Hail to the Redskins! Hail victory…but do the Redskins have a racist name? Is the name Redskin derogatory? One name suggested to replace the name Redskins is the Red-tails. I am not sure if they mean the hawk or the black flying aces of WWII. Most folks resist the name change. What do you think?
The Holocaust Museum celebrates twenty years. I remember my first visit there, I was overwhelmed. Reading about that time period is just not the same as being handed a “passport” of human being that went through the holocaust and not knowing til the end of the “tour” whether your new identity survived.
I have been several times since that first time, and I am probably due for a visit. I haven’t been since having children, and I imagine, my feelings will be different, evolved as a mom, as a Jewish mom.
It is obvious to me though that human beings haven’t changed much since that time period, and as the survivors of the concentration camps die, the responsibility of us all to learn the lessons and pass them on become more critical.
The Holocaust Museum is the testament to evil that man can do, but it is as strongly a tribute to the those who stood up against hate, sometimes, at the cost of their own lives.
As we reflect upon the lessons of the Holocaust, ask yourself, what would you have done?
I invite you to watch my Grandmother’s cousin story, Izzy, an Auschwitz survivor. The password is Izzy.
PHOENIX — Arizona cities and counties that hold community gun buyback events will have to sell the surrendered weapons instead of destroying them under a bill Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law Monday.
The bill was championed by Republicans in the GOP-controlled Legislature who argued that municipalities were skirting a 2010 law that was tightened last year and requires police to sell seized weapons to federally licensed dealers. They argued that destroying property turned over to the government is a waste of taxpayer resources.
Democrats who argued against the bill said it usurps local control and goes against the wishes of people who turn over their unwanted weapons to keep them out of the hands of children or thieves.
Leave it to Gov. Brewer to play politics. Isn’t the whole point of buy-back programs to get weapons out of circulation? If a gun owner no longer wants the weapon, then isn’t it his or her right to have it removed in a by-back program? What becomes of guns that have been altered? Must those go back in to circulation? What if a community doesn’t want to put the guns up for sale?
Jan Brewer’s decision to enact this law sends a screaming message that state government trumps local government, regardless. I guess that’s just the conservative way of doing things these days.
Great job, sir, especially the final, serious part of the speech.
What was your favorite part?
I wonder if he will keep those bangs? No, he isn’t the same strappling young Muslim socialist he used to be!
At first I just thought it was an awkward situation getting a lot of attention…high roller Republicans buying in to a company to make healthy smoking. Now I think it is a far more serious situation that involves influence peddling.
The Washingtonpost.com:
Williams offered the wedding gift at a time when Glen Allen, Va.-based Star Scientific, which makes a dietary supplement and facial cream under the brand name Anatabloc, was suing the state to challenge a property tax assessment.
The governor and his wife have been high-profile boosters for Star Scientific, which has lost money for 10 years and is the subject of a federal securities investigation and two shareholder lawsuits. Maureen McDonnell traveled to Florida to talk up Anatabloc to investors three days before the wedding, and she and the governor hosted a gathering at the mansion to mark the product’s arrival in stores.
Does the above paragraph send up red flags? In Virginia, this behavior is not illegal but it sure is unethical to most of us. McDonnell says the money was given to his daughter, even though he signed the contract and put down an $8,000 deposit which was later refunded to Mrs. McDonnell. It all just sounds like weasel words at this point.
The name Star Scientific keeps popping up in the news and it always is attached, in some way, to both the current governor, Bob McDonnell, or the wannabe governor, Ken Cuccinelli. This association is usually surrounded by the oft-unspoken words, OOOPS or I forgot.
The Governor attracted some attention by not declaring that the CEO of this company, one Jonnie Williams, paid $15k for his daughter’s wedding reception. McDonnell said he didn’t declare it because the gift was to his daughter. Well, so much for traditional values where the parents of the bride pay for the wedding. Sorry Bob, but do you think Jonnie would have sprung for the bill if you weren’t the Guv of VA?
Ken Cuccinelli also has gotten into political hot water over this same company. The latest is the fact that he failed to report some gifts, namely an almost $5000 vacation to William’s Smith Mountain Lake vacation home and a catered turkey dinner. Cuccinelli also admitted to forgetting to report a plane trip to NYC financed by Williams. In all, Cuccinelli has received about $18,000 in gifts from the CEO of Star Scientific in the past 4 years.
$18,000 might not seem much to a high roller. To put this amount in perspective, many seniors don’t even get $18,000 a year in social security benefits. I guess it pays to be a Virginia high roller. Cuccinelli also owned stock in Star Scientific. This sure seems like a cozy relationship. Star Scientific used to be named Star Tobacco. It appears they make supplemental products, as in supplemental vitamins of a sort.
So the question still remains, what is this company and what does it want? No one gives away this much money to politicians without wanting something, do they? Meanwhile, will both Cuccinelli and McDonnell continue to reap the benefits of their respective high profile positions?
What is Star Scientific?
Further reading:
| The Daily Show with Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Weak Constitution | ||||
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Faux News is rather amazing in their hypocrisy. They have tried to throw out every amendment but the 2nd. They must be true patriots. [cough sputter choke]
Watch the female reporter’s face. It’s all she can do to keep from making faces at this tin foil warrior.
Ricin is the least of this guy’s problems. His tin foil hat is sending major signals to another world.
Then, just went you decided this guy might be just a tad nuts…He decides to entertain CNN:
Beam me up Scottie. The FBI will probably never recover from this guy. Does it scare anyone else that this guy was released?
Democracy for America has moved in to Northern Virginia and will be spotting a few house of delegate races. DFA was founded by by Howard Dean.
The group also released the results of surveys from Public Policy Polling, a firm that uses automated dialing rather than live telephone interviews, showing that many residents of the three Northern Virginia districts have negative views of the tea party movement and of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, the Republican nominee for governor.
The endorsements are part of DFA’s Purple to Blue project, which seeks to win swing legislative seats in states around the country. The group says it will target two more districts in Virginia and will “spend well over $750,000” on the five Virginia races.
One of those races will impact Prince William County as John Bell challenges Del. David Ramadan.
The Republicans who are being challenged seem up for fight and some campaign managers even tried to denigrate Howard dean which makes no sense at all. It should come as no shock that many in Northern Virginia have disdain for Ken Cuccinelli and the teaparty.
That didn’t take long. All of a sudden the Boston bombings have taken a political turn. Who knew what and when. I can see from here that there is a big bulls eye being painted on Janet Napolitano.
Should we retrace the steps taken with these young jihadists wannabes? Absolutely. Any time there is a terrorist attack, successful or unsuccessful, we should look at what went down and what can we learn to prevent similar future events from happening. We should look to see if we need new laws or if our old ones need tweaking.
However, this isn’t the time for the blame-game and turning the situation into a political gotcha. A week or so ago we were one nation standing in full support of the people of Boston. Let’s at least try to keep that spirit for a month and let’s avoid the finger pointing.
I have seen and heard some Republicans licking their lips and whiskers already, in anticipation.
Two westies in Sudley will never be together again. According to manassaspatch.com:
Two dogs were restrained with duct tape in a burglary that police say began due to a relationship dispute, according to Prince William County Police spokesperson Jonathan Perok.
One of the dogs was found dead and the other was injured, but has been returned to the owner.
Arrested Monday, Khanh Hoang Hong, 44, of 7567 Quail Run Lane, is charged with burglary, two counts of felony animal cruelty and two counts of grand larceny (animal). He is being held without bond and will appear in court June 13.
According to police, Hong is accused of breaking into another home in the 7500 block of Quail Run on Wednesday, April 17. Police say Hong used duct tape to restrain the dogs’ mouths and legs and put them in the trunk of his car.
This evil person was apparently an estranged boyfriend who broke into the woman’s home while she was at work and dog-napped her two beautiful westies. He killed one and injured the other before dumping both.
A person near and dear to my heart just told his mother that he couldn’t read cursive when asked who his birthday card was from. Was this a 6 year old? No. It was a 12 year old. Why can’t a 12 year old read cursive?
When I was little my parents used to speak French to each other when they didn’t want me to hear them. I stupidly took Spanish in school. But I digress…..
Can parents now just write something in cursive to be secretive around their kids? Why isn’t cursive being taught in school? I want to be old fashioned for just a minute. Texting is an invention of the Devil. It is making morons out of society. It has destroyed grammar and spelling even worse than CB radios. Perfectly educated people now write in ignorantese.
Learning to write cursive develops a child’s cognitive ability and helps him or her with spacial relationships. Expect more kids to fail geometry. That branch of mathematics definitely relies on finely tuned spacial relationships. Writing cursive also develops fine muscle control.
Reading and writing cursive is a skill. There are too many of us around who still communicate in cursive to let it go the way of the dodo bird. How will people sign their names? Will they print their name on a check? It’s one of those things people should be able to do just because….
Do local schools no longer teach cursive? Do teachers text their students? Keyboarding is not longer taught either. I think I see illiteracy coming…it is right around the corner. Schools! Rethink this one!
Signed, Moon-howler
Light pollution or progress? It’s all relative. If you consider North Korea, the lack of night light represents an impoverished, backward culture. If you are speaking of Las Vegas, the light represents waste, opulence, and wealth.
Many folks have no where to sky-watch because of city lights. The entire east coast suffers from light pollution. Going to the country around here isn’t looking at the night sky like you would see in Montana or New Mexico. Still, it’s far superior to in-town.
I challenge the supervisors to designate one of the western parks like Silver Lake as a sky watch park during celestial events. It would cost a park ranger on those nights, that’s all.
Last week in order to prove their tea party cred, apparently, the PWC BOCS proposed slashing the county DORM (Drug Offender Rehabilitation Module), program, a drug treatment program for incarcerated criminals. Jeremy Borden reported the following in washingtonpost.com:
Prince William County officials are considering cutting local funding for the county jail’s substance abuse treatment program, a move that has touched off intense lobbying from defense attorneys and law enforcement officials who say the program helps inmates clean up their lives, keeps the community safer and saves money.
Although county supervisors don’t make any final budget decisions until a scheduled meeting Tuesday, a potential $607,000-per-year cut to the program took many by surprise last week. Supervisors had considered other potentially painful cuts, including doing away with two new libraries and slashing the local subsidy to the county health department.
The board already has decided to spare the libraries and health department, but the proposed cut to the substance abuse program remained as supervisors sought a compromise to whittle residents’ real estate tax bills while maintaining core services. Those negotiations have yielded a plan that would have the average county resident paying $3,392 in real estate taxes, an increase of 2.3 percent.
Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz delivered a strong message after taking the microphone for a pregame speech, announcing to the fans, “This is our [expletive] city.”
The FCC will probably let Ortiz’s expletive not deleted speech slide. The “Julius” in the tweet is Julius Genachowski, who has been the chairman of the FCC since 2009.
The Tweet:
David Ortiz spoke from the heart at today’s Red Sox game. I stand with Big Papi and the people of Boston – Julius
So, is the FCC going soft or does Big Papi pretty much express the feelings of most Americans? Should the FCC just move on and not make a big deal?
