Senate candidates Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio appeared at the Alachua County Republican Party’s 7th Annual Ronald Reagan Black Tie and Blue Jeans BBQ. Laura Ingraham was the keynote speaker.

Rubio gave the event’s invocation, but first made comments along his campaign theme of being the race’s true conservative.

“It’s very simple: We already have a Democratic Party in America,” he said. “We do not need two Democratic parties in America.”

Crist gave a speech running through a long list of positions to prove his conservative bona fides, from support of gun rights to tax cuts. But he received a less enthusiastic greeting than Rubio from the grassroots activists in attendance, even getting a small smattering of boos.

This scenario, minus the candidates, has been playing out at county events all summer. Rubio’s support, at least as indicated in straw polls held among party activists, has been outstanding. On possible reaction to the NY-23 special election may be for the NRSC to stay out of this critical primary.

One can only hope.

I’m sure most of you are already aware of the shootings that took place earlier this afternoon at Fort Hood in Texas. The story is very fluid and changing very quickly. There is plenty of speculation and few known facts. The few of those are 12 dead and 31 wounded. The shooter was Maj. Malik Nidal Hasan a 39 or 40 year old convert to Islam who was a psychiatrist at the base. Hasan was killed by a local LEO who was himself killed in the firefight.

I have a feeling that the details on this, when they are known, are going to be very strange.

Updates as they become known.

7:19 – Reports now are saying the correct name is Nidal Malik Hasan. One thing I’m hearing from multiple news stations is that he received a bad evaluation when he was at Walter Reed.

10:12 – Hasan is not dead as previously reported.

Authorities identified the suspected gunman as Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who had treated soldiers wounded in foreign wars preparing for foreign deployment at the post.

“Our investigation is ongoing but preliminary reports indicate that there was a single shooter,” Lieutenant-General Robert Cone, Fort Hood’s commanding officer, told a news conference. “The shooter is not dead but in custody in stable condition.”

Cone said the suspect had been shot multiple times. He previously said the suspect was killed by police officers during the attack at the biggest military facility in the world.

Asked whether the shootings were a terrorist act, Cone said, “I couldn’t rule that out, but I’m telling you that right now the evidence does not suggest that.”

You may have noticed (or maybe not) that I’ve been spending more time at, and promoting, Reclaim Conservatism. The reasons are these:

• I’ve neglected it far too long. It’s a good place to blog, and it deserves some attention — at least from me. I want to build up the readership and showcase the writers there.
• In light of the recent elections and the direction President Obama and the Congress are taking the country, the topic of conservatism is very relevant.
• In light of the first two points, I’ve been spending a bit more time there than here. That’s likely to continue.

We are also looking for additional people who would like to post at Reclaim Conservatism.

If you want to contribute on a regular basis just register here (the link is down at the bottom of the right sidebar) and shoot an email to lakelandjim at gmail dot com letting me know of your interest. Or, if you just have a guest post you’d like to add here send it to contributors at reclaimconservatism dot com.

I’d really like your help. If you could visit and leave a comment, add the site to your blogroll or feedreader, tell folks about the site, and follow @ReclaimCons on Twitter, it would be greatly appreciated.

Well, I guess I better get over there and get to work. Hope to see you there.

I have a new post up at Reclaim Conservatism. Here’s a taste.

Looking at the results from yesterday’s elections I see different meaning in the different races we all were following. It’s almost as if people are individuals with differing outlooks and ideas of what is important. (Yes, that was sarcasm)

Please go over and read the whole thing and leave your comments. While you’re there why not add Reclaim Conservatism to your feed reader and/or blogroll, and follow @ReclaimCons on Twitter. Thanks.

I posted about the move to 10pm right before bRight@Night was supposed to start last night. Then I clicked over to my host switchboard to start the show. It was then that I found out that Blog Talk Radio had switched from the old click to talk (for premium subscribers) to using Skype. Now, I have nothing against Skype, and I have nothing but good things to say about Blog Talk Radio.

On the other hand, I sure wish they had given some warning about the switch. I was told that it was a “soft launch” and that additional details would be available soon. But 10-15 minutes before show time isn’t sufficient to download the software, get all the settings right, create an account, and still log into your show.

I finally got things set up around 10:40 — 10 minutes after the show was scheduled to end. I quickly scheduled a 15 minute segment for 11:00, but it really threw me off my game.

I wanted to talk about the elections today in NY, VA, NJ, and elsewhere. I guess I’ll just have to talk about the results on tomorrow night’s show. I can do that.

Or maybe I’ll have to schedule a show for tonight, after results start coming in. I’ll have to see about that.

The hour earlier version of bRight @ Night will go live in less than 15 minutes. Join me as I talk about the best posts from around the conservative side of the blogosphere and the other news of the day. Of course there is tomorrow’s off year elections and I may even have something to say about game 5 of the World Series. The call in number is (718) 664-9725

Join me!

It’s the race the political blogoshpere, cable and network news, and print sources are all talking about — New York’s special election in House district 23. If you tuned out Friday afternoon, you may have missed a few things.

On Friday, the day after the only three way debate, Hoffman continued to pick up endorsements from George Pataki and others. On Saturday Dede Scozaafava decided to suspend her campaign, and on Sunday she showed how much being a “Life-long Republican” meant to her — by supporting Democrat Bill Owens.

Scozzafava dropped out after Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman experienced a late-in-the-game surge. The move was expected to consolidate GOP voters behind Hoffman on Tuesday.

But on Sunday, Scozzafava issued a written statement in which she backed Democrat Bill Owens.

As Ed Morrissey and many others pointed out,

Doesn’t this prove the point conservatives had been making about Dede Scozzafava all along?

Why, yes. Yes it does.

As you can imagine, all of these various pieces have shook up the polling. The only one I’ve seen – post Dede – is one from PPP.

In a three way contest with Democrat Bill Owens and Republican Dede Scozzafava Hoffman leads with 51% to 34% for Owens and 13% for Scozzafava. In a head to head contest with Owens Hoffman holds a 54-38 advantage.

In other words, it’s a toss-up. What? That’s what Mike Allen suggested on Morning Joe.

The claim by Allen, Politico’s chief political correspondent, was so absurd that, on the spot, host Joe Scarborough offered 3:1 odds to Allen and anyone else wanting to place a few kopeks on Dem Bill Owens.

The real poll is tomorrow. Along with the governorships in NJ and VA it should be an interesting 48 hours.

I’ve spent a good part of the day working on Reclaim Conservatism. Please go over there and let us know what you think of the new theme.

Reclaim Conservatism is a group blog focused on the conservative core principles and positive action.

If you would like to contribute over there, drop me a line at lakelandjim at gmail dot com. Even if you don’t want to add your own posts, you can always add your comments.

I’ve made the decision to move bRight@Night from 11:00pm to 10:00pm every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. 11:00 was just too late! It’s not considered good form to start getting sleepy while you’re in the middle of a radio show. That should be fixed now.

Now I need you to tune in to the show. You can set a reminder at the bRight@Night Show Page.

Now I need to ask what you would like to hear on the show, or who? I’d like to hear from you in the comments.

A few weeks ago I shared the news that I had lost everything on my hard drive (making me the poster boy for those who don’t do backups like they should). I’m still a bit sick about all the pictures I’ve lost (although I have recovered all those I lost that I had posted here on the site), but my biggest concern, moving forward, was how to replace the programs I lost.

Fortunately, for nearly every program out there, an open source equivalent exists. Many, if not most, of them are very robust and every bit as usable as their commercial counterparts.

Web Page Design — Amaya

Amaya is an open source editor from W3Schools.com

Amaya is a Web editor, i.e. a tool used to create and update documents directly on the Web. Browsing features are seamlessly integrated with the editing and remote access features in a uniform environment. This follows the original vision of the Web as a space for collaboration and not just a one-way publishing medium.

Productivity Tools — Open Office

A complete suite of tools that compete well with the products that cost serious money. Here’s what you get:

• Writer — A very full featured Word Processor/Desktop Publisher.
• Calc — I’m a numbers geek. Can’t help it. Calc is a spreadsheet program that does everything I need it to do.
• Impress — This is a program for creating multimedia presentations. It’s not one I use a lot, but it’s nice to have it in the tool bag if I need it.
• Draw — It’s a drawing program. I need to use it a bit more before I can say anything about it.
• Base — A database program. Again, I haven’t given this a good test drive.

Suite!

Graphics — Gimp

An open source graphic manipulation tool. The learning curve is just a little bit steeper than I would like, but I’m learning. I’ve been using PaintShop Pro for years, and this is going to take a while to get used to, but I do like it so far.

On a side note, the www.gimp.org site appears to be down right now, but I’m sure it’s only temporary.

I’ve also tried Inkscape, but didn’t like it very well.

Well, that’s how things stand today. Do you use any open source programs? What are your thoughts? Any suggestions?

Following the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama for his incredible record of, well, nothing, I pointed to an article in The American Spectator by Jeffry Lord. In the article he suggested that a real peace prize should be created and awarded in the name of someone who actually promoted peace and liberty around the world — Ronald Reagan.

The hard cold facts of history illustrate that the peace through strength policies initiated by President Reagan were a success. His belief in the importance of human freedom, in directly opposing tyranny and protecting liberty, combined with the maintenance and, when needed, projection of a strong military, ended the Cold War and the “evil empire” that was the Soviet Union. Reagan’s strategy freed millions of East Europeans enslaved since the end of the Second World War, which in turn was brought on by the inexcusably wrong-headed, naive if well-intentioned policies of one Nobel Peace Prize winner after another.

Jeffery has taken this idea and begun action to create Ronald Wilson Reagan Prize for Peace.

Bookmark the site, and follow future announcements on Twitter and Facebook.

Spread the word. Hit the “Retweet” button in the upper right corner. Thanks!

The internet turns 40 today.

At 2100, on 29 October 1969, engineers 400 miles apart at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and Stanford Research Institute (SRI) prepared to send data between the first nodes of what was then known as Arpanet.

It got the name because it was commissioned by the US Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (Arpa).

The fledgling network was to be tested by Charley Kline attempting to remotely log in to a Scientific Data Systems computer that resided at SRI.

Kline typed an “L” and then asked his colleague Bill Duvall at SRI via a telephone headset if the letter had arrived.

It had.

Kline typed an “O”. Duvall said that arrived too.

Kline typed a “G”. Duvall could only report that the system had crashed.

I haven’t researched it, but I think that sometime in the few days following this event a message went out inviting readers to “add fuel to your love-rocket.”