211 Thoughts to “Open Thread………………………………………Friday, Jan. 14”

  1. juturna

    “Civility is the natural state for people who know how limited their own individual powers are and know, too, that they need the conversation. They are useless without the conversation.”
    -Tree of Failure op-ed piece by David Brooks 1/13/11.

    He reminds us of how we have moved from a humble and modest society to a “how grand we think we are” society. Worth some thought.

  2. Lafayette

    Well Stonington was lacking civility last night as I took a friend home, only to drive into the second homicide of the year. Welcome to “ground zero”, NOT!!!
    http://www2.insidenova.com/news/2011/jan/13/police-investigate-double-shooting-manassas-area-ar-773665/

  3. Lafayette

    @Cargosquid
    That recipe looks amazing! I’m going to try to make that over the weekend, hopefully. I sure hope Emma reads this. I bet she’ll give it a try too. 🙂

  4. Want to become a mad scientist? Bwhahahahahaha!

    http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/11/5814820-play-a-game-and-engineer-real-rna

    You get to play with recipes here too……

  5. Big Dog

    Remember this is Lee-Jackson day in Virginia and the PWC Courthouse
    is closed. ( Recall when Rev. Martin Luther King’s birthday was honored
    here on the same day?)

  6. Lafayette

    Big Dog, I’m glad you mentioned it. I remember when both were on the same day when I was in high school, then after for qutie a few years after. I was glad the courthouse was closed today. I didn’t want to go out in the cold. I’ll be staying out of the city limits today. 🙂

  7. Cindy B

    Here’s my favorite place, the Nutrition Action Health Letter’s “Right Stuff vs. Food Porn”:
    http://www.cspinet.org/nah/foodporn/december2010.html

    “Voices of Character & Courage”
    King Day Celebration & Youth Oratorical Competition
    Monday, Jan 17 at 11 am
    Hylton Memorial Chapel
    14640 Potomac Mills Road
    Collecting canned goods and winter coats

    and

    Gang Prevention Summit
    Monday, Jan 17
    6-8 pm
    Boys & Girls Club of Manassas

  8. Emma

    @Lafayette and @Cargosquid That recipe has Valentine’s Day written all over it 🙂 I’m thinking Cadbury Dark combined with Dairy Milk.

  9. juturna

    I’m gaining weight reading a blog…… That’s the worse excuse I’ve ever heard!

  10. Big Dog

    Note a letter from John McCain recently posted on the WaPo website
    begins “President Obama gave a great speech Wednesday night”.
    Peggy Noonan, in the WSJ, also praises the tone of the President’s address.
    In fact, dozens of conservatives have said and/or written much the same thing.

    – The speech reflected the best of the American spirit and what we have in common.
    It showed grace and wisdom.

    – We have disagreed with the President on issues and, no doubt, will again.

    – But this, as Ed Rollins noted, is “above politics”.

  11. juturna

    Brit Hume, Chris Wallace and even Charles Krauthammer gave it a nod as well. Jerry Doyle was positive about it too. We should disagree. With respect.

  12. Maine Governor tells NAACP, “Kiss my butt.”

    Well, that’s definitely not going to be misunderstood.

    “Tell them to kiss my butt,” LePage said with a large smile, according to video by WCSH6. He then added: “If they want play the race card, come to dinner and my son will talk to them,” a reference to his adopted son, Devon Raymond, who is black.

    http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/01/maine-governor-tells-naacp-to-kiss-my-butt-after-insults-video/

    and

    http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/14/maine-governor-says-naacp-can-kiss-my-butt/

  13. Big Dog

    http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/wb/273845

    “The end is near!”

    Does this mean I can skip my next car payment?

  14. juturna

    12/21/12 – That’s just about 99 weeks isn’t it?

  15. juturna

    When my son was an infant I read a Judith Viorst article on guns. She said she had resisted purchasing them for her young son (age 3/4) but when he started chewing his toast into the shape of a gun then yelling bang bang she gave up. So did I.

    In a discussion last night on the News Hour, Shields and Brooks addressed the declining number that are against gun ownership – it’s fallen from 80% to 40%. They did discuss the definition of automatic rounds as sporting goods. (hope I have that right, not a gun user).

    I don’t think it’s the answer and I don’t think limiting ammunition is going to stop anyone. But it might reduce the carnage or let others stop someone before too much is done.

    Another small but interesting point made was that there is a move in the house and senate to mix up the representatives and not have the ‘sides’. So far in the senate 19 senators including John McCain have agreed. What is really interesting is that of the 19 senators, 10 are women.

  16. I like the idea of mixing up the Senate, but I feel its symbolic.

    There’s a great YouTube video showing the difference in standard capacity mags and reduced capacity mags. In the vid, they substituted .45 mags for the reduced capacity. One man had a 17 round mag and one man had 2 8 round mags. They each ran identical courses of fire and the difference n time was about 2 seconds.

    One point made was that the only reason that the woman that stopped Loughner was able to grab his magazine at all when he was reloading was because he used an over-sized magazine…..otherwise it would have been hidden in his hand.

  17. juturna

    Brooks said he liked it becuase it addresses the ‘herd’ mentality.

    And another good point about the size of the magazine…….

  18. Herd. Yep, that explains what comes out of the Senate…… 😉

  19. Big Dog

    http://ricksincerethoughts.blogspot.com/

    “Virginia’s Political Blog Rankings” – (1-2-2011)

    Interesting, but take it with a grain of salt. Not 100% of the
    criteria they used to establish the rankings.

    Moonhowlings does fairly well – #9 “liberal” blog in Virginia.

    I would describe MH as more”moderate” but, to the far right, that is
    the same as “liberal”.

  20. Big Dog

    Not 100% sure of the criteria they used to establish the rankings.
    Read it several times, but still don’t fully understand it.

  21. Kelly3406

    Has anyone seen this fascinating account regarding Ted Kennedy and the KGB in 1983: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/kgb_kennedy_the_ted_kennedy_i.html ?

    According to secret documents in the Soviet archives, Ted Kennedy attempted to work with the KGB to undermine Reagan publicly in regard to American-Soviet relations and improve Kennedy’s chances to defeat Reagan in the 1984 presidential election.

    Interestingly, author Paul Kengor was never able to get the NY Times or the Boston Globe interested in pursuing the story.

  22. Maybe they got it confused with Nixon’s attempts to have the FBI find dirt on Kennedy to leak to the press. Not a sterling moment in history.

    If they weren’t interested, perhaps his evidence wasn’t there. The man is dead now. No more muck racking.

  23. Kelly3406

    If you took the time to read the article, you would see that the document’s legitimacy was not questioned by Kennedy. Nixon’s illegitimate use of the FBI was exposed, as it should have been. However, collusion between a sitting U.S. senator and KGB is also of great historical relevance.

    The American Thinker where this item was published is not known for muckraking.

    After Kennedy’s funeral, we were supposed to keep quiet on this blog out of respect. At what point does the statute of limitations kick-in so we can take a more unvarnished, historical view?

    1. Actually, I asked you not to be disrespectful of the dead until he was buried. (if you took time to read what I wrote.) And for the record, I am neither big fan or supporter of either Senators Kennedy or Byrd. I just knew what I would be dealing with. Both men represent an era that has passed.

      As for muckracking, I suppose that depends on who you ask. Right wing magazine therefore it must be true?

  24. Big Dog

    “Liberals argue for progress; conservatives argue for a return
    to to the nation’s founding principles. Change is a founding
    principle, too, but people divided by schism are blind to what
    they share: one half, infallible; the other never wrong.”

    Jill Lepore in The New Yorker (1-17-2011)

  25. Elena

    my stepmom, who is Russian, who suffered directly at the hands of KGB would argue that Reagan was not the reason the soviet union fell.

    I don’t even know why you are bringing this topic up Kelly. Don’t we have enough on our plates to deal with now? Don’t we have enough issues now to solve???

  26. e

    the inner mechanics of a totalitarian regime like the ussr or the future america under obama are inherently flawed, but reagan hastened the demise of the evil empire by insisting that star wars would be implemented, and the soviet leadership realized they would not be able to keep apace with america’s technological progress.
    ted kennedy’s overtures to the soviets were despicable, and to be condemned

  27. kelly3406

    @Elena

    “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
    George Santayana

  28. juturna

    If we returned to our founding principle it would look nothing like what either Republicans or Democrats or Liberals or Conservatives think it would look like.

    Most of the founding fathers were Deists. That alone upends a lot of conversation. Another principle was limited military intervention. The founding fathers were a violent group that initiated, fought and won a revolution. They were not very conservative… probably the most relavent principle is the size and grasp of government. They were also small businessmen that were strongly opposed to a ruling class.

  29. juturna

    Good grief…. I have become totally dependant upon spell check…..

  30. Big Dog

    Pop quiz:
    – How many times does the word “God” appear in the
    U.S. Constitution?

    – Thomas Jefferson, according to his writings, thought
    one faith reflected American values so well that he predicted it
    would become the largest one the United States within a generation?

  31. juturna

    Zero. Neither does Bible or Jesus Christ. They meant it.

  32. Big Dog

    1. 0 (But all 50 STATE Constitutions refer to “God”).

    2. In 1822 Jefferson predicted “There is not a young man now living
    in United States who will not die a Unitarian.”

  33. marinm

    Cargosquid :Ban Hi-Cap Howitzers! For the Chillun!
    http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=1137013

    Nice link. Some good comments. And the pics we’re nice.

    On another note. When the hell did Babies R Us go anti-gun? I was with the wife and we wanted to daydream some and look around and upon walking upto the doors I saw the dreaded NO FIREARMS sign. That silly sign foiled me as it’s invisible force field protecting the retail establishment prevented me from going inside. It was a downer. 🙁

    1. @Marin

      Good. Guns aren’t toys.

  34. marinm

    MH, no doubt. Guns aren’t toys. And of course model citizens like this http://www.bakersfield.com/news/local/x113241766/Riveting-testimony-opens-Babies-R-Us-rape-trial will obey that sign and do as I did and turn around because they – like I – respect our laws and will abide by them.

  35. Big Dog

    “Corruption of Blood”.

    Now, that term IS in the United States Constitution.

  36. Lafayette

    Emma, Juturna, & Moon,
    Only 45 more minutes! 🙂

  37. Emma

    @Lafayette Woo-hoo! I’m waiting…….

  38. Lafayette

    Blown away!! I predicted a thing or two, but Barb takes the cake. Woo-hoo what season this is going to be.

  39. @marinm
    Of course, unless you let them know just how much money such a sign might be costing them, they will never change…..

    @Moon-howler
    I don’t get your reply. How does Marin’s story make you think of “guns aren’t toys”? Because he wanted to carry while shopping? At Babie’s R Us?

  40. Actually I thought he meant they no longer sell toy guns.

    If they meant not to bring a gun in there, then they are the store owner and that is their decision. It is also Marin’s decision whether to shop there or not.

  41. George S. Harris

    You gotta see today’s (1/17/11) News and Messenger–At the top of the page–Assembly Looks at Illegals–with Scott Lingamfelter and his vacant, Greg Letiecq stare–and right below that–Commission Recognizes Human Rights Supporters. I bet Letiecq and Lingamfelter didn’t show up for that meeting.

    http://newsandmessenger.va.newsmemory.com/[email protected]&utm_source=EmailMarketing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EmailPush

  42. George S. Harris

    Does this mean that if you live in Virginia or transit Virginia, you must carry your birth certificate or some other document showing you are a citizen? How long before Virginia sets up checkpoints at all entry points into the state to check your legal status? How long before you must get some state sanctioned ID card to prove your legal status? George Orwell, you were just a few years off.

    This is the same Scott Lingamfelter who was telling Corey Stewart to bug off and keep his nose out of state business. Now I see why–Scotty wanted all the headlines!!!

  43. Big Dog

    http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/01/17/925085/our-states-not-to-blame-for-them.html

    Dang it, Heidi, the possum, wasn’t fat and cross-eyed when N.C. sent her to Europe!

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