SWAC Girl

Video: "A Different Kind of High School"

2009-11-29T12:06:00.001-05:00

Follow a day in the life of a Richmond area home school high schooler, Josiah Robertson, who directed this 3-minute video for Project New School. Watch it and consider voting for him to win. He has 139 votes so far ... let's push him over the top! Good job, Josiah!

H/T Chesterfield Mike

Sending cookies to the troops

2009-11-29T11:11:00.001-05:00

Sending cookies to the troops? This website has absolutely the best cookies to ship to Iraq and Afghanistan (and anywhere else) ... along with packing suggestions and everything you need to know about sending homemade goodies to our soldiers and Marines.

H/T to Tea Party Sue

Home schoolers thrive at bees

2009-11-29T10:28:00.000-05:00

Op-Ed in Washington Times
by J. Michael Smith
HSLDA President

It is well-known that homeschoolers excel in competitions like the Scripps National Spelling Bee and the National Geographic Bee. Homeschoolers regularly comprise 15 percent of the entrants to these competitions despite being about 3 percent of the school-age population. In the past 10 years, four homeschoolers have won the spelling bee, and in the past 11 years, five homeschoolers have won the geography bee.

Earlier this month, the finals of another competition—the National Bible Bee—were held. Patterned after the spelling and geography bees, the Bible bee encourages students to learn more about the Bible.

Mark Rasche, executive director of the event, had this to say about this year's contest:

“We were overjoyed with the way the 2009 National Bible Bee turned out as God blessed this inaugural event far beyond anyone’s expectations. There were countless blessings and testimonies, but the most encouraging phenomenon was the way God used the National Bible Bee to unite entire families around the Word of God throughout this entire year as children and youth invested hundreds of thousands of hours memorizing Bible passages in homes across the nation.”
The 300 national qualifiers who competed in the District were chosen from among the 17,000 entrants. Eighty-nine percent of the qualifiers were homeschoolers, and all nine of the finalists were homeschooled.

It's not surprising that homeschoolers dominated the Bible bee. One of the two top reasons for homeschooling is the ability to teach from a religious perspective, and about two-thirds of homeschoolers self-identify as evangelical Christians. This, however, doesn’t explain why so many homeschoolers succeeded in the Bible bee.

In a homeschool, parents tailor the education to suit the individual needs of the child. Consequently, the child isn’t forced into a one-size-fits-all approach. The home environment also has far fewer distractions, which enables children to freely ask questions and absorb the answers.

Another top reason for homeschooling is the negative peer environment of public school. If the environment is not conducive for children to learn, their education will suffer.

While competitions do not prove the efficacy of home education, these events do provide a window into what a homeschooler can achieve.

Sometimes the objection is raised that homeschoolers have an unfair advantage in national competitions because they are not constrained by the public school schedule. These competitions, however, mandate that the child must also pursue a range of subjects and not exclusively focus on the competition.

The Bible bee is no different. The manual covering the competition material was released on May 1, and the early rounds were held during the summer. Participants, therefore, were largely preparing and competing during a time when public schools were not in session.

We look forward to more homeschoolers excelling in national competitions and continuing to show what can be achieved. Continued success in national competitions is just one way homeschoolers are proving the academic potential of homeschooling.

The Home School Legal Defense Association welcomes the Bible bee as an excellent program that allows the next generation to learn about a book that, whether one agrees with the message or not, has been tremendously influential on Western Civilization and still has a profound effect on our world today. We hope homeschoolers continue to participate and that the Bible Bee will play a key role in establishing the firm foundation that will be absolutely necessary for confronting the inevitable challenges and opportunities that will be faced by the next generation.

Michael Smith is the president of the Home School Legal Defense Association.

ObamaCare could cost billions and billions and billions of $$$

2009-11-29T09:53:00.000-05:00

This is getting more depressing every day. Our country is sinking further into depth under an inexperienced Democrat president and an agenda-driven liberal Democrat Congress enabled by cowering Blue Dog Democrats and "Make me a deal ... I'm for sale" Mary Landrieu-types ... so the news that ObamaCare could cost $6 trillion (and probably more) is even more shocking ... but not necessarily a surprise.

For those who are penny pinchers like my family, to see our tax money carelessly thrown around is difficult to watch especially for the older generation who lived through the Great Depression. They are truly alarmed at what is occurring under Barack Obama's watch.

CyberMonday shopping deals

2009-11-29T09:37:00.000-05:00

Fox & Friends was talking about CyberMonday, November 30, when 90% of businesses will have online deals looking to lure in their share of the 68 million online shopers. Here are some places to find the best deals:

- www.walletpop.com - helps find honest deals online
- www.gottadeal.com - coupons and codes to save
- www.pricegrabber.com - uses price comparison to find deals
- www.priceprotectr.com - uses alert system for consumers

Happy shopping!

MSM ignoring Climate-Gate?

2009-11-29T09:28:00.003-05:00

This is a huge controversy ... a huge lie that has been ongoing for years ... the "global warming" hoax that is being disproved ... but the mainstream media are ignoring it. The hypocrisy continues as they wrap their arms tighter around a liberal agenda....

Meanwhile, DJ has been all over this story, exposing the fabrication at Virginia Virtucon with additional posts here, here, and here.

Also covering this is TidewaterLiberty who writes:

Not that you would know it from the mainstream press, but the largest economic fraud in history, greatly dwarfing the housing bubble, has just been revealed. The press on this side of the Atlantic is carefully avoiding it, but in Britain, where there is still a free press, Climategate is big news. Thousands of Emails between prominent UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change partisans were hacked from a university computer and posted online. They reveal a pervasive system of fraud, cover-ups, obstruction and conspiracy to conceal, and even destroy, contrary data, which has been held in secret for a decade.

Meanwhile, the question continues as to why Al Gore won't talk about this issue with Lord Monckton who is a climate global specialist.

This explosive issue is just beginning....

H/T to Greg the Fifer

Eric Holder is dangerous

2009-11-29T09:13:00.000-05:00

"I'm not an attorney."

So begins Eric Hill in Townhall as he writes:

For better or worse I didn’t go to law school, but rather, I instead went to graduate school to study philosophy.

But you don’t need to be an attorney – or a philosopher – or the Attorney General or the President of the United States or a Representative or a Senator you don’t even need to be a community organizer to understand what I understand.

In fact, if you are one of “those” that I just listed, there’s a good chance that your station in life will blind you from seeing and understanding the reality that is intuitively obvious to “the rest of us.” And the reality is that as President Obama and Attorney General Holder seek to award five Sept. 11 conspirators, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, with the full rights of American citizens in a civilian trial, the United States is being undermined.

Common sense article.

It's called "t-e-r-r-o-r-i-s-m"

2009-11-29T07:46:00.000-05:00

Terrorism. War on terror. Terrorists.

The Democrats and Barack Obama have eliminated the word "terrorism" from their politically correct vocabulary ... but that does not eliminate the danger to Americans. Just ask the Russians who had terrorists attack a train on Saturday that left dozens dead and dozens more injured.

(When will our Democrat president find it politically correct to protect We the People?)

Robin Beres writes in today's Richmond Times-Dispatch:

No Americans old enough to remember will soon forget where they were and what they were doing when four airplanes were used on a late summer day in 2001 to murder nearly 3,000 of our fellow citizens. Americans demanded swift retribution be visited upon those who had planned the massacre. The determination to end the ongoing terror attacks that had been perpetrated against the U.S. since the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon was sincere and strong.

Sept. 11, 2001, happened more than eight years ago. Most of us recall the terror and the pain of that day. But it is fast fading into the recesses of memory. Already, more than 20 percent of Americans were either not yet born or were too young to remember those events. Life has moved on.

But the forces behind the horrific attacks are still here. They are not finished with their work. And the threat of another event -- perhaps something far worse -- is just as real as it was on Sept. 12, 2001. In fact, the danger of a second attack continues to grow, and America has much to do to stop the countdown toward what could be our Armageddon.

Our enemies are still plotting against us....

RT-D looks at McDonnell's disciplined campaign

2009-11-29T07:34:00.000-05:00

The analyzing of Virginia's 2009 gubernatorial campaign continues as today's Richmond Times-Dispatch take a look back at what they consider a "competent versus incompetent" campaign between Republican Bob McDonnell and Democrat Creigh Deeds:

The McDonnell effort never faltered. The candidate and his team stayed on message. If someone were to ask aides who would win the Notre Dame game, the snap answer would say, "Bob's for jobs." "Honey, what's for breakfast?" "Bob's for jobs." And so on. McDonnell arrived early at breakfasts, lunches, and dinners -- and lingered. He did not rehash old stories about setting out for college with $80 in his pocket but would address issues of immediate concern to his audience. He explained the state implications of Obama's far-out agenda. His staff promptly returned calls and e-mails.

What many found interesting was the Washington Post's endorsement of Mr. Deeds prior to the Democrat Primary in June ... did it help him? Or was he just the lesser of three evils, so to speak, in the Democrat field? Because many credited the Post with his win, the Post's endorsement of Mr. Deeds for the general election caused some to wonder if he could be pushed over the finish line again ... but it was not to be.

So was the Democrat loss in Virginia also a loss to the Washington Post ... perhaps poetic justice for their 2006 "macaca" massacre of George Allen?

Powhatan wins high school Group AA, Division 4 football

2009-11-29T07:05:00.000-05:00

Powhatan High School has won the Group AA, Division 4, Region I football championship....

Former speaker of VA House John Warren Cooke dies

2009-11-29T06:59:00.000-05:00

Virginia has lost a long-time Byrd Machine Democrat House leader:

John Warren Cooke, a former speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates and the last son of a Confederate veteran to sit in the General Assembly, died Saturday at Palace Green, his home on Put In Creek in Mathews.

The 94-year-old Mathews native, born when his father was 76, was the son of the Rev. Giles Buckner Cooke, an Episcopal priest who had served on the personal staff of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee during the Civil War, and Katharine Grosh Cooke.

Mr. Cooke served as House majority leader and speaker of the House during his years in the Democrat-controlled General Assembly:

In a House dominated by Democrats, Mr. Cooke, a pillar of the Byrd organization, did the unheard-of: He named a Republican, Del. Arthur R. "Pete" Giesen Jr. of Waynesboro, to the powerful team of House budget negotiators, which he termed "a matter of fairness."

Funeral arrangements were incomplete.

Green Valley Book Fair open through Dec. 13

2009-11-29T06:43:00.000-05:00

Those of us in the Shenandoah Valley take for granted the Green Valley Book Fair is at our back doors ... so it took me by surprise to see that Bill Lohmann had written about it for the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Point your car away from Interstate 81 and drive into the fertile farmland of the Shenandoah Valley, past cows standing in fields and silos rising like monuments to rural America.

Turn off a country road onto the driveway of a family farm, park behind an old barn and you will come upon a most unlikely sight:

The world's biggest bookstore. Sort of.

Green Valley Book Fair, south of Harrisonburg, can be found behind the walls of nondescript warehouses stacked with about a half-million books at discounted prices. If you like books, you can lose yourself in here for hours. The book fair is open to the public only a half-dozen times a year for a couple of weeks per session. The final session of the year began Friday and concludes Dec. 13.

If you are patient and don't need to have the latest book as soon as it hits the book store shelves, you may find it discounted 60-90% at Green Valley. My political library is full of book fair purchases ... all those little gems I wanted immediately but held out until they were more affordable.

Green Valley is open daily 9-7 now through December 13 in Mt. Crawford. (800) 385-0099 and is about 2 1/2 hours from Richmond.

While in the vicinity, be sure to check out the Dayton Farmers Market on Rt. 42 about 10 minutes away from the book fair, open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 am to 6 pm through the holidays. Besides unique gift items, they offer those big, soft pretzels ... yum. Or grab something to eat at Hank's and sit at the table and people-watch. (The rest of the year they are open Thursday through Saturday.)

VA Tech 42 ... UVA 13

2009-11-29T06:25:00.000-05:00

Saturday ... 3:30 pm ... time to head to the airport with the Texas sister and family who were heading home after Thanksgiving week in Virginia. But one member of the family had his TV tray set up in front of his chair in the den to eat a late lunch and watch his alma mater play in the big rivalry game of the year ... Virginia Tech against the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

And while it was a close game at half-time, the final score was much more definitive with Virginia Tech 42 to UVA's 13 ... which made a very happy Hokie in the house.

Christmas decorations beginning to show up in SWAC area....

2009-11-29T05:56:00.000-05:00

Snowmen and penguins and nativity scenes and lights ... some SWAC bloggers were busy this weekend and it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the central Shenandoah Valley....

The vilification of Rush Limbaugh

2009-11-28T09:30:00.002-05:00

Kenneth Hutcherson is a former NFL linebacker, pastor at Antioch Bible Church in Washington state, and a friend of Rush Limbaugh. He defends him in an article in today's American Thinker, and concludes:

This is extremely personal to me. It's about a friend. When I look at Rush, I don't see a white man; I see a friend. I don't see a talk show host (a very famous talk show host); I see a friend, and friendship overrides color and political stances. I don't see a controversial figure, but a man whose heart and thoughts I know, and a man who is not a racist.

I believe with all my heart that minorities, especially African-Americans, will never be free until they stop allowing people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to insist they adopt the mentality of victims. Likewise, they will not be free until they take the next bold step: start thanking God for America, and stop condemning the white male.

It is time for America to reject the Minority Thought Pattern and the hateful campaign against Rush Limbaugh.

H/T to Peggy

UVA med student dies spelunking in Utah cave

2009-11-27T11:41:00.001-05:00

[UPDATE: The body of John Jones will remain entombed in the cave, according to Utah authorities: "The popular Utah cave where a 26-year-old medical student died earlier in the week will be closed permanently and his body will not be removed, state and county officials said Friday."]

A University of Virginia medical student and his wife were home in Utah visiting family when he and his brothers went spelunking and he became lodged in a tiny portion of the cave. Rescuers were not able to pull him from the tiny space and he died 28 hours later.

John Jones, 26, of Stansbury Park, died early Thursday morning nearly 28 hours after he got stuck in Nutty Putty Cave, a popular spelunking site south of Salt Lake City. It was the first known fatality since cavers began exploring the 1,500-foot cave's narrow passageways in the 1960s, cave access manager Michael Leavitt said.
...
The 6-foot-tall, 190-pound Jones got stuck with his head at an angle below his feet about 9 p.m. Tuesday in an L-shaped area of the cave known as "Bob's Push." The area is only about 18 inches wide and 10 inches high.
On Wednesday, teams used drilling equipment, rope and a pulley system to try to free Jones.

At one point, they had moved him roughly 12 feet out of the tight crevice, far enough to give him some food and water. But he slipped back into the space when an anchor in the cave roof that supported the pulley system failed, Cannon said.

"We all were very optimistic and hopeful. But it became increasingly clear last night after he got re-stuck that there weren't very many options left," Jones' brother, Spencer Jones, 30, of San Francisco, told The Associated Press.

After he succumbed early Thursday, rescuers suspended efforts to recover his body as they considered the options to do so, Cannon said.

He said the cause of death would be released later by the medical examiner. A memorial service is planned for Saturday.

Tragic....

Snow in Highland County....

2009-11-27T11:12:00.000-05:00

Twitter from Del. Chris Saxman in Highland County this morning....

It's snowing in Highland County. Not much accumulation....but the stores out here don't open at 4am. So...another log on the fire.

Could you send some to Augusta, Mr. Delegate?

Fog lights upgraded to make Afton Mountain's I-64 safer

2009-11-26T21:53:00.001-05:00

Afton Mountain is a danger in fog and even more so in ice and/or snow. The runway lights, in place since the 1990s, have been upgraded, according to the Waynesboro News Virginian:

VDOT has upgraded the fog light system on Afton Mountain and a 5-mile stretch of Interstate 64 to a system of LED lamps that have a longer life, require less maintenance and are 75 percent more energy efficient.

Dean Gustafson, regional operations director for VDOT’s Staunton and Culpeper districts, said Tuesday that the project took about 10 months to accomplish and cost about $1.3 million in maintenance funds.
The new LED system replaces incandescent lights in operation since the mid 1990s.

The 841-lamp fog light system serves a 5-mile stretch of the interstate roadway edge from milemarker 98 to milemarker 104.

The light system’s purpose is to help drivers see the roadway edges and avoid running off.

Happy Thanksgiving from Ross Mackenzie

2009-11-26T21:48:00.000-05:00

My all-time favorite newspaper editor, Ross Mackenzie offers up a Thanksgiving column that brings it all home....

Boomer Generation: Top Ten reasons to be thankful

2009-11-26T21:46:00.001-05:00

John W. Martin wrote in Thursday's Richmond Times-Dispatch his list of the Boomers' top ten reasons to be thankful:

1) Family
2) Health
3) Home
4) Pesonal Time
5) A paycheck
6) End of wretched excess
7) The sound of music
8) The freedom to be
9) The written word
10) The possibility of remaining relevant until the end.

Thanksgiving 2009 ... much to be thankful for

2009-11-26T11:12:00.001-05:00

I'm taking a brief break from the kitchen ... sister and brother-in-law put the bird in the oven at 5:30 this morning and the house smells good. We're aiming for a 1:00 dinner time which leaves the afternoon for a walk, playing board games, working over the annual zillion-piece jigsaw puzzle, and jamming guitars as music fills the air on this Virginia Thanksgiving.

Greetings from friends have come from around the country, and we are grateful to celebrate this day together with family and friends ... Thanksgiving 2009.

Good guys can finish first

2009-11-25T22:05:00.000-05:00

ABC Good Morning America ... Donnie Osmond wins "Dancing With the Stars."

RPV Network Thanksgiving greetings

2009-11-25T19:33:00.000-05:00

From Tom and O.P. who run the Republican Party of Virginia Network....

Happy Thanksgiving!

As we celebrate and give thanks with family and friends, we remember and honor those who came before to make our celebrations possible and those who could not make the journey this year.

It is a time to thank the Lord for all of our blessings, family, friends and Country. A time to reflect on our Pilgrim forefathers who made the long and arduous journey across the sea, bringing their values, principles and faith as they founded this new Country and the Founding Fathers who later gave us our great Republic and our Freedom.

Give thanks to God for being so lucky, but don’t forget to remain ever grateful for those blessings and remember that with Freedom comes the responsibility to protect it.

Rejoice, reflect and recommit to honor, protect and preserve our values, principles, faith and freedom for as another great American once said:

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free”.

Ronald Reagan, 40th president of US (1911 - 2004)

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving,

Tom and O.P.

Chesterfield County School Board okays Bible classes

2009-11-25T19:04:00.000-05:00

From Victoria Cobb and the Family Foundation....

Last week, the Chesterfield County School Board voted in a unanimous way to allow their high schools, as one supporter said, “...to teach the Bible as an elective from an academic perspective.”

Any real student of history is aware of the accurate accounting of events that the Bible provides, as well as the multicultural point of view it makes available to it’s reader. Therefore, it deserves its rightful place in educating young minds, and influencing tomorrow’s great thinkers. It is all too easy to assume that because its relevance is obvious that its educational use is appreciated. Yet we have seen time again that this is not the case.

We are pleased that the Chesterfield County School Board has made such a wise decision. Students that choose this course will benefit from not just a more complete education, but exposure to the living Word of God!

We believe it is our responsibility as citizen advocates to publicly and privately thank each of them, and to also encourage Chesterfield High School Principles to make good use of this educational tool. Please let the Chesterfield County School Board know that you are pleased with and appreciate their decision by clicking the link at the bottom of this email and sending them a note of thanks.

Also if you live in the Chesterfield County School district, please also take the time at www.chesterfield.k12.va.us to click on "Schools" and then "High." Here you will find the various high schools in your district and the proper way to contact their corresponding principals. Please, take a moment to write them a kind letter requesting that this already determined curriculum be implemented as an educational elective opportunity for their students.

Too often such victories are too few in our public school systems. Please go out of your way to appropriately thank the Chesterfield School Board for this great opportunity, and let’s please not see this opportunity be taken for granted. Your encouragement will go a long way in seeing future victories come to pass.

Thanksgiving 2009 ... remembering and giving thanks for our military

2009-11-25T18:51:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving 2009 ... remembering and giving thanks for our military men and women around the world, stateside, and especially those in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. May God keep them safe ... just as they keep us safe here at home. That's all I ask for anymore.