Yearly Archives: 2011

Neo-nazi group names PHC “next best choice”

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(Promoted by Epluribusunum)

The neo-nazi group Stormfront.org has honored Patrick Henry College. “Since there are no more pro-white colleges, the next best choice are conservative colleges.”  Stormfront has moved on from pure unadulterated racism to the kinder gentler worship of Kinder, Küche, Kirche, or in their their own words “If you are going to spend money on your kid’s college at least pick a place that does not have Feminist Studies.”  FYI, the phrase Kinder, Küche, Kirche, was invented in the U.S.A.  Hitler never used it.  He did argue that a woman’s “world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home,”.

Stormfront found a photo of armed and booted state troopers, lined up against a small Soulforce prayer group to their liking.  The caption reads “Protest against Patrick Henry College for “bigotry.” The college permits nonwhite students, I do not know what they are complaining about.”

It’s good to know that modern day bigots no longer need to be pro-white.  As long as they are anti-woman and anti-gay, they are ok.  Good to know.  It’s also good to know that even in the most conservative of “Christian colleges”, they have to use force against their own student body to keep them from talking to people outside the cocoon.

E. coli – Another Reason to Buy USA

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[This post is by a local blogger, who has blogged for a while under the radar. I’m promoting this for a wider audience -Liz]

My April 3, 2011, post to this blog was about the dangers of consuming food and drugs from foreign countries (see “Eat At Your Own Risk: Foreign-Made Food and Drugs.“) This week, a particularly virulent strain of E. coli appeared on the scene, as people in Europe (and four in the US who recently returned from Germany) came down with nasty symptoms, including stomach cramps and bloody diarrhea. Currently, 1,833 cases of the E. coli infection have been confirmed, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. What makes this strain of E. coli even more dangerous is that it attacks not only the digestive system, but also produces a by-product called the “shiga” toxin that may damage the kidneys. Reports indicate that this strain of E. coli originated in produce, primarily bean sprouts, grown in northern Germany. However, sprouts, cucumbers, and tomatoes grown in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Spain are also suspect.

What exactly is E. coli? It’s a bacteria (Escherichia coli) that is commonly found in our intestines, and helps our bodies to break down and digest food. Certain strains of E. coli, however, move from the digestive system into the bloodstream, where they can cause serious infections. E. coli can contaminate crops when manure is used to fertilize crops, or if water contaminated with E. coli is used to irrigate the crops.

According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA),the government recently has stepped up testing of food from Germany and Spain, although very little in the way of produce is imported to the US from those countries or from other European countries. (I have found a lot of produce sold in US grocery stores from Mexico, and Central and South America.)

Be aware that meat and produce from the United States is not 100% safe from E. coli contamination either. There was a small outbreak in the US (145 reported cases) of a similar E. coli strain reported by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in 2010. That outbreak originated from US-produced shredded romaine lettuce. In general, however, according to Don Kraemer, deputy director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, the United States has “one of the safest food supplies in the world.” Reported outbreaks of E. coli worldwide are evidence that this is true.

Treatment for the present outbreak of E. coli is primarily accomplished by keeping patients hydrated with water, and by dialysis, which is used to scrub the blood of patients with infected bloodstreams. In the case of E. coli infections, antibiotics don’t help, and may make symptoms worse because they may increase the release of toxins into the bloodstream.

Precautions that we can take to protect ourselves from E. coli contamination are: (1) eat meat that is cooked well – not red or pink; (2) wash produce well (I use a vegetable and fruit spray) before eating, even if wrappers or labels say the produce has already been washed; (3) wash hands well before preparing food, and (4) wash countertops where food is prepared.

The final precaution that we can take to protect ourselves and our families against E. coli is to buy food and produce made and grown in the USA. With fewer E. coli outbreaks from USA food, buying food and eating “grown in USA, and “product of USA” food just makes good sense – not to mention that it helps our economy. This summer, buy locally grown produce, shop at community farmers’ markets, and look for “Made in USA,” and “Product of USA” labels on food and produce.
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This week’s recommended products:
•Fruits and vegetables that are “Product of USA,” including “locally grown” fruits and vegetables (as they come into season.)

•All Natural Veggie Wash Fruit and Vegetable Wash – Made in USA by Beaumont Products, Inc., Kennesaw, GA
Sources :
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/04/earlyshow/saturday/main20068944

http://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2010/ecoli_o145/index.html

http://kidshealth.org/kid/stay_healthy/food/ecoli.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-03/water-dialysis-only-treatments-for-deadliest-european-e-coli-outbreak.html

Crossposted at usabuyusa.blogspot.com
 

Where Do I Vote in Loudoun (Preliminary)?

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Every year, the pressing question leading up to Election Day is often not “who will I vote for,” but rather, “where do I vote, again?” The “who do I vote for” question, after all, derives from your voting precinct, as our elected officials represent Districts determined (mostly) by precinct lines.

With a tip-o-the-hat to folks from the Loudoun County Board of Elections, here is a preliminary, unofficial list of the precincts in Loudoun County which will be in place for the November 8 elections this year, organized by (new) Magisterial (i.e., Supervisor) Districts. As an added bonus, the State Senate and House of Delegates District numbers are also provided, so you can look up who is running. For example, SEN-33 is Senator Mark Herring’s District, while DEL-87 is where Mike Kondratick is running and DEL-10 is where Dave Butler is running.

Follow below the jump for the full list.
Continue reading →

This weekend was all about Valdis Ronis!

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I went canvassing with Valdis’s daughter, Shanyn on Sunday. I put my money on her being the Doorbell Queen for his campaign! She’s tireless, enthusiastic, and rings a mean doorbell.

On Monday, we met up again to celebrate Valdis’s 52nd birthday! There was a great crowd, including two elected officials, lots of familiar faces, and a crew of people I’d never met before. I love when a campaign gets people who are not normally involved in politics to join in the effort!

Speaking of familiar faces, Marlene Barney has a blog. Check it out!

Going On Electoral Offense

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It’s nice to see the Obama Administration going on electoral offense, process-wise. Specifically, pushing for immigrants who are eligible to become citizens to take that step and become citizens, and of course with citizenship, get the right to vote.

The multilingual effort aims to reach roughly 7.9 million immigrants who are eligible to file applications to naturalize but haven’t done so. Many immigrants work, raise a family and go to school while holding green cards and only think about citizenship when they need to travel or abroad or when elections roll around and they can’t vote, immigration officials said.

The campaign in print, radio and digital media that will run primarily in California, New York, Florida and Texas between May 30 and Labor Day aims to put citizenship in the forefront of people’s minds and give them personal stories of immigrants who have naturalized. San Francisco Chronicle

Given the process involved with gaining full citizenship, this is less a play for 2012 (which seems to be looking better for the President’s re-election prospects) than 2016, a year in which Florida will (as always) be critical, and depending on population and political trending, Texas may actually be in play for the Democrats.

This is just smart politics. The immigrant population overwhelmingly supports Democratic candidates, and the process of gaining citizenship is one likely to get them energized and engaged in the political system. And best of all, this is good for the country, as those citizens are given a stake in the nation’s future with their rights, and such long-term thinking is what we need right now.

Great move by our President’s Administration.

Oops! We missed LP’s first anniversary!

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LP went live a year ago on May 11. And we totally missed the opportunity to thank you all for reading and commenting.

So I’m thanking you now. Thank you for your comments, thank you for your guest posts, thank you for your feed-back.

Thank you also, for sticking with us as we worked out the kinks of having a shared blog.

We’ve had 420 blog posts, 1,327 comments, and 16 guest posts. Not bad for a bit over a year! Thank you again for making this year one of great discussions.

Guarding America’s Youth

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I’ve been told that a woman named Barbara Dixon announced her intent to run for School Board at Monday night’s LCRC meeting, pledging among other things to save our children from the “homosexual agenda.” Barbara is also the only known LCRC member to have openly joined the little “Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force” protest held at the April meeting.

The following video contains some other suggestions Barbara may find helpful to her campaign. Enjoy!

You know, out of touch.

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Leesburg Patch has a great article up about former Supervisor, and LCRC candidate for Board of Supervisors Chair, Steve Stockman. It illustrates Mr. Stockman’s status as a candidate with little connection with the reality lived by people here in Loudoun County, as well as his limitations as a candidate.

Steve Stockman’s only care seems to be a single issue, “taxes,” with little or no comprehension of the myriad things that drive that issue. For example, the incredible growth in the school population since he last served on the Board has a huge, and largely unavoidable, impact on the revenue necessary to run the LCPS, the largest single driver of the county tax rate. Mr. Stockman’s position seems to be that we can set a low tax rate and let all the necessary services simply wither to accommodate that rate. Of course, recent court cases have demonstrated that to be a fundamentally flawed assumption. In California, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the state to release inmates since Gov. Schwarzenegger and his allies decided to grossly underfund their prison system. In New Jersey, the State Supreme Court ordered Gov. Christie to fund underperforming schools, over the efforts of the Gov. and his allies to let school spending wither. Mr. Stockman’s “cut and wither” policy proposals do not lead to lower taxes, they lead to lawsuits. And didn’t we have enough of those under the last Board?

But perhaps nothing illustrates Mr. Stockman’s inability to comprehend the realities of living in the County he seeks to lead like this quote:

Some issues of great concern to some candidates are of little concern to Stockman, such as transportation, which he considers “not that big” of an issue because people choose where to live.

“You can make improvements around the margins, but people will decide to live and commute based on their own individual choices,” he said. “You know, commuting, it’s all voluntary.” – Leesburg Patch

Or this quote, detailing his opposition to Metro to Dulles.

While the current board of supervisors has signaled concerns about the Metro project – primarily that if the Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority wants a more costly underground station, it should find the money without tolls or local tax dollars – Stockman is cool to the idea for other reasons.

“I’m not too enthusiastic,” he said. “I know we want it to [Dulles] airport and a lot of people think it’s going to be a godsend. I don’t think it is. I think that American people prefer to have private transportation. Mostly, right now, Metro’s running at a deficit. “

Now, I know Mr. Stockman owns his own company, and therefore hasn’t had to find a decent paying job and a place to live recently. And as the article points out, his kids have long since moved out, so he doesn’t have to worry about ferrying them to events, or taking schools into account along with commute, home prices, cost of living, and other factors when looking for somewhere to live. So maybe, in that context, he could be forgiven his appalling ignorance of the impact of long commutes on Loudoun families (not to mention our environment and the attendant traffic externalities that impact the quality of life for everyone in Loudoun).

But in the context of being a candidate to Chair the Board of Supervisors? In that context, the ignorance and lack of concern for one of the most important realities for all of us in Loudoun – commuting – is enough to disqualify him as a serious candidate for office.

Or, rather, it should disqualify him. Whether it does is up to the LCRC.

Legislative FAIL

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There are many dumb laws on the books. So many, in fact, that there are several popular websites whose sole purpose is to feature the most idiotic laws in each state.  One state is on its way to passing a law so ridiculous that the youtube video mocking it has already received over 800,000 views.

The Tennessee Senate, continuing a long and glorious tradition of creating laughable-if-it-weren’t-so-hateful legislation, has passed what has been coined the “Don’t Say Gay Bill.”  For those who aren’t familiar, SB 49 makes it a misdemeanor for a teacher to acknowledge that gay people exist in prepared materials or instruction. On one hand, the absurdity of the bill cries out for the kind of comic relief Mr. Takei so brilliantly delivers in the video above.  On the other, this cynical pander to extremists is yet another hateful attempt to vilify the LGBT community.

It almost goes without saying that where you find this particular variety of clownish antagonism, you’ll likely find my Republican opponent for Sterling District Supervisor, Eugene Delgaudio.  Unable to suppress his bizarre fixation with persecuting the gay community, Delgaudio released a statement over the weekend seeking credit for passage of this very stupid law (as taken from his national hate site, which I won’t link to):

Public Advocate’s pivotal last minute role in the historic vote to defend the family held in Tennessee last week began with an email from PA President Eugene Delgaudio on Thursday May 12 at 5:26 p.m. Eastern Standard Time from his offices in Falls Church, Va. to his top volunteers and staff.

Delgaudio said:

(quote) Public Advocate has a Nashville based- volunteer in Nashville right now pushing passage of the bill (Director Mark Clayton) in Tennessee right now and on site in the capitol until this battle is over…..our plan is to explain to every Senator our memberships’ support for passing this bill and to stand up to the lies of the homosexual lobby and know that we are with them.

the opposition has spread lies with their own obscene video and the news media is assisting the homosexual lobby by calling it the “don’t say gay” bill when it, the bill, simply states “just say traditional values– heterosexual practices”.(unquote)

Considering his recent essays on TSA pat downs and Tampa’s Gasparilla Pirate Festival, it’s certainly not surprising to see Delgaudio draw attention to his frenzied opposition to gay rights.  What is particularly disturbing about his support of this bill is that it is indicative, in my opinion, of the type of laws he’d like Loudoun County to pass.  Should he return to a board that is more aligned with his ideology, the extreme agenda he will try to implement will be no laughing matter.

Al Nevarez, Candidate for Loudoun County Supervisor, Sterling District – al4sterling.com