or four exclamation points.)
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Ralph!.
2008-02-24.
Ralph joins the race! Down with the corporations! I like this story mainly because it challenges the idea that God handed down a two-party system to America carved on stone tablets, and we citizens should learn to not just accept it but embrace it unquestioningly.
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Ed Sells Out.. er.. Moves On.
2008-02-25.
Captain’s Quarters: The Road Goes Ever On. How disappointing that the relatively moderate, thoughtful, and literate Captain Ed is being absorbed by the Michelle Malkin-branded corporate noise machine. (I can only assume this is a monetary decision… Malkin must be paying him more than he makes from his own blog.)
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What Does Unofficial Mean?.
2008-02-25.
Just out of curiousity, when one pastes a verbatim copy of a campaign press release into an unofficial campaign blog without any attribution, is it still appropriate to call it an “unofficial” blog? And when that same unofficial blog feed appears right on the official campaign web site without any disclaimers, with “Paid for by Jim Gilmore for Senate” at the bottom of the page, is it still appropriate to call it an “unofficial” blog? Seems like somebody should clarify that.
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2008-03
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Those are in Richmond?.
2008-03-09.
So I guess SWAC Girl was in Richmond recently taking pictures again (which seems to be her life’s work now that the Republican party is leaning more moderate). What’s funny is that I’ve lived in Virginia all my life – have lived around Richmond for most of my life – and I’ve never seen any of the buildings in her pictures, let alone been inside them. I suck.
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I Second That.
2008-03-17.
Shaun Kenney will always be in the Virginia blogosphere Hall of Fame because of observant posts like this: What is Worse Than Reading Today’s News?
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On Obama’s Pastor.
2008-03-18.
I got the sense today that some of the anti-Obama people have been dying for a story like the one about his pastor to come out, so they can have a legitimate, politically correct reason to despise him. Previously, they would just hem and haw and say things like, “Well, I don’t know… he doesn’t have much experience, does he?” Now they are all buzzing around like, “Did you hear what that pastor said? He’s a raving lunatic!
- Commentary
2008-04
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Obama is no Kennedy.
2008-04-08.
An old post from my Drafts…
- Commentary
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The Post-Surge Plan.
2008-04-10.
A BBC headline (“US ‘must suspend’ Iraq withdrawal”) reminded me that we have yet to hear the most important part of the surge plan: What’s the plan now that the surge succeeded and the extra troops are leaving again? What have we gained if Iraq descends back into violence again? At that point, withdrawal isn’t a question of surrendering to terrorists, it’s a question of surrendering to incompetence in the Iraqi leadership.
- Commentary
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Obligatory Augusta County Post.
2008-04-15.
You have to admit, those Augusta County Republicans sure know how to liven up the Virginia blogosphere.
- Commentary
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Presentism.
2008-04-20.
Greg Krehbiel wondered: Is the past real? That’s something I’ve pondered from time to time myself. I’m certainly not an expert on this subject and have read very little about it, but it seems that an argument could be made that only “now” exists.
- Commentary
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Internet Safety Classes.
2008-04-23.
Rescued from my Drafts folder…
- Commentary
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The Upside of the McCain Backlash.
2008-04-28.
Funny stuff from United Conservatives’ Cargosquid, which I think generally exemplifies the Virginia conservative Republican sentiment about the upcoming presidential election: F**K YOU MCCAIN! An open letter to the McCain campaign. On the plus side, I admire his honesty.
- Commentary
2008-05
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Burma.
2008-05-12.
I haven’t read any Virginia aggregators in a while (what my wife aptly calls “aggravators”), so I pulled one up this morning out of curiousity, and the very first post I saw annoyed me: The Warmongers on the Left: “Is it time to invade Burma?”
- Commentary
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Jeffersoniad.
2008-05-30.
I’ve been living under a rock, so I’m just now noticing this Jeffersoniad thing. Seems to be a coalition of non-SWAC Virginia Republicans, which is clearly not a bad thing. Also seems to be a vehicle for getting in the pants of Virginia politicians.
- Commentary
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RPV Convention Weekend.
2008-05-31.
Republicans from around the state are invading Richmond this weekend to decide whether Jim Gilmore or Bob Marshall will run against Mark Warner this fall. I will boldy state my preference and say I’m hoping Jim Gilmore wins, because I despise everything Bob Marshall stands for (well, maybe not everything – but that whole thing where he tries to shove his personal belief system into everyone’s lives is rather annoying). The outcome of the convention will also affect which “Bloggers 4” group (Bloggers 4 Jim Gilmore or Bloggers 4 Bob Marshall) gets to gloat about winning the nomination for their guy.
- Commentary
2008-06
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Project Implicit.
2008-06-01.
I saw this nifty research site mentioned on Republitarian and thought it was interesting enough to repeat: Project Implicit. I took the race demo test and the results were rather surprising to me.
- Commentary
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Offshore Drilling.
2008-06-02.
Recently I’ve been hearing a lot of people complaining about China drilling off our coast, as if we’re the only country entitled to drill for oil in the world. For example, see this rant on United Conservatives of Virginia: ChiComs Drilling Off the Coast of Fla. (This is clearly not a person who embraces change – we haven’t used the abbreviation “Fla” since, what, the 60s?)
- Commentary
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Kurt’s Future.
2008-06-03.
So first we heard Kurt Michael’s contentious Augusta County chairmanship was upheld by the mysterious “Central Committe.” Then we heard that Jeff Frederick was elected as RPV Chairman at the convention. Then we heard Scott Sayre was named to Jeff Frederick’s new staff. Then we heard Kurt Michael intends to keep his promise of stepping down as chairman “for the good of the party.”
- Commentary
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Third Parties For President.
2008-06-08.
To do my small part to destroy the thought-stifling two-party political system in America, here is some information about third-party presidential candidates running in 2008. This information was gathered from Wikipedia and various Google searches.
- Commentary
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Evaluating the 100-Day Plan.
2008-06-08.
I was scanning Jeff Frederick’s 100 day plan for the Republican Party this past week, and I came across this sentence.
- Commentary
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DPVA Invalid Too.
2008-06-09.
To be fair, I should point out that the lack of proper W3C validation is not just a Republican web developer problem. The Democratic Party of Virginia’s web site fails W3C validation miserably, too. At the bottom of the page it says that Bullseye Interactive Media created the site.
- Commentary
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No Primaries For Me.
2008-06-10.
Primary day today in Virginia, but not for me. It’s just another boring work day unless you live in the 8th, 10th, or 11th districts.
- Commentary
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Death Penalty, Left vs. Right.
2008-06-15.
Vivian Paige usually stays above the fray and doesn’t speak much about the rest of the blogosphere (she is one of those incredibly rare blogging talents that actually creates material on a consistent basis), so this really stood out to me: Kaine commutes sentence - what say those on the left?
- Commentary
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Influence Peddling.
2008-06-15.
I came across an old post where I mentioned that “unofficial” Bloggers 4 Jim Gilmore content appeared on Jim Gilmore’s official site without any disclaimers. Out of curiousity I went back to the official site and there is now a suitable disclaimer at the bottom of the aggregator page. I expect my BNN influence rating to improve because of this.
- Commentary
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DPVA Convention.
2008-06-16.
The Virginia Democratic Convention was this past weekend. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, there is absolutely nothing to say about it. If there is any controversy within the DPVA, they are keeping it pretty quiet, which is not very entertaining for the rest of the blogosphere.
- Commentary
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Neeraj Nigam makes ballot in VA 10th.
2008-06-18.
There is a distinct lack of Third Party representation in the Virginia political blogosphere, so I’m going to start making a point to pass along any relevant third party news I come across.
- Commentary
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Offshore Drilling For Transportation.
2008-06-19.
I just saw this come through the ol’ aggregator and it almost knocked me right out of my chair: Chris Saxman to introduce off-shore drilling bill. They want to use offshore drilling revenues to fund the Virginia transportation budget. BWAHAHA.
- Commentary
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Silliness from McCain.
2008-06-24.
Here’s something I don’t get about John Sidney McCain’s offshore drilling policy. He’s fine with tearing up the oceans looking for oil in the continental shelves, but he’s against drilling for the oil we know is there in ANWR. Kids, can you say, “pandering for votes?” Or, “have your cake and eat it too?” Or maybe just plain, “WTF?”
- Commentary
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Budgets of Glimore vs. Warner.
2008-06-24.
I’ve been watching the recent exchange* between Waldo and Spank with interest.
- Commentary
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Eric Cantor for VP!.
2008-06-26.
Lots and lots of reports completely unsubstantiated rumors are flying around that Eric Ivan Cantor could become John Sidney McCain’s running mate. As someone who lives in Virginia’s 7th district, I’d also like to urge the The Partisan Robot to leave… err… run.
- Commentary
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Robert Yarbrough.
2008-06-27.
As I’m writing now on the morning of the 26th, before bringing up the ol’ blog aggregator, I’m anticipating a predictable partisan silence from the right and predictable partisan outrage from the left regarding last night’s execution of convicted murderer Robert Yarbrough.
- Commentary
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Paid Bloggers.
2008-06-30.
Lowell wrote: Bloggers as Paid Consultants. So, um, was that supposed to dispel the myth that Raising Kaine is a pay-for-play blog? Lowell’s post basically says, “Yeah, I’ve always been pay-for-play, but since I’m telling you about it now, it’s okay.”
- Commentary
2008-07
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Reversal of Fortunes.
2008-07-02.
I found this post on Too Conservative somewhat amusing: When Surrogates Attack. It’s a warning to Barack Hussein Obama and his surrogates about going down the road of attacking the military service of John Sidney McCain.
- Commentary
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Nader in Richmond and Charlottesville, July 12-13.
2008-07-10.
There is a noticable lack of Third Party representation in the Virginia political blogosphere, so I’m making a point to pass along any relevant third party candidate news I come across.
- Commentary
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NanoPost: Whiners.
2008-07-23.
Phil Graham said we are “a nation of whiners.” So, um, what’s the controversial part again? Also: Doesn’t the very fact that everyone was whining about his comment sort of confirm his observation?
- Commentary
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NanoPost: Lambeth.
2008-07-23.
With the upcoming 2008 Lambeth Conference, I’ve seen some reports lamenting the imminent demise of the ECUSA. It makes me wonder: Why exactly do we need these childishly squabbling human bureaucracies to have a relationship with God anyway?
- Commentary
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NanoPost: Furman on SWAC Girl.
2008-07-23.
Jerry Furman hailed SWAC Girl’s coverage of the Homestead debate between Jim Gilmore and Mark Warner as “unbiased” (compared to the local media’s coverage). That makes perfect sense, because SWAC Girl is an enthusiastic Republican activist, vice chairwoman of the Augusta County Republican Committee, and a public supporter of Jim Gilmore for Senate.
- Commentary
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NBC Loves Them Hurricanes.
2008-07-25.
Does anyone else get the sense that NBC Nightly News for Dummies simply can’t wait to report on another hurricane destroying a U.S. city? While they were spending approximately 20,000 hours reporting on The Long Road Back from Katrina, they must have put a lot of hurricane disaster reporting resources in place, because they sure are anxious to tell us about these things now. This year, they’re building up fear and drama about hurricanes before they’re even hurricanes.
- Commentary
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Political Chess Overseas (updated).
2008-07-26.
Too Progressive gives us the scoop (actually just links to the YouTube where Andrea Mitchell gives us the scoop). One of the meatiest nuggets that conservatives have found in Obama’s overseas junket to reinforce their “Hussein” fantasies is that he snubbed wounded troops !! in Germany.
- Commentary
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NanoPost: John Kerry, Party Animal.
2008-07-31.
John Kerry partying with college girls? It’s hard to imagine a bigger buzzkill. Anyway, the Boston Herald provides a somewhat less sensational version of the story, if you’re interested.
- Commentary
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NanoPost: Commanders On The Ground.
2008-07-31.
It occurs to me that there is a serious flaw with politicians deferring to military commanders on the ground when it comes to Iraq: It undermines the principle that the U.S. is a civilian government. This isn’t Burma, after all. Obviously you want military commanders leading military campaigns… but foreign policy?
- Commentary
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NanoPost: Phear RPV Tech.
2008-07-31.
Jeff Frederick’s stellar IT background has brought the exciting world of ASP (c. 1996-2000) to the Republican Party of Virginia’s web site: http://rpv.org/news.asp. What could be next?
- Commentary
2008-08
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NanoPost: Sitemeter purged.
2008-08-02.
I never particularly liked Sitemeter because of the wacky redirecting it did, and I always intended to replace it. Today I see there is an even bigger reason not to like it: No site using Sitemeter will open in Internet Explorer. Nice.
- Commentary
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Election of Childish Nicknames.
2008-08-06.
If you want to be taken seriously in political discourse today, it’s very, very important to create a childish nickname for the opposition – you know, something that would fit in with the fourth grade playground set. Here’s a look at the playing field so far.
- Commentary
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Blogger Shutdowns.
2008-08-06.
There’s been some consternation lately about Google allegedly “shutting down” some blogs that were critical of Barack HUSSEIN! Obama.
- Commentary
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omgwtfbbq #dontgo.
2008-08-07.
Virginia blogger Scott White has been spamming the Virginia blogosphere with breathless posts about the Twitter thread #dontgo for the last several days. It’s being called a “movement,” a “turning point,” a “revolution,” an “online orgy of oil drilling bliss” (okay, I made that one up).
- Commentary
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Never Trust An Accent.
2008-08-09.
I didn’t think it was still possible for me to be disappointed in elected officials… John Reid Edwards’ admission of an affair proves they can never be trusted. I was actually somewhat impressed by the improvement in his rhetoric in the 2008 primaries. I should never have fallen for that Southern Baptist-sounding* accent.
- Commentary
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Russia fighting Georgia for Ossetia.
2008-08-09.
I heard a microscopic blurb on the radio this morning about violence between Russia and Georgia. The radio guy talked about missiles and fighting and troops and then went right on to discuss the opening ceremonies of the Olypmics or something, leaving me totally in the dark about news that sounded pretty freakin’ serious. Why do they even bother?
- Commentary
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Obama’s VP.
2008-08-19.
Three different scoops about Obama’s VP pick: One for Kaine, one for Bayh, and one for Biden. Take your pick.
- Commentary
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Obama’s VP Part 2.
2008-08-21.
One of the previously mentioned scoopers now has a new scoop: Hillary.
- Commentary
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Biden As VP.
2008-08-25.
I actually like Joe Biden. He is long-winded, yes, and I don’t agree with all of his policies, but he always seems to skip past the B.S. and get right to the point.
- Commentary
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The Conventions Part 1.
2008-08-29.
We’ve been watching the DNC on C-SPAN this week. If you’re masochistic enough to want to watch a partisan convention, C-SPAN is definitely the way to go. It entirely cuts out the commercials and painfully ridiculous commentary that typically comes with the news networks.
- Commentary
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Palin as VP.
2008-08-29.
I said before I thought Biden was an “interesting and bold choice” for Obama. Well, today McCain actually one-upped him. Gov.
- Commentary
2008-09
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Virginia Third Parties in November.
2008-09-01.
I was curious to see how many third parties made it onto the ballot here in Virginia, so I went over to the Virginia State Board of Elections. Here are the candidates that will be appearing on the ballot in Virginia for U.S. Senate.
- Commentary
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This Is An Outrage.
2008-09-01.
I am outraged that Hurricane Gustav is interfering with the Republican National Convention. How am I supposed to compare it with the DNC now?
- Commentary
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Prediction.
2008-09-04.
I am going to make a bold prediction that Republicans will praise Sarah Palin’s speech (probably using baseball metaphors), and Democrats will not.
- Commentary
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Common Ground.
2008-09-05.
I’m going to try to find some common ground with Gov. Sarah Palin.
- Commentary
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Secure Your Teleprompter Text.
2008-09-05.
I was scanning over Gov. Palin’s speech as it was pasted at Caroline County VA Justice (original source unknown), and stumbled over this part, which plenty of others have also noticed.
- Commentary
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Liberal Media Bias Again.
2008-09-05.
Here’s some more of that damn liberal media bias again. I’m glad conservatives are finally holding the media accountable for this foolishness.
- Commentary
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Comparison of VP speeches.
2008-09-05.
I thought it would be instructive to compare the tone of the personal attacks in the vice-presidential candidate speeches at their respective conventions.
- Commentary
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The Conventions Part 2.
2008-09-05.
I’m not going to lie to you: The RNC was nowhere near as entertaining as the DNC. (Except as seen on The Daily Show.) Here are the all-star speakers from CSPAN’s YouTube channel: George Bush (introduced by Laura Bush), Fred Thompson, Joe Lieberman, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin, Lindsey Graham, Tom Ridge, Cindy McCain, John McCain. (Remember bloggers, embeds are not valid HTML.
- Commentary
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That Bailout Thingy.
2008-09-26.
I know nothing about the mysteriously ambiguous world of economics so I can’t speculate as to whether this bailout thing is good, bad, or indifferent. Well, actually I can – I can speculate that bailing out big companies sounds bad. Not so much for the dreaded socialism aspect but more for the fact that the upper echelons of all these failed companies won’t experience any consequences from their persistent record of gross incompetence.
- Commentary
2008-10
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Death of a Bailout.
2008-10-01.
I’m kind of glad the bailout bill failed. The “credit crisis” hasn’t affected me in the slightest, and I have yet to see any specific explanation of how it might affect me in the future. So now I won’t be able to get a loan for more money than I can ever pay back… that’s a crisis?
- Commentary
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Who’s Going to Bail Out the Bailout?.
2008-10-06.
So let me get this straight.
- Commentary
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The Cynical Election Roundup.
2008-10-20.
By the way, I’m purposefully avoiding writing and especially reading further about the presidential election. Thankfully I already have all the information I need to make a decision, because if I didn’t, I definitely wouldn’t be getting anything useful from television, radio or the blogosphere. I feel badly for anyone actually trying to decide how to vote right now.
- Commentary
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India Launches Moon Mission.
2008-10-23.
This is nifty: Indian Moon Mission Launched. Glad to see that somebody is doing something productive for the human race. This news surprised me because I can’t remember hearing about any other space flights to the moon since, you know, the 1970s.
- Commentary
2008-11
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A Minor Reflection upon the Election.
2008-11-04.
For some parts of the country, tomorrow will be a day of joy and relief, and for others, it will be a day of anger and despair. Both of those extremist groups will be flailing around a lot on television, radio, and the Internet in the days and weeks ahead while media producers scramble to further dramatize what is supposed to be the (latest) defining news event of our time.
- Commentary
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Poll Results from 2000 and 2004.
2008-11-04.
It’s popularly believed (at least by the handful of people that I’ve overheard lately) that polls don’t mean anything, and the actual results of today’s election will be far different from what the media says it will be. I tend to agree with that theory, up to a point*. But I was curious to see if that viewpoint bears up against the historical evidence from the 2000 and 2004 elections, which as you may remember turned out to be toss-ups.
- Commentary
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Post-Election Musing.
2008-11-06.
I have many post-election thoughts.
- Commentary
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Less Mergers, Less Bailouts.
2008-11-17.
I’ve been thinking about this bailout thing. I’m no economist, but it seems to me that instead of the government bailing out large companies that fail, the government should instead work to prevent companies from getting so large that their failure would impact the nation’s economy. So I would suggest that whichever government agency is responsible for regulating corporations start cracking down and don’t allow big corporations to gobble up smaller corporations anymore.
- Commentary
2008-12
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Congress vs. The Automakers.
2008-12-08.
I have to confess that I don’t understand why Congress has been grilling the auto industry over the measly $35 billion they’re asking for, when they previously felt absolutely no restraint or shame over giving away trillions to the banking industry. I guess nobody in Congress owns auto stock…
- Commentary
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Blagojevich, the Transition and the Shoe.
2008-12-22.
I haven’t written much lately because I don’t have a lot of spare time. Well, that’s not exactly true. The more accurate statement is that I don’t feel like using up my spare time writing.
- Commentary
2009-02
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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
2009-02-10.
I’m ambivalent and skeptical about this latest stimulus bill. On the one hand, the idea of more government spending is kind of repulsive, but on the other hand, if they’re determined to throw money away, I can see where a mix of tax cuts and infrastructure projects is the best way to go right now. At least it’s better than buying “toxic mortgages.”
- Commentary
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Droves Leave The Frederick Bandwagon.
2009-02-11.
Just saw this tidbit on technology industry wizard and RPV Chairman Jeff Frederick tonight: Key Party Switch in Virginia? Shaun Kenney’s analysis: NRO Campaign Spot: Loose Twits Sink Shifts.
- Commentary
2009-03
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Virginia 2009 Statewide Candidates.
2009-03-01.
I finally sat down and made a list of the announced candidates for statewide office in Virginia this year. These are all the candidates I could find, which is not to say there aren’t any more out there that I missed (like third party candidates, which I found zero information about).
- Commentary
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No Agenda Podcast.
2009-03-24.
My new favorite political show is the No Agenda Podcast. It’s sort of a subversive, anti-government, rambling talk show with Adam Curry (the former MTV VJ) and John C. Dvorak (the technology columnist).
- Commentary
2009-04
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Mish Mash of Economic Topics.
2009-04-05.
This is a collection of thoughts about the economic crisis, from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about economic theory and has no intention of learning anything about such a fundamentally unscientific, faith-based system.
- Commentary
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The Best Tea Party Wrapup.
2009-04-19.
Normally I would write something about those silly partisan social gatherings aka. “tea parties,” but in this case, all I have to do is write: See The Daily Show, April 16.
- Commentary
2009-05
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Tea Parties, Two Weeks Later.
2009-05-03.
Speaking of tea parties, it’s been roughly two and half weeks since the big FOX News Tea Party thing. As expected, all of those people that “weren’t going to take it anymore” meekly went back to their homes having accomplished absolutely nothing. Presumably they’re now sitting comfortably in their homes, watching YouTube and American Idol.
- Commentary
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Obama’s First 100 Days.
2009-05-03.
I don’t really have much to say about Obama’s First 100 Days. There was some good stuff (stem cell research) and some bad stuff (bowing to that Saudi king). All in all, it was pretty ordinary for a presidential administration, as far as I’m concerned.
- Commentary
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Police GPS Trackers and Clean Water.
2009-05-11.
I probably mentioned this before, but I’ve been listening to the No Agenda podcast a lot during my commute lately. The show is not very polished and it goes off the rails quite a lot, but it’s still very refreshing to hear a perspective on current events that isn’t rooted entirely in Democratic or Republican talking points. And hey, it’s free.
- Commentary
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Just Say No To Patented Genes.
2009-05-14.
The ACLU is often criticized (rightly, in some cases) for going overboard with their lawsuits, but this is one case where I fully support them: ACLU: Human Gene Patents Infringe Speech.
- Commentary
2009-06
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Two Hands.
2009-06-03.
This is a comparison of the personal convictions of two people. On the one hand, we have Dr. George Tiller. He was a doctor who worked for what he believed was the good of his patients in a quiet and unassuming way.
- Commentary
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Virginia Primaries this Tuesday.
2009-06-07.
This Tuesday is primary day in Virginia.
- Commentary
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Huckabee’s Divisive Argument Against Abortion.
2009-06-24.
Mike Huckabee appeared on The Daily Show last week to discuss the touchy subject of abortion, and Stewart brought out what I find most annoying about the pro-life argument.
- Commentary
2009-07
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On the Climate Bill and the Worthless Congress.
2009-07-02.
I’m no fan of Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) - in fact, I typically can’t stand the sound of his voice. But I applaud him for taking an hour to try to call attention to the way Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) Climate Bill (H.R.2454) was recently ramrodded through the House without anyone reading it.
- Commentary
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Quick Thoughts on Sarah Palin’s Resignation.
2009-07-04.
Blogs on the right are saying Gov. Sarah Palin resigned because the left’s smear tactics finally got to her, blogs on the left are saying Gov. Palin quit because she’s dumb and irrational.
- Commentary
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Things Unrelated To Michael Jackson.
2009-07-14.
Here are some things I’ve learned recently from the No Agenda podcast, which I have not seen mentioned anywhere else in mainstream media. (The podcast is a terrible production but at least they have interesting topics - usually.) Investigations on any of these subjects would make it much more interesting to watch the news.
- Commentary
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Catherine Crabill and the Erosion of Democracy.
2009-07-20.
I feel compelled to write a little bit about Catherine Crabill (R), who is running for delegate in Virginia’s 99th district against incumbent Albert Pollard (D). Normally you don’t hear much about local delegate races unless you happen to live in the area, but in this case she’s caught the attention of the mighty Huffington Post after her ballot box and bullet box remarks were caught on tape by a tracker.
- Commentary
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Deeds v. McDonnell: The First Debate.
2009-07-25.
I thought I’d write a little review of the first debate between Bob McDonnell (R) and Creigh Deeds (D), which hopefully will not sound exactly like the hundred other partisan debate wrap-ups out there.
- Commentary
2009-08
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Jim Moran’s Town Hall Meeting.
2009-08-27.
I recorded about half of Jim Moran’s town hall meeting from C-SPAN Tuesday night and just finished watching it. Am I missing something, or are these things a total waste of time? Have they always been this animated or is this a recent development?
- Commentary
2009-10
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Gubernatorial Smackdown Tonight.
2009-10-12.
There’s a Virginia gubernatorial debate tonight at 8 PM (see Creigh’s writeup and Bob’s writeup). This one will actually be broadcast on local television (I think this is the first one but I’m not sure) so you won’t have to fight with streaming video to see it.
- Commentary
2009-12
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Recent Climate News.
2009-12-13.
I’m hesitant to write about Climate-gate, because I don’t want anyone to think that my beliefs align in any way with the beliefs of the myopic conservative mob. Still, there have been three recent incidents regarding climate change that further my own skepticism about what we were told was the “scientific consensus.”
- Commentary
2010-01
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Random Observation about Human History.
2010-01-14.
I often read the “on this day” section of Wikipedia just out curiosity. It occurred to me one day that, according to the “on this day” records, not much happened before around 1500 A.D.
- Commentary
2010-04
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The Fight Against Monsanto.
2010-04-19.
The other day my wife casually mentioned that she was going to use a Monsanto product. Nooooo! I said.
- Commentary
2010-07
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Political Blogging Blues.
2010-07-08.
Semi-recent posts by F.T. Rea and Vivian Paige about political blogging got me thinking about my own lack of interest in politics lately. I don’t consider myself a “political blogger” in the accepted sense, but I certainly fall into the category of people that are less interested in politics this year.
- Commentary
2010-08
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A Disturbing Civil War Parallel.
2010-08-03.
We were watching Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary the other day, and I commented that I used to think it was impossible to imagine a civil war in America, but lately it seems more and more plausible.
- Commentary
2010-10
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Happy Knights of Columbus Day.
2010-10-11.
In today’s political climate of trying to repeal the 14th Amendment – a clearly anti-immigrant sentiment – the irony of a federal holiday brought about to celebrate immigration is impossible to ignore.
- Commentary
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The 2010 “Race” in the Virginia 7th District.
2010-10-12.
It’s that time of year again. The time when we in the Virginia 7th District pretend Eric Cantor has some competition for his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
- Commentary
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Read George Washington’s Farewell Address.
2010-10-28.
All those voting in the mid-term election next week (that’s everyone, right?) should take some time and read George Washington’s Farewell Address. Wikipedia also has a synopsis of the Address if your literacy skills are inadequate.
- Commentary
2010-11
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The 2010 Mid-Term Election Prediction Post.
2010-11-02.
I don’t normally do election predictions, but in this case I feel pretty safe in predicting: Republicans will win more than Democrats tomorrow.
- Commentary
2010-12
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WikiLeaks Not To Blame For Government Ineptitude.
2010-12-07.
Julian Assange seems like a dork, but I support the concept of the WikiLeaks web site. “Whistle blowers” can be an important check of government power, and certainly the people (in democracies, at least) have a right to know what their government is doing on their behalf. (How else can we make informed voting decisions?) In any case, WikiLeaks isn’t the problem: Inept handling of secret government documents is.
- Commentary
2011-01
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George Allen Running For 2012 Senate.
2011-01-31.
So I saw that George Allen is running for Jim Webb’s Senate seat in 2012, which I suppose means we can look forward to another Virginia election cycle full of Democratic bloggers and consultants pushing “macaca” as their go-to strategy. Everything old is new again, or something.
- Commentary
2011-12
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NTSB Doesn’t Go Far Enough.
2011-12-17.
The NTSB wants to ban cell phones and texting while driving. If they really want to save lives, they need to ban driving. Seriously, have you guys seen how many people are killed driving every year?
- Commentary
2012-01
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Idle Thoughts On Reincarnation.
2012-01-31.
I overheard some people talking about reincarnation today, so I thought I’d write down what I thought about it. Mainly because I’m trying to write 1,500 new words every day as part of my grandiose plan to take over the world, and I figure blog posts should count as part of that, right?
- Commentary
2012-04
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Next Victim Please.
2012-04-14.
E. Wayne Powell is the next Democrat to charge incumbent Eric Cantor’s machinegun nest in the Virginia 7th District House of Representatives election.
- Commentary
2012-05
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Introvert Discrimination On Display.
2012-05-05.
Introvertedness is not an illness. You don’t “become” an introvert. You can’t “catch” it, like the flu. You are born an introvert.
- Commentary
2012-12
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Sigh.
2012-12-15.
I first heard about the shooting around noon on Friday when I overheard a coworker telling his cube-neighbor about it. The second words out of his mouth were something about gun control, so I guess it’s never too soon to opine after a tragedy.
The world is very, very dangerous, and it is a miracle that any of us have survived this long. It’s easy to forget that.
It’s human nature to search for answers, but most of the time there aren’t any.
- Commentary
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Meaningful Action.
2012-12-16.
I was pretty disappointed when I read reports that Obama had called for “meaningful action” following the shooting tragedy Friday. If you’re not familiar with the lively debate over the Second Amendment in this country, those words mean that he is planning to push through tough new laws to take away our rights to arm ourselves. It was disappointing to hear him say that, because I have always enjoyed giggling when I hear fear-mongerers misguidedly ascribe a radical left-wing communist agenda to the Obama regime.
- Commentary
- Politics
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A Few Loose Ends.
2012-12-17.
A few more comments on uncontroversial topics like mental health and gun control.
- Commentary
- Politics
2013-01
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Fiscal Cliff Countdown.
2013-01-01.
Forget the Times Square ball drop, what channel is the Fiscal Cliff countdown on?
- Commentary
2013-02
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No More Saturday Mail.
2013-02-23.
The USPS is going to stop Saturday delivery. Now they just need to work on stopping mail delivery Monday through Friday, too.
- Commentary
- Politics
2013-04
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North Korea Trollololol.
2013-04-06.
This daily hubbub about North Korea is getting kind of ridiculous.
- Commentary
- Politics
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Android Calendar Date Entry Sucks.
2013-04-06.
In what world is it easy to enter a month and day using these stupid radial spin dials?
- Commentary
- Personal
- Technology
2013-06
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NBC Nightly Weather News.
2013-06-04.
When did NBC Nightly News turn into a half-hour weather show?
- Commentary
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Government Surveillance.
2013-06-07.
Constant surveillance seems like a fairly logical side effect of instantaneous global communication.
- Commentary
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Is Facebook Like A Telephone Book?.
2013-06-08.
Is Facebook like a telephone book?
- Commentary
- Technology
2013-07
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The Latest Trial of the Century.
2013-07-16.
So I heard something about a Zimmerman verdict? I think it was a trial or something.
- Commentary
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Throwing Out The Royal Baby.
2013-07-24.
Can we please stop reporting about the Royal Baby now?
- Commentary
2013-08
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Who Is This Edward Snowden Guy?.
2013-08-10.
Today I decided to figure out why I keep hearing the name Edward Snowden so much.
- Commentary
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Bradley Manning Sentenced.
2013-08-24.
Bradley Manning Army Photo from Wikimedia Commons
I mentioned Bradley Manning in a previous post, so to follow-up on that, and to let you know that I have not yet been murdered by the strange late-night knocker I mentioned in another previous post: Manning was sentenced to 35 years. The news report that I heard (from CBS News I think) said that he might only serve 7 of those years.
- Commentary
2014-09
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Shock Top Commercial.
2014-09-28.
Watching this commercial for Shock Top beer during the 49ers vs. Eagles game.
- Commentary
2014-12
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Why I’m Not Watching The Interview.
2014-12-24.
Because I’m not falling for this obvious PR stunt.
- Commentary
2015-01
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Minecraft Text Editor.
2015-01-08.
Text editor created in Minecraft.
- Commentary
- Gaming
- Technology
2015-04
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Irony in the Social Justice Warrior.
2015-04-11.
A look at the political irony I find in the term “social justice warrior.”
- Commentary
- Culture