Wednesday, April 30, 2008

See, over the last few years, I have seen annual attempts to “unite the Republican Party in Virginia.” They have all been followed by the same things: issue-less campaigns, lost leads, surprising (to some) defeats, recriminations, and grudges that go so deep into the next election cycle that the same people try to “bring the party together” and start the cycle all over again.

The first and most obvious of these fiascos came in 2005, when Jerry Kilgore led the state GOP ticket. The party had just been through a vicious policy battle over taxes - one which became a political battle as several tax-hiking GOP Delegates faces primary challenges. Kilgore had a choice: accept the division as a reality and pick sides, or make broad and bland “unity” statements that papered over the serious differences.

Kilgore chose the latter, and ended up with a lower percentage of the vote than any GOP nominee for Governor had earned in twenty years.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/30/2008 08:07:00 PM | 0 comments

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/30/2008 12:11:00 PM | 3 comments

Monday, April 28, 2008

According to Maryland court records, Frawley was stopped by police at 10:50 p.m. on April 10 at 2908 Virgilia St., in Rockville, Md., driving a 1997 Toyota with Maryland tags. The court records indicate he produced a Maryland driver’s license.

He was charged with "driving (attempting to drive) a vehicle while under the influence," according to court records.

UMW’s Board of Visitors fired Frawley last year after he was arrested twice in two days on driving under the influences charges in Virginia, first in Fairfax on April 10, 2007, then the next day in Fredericksburg, when a fellow motorist reported someone driving across the Chatham Bridge with a front tire missing. He told a police officer he had consumed six bottles of cough medicine, according to a police report.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/28/2008 06:44:00 PM | 0 comments

The Catholic Church clearly teaches that abortion is a grave offense against the will of God. Throughout my years as Archbishop of New York, I have repeated this teaching in sermons, articles, addresses, and interviews without hesitation or compromise of any kind. Thus it was that I had an understanding with Mr. Rudolph Giuliani, when I became Archbishop of New York and he was serving as Mayor of New York, that he was not to receive the Eucharist because of his well-known support of abortion. I deeply regret that Mr. Giuliani received the Eucharist during the Papal visit here in New York, and I will be seeking a meeting with him to insist that he abide by our understanding.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/28/2008 06:10:00 PM | 0 comments

Hager alleged in an affidavit to the Federal Election Commission that the DNC coordinated the ad with the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. That would violate federal election law.

"This is just another GOP lie in the Bush-McCain tradition, but it doesn't change the fact that John McCain doesn't understand the economy," said DNC spokesman Luis Miranda.

“Not only are the Democrats blatantly distorting comments made by John McCain, but they are clearly breaking the law in order to do so,” said Hager. “The DNC should immediately pull this ad. If they refuse to do so, then Senators Clinton and Obama and their supporters, including Governor Kaine, should call on the DNC to stop running the ad.”

DNC “officials have met in recent days with the top campaign brass of Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) to brief them on the committee’s plans in the coming months. (“DNC Officials Huddle With Clinton, Obama Campaigns” by Chris Cillizza, Washingtonpost.com, April 25, 2008)

“I don’t think we have to bring up age,” said Cornell Belcher, an Obama pollster who collaborated on the DNC’s McCain poll. “I don’t think we will”…Since the Democrats have not yet settled on a presidential candidate, Dean was joined in making the polling presentation by Belcher, one of Sen. Barack Obama’s pollsters, as well as Allan Rivlin, whose polling firm does work for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. (“Dean: McCain’s Age Worries Voters” by Teddy Davis and Mike Elmore, ABCNews.com, April 10, 2008)

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/28/2008 05:52:00 PM | 0 comments

Sunday, April 27, 2008

The Cortes family says their Royal Caribbean cruise was a living hell. They boarded the Majesty of the Seas on Monday out of Miami. Tuesday night, they were kicked off the boat in Nassau.

"Everyone was crying and pleading that they wouldn't throw us of the boat, begging them if we could stay," Luis Cortes said.

Their 7-month-old child, Zoie, was throwing up and had diarrhea. A doctor on the ship said she was dehydrated and had to be treated in a hospital. The family said a security guard gave them 10 minutes to pack their bags and get off the boat. It was 11 o'clock at night.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/27/2008 11:46:00 PM | 0 comments

Operation of the 54.4 kg (120 lb) machine is simple, in fact it's so simple there are no controls except for an on-off switch. To go forward you simply push your body weight forward to tilt the machine. To back up, just lean back on the seat to tilt it backwards and back it goes. The farther you lean, the faster it accelerates. The gyro tells the ECU how much to accelerate and that in turn delivers the proper amount of current to the electric motors, one for each wheel.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/27/2008 02:38:00 PM | 0 comments

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/27/2008 02:29:00 PM | 0 comments

Saturday, April 26, 2008

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/26/2008 07:52:00 AM | 8 comments

Friday, April 25, 2008

Lieberman, 43, said he hasn't played softball in years, but thought it would be fun to "get a little physical activity and hang out with the neighbors."

Lieberman, of Ruther Glen, said he was told that it was a church league and he must attend a church in the county to play.

When he replied that he is Jewish and there are no synagogues in Caroline County, he was told he could not play. He said he hung up in disbelief.

"It was kind of surreal to me. I wasn't sure if I heard what I thought I heard," he told The Associated Press on Thursday.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/25/2008 04:09:00 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Keep in mind, Graham didn’t push Saxman on this; he wasn’t even expecting it to come up at all. Saxman took it upon himself to disabuse Graham of the notion that Gilmore’s nomination was a done deal. That should tell you how much credibility to put in Gilmore’s victory declarations.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/24/2008 11:13:00 AM | 2 comments

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/22/2008 05:57:00 PM | 1 comments

Monday, April 21, 2008

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/21/2008 08:48:00 PM | 6 comments

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/21/2008 01:20:00 PM | 0 comments

Friday, April 18, 2008

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/18/2008 03:57:00 PM | 1 comments

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/15/2008 08:43:00 PM | 3 comments

Anyone who has been involved in politics for a while knows that these mass meetings are never perfect. They are run by volunteers. Not professionals. As a party leader, Kurt Michael (and others) knew that mistakes were being made. Instead of acting the statesmen and offering to help, they waited until they could take advantage of the parliamentary technicality and defy the will of the majority. Some leader, huh?

So you ask, is this the way to build a party? Is this the way to heal old wounds? We all know the answer. But I’ve come to realize something. Michael and crowd don’t care. They never have. And they don’t really care about ideology. What they care about is power. And they will do anything, including the destruction of their own party, to get it and keep it. Sadly, the same power grab is happening in the Sixth District Committee, with Jim Crosby challenging current Chairman Fred Anderson for the top spot.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/15/2008 07:00:00 PM | 4 comments

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/15/2008 06:33:00 PM | 0 comments

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/15/2008 06:30:00 PM | 0 comments

Some have interpreted the ceaseless criticisms of Google's privacy policies and its co-operation with totalitarian regimes as a sign the Don't Be Evil goal is unattainable for a profit-driven company. At the very least, the corporate motto has encouraged the public and the press to hold Google to a higher standard.

"It really wasn't like an elected, ordained motto," Google's vice-president and 20th employee, Marissa Mayer, said in an interview during her trip to Sydney last week.

"I think that 'Don't Be Evil' is a very easy thing to point at when you see Google doing something that you personally don't like; it's a very easy thing to point out so it does get targeted a lot."

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/15/2008 06:28:00 PM | 0 comments

Only a constitutional amendment will ensure that the courts of our nation protect the fundamental right of parents to raise their children. And only a constitutional amendment will override international law that seeks to undermine the parental role. As the only complete solution to the danger confronting the child-parent relationship, the Parental Rights Amendment will place current Supreme Court doctrine protecting parental rights into the explicit text of the Constitution. Only a constitutional amendment completely eliminates all threats to the child-parent relationship. It is the only comprehensive response to the attack on parental rights across our nation.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/15/2008 05:23:00 PM | 0 comments

Monday, April 14, 2008

Shane Cory, the Libertarian Party's executive director, knows that directing libertarians is like herding cats—almost a contradiction in terms. But he thinks his party is upwardly mobile. In 2004, its presidential candidate received just 397,265 votes, a mere .32 percent of the national popular vote. The party did best in Indiana (18,058 votes, .73 percent). But in no state was the Libertarian vote larger than the winning candidate's margin of victory. This year, however, Cory thinks the party can far surpass its best national performance—921,299 votes (1.1 percent of the total) in 1980. It has recruited 600 down-ballot candidates around the nation (including Michael Munger, chairman of the political-science department at Duke, who is running for governor of North Carolina) and expects to have 1,500 by Election Day.

...

Barr's new party (he joined in 2006) also is handicapped by John McCain's handiwork. One wealthy libertarian would give $1 million if the McCain-Feingold law regulating political participation did not ban contributions of more than $28,500 to national parties. Another wealthy libertarian—he is dead, so he has none of the supposedly corrupt purposes that make McCain so cross—bequeathed more than $200,000 to the party. That would fund the ballot access struggles, but it is in escrow because of McCain-Feingold. If libertarian voters cost McCain the presidency, that will be condign punishment.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/14/2008 07:23:00 PM | 0 comments

Two key prosecution witnesses testifying about the tire-slashing incident at Republican Party headquarters on Election Day 2004 said yesterday they heard the five accused Milwaukeeans brag of the deed.

But defense attorneys also were able to get Levar Stoney, of Virginia, and Leshaunda Joy Williams, of New York, to admit they lied to Milwaukee Police Department interrogators shortly after the Nov. 2, 2004 incident in order to safely flee the city. Stoney and Williams both were in Milwaukee to help hype Dem turnout in the final weeks of the Kerry-Edwards presidential bid.

Both Stoney and Williams told the FBI in subsequent interviews that they heard most of the five men brag about their role in the slashing of tires on nearly 100 vehicles rented by the GOP.

On election day, Simmons spoke with Mohammad, who said he was going to get an article about the tire slashing that was on the Journal Sentinel’s Web site and frame it. "Simmons stated that he interpreted this as a sort of 'you can’t catch me' type statement by defendant Mohammad," the complaint reads.

Another election worker, Levar Stoney, told an FBI agent in Virginia that he had been "taunted" for dropping out of Operation Elephant Takeover but that the five defendants talked afterward about how many tires each had stabbed while Mohammad ran interference, the criminal complaint says.

Prosecutors say the five defendants left the Democratic campaign office at about 3:30 a.m. the morning of the election and slashed the tires of the vans around the perimeter of a dirt parking lot to prevent the GOP efforts.

Lawyers for the five defendants, however, say the national "political operatives" are in fact slashed the tires and then, when authorities began speaking with them, pointed their fingers at the five defendants to save their political careers.

The testimony of Smith and her three out-of-state co-workers, Myesha Ward, Levar Stoney and Lashaunda Williams generally echoed previous statements of Opel Simmons III, an earlier witness and the leader of the get-out-the-vote group who told jurors of the defendants' behavior after the alleged slashing.

But like Simmons, the witnesses all admitted to lying to police in the hours after the slashing and then changing their stories in interviews with FBI agents during the months after the election.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/14/2008 06:03:00 PM | 0 comments

I have to blog again...can you blame me? I mean, in times like these, I have to cling to my blog, because I'm just a typical small-town resident who is bitter.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/14/2008 05:20:00 PM | 1 comments

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/14/2008 05:17:00 PM | 1 comments

Sunday, April 13, 2008

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/13/2008 02:59:00 PM | 0 comments

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/13/2008 01:30:00 PM | 0 comments

But based on early returns from the county meetings, Gilmore strategist M. Boyd Marcus said "there really isn't any doubt" that Gilmore will be the nominee because he is winning big in many rural counties as well as suburban Richmond and Hampton Roads.

"They really don't have anyone on their side that has really done this before," Marcus said of Marshall's campaign. "They never really understood what was happening around them. You can't build support on a statewide basis in a month or two."

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/13/2008 12:17:00 AM | 1 comments

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Hyland is right that Davis supporters are banging down the doors for Marshall, but there is quiet fist-pumping among many Davis supporters when you talk about Marshall's candidacy. Marshall is also universally respected among those who know him. He's doctrinaire, but he won't stab you in the back. Let me tell you, among Davis supporters, there is real anger at the way Tom has been treated by the state party after all the work and all the money he spread around to help elect Republicans all across the commonwealth in the last few years. Whether its fair or not, Gilmore gets hit with that anger. There is also genuine resignation that Gilmore will get blown out by many up here and he has shown no reason yet how he won't. For Marshall, many up here just throw their hands up and say "what the hell, why not?"

I don't know. I'll be a delegate in Richmond next month and I while I'm supporting Gilmore now, I was also ready to support anyone else. I was at the state central meeting where Tom got slapped in the face, and I haven't forgotten about that either. It wasn't just a slap in Tom's face, for many of us from Northern Virginia it felt like a slap on all our faces. And the irony is that the convention was suppose to guarantee Gilmore the nomination, and now its being used to prevent it.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/12/2008 08:44:00 PM | 0 comments

For the third time since Mr. Obama's remarks were made public Friday night, Mrs. Clinton criticized him at length, saying his comments seemed "kind of elitist and out of touch."

"I disagree with Senator Obama's assertion that people in our country cling to guns and have certain attitudes about immigration or trade simply out of frustration," she said.

She described herself as a pro-gun churchgoer, recalling that her father taught her how to shoot a gun when she was a young girl and said that her faith "is the faith of my parents and my grandparents."

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/12/2008 08:20:00 PM | 1 comments

Friday, April 11, 2008

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/11/2008 08:37:00 AM | 0 comments

AntiPoleez eliminates bad breath resulting from consumption of alcohol, tobacco and food. Unlike breath fresheners and gum AntiPoleez does not just mask the unwanted odor with heavy mint or fruit scent, it eliminates it and does not leave any other. The unique combination of components work to increase the consumption of breath producing molecules by the epithelium of the mucous coat of the upper respiratory passages resulting in clean, fresh breath. Despite the level of effect that AntiPoleez has against odor producing substances it does not contain any chemicals but only natural ingredients and no artificial flavors and complies with FDA regulations.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/11/2008 08:35:00 AM | 0 comments

Thursday, April 10, 2008

One of the many things the American right has done to change the debate on education in general is to force Americans to see that a government monopoly is not the best way to deliver education. At the K-12 level, this has led to numerous conservative proposals for education reform under the e umbrella of educational choice - in essence, taking the entire idea of government help for education and restructuring it so that the students, not the institutions, are aided. The conservative movement is making similar moves in housing, medical insurance, and other areas.

Gilmore’s tuition freeze, by contrast, moves in the exact opposite direction. It doesn’t strengthen individual choice; it limits it by forcing them to use public education in order to benefit from the aid. It doesn’t embrace the free market; it distorts it by using government power to artificially lower the prices for government-funded universities to the detriment of private and religious ones.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/10/2008 04:31:00 PM | 7 comments

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/10/2008 02:19:00 PM | 0 comments

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/10/2008 11:49:00 AM | 0 comments

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

In a nutshell, officially admitting that there are wild cougars in Virginia invites a political mess that none of these people really wants to deal with. Can you really blame them? So in response to sighting after sighting and article after article, DGIF and other agencies give the same old 'swamp gas and weather balloons' routine, as if we were talking about unicorns or velociraptors hiding out in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Their potential 'out' when some hunter finally shoots one and forces the issue into everyone's lap is the fact that, as I have explained here, odds are that these are not in fact eastern cougars at all but rather exotic pet trade hybrids. Hybrids which have no official status in wildlife regulations and are not considered endangered animals.

At that point, DGIF will almost certainly attempt to calm everyone down by pointing out that these are the product of escaped pets. This is what other states have done in the same situation. That takes care of the legal protection issue, but as for the rest it changes nothing. In terms of either safety or a desire to restore the old ecology of Virginia with a large, top level carnivorous cat, who the heck cares what subspecies it is? The worst part is that people usually swallow this kind of crap. And certainly DGIF will say that we have no reason to think that the escaped animals are breeding, so they don't really count, etc. But you'd have to be a complete idiot to think that there is any reason why these cats wouldn't be doing what comes naturally and breeding in the wild.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/08/2008 06:23:00 PM | 0 comments

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/08/2008 12:53:00 PM | 0 comments

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/08/2008 11:49:00 AM | 0 comments

Monday, April 07, 2008

Cass Sunstein, who has previously argued essentially that all rights are granted to us by government, argues in a new book, Nudge, that people should be allowed to make choices, as long as they are directed to make the right choices.

...

They are, then, "libertarian paternalists," or perhaps paternalistic libertarians.

Perhaps they say it with a wink. Because it’s a little like being an establishmentarian revolutionary, or an Islamic-jihadist agnostic.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/07/2008 02:32:00 PM | 0 comments

Saturday, April 05, 2008

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/05/2008 11:14:00 PM | 2 comments

One of the most competitive categories is blogs about technology developments and news. They are in a vicious 24-hour competition to break company news, reveal new products and expose corporate gaffes.

To the victor go the ego points, and, potentially, the advertising. Bloggers for such sites are often paid for each post, though some are paid based on how many people read their material. They build that audience through scoops or volume or both.

Some sites, like those owned by Gawker Media, give bloggers retainers and then bonuses for hitting benchmarks, like if the pages they write are viewed 100,000 times a month. Then the goal is raised, like a sales commission: write more, earn more.

Bloggers at some of the bigger sites say most writers earn about $30,000 a year starting out, and some can make as much as $70,000. A tireless few bloggers reach six figures, and some entrepreneurs in the field have built mini-empires on the Web that are generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Others who are trying to turn blogging into a career say they can end up with just $1,000 a month.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/05/2008 09:15:00 PM | 0 comments

Barr served as House manager in the 1998 impeachment circus, again demonstrating his manifest contempt for the will of the majority of the American people who twice elected Bill Clinton to be their president.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/05/2008 07:11:00 PM | 0 comments

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/05/2008 09:05:00 AM | 2 comments

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/05/2008 12:29:00 AM | 0 comments

Friday, April 04, 2008

A significant reason that I find traditional partisan political discourse increasingly frustrating is each side’s unwillingness to comprehend that their opponent’s perspective is almost surely an honest one, rooted in firm moral beliefs. Lakoffian disciples believe that this is a problem of language, that they’re talking past each other. But it’s more than that. It’s two people with different moral norms, different imperatives, who don’t know that they have different norms.

For liberals, morality is pretty much about harm and justice. To decide whether a policy is wrong, they want to know whether any one will be hurt by it and whether it will be fair to all those affected. Conservative care about harm and justice too, but they also care about three things that liberals tend to ignore: purity, respect for authority, and loyalty to the ingroup. Consider gay sex. A liberal will say, as long as no one is harmed, we should not prohibit gay sex; indeed such a prohibition would be unfair. A conservative might say that gay sex can be prohibited on the grounds that it is impure ("an unnatural act"). Or consider flag burning. A liberal will again say: no one is harmed, and everyone has the right to self-expression. Conservatives will say that flag burning is an act of desecration that disrespects the authority of this great nation. Or take preemptive war and regime change. Liberals will caution that it is bad to harm others and unjust to threaten the autonomy of other nations. Conservatives will focus on the threat that others pose to us here at home, and they will plaster their cars with stickers that say "support our troops," showing deep concern for the ingroup.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/04/2008 04:30:00 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, April 03, 2008

What limits willpower? Some have suggested that it is blood sugar, which brain cells use as their main energy source and cannot do without for even a few minutes. Most cognitive functions are unaffected by minor blood sugar fluctuations over the course of a day, but planning and self-control are sensitive to such small changes. Exerting self-control lowers blood sugar, which reduces the capacity for further self-control. People who drink a glass of lemonade between completing one task requiring self-control and beginning a second one perform equally well on both tasks, while people who drink sugarless diet lemonade make more errors on the second task than on the first. Foods that persistently elevate blood sugar, like those containing protein or complex carbohydrates, might enhance willpower for longer periods.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/03/2008 06:53:00 PM | 0 comments

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/03/2008 06:46:00 PM | 3 comments

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/02/2008 02:36:00 PM | 2 comments

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/02/2008 11:43:00 AM | 0 comments

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