Shaun Kenney

John McCain’s frontpage gives us a quote from none other than William Wilberforce:

“When we think of eternity, and of the future consequences of all human conduct, what is there in this life that should make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice, the laws of religion, and of God?” — William Wilberforce

Awesome. And just in time to stand up for rock-solid conservative judges (you can sign the petition here).

Frankly, the speech McCain gave on human liberty reads to be one heck of a speech. Some excerpts:

Last year the world celebrated the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British and American slave trade in 1807. Nearly fifty-six years would pass before Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, signaling the end of slavery in the United States. But the achievement of both countries in terminating the international slave trade and setting into motion the titanic and bloody struggle to close a shameful chapter in the history of our country should be remembered as a turning point in mankind’s long and fitful progress toward a more just world. William Wilberforce had struggled for years in the British parliament to strike the lethal blow against the abominable institution that had scarred Western civilization for centuries. He was a humble Christian man, powerfully motivated by his faith, whose example instructs every person born in freedom that we have a moral obligation not to turn a blind eye to assaults on the collective dignity of humanity wherever they occur.

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Confronting evil has never been easy – in our age or any other. But the failure to do so affects even those who are complacent with our own blessings and secure in our human rights.

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We can retain our own freedom when others are robbed of theirs, but not the sense of virtue that made our revolution a moral as well as political crusade, and which recognizes that personal happiness is so much more than pleasure, and requires us to serve causes greater than self-interest.

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There is another form of human oppression that persists in the world today that demands our urgent attention and should sting the conscience of every good person. Inexcusably, it is a crime that, while prevalent elsewhere, exists within our own borders as well. Human trafficking – slavery, by another name – exists not just in places like Thailand, Kuwait and Venezuela. It is a serious problem here in the United States…. As President, I’ll increase cooperation and communication between all agencies of the federal government by establishing an Inter-Agency Task Force on Human Trafficking, whose purpose will be to focus exclusively on the prosecution of human traffickers and the rescue of their victims.

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We must also do more to ensure governments that tolerate human trafficking crack down on this modern form of slavery. We can support efforts to change the economic incentives and do more to aid the victims. But we must view this evil form of twenty-first century slavery every bit as important as drug trafficking. All too often the same criminal networks that trade in fourteen-year-old girls also trade in narcotics–and even in materials that can be used by terrorists. Identifying and destroying criminal networks that evade national boundaries is also a matter of our national security.

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Our nation, whose founders sacrificed for the belief that we would be an example to the world, has long appreciated that our freedom confers responsibilities on us all, and among them, is our respect for the freedom of others. Ours is not a perfect history. But it is a history distinguished by our pursuit of this ideal.

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Ours is a nation with a conscience, and thank God we are. As William Wilberforce said so many years ago, “When we think of eternity, and of the future consequences of all human conduct, what is there in this life that should make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice, the laws of religion, and of God?”

What a great speech. Whomever McCain’s speechwriter is deserves a gold star (or at the very least, a raise).

This is blogging gold:

In our third year, we traveled the Commonwealth, holding an honest discussion with Virginians about what they expected from state government. In the end, Republicans and Democrats came together and we fixed the budget mess.

In our third year, when Chichester and Potts asked for the moon; I fell down on my knees and thanked God for my good fortune. I went around the state promising I’d only raise taxes half as much as those clowns, and the rest is history.

We brought more fairness to our tax system.

We told those fools in Northern Virginia that if they paid even more through the nose, that we would use the money to fix roads – and they fell for it.

We saved our Triple-A bond rating.

Wall Street told me to cut spending or raise taxes. See above.

Beautiful. I sure do hope we can see more installments in upcoming Mark Warner speeches… because this clears up everything.

Typically when you ask a telemarketer on whose behalf they are calling, they let you know.

Unless of course, you don’t want them to know:

The first oddity came when she asked if I needed a ride and a place to stay. I said no but I was really intriqued with who would be willing to pay for my gas and put me up at their house. Huh, I was dying to find out who was doing this so as she was wrapping up the call I asked. No answer. I asked again. Again no answer. She had disconnected or hung up. I have no way of knowing if she heard me ask her to state who was paying for the call. The call clearly was in violation of state election law.

I was guessing that the Gilmore campaign was sponsoring the calls since he has more money that others up for election at the convention. However I don’t know for sure of course. If you talk to someone in the campaign you could mention they need to fix their “survey”.

Guess that convention for Gilmore isn’t so neatly wrapped up as some might think, eh?

UPDATE: Team Gilmore says it’s not their script… it’s not Marshall’s script, and it’s not John Hager’s script. Which leaves one candidate for office at the State Convention left…

I’ll say this once, and then I’ll never repeat it.

I agree with Barack Obama on virtually nothing. I have strong disagreements with John McCain on social issues. But for the first time in a long time, I can truly say that whomever wins will be a president with whom I may disagree with on policy, but I could truly say I’d be proud to be represented by them. Finally, two thinking individuals running for president… when is the last time we had this in America?

Having said that, Obama is a socialist hippie commie pinko. (whew, I feel better)

Let the 2008 elections begin!

Kents Store sits along Route 76 — the Trans-America Trail — a bike trail that starts in Yorktown and ends in Astoria, Oregon.

Every once in awhile, we’ll get bikers coming down the road heading towards Monticello who will stop at the store and visit, swap stories, and of course buy something to eat before heading down the road or camping out for the night.

Monday, our visitor was Jerry Lisenby, a gentleman some might recall from the TV show “The Biggest Loser”. The Lisenby’s needed to stay overnight, so we let them camp out in the yard and fed them breakfast before they went on their way. Heard some great stories about their time in the Peace Corps, Paraguay, and some other great experiences.

Along the way, Jerry and Lynne are promoting the Children’s Home of Illinois, a charity back in their hometown of Peoria. Feel free to check out the website — he tracks everywhere he’s been with small notes about where he was — blog and everything. Great site!

On Jan 31, the day before Microsoft offered $31/share for Yahoo, YHOO was at $19.18/share (market cap: $26.4 billion) and MSFT was at $32.60/share (market cap: $303.6 billion). At the close of trading today, YHOO closed at $24.37/share (market cap: $33.5 billion) and MSFT was at $29.08/share (market cap: $270.8 billion). In other words, the Microsoft offer increased the value of Yahoo! Inc. by more than $7 billion and decreased the value of Microsoft Corporation by almost $33 billion. In still other words, in attempting to take Yahoo by force, they let an amount equal to Yahoo slip through their fingers. Why isn’t anyone writing about Yahoo’s amazing stock gains and Microsoft’s plunge?”

Good point.

About a month ago, Radar (the family outside cat we adopted) looked a bit pregnant. Sure enough, Radar disappeared for a week, and came back less pregnant.

For about three weeks I’ve been picking on the cat. “Hey Radar, where’s your babies?!?!” to the incessant mewing of a hungry cat.

This afternoon, we found one very black kitten in the garage, whom I pulled out of some junk and set her in a small box (where we placed Bucky last year). Sure enough, this evening I go to turn out lights and there is another kitten… a grey-and-white striped kitten who is mean as hell.

Caroline got to choose names. For the black kitten, she originally chose Aurora (we’ve been watching Sleeping Beauty), but since that doesn’t fit both boy-and-girl names they settled on Spike.

Now we’re going back. Aurora is the black kitten (she’s nice) and Spike is going to be the striped kitten. Because Spike is mean as hell.

At this rate, I was hoping that Radar’s track record of one kitten a year would continue. Now that the theory is disproven, we’re going to have to spay and neuter these guys. On a lighter note, it looks as if my mouse/mole/vole problem will be fixed in the coming year. I’ll take the trade.

African-American bloggers are going around traditional outlets such as the NAACP and forming their own conferences and such.

The result?

Civil Rights 2.0, as reported by the WaPo:

Others have another name for the new efforts by black bloggers: Civil Rights 2.0. Blogger L.N. Rock said that if abolitionist Frederick Douglass, former congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin and “people like that were around today, they would have blogs.”

“The NAACP’s youth-outreach efforts are dysfunctional,” Rock said. “We would have been glad to work with them had they asked. If you’re talking about the talented tenth, we are the new talented tenth,” a reference to a concept by Du Bois of a group of exceptional black men.

“The skill sets of the bloggers is no joke,” Rock said. “These guys have doctorates. They’re not being used.”

But overtaking traditional civil rights groups, which have built their reputations over time, will take more than words, computer savvy and bravado. The NAACP alone has more than 300,000 members who pay dues and an additional 325,000 who have signed up online, the group’s spokesman said. ColorOfChange.org has about 400,000 online members, Jones said.

Interesting…

Updates from this weekend’s GOP events show conservatives picking up or coming very close in several RPV positions.

Congratulations goes out to Marie Quinn, Kurt Michael (confirmed at Augusta GOP Chairman), Fred Anderson, and newly-minted 2nd District Chairman Gary Byler. Many of these victories on the right were above the endorsements of elected officials.

Here’s the catch: Progressives are still being judged about their methods (for an example: Jim Webb in 2006) as they took over the Democratic Party from the liberal establishment. As conservatives re-establish their party (not take back — because there’s very little to reclaim), the manner of which we accomplish this will be just as important as the deed itself.

Beyond that, congratulations all!

Team Marshall takes a shot at Team Gilmore’s supposed delegate lead… and takes shot at Dick Leggitt’s past in Colorado:

Remember last week when former Gov. Jim Gilmore’s campaign released internal canvassing numbers to suggest that Gilmore had wrapped up the Republican nomination to run for U.S. Senate.

At the time, the spokesman for Republican hopeful Bob Marshall called the claim “baloney,” because delegates for the convention are still being elected.

On Thursday, Marshall’s campaign got a little more personal, pointing on some of the history of Gilmore’s political guru Dick Leggitt. Marhsall’s team is pulling Leggitt’s history and noting that he feed cooked polling data to reporters in Colorado in 2006.

That campaign was the Marc Holtzman campaign, one marked as a particularly vicious campaign against the eventual nominee, Congressman Bob Beauprez. You can read the details here. As a result of a poorly run campaign, some of the strangest ads I’ve ever seen run, and the bruising primary, Beauprez lost his gubernatorial bid to Democrat Bill Ritter by a 10pt. margin.

The conservative Rocky Mountain News back in May 2006 was particularly harsh, but focused more on whether someone should be sued for presenting false poll numbers (which was the rallying cry immediately after Leggitt came clean on the numbers as “spin”):

If Holtzman wants to employ someone who lies to the press in such brazen fashion, that’s his business. Journalists will adjust their reports depending on whether they feel they can trust anything he now says. For some, the answer will be no.

But as for there being an obligation to fire Leggitt, that’s nonsense. The Colorado law is – or at least should be – unconstitutional. You can’t outlaw false campaign rhetoric, intentional or not. Indeed, we can hardly think of anything more destructive to free speech than inviting courts to rule on political truthfulness and honesty.

A little perspective is needed: No one is going to court in Virginia over delegate counts.

Yes. folks are going to dump on Dick Leggitt for awhile for previous missteps. That’s stupid, because the best way to make sure you do have the horses is to bring them yourself. That’s bring them, not count them on some spreadsheet in some vacated box store.

Personally, there’s the nagging doubt that Leggitt might have the goods. How do I know? Because Leggitt isn’t doing the delegate count for Gilmore — Matt Wells is. Second, after getting caught in the Holtzman debacle, few good political hacks are willing to make the same mistake twice. Lastly… Dick Leggitt is a good guy who wants his guy to win. That’s not a crime… loyalty to a fault, perhaps… but not a crime.

If Gilmore is off in the delegate count, it’s because they are being misinformed by troops on the ground. Having worked with Matt before… well… he thought it was close, he’d be more worried. Then there’s that small thing about delegates not wanting to be on the wrong side, so they tell both sides “of course I’m supporting ____________!!!!”

Psychology at it’s best.

Marshall’s team isn’t wrong to bring up the past, but let’s keep in mind one thing: Total number of delegates this adds to the actual tally? ZERO.

Get back to work!

(In the interests of full disclosure, I was in Colorado as campaign manager for the CO-04 race, starting in about a month after the Beauprez-Holtzman race had settled out… not only did I not have a dog in that race, I only had to deal with the aftermath in my corner of Northern and Eastern Colorado.)