Hampton Roads hit by flooding, lightning in severe storm

Today the Pilot’s biggest font goes to this headline story about a storm I didn’t experience because I’m not in town. There’s little I can add to what you surely know about it already, except that much of the comment thread is an argument about light rail, which some folks think was a waste of money.

Attorney General Cuccinelli: the rise of the confounding conservative

Attorney General Cuccinelli is the subject of a substantial Washington Post Magazine feature this Sunday. He’ll be at wapo.com today at 3:00 PM to take questions and comments about the piece, which calls him “boyishly eager to be here, now” and reveals that “he’s a ‘Monty Python’ aficionado.” He also “found time to memorize the lyrics to ‘Rapper’s Delight,’ Sugarhill Gang’s 1979 hip-hop masterpiece, which he and buddies would perform [at U.Va.] at the slightest excuse.”

I said he’s a fairy I do suppose

Flyin’ through the air in pantyhose…

He can’t satisfy you with his little worm

But I can bust you out with my super sperm.

Perhaps the A.G. rapped the above lines to his wife at some point during their courtship, because the article states that “When he proposed marriage, he was so oblique, she didn’t understand.” Later one learns that Cuccinelli “asks for [“Rapper’s Delight”] … whenever he encounters a karaoke system.” Apparently he “points flamboyantly around the room as he raps.” The Post even quotes him rapping some of the song’s more innocuous lines like “I like to say hello/ to the black, the white, the red and the brown, the purple and yellow,” which is a bit less incongruous than imagining Cooch singing that he’s imp the dimp, the ladies’ pimp.

Mr. Attorney General—or Wonder Ken, if you prefer—I invite you to a sing-off at Cruzer’s on Oropax Street, where there’s most definitely a karaoke system. You do “Rapper’s Delight.” I’ll do “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” We’ll judge the result by applause-o-meter. If you win, I’ll stop making fun of you for a whole year, but if I win, you can never run for president.

Since this story is in the Washington Post, there are no comments about light rail.

Prince William official details proposed crackdown on Va. illegals

Prince William County wingnut Corey Stewart has detailed his fascistic Rule of Law Act, designed to (in his words) “make it so uncomfortable to be [in Virginia] as an illegal alien that [they] just want to get out.” The idea is to render illegal any action that Latinos commonly undertake. For instance, people with families in Mexico sometimes wire money to those families, so Stewart proposes levying a “money wire transfer fee” on all transactions of up to $500. Revenue would go toward deporting illegal aliens, since there’s nothing else we lack money for.

The last time I wrote about Corey Stewart, I made it clear I don’t care for him, but my inchoate dislike failed to coalesce into a singular goal. Stewart’s latest words, though, have led me to that goal, which is to make it so uncomfortable to be in Virginia as Corey Stewart that he just wants to get out. For instance, the Rule of Law Act would make it illegal to transport, move, or harbor an illegal alien; my act will make it illegal to transport, move, or harbor Corey Stewart. And so on.

All this will require some research on Stewart. If there’s a rap song Stewart sings at karaoke bars, my shadow legislation will propose a fee for performing that song. The revenue will go toward paying illegal aliens to send prank text messages to Stewart’s phone. He’ll be charged for them himself, which will anger him, since to wingnuts the bottom line for anything is its monetary price. (Hence Stewart’s idea for the money wire transfer fee.)

The assumption behind that fee is that transactions over $500 are all being done by people whose visas are in order, or “legals.” Note to Times-Dispatch headline writers: “illegal” is a noun only when the speaker is a wingnut who finds immigrants as despicable as the rest of the groups Jesus defended. I’m not being a pedant. Polls show that support for reasonable immigration reform will increase when “undocumented workers” is used instead of “illegal aliens.” As for “illegals,” not only is it grammatically wrong, it’s meant to be pejorative. Likewise the word “homosexual” as a noun: when I hear someone talking about “homosexuals,” it’s a reliable warning that his opinions are probably toxic.

Incidentally, many people think it’s hard to send prank calls and texts these days with such ubiquitous caller ID. That’s not true; you just have to make your prank calls to people in other countries. Whenever I’m bored, for example, I Skype people in foreign countries and ask if their refrigerators are running, because Skype lets you phone any number on earth for about two cents a minute. So I encourage Mexican families whom Stewart prevents from receiving their remittances to lob in his direction any digital spitballs that are possible.

McDonnell plans town hall meeting in Norfolk

Governor McDonnell will be in Norfolk next week to “to talk about issues facing the state,” which sounds tedious, and also to watch Cuccinelli and me sing karaoke at Cruzer’s, which will rock. The primary issue at hand seems to be McDonnell’s liquor proposal. To promote it, he should consider picking up a mike and performing “Gin and Juice.”

Va. NAACP denounces Webb on diversity programs

There’s been a firestorm of activity on AltDaily already about Senator Jim Webb’s recent Wall Street Journal column that argued in favor of ending government diversity programs, so I’ll just link quietly to today’s story about Virginia NAACP director King Salim Khalfani’s response to Webb, which states, “We vehemently disagree with your analysis and wonder if serving in the elite, rich, United States Senate has skewed your vision of the world in which we live.”

Va. prisons chief: Stop locking up those ‘we’re mad at’

Virginia Department of Corrections director Gene Johnson is the kind of guy I would never ask entire foreign populations to prank-call. He wants to quit spending enormous amounts of money locking up people “we’re mad at.” Chesapeake inmate Romona M. Williams is one such person, and this Pilot story details why she can’t attend her son’s funeral today: the funeral is in Norfolk, but Williams is in a Chesapeake jail that “allows an inmate to attend services only within the city limits.” Her crime? Violating her probation following a previous conviction for cocaine possession.

Va. jobless benefits likely to resume very soon

Nearly 40,000 jobless Virginians will begin receiving benefits again next week now that a Republican filibuster attempt of the benefits bill has been defeated.

Tea party plans fall Richmond convention

The Virginia Tea Party, which consists mostly of bored people who haven’t yet realized they can prank-call foreign countries, will hold its first Virginia convention October 8-9 in Richmond. Unfortunately, this conflicts with the final day of the ODU Literary Festival, whose directors are surely scrambling to reschedule so we can all be in the capital that weekend. The only other feasible option is for the Lit Fest to add its own Freedom Lover’s Extravaganza Dance on October 8 to compete with the Tea Party Convention’s. Otherwise every tunnel in Hampton Roads that day will be gridlocked with people abandoning the region en masse.