Crap.
I feel so guilty.
Category: Virginia Page 16 of 34
really running for governor, I so hope that he hires Lowell Feld. Because truly, that would be the best thing ever.
I’m not much for using Blacknell.net as a reprint service, but I suspect this will be of interest to many of my local readers:
1 ) Please help us spread the word that our upcoming ACDC [Arlington County Democratic Committee] meeting on Wednesday, October 1st will be dedicated to volunteer outreach activities. The meeting will be held at our normal location – NRECA Conference Center at 4301 Wilson Blvd. The meeting begins at 7:00pm with important updates on our Get Out The Vote (GOTV) activities between now and the election. The second half of the meeting will be focused on volunteer activities. During this portion of the meeting you will have an opportunity to visit different stations to directly help or learn about how you can participate in critical volunteer needs. We hope you will plan to attend and encourage you to bring a friend.
Here are some of the volunteer activities that will be highlighted:A) Stamping Envelopes – we need volunteers to stamp envelopes for our Dollars For Dems fundraising and absentee voting mailing
B) Individual Fundraising Challenge – learn how you can easily raise small dollar donations from your family and friends to support our GOTV activities in Arlington
C) Election Day Official – find out how you can serve as an election official to educate and process voters to help minimize the lines we will face at the polls
D) Metro Voter Registration/Absentee Voting – learn how you can assist in our efforts to promote voter registration and absentee voting at Arlington Metro Stations.
E) Building Ambassadors – if you live in a locked building, found out how you can make a difference in this election by serving as a Building Ambassador
F) Canvassing and Phone Banking -Â sign up to talk to your neighbors through weekend canvassing or weekday phone banks
G) Rides to Voter Registrar’s Office – you’ve heard of Rides to the Polls, find out about how you can get involved in our new Rides to Registrar program
I hope DC metro area residents will consider making Arlington/NoVA their home base for any volunteering related to the national election. We already know how DC and Maryland are going to turn out, and running up the margin there won’t really matter. However, it will matter in Virginia.  The higher the margin in NoVA, the better the chances are of Virginia’s electoral votes falling into the Democratic column, come election night.
At Clarendon Day, Rep. Jim Moran faces down tougher competition than he’ll see this Election Day. Have I mentioned lately how much I love my neighborhood?
(Photo used without permission. So sue me.)
The surprise, of course, is that I’m actually getting a Friday Notes out.
First, I apparently screwed up the first video in this post about Idiocracy (yes, I note the irony). Since no one told me about it, that means no one looked at the videos. I blame you. You are hereby sentenced to go watch it.
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Do Virginia Republicans do anything but whine about non-existent attacks on them? Del. Bill Carrico was just on WAMU’s Politics Hour going on about how awful it is that the Fourth Circuit said a state employee can’t use his office to lead a mass prayer to Jesus Christ (in particular. Non-denoms are okay). You’d think that the Fourth Circuit was burning Christians at the stake. More about the issue here (with a similarly overwrought tone) and here (which brings it back to reality).
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A friend turned me on the Fratellis’ Flathead track last week. Because Universal is still afraid of its customers, I can’t embed the video. So check it out. (Warning: this song came to me as a volley in an earworm war.)
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CycleTo – a well-produced site run by a fellow with a lot of access in the sport – picked up some of my shots from last weekend’s ING Direct Capital Criterium. CycleTo does a lot of original short video interviews (like this recent one with Levi Leipheimer at Worlds in Varese). If you’re into pro cycling, give them a look.
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Looks like the Associated Press lent the McCain campaign its time machine.
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You’ve probably recieved one of those fear-mongering “don’t wear buttons to the polls!” email this week. Vivian Paige lays out the law for Virginia residents, and Adam Bonin gives us a national view.
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Sign war amusement.
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It’s often easy to assume that all of humanity’s easy problems have been solved. This is a reminder that simple ideas can still make a difference.
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I somehow missed the recent skirmishes over the role of the US military personnel on American soil. If you find it as interesting as I do, this is as good a place as any to jump in.
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What are you do this weekend? Depending on the weather, I’ll either be at Bike DC or the Charlottesville Vegetarian Festival.
Jim Webb’s head just showed up on my TV screen, during the Rachel Maddow Show. “Finally,” I thought,”He’s going to come out swinging for Obama!”. Umm, no. He was there to defend retiring Sen. Chuck Hagel, in the way of his comments about Palin’s incompetence. And while that’s a completely honorable thing to do, I still have to wonder – where’s Jim Webb? He’s the one who was hailed at the great white hope for Democrats in Virginia. So why is it that it’s Terry Freakin’ McAuliffe that’s going on a tour of Virginia (ostensibly in support of Obama, but mostly to find out that the idea of him running for governor is a complete joke)? I know Virginia’s Democrats have a tradition of identifying themselves as anything *but* Democrats, but this is getting ridiculous . . .
The Arlington Sun-Gazette arrived in the mail today, and while it has often disappointed me in the past, it really outdid itself today. 
See, inserted in the middle of the paper was a full color poster and DVD containing “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West”. This is a hateful bit of propaganda that is popular with the David Horowitz crowd, and its distribution was underwritten by the Clarion Fund (more about this fraud of an operation here). and does its best to drum up the fear, as described by someone who received a copy with his New York Times:
Arriving at the doorstep together, the package was alarming. The film is made to appear as a news-style documentary and includes splashy sell-lines that shout “As seen on CNN and FOX News by more than 20 million viewers worldwide.” Indeed, the incendiary packaging is a reflection of the contents of the film. The “O” in “Obsession” is formed with the Islamic crescent moon and a star, and the closing “N” is tricked up with a silhouette of an automatic rifle. Soft focus-images of Middle Easterners, the World Trade Center, a firefighter on a ladder and the American flag all bathed in golden light.
The movie’s primary aim appears to be to get every viewer to think that Islam’s primary purpose is to ensure that there’s a Muslim dedicated to killing them and their children hiding around every corner. It’s an absolutely execrable effort at hate and fear mongering, and I’m not going to expend any effort in describing in further. You are welcome to check it out for yourself, however, at the movie’s website.
I called the Sun-Gazette’s offices to make sure that they’d sent it, but there was no answer. I left a message and will report back on any response. In the interim, I urge all of my Northern Virginia readers to call the Sun-Gazette at (703) 738-2520 and tell them that hate has no place here, no matter how much money it makes them. Ask for Scott McCaffery, the newspaper’s editor, when you do this. And don’t take the “oh, it’s just an advertisement, we don’t have any control over what we carry” excuse. It’s bullshit. I can think of a half dozen inserts they’d turn down without a thought. They certainly *do* have control over trafficking in hate.
As I was writing this, I discovered that this tripe was distributed with many newspapers (to 28 million homes, it seems). You know who the only paper was to refuse, thus far? The Greensboro News & Record. Putting the rest of them to shame. No excuses for any of them. At all.
Yep, the Republican Party is putting George “I Still Eat Ham Sandwiches” Allen up on stage as part of a rally in Fairfax aimed at drawing minorities to the Republican Party. Do you think he’s going to bring the noose he used to keep in his office with him? Is he going to welcome all the brown Virginians he sees to the Real America?
Hilarious.
Update: I’d completely forgotten about the video about George Allen and his love for black people. Give it a watch:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmxpX6I0qQE[/youtube]
I know, this was mighty white of me, wasn’t it?
Listening to the Warner/Gilmore Virginia Senate debate, in which Kojo Nnamdi asked Gilmore whether he would support the recently passed House bill that runs roughshod over DC’s right to self determination on the issue of guns. Gilmore doesn’t appear to understand what Heller is, but goes on about his support for gun ownership and finishes up by saying that he is also “proud that the Supreme Court of Virginia overturned the DC gun ban.” And Warner says “On this issue, Jim and I agree.”
The people of DC – just cheap props for cheap political points for cheap politicians.
Ah, what people will do for parking in Arlington . . .
(I quite like this shot, from later in the evening. No one hurt at all.)
Sugarcubes’ Motorcrash
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_D6nxAa7rA[/youtube]