The Inevitable

Hello everyone. I have been pondering this for some time, but have been hesitant to pull the proverbial trigger.

If you haven't noticed (I'm sure you have), I have been contributing far more to Race42012.com and Conservatives4Palin.com and less here. Furthermore, I did not feel that I could keep this site up to my own standards under my current schedule, which does not allow for daily posts. So, I think that it is probably best that I officially put The Brickyard on indefinite hiatus. I won't say I'm shutting the place down - because I hope to eventually get back to a footing where I can successfully operate an independent blog. However, that is not the position that I am in currently, and I am passionate about both of the other projects to which I currently contribute.

So, obviously I am not going anywhere, but my posts will not be put up here. All of you in the comments section have been fantastic, and I love the feeling of community that we have created. That said, I also know that many of you are already part of the growing and vibrant community at C4P, and we can still get together there. I would also encourage your to get involved in the comments section over at Race42012, as our comments section has a reputation for being overpopulated with Romney devotees (nothing against Gov. Romney, BUT WE DESPERATELY NEED MORE PALIN PEOPLE!)

Also - I link almost all of my posts from my Twitter account and I don't do normal Twitter updates - so if you just want to read my stuff without doing any digging, you can follow me there. I would also add that you don't need a Twitter account to look at my page - so going to that page is basically just the same as coming The Brickyard.

So, this has been fun, but I think that it is best for everyone if we officially move to the next stage. This is not the end, but rather the beginning, and I look forward to continuing our interaction via R4'12 and C4P.

Thank You, Mr. Novak

Me with Robert Novak in August 2006

Robert Novak was a paragon of conservatism and one of the great reporters of our time - as I'm sure you have read today. However, for me, he was also one of the people to whom I owe the life I live today.

You see, Robert Novak was a trustee of the Phillips Foundation, which grants scholarships to conservative student activists and fellowships to aspiring journalists. As a result of my activism in college, I had the privilege of receiving a $7,500 scholarship from the foundation for each of my last two years in school. At the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, this covered my entire tuition plus books. Hence, I could pursue many activism opportunities (including starting a blog) that would have otherwise been put to the side in order to hold down a job. Getting that scholarship - which was meant for the exact purpose of freeing students to pursue conservative activism - changed my life.

So, thank you Robert Novak. I look forward to seeing you again some day. As odd as this may sound - I'm sure they found a place for the "Prince of Darkness" in heaven.

Corazon Aquino, R.I.P.

People for the Ethi¢al Treatment of Animal$™

What Might Have Been:

PETA Spokesman Michal Vick Launches
a Yorkie Into Orbit at a PETA Fundraiser

I probably shouldn't be surprised, but it looks like our supposedly saintly friends at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have been caught with their hands in the corruption cookie jar.

Over at Townhall.com, Dwayne Horner has a piece up detailing how the animal rights group seems to have developed a bit of a pay-to-play operation. Or, maybe it was just a coincidence that they launched a campaign against MasterCard while cutting a deal with VISA to issue a special PETA VISA card (with one percent of all purchases made with said card going into PETA's coffers). It's probably also true that everyone's favorite animal lovers had perfectly righteous motives in accusing the IAMS pet food company of animal cruelty - it had nothing to do with the fact that they were getting an 8 percent cut from the sales of a new "holistic" dog food.

Nope - nothing at all is amiss at PETA...and in other news, pigs are sprouting wings and taking to the skies.

Writing for Big Hollywood, Ken Blackwell exposes another potential sellout opportunity for PETA - although luckily this one fell through. Apparently, the dog-lovers were working on a deal with convicted dog-abuser (and former NFL QB) Michael Vick, in which he would film public service announcements condemning dog-fighting. With all due respect to our well-intentioned friends at PETA - rehabilitation is a noble goal, but putting a just-released mutt-murderer in an animal rights PSA is a bit of a stretch...unless you're after money and free publicity, in which case it makes perfect sense.

Listen, I'm sure there are many wonderful (if misguided) people working for PETA, but something definitely smells a little fishy.

Oh...and just in case you were about to mention all of the animals that PETA saves - Horner also pointed out that they only manage to find homes for one out of every 300 animals they take in, with 95 percent being euthanized.

If you to donate money to save animals, I would suggest a reputable conservationist organization like Trout Unlimited - because PETA is obviously not cutting the mustard when it comes to looking out for our furry, feathered, and fishy friends.

Note: Vick photo listed as licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 on Wikipedia - Yorkie photo listed as public domain.

Gov. Sean Parnell (R-AK)

A lot will definitely be said about Gov. Palin's farewell address today - it was one of the best speeches I have ever heard from her. However, we should remember that today was really Sean Parnell's day. With Palin moving on to bigger things, Gov. Parnell now leads the nation's largest state, and I am enthused to see such a stand-up guy taking the reins. I hope we will be hearing more about him here, because he is the first person in the country to openly taking on the Palin mantle. He is the first official, other than Palin herself, who can be unquestionably labelled as coming from the "Palin wing of the GOP", and so he by nature will play at least some role outside Alaska as an example of how "Palinism" works when the media circus fades. Gov. Parnell's success will be a reflection on his former boss -so for my part, I hope that we can keep one eye on Alaska even as our main focus goes national.

Congratulations to Govs. Palin and Parnell. You both embarked on huge new journeys today, and you both definitely count on the support of this blogger.

BPA Will KILL You! (And Elvis is ALIVE!)

On June 10, News Channel 13 in my hometown of Colorado Springs reported that, "More potentially harmful health effects have been discovered for the chemical bisphenol A..." To be sure, the language was all couched with qualifiers such as "potential," but the point was clear: We are very afraid of bisphenol A (BPA).

This was merely the latest in a long string of shoddy stories alleging BPA does serious harm. Never mind the fact that the FDA says BPA is fine, the chicken littles in the media love to scare people, so the story was repeated ad nauseum until no one even remembered where the heck it came from.

Just five days after this news story surfaced, however, a California board of seven physicians and Ph.D.s voted unanimously that the chemical posed no serious danger. As the AP reported,

"The panel, comprised of seven physicians, unanimously decided that the chemical known as BPA should not be covered under Proposition 65, a voter-approved measure used by regulators to identify substances that can cause birth defects, developmental or reproductive harm."

Conservatives are notoriously slow to defend products and companies who have come under attack by radical environmentalists, but several conservative bloggers have picked up on this story, and what they have found has been very interesting.

Most interesting to me, was blogger Rob Port, who recently noted that all the attacks trace back to Fenton Communications, a liberal PR firm that was also behind the ‘General Betray Us’ ads:

“Putting aside the fact that the claims were entirely bogus, the fear campaign against BPA was a brilliant business move for Fenton-and a win/win/win for liberals. David Fenton, of course, is a liberal activist. He represents many radical environmental groups like the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation, who could benefit from creating a bogey man. And he also represents trial lawyers, who could make millions by bringing about class action lawsuits against the manufacturers of plastics. Lastly, trial lawyers are major donors to Democratic politicians, so getting them on board was easy. And plastics competitors who didn’t use BPA could now charge absurd prices for their products at upscale stores like Whole Foods, based on the fact that their product (though more expensive) was ostensibly “safer.”

The blogosphere is a wonderful place, but it's still sad that the primary purpose for conservative bloggers is merely to set the record straight - and to correct the mistakes made by the MSM. The "dangers" of BPA are about as real as the Easter Bunny, and I'm amazed that more is not being done to point out this pathetic scare tactic.

Good New Palin Blog

Just wanted to point everybody over to a fun new blog at nypalinpower.blogspot.com - looks like a great startup and the proprietor is an occasional commentor here. She was nice enough to drop me an email, so I figured I would drop her a link. Here's hoping for a sucessful run. She certainly has a lot of energy, so I would expect this to be a fun blog to read.