Spank That Donkey

Here is an excellent example of one of the VA Blogosphere's worst Trolls in action, notice the style:

Notice how this Troll interjects himself into a conversation between two adults concerning actual issues with positions and facts, and all the Troll has to offer is personal insults....  This is the style of the Troll.  They offer nothing more than name calling.

Their entire object is to knock you off the subject at hand and engage in the personal insults business, because it is all they have and all they are good at.  They add very little to the actual exchange of ideas in the blogosphere.

Flickr probably has the best description of a Troll out there:

Trolls. Trolls are people who are just being rude and obnoxious, and are generally trying to offend, shock, harass, abuse or otherwise annoy people. Dealing with such people can often be difficult, but they should not go unwarned, unremoved or unbanned. Trolls can destroy a community, and often this is their goal.

Some Trolls do not intentionally mean to be so, its just that they have internet access and figured out how to operate blogger.  It's their mentalities that limit them to the status of Trolls by their behavior.  In other words it's not a tactic, they just do not have the mental capacity beyond name calling.  In the link they actually admit to being admonished by local Democratic Party Leaders to clean up their vulgar mouths!

 The worst Trolls also engage in vicious personal attacks on Candidate's family members and even employees of candidates for office.  I would give you an excellent example link to this, but I see the offending party has removed the posts.

Many times these bloggers just throw out accusations or suppositions to bring attention to themselves, no matter what may be the actual facts.

We will never be able to free ourselves of bloggers that pursue this type of behavior, but it is helpful to new comers to the blogosphere to be made aware of the past conduct of some of these individuals...  For instance part of their style is also displayed above as the Troll tries to ingratiate himself to the new blogger.... and of course will offer their services to try and 'help' that new blogger and make an ally, while hoping the new blogger will overlook past and future boorish behavior of said Troll.

Trollish behavior needs to be identified and labeled and hopefully we will have less of it due to Blogger peer pressure, as getting an enforceable code of conduct established and enforced in the VA Political Blogosphere seems like it will never come to a reality.

Former Senator Bell has joined the blogosphere with Roanoke Red Zone, and his comments are revealing in deed about the 'Tax & Spend' Mindset that cost the Republicans their majority in the VA GA Senate.  In an exchange of viewpoints Senator Bell comments:

Brandon Bell said...

Spank--I called it the car tax spending program for a reason. The "relief" is a billion dollar a year state spending program. In fact, it was one of the fastest growing spending programs over the last 10 years. If you want to cut taxes, fine. But this was not a true tax cut.

November 27, 2007 4:27 PM

Spending Program eh?

This is where the disconnect with the voters that put these politicians in office come to light.  Republicans were swept into a majority by Gov. Gilmore and his campaign issue of eliminating the car tax.   Virginia was experiencing  major growth of high paying jobs across our Commonwealth, but particularly NOVA, and transferring those dollars back to localities to replace the taxes otherwise paid by individuals, also known as voters!

See Virginia's voters were voting into office candidates and re-electing representatives who supported smaller government and lower taxes...  A simple formula... and when those elected's returned to Richmond each year, if they would have followed that formula... they would still be in office.

Seriously, during a 10 year time span the VA economy fueled by the 1994 Tax cuts enacted by Republicans taking over the Congress, (remember Bill Clinton's economic success), and later juiced on further in 1999 and 2002 with the Jim Gilmore and George W. Bush Tax cuts doubled the revenues coming into the Commonwealth's coffers....

Only one tax increase in 2004 mainly increasing the state sales tax was a factor in this revenue stream.  It was tax cuts that spurred the economy, while inflation under Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was kept usually under 3% -4% annually.  The current downturn in sales tax revenue is due directly to the slowdown in new home construction statewide, but especially in NOVA.  Remember, almost every component going into the construction of a new home is taxed.  Higher sales taxes hurt Affordable Housing!

Exactly how during this 10 year time frame can not our leaders appropriate responsibly for all the Commonwealth's core basic services to include transportation and not get it right?  The problem, I humbly submit is the attitude of certain Republican Senators towards their spending habits to include funding the very tax cut that swept them into power.  Meanwhile during that time they went directly against the voters who swept them into office, by attempting huge tax increases in 2005 and 2006, much to the glee of the MSM and Democrats.

The Republican Party needs to return to the party of Smaller Government and Lower Taxes, period.  That is how we will get back into the majority, when we can regain credibility on the issue of Taxes, Spending and the size of Government.

Senator Wampler moving to SCC would be a good thing h/t to Smyth County Conservative, and some further discussion on the issue new attitudes in our Senate over at BVBL.

Maybe the next reform in the VA GOP is to redefine one of it's most controversial planks being number three found here at RPV.org:

"That fiscal responsibility and budgetary restraints must be exercised at all levels of government"

or maybe an additional amendment that reads:

"We as Republicans acknowledge that unburdening our citizens from taxation is the surest way to expand our economy, and thus provide the necessary revenues to sustain the most basic needs of Government for our citizens."

Or something there of to set our party apart from the Democrats, and quite frankly gain back many people who have become disillusioned with the GOP and align with the Libertarians, at least on the issue of smaller government and lower taxes.

Well, I'll be.... 

(Click me I'm Clean Power) This is what it looks like and does Teddy.

One day even these people will realize the hypocrisy and do something about it.  Kennedy is protecting the view from his front porch.

Meanwhile over on the porch of the evil George H. W. Bush has installed a windmill at Kennebunkport for his home:

A 33-foot-tall windmill that can produce 400 kilowatts a month at a wind speed of 12 mph was installed last week at the home of Bush and his wife, Barbara.  An average household uses about 600 kilowatts a month, said Bob Greig, president of All Season Home Improvement Co. in Augusta, which installed the windmill.

The Bushes had the windmill installed after being approached by Southwest Windpower, a nationwide company that manufactures wind turbines, said Jim Appleby, personal aide to the former president. The turbine is connected to the electric power grid.

Maybe the MSM forgot to trumpet that fact, amazing isn't it?