Virginia BlogNark

Greg L Promoted

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:43:11 GMT

I heard Greg Letiecq on WRVA this morning talking about his Let's-Suspect-Everyone-With-Mexican-Sounding-Names PAC (also known as Save The Old Dominion). He almost sounds like a normal person when you hear him speaking. However I couldn't help but notice that he was introduced as the "executive director of Save The Old Dominion" and not "the crazed tabloid yellow journalist of the Black Velvet Bruce Li blog who tends to exaggerate a lot." Congrats on the promotion.

Morality Police For Senate

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:42:46 GMT

I heard on the radio this morning that General Assembly Del. Bob Marshall will be running for John Warner's U.S. Senate seat in 2008. I hope he wins, so I won't have to make any more moral decisions for myself!

Revoke Teacherken's Blogging License

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 21:42:53 GMT

Here's some hard-hitting journalism from teacherken at Raising Kaine: "Pakistan may well erupt - given the security she was provided, the police may have in some way been complicit, similar to when Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards." Um, dude, seriously: Just stop typing. Put the keyboard away. Nobody is going to be looking to Raising Kaine for breaking news out of Pakistan anway. Which is a damn good thing, considering the unbelieveably irresponsible, baseless rumor-mongering you are doing. Who do you think you are, a major 24-hour cable news channel??

Untitled - Now With Title

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 06:26:59 GMT

If you remove all the names from this Raising Kaine post, you'd swear it was a Republican blog post -- one complaining about a Democrat automatically opposing something President Bush did. This is not a good template for political blog posts, no matter who writes it. Perhaps a reasoned defense of Kaine's budget proposal would have been more useful to educated readers. Something like Phil Chroniger's reasoned budget rebuttal, for example.

Odd Dichotomy

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:04:40 GMT

How can someone who advocates shooting prisoners of war also be a Christian who bakes Christmas cookies? It's a perplexing mystery to me. That fundamental dichotomy is one reason I distrust certain kinds of family values Republicans (those being the political ones). They go out of their way to show how nice and upstanding and decent they are (as opposed to those dirty, dirty libs), then they'll slip in something about shooting prisoners.

Rallies For The Unemployed

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:47:51 GMT

Why are these kinds of rallies always in the middle of the day in the middle of the week so only unemployed people or retired people can go? Do they do that intentionally so only dedicated fanatics will show up for the cameras? I mention this because this upcoming Move America Forward rally will take place right near me and I had given some thought to dropping by and seeing what really goes on at these things. (As opposed to what's reported about them.) But since it's at 1:30 PM on a Thursday, obviously I won't be doing that. Get a job you long-haired hippie freaks! I mean.. get a job you clean-cut upstanding citizens!

Humorous But Misleading

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 04:26:08 GMT

The Richmond Times-Dispatch, Raising Kaine and Not Larry Sabato all go after Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA-10th) for using taxpayer money to "pay people to look at porn." (Lowell of Raising Kaine, it should be noted, works for Frank Wolf's opposition in the upcoming 2008 elections.) While definitely humorous, it is also a misleading distortion of the intention of the Justice Department program. As the Times-Dispatch itself goes on to later explain (after the sensationalistic opening), the program actually "collects and reviews complaints about obscenity on the Internet." Whether that is worth taxpayer funds or not is debatable, but it is certainly a far cry from the image painted by the words "paying people to look at porn."

Um Not A Cool Gift Actually

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 04:21:22 GMT

Leslie Byrne is giving away 4 VIP tickets to The Daily Show. Raising Kaine suggests this would make a cool gift. It would be a cool gift... except they're not taping The Daily Show right now. Writer's strike? Reruns? Ring any bells? So in that light it seems like kind of a crappy gift. Maybe that's why they're giving away the tickets.

A Puzzling Declaration

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 04:18:40 GMT

This declaration from SWAC Girl is puzzling. She says she is in politics for her kids. Why does the future government make more of a difference in the lives of her kids than she does? I thought conservatives hated Nanny States. Illogical. Does not compute.

Creativity

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 09:26:39 GMT

Jerry Furman -- Virginia's most prolific misanthropic skeptic -- is wrong about one thing: Virginia Tech shooting victim Halloween costumes most certainly are creative. Creativity isn't always tasteful. (Also, whoever called those photos "extremely graphic" hasn't watched prime time television in about 20 years.)

Bloggers Should Not Be Lobbyists

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 08:54:06 GMT

Tim Hugo's Missing Citation

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 22:47:40 GMT

Lost amid the outrage over Tim Hugo quoting an anonymous diary on Raising Kaine is this even more disturbing tidbit: Hugo's attack ad went on to accuse his challenger, Rex Simmons, of supporting "amnesty for illegal immigrants," but gave no citation for that allegation whatsoever. Does he expect voters to just take his word for it?

Blogospheric Rumor Amplification Example

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 02:46:08 GMT

How did this silly but at least well-supported observation from GoodbyeFaisal: "Coincidence? Gill's logo contains star-and-crescent symbol of Islam."

Minor Stanley v. ODBA Corrections

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 06:44:31 GMT

Minor corrections to the rhetoric in the Joe Stanley vs. ODBA controversy in the Virginia blogosphere.

Loaded Questions, Weasel Words, and Diversions

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 06:43:51 GMT

SWAC Girl is just one blog continuing the ODBA mission to spin a personal grudge with cybersquatter Joe Stanley into an election-altering controversy in the Virginia 20th District. Her Sept. 5, 2007 post "Yellow Dog continues ... do lib bloggers defending Stanley agree with what he did?" contains several examples of misleading rhetorical devices that are deceptive to the reader.