Good morning, and welcome to the 27th edition of the Virginia Blog Carnival, dedicated to showcasing the best posts from the best bloggers in the Old Dominion. The Carnival was born in September 2005, thanks largely to the inspiration of Chad Dotson at Commonwealth Conservative, who describes the idea behind the VBC in this post. Since then we’ve had 26 weeks of some great posts from bloggers all across Virginia. Last week’s carnival, hosted at ImNotEmril, was one of the best yet, so I know I’ve got a lot to live up to. Fortunately, we’ve had some great posts this week.
First from just across the Occoquan from me in Fairfax County, Always On Watch writes about a sad day in Richmond that was, unforunately, entirely necessary as two bears were put to death after a biting incident involving a small child.
I am sorry for Buster and Babe. They were not at fault in this episode. I am also sorry for the little boy, who may have thought he was reaching for a giant tedy bear. But the mother? Any adult should know better than to stick his hand into a bear cage. And certainly any adult should know better than to let a four-year-old put his hand into the cage. Bears have teeth and claws! Stay away!
Unfortunately, sometimes brains and parenthood are mutually exclusive, and that appears to have been the situation in this case.
Up next, writing from Pittsylvania County, Romeocat is looking for some help, or at least some prayers, as she helps her daughter with a school project.
The Darling Munchkin, who is in Fourth Grade, is working on a project for her class, which requires her to gather facts about the State of Virginia.
I swear, it’s been like pulling impacted wisdom teeth!
Thus, I am writng this post to show her how it ought to be done, so feel free to completely ignore this post – but if you do, I request that you send
I can only hope that I didn’t evote similar parental frustration with my school projects….although in my case it would have involved gathering facts about New Jersey, which is an entirely different subject.
Moving once again to Fairfax County, Will Evans writes about a lawsuit in Michigan brought by a man seeking to challenge a child support order using an argument that turns the logic of Roe v. Wade upside down.
This isn’t chauvenism, as many men would likely view it. It’s about equal treatment and insisting that the courts remember we exist, and our rights matter.
I wrote about the same issue last week and, while I don’t necessarily accept the argument, it does put forth an argument that hasn’t received serious consideration in the past.
Next, we move to Henry County, where Alton at ImNotEmril tells the story behind the first Major League Baseball player to emerge from Henry County.
In another post, Alton apologizes to all of us for his absence from the blogosphere.
From Goochland, Nick Howard, a fellow transplanted Virginian, writes about some of the interesting things he’s learned since moving here. As someone who has lived here 15 years, I can say that there are still things about this great state I haven’t discovered; and I’m looking forward to finding out about them.
From there we move over to Stuanton, where Chris Green at Spank That Donkey writes about the Navy’s rumored decision to decomission two aircraft carriers, and asks how that might affect Norfolk and the rest of Virginia.
Next, from Different River comes a fairly devasting critque of the latest claims from the advocates of the global warming theory.
Up next, Rocinate’s Burdens has an excellent post up about the one topic all Virginians are united on; traffic, what works and what doesn’t work. One could hope that the powers-that-be in Richmond would take a look at ideas like this and consider then, but I think that would be far too optimistic.
Good intentions need to be discarded for the obvious solutions that work. Build new roads. We already need them. The problem will get worse every year until we get them. If left unaddressed, look for quality of life to fall. Eventually businesses will discover that it is too hard to operate here when every delivery, customer and employee is delayed by traffic or avoids their business altogether. Our entire congressional delegation, governor?s office and state legislature should be united on this as a priority for Virginia?s future and the economic health of the East Coast.
Unfortunately, I think that the planners are going to spend their time concentrating on their pet projects, such as extending Metro to Dulles Airport sometime between now and the middle of the century, and no time at all considering sensible ideas like this.
On a related note, Adam Gurri at Sophistpundit catalogs the debates that have been taken place in the Virginia blogosphere about the transportation issue and offers some thoughts of his own.
Next, Different River takes a look at the Global Warming debate and comes away unimpressed.
From Norton, VA, Kilo writes about something that is decidedly non-Virginian……the 2006 Iditarod sledgod race. As always, the 49th state shows why it is one of the most fascinating.
From Norton, we go back to Different River, who writes about the case of a blogger in Israel who is apparently being evicted from her home for entirely political reasons.
Finally, David St. Lawrence at Ripples writes about a great night of great music, good food, and friends, in Virginia.
And thus we reach the end of this week’s Virginia Blog Carnival. Once again, I’ve enjoyed hosting and reading the submissions from all over the Commonwealth. If you’re interested in hosting a future carnival, check out Chad Dotson’s post here.
Linked with TTLB’s UberCarnival.
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