There is all sorts of news–too much to choose from. There is an Open Carry Demonstration in a park and the are people stranded all over the globe because of the volcano. Daniel Gilbert of Manassas won a Pulitizer Prize for his work on mining. Brian Betts of Manassas lost his life.
The Democrats in NC are splintering into various factions over health care and the Taliban is recruiting new members to settle old family scores on our dime.
Pick a topic or make up your own.
Today’s eerie similarities to Oklahoma City
By AITAN GOELMAN | 4/19/10 12:34 AM EDT
We’ve heard a governor speak of secession, we’ve seen revolutionary signs at rallies for a likely GOP presidential candidate and we’ve listened to well-respected leaders accuse colleagues of “shredding” the Constitution.
History tells an unfortunate story about what can happen next. When extreme rhetoric and hyperbole are used by mainstream figures, impressionable actors on the political fringe can take this seriously.
If you believe the hyperbole, taking violent action doesn’t seem so crazy. In fact, it’s the logical reaction.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35993_Page2.html#ixzz0lWvWiiDW
Very well stated.
Some people are going to show up at a Virginia park in N Virginia today to show off their guns. They want to overthrow the democratically-elected government violently because they do not have the votes to get what they want throught the democratic process as defined by our Constitution. We are a civilized nation. These people need to learn to behave themselves and conduct themselves as civilized peoples do.
The first rule of effecting tyranny. Claim that open dissent is a threat to peace and security. Preach that this dissent is a certain prelude to violence against the state. Use current law to shut down the avenues of communications used by dissenters. Convince enough of the populace that more laws are needed to limit free speech and dissent. Then cow the bulk of the dissenters into silence. If some refuse to be silenced, apply criminal sanctions — all in the name of social and political peace.
That’s a sad road to take — the road which defines how those who do not see eye to eye with your politics ought to be constrained in their forms of lawful dissent. I don’t know about you, but I have lived in countries like that. I guarantee you wouldn’t like it, because some day the finger of accusation could start pointing at you. It often comes around to that, you know. Good guy one day; bad guy the next. And no First Amendment to protect you.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Nice clear language in that. No footnotes about there being a special set of rules defining rhetoric or hyperbole. Just as long as the assembling and petitioning is done “peaceably.”
There should be a rule on the blogs. If you claim that someone intends to overthrow the government violently, you should have to come up with chapter and verse of the proof or stop engaging in slander. What proof is there that those who are coming to that park to demonstrate open carry as approved by lthe laws of Virginia are intent upon a violent overthrow of the government? I’m waiting…….
Wonder why my comment was moderated on the Tea Party thread?
What ever happened to the outrage over the Iraq war? Remember when it was always the headline. Some in congress calling for Bush to be tried as a war criminal. Geez!
Remember when Gitmo was considered torture central by the left? Hey, it’s still open don’t you know.
Amazing how it’s no longer worth talking about now that the representative of those voices is now in power! Talk about hypocrisy.
So NOW who is responsible for those continuing operations? Oh, I see, it’s Obama. Ok, never mind! That explains it.
Why don’t those black congressmen who chose to walk through a crowd of Tea Party folks in hopes of eliciting some bad responses have the balls to tell people in their own words if anything out of line occurred. I could understand some outrage if it was well documented that 50 people chanted harsh words at these guys, but when you can’t even provide any evidence of even one person, and yet all those there are condemned anyway! Give me a break. I guess it was a slow news day. And why doesn’t anyone question the congressmen’s decision to choose a path through the crowd, and not around as provided? Not exactly an act of peaceful resolution on their part I’d say, but then I think we all know their true intent. I’m just surprised Jessy Jackson wasn’t in the crowd so he could grandstand an immediate show of disgust to all the media present. Maybe he was, and it just didn’t happen!
Have a nice day! (Man, do I feel better now)
Emma, you weren’t in moderation. Your comment went to spam. And I have no idea why. I fished you out. You did the right thing bringing it up here. I would have never known otherwise.
Chomsky Warns of Risk of Fascism in America
By Matthew Rothschild
15 April, 2010
Progressive.org
Noam Chomsky, the leading leftwing intellectual, warned last week that fascism may be coming to the United States.
“I’m just old enough to have heard a number of Hitler’s speeches on the radio,” he said, “and I have a memory of the texture and the tone of the cheering mobs, and I have the dread sense of the dark clouds of fascism gathering” here at home.
Chomsky was speaking to more than 1,000 people at the Orpheum Theatre in Madison, Wisconsin, where he received the University of Wisconsin’s A.E. Havens Center’s award for lifetime contribution to critical scholarship.
“The level of anger and fear is like nothing I can compare in my lifetime,” he said.
He cited a statistic from a recent poll showing that half the unaffiliated voters say the average tea party member is closer to them than anyone else.
“Ridiculing the tea party shenanigans is a serious error,” Chomsky said.
Their attitudes “are understandable,” he said. “For over 30 years, real incomes have stagnated or declined. This is in large part the consequence of the decision in the 1970s to financialize the economy.”
There is class resentment, he noted. “The bankers, who are primarily responsible for the crisis, are now reveling in record bonuses while official unemployment is around 10 percent and unemployment in the manufacturing sector is at Depression-era levels,” he said.
And Obama is linked to the bankers, Chomsky explained.
“The financial industry preferred Obama to McCain,” he said. “They expected to be rewarded and they were. Then Obama began to criticize greedy bankers and proposed measures to regulate them. And the punishment for this was very swift: They were going to shift their money to the Republicans. So Obama said bankers are “fine guys” and assured the business world: ‘I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.’
People see that and are not happy about it.”
http://www.countercurrents.org/rothschild150410.htm
Feel better, SA? 😉
I found there to be a lot of news today. I was just too tired to do anything about it. I got half of Ok. City done and crashed.
I am curious. Why should the black congressman have to justify walking outside through the Capitol grounds?
You might want to google Colonel Morris Davis. I don’t think he has changed his mind on Gitmo.
Wolverine, you know, what you said is about how I feel now about criticizing anything that the Tea Party might do or not do. They have somehow catapulted themselves into sacred cow status. I have to hand it to them. They have gone from being the bad boy tea-baggers (their term, not mine originally) of last summer to sacred cows now. That is a serious make over.
Starryflights, it just occurred to me that you have a split personality. Your two posts above are in direct conflict. Go figure!
MH, you know as well as I do that if something was actually said to those congressmen they would be milking it for all its worth, and yet utter silence except for those talking heads that want to keep the false ember alive. If you watched the stand in for Larry king last night you would know what I mean.
@Emma
Re # 4 — Same question on Va Tech and Jefferson.
pwc taxpayer, I did not see you in spam or in moderation. Are you missing a comment also?
Warning to everyone: Sometimes links go into spam. You need to leave me a message immediately if that happens to you. Date and time helps.
The N word is an automatic ticket to moderation. I can’t think of any others at the moment.
I did not see Larry King last night. Tell me more, SA.,
Frankly, I am tired of people claiming nothing was done to them. I don’t think there is proof one way or the other. The correct response SHOULD be: “no racial words should not have been used and I would like to assume no one from our group did such a heinous thing. ” (or something to that effect.)
That sort of covers it doesn’t it? You can’t know for certain what members in a cast of thousands did or didn’t do. All that has to happen is for someone in a leadership capacity to say that is unacceptable behavior and move on.
The high road is being taken by the black congressmen who aren’t commenting.
A Tale of Two Cities – Per July 2008 Census Dept. estimates,
Manassas Park (11,319) and Falls Church (11,169) populations are
nearly the same. But Falls Chuch has TWO newspapers devoted
to it and MP has none. FC has very open,lively
and informed discussion and MP apparently has almost none.
(MP’s website doesn’t lists any council minutes past l2009).
While Manassas and PWC budget discussions and tax rate debates have
been in the local paper numerous times, there is almost a news
blackout from MP. Does anyone know what the proposed FY 2010-11
tax rate will be? Have they reduced their budget and how?
I am concerned by the growth in Government and it is pushing me to the Tea Party, because I don’t trust either of the alternatives. Yes, Yes we have the GM debacle and the Stimulus – then we have the unauthorized re-spend of the stimulus that has been paid back, financial default and, inflation, the declining value ot the dollar, its all but at least thoise th by the Obama Administration, but , which is caussing the government to get way too involved into our economGovernment is growing
@PWC Taxpayer
Apologies all, hit the wrong button.
@PWC Taxpayer
Ok I am going to try this again.
Maryland’s senators, Mikulski and Cardin, along with nine other senators have requested the Administration to “bring back and protect mission-critical jobs at federal agencies. Now this is after the number of federal employees went form 650,000 civilian employees after the Clinton Administration to 1.7 million after Bush. The Partnership for Public Service says that the federal government will be hiring at least 193,000 — new — employees over the next two years and they are just getting started. DHS announced that given the success they have had with TSA they now want to in-house 15,000 contracted building guards. Should the government eliminate jobs in the private sector by transferring them to federal employee unions? Its one thing to argue about cost, its another to simply declare the contracted work now reserved for the Government.
Is it true that Citizens Time will be limited to 20 minutes tomorrow and that the sign-up sheet is already in circulation? Anyone know for sure?
The BOCS canceled the 7:30 meeting both tonight and last week.
Working on the hill I too have noticed that in the past year and a half Code Pink, Cindy Sheehan and others has simply vanished. Before, you couldn’t walk 15 feet up here without finding yourself in a Code Pink crowd. The coverage of Sheehan’s campout in Crawford didnt seem to portray her as a nut the way today’s different protest activities are. It’s just interesting but not altogether surprising. Maybe they’ve all gone away because we aren’t fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan anymore and Gitmo is finally closed. I know it sounds snide and sarcastic to say those things but the facts are the facts. Most of those people were’nt protesting the wars they simply hated Dr. Evil and his sidekick. Now that they’re gone-mission accomplished we can all go back to the mall now. A lot of them felt that W’s presidency was illigitemate based upon the Supreme Court finding and as far as I’m concerned they’re the other side of the birther coin. No credibility on either side.
Need to know: maybe they are preparing for that May 4 resolution. I wonder if I will get an invitation from Corey like I did in 2007?
All supervisors’ email addresses are in the top tab.
I had planned to speak on an issue unrelated to the budget or May 4 resolution. I’ll probably hold off until later. May 4 will be a madhouse. Gary Friedman has a good letter about the May 4 resolution on http://www.insidenova.com today.
Typical of the “gray geezer” crowd, I started my career by using a mechanical typewriter (It’s probably in the Smithsonian warehouse by now). They had to snatch my typewriter away almost literally and force me to meet “Mr. Wang.” I could, therefore, use some education from you young whippersnappers out there. Exactly what kind of mistakes can one make which might cause a post to go into this infamous “spam” category?
More than likely the URL (the link you posted) having a re-direct or too many special characters “%20” or a known domain name of a questionable site. Generally speaking, when you post something and click Submit the hamsters look at your post for anything that MH says is a bad word or topic. Those get killed. Then keywords like *enis enlargement or $10 for cheap vicodin are used to relegate a post into the spam folder. Also, sometimes if you hit Submit twice really fast, the hamsters think that your trying to ‘spam’ the conversation and toss you aside as well.
Hope that’s clear as mud. Tried to make it as non-techie as possible.
Saying the N word is a definite trip to moderation. The other trip to spam is using links and I have let to determine what causes the program not to follow its own rules.
Sometimes …and there is no way to predict this either……there are some words and names from anti days that are in there. the program sometimes reads partial words. So if ‘Ready or not’ was placed in moderation, then ‘read only mail’ or ‘Noteworthy’ might get caught up in moderation.
Wolverine, did you get vaporized? I will go look for it for you if you had that happen.
Wolverine, the real answer is that Spam has become a big seller during the
Great Recession. The canned “mystery meat” category is now at the front
of aisle 5 at Blooms. Trust this answers your question. Next?
The Non-Techie
Answer Man!
Thanks, Marinm and Moon. I avoid links like the plague since I have seen others get sideswiped because they included too many or something else went wrong with them. You’ve got to realize that this infernal machine is and will never be more than a mystery to many of my generation. I’m not even sure what the functions of all the keys on this keyboard are. Reading “The Internet for Dummies” might as well be a seminar on macro-economics. I just plug along in my blissful ignorance, happy as a lark when I can get a post up here without a lot of misspelled words and grammatical errors.
Poor Richard — No jokes about Spam, please. I was born during World War II, when Spam was an entree of choice — or maybe not of choice. I remember “Spam sandwiches” for lunch, not so much “ham sandwiches.” Years later, when I was almost “starving” in the African bush, the USG took pity on me and sent out some Army C-rations. First thing I pulled out was a green tin containing Spam. It was a feast fit for a king — heck of a lot better than the rice and peanut sauce I had been eating for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for several months. Lost 40 pounds in that period, and I was a young, healthy dude at that time. Spam will always have a special place in my heart. I view it fondly to this day. Mrs. W and my kids think I may be a bit nuts. I just call it eccentricity. Slice of Spam on Swedish rye…. one man’s hell is another man’s heaven. Good thing though that I have never seen them actually making the stuff.
I asked my mother why we never had spam once. I wish you had seen the look I got. Of course, she fed us Taylor Pork roll all the time. My brother lived on it. TPR sandwiches every day for his school lunch.
My mother used to make us sandwiches with that Underwood Deviled Ham crap they still sell in those little wrapped cans. Amazing that I managed to get this far in life without hypertension.
Those things were darn good too!
Yeah, and remember that your lunch sat in a locker in an un-airconditioned school for hours before you pulled it out at lunch time. You had melted cheese whether you wanted it melted or not. But guess what, we all survived didn’t we. Except for those that never learned to avoid the green meat!
Did you do vandalism with bolgona, SA?
And its a wonder we aren’t all dead.
My kids are the prissiest things about food and food safety. They deserve it for being so prissy.
LOL…about the melted cheese.. I remember that…!!
I’m pretty sure that combination of melted cheese and lunch meet put hair on my chest… At least that’s what my father told me and I had no reason to question the logic at the time.
Discovery landing scrapped for 7:34 Thundershowers given as the cause of the scrapping. It was supposed to land at 7:34 this morning and may be tried again around 9 am
An “RC and Moon Pie Festival ” is held each June in Bell Buckle, Tenn..
You know you are in Dixie when ……
So how about the governor letting the NRA introduce firearms curricula to K-6? Has he lost his mind?
…you know what a moon pie is.
Wolverine, I went off to college with a slightly bent up typewriter (fell off a van while moving) and carbon paper. How I would have loved a computer! Last night at the school board candidates’ forum at Metz Middle School (City of Manassas), they were answering a question about technology in the classrooms and “smart boards.” I had to ask the 20-year-old next to me what a smart board is.
Starry,
You do realize that Chomsky was warning of fascism by your buddy, Obama, right? Of course, he is interpreting the Tea Party from HIS socialist/communist point of view and getting THAT wrong…..
@Posting As Pinko
Where did he do that? Missed it. I think that its great, depending on the courses. K-6 is perfect for the NRA Eddie Eagle Gun Safe course. Don’t you want a child to react appropriately when they are confronted with a firearm? Perhaps one of their friends has inappropriately gotten access to a parent’s firearm or they have found one in a bush? It happens. From http://www.nrahq.org/safety/eddie/
The Eddie Eagle GunSafe® Program teaches children in pre-K through third grade four important steps to take if they find a gun. These steps are presented by the program’s mascot, Eddie Eagle®, in an easy-to-remember format consisting of the following simple rules:
If you see a gun:
STOP!
Don’t Touch.
Leave the Area.
Tell an Adult.
I taught these to my daughter from the moment that she could understand them and she tells her friends. Not every adult thinks about these things. If sex ed is appropriate for school, then so is this. They are both “safety” programs. I’m trying to get my daughter’s day care to have the NRA present it to them.
@cargosquid
I would prefer the presentation the DEA guy did in the elementary school. He has a gun and shot his brother when he was a kid (brother didn’t die). Stressed the importance of training and safety.
The NRA is filled with gun nuts (not saying you are one).
If they pass this, I am protesting loudly.
http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?ID=5723
And I’m sick and tired of people ranting about gun rights when our other rights are being stepped on all the time and people are dying of hunger and the unemployment rate is soaring.
Not talking about anyone here, so no offense. I have just known too many crazies who have been given guns when they can’t be trusted to take care of their own kids.
Umm, I think I hit submit too soon. However, I don’t see the comment and the tab I had open closed. Would you look for it? Thanks. It had a link to a you tube video.
(Found it. Never mind. Thanks.)
Would that be the same DEA agent that had a negligent discharge….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeGD7r6s-zU
I am a gun nut. I love guns, the gun culture, and the culture of responsibility that it encourages. Now, that said, I saw on another blog that McDonnell may use the NRA only, instead of McGruff the crime dog, etc. I don’t support that change. Bring every course that is possible to the classroom.
You make not like the NRA but the Eddie Eagle program is second to none in teaching safety and it IS NOT POLITICAL. The NRA purposely makes this program APOLITICAL so that schools will not be afraid of using it. Only safety is taught.
About that “ranting”…..we 2nd Amendment supporters put support of all of our rights when we speak of protecting the 2nd. Which other rights are you speaking about? How is protecting gun rights not protecting people from hunger and unemployment? The TEA party just had a whole lot of rallies about the unemployment rate, which is directly attributable to government policies (from both parties). And when you state “dying of hunger”, where? Not saying it isn’t happening, just asking what situation you are talking about?
The National Crime Prevention Center does not show up on Google, but the NCP Council, does. Don’t know about writing bills, but, that probably does need to be corrected. I say, use everything you have in a “shotgun” approach, “bring every weapon we have, to bear”…..(I couldn’t resist.)
Some windows into another world:
Gun Show loophole: http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/19/the-truth-about-gun-shows/
Clinton’s responsibility: http://volokh.com/2010/04/19/waco/
Washington Post on the Tea Party: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/17/AR2010041702652.html
A view into a gunblogger’s world: http://www.saysuncle.com/
Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.
The truth is it may be our best hope.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2010/04/16/why-the-us-cant-inflate-its-way-out-of-debt.aspx?source=ihpdspmra0000001&lidx=1
What did the kids say in the 60s say? “If you aren’t outraged, you haven’t been paying attention.”
I’m with Cargo on this one. I assume (Pinko) that you are against drugs, right? So, it’s beneficial for the government to provide a campaign where police officers come into schools and D.A.R.E. kids to not use drugs, right? This program is in the same vein. It’s not about getting new future customers, it’s not about showing how guns can be fun or cool or how the newest celeb or ball player has one. It’s message is simple. Guns are dangerous and if you see an unsecured one, STOP, DON’T touch it and get an adult FAST.
it’s not about teaching kids to handle a firearm, touch one, and most certainly not about playing with them. It teaches the oppisite. To respect that they are dangerous tools to those not trained in the use of them and that an unsecured handgun should be reported to an adult so they can take care of the issue.
The state has an interest in making sure that unintended deaths don’t happen by unsecured firearms, right? So, why not advocate for a program that could cut those numbers down.
We teach fire safety, we teach sex ed, we teach about illegal drugs and alcohol… why not guns?
Now, if you want real hunter education classes (W.VA I think is bringing them back as a requirement to pass high school.. I *think*) and certain schools in our area still have rifle teams.. Woodbridge HS and Robinson HS come to mind but I could be wrong.
I just don’t see the issue here.
In terms of trumping up 2A rights.. You have to understand that the 2A secures all your other rights. You have a right to vote thanks to those that’ll use the 2A to secure and defend that right. If we lose the 2A – we lose everything else.
To wit Stewart actually made a valid point in talking about the connection between gun rights and those of the LGBT community. A human right is a human right. And, if you can regulate a gun you can regulate a marriage or an abortion. That’s why I constantly harp on the idea that if you can ban certain things you open pandoras box of what other things you can ban. 🙁
FA, i saw that article on Fool. Very well written and had me chuckling. 🙂
We have a ‘right to food’? Can someone tell Wegman’s this..cause they’re still charging me for my lunch meat.
Here is a direct link between 2nd Amendment rights and the LGBT community. Oh, and proof that the 2nd Amendment crowd ISN’T homophobic….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyZNGjl4xm4&playnext_from=TL&videos=q0_42FILUIY
“So I dial 911 and I going to get a homophobic cop to come and protect my butt. Does anyone here see a problem with that?”
Priceless.
Virginia is #1 !!
Per this morning’s USA TODAY website, Virginia is tops in census forms
returned through Monday at 75% (national average 71%).
Alas, our local jurisdictions are running a little behind.
PWC 73%, Manassas 71%, and MP 73%.
If you haven’t mailed your form, please do so – it will save a worker
having to come to your door (average cost $56).