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The Category archives list replaced the Annual archives list in April 2010. You can now access the blog archives for any year starting with 2005 from the same page for each respective category.
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September 3, 2009 [LINK / comment]
McDonnell on "family values"
I was really hoping that the 2009 governor's race in Virginia would maintain a dignified tone, focused on current pressing issues. Unfortunately, it appears that Creigh Deeds has taken a page from Jerry Kilgore's (failed) 2005 campaign and gone negative, harping on irrelevant red herrings. To me, it looks like a sign of desperation, and is out of character for the renowned "nice guy" state legislator.
It all started when the Washington Post began running stories about a term paper McDonnell wrote while attending graduate school in 1988, railing against "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators." A Post editorial (hat tip to Matthew Poteat for the link) portrayed him as a "Culture Warrior" who yearn for a bygone era of conformity -- the 1950s. The Post editorial criticized him for "sounding at times like an Old Testament prophet." Well, what's wrong with that? In a country that has gone so far astray as modern-day America, we could use a few Jeremiahs or Ezekiels.
Sean Hannity said today that the Washington Post has "literally declared war on Bob McDonnell." Literally? 
There is no question that McDonnell is a social conservative, and there is no question that he knows the political landscape in Virginia well enough to downplay those issues that used to resonate so deeply in the electorate. That's what good politicians are supposed to do. McDonnell told the Washington Examiner, "[Deeds] must have the most backward-looking campaign in Virginia history." McDonnell is a pragmatist, first and foremost, and he knows that he must appeal to moderate or independent voters.
To me, that term paper is about as relevant to the current campaign as Michelle Obama's infamous undergraduate thesis at Princeton University, which is to say, not very. See Sept. 26, 2008; scroll down.
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My blog practices
My general practice is to make no more than one blog post per day on any one category. For this reason, some blog posts may address more than one specific issue, as indicated by separate headings. If something important happens during the day after I make a blog post, I may add an updated paragraph or section to it, using the word "UPDATE" and sometimes a horizontal rule to distinguish the new material from the original material. For each successive day, blog posts are listed on the central blog page (which brings together all topics) from top to bottom in the following (reverse alphabetical) order, which may differ from the order in which the posts were originally made:
- Wild birds (LAST)
- War
- Science & Technology *
- Politics
- Latin America
- Culture & Travel *
- Canaries ("Home birds")
- Baseball (FIRST)
* part of "Macintosh & Miscellanous" until Feb. 2007
The date of each blog post refers to when the bulk of it was written, in the Eastern Time Zone. For each blog post, the time and date of the original posting (or the last update or comment thereupon) is displayed on the individual archival blog post page that appears (just before the comments section) when you click the [LINK / comments] link next to the date. Non-trivial corrections and clarifications to original blog entries are indicated by the use of [brackets] and/or strikethroughs, as appropriate so as to accurately convey both the factual truth and my original representation of it. Nobody's perfect, but I strive for continual improvement. That is also why some of the nature photos that appear on the archive pages may differ from the (inferior) ones that were originally posted.
The current "home made" blog organization system that I created, featuring real permalinks, was instituted on November 1, 2004. Prior to that date, blog posts were handled inconsistently, and for that reason the pre-2005 archives pages are something of a mess. Furthermore, my blogging prior to June 1, 2004 was often sporadic in terms of frequency.
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