Shaun Kenney

Frankly, Obama did the right thing.

The Red Stater needs to come back.

First he destroys the political career of George Allen, now Wadhams uses the Colorado GOP establishment to destroy Colorado’s right to work laws

— among other initiatives trying to get on the ballot.

The headline? Original to the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, which should show folks how much Virginia conservatives appreciated his hard work were happy to see him leave. Sheesh.

Via Kottke.org. I bring you SOLAR FURNACES!

C’mon… you know you want one.

Great post over at Im Not Emeril , reminding folks that words do in fact mean things:

A fine writer and friend of mine once compared written words and phrases to a baseball and its pitcher. My friend wrote, “Baseball players, pitchers, gloves clamped in their armpits, always work the slickness from new baseballs before they throw them. They use their naked hands and do it with some intensity. Words are best done that way, too—rubbed, and understood, measured for fit and feel and balance. You never want to throw a word until it’s ready. Believe me, I’ve done it. They nearly always miss their mark and ricochet into the stands.”

Great post. Best I’ve read in a long time.

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That’ll put the critics to rest.

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Suprise surprise… the Clinton era consisted of 14,000 deaths amongst members of the U.S. military, compared to over 7,000 deaths in the Bush 43 era:

Now, since the number of dead members of America’s armed services aren’t and can’t really be the basis for the far Left complaints — clearly, fewer Americans are dying in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq than died on base in the United States, or on the Clinton Administration’s “peacekeeping” operations — what can it be that bothers them so?

Might it be a military which is actually pursuing American interests abroad?

Good point.

UPDATE: Busted by snopes.com:

Even though the CRS table does not include loss figures for the last two years of George W. Bush’s presidency, the total number of U.S. military losses that have occurred during his administration is already significantly higher than the equivalent figure for Bill Clinton’s presidency (8,792 vs. 7,500). When active duty deaths for 2007 and 2008 are factored in (the Pentagon has not yet released figures for these two years, but the U.S. suffered 1,014 war deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007 and at least another 100 so far in 2008), the discrepancy is even greater.

When we consider all the information in this table, we also find that the number of active duty losses during the Clinton presidency was less than half the number that occurred during the Reagan presidency, and only about 20% higher than the number that occurred during the George H.W. Bush presidency (even though Clinton served as president for twice as long as the elder Bush).

That’ll teach me not to factcheck!

Because clearly, if we can’t secure I-64 from terrorists we are just wasting lives and money, as James Joyner of OTB explains:

My initial reaction was a snark about how we should pull our forces out of Virginia, since we’re obviously unable to ensure security and keep the insurgents at bay.

My more serious thought, though, was to reflect on General Barry McCafferty’s prediction that, “Terrorists will strike at America during the next President’s first term.” Dave Schuler, Steve Verdon and I discussed that last night on OTB Radio and our consensus was that, if terrorists didn’t strike, it was not because of our tremendous investment in security. Indeed, none of us would want to live in a country that implemented the necessary measures to ensure that a terrorist strike was impossible. Or even that some lunatic couldn’t shoot some cars on I-64. (Although I’m a bit surprised that he got away with it in Virginia, a concealed carry state. Lots of his targets were likely armed.)

End snark, but the point still carries weight.

The definitive story

, one with which I by and large agree:

Mike Ricciuti of CNET says Windows XP is “doomed” and that “most of us will likely be using Vista sometime in the near future” (see Microsoft: All roads lead to Vista). In contrast, Ina Fried of CNET writes that Windows XP may get another reprieve, the title referring to the fact that major computer manufacturers are slated to stop selling Windows XP in June. Who’s right?

One reason Mike cites for the Vista assimilation is that “Dell launched a Vista migration program to nudge big companies toward the OS. The PC maker’s ‘client migration solution’ will cut migration costs…” I see this as evidence of Vista resistance. If there was value to Vista, the cost of migrating would not be an issue.

Mike also writes that “Microsoft is greasing the skids for Vista acceptance by offering free telephone support for Vista Service Pack 1 through March 2009”.* Microsoft never did this with XP service packs, so why are they doing it for Vista? They are trying to get people to go where they don’t want to go.

Let’s not forget the price cuts to shrink-wrapped versions of Vista which were to take effect at the same time Service Pack 1 was released. As Don Reisinger wrote (see Vista price cuts show how much trouble Microsoft is in), those price cuts were really a publicity stunt.

I don’t think Don’s article went far enough though. To me, the price cuts were intended to break out of computer industry news vehicles (like CNET and ComputerWorld) and be reported to the general public. No techie is going to decide to go with Vista because its a few dollars cheaper today than yesterday. No, the audience for the price cut announcement was non-techies.

Lipstick on a pig. ‘Nuff said.

From Rick Sincere comes the news that Sean O’Brien will be heading up the Montpelier-based Center for the Constitution, while Bob Gibson will be moving in as the new Executive Director of the Sorenson Institute.

May we see as speedy return of the Sorenson Virginia Bloggers Summits!