Why I support Bob Marshall for U.S. Senate….

Transportation? Yes, transportation!!!

Yesterday, King Kgosi Leruo Molotlegi of the Royal Bafokeng Nation based in Phokeng in the North West Province of South Africa visited Prince William County. He visited an elementary school near Dumfries and had lunch with the First Grade class.

The visit was not publicized beyond the school and the parents of the students, so no media was present at the request of the King.  By all accounts, the students (and staff) were thrilled to meet royalty.  The King was visiting to check out school nutrition programs and find ways to implement similar programs among his people.

Here’s some facts and features about the Royal Bafokeng Nation:

POPULATION: 300 000 (160 000 living in the area)
AREA: 1 400 km² land owned by RBN
LARGEST TOWN: Phokeng (150km from Johannesburg)
GEOGRAPHY: Rolling bushveld plains broken by small hills
CLIMATE: Temperate with hot summers and cool winters
NATURAL RESOURCES: Platinum and associated minerals
INDUSTRIES: Mining, engineering and tourism
EXPORTS: Base and precious metals

Conservative Parody-meister Paul Shanklin debuted a new song on today’s Rush Limbaugh Show — “Every Little Thing She Does Is Tragic” as sung by “Bill Clinton” to the tune of The Police’s “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic.”  Comic gold…

Recent posts on Rappahannock Red and Bloggers 4 Bob Marshall led us to speed up the release of our “alternate cut” for the video to accompany Marky Mark’s bluegrass music campaign theme song.  This time, we dig into the lyrics of the song — talk of “mountain people,” “stills” and “coal mines” — and come up with but one conclusion –

If you live south of the Rappahannock River, you are an Inbred Moron in Mark Warner’s mind.

So, without further pause, we bring you Mark Warner’s campaign theme song from 2001 that he is once again recycling in 2008. The song that single-handedly will set back economic development in rural Virginia by 75 years…

While you’re at it, please be sure to vote in our poll at the top left of the site as to whether you think that Marky Mark is a liar or a moron. (Sorry, the option of “both” is not being offered as we suspected most people would select that one and we’re trying to decide upon one or the other.)

The Write Side Of My Brain has uncovered something that Republicans and Conservatives can finally agree with Sen. Thinskin Gump (D-WashPo) on.  Click here to find out what it is.

If you ever start to get depressed about how Virginia government works or doesn’t work, just remember we’re not California. 

The state annually adds to its debt via routine high dollar spending referenda, an abdicating Democrat dominated legislature that just doesn’t understand what it means to live within your means, and a governor who after bucking the tide with a series of failed cutting initiatives decided it was much easier and more politically expedient to go with the current.

Today, the Governor has come out with a way to solve the current debt-load: Borrow more.  This time against the state lottery.  So, the state of California will bank its future on those self-taxers who try their luck.  Good grief.

Gov. Timmy! promised during the 2005 campaign that he would not raise taxes for transportation until safeguards were in place to prevent the additional funds from being spent on things other than transportation projects.

Now, Timmy! has proposed a $1 billion tax hike to pay for road construction.  His promised safeguard?

He also said the legislation his office is drafting will include a provision to ensure that none of the new money is diverted to other needs in tight budget times. If any of the new revenue is used for another purpose, Mr. Kaine said, the tax automatically expires.

Won’t it be too late by then?  The money will have already been spent on something other than transportation and will be long gone.  Plus, the additional revenue for road construction will then be gone, too.  This isn’t the kind of “safeguard” for transportation funds that I had in mind…

From the AP:

The Vatican’s chief astronomer says that believing in aliens does not contradict faith in God.

The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, says that the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.

In an interview published Tuesday by Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Funes says that such a notion “doesn’t contradict our faith” because aliens would still be God’s creatures.

The interview was headlined “The extraterrestrial is my brother.” Funes said that ruling out the existence of aliens would be like “putting limits” on God’s creative freedom.

Or as I once heard it put, the existence of extraterrestrials would only be greater testament to the power and glory of God. We know that God rested on the Seventh Day, but what did He do on the Eighth Day? What “side-projects” has He worked on over the course of eternity?

That said, I have no idea whether our planet has ever been “visited” by extraterrestrials and remain skeptical that we have. But if we have and there is anything to the stories of alleged UFOs in the Bible or supposed sightings in modern times of UFOs over the Holy Land, wouldn’t it be amazing if in fact these were part of a religious pilgrimage?

When I opened my mailbox tonight after I got home from work, I found a “newspaper” entitled “Commonwealth Conversations” waiting there for me.  Right there on the front page, taking up about 75 percent of the cover were three huge pictures — Bob McDonnell, Bill Bolling and inserted right between these two, RPV Chairman (and freshly-minted presidential in-law) John Hager.

This May 2008 issue, is labeled “Vol. 1 Issue 1″ and supposedly costs $2.50 according to the print on the masthead.  The “Publisher” is listed as John H. Hager and the name is a “registered trademark and owned in entirety by the Republican Party of Virginia.”  All the articles in this newspaper can be found online at its website and include ones about the McDonnell-Bolling ‘09 ticket, how Chairman Hager is “Equipping the Grassroots,” an op-ed by McDonnell, an RPV Report on all the great things that Chairman Hager and his team are doing, a piece about how liberal Obama is on economics, another one about how Hager is launching an effort along with McDonnell and Bolling to strengthen grassroots, etc.

My reaction?  How convenient.  We’re less than 3 weeks away from a state convention where the race for Party Chairman is contested and I receive the “inaugural edition” of this “newspaper” with all these articles touting how great the current chairman is, paid for at RPV expense no less.  Now, to be fair, they do list “2008 Print Advertising Deadlines (subject to change),” so there is no reason to suspect that Vol 1, Issue 1 will be followed by Vol 1, Issue 2 that announces the results of the RPV State Convention and then, given these advertising deadlines are “subject to change,” we never see an Issue 3.  That would be oh so cynical of me to think that way.

UPDATE:  I have received word from sources both within RPV and former RPV staff that this publication was long in the works.  While I am glad to hear that this project has been ongoing, the timing of its initial release and content leave it open to suspicion, which is unfortunate.