Good News not to be Missed

[Jess]

Originally Posted by Greyson

Jess, thanks for posting pertinent information on a regular basis. IMO, it's pertinent because the focus is on Virginia a state that is outside of the "Blue State" bubble most of the time. I need and want to know how it is outside of my own urban west/left coast reality.

The article about Cuncinelli running as the Republican candidate for the State Attorney General and referring to himself as a Libertarian is on point. You may have read some of my grumbling in various post about the hypocrisy in our daily dose of spin. This is a prime example. The candidate espouses Libertarian values but in fact this is yet another untruth.

What I think he really means is I am all about separation of church and state, minimal government in the life of people, UNTIL I think MY WAY, MY BELIEFS should be forced upon the lives of others.

I do have a belief in the existence of a God but I am becoming less willing to discuss it because of the zealots, extremists that have hijacked the meaning of what it is to be "Christian."

Finally, thanks for the Good News. I am encouraged to read that there are members of the House that are serious about getting ENDA voted upon and passed.

I agree Greyson. It really disturbs me when I see folks like our AG gain any sort of political power. His entire agenda is self serving and very much geared towards gaining the backing of the GOP for future political endeavors. To stand on a Libertarian format in order to be elected really is an insult.

I think our country needs to move away from the two party system we have always had, as even within those parties the "values" seem to be less and less valued daily. Both Republican and Democrats are of late a washed out version of what they once were. Considering history of both parties and the "switch" they made around about the time of the Civil War, I think it is long overdue that an upheaval take place and more parties be formed that reflect the varied interests of our citizens. Aren't we like the only country espousing democracy that still relies so heavily upon two parties for our candidates? Two parties equals "black and white" to me, and there are so many shades of grey. Our politics and candidates/ representatives should reflect that reality in as much as our citizens do.

Not much of our news seems to be very positive, so it is refreshing to see it when it is. Thanks for peeking!

[Greyson]

Pelosi, Clinton celebrate Women's History Month, even as they make history, too

By Ann Gerhart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 26, 2010; A04



There are 35 statues of very important people in Statuary Hall of the Capitol. Thirty-four of them are of men. Frances Willard, suffragist and orator for Prohibition, is the lone woman. She looks somewhat forbidding, but then again, so does everybody else frozen in granite and marble.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton surely will rank for placement there someday. For now, they are making history, and on Thursday, at a reception in that hall, the two took an hour to celebrate together.

Pelosi opened her arms wide to Clinton and they hugged tightly, cheek to cheek, two brilliant red-lipsticked smiles. It was an exuberant display of girliness from two formidable women nearing the end of an extraordinary week for both.

"Whoever thought that on this day of all days, I'd be standing on this podium to celebrate Women's History Month and sharing the stage with two of my role models and two of the greatest female pioneers and role models for all of us?" said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), to cheers, applause and whistles from a crowd of 300 women and men.

Pelosi and Clinton are a testament to women's capacity to compose their lives alongside, rather than distinct from, those around them. One is the first female speaker of the House, a woman who didn't run for office until the youngest of her five children was a high school senior. The other is the first former first lady to become a U.S. senator, a woman who initially derived her political power from her husband and then went on to run for president, winning more than 17 million votes in primaries and caucuses.

One traveled to Mexico and Moscow in the past week and helped to negotiate a deal announced Wednesday that could slash the number of nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia. The other finally brought her disputatious membership to heel and succeeded, where the first had so famously failed, at achieving the sweeping health-insurance reform Democrats had sought for half a century.

"I was so thrilled when that vote finally closed," said Clinton, laughing, of the House passage on Sunday. "And I know what a challenge this was. I have the scars to prove it!" She commended Pelosi for her leadership and courage -- the speaker, who turns 70 on Friday, marched past angry protesters on her way to vote -- and said the bill is "particularly important to women."

But Pelosi made clear that she sees her leadership and Clinton's as serving everyone.

"What makes me so proud when I see her on the international stage is that she is speaking for the United States of America," Pelosi said about Clinton. "And while it is a priority of her secretaryship -- if there is such a word -- her tenure, that women's rights are viewed as human rights and respected throughout the world . . . there is a recognition that when there is a U.S.-Russia treaty on nuclear weapons, that a woman is leading the way on that."

The reception was pulled together as a celebration of the 30th anniversary of Women's History Month, before the month slipped away. In 1980, Woolsey said, there were seven women in Congress; now there are 90. Many of them were present Thursday, including at least one Republican, Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, said a spokesman for Pelosi. EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson and Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis also attended, as did House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer and Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.).

"Some of my male colleagues said to me earlier, 'Having another one of your women's meetings, what do they call it, a clutch?' " joked Pelosi.

"Whatever it is, yes, we are." For all the world to see.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032504598.html?wpisrc=nl_politics

[Corkey]

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/...ous+cape+horn/

Now this is Cool!

[Jess]

http://www.9news.com/rss/article.aspx?storyid=135487

[Jess]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/...-students.html

while thinking about school kids.. check this out:

https://secure3.convio.net/hrc/site/...rAction&id=789

[Jess]

http://www.tonic.com/article/autisti...fested-swamps/

[Liam]

Cheap adventures!!

http://www.nps.gov/findapark/feefree...service%20site