I think I am probably the only person that reads this site that this applies too, but there is a special election coming up on December 11th, for VA-1, US Congress. This includes the Fredericksburg area, through the Northern Neck, and on down to Williamsburg and environs. Our Representative, Jo Ann Davis (R), died, kind of unexpectedly, of breast cancer a few months ago. This is the election to replace her.

There are three people running, a Republican, a Democrat, and an Independent. Here are their websites:

Rob Wittman (R)
Philip Forgit (D)
Lucky Narain (I)

Wikipedia on the race

It tends to be pretty conservative here in the 1st District, and most of the competition to Rep. Davis (who had something like a 97% conservative rating) tended to be people who felt she wasn’t conservative enough. Apparently though, there’s at least some money being sunk into the race.

I haven’t seen any road signs or mailings yet, though.

Check this out.

Apparently, in order to vote in the Republican primaries in Virginia next year, voters will be required to sign an oath of loyalty to the eventual nominee. You will swear to vote for whichever Republican wins, according to the story.

Sooooo, say you are pro-life. So you vote for Huckabee or something. But then Giuliani wins the nomination. You’ve sworn to vote for him, even though he is pro-choice. Oops.

The Virginia GOP has had a thing for a while about being afraid people are going to sabotage their primaries. Closing them up was an issue in the last gubernatorial election. Now, they (SBE or GOP? I don’t know) just schedule them the same day to make people choose one party or the other. I guess that’s not enough for them, so now they are demanding oaths of fealty, like it’s the middle ages or something. There’s no way to enforce it, besides honor, but seriously WTF.

Senator Warner has announced that he will not run for re-election next year. A sad day for Virginia.

Here are the photos I took on campus this weekend.

See the rest.

An aide to our very own Jim Webb was arrested the other day for trying to carry a loaded pistol along with 2 loaded ammo clips into the US Senate office building.

Maybe someone should let the Capitol Police know that in Virginia, this is perfectly normal, accepted practice.

Today is the anniversary of Patrick Henry’s famous speech down there at St. John’s Church in Richmond, VA. You know the one, about the liberty and such. If I had to guess, I might predict that there may be a reenactment or something going on there, although that may simply come from spending too much time living in Williamsburg - I’m not sure how they do things in Richmond. How they roll.

So this is a famous speech, or at least, it is a famous last paragraph of a speech. The whole thing - in its entirety - is pretty short though, and is worth reading. Even without a preconceived burning hatred for the British, it is pretty effective in instilling one, at least to me. You can read it here, if you like: wikisource.

Of course, something to keep in mind while reading that, and something which the wikipedia article does not mention, but which I am fairly certain is, nonetheless, true, is that no one wrote the speech down while he was speaking it, and Henry was not the sort of person to write down his speeches beforehand. So there is probably a degree of creative license, or creative memory there; be warned.

I might be thinking of the Gettysburg Address though?

The title of this post is stolen from the Daily Show book. FYI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_me_liberty_or_give_me_death

VCU wins the CAA tourney advancing to what some may call the big dance. There will be dancing, and it will be big — there may be parachute pants. In the mean time check out this sweet picture of the students on the court:

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