Batman, Donny Darko and the Art of War

The Bat

The Bat

The dark forces of smoking have defeated the well-intentioned but much tangential Senator Ralph Northam, D-Norfolk, also known as The Bat, and his sidekick, Chic’s Beach resident, Donny Damon, AKA, Donny “Darko.”

Northam’s bill to penalize persons 18 years old who smoke in a vehicle, whether speeding down Hampton Boulevard at 50mph or parked in a garage, with a minor present was defeated.

It could have cost you a $100 for such violations and cops could have written you a ticket if you had been stopped on a routine traffic violation.

Down it went. In smoke.

A poll by Richmond Sunlight, an online monitor of Richmond’s yearly exercise in “good” government, showed that 62 percent of respondents didn’t think the bill should be passed while the remainder, 18 percent, thought the bill should be passed.

Donny Darko
Northam’s bill to ban smoking in designated public areas, including beaches, while getting Senate approval, never got a hearing in the House. 

Donny’ Darko” Damon got his 15-minutes of fame by appearing before the Senate Local Government Committee last month with two water jugs of 16,000 cigarette butts he had collected on his stretch of beach on the Chesapeake Bay.
Damon said he would try again next year, according to an article by Virginian-Pilot reporter, Kathy Adams.

Doing the same thing over and over again is the definition of insanity.

Respondents to a Richmond Sunlight poll, asking if the bill should be become law, split evenly.

Half said no and half said yes that the bill should become law.

“Why do Democrats want to protect children now”? said a commenter on Richmond Sunlight, referring to Northam’s bill to penalize smokers in vehicles with a minor.

“They have a completely different set of morals when the child is in the womb.”

The Art of War

Usually, I don’t stray from local issues on this blog (I prefer to view it as a column) unless a national or international issue would have far reaching ramifications not only for America in general but for all of us.

While China is politely knocking on our door, it is crawling in the window in the back of the house. 
Mandiant, a Northern Virginia cyber security firm based in Northern Virginia, issued a report earlier this week on the extensive and sophisticated hacking by a unit of the People’s Liberation Army of the U.S. government and corporate web sites.

Even the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have said that their systems have been breeched by Chinese hackers.

 The PLA is the heart, soul and muscle of China’s modern communist state, founded by Mao and his cronies, such as Zhou Enlai, in 1949.

The PLA, of which Mao and others formed the intellectual and military core, was so named in the Long March of its founding fathers from southern China to northwest China in 1934-1935. 

Chinese officials stuck to the script, accusing the report as irresponsible and so forth.