Its that time again. The weekend is upon us. That other open thread was getting long.

No one has said they are interested in a blog get together to view 9500 Liberty. I am not going to try to get a place for Elena and me. If you are interested, let me know.

103 Thoughts to “Open Thread Friday, September 17”

  1. 1 in 7 people lived in poverty last year. That is unacceptable.

    It doesn’t sound like the numbers are just because of unemployment.

  2. Internet problems tonight. Lots of Jon Stewart. Big chunk taken out of research time.

    He also had a very interesting interview with Bill Clinton.

    http://www.thedailyshow.com

  3. Second-Alamo

    So does that mean that Obama is failing to ‘spread the wealth’ also?

  4. Unless Obama had powers long before we thought he did, probably not.

    More reading suggests that the increase is probably related to unemployment.

  5. Lafayette

    Looks like Fenty was the Republican write-in candidate favorite. He was way out in front of the others.
    http://www.wtop.com/?nid=596&sid=2055454
    Wasn’t this a topic that Moon and I acutally agreed with PWC Taxpayer? 🙂

  6. Big Dog

    From front page of today’s WaPo – Proverty stats show the damage.
    “The official proverty rate increased for all races and ethnicities except
    Asians, who continued to have the highest median household income.”

    Perhaps being a minority in an Anglo-white nation isn’t the unbeatable problem
    other groups whine about. Focus on education, family, obey the law and
    work hard seems to pay off for Asian-Americans.

  7. Hopefully Cargo will put his wife’s Juvenile Diabetes Walk announcement back up. I screwed up and moved it down with the old open thread. I had so many internet problems last night….grrrrrrr…I was up to 4 am getting them fixed.

  8. From Cargo [this will have to do until he reposts]

    A little over two years ago, my daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. My wife is walking in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Walk to Cure Diabetes. She’s asking for sponsors. If any of you wish to help, thank you. And I don’t need to know if you did so or not, so no pressures.

    Thanks. From my wife’s email:

    Greetings!

    I’m writing to you to ask for your support in a very special cause.

    This year, I’ll be taking part in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Walk to Cure Diabetes along with a half-million other walkers across the country. Our goal: To raise $90 million to help fund research for a cure for type 1 diabetes and its complications.

    Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes, is a devastating, often deadly disease that affects millions of people–a large and growing percentage of them children.

    Many people think type 1 diabetes can be controlled by insulin. While insulin does keep people with type 1 diabetes alive, it is NOT a cure. Aside from the daily challenges of living with type 1 diabetes, there are many severe, often fatal, complications caused by the disease.

    That’s the bad news… and yes, it’s pretty bad.

    The good news, though, is that JDRF is making steady progress toward a cure. In fact, JDRF funding and leadership is associated with most major scientific breakthroughs in type 1 diabetes research to date. And JDRF funds more type 1 research than any other charity worldwide.

    I’m writing to ask for your support because now more than ever, EACH of us can be a part of bringing about a cure. Each of us can make a real difference

    Won’t you please give to JDRF as generously as you’re able?

    Together, we can make the cure a reality.

    Thank you,

    Please visit my Walk Web page if you would like to donate online or see how close I am to reaching my personal goal:

    http://walk.jdrf.org/walker.cfm?id=878102

    Richmond Walk To Cure Diabetes: Rockin’ For Research – 9.19.2010

    Or you can search for me on this link as well

    http://walk.jdrf.org/

    In the Donate to a walker section, search for me

    Name: Lauri Walker

    Team Name: UNOS

    State: Virginia

    Click the Find Walker button

    Thank you so much for your help.

    Lauri Walker

  9. @Moon-howler
    That will do, indeed! Thank you very much.

  10. @Big Dog
    It seems to work for others too. Shocker.

  11. Wolverine

    There are times when all this political back-and-forth gets rather wearying. These open threads are an opportunity to say things which are less contentious and, perhaps, just a bit of fun. As a genealogist who looks beyond dates and places and tries to uncover the actual lives of people in so many family trees, I often find stories which inform, amuse, and remind us all of our common history and common heritage. I just found one and wanted to pass it on. I hope it makes you smile just a little bit.

    One of my distant relatives became the pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church in a little place called Blauwenburg, New Jersey. That church was rather old, having been founded in 1830. It has since been restored to its original appearance and still exists as an active congregation.

    During the last half of the 19th century, the church had a congregant who was a very wealthy merchant and landowner. He was also a philanthropist. He, in fact, offered to pay for a new bell for the church but only if the bell was large enough and good enough so that he could hear it ring from his country manse some distance away. This was done.

    Now, this gentlemen was apparently determined to leave behind him a legacy which included his name. He reportedly went down to nearby Princeton University and made the rectors of that venerable institution an offer he obviously thought they would not refuse. He would give the school a large fortune — about $1 million, which was, indeed, a large fortune in those days. The only caveat was that the rectors would have to rename Princeton after this benefactor. The rectors turned down the offer because they did not favor the caveat.

    The gentleman then began looking around for another school which would accept his donation in return for naming the school after him. He finally found one in a place where he had made much of his fortune as a merchant. It was a school in New Orleans called at that time the University of Louisiana. That school received over $1 million, changed its name in accord with the agreement, and went on to become a very prominent and respected American educational institution. The new name? Well, that gentleman who made his home far away in western New Jersey, was known as Paul Tulane.

  12. Darn! Wolverine, that’s quite a story. And it just goes to show us that everyone has their price, just some are higher than others. I wonder if Princeton would have ever blinked?

  13. Cato the Elder

    Here’s another one for you Wolv, in the same vein:

    A certain young man with transportation in his blood (his grandfather was a steamboat captain, and his father built a regional bus line from scratch that later became the southern backbone of Greyhound) learned to fly as a teenager, and put himself through Yale by working weekends as a charter pilot. As he was ferrying passengers around, he noticed he was getting quite a bit of business from companies like IBM that didn’t want to wait for the commercial airlines to deliver components to customers, and he set forth with the idea to revolutionize the delivery business.

    After his hitch in Vietnam, he managed to raise 80 million in venture capital and set up an 11 city network with a simple promise: guaranteed overnight delivery between any two points in his network.

    The volume was initially sparse, and he had only 7 packages on the first run. He expanded his network to 25 cities and relaunched the service a month later to much the same result, with a grand total of 186 packages. He contended with airline regulations which restricted him to flying tiny jets, and a postal service monopoly on critical documents.

    By 1973, he was desperate for cash to make payroll. He drained his personal savings account and flew out to Las Vegas to hit the blackjack tables. He wired back the 27K he won to make the payroll and keep his company alive.

    That young man was named Fred Smith, and today we know his company as FedEx.

  14. And now I know how Tulane University got its name in my hometown…..cool. I want to be a genealogist when I grow up.

  15. Btw, Christine O’Donnell has raised almost $400,000 in 12 hours. Her new goal is $2,000,000.

    Hmmmmmmm……looks like she’s popular.

  16. Poor Richard

    “One can hardly believe, after thorough examination, that here is the
    monster Manassas, which for eight months has been the fright and
    bugbear of the country.”

    Utica (NY) Morning Herald March 1862 as Union troops occupied Mayfield
    Fort after the Confederates withdrew to defend Richmond.

  17. Poor Richard

    My older brother played football for Georgia Tech and I was recruited
    to help his fraternity (Sigma Phi Epsilon) build their homecoming
    float which was to illustrate the Yellow Jackets conquest of the
    Tulane Green Wave. Not an easy task. (The Alabama Crimson Tide
    wouldn’t have been any better, but GT was wise enough to never
    have Bama for a homecoming game).

  18. Lafayette

    Have a dirty car that needs washed?
    Stonewall’s very own Ms. Boley’s Chorale program will be holding a car wash today.
    At the Sunoco at Wellington Rd & Rixlew Ln. from 9am-2pm. They are raising money for a trip to Ireland. As many know Ms. Boley runs a top notch program.
    There’s no set price, just a nice donation for the program.

  19. Emma

    Osbourn High School band students are knocking on doors throughout the City today collecting donations and giving out “tags” for their Christmas wrapping booth at Manassas Mall. Please consider supporting these great kids.

  20. Lafayette

    I love the wrapping booth at the mall. Stonewall & Osbourn both get support from my family. We are all graduates of Stonewall and Osbourn. Gotta love Manassas. And yes Big Dog that means the Manassas address folks in the county too.

  21. Emma

    We’re all Manassas, Lafayette. The City just another zipcode and a meals tax.

  22. Emma

    And I’m going to stop blogging with my iPhone today. It’s making me look illiterate.

  23. Emma, no one knew you were. When I do it EVERYONE knows. Talk about illiterate!

  24. Elena

    Wolverine :There are times when all this political back-and-forth gets rather wearying. These open threads are an opportunity to say things which are less contentious and, perhaps, just a bit of fun. As a genealogist who looks beyond dates and places and tries to uncover the actual lives of people in so many family trees, I often find stories which inform, amuse, and remind us all of our common history and common heritage. I just found one and wanted to pass it on. I hope it makes you smile just a little bit.
    One of my distant relatives became the pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church in a little place called Blauwenburg, New Jersey. That church was rather old, having been founded in 1830. It has since been restored to its original appearance and still exists as an active congregation.
    During the last half of the 19th century, the church had a congregant who was a very wealthy merchant and landowner. He was also a philanthropist. He, in fact, offered to pay for a new bell for the church but only if the bell was large enough and good enough so that he could hear it ring from his country manse some distance away. This was done.
    Now, this gentlemen was apparently determined to leave behind him a legacy which included his name. He reportedly went down to nearby Princeton University and made the rectors of that venerable institution an offer he obviously thought they would not refuse. He would give the school a large fortune — about $1 million, which was, indeed, a large fortune in those days. The only caveat was that the rectors would have to rename Princeton after this benefactor. The rectors turned down the offer because they did not favor the caveat.
    The gentleman then began looking around for another school which would accept his donation in return for naming the school after him. He finally found one in a place where he had made much of his fortune as a merchant. It was a school in New Orleans called at that time the University of Louisiana. That school received over $1 million, changed its name in accord with the agreement, and went on to become a very prominent and respected American educational institution. The new name? Well, that gentleman who made his home far away in western New Jersey, was known as Paul Tulane.

    Cool story, thanks for sharing Wolverine!

  25. Emma

    @cargosquid Please let us know about any 5K races for JDRF. The weather is perfect now.

  26. Will do. I’ll have to get in touch with them. Right now, the only thing I know about is the walk on Sunday.

    Lauri is excited about all of the help she’s gotten on such short notice.

  27. Has she reached her goal yet?

  28. She has surpassed her goal every rising goals every time.

    She is now at 1.8 million + to a goal of $2 million.

  29. Oh wait.,,,,that will teach me to come here straight from a political site. YOU MEANT LAURI.

    D’OH!

    Yes she has. With your help. Thank you very much.

  30. @ Cargo,

    Too funny. Now we know how wars get started. I was going to say…$1.8 million? That’s pretty darn good. More people are reading Moonhowlings than I thought. 🙄

    Seriously, glad Lauri reached her goal. Keep us posted how it goes. We will be cheering her on.

  31. Corey Stewart will be a speaker at the Values Voter Summit Conference. So will Bob McDonnell. Now what values will Corey be speaking of? How about keeping his word to the voters of Prince William County? I am still thinking about that pledge he broke regarding the Rural Crescent.

    http://www.valuesvotersummit.org/

  32. Slowpoke Rodriguez

    To any of my conservative-minded friends on this blog: I’ve been getting a kick out of this “YouCut” thing. Each week, participants vote for something to cut, and Cantor introduces it to the house floor, where Democrats vote it down. It’s a good way to see what Congress wastes Taxpayers’ money on. This week, I voted to de-fund the UN Human Rights Council. Actually, I don’t think we should give a thin dime to the UN, but this is one of the more egregious offenses to the American Taxpayer.
    http://republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut/

  33. Slowpoke Rodriguez

    Moon-howler :
    Corey Stewart will be a speaker at the Values Voter Summit Conference. So will Bob McDonnell. Now what values will Corey be speaking of? How about keeping his word to the voters of Prince William County? I am still thinking about that pledge he broke regarding the Rural Crescent.
    http://www.valuesvotersummit.org/

    I always defend Corey Stewart, but you got him on this one….no doubt about it.

  34. Lafayette

    I hope Mr. Howler didn’t take yesterday’s loss to WVU too bad. I think I heard howlin’ of some sort over this way. 😉

  35. He was very very quiet. @Lafayette

    @slow, I was surprised to see his name listed. He is there with all the seen and be seen, that’s for sure. Our governor is also there.

  36. @Slow

    Do I get to nominate anything? NCLB is up for renewal.

  37. Make a case for defunding the UN Human Rights Commission. Mr. Howler is teasing me that the Chinese head it up.

  38. Slowpoke Rodriguez

    @Moon-howler

    Visit the web site, and you get to chose from 5 or 6 things each week. Last I checked, the UN Human Rights council is headed up by the biggest abusers of human rights in the world. I’m pretty sure Iran is on it. They are probably the advocate for women’s rights.

    I saw someone yesterday tweeted: “Bob McDonnell’s haircut is a thing of great form and majesty!”

    Thought you’d find that humorous. I sure did!

  39. punchak

    Another blog states that O’Donnell canceled her Sunday morning talk shows because she wanted to go to church. Yes, folks, that’s devotion. What’s exposure on national TV compared to a Sunday morning church service?

    In the afternoon she just had to attend a picnic in Essex county (I think) to thank her backers.

    Of course, Bill Maher’s rerun interview with her in ’99 had nothing to do with it.

  40. Too funny about McDonnell hair. I think Chris Dodd has great hair.

    Does anyone else think that the CEO of Scottrade and McDonnell bear a similar appearance?

    Punchak, I think O’Donnell is resting and regrouping and figuring out how to repond to her base. Meanwhile, Bill Maher said he has 22 tapes and he will release 1 a week until she comes on his show.

  41. Slowpoke Rodriguez

    Moon-howler :
    Bill Maher said he has 22 tapes and he will release 1 a week until she comes on his show.

    You know Bill’s loving life right now…someone might actually watch his show now!!

  42. Why do you think no one watches his show, Slow? I actually think plenty of people do. Why would HBO continue to feature REal Time with Bill Maher if no one watched it? Its only on one night a week. He has his own following. I like his irreverence.

    Does it matter exactly how many people watch a show? Huge numbers of people watch Dancing with the Stars. I could care less. It doesn’t influence whether I watch it or don’t, (and I don’t) I don’t do things because everyone else is doing them.

  43. AAAAAAaaaarrrrrrrrr! The JDRF Walk was a rousing success! All me hearties marched about 5 kilom..klic….(blasted french!) about 2 and 1/2 miles. Pirates of all ages set sail under a scorching sun. A right rousin’ band was playing and food was served by comely wenches. No rum, though…..(ya think that ther’d be rum on Talk Like a Pirate Day….)

    And now me wife is gallivantin’ off with some church women to watch a movie and have supper, a sort of “Sunday school teacher’s night out, y’see….” Me and the little shave tail will recoo, reku, (durn frenchies why can’t they speak english) rest up and eat pizza….or burgers.

    A great pile of booty was made! A “record amount” as the clerks say. Thanks agin to all yon pirates that helped make the march a success.

    Maybe next time it will be civilized an we kin SAIL around the lakes instead of marchin’…..

  44. Cheer for the pirates!!!!! I am glad it was a rousing success. ARRRGGGHHHHHHHHH in the best pirate tradition.

    Glad lots of doubloons were raked in.

  45. Cheer for the pirates!!!!! I am glad it was a rousing success. ARRRGGGHHHHHHHHH in the best pirate tradition.

    Glad lots of doubloons were raked in. I see Pirate Lauri exceeded herself!! YEEEAAA Lauri!!!

  46. Starryflights

    Powell says illegal immigrants do his home repairs

    By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer Calvin Woodward, Associated Press Writer – Sun Sep 19, 2:43 pm ET
    WASHINGTON – Former Secretary of State Colin Powell says illegal immigrants do essential work in the U.S. and he has firsthand knowledge of that — because they fix his house.

    Powell, a moderate Republican, urged his party Sunday to support immigration generally because it is “what’s keeping this country’s lifeblood moving forward.”

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100919/ap_on_go_ot/us_powell_illegal_immigrants;_ylt=As4J0VOzO8kWk52kvZ_TvzGs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTQwcm0zdnY4BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwOTE5L3VzX3Bvd2VsbF9pbGxlZ2FsX2ltbWlncmFudHMEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM0BHBvcwMxBHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDcG93ZWxsc2F5c2ls

    I agree completely with our General.

  47. Wolverine

    Gee, is Colin Powell so poor now that he cannot afford to pay the prevailing wages for legal workers? Great. I’m sure there are a whole lot of out-of-work Blacks who would slap his back and thank him heartily for that — something over 15% I believe, while Hispanics are down there at 12% or so.

  48. Poor Richard

    Well attended Annual Latino Festival in Old Town Manassas yesterday.
    Hundreds of people enjoying good music and food at the Harris Pavilion,
    but I didn’t see Eric and Annabel filming or Flacky Fernandez marching
    around with his Hate Signs — apparently both the right AND left have their
    dogmatic story lines that simply won’t be altered.

  49. PR, Not sure if they had come and filmed you would have received them a bit better. I don’t know why they would have even known about it.

    Wolverine, maybe Colin Powell knows a special family. I expect the going rate for home repairs is…the going rate. I wouldn’t assume home work is cheaper.

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