At age 34, two years before his first election and two decades before he would run for governor of Virginia, Robert F. McDonnell submitted a master's thesis to the evangelical school he was attending in Virginia Beach in which he described working women and feminists as "detrimental" to the family. He said government policy should favor married couples over "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators." He described as "illogical" a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.
The 93-page document, which is publicly available at the Regent University library, culminates with a 15-point action plan that McDonnell said the Republican Party should follow to protect American families -- a vision that he started to put into action soon after he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates.
During his 14 years in the General Assembly, McDonnell pursued at least 10 of the policy goals he laid out in that research paper, including abortion restrictions, covenant marriage, school vouchers and tax policies to favor his view of the traditional family. In 2001, he voted against a resolution in support of ending wage discrimination between men and women.
In his run for governor, McDonnell, 55, makes little mention of his conservative beliefs and has said throughout his campaign that he should be judged by what he has done in office, including efforts to lower taxes, stiffen criminal penalties and reform mental health laws. He reiterated that position Saturday in a statement responding to questions about his thesis.
Monday, August 31, 2009
The Mullah Who Would Be Governor of Virginia
You're given a pass if you're not following the election contest for governor of Virginia this year, but you might want to check out the Republican who is leading in most polls, one Robert F. McDonnell, who was fostered by Pat Robertson's university and who clearly wanted to keep women roughly in the same place that the Taliban reserved for them. He's now disavowing those views he put into his student thesis, but his history in the Virginia state legislature suggests otherwise. From the WashPost:
Book Review
Taking a break from American history reading, I decide to learn a little something about evolution and delve into one of the most exciting books I’ve read in years, “The Song of the Dodo” by David Quammen. It’s a relatively old book, published in the mid-’90s, but it’s all new to me and written with the wry zip of a born cut-up. Couldn’t put it down.
The book is named for the dodo because that bird was one of hundreds of island species that went extinct not so terribly long ago, about the end of the 17th century. It had evolved without the need for wings – no natural predators, until Europeans arrived on Mauritius and found it easy pickin's. Quammen records that the name “dodo” possibly comes from a nickname given it by Dutch sailors, meaning (roughly) “lard ass.”
Ole Lard Ass opens the door to a history of the study of evolution. Charles Darwin got himself to islands to discover the species that began to open his eyes, as did Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin’s chief rival for the claim of thinking up the “origin of species.” Quammen assumes that Wallace got to the truth first but received no credit for it, partly because he was a rank amateur and Darwin was the revered professional. “Islands give clarity to evolution,” says Quammen: “Islands have been especially instructive because their limited area and their inherent isolation combine to make patterns of evolution stand out starkly.”
Quammen is not a mere armchair adventurer. He’s followed the footsteps of those pioneering biologists, petted the marine iguanas of the Galapagos, hunted the invasive brown tree snakes in the dark of Guam, nearly had his butt amputated by a Komodo dragon on the island of Flores in the nation of Indonesia. Those and dozens of other eye-witness accounts enliven this book.
If the sum total of Quammen’s reportage is melancholy, and if you’re particularly susceptible to the ecological blues, you might want to focus on the subtitle of this book before plunging in: “Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions.” Scientists who study ancient bones have charted a series of five mass extinctions of species going back to the late Ordovician period (440 million years ago), followed by one in the late Devonian period (370 million years ago) and then the Permian extinction 250 million years ago, which eliminated more than half the extant families of invertebrate marine creatures, and the mass extinction at the end of the Triassic period (about 215 million years ago) and then the Cretaceous extinction 65 million years ago, which claimed the last of the dinosaurs. Human life had no hand in any of these because human life did not yet exist.
But in the later millennia of the Pleistocene epoch, only tens of thousands of years ago, a sixth mass extinction of animals got underway and is still continuing today, helped along by the appetites and hobbies of mankind, since this most recent extinction began about the time that humans began hunting in armed and cooperative packs.
“Eons in the future,” Quammen sums up, “paleontologists from the planet Tralfamadore will look at the evidence and wonder what happened on Earth to cause such vast losses so suddenly at six points in time: at the end of the Ordovician, in the late Devonian, at the end of the Permian, at the end of the Triassic, at the end of the Cretaceous, and again about sixty-five million years later, in the late Quaternary, right around the time of the invention of the dugout canoe, the stone ax, the iron plow, the three-masted sailing ship, the automobile, the hamburger, the television, the bulldozer, the chain saw, and the antibiotic.”
FOOTNOTE
Quammen’s section on the extinction of the passenger pigeon is especially poignant, since these mountains harbored so many millions of them up through much of the 19th century. They gave their names to hundreds of places called “Pigeon Roost” in Ohio, Indiana, and in Watauga County, N.C., among dozens of other places. They were “harvested” by the thousands by teenage boys and by their fathers as a kind of prank, knocked off their roosts at night with sticks. It was so easy, killing them. The last confirmed wild passenger pigeon was shot dead in Sargents, Ohio, on March 24, 1900. The very last known, formerly wild passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.
The book is named for the dodo because that bird was one of hundreds of island species that went extinct not so terribly long ago, about the end of the 17th century. It had evolved without the need for wings – no natural predators, until Europeans arrived on Mauritius and found it easy pickin's. Quammen records that the name “dodo” possibly comes from a nickname given it by Dutch sailors, meaning (roughly) “lard ass.”
Ole Lard Ass opens the door to a history of the study of evolution. Charles Darwin got himself to islands to discover the species that began to open his eyes, as did Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin’s chief rival for the claim of thinking up the “origin of species.” Quammen assumes that Wallace got to the truth first but received no credit for it, partly because he was a rank amateur and Darwin was the revered professional. “Islands give clarity to evolution,” says Quammen: “Islands have been especially instructive because their limited area and their inherent isolation combine to make patterns of evolution stand out starkly.”
Quammen is not a mere armchair adventurer. He’s followed the footsteps of those pioneering biologists, petted the marine iguanas of the Galapagos, hunted the invasive brown tree snakes in the dark of Guam, nearly had his butt amputated by a Komodo dragon on the island of Flores in the nation of Indonesia. Those and dozens of other eye-witness accounts enliven this book.
If the sum total of Quammen’s reportage is melancholy, and if you’re particularly susceptible to the ecological blues, you might want to focus on the subtitle of this book before plunging in: “Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions.” Scientists who study ancient bones have charted a series of five mass extinctions of species going back to the late Ordovician period (440 million years ago), followed by one in the late Devonian period (370 million years ago) and then the Permian extinction 250 million years ago, which eliminated more than half the extant families of invertebrate marine creatures, and the mass extinction at the end of the Triassic period (about 215 million years ago) and then the Cretaceous extinction 65 million years ago, which claimed the last of the dinosaurs. Human life had no hand in any of these because human life did not yet exist.
But in the later millennia of the Pleistocene epoch, only tens of thousands of years ago, a sixth mass extinction of animals got underway and is still continuing today, helped along by the appetites and hobbies of mankind, since this most recent extinction began about the time that humans began hunting in armed and cooperative packs.
“Eons in the future,” Quammen sums up, “paleontologists from the planet Tralfamadore will look at the evidence and wonder what happened on Earth to cause such vast losses so suddenly at six points in time: at the end of the Ordovician, in the late Devonian, at the end of the Permian, at the end of the Triassic, at the end of the Cretaceous, and again about sixty-five million years later, in the late Quaternary, right around the time of the invention of the dugout canoe, the stone ax, the iron plow, the three-masted sailing ship, the automobile, the hamburger, the television, the bulldozer, the chain saw, and the antibiotic.”
FOOTNOTE
Quammen’s section on the extinction of the passenger pigeon is especially poignant, since these mountains harbored so many millions of them up through much of the 19th century. They gave their names to hundreds of places called “Pigeon Roost” in Ohio, Indiana, and in Watauga County, N.C., among dozens of other places. They were “harvested” by the thousands by teenage boys and by their fathers as a kind of prank, knocked off their roosts at night with sticks. It was so easy, killing them. The last confirmed wild passenger pigeon was shot dead in Sargents, Ohio, on March 24, 1900. The very last known, formerly wild passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
The Gracefulness of Spotless Minds
A mere sampling of some of the comments posted at GoBlueRidge.net, on a thread about N.C. political figures commenting on the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy ... because anonymity brings out the best in everyone:
Molly Hatchet Registered | 08/26/2009 2:54PM
Truly the end of an error.
PlumbHollow Registered | 08/27/2009 10:59AM
Ted Kennedy was an extremely flawed and crooked man. Those who say that he "helped" the "little guy" need to ask themselves one question.
Why don't all those incredibly wealthy liberal politicians simply turn over their excess billions in personal fortunes to the "little guys"?
It's a proven fact that Liberals give very little of their pesonal fortunes to the needy but they damned sure do like giving away the "little guy's" money.
I can only hope that Teddy got right with the Lord before he assumed room temperature.
Just call me Bill Registered | 08/27/2009 1:11PM
It is indeed hypocritical to change what you have to say about someone just because he died. Nothing has changed.
Mr. Kennedy was an alcohol abusing, womanizing, liberal whose political policies hurt this country and who may have literally gotten away with murder. He is still an alcohol abusing, womanizing, liberal whose political policies hurt this country and who may have literally gotten away with murder. However, he is now a dead alcohol abusing, womanizing, liberal whose political policies hurt this country and who may have literally gotten away with murder.
This is not graceless or lacking compassion, but simple consistency of opinion.
lawnboy Registered | 08/27/2009 5:47PM
rum runner and murderer
lawnboy Registered | 08/27/2009 6:49PM
No I can still hate him all of the dead kennedy's..worm food
PlumbHollow Registered | 08/27/2009 10:54PM
I can include Ted Kennedy into a conversation of Hitler and Saddam because Kennedy BELONGS in such a discussion! Not only did he kill a young woman, he was absolutely complicit in the murder of millions of unborn children in his dispicable career.
I only wish he would have done the honorable thing and blown his pea-brains out years ago.
It amazes me that liberals give Kennedy a pass on a murder, the cover up of a rape, the slandering of a rape victim and the serial womanizing of dozens of women. Not to mention his well documented mistreatment of employees.
I suppose you can't expect rational thought from Liberals. After all, if you condone the murder of the innocent, what WON'T you condone?
As for Teddy's family?.....I can muster no empathy...they all knew he was a piece of human debris too. All the grief is strictly for show and the dough.
America will be a better place when the Kennedy Clan simply disappears from the political landscape.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Michael Steele Argues With Himself
I heard this interview with Michael Steele this a.m. on NPR and couldn't believe my ears. A flabberglasticon of contraditions and confusions, Steele was all over the map, trying to sound half-way competent about the facts and stumbling repeatedly instead into deep potholes of faulty logic and twisted reasoning.
Hence, he's the perfect spokesman for the Party of No, the Party of Torture, the Party of the Smugly Prosperous.
Hence, he's the perfect spokesman for the Party of No, the Party of Torture, the Party of the Smugly Prosperous.
Blue for Money
It should come as absolutely no surprise whatsoever that the so-called Blue Dog Democrats are currently raking in money from the health care industry by the bushel.But, please, let's call Heath Shuler (NC-11) and Mike McIntyre (NC-7) and the rest of that illustrious crew what they in fact have become ... obstructionists to reform. Their new motto: "First we count the money, and then we cast our votes."
McClatchy Newspapers is reporting, "On average, Blue Dog Democrats net $62,650 more from the health sector than other Democrats, while hospitals and nursing homes also favor them, giving, respectively, $5,680 and $5,550 more, according to the Center for Responsive Politics...."
However, for all their current whoring for the health-care industry, even the Blue Dogs can't hold a candle to the Republicans: "House Republicans, however, tend to collect more than Democrats-- including Blue Dogs -- from insurers, health professionals and the broader health sector, the Center for Responsive Politics found."
Just ask Madam Foxx, who knows a thing or two about whoredom.
Face-to-Face with The Madam
What it takes to get a meeting with our U.S. Representative in Congress...
I saw Virginia Foxx in the parking lot of a grocery store last Sat. in Boone. Actually, I saw her vehicle & realized it was hers by her license plate and so I waited for her. I went up to her and said: "Virginia Foxx." She turned around and said "yes." I said, "How does it feel to lie to America?" She knew immediately what I was referring to. She said: "I didn't lie." I said, "You most certainly did lie." She said, "What's your name!" I said, "My name doesn't matter. I am not the one who LIES to America."
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
It Takes A Crazy to Hang Out with a Crazy
Virginia Foxx can't meet the voters of the 5th District face-to-face, but she has time to spend on the line with the second battiest loose cannon in the U.S. House, Michelle Bachmann.What's with this new Republican "townhall" habit of bringing additional reinforcements on the telephone line with you, like Foxx brought that obscure east Tennessee Congressman (Phil Roe) on with her last week, who promptly took up half the hour himself.
Shades of George W. Bush taking Dick Cheney along to hold his hand while he testified to the 9/11 Commission. Or, more accurately perhaps, shades of this.
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