Conservativa

Lord of the Rings is in fact a huge property law case. Attorneys, take note. There could be a test later. More here, where it is claimed that it’s a case about a contract. Take a look through the comments. Man, I thought engineers were geeky.

Wonderful pictures of 20th century American life, from the Library of Congress… on Flickr. Some black and white, some stunning color. Here are the FAQs on the LOC’s Flickr project.

Geert Wilders film “Fitna” has been pulled by LiveLeak, even though much of the film is made up of news footage that is available in many places. But, thanks to the Internet, the film is still available out there. Here are some links, from PowerLine.

Mark Steyn comments here.

You can get to it from this HotAir link. I have watched it. As a film it hits you in the gut. It contains some gruesome stuff (most of which you may have seen before). The film is a bit impressionistic - Wilders intercuts verses from the Koran being chanted, with news footage and stills, etc. By the end he is putting up more title screens than anything else. So I have two reactions: on an emotional level, the film works, but on a technical level, I wish he could have brought in another editor near the end of the editing process, to look at the film with a cooler eye and make a more visually strong ending. That’s being picky, though. He was brave to create and release the film at all. CNN story on the film’s release.

Here are two good commentaries on the film: Laura at Pursuing Holiness wrote on The Obligation Not to Obey Islamic Law, and from Reason magazine, “Everyone Deserves the Right to Offend.”

You are number 6.

Actually, the column raises a lot of good questions. If blogs force more openness on campaigns, partly by instant fact-checking…

It’s hard to say that raising the bar on truth in politics is anything but good. Facts matter. Still . . . the constant, omniscient and unforgiving fastidiousness of the Web-led media is beginning to make one feel like a character in the famous British sci-fi TV series “The Prisoner.”

In “The Prisoner,” the authorities put a former spy, played by Patrick McGoohan, in the Village, where life was “good” but everything was seen. Whenever the rebellious spy, Number Six, tried to escape, a large, white balloon would chase him and catch him and pacify him. The Web is becoming our white balloon.

Very good column, but I think Henninger was still wrestling with the subject when he sent the column for publication. There are some points worth a lot of thought there. What do you think?

No, really! Here’s one: she is a member of the Democratic Women’s Union of Mongolia, visiting in the U.S. Their party’s principles, as I understand it, are more or less in line with (U.S.) Republican principles. The delegation traveled in Maryland, DC, and Virginia learning about how our elections work. Here is a linked to a cached news article about their visit (the main link seems not to work). Here is a press release from USAID about the delegation’s U.S. visit.

In this photo, the delegation member is at a Republican women’s function in Richmond. Later, speaking at the podium, she was asked she learned about our election process that impressed her. She volunteered, “Clean fundraising means a clean election.” That makes a lot of sense.

Photo details: Canon EOS 5D, ISO 3200, 200mm, 1/60 at f/2.8.

From ABC News’ “The Political Punch” - how Hillary could win the nomination:

“Her securing the nomination is certainly possible - but it will require exercising the ‘Tonya Harding option.’” the official said. “Is that really what we Democrats want?”

Just, wow.

…if you just locked up the Republican nomination for Governor in Virginia. (Actually that wasn’t so when this picture was taken, in February). With Lt. Gov. Bolling’s announcement on Mar. 24 that he will be running again for Lt. Gov. in 2009, Attorney General Bob McDonnell is planning a unity ticket that has cheered up a lot of us Republicans and caused some hand-wringing among Democrats. This also tees up Bolling for a possible Senate run to replace Jim Webb, which would be a good thing.

This also says something good about the quality of Republican leadership in Virginia. Apparently McDonnell and Bolling have decided that a little less in-fighting would be good for all Virginia Republicans. There’s a saying: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” So thanks to both of these gentlemen for keeping their eye on the main thing - getting a Republican back in the Governor’s mansion and having a Republican continue presiding over the Senate. Maybe we can get a more sane budget that way.

Lt. Gov. Bolling held a blogger conference call after the announcement, which I could not participate in due to work. Riley at Virtucon has a report on it.

Best headline of the day on this story: from www.sicsemper.com, Ol’ Zach brings us: McBollinelli ‘09. Runner-up: SWACGirl, who dubs this the Dream Team.

Photo info: McDonnell photo: Canon EOS5D, 135mm, ISO 1600, 1/60 at f/3.2

Bolling photo: Canon EOS5D, 200mm, ISO 800, 1/125 at f/3.2.

Sample:

“You often hear it said, of some political or other opportunist, that he would sell his own grandmother if it would suit his interests. But you seldom, if ever, see this notorious transaction actually being performed…”

C’mon, Mr. Hitchens, tell us what you really feel…

H/T: the Corner.

WRVA reporting. If true, this would avoid a fight that has been dreaded by a whole lot of Virginia Republicans, including me. We need to be unified this year especially.

Fed up with politics? Take a look around - there is life (outside politics) happening everywhere, including on a ledge of the McGuire Woods building in downtown Richmond. The Virgina Department of Game and Inland Fisheries reports that the peregrine falcons are back at the nesting site there, and the female has just laid a second egg.

You can look in at any time to see the falcon family’s progress and read running commentary by the VDGIF wildlife biologists. Here’s the link to the FalconCam page. There is the current webcam shot, plus recent highlights of activity. Check out the video from Feb. 29 - let it load, then at about the 2:00 mark, you can see a closeup of one of the falcons looking around from the ledge, with the Richmond skyline behind her. They are beautiful creatures.

During Session, a woman is apparently practicing Falun Gong by the statue in front of the General Assembly Building, which is off to camera left.

With the Olympics coming we will see China cracking down on everything in sight.

As we who are Christians mark Holy Week, we should remember all those who live where they are not free to practice their religion.

Speaking of having to practice religion in secret, did you see this - Mikhail Gorbachev admits to being Christian, visits tomb of St. Francis? Article has a remarkable photo of him walking with Friars.

Photo details: Canon EOS5D, 70mm, ISO400, 1/100 at f/20.0

Apparently someone has gotten ahold of a leaked Best Buy training document that profiles some typical consumers and discusses how Best Buy sales staff can reach them. Profiling? Stereotyping? Smart marketing? Maybe a little of all.

Hey Best Buy - want to know how to win my business?

1. Turn. Down. The. Stupid. Car. Stereo. Displays. If I can’t hear myself think because some yahoo has lingered there, turning up the stereos and your sales people just leave the volume up, I am going to leave the store ASAP. If it’s bad, I may well leave the store before buying anything. So: loud demo car stereos = lost sales for you. Does this make me an old fogey-ette? Maybe. But old-fogey money spends like young yahoo money, doesn’t it?
2. Get sales people who can answer technical questions. If I am spending 100s of dollars on something, I will have already researched the item online before I come in, but I may have some lingering questions. Have at least one person in each department during store hours that knows the merchandise well.

Hillary got Obama. She got him. He was Mr. Transcends-Old-Politics. Now he has spent a week defending, explaining, explaining away, dodging, weaving, but most of all having to explain his spiritual, intellectual, and historical relationship with Pastor Wright. He has done really well, considering. (His speech today will thrill some people, and I appreciate that it seems very sincere, though on closer examination there’s a lot of the same-ol’ same-ol’ liberal thought in it). But Hillary knows that huge numbers of people are viscerally offended by some of what Wright has said, and cannot give Obama a pass on it, because Obama has chosen to go to that church for many years, presumably taking his children with him, to listen to that… for years and years.

Looking at the politics, I must say that Hillary has played this really well. No one at the moment is quizzing her on tough issues. No one is asking Obama about how he would handle the Middle East, or the dollar, or anything else. She has made his campaign about “is he too… something… to be acceptable to middle America” and she has done it by using his 20-year history of behavior (attending the church with that pastor). She doesn’t need to do a thing - no snarky surrogates, no boring press release parade - just let the tapes air. The subtext - you may not like her, but she is a known quantity, unlike this possibly too… something… person, Obama. Somewhere Hillary is smiling.

Linkage: Roger L. Simon not happy. Be sure to scroll down through the comments to find the one by Bill Whittle. Allahpundit steamed.