Saturday, November 9, 2002
Another Krugman Fisking
Glen Johnstone over at Velvet Hammers throws his hat into the ring, dissecting another of Paul Krugman's diatribes about the eeeeevul Republicans, and how the Democrats were cheated out of the election. Check it out.
 posted at 12:57 PM |  permalink | Comments (0)
Thursday, November 7, 2002
Absentee Ballots...
...seem to be the Republican Party's ace-in-the-hole.
The Albuquerque Journal reports that Rep. Heather Wilson, who was trailing by as mush as 8% on election night, has won her race, due to the large number of absentee ballots cast for her.
The GOP has traditionally led the Democratic Party in absentee balloting, (due in part to the high percentage of military absentee votes), but she received 15,000 more absentee votes than did her opponent. That is a staggering number for a congressional race.
Similarly, Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-TX), won his contest, after receiving a 21,000 vote advantage over his challenger, according to this report in the San Antonio News-Express.
I know of these results because both of the winners were Republican incumbents, rather than challengers. I wonder how many challengers won on the strength of absentee ballots, and I wonder if they will affect the totals in the close races for the senate in South Dakota, and the Gubernatorial races in Oregon, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Alabama, where the GOP candidates trail by small margins.
posted at 06:28 PM | permalink | Comments (2)
Vote early and often...
In a poll at the San Francisco Chronicle's website, The Chronic asks its readers "Why did the Republicans regain control of the Senate?" The choices are:
A. Good Policies on Iraq, taxes
B. Bush's nonstop campaigning
C. Democrats couldn't find a message
D. Voters massively deluded
This being San Francisco, of course the leading answer is currently "D". Let's freak out the crazed lefties in the Bay area and make "A" the winner.
(The poll is on the right side of the page, underneath the "Day In Pictures" and "Personal Shopper" section).
UPDATE—The poll was yesterday's; it's gone now. Oh, well.
posted at 04:52 PM | permalink | Comments (0)
The Last Page hits a homer
Page, over at The Last Page, has a twisted sense of humor. I like that sort of thing. Her takes on Election Night (and the morning after) in the newsroom of a nameless major paper in a large metropolitan area are absolutely hilarious. Check them out; start here, then go here. Make sure you are not eating or drinking anything that you don't want on your screen/keyboard before you begin.
(Note: This is the first post in which I have boldfaced the links. We'll see how this works).
posted at 01:06 PM | permalink | Comments (4)
Wednesday, November 6, 2002
Did anyone notice...
Buried in all the debate about the ramifications of the election was what happened in Georgia.
I know that everybody knows that the Dems had a major meltdown in the state; the Gov, Senator, Speaker of the (state) House, and assorted others lost (and lost big in some cases), but nobody has thought about the reason. Did anyone consider "blowback"? Georgia's voters may not be as stupid as the state Democratic Party thought they were.
Sure, the whole "blowback" thing has been debated to death over the Wellstone fiasco, but is this a case of just desserts? After all, it was only a few months ago that the Georgia Democratic party was busy gerrymandering the congressional districts all over the place. The Georgia redistricting was flat out the most nakedly partisan redistricting plan in the country (even more so than the maps in Florida and Pennsylvania), and it came back and bit them in the tuckus. Remember, they managed to put Barr and Linder (both Republicans) AND Chambliss and Kingston (also both Republicans) into shared districts, in a state that GAINED two seats! Nobody else was quite that obvious, and the only other states that put two politicians into one district were states that lost seats.
I noticed that Barnes wasn't on anybody's radar for "in trouble", and the worries about Cleland and some of the congressional Dem candidates were fairly muted. Did everyone miscalculate the races that badly? I find it hard to believe that nobody had a clue that Barnes was going down, as it wasn't even close. And the guy who ran the whole show, the speaker of the (state) house, had served in that post (28 years) than any speaker, in any state, in this country's history.
I think the Dems really fornicated the canine in Georgia; not only did they help the GOP get rid of loose cannon Bob Barr (he was good on privacy rights, but he was still a nutjob), but by eliminating Chambliss's district, they encouraged him to run against Cleland, instead of staying in the House. I wonder if the GOP would have been able to recruit a top-tier candidate for the Senate if the Dems had been less partisan.
posted at 05:03 PM | permalink | Comments (2)
Tuesday, November 5, 2002
U.S. kills Cole suspect
CNN ran this story about the chief suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000; apparently, we killed him, along with several of his terrorist buds.
If you are a terrorist, we will find you. This is not the Clinton administration; we're serious now.
posted at 07:02 AM | permalink | Comments (0)
Monday, November 4, 2002
Question to my readers
After seeing one blogger make a note on his site, and after receiving an e-mail about the topic, I have to ask my readers: Do you dislike the way I handle links on my site?
Many sites use a striking color difference, or boldface type, or underlines, to indicate links. My blog is a bit more subtle; the links are a different color, but it is close to the color of the rest of the text (It is actually the same shade of bugundy as the background). It has been my observation that radically different colors, typefaces, or underlines detract from the readability of a post, and I prefer something that is easy to read. In any case, my links are fairly obvious; the words ""this", "here", "post" or "link" will almost invariably harbor a link.
My question is: should I leave the site as-is, or should I change it, and if so, how? (Note: I am talking about how I deal with links, not content or style changes!)
UPDATE: 07Nov2002/1:12 PM—I have decided to try boldfacing the links to highlight them, as per the suggestions of some of the responses. The burgundy color will distinguish them from simple boldface emphasis, which I will attempt to keep to a minimum. Let me know if this is better or worse than the old method.
posted at 07:07 PM | permalink | Comments (10)
Worthy Cause
I nornally don't post links to commercial sites, but I'll make an exception for this one. Campbell's Soup and the NFL are teaming up to "tackle hunger".
All you need to do is click on the link below (takes you to the Campbell's Chunky soup page) and click on the helmet of the team you like the best.
Campbell's is donating a can of soup (up to 5 million) to area food banks just by clicking on a helmet at their website. It's quick, easy and can be done once a
day.
Click for cans
Sorry but you cannot donate more than one can of Campbells soup on behalf of your team each day. There is a limit of one click per day, per visitor.
But please come back again tomorrow to click on your teams helmet and help us as we continue Tackling Hunger across America.
posted at 06:40 PM | permalink | Comments (0)
Another Islamikazi
MSNBC reports that another suicide bomber has detonated, this time in a crowded shopping center in central Israel, near the West Bank.
This comes as a no-confidence vote in the Knesset is scheduled. Somehow I doubt that this is likely to change any wavering votes; in fact, I would imagine that it would strengthen the resolve of the Israelis, but then again, it is just another of a mind-numbing number of similar attacks.
The Palestinians continue this inexcusably barbaric behavior, and then get all indignant and outraged when supporters of the Israeli people call them barbaric. Calling a spade a spade is not an outrage; justifying genocide (as the Palestinians are attempting) is obscene.
In other news, Amnesty International accuses Israel of "war crimes" for its actions in Jenin and Nablus earlier this year, recycling the same discredited stories that even the UN refused to swallow. Maybe they felt a need to "balance" their coverage, since they finally issued a condemnation of Palestinian crimes. Must make sure that the Israelis get two or three demerits for every Palestinian black mark.
posted at 05:51 PM | permalink | Comments (0)
Sunday, November 3, 2002
Redirect
I've not had much to say recently. (I'm feeling a bit blah, which is part of the problem). Susanna Cornett, on the other hand, has a lot to say. Yesterday, she excoriated a "non-partisan" spin factory, provided a handy translation of a morbidly stupid Arab news article, and generally had a good time. Start here, and scroll down.
posted at 02:42 PM | permalink | Comments (1)
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