Old Richmond City Hall
Virginia State Capitol with skyline.
Richmond's old City Hall ... what a beautiful building.
Virginia State Capitol
Looking over Capitol Square.
Richmond skyline
State Capitol from side angle.
Mike Reynold listens as the AG speaks during AFP luncheon.
Delegate Ben Cline (with Trixie Averill and Mike Reynold).
Attorney General Bob McDonnell.
AFP luncheon guests watched the AFP's "Defending the American Dream" recap video.
There it is ... the "Saxman" name plate on Delegate Chris Saxman's desk in the House of Delegates.
View of Delegate Saxman (center) at the desk. That was a nice, cushy chair.... Delegate Ben Cline is to his left and Delegate Terry Kilgore is behind them.A state appeals court has decided California parents without teaching credentials do not have a right to home-school their children.Please support parents' rights to educate their children at home.
The 2nd District Court of Appeals ruling could affect up to 200,000 home-schooled students in the state.
“The court is guilty of an imperious assault on the rights of parents,” said Dr. James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family. “How dare these judges have the audacity to label tens of thousands of parents criminals — the equivalent to drug dealers or pickpockets — because they want to raise and educate their children according to their deeply held values?
"The case before them involved one couple — the ruling should have been confined to that one couple, not used to punish an entire class of people, the vast majority of them religious conservatives.”
According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, California is set to become the only state to deny the vast majority of home schooling parents their fundamental right to teach their children at home. The group will file an amicus brief in the case.
Dr. Dobson said Focus on the Family will do whatever it can to get the ruling overturned and to restore the basic rights of parents in California to determine how their children are educated.
“This is an all-out assault on the family, and it must be met with a concerted effort to defend parents and their children,” he said. “We will team with key allies and use every means at our disposal to make sure that not just every Californian, but every American, is aware of this miscarriage of justice. We will encourage them, by the hundreds of thousands, to make their voices heard on this matter.
"And we’re hopeful that, in the end, common sense and legal sanity will prevail.”
Dr. Dobson will discuss the ruling on his Friday radio broadcast.
Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said the court's timing is horrible.
"This takes away recourse from thousands of parents in California who want to escape the government-enforced indoctrination in public schools," she said. "The Legislature recently passed a law that basically ensures that students get a one-sided, positive portrayal of homosexuality and same-sex 'marriage.' "
TAKE ACTION
We are asking concerned citizens across America to sign a petition asking the state Supreme Court to "depublish" the case, which means to apply the case to the family involved — not to all California families.
The stately Virginia State Capitol with business skyline in the background.
Shenandoah Valley AFP supporters on bus ride to Richmond. Goodie bags provided by Congressman Bob Goodlatte were particularly welcomed ... bottled water and snacks kept the hunger away.
New entrance tunnel to Capitol.
Attorney General Bob McDonnell addresses AFP as Virginia's AFP Director Ben Marchi (right) looks on.
Delegate Jeff Frederick and Delegate Ben Cline. Both addressed AFP attendees.
Lt. Governor Bill Bolling.
House of Delegates ... Delegate Chris Saxman and Delegate Ben Cline.
AFP luncheon at the Omni.“I think it’s no accident that they’ve sent in their A-team,” Commonwealth Attorney Ray Robertson said, referring to the high-profile defense lawyers involved in the case. “The fact that they would deign to come to little old Staunton, Va., means they must be worried about something.”Trial is set for June 17, 2008.
First Amendment lawyers Paul Cambria Jr., representing Krial, and Louis Sirkin, representing Embrey, are heading up the defense team. Both have defended Larry Flynt and other celebrities in past obscenity trials.
“Every time a government official tries to interfere with an adult’s choice of entertainment, that is a national issue,” Cambria said after the hearing.
An arson fire in 2004 caused damage to old motor inn structures
The mountainside has burned-out units still standing.
Old Howard Johnson's Restaurant on left with Afton Inn
Afton Inn is still in use but has seen better days.
Looking over Afton area from Afton Inn with I-64 in background.
This structued was once a gift shop.
Former gift shop now stands neglected.
Rockfish Gap Tourism Visitor Center is in middle of run-down buildings....
6. Organize a welcoming parade and dinner for your local troops when they return from Iraq or Afghanistan. Here’s a parade that one woman organized in Staunton, Virginia for a returning National Guard brigade.Those guys gave so much for us ... welcoming them home was the least we could do for them.
“The Weather Channel had great promise, and that’s all gone now because they’ve made every mistake in the book on what they’ve done and how they’ve done it and it’s very sad,” Coleman said. “It’s now for sale and there’s a new owner of The Weather Channel will be announced – several billion dollars having changed hands in the near future. Let’s hope the new owners can recapture the vision and stop reporting the traffic, telling us what to think and start giving us useful weather information.”Mr. Coleman advocated suing Al Gore to expose "the fraud of global warming."
“[I] have a feeling this is the opening,” Coleman said. “If the lawyers will take the case – sue the people who sell carbon credits. That includes Al Gore. That lawsuit would get so much publicity, so much media attention. And as the experts went to the media stand to testify, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.”Read the entire article here.
Three seven-figure dream homes went up in flames early Monday in a Seattle suburb, apparently set by eco-terrorists who left a sign mocking the builders' claims that the 4,000-plus-square-foot houses were environmentally friendly.ELF has a long history of environmental terrorism and destruction of private property throughout the U.S. The most famous was the $12 million fire that completely destroyed a Vail, CO, ski lodge in 1998 but they have committed hundreds of criminal acts along with the Animal Liberation Front ... ALF.
The sign - a sheet marked with spray paint - bore the initials ELF, for Earth Liberation Front, a loose collection of radical environmentalists that has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks since the 1990s. ... The sign left behind said in red scraggly letters, "Built Green? Nope black!" and "McMansions in RCDs r not green," a reference to rural cluster developments.
ELF is known for trying to cause economic damage to companies or organizations it considers to be harming the environment. The group has no organized structure or leadership; typically, autonomous cells of activists take "direct actions" such as arsons and claim responsibility on behalf of ELF.The FBI is investigating the latest incident that caused $7 million in damages.
The Drew Richardson for Congress campaign took a very necessary action today, documenting that from disclosed contributors who gave cash to candidate S. "Sam" Rasoul - a total of $75,417.27 of the $103,000 he raised last year - nearly 60% of the funds came from out-of-state.He goes on to say Rasoul's money has come from Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, Illinois, and Louisiana ... and suggests Democrats may want to have answers as to why so much money from out of state as well as questions raised about the nondisclosure of 9% of his donors -- no employment information.
The very simple question is: Why? A fascinating discovery is also this: When you take out the money he's gotten from his own family, he's only raised 1.9 % of his funds from the Sixth District. Keep in mind, too, that we're talking about someone who has been campaigning for more than a year.
I would ask you to look at the other candidate's filings at this link: http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00432484/ Here are the precentages of the various states' contributions: Florida: 12.8; Louisiana: 38.5; Illinois, 0.6; Ohio, 6.0; Wisconsin, 0.3Read the entire post here.
It's known as Virginia's Switzerland, this southern-most location for gathering maple syrup, and it's right here in our backyard. Highland County will again host its annual Maple Festival the weekends of March 8-9 and March 15-16 in locations throughout the county.The episode of ABC television's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" featuring a Farmville-area family will air tomorrow night.Last week "Extreme Makeover" built a house for an Operation Iraqi Freedom Marine, a wounded warrior who has lost a leg in combat. This week they are featuring the house built for a deployed soldier. It is good to see these guys receive some recognition, and good to see them reap the benefits of this show. Tune in Sunday night to see the Lucas family's new home.
The television show features volunteers working around the clock to build a house in a week that would usually take months to construct.
In December, volunteers built a home for Spec. Michael Lucas, 37, a Virginia National Guardsmen, his wife, Jean, 33, and their two sons, Michael Henry, 11, and Joseph, 7.
Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review. It provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test. It is based on free speech rights provided by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The term "fair use" is unique to the United States; a similar principle, fair dealing, exists in some other common law jurisdictions. Civil law jurisdictions have other limitations and exceptions to copyright.More detailed information is available from Wikipedia.
C’mon - easily fair use.Any lawyers out there who want to break new ground on an issue that may become landmark in the blogosphere/free speech/fair use realm?
- The purpose of the use is aimed specifically at the purpose of the work - i.e., AP tries to pass off faked, altered, unrepresentative photos as their own little contribution to bending world opinion to support their philosophies, and SS points out how this is so.
- the nature of the copyrighted work is a photograph, disseminated to the world to support a story, or to simply show us “what’s happening.” If AP is intentionally showing us a false light, SS’s use is dead-on allowable.
- SS shows the entire photo - but that’s not the point. This provision is aimed at the guy who prints, not a quote or a selection of a book or article, but the entire book or article. In order to critique the false light being presented by a photo, SS must show the entire photo.
- finally, critique of the accuracy and the honesty of the AP photo will, if successful, have a negative effect on the market value of the photo, but this factor is always going to lose out if AP has to argue that they have a right to disseminate false stories and false impressions with their photos.
He needs someone with good working experience with, and knowledge of, his state’s version of the anti-”Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation” statute version. Frankly, it’s easy and cheap to plead that as a counterclaim almost immediately. [emphasis added]
No leaf canopy to block the view in the winter woods....
Matted-down grasses where deer have been....
Grapevine grows big in these woods with some the size of small tree trunks.
Damage from ice storm and wind....
Moss-covered rock outcropping on the ridge....
Evergreen cedars dot the winter woods.
This old man has been standing guard for a long time....
Huge white oak survived the ice storm.
Our wood pile. We've used a couple cords of wood this winter but will replenish with downed trees from the woods.
Back home....
SWAC Husband and I roamed the woods today on a beautiful 60-degree, sunny afternoon after an overnight low of 23 degrees. We followed deer trails and paths as we checked out winter damage to trees ... and found several with tops broken out and many downed limbs. One path was blocked with huge broken limbs, and a locust tree was completely uprooted. The white oaks, one that is huge, survived. We flushed out rabbits and cardinals but saw no deer although the evidence of their being in the vicinity was everywhere.
We heard coyotes howling on the ridge late last night but did not see a den or hear them today. It was the first time in months they had been around so, hopefully, they were passing through. They are not a critter that we want around which is one reason my husband built the picket fence around the back yard four years ago. I did not want to open the door and be face-to-face with a coyote.
March came in like a lion yesterday with extremely brisk winds but today was calm with a light breeze out of the east. We do not have much longer to enjoy the winter woods as winter winds down in the Valley....
Photos by SWAC Girl
The episode of ABC television's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" featuring a Farmville-area family will air tomorrow night.Last week they built a house for an Operation Iraqi Freedom Marine, a wounded warrior who has lost a leg in combat. This week they are featuring the house built for a deployed soldier. It is good to see these guys receive some recognition, and good to see them reap the benefits of this show. Tune in Sunday night to see the Lucas family's new home.
The television show features volunteers working around the clock to build a house in a week that would usually take months to construct.
In December, volunteers built a home for Spec. Michael Lucas, 37, a Virginia National Guardsmen, his wife, Jean, 33, and their two sons, Michael Henry, 11, and Joseph, 7.
At Wednesday night's Augusta County Board of Supervisors meeting, an issue that had caused some fireworks at the work session two days earlier came up for a vote ... the county's hiring of a consultant to study how to attract businesses to the county to the tune of $147,000.Pastures Supervisor Tracy Pyles, the idea’s leading proponent, cites the mostly desolate Mill Place Commerce Park as cause for a consultant’s further review. Taxpayers’ wallets will be as empty as the industrial park if supervisors continue throwing money at consultants.
Middle River Supervisor Gerald Garber initially resisted hiring Moran, Stahl & Boyer but eventually climbed aboard, voting with his fingers clasped to his nostrils. Garber worried that the consultants would produce a mostly redundant document, providing the county with little new information and using staffers’ time to help do the work. He favored simply hiring an economic development director, something the study might well recommend anyway.
Even as he sided with Pyles, Garber said, “I still have a great disdain for studies.” Unfortunately, the sentiment is not shared. The county has plunged plenty of taxpayer money into thick studies thin on results. The latest study appears bound only to replicate previous waste.
County supervisors should slam the brakes on runaway spending on consultants. The dividends do not appear to be worth taxpayers’ investment.
THE final day of summer in the Snowy Mountains has taken on a wintry chill after snow fell last night at the ski resorts of Perisher Blue and Thredbo.Thirty-five years ago we were warned of global cooling. Then Al Gore tried to convince us all that we were in the midst of global warming. When will they accept it's climate changes and a normal thing for Planet Earth?
A light dusting of snow blanketed the NSW ski resorts overnight as temperatures dropped to a low of minus 3.8 degrees Celcius at Perisher and minus 3 degrees at Thredbo.
...
Weather forecasters are already predicting a bumper snow season for 2008, according to resort management. Temperatures are expected to remain low with persistent precipitation throughout winter.
"We have barely had a summer this year," said Gary Grant, Perisher Blue's general manager of marketing. "It's felt as though it's remained cold since the end of the 2007 season, apart from a few warm days, the air has always had a nip in it."
The episode of ABC television's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" featuring a Farmville-area family will air tomorrow night.They recently build a house for an Operation Iraqi Freedom Marine, a wounded warrior who has lost a leg in combat. It is good to see these guys receive some recognition, and good to see them reap the benefits of this show. Tune in Sunday night to see the Lucas family's new home.
The television show features volunteers working around the clock to build a house in a week that would usually take months to construct.
In December, volunteers built a home for Spec. Michael Lucas, 37, a Virginia National Guardsmen, his wife, Jean, 33, and their two sons, Michael Henry, 11, and Joseph, 7.
Rather than use buckets to catch the sap, Puffenbarger used miles of plastic tubing connected to a vacuum pump, which pumped the sap from his maple trees to his sugar shack. It can take as much as 40 gallons of sap to get a gallon of syrup.Read the entire Richmond Times-Dispatch article here.
It’s been a pretty crazy seven months for Colton Berry.So begins an article in today's Waynesboro News Virginian about this local celebrity. Read it all here.
Since August, he’s directed plays for ShenanArts, finished high school, turned 18 and traveled back and forth to the West Coast “five or six times.”
And of course there’s the little matter of appearing as one of the top 24 contestants on one of the highest-rated television shows in history, becoming known to American Idol fans across the country and abroad and jump-starting his career doing what he’s “always wanted to do.”
Green Valley Book Fair on opening day....
All parking lots were full and the place was bustling with people....
Valley farm along Rt. 11 (the Valley Pike)....
The Alleghany Mountains west of Staunton were snow-covered this morning....
A nearby farm pond....
