Saturday, February 19, 2005

Rumsfeld delievers a smackdown

Hoystory points out a little exchange between Donald Rumsfeld and Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) in which Sanchez tried to score some points and instead ended up looking like a blithering idiot. Check it out.

posted at 07:31 PM | permalink | Comments (0)

Friday, February 18, 2005

The end times are near

In one of the clear signs that the apocalypse is upon us, Ellen Goodman has written a column in which I find little room for disagreement.

The column, which appeared in today's Seattle Times, discusses the ramifications of last month's elections upon the women of Iraq, and what might happen under Sharia in Iraq, if the Shiite majority government decides that they wish to impose it. She points out that Sharia is not quite as inflexible as most believe, and believes that Iraq's thirty-plus years of relatively equal treatment of women has created a society that will not turn back the clock. She's convincing, and although she warns that some conservative clerics will try to impose fundamentalist laws upon the population, she sounds like she's confident that things are looking up in Iraq. It's certainly worth the read.

posted at 08:16 PM | permalink | Comments (0)

Monday, February 14, 2005

Froogle—Not ready for Prime Time

Google's shopping search engine is a neat idea, but it still has a few bugs to work out. Check out the sixth result on this page (number 26 overall) for someone searching for Mcclintock tobacco. Froogle found the first word in this post, and the second word in this post, from a few days earlier. It also found "$1.00/pack" in that second post, which it assigned as the cost for the product, which is rather cheap for premium tobacco. Apparently the shopper thought so, since he followed the link to my site. I don't have any ads at all on my site; I don't think a small weblog is an appropriate sales venue. I'm a little surprised that I showed up as a result for a shopping search engine.

posted at 08:37 PM | permalink | Comments (0)

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Stupid Letters

Today's letters to the Seattle Times contain an interesting letter. I find it interesting because some of the left's biases and preconceptions are contained within.

The Republicans did not demand "perfection in the process" when their candidate Dino Rossi was in the lead in the governor's race ("GOP lawsuit makes vote observer famous," page one, Feb. 4).

If Rossi had been sworn in as governor instead of Christine Gregoire, would the Republicans have ever bothered to dig up every error in the election process? Or would they even now be telling the Democrats to stop whining and investigating and just accept a done deal?

I think it is good for our state that the Republicans lost the governor's race, because their investigation and uproar will ensure changes. But the most sensible thing to do about the problems they have publicized is not to hold another election now, which will have its own problems and start its own round of wrangling.

What we need to do is make the changes in our election process that will make it work better next time. It will never work perfectly.

But if we're lucky, the Republicans will lose again, and force some more improvements.

I'll address the factual error first, since the letter writer labors under the common leftist misconception that the GOP wasn't pursuing fraudulent votes until after Gregoire was declared the winner. A quick check of the November and December timelines at Sound Politics will reveal that the Republicans WERE investigating fraudulent votes even before the hand count proceeded, and had found conclusive evidence of fraud before the hand count was completed. It intensified as the counties finally released the actual voter lists, rather than simple numbers by precinct. Of course, since the Times and the P-I have both been quite negligent in reporting the myriad problems, it's possible that she simply was unaware of any activities prior to the certification.

Of course, she's against the recount, because it's highy likely that her preferred candidate won't win. (If the letter doesn't make it clear enough, she's a professional activist, allied with homeless and other "progressive" causes; she also champions terrorist enabler Lori Berenson on her website.) Fraudulent votes don't matter if the "right" candidate won.

The most telling line, however, is the last, in which she implies that the Republicans need to lose again in order to enable further reform. It's sad to see a staunch supporter of the left admit that only the Republican Party is interested in fixing the broken election system here in Washington state.

Somehow, I don't think that is what she was trying to convey in her little missive, but that's what I came away with. Maybe it's our fundamental differences in mindset. I believe in prosecuting ALL fraudulent voters, even the husband who sent in his dead wife's absentee ballot (allegedly for Rossi). Fraud is always wrong, regardless of the reasoning behind it.

posted at 11:46 AM | permalink | Comments (1)

Something to ponder

I received this from a friend of mine recently. He is currently deployed on a naval vessel. I have redacted a few details to provide some privacy to the individual involved, but otherwise left it unedited. I present it without comment.

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Something happened out here the other day that really gave me a lot to think about. [A few days ago] we were sleeping at around 2 am, when the alarm went off for a Man Overboard; since none was scheduled for that night, it was obviously the real deal. As the whole boat rushed to our mustering stations, still only about half awake, we were told that a strobe, which is worn on the flight deck uniform, was seen flashing in the water. About 10 minutes into the muster we then heard over the 1MC (Loudspeaker) that there was a medical emergency in the [deleted] berthing. We all just thought that someone had slipped or tripped and fell. But as the muster continued and we found that the entire boat was accounted for, we thought that maybe someone had dropped their strobe in the water and not wanted to say anything. So we all just dragged back to bed grumbling about having to wake up and muster for what was no more than a drill.

Yesterday we were informed that a [crewmember] had attempted to commit suicide by taking the majority of a bottle of sleeping pills, hence the medical emergency. When [he/she] wasn't at muster they sent someone to go get [the crewmember, who] was found unconscious in [his/her] rack. They rushed [him/her] to medical and flew [him/her] off the boat to the hospital in Hawaii the next day. Had it not been for the man overboard, [he/she] would have died. I can only hope [he/she] takes advantage of this chance given [him/her].

Oh and did I mention that all of the flight deck strobes were accounted for when an inventory was taken?

Can you really believe it was a coincidence that at that specific time a strobe was spotted and a man overboard was called? Something for put some thought into wouldn't you say? I sure am, that's why I'm sending this to you all.

posted at 09:00 AM | permalink | Comments (0)