Mark your calenders

May 9th McKnight & Beyond Borders Concert
Benefits Friends of Loudoun Mental Health

Andrew McKnight & Beyond Borders, a Loudoun band with a growing national reputation, will perform a benefit concert on Saturday, May 9 at 8 p.m., at the Franklin Park Arts Center in Purcellville, VA. Proceeds from the $15 tickets will go to Friends of Loudoun County Mental Health, which provides support for people recovering from mental illness.

Award-winning singer/songwriter McKnight’s bandmates include Les Thompson (banjo and bass), who was an original member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Stephanie Thompson (harmony vocals, bass and percussion), and WAMMIE-winning singer/songwriter Lisa Taylor (drums and harmony vocals).

The band’s music transcends the genres of folk, blues and bluegrass. The Boston Globe wrote: “With a voice reminiscent of Don McLean, McKnight traverses from old-time Appalachian tuned to contemporary folk and blues, all backed up by his dead-on guitar playing.”
McKnight has long lent his talents to community causes nationwide in his music as well as performing. The 19 million Americans struggling with depression helped inspire McKnight’s song “Hour of Darkness” from his latest CD, Something Worth Standing For. “Those who face serious mental illness are, I believe, among the least-served members of our community,” McKnight explained. “So we are happy to have the opportunity to help here in our own community through the work of Friends of Loudoun Mental Health.”
“We’re thrilled that Andrew, Les, Stephanie and Lisa are putting on this concert,” said Judy Hines, President of Friends. “Their music is fresh, and many of Andrew’s songs call on us to see the world through the eyes of others.”
Friends of Loudoun Mental Health, working in partnership with Loudoun County’s Mental Health Services, helps Loudoun neighbors facing mental illnesses avoid homelessness through rent and utility supplements; provides gifts and events that help in their treatment, and sponsors public presentations and conferences aimed at erasing ignorance and stigma relating to mental illness.
The Franklin Park Arts Center, built on the site of an old dairy barn, opened last year as Western Loudoun’s premiere performance venue. It’s at 36441 Blueridge View Lane in Purcellville. Visit the Franklin Park website at http://www.franklinparkartscenter.org/ for driving directions.
The concert starts at 8 p.m. Tickets ($15, with a $3 discount for students and seniors) are available from the Franklin Park Arts Center box office, 540-338-7973, or, while they last, can be purchased at the door.

Come out and support the Friends of Loudoun Mental Health, and enjoy good music at the same time.

Pat McSweeney shows his true colors

Just one thing to say with regards to this former Chairman of the RPV:
If you don't like the direction of the Republican Party in Virginia...there's always those Libertarians.
Oh, that's right...you're already one, and were just trying to control the direction of a Party you left sometime ago.
I also found it interesting that you were behind fund-raising for Independents who were running against Republicans.Evidently, I'm not alone.

Conservative Victory PAC

Robert FitzSimmonds, President

Fellow Republicans,

My name is Bob FitzSimmonds. For nearly 30 years I have dedicated myself to supporting Republican candidates and conservative causes.

I have been a grassroots activist for national candidates like Ronald Reagan and for local conservatives like Scott Lingamfelter, Corey Stewart and Ken Cuccinelli.

I have been a Republican candidate for the Virginia Senate.

I am the founding Chairman of the Prince William Manassas Family Alliance and a founding board member of the Prince William Taxpayers Alliance.

I think I am a true grass-roots conservative.

You may have recently received an email from Pat McSweeney which was highly critical of Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling. I found his email to be surprising and disappointing because I have always had a high regard for Pat. I fully expect liberals in the other party to attack our candidates and misconstrue their records, but an attack that tries to portray Bill Bolling as anything but a reliable conservative is hard to understand.

Bill Bolling has served the people of Virginia in state and local government for the past 18 years. During that time he has been a consistent voice for the conservative principles we believe in as Republicans. Here are the facts about Bill and his record.

Bill Bolling is a fiscal conservative. He has been the leading voice in holding Governor Kaine accountable for his irresponsible budgets. He has talked about the need to reign in government spending, and he opposed every tax increase that was proposed by Governors Warner and Kaine. I even remember that during the Gilmore administration Bill Bolling was one of the few conservative voices in the State Senate that supported Gilmore’s efforts to move forward with the promise to eliminate the car tax. In fact, I first met Bill Bolling and came to respect him so highly when he helped lead the fight against higher taxes in Northern Virginia. He did this when many of our local leaders were actually supporting higher regional taxes.

Bill Bolling is a social conservative. He has always earned a 100% pro-family rating from The Family Foundation for his support of conservative family values. For example, in 2006 Bill was a leading voice in advocating passage of the Marriage Amendment. He even used his own campaign funds to pay for radio commercials supporting the Marriage Amendment.

Bill is pro-life. He has consistently supported important pro-life initiatives like parental notification and parental consent, a ban on partial birth abortion and holding abortion clinics to higher safety and health standards. In fact, just last year he cast the deciding vote in the Senate against providing state funding to Planned Parenthood. When Bill ran for Lieutenant Governor in 2005 he was endorsed by the Virginia Society of Human Life.

Bill has also been a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. He has an A+ rating from the NRA and he has received the endorsement of the NRA and the Virginia Citizens Defense League.

I just don’t know how you can be a more dependable conservative than Bill Bolling.

Let me say just one other thing in response to this attack on Lieutenant Governor Bolling.

No one has done more to unite our Republican Party or strengthen us for victory in November than Bill Bolling. His decision to put party unity above his own interest, seeking re-election and avoiding an intraparty fight, shows the rare quality of this man. By choosing to run for re-election, Lieutenant Governor Bolling helped increase our chances of winning all three statewide offices this November.

I'm proud to be one of the hundreds of grass-roots leaders from all across Virginia supporting Bill Bolling at this year’s Republican Convention on May 29 and 30. I hope you will join me.

Bob FitzSimmonds

Finally, a country-western place to dance.

My wife and I used to go dancing every Saturday night. It was one of the few social engagements we shared. (For all of you who've actually met my beautiful wife, you're lucky. She does not come out to political mixers often. And some of you have even jokingly accused me of inventing her)

We were in a mood to go to Nick's all the way out in Alexandria (one of our previous haunts) when we searched the internet to see where our favorite Band was playing these days. The Handy Brothers actually played our Wedding Reception, so they're a longtime favorite. Ms. Bulletproof and I often just "missed" each other for years.... She went to all the places I did back then. GW's in Old Towne, The Zed- just outside of Old Towne, Spurs in Waldorf, and even Bronco Billy's in Washington...like a hundred years ago.

When perusing Southern Wind's site, I found a new Country-western effort in "the Corral", and they're featuring Southern Winds every Thursday as a house band. The Club is on the bottom floor of Fast Eddie's at the corner of Rt.28 and Rt. 29 in Centerville, Va. The food was great, and the crowd was cordial (even if we didn't see the "ol' gang" there.)

The club has Billiards and dancing. I like both, so I'll be sliding down and gettin' out of the house with more frequency, and I'll be sportin' the "suddenly social" Ms.Bulletproof on those days.

Oh, look..it's time to reset the counter.

The 500 page load log filled up in a mere 16 days. I've saved it for posterity and reset it.
The unique visitors count for 536 page loads was 412 unique visits, and the high day was March 27th, when 61 different people actually visited the blog. I wonder if the picture of Duvall did it?? :)

At this rate, should I actually be able to repeat it, I could have 800 unique hits on the blog in a 32 day period. Thanks to all who visited, and I'll promise to keep the content interesting and lively.

Update:April 19,2009 -- 30 days came and went. At end of business of April 17, there were 819 unique hits for those 30 days.
Shall we now hope for 1000 hits in a month? I've reset the counter and we're off, again. Thank you, one and all!

Now, for more fun.

Check out this new Blog that I only recently found. Careful...It's addicting, and I have fallen off of my chair a couple of times laughing too hard.
The owner has a wicked sense of humor and seems to find all of the best cartoons.... Like this one
And the best material...
"That idea didn't go over well, either. Merkel said the Italians have been sending their trash to Germany for years, and that Germany didn't want the U.S. doing the same thing with our tra-, er, leaders. "


Barack Obama's Teleprompter Blog

{cough} horse crap{cough}

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran dismissed American government reports that senior U.S. and Iran envoys had a cordial - and promising - face-to-face exchange at an international conference, saying Wednesday that no "talks" took place.

Well, well, well... Told ya!!

You know...Bush was smart enough to know that Mahmoud "I'm-a-nut-job" would do exactly what they just did to the TOTUS.

I wish I could get a gander at this guy's grades. I'm not sold that he didn't just make up his time at Harvard.

Push polling by LEA, and a Republican Resolution

I, along with a number of others in the county, have received a shameless push poll from the Loudoun Education Association. This organization is out of touch with the desires of most of Loudoun's homeowners, it's almost laughable...except that it's true.

When economies tighten, homeowners have to prioritize and be willing to cut back on things they don't need, or can do without. Evidently, this Board and the LEA don't think that the logic applies to them.

I'm all for fully funding our children's educations, but the cutting to a mere 5% tier instead of the 10% or the 15% tier is sheer stupidity, given our already high tax situation in Loudoun. The schools said they labored long and hard to cut $11 MIL from the school budget.
$11 MIL is 1.5% of the over all school budget. Try $80MIL, people. That's where you cut into this problem, because it compounds. If you think this year is bad---wait till next year and the one after.
This is THE year to cut this budget to the bone, because the majority of the voters and population of Loudoun are behind Supervisors to do exactly that. If it doesn't get done THIS year, it doesn't get done. The current environment is the only one that provides the absolute political will and cover for such cuts.

For comparison purposes, here are a number of other tax rates , as they apply to $100 of property value for 2008.

Alexandria, Va (Fairfax) 84.5 per $100
Arlington (Fairfax) 84.8
Fairfax City 79.0
Fairfax County 92.0
Falls Chuch City 1.03
Prince William County 97.0
Fauquier 76.5

Now, for the real fun. In the Republik of Merryland...
Where the liberals really believe they're owed a living by everybody else....
rates in effect on July 1, 2008

Frederick County (Maryland) 93.6 per $100
Baltimore County 1.10
Carroll County 1.04
Montgomery County 66.1 (Contains additional miscellaneous, fire, and/or special taxing areas
Prince George's County 96.0 (Contains additional miscellaneous, fire, and/or special taxing areas

Anyone can see that we're overtaxed. Everyone should see that with a 74% portion of this going to the schools, they need to be cut back and waste should be absolutely cut to the bone.

For more information to be prepared, as well as write your Supervisor...
peruse your Loudoun Tax Info and don't delay. They've already pulled a straw poll, and we lost.
They were willing to settle at $1.24 per $100 of your assessment. There is still time to change that. But only a flurry of e-mails and letters and phone calls will allow them to know that the 100 or so people who the School Board and the LEA pushed in front of them do not speak for you.

The Loudoun County Republican Committee recently passed a resolution in support of your tax relief. It reads:

Resolution in Support of Fiscal Responsibility for Loudoun County Government and Towns

Whereas, The American people are hurting and so many Loudoun County families have felt the devastating impact of a declining economy; and

Whereas, the residents of Loudoun County and the Towns know we cannot tax and spend our way back to a growing and prosperous economy; and

Whereas, history has shown that raising taxes during times of economic uncertainty is counterproductive; and

Whereas, the act of raising taxes in the midst of a recession is simply a misappropriated prescription for further economic decline as well as an untimely burden on the families of Loudoun County; and

Whereas, there presently exists a disproportionate distribution in the allocation of tax revenue amongst the various county agencies that, if left as is, could negatively affect the overall quality of life for all citizens of Loudoun County; now therefore be it

Resolved, that the Loudoun County Republican Committee suggest that the current county and town budget negotiations, although painful, presents our elected county and town officials with an opportunity to correct the disproportionate distribution of funding among the various agencies that make up Loudoun County government and towns; and be it further

Resolved, that the Loudoun County Republican Committee direct its members and all citizens believing in fiscal prudence and responsibility to urge this Board of Supervisors and Town Councils to produce a fair, equitable and reasonable budget that does not balance that budget on the backs of middle-class families, small businesses, or our neediest citizens including our senior citizens who have contributed so much to our society; and be it further

Resolved, that the Loudoun County Republican Committee strongly suggest that the Board of Supervisors and Town Councils not only hold the line on tax increases, but also cut spending as is required in the face of a budget deficit greater than $200 million; and be it further

Resolved, that the Loudoun County Republican Committee strongly suggest that the needed reductions in spending be fair and proportionate and that no one agency of the Loudoun County or Town governments be exempt from providing equitable reductions in spending.

Resolved, that the Chairman be directed to distribute this resolution to members of the local media and all members of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors and towns of Leesburg, Hamilton, Purcellville, Lovettsville, Middleburg, Hillsboro, and Round Hill.

It was entered into the record o March 31, 2009