Pete The Elder

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October 31, 2004

Ah Crap!

It looks I was wrong and that the SOB is still breathing as of a few days ago. Damn. At least we can hope that Arafat may die any day now and be gald that Castro is in a lot of pain.

Posted by Pete at 08:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 29, 2004

Age and Leadership

Here are some good brief descriptions of the elder and younger Pitts and the elder and younger Plinys.

One weird thing about our current political system compared to other political systems of the past is how it favors the old. Bush and Kerry are both in their fifties and our youngest presidents have all been in their forties. Our constitution does not even allow people under the age of 35 to become president. Pitt the Younger first became Prime Minister of England at 24 and remained prime minister for 14 years. Alexander the Great and other extremely skilled world leaders have been as young. But now all the world leaders are old. If you were to suggest to most Americans today that a 24 year old should be the leader of a major empire or country you would probably be laughed at. This is true despite the fact that history has shown in many instances that the young can lead great nations as well as the old. There are probably several reasons for this change such as an aging world population, far less responsibility placed on or expected of the young which results in delayed maturity, and a greater emphasis on experience and expertise, both of which require age. The only recent cases where this trend has probably not been true is with revolutionaries, which allow for young leaders like the twin boys in Myanmar that were only about 12 and leading a rebellion.

Posted by Pete at 12:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 28, 2004

Rawhide

You may have seen the Edwards video where he preens his hair for about half an hour and whips out a compact. You may have seen the Bush video where he gives the one finger victory salute (a phrase that I hope makes Bartletts) to the camera.

But you probably have not seen the two videos edited together while the Blues Brothers version of Rawhide plays in the background. (via the Kerry spot)

For some reason I suspect many Bush voters find both videos funny and many Kerry voters will say the first one is unfair, while hating Bush all the more for his salute video. I have said before conservatives are better able to laugh at themselves than liberals are.

Posted by Pete at 03:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Family Political Trends

I have always found studies and polls like this to be odd because they differ so much from my own experience. (via best of the web)

You can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends. Still, Americans tend to share the partisan affiliation of both relatives and buddies. An Oct. 12 Harris Poll found only 15% of Republicans come from Democratic families and just 12% of Democrats have Republican relatives. People are even more likely to hang out with others who share their political views: Just 10% of Dems say that most of their friends are Republicans. And a mere 14% of GOPers break bread most often with Dems.

My mom tells me she has voted for every Democrat nominee for president since she has been old enough to vote, which I think means since LBJ ran for president. I have voted for every Republican candidate since I have been old enough to vote (that is Dole once, Bush twice). My dad never tells who he votes for, but I suspect he is a Reagan Democrat and do not know who he will vote for this year. My wife is a Republican and just voted for Bush a few minutes ago thanks to early voting, but we are Republicans for different reasons, with my wife being a social conservative and I being more of an economic and defense conservative. The friends thing is a bit more like my experience and I think most of my friends are Republicans, but definitely not all of them and probably not even a large majority of them.

Posted by Pete at 03:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 27, 2004

Party in Dallas

I am philosophically opposed to voting for judges and think they should be appointed instead of elected. But I look forward to voting for this judge if I ever get the chance (via Best of the Web). One more reason to love Texas is that we have judges like this.

Posted by Pete at 03:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Climate of Fear Part 8

We now have the first assassination attempt of this election by a Democrat against a Republican office holder. The smoking gun reports that Barry Seltzer, a registered Democrat, attempted to run over Republican congresswoman Kathleen Harris of Florida and several of her fellow Republicans with his car (via drudge).

Previous climate of fear posting.

Posted by Pete at 02:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Democrats Exploiting School Children

If this story I just saw on Instapundit is true, every teacher and administrator involved should be fired. They are getting public school children to participate in get out the vote campaigns in heavily Democrat areas of Wisconsin during the school day. They are using tax dollars and not teaching kids to help elect Democrats.

I was part of a legitimate civics event when I was in high school. It was voluntary and occurred after school hours and only involved doing manual labor at the place they counted all the votes at. I stuck the punch cards into the machine that counted them for a few hours. No party or candidate benefited from my and my fellow students actions. And it did not take any time away from school.

Update: Other bloggers had pointed this out before, but Kerry has a history of wanting to force teenagers into involuntary servitude. Although Bush has always been opposed to required national "service", Kerry at one time supported it and may still today. He has removed this mention of support from his web page and does not talk about it anymore, but here is the relevant archived excerpt: As part of his 100 day plan to change America, John Kerry will propose a comprehensive service plan that includes requiring mandatory service for high school students and four years of college tuition in exchange for two years of national service.

Posted by Pete at 09:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

John Kerry and Most Extreme Elimination Challenge

I got home last night around the middle of the eighth inning of the world series game and turn on the tv so I could watch the last few innings of the game. During the commercials I started flipping in between the game and Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, the Japanese show where they torture people through dangerous stunts. I am watching this and all of a sudden a John Kerry commercial comes on that says that George Bush has personally shipped 10 million jobs over seas or something like that. There has to be some irony in the fact that I am watching an imported television show (one that could have been made by American workers dammit!) while John Kerry complains about the global economy.

It is sometimes frustrating that I live in Texas, a very red state, and my vote will not have much effect on the election. On the other hand this is the first Kerry commercial I have seen all year. And I have only seen about three or four Bush commercials. I suspect that I would be subjected to a lot more if I lived in a state like Ohio, where my vote would have counted more. I have hated political commercials since I had to watch Diane Feinstein talk about the death of the mayor of San Francisco over and over again. Everybody who lived in California when Feinstein was running for statewide office around fifteen years ago (and maybe to this day) was subjected to these endlessly repeating commercials about how the mayor of San Francisco had been shot and because of this for some reason we should vote for Feinstein. Ever since then I have wondered why political commercials suck so much. Without knowing anything about Feinstein I decided never to vote for her because I could not watch TV without being annoyed by her disturbing commercial.

How come they can make entertaining commercials for so many other crappy products, but for something as important as a political race they seem to go low budget and annoying? I hardly ever hate beer or car commercials. I have never seen a political ad that made me vote for a candidate or issue, but besides the Feinstein add there have been some that caused me to vote against the candidate running the add. The other one like this I remember was an Ed Garza (current mayor of San Antonio) negative ad from about four years ago that accused his opponent of running a negative ad campaign. I chose to vote against Garza as soon as the ad was done because if running a negative ad was as bad as Garza was claiming, then I should vote against Garza who I knew had run a negative ad, while I did not know that for sure about his opponent.

Posted by Pete at 08:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 25, 2004

Libertarians: Huh? Part 2

This shows that not all Libertarians are nuts. John Hospers was the first Libertarian candidate for president back in 1972 and he is voting for Bush this year. He knows that there are major differences between the two major candidates and parties and that the issues this year are important enough not to vote for a third party. He is particularly disturbed by the violent acts of Kerry supporters this year and the lack of any Kerry condemnation and media reporting of this violence.

I would say this is the criteria for determining if third party members are not nuts is if they deny there is a difference between the two major parties. If they dispute how important these differences are or say they can not go against their core principles and must vote third party, then they are probably not nuts. I had a conversation with a Green a few months ago and a Libertarian a few days ago who both said that there was no difference between Kerry and Bush. This despite the fact that if Kerry had been president the past four years, Hussein would still be in power, there would have been no tax cuts, no no child left behind, no insert most/least favorite Bush policy/appointment here, etc.

There are three basic responses of third party members to this statement. An idealistic third party member will say that may all be true, but sticking to my principles like eliminating all income taxes (Libertarian) or eliminating all SUVs (Green) is more important. A pragmatic third party says these differences may all be true and say, like Hospers does, that convincing people will take years and in the mean time this current election is too important not to vote for one of the two major candidates. A deluded third party member says that there is no difference and you are fooling yourself if you think there is.

The idealist and pragmatic are worth listening to and may even convince some people to agree with them. The deluded one will likely convince no one because they usually do not understand that people honestly disagree with them because they can not even see that people as different as Bush and Kerry disagree with each other in significant ways. There are deluded people of all political stripes who do not understand how any one could disagree with them unless it is because they are ignorant (sheeple) or evil (Bush is Hitler!!!). I once had a conversation with someone who argued that all opposition to Israel was anti-Semitic. I agreed that much, if not most, of the opposition was anti-Semitic, but I could imagine many situations where this was not true such as a dislike for the west or democracies in general. That was not good enough for him. It all had to be because of anti-Semitism. Whatever you believe do not be delusional about it or about what other people believe.

Libertarians: Huh? Part 1

Posted by Pete at 07:50 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

The Insider and Bias

For all the recent talk about CBS and Rather, one thing that was not talked about much was the movie The Insider. I had never seen it before and finally got a chance to watch it a few weekends ago. I have no idea how accurate the movie was to real life and although it tries to be complex, the main hero played by AL Pacino is a heroic leftist producer at 60 Minutes who strives only for the truth about tobacco, while everyone else at 60 Minutes seems to care most about covering their ass. Pacinos character is a bit complex as he tries to get information from Russell Crowe, while still protecting his source. All in all a decent, if predictable, movie that was very well directed.

The funniest part is the one mention of Dan Rather is a joke at his expense about how he is complaining about his chair again. In all the talk about the truth and making sure the news tells the truth, Rather is not mentioned even though pretty much every other prominent CBS news person is. As liberal a film as The Insider is, it does not make Dan Rather seem any more serious than the profile put forth in Bias by Bernard Goldberg another major work about CBS that was largely not talked about much during the height of the Rather forged document controversy.

I read Bias over a year ago and Goldberg's thesis was that CBS in particular is biased in how they present the news because they do not know any better. Their news producers, writers, and reporters are liberal and when doing stories look for the angle that is most familiar to them. His original critique was that in a story about Steve Forbes and the flat tax the reporter got lots of damning quotes from opponents of the idea and ridiculed the idea as too risky to try in America first. The reporter did not even make an attempt to get the other side of the story, even though there are several very respected economists who support the idea. These include Nobel prize winners in economics who think the idea of a flat tax is a good idea for the United States. Goldberg claims it is not through malice but through ignorance that reporters are biased and that the lack of conservative voices in the news room means there is no check or balance of liberal perspective. Goldberg describes Rather as a prima donna unable to handle dissent or criticism. This seems accurate in light of Rathers reaction to critics when caught in a lie about Bush and even seems to fit the brief description of him in The Insider. Whether the decision to use such suspect documents in the first place was done because of malice or ignorance is less clear.

Posted by Pete at 04:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 24, 2004

Stage Fright

I do not particularly like to speak in public, but I have done it several times and never ran off the stage in a panic or froze or anything. I do not think I am necessarily bad at public speaking and have given what I thought were a few good speaches at work and for classes before. But I would not even think of running for a public office that required me to speak in public if I had bad stage fright. Apparently this woman running for congress in Indiana does have bad stage fright and did not figure out that she would have to speak in public until it was too late. (via drudge) I feel a little bit sorry for her since I know what she was feeling, but what the heck was she thinking when she decided to run for congress where its your job to speak in public and debate?

Posted by Pete at 05:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Climate of Fear Part 7

After people have repeatedly threatened the Multnomah County Republican office in Portland with violence and eventually smashed the offices windows the executive director of the Oregon Democrat Party had this to say: But the fact is that the reason the Republican Party is feigning righteous indignation is because they don't want to talk about the 30,000 jobs lost and the 180,000 Oregonians who have lost health care.

There have also been smashed windows in a Flagstaff Republican office.

In Florida Democrats physically stopped Republicans from voting.

And to throw in one last comment on the civility of the left, here is a quote yearning for someone to murder Bush from the Guardian: The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?

Previous Climate of Fear post

Update: For a more humorous take on this disturbing trend a Slate reporter went into Kerry country with a Bush T-shirt on and into Bush country with a Kerry T-shirt. (via dangerous dan) He was sworn at in Kerry country and people in Bush country for the most part ignored him. Slate has slowly replaced Salon as my source for a liberal perspective on things because of stories like this. A reporter suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome (of which Salon is in full outbreak) would not have had the guts or insight to do the Bush Shirt part.

Posted by Pete at 03:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 22, 2004

Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Israel

So now the Presbyterian Church USA is sending deligates to meet with Hezbollah (via junk yard blog). This is after the Presbyterian Church decided to divest from Israel. According to this article the Anglican Church is probably also going to divest from Israel. I already left the Episcopal church for other reasons, but my reasons end up being not that different from why this frustrates me. The Anglican Church (at least in England and the US) seems more interested in jumping on whatever left wing ideology is in vogue this week than it is in sticking to biblical principals when they are unpopular. I spent the first eighteen years of my life as an Episcopalian, but am more sure now than I was when I left the church that I made the right decision.

Posted by Pete at 09:59 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Make Every Properly Cast Vote Count

Dangerous Dan makes a point I agree with:

I’ve made the point several times that the electorate’s confidence in the overall elections process is paramount. Nobody, though, is going to trust a bunch of potentially hackable 1’s and 0’s in a close election. You’ve GOT to have a paper trail. It’s only a matter of time before the lack of one is going to turn into a huge scandal and then everyone will be asking why such an obvious measure was taken in the first place. And it will a darn good question to ask.

That is very obvious and no more difficult to create than a bank ATM receipt.

You would think that both sides would want to make sure every properly cast ballot was counted and that they would want the person with the most properly casts votes to win, but that is not so. From this quote in a recent John Goldberg column about voter responsibility it seems not every one is interested in making sure that who people vote for even matters:

"You heard it right here," Holder responded coldly. "If every vote is allowed to be cast and every vote is counted, John Kerry will be president." That means it is irrelevant who people actually vote for. It is assumed they voted for Kerry until proven otherwise.

Maybe some years it will be Republicans acting this dirty, but this year it is Democrats who seem not to care how they win as long as they win the Presidency. I hope that whoever wins, wins by a wide margin so we do not have another Florida 2000 or that whoever loses if it is close has as much class as Nixon and accepts it. Unfortunately, I doubt Kerry has as much class as Nixon.

Posted by Pete at 08:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Libertarians: Huh?

I do not get Libertarians. This is odd since for the most part that is how I would classify myself. I think the federal government should probably be about a quarter of the size it is today and taxes should be about a third of what they are. I would eliminate entire cabinet level departments if I had the chance along with many federal programs. And yet my reaction to libertarians is similar to this emailer to instapundit from yesterday:

I would like you to explain a little more on your impressions of libertarianism. I consider myself a libertarian, and not just because of my name. But listening to the libertarian party today leaves me with one reaction. Huh?

Their isolationist stance on security and foreign policy just doesn't make any sense in today's world. It is like surrending for the sake of liberty, which means liberty would end.

Huh? is about the same reaction I have. I disagree with their isolationism and the defense department is the one department that I would not cut back. We have governments to provide for our common defense before all other things and to maintain order. But libertarianism has gone beyond putting government in its proper place to anarchy, with no room for defense or any semblance of order producing laws. Obsessions about the constitutionality of drivers licenses or the income tax show how unserious libertarians as a party and as a group are about actually changing things. There are lots of issues they could be talking about like the war on drugs and eminent domain where libertarians have a chance to convince enough people that less government involvement is appropriate and that there is a chance to actually change government policy in these areas if they worked hard enough and built enough coalitions. But most libertarians seem to prefer to debate the whole big picture philosophy and obtain pure libertarian thought rather than to see any results in public policy if it means any sort of compromise from this goal. That is why there presidential candidate tries to get himself arrested for not having a drivers license instead of focusing on issues most normal people care about and acts in a way (no respect for the law) that drives most normal law abiding citizens away.

Earlier in the same instapundit post Reynolds linked to this post at Reason about libertarian leaning people and presidential elections. Many of the commentators looked down their noses at people who voted regularly for president and said it did not matter, they all always suck except libertarian. I am sure that it may make them feel real good about themselves and it shows why libertarians are great at debating, but are lousy at actually making a difference in the world and changing anything.

Posted by Pete at 08:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 21, 2004

Prey

I finished listening to Prey by Michael Chricton yesterday and it was better than I expected, but not very believable from a scientific standpoint. The basic story is that a tech company designs a genetically engineered nanotech swarm camera that gets a mind of its own and goes on a killing spree. The swarms are dangerous because of a combination of genetic engineering, nonotechnology, and artificial intelligence. Chrictons greatest strength as a writer is that he does his homework and knows which details his readers will usually find the most interesting about the historical period or technological advancement his stories revolve around. This is the case here and he does a good job focusing on the science of evolutionary theory, nanotechnology basics, and artificial intelligence based on animal and group behavior.

His weakness as a writer is his paranoia about new technology and large institutions like corporations. Before you pick up a Chricton novel set in modern times you know the main bad guys will probably be working for a corporation or a government entity. The same is true here with a corporation that works on secret projects for the defense department. His second major flaw is that he is always extremely pessimistic to a point of near hysteria about whatever he is writing about. In this case it is nanotechnology that will destroy mankind. Glenn Reynolds agrees here about the movie version of Prey not being helpful to the cause of nanotechnology or reasoned debate. I personally am fairly neutral on the subject of nanotechnology.

These trends seem to be true for each Chricton book set in modern times that I have read. In Rising Sun it was an evil Japanese corporation and paranoia about how the Japanese would own all of the US by now. In Airframe it was an evil American corporation and paranoia about air flight deregulation and that by now commercial passenger jets would be falling out of the sky on a monthly basis. In Jurassic Park it was evil and misguided corporations and fears about cloning. Chricton has cried wolf too many times for me to take his dire predictions very seriously, but his novels are still fairly entertaining quick reads and you usually learn something.

Posted by Pete at 09:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Voter Responsibility

George Will has a good column on voter responsibilities today. He thinks tha voters are responisble for filing out their ballot correctly. He talks a lot about the problems with assuming people do not mean to leave votes blank. I have intentionally left votes blank before when i did not like any of my choices.

I loved his conclusion: Imagine that: Voters are responsible for proving who they are and knowing where they are supposed to vote. There will be charges that both rulings permit "intimidation," which in today's liberal lexicon is a synonym for linking rights to responsibilities

Posted by Pete at 08:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 20, 2004

Picture of the Day

The Villiage Voice currently has a picture of George Bush sucking the blood out of the Statue of Libertys neck as its main web page picture. It reminds me of the editorial catoons from The Onion book Our Dumb Century. For each war they would have a picture of Germans or Soviets or whoever savagely raping lady liberty. The Village Voice is now in full Bush tin foil hat rage mode and has crossed over into parody.

Update: Dan has the Onion and Voice pictures scanned here.

Posted by Pete at 07:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Jimmy Carter and the American Revolution Part 2

I have done some reading on other blogs and history sites and have found that the American Revolution was less bloody than I realized. The total number combat deaths of revolutionaries was somewhere between 2,200-4,435. The 4,435 stat comes from the civil war center (via lgf) and the 2,200 comes from the corner. Either number is less than I thought it would be and it makes Carters statement even more mystifyingly dumb. That makes the revolution more bloody (at least for our side in terms of total combat deaths) than the War of 1812, Mexican War, Spanish-American War, the first Gulf war, or the current Iraq war. It makes the revolution far less bloody than the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, or the Vietnam War.

Previous Jimmy Carter and the American Revolution post.

Update: Hindrocket at powerline has a great fisking of the entire Jimmy Carter interview.

Posted by Pete at 05:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Kerry and Tora Bora

Just One Minute has discovered another Kerry flip flop (via kausfiles). It turns out that Kerry was for Bush’s strategy in Tora Bora before he was against it. In the debates Kerry repeatedly said that he would have handled Tora Bora differently than Bush. But at the time he said the president was doing it right.

Kerry on CNN on our strategy in Afghanistan on December 14, 2001: But for the moment, what we are doing, I think, is having its impact and it is the best way to protect our troops and sort of minimalize the proximity, if you will. I think we have been doing this pretty effectively and we should continue to do it that way.

Now that it is politically convenient to criticize the president, Kerry flips by saying that we should not have followed Kerrys advice at the time and should have done it differently. That is what is most disturbing about Kerry and his indecision on major issues. He does not change his mind because he has thought about the issue and thinks it is the right thing to do. He cahges his mind because it is the political convenient thing to do. That is fine if you are a senator. It is deadly if you are the commander in chief.

Posted by Pete at 04:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Aeneid

A friend of mine came up with the same idea I had several months ago. I decided to go to the library and started checking out some great works on tape and listen to them as I drive. I had to make lots of trips to and from Houston recently by myself and that gives me close to seven hours to listen each trip plus normal driving time. I listened to the Aenied, Illiad, and Odyssey because I thought these were all intended to be listened to when they were originally written. I also listened to some other less great works like some mystery novels by Raymond Chandler and Lilian Jackson Braun, some Michael Chricton novels, and Teddy Roosevelts book The Rough Riders.

My friend liked the Aenied a lot more than I did as I only enjoyed parts of it. I thought it was good and I am glad I listened to it because I never had before and it is an important work, but I seem to like the Greek epic poems more. The Odyssey especially had a much greater emotional impact on me than the Aenied did. I have also tended to like other Greek poetry and plays more than Roman plays and poetry. Greek literature always seem to carry more of an emotional punch than Roman literature.

Posted by Pete at 09:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

UBL Dead

The Belgravia Dispatch has a good post on the timeline and authenticity of audio and video tapes featuring Bin Laden over the past four years. The last confirmed recently filmed video of Bin Laden was released in December 2001. He makes a very convincing case that I already agree with that Bin Laden is dead.

Posted by Pete at 09:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 19, 2004

Jimmy Carter and the American Revolution

One more piece of evidence from Little Green Footballs that Jimmy Carter is the most naive president ever and one of the most naive world leaders ever. Jimmy Carter comparing the current war to the American Revolution:

Well, one parallel is that the Revolutionary War, more than any other war up until recently, has been the most bloody war we’ve fought. I think another parallel is that in some ways the Revolutionary War could have been avoided. It was an unnecessary war.

Had the British Parliament been a little more sensitive to the colonial’s really legitimate complaints and requests the war could have been avoided completely, and of course now we would have been a free country now as is Canada and India and Australia, having gotten our independence in a nonviolent way.

First of the American Revolution was not the most bloody war we fought. The Civil War was far more bloody. So was World War II where we nuked two different cities, plus all the other battles like Normandy and Iwo Jima. And then there was World War I, Korea, and Vietnam all of which I would say were far more bloody than the American Revolution. Seriously, what the hell is Jimmy Carter talking about here? Has he even opened a history book?

And there would probably be no free Canada, India, or Australia if we had not revolted against the British. And there would be no free United States. We were the first colony to successfully break from our tyrant masters. The British only let any of these countries go free because of the violence we used against them first. If not for our successful example it is very likely that no other country would have been able to break free of their masters. Even with our example the Bristish barely let go of India. I am so glad Jimmy Carter only served one term, but even that was one too many.

Posted by Pete at 04:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

More Voters Than People

According to this story form the Kerry Spot there are now more registered voters in Philadelphia than there are actual people eligible to vote. For all people talk about fixing what happened in Florida in 2000 not many people seem to want to do the things that would actually fix it and other voting problems. My two quick solutions: require photo ID for people voting and if a person has not voted in the past 5 years they have to reregister or else their name is purged from the voting roles.

Update: Accoring to the Kerry Spot again in a rare showing of common sense, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that voters who do not show up to the right poling place do not get to vote there. Also in Colorado a judge ruled that voters have to show ID and show up at the right poling place to vote.

Early voting solves a lot of the poling place problems because you can early vote at any location, at least in my county. But it is not much work to figure out where you are supposed to vote and it is not too much to expect of voters that they figure this out.

Posted by Pete at 01:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The UN and Rwanda

One more reason to hate the UN. It looks like they had an employee who may have participated in the Rwanda genocide on the payroll for a year after they knew he might have murdered several people and put ihm to work in other countries where genocide was going on without figuring out if the accusations of murder were true. And they refused to prosecute him or let Rwanda have him to prosecute. He now lives in France.

Posted by Pete at 08:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 18, 2004

Don't Get Out the Vote Part 3

Now people working for the NAACP are trading crack cocaine for false voter registrations. When you pay someone a fee in crack to do something for you, there are likely to be bad consequences.

Previous Don't get out the vote posts part 1 and part 2.

Posted by Pete at 11:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Basball!

I was very disappointed in the first round of playoffs this year. My two favorite teams won a total of 1 game between the two of them. Then it looked like there could be two sweeps in the second round when New York went up 3-0 and St. Louis went up 2-0. Now New York is up only 3-2 and St. Louis is down 2-3. And both of tonights games were great tih no one scoring a run in Houston until the bottom of the ninth and the Boston game going into 14 innings.

Lennox has more on some of the series stats here and was skeptical that Boston could come back from 3-0. I do not know the record off hand, but this could be the playoffs with the most games going into extra innings since of the top of my head I know at least 4 of the games have gone into extra innings so far. And at least three of both New Yorks games and Bostons games have gone into extra innings, which may also be a record of some sort.

Posted by Pete at 10:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Legitimacy Part 2

This story from the Kerry spot is disturbing. When I registered to vote in Texas, the elections officals in California notified me a few weeks later that they were removing me from the voter rolls there. It seems that Democrat lawmakers in New York prevented reforms that would have done the same thing between New York and Florida and stopped around 46,000 people from voting in both states. That is dangerous and, like the actions in this previous post, mess with the foundations of our democratic republic. If no one believes that the elections are fair, then the system will stop working. No election is important enough to warrant this corruption.

As the Kerry spot says: Keep at it, small-minded politicians seeking to maximize voter fraud and double voting. Go ahead. See how much power any official has when nobody believes the results on Election Day. The political officials seeking to enable voter fraud have no idea how much they're playing with fire.

Posted by Pete at 10:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

War Against Sauron

The new documentary Fellowship 9/11 conclusively demonstrates that the invasion of Mordor was a scheme cooked up to enrich Aragorn's rich elf and dwarf friends. It shows that it was Sauramon, friend of Gandalf the Grey who was advising the unelected Aragorn, who attacked Helm's Deep not Sauron, so we should never have attacked the peace loving orcs in Mordor.

Posted by Pete at 03:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Early Voting

I have not liked most of the differences between voting in California and voting in Texas, but I liked early voting a lot. In California I was mailed a sample ballot a few weeks before the election and at least in my part of Texas the election officials do not do that.

I got to vote this morning and it is only October 18. This was the first time I had to wait in line for more than a minute or so since I started voting and even today I only had to wait about fifteen minutes and the place I was at is an art studio so they had lots of paintings to look at while you waited. The electronic machines are easy to use and I had used them about a year ago for another local election. I wish they had paper receipts. There was an instructor if you needed one and it was fast voting once you got going, but even though there was a line of about twenty people about half the booths were constantly empty because it took so long to get each person started up and they only had one guy doing that job. My favorite part of today was the lady who looked to be about 85 asking how to vote straight party Republican and then saying that was all she needed to do. I did a straight party Republican vote for the first time ever, but I voted for all the Democrat judges who ran unopposed and voted on the sales tax hike as well.

Posted by Pete at 03:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 15, 2004

For All My Fellow Geeks

I just saw this article about John J. Miller's love for D&D on National Review and that this Saturnday marks the 30 year aniversary of D&D. Either you are revolted by it or agree that Dungeons and Dragons is cool. I fall into the cool catagory, which shows how much of a geek I am deep down inside. My favorite quote:

Yet I've remained nostalgic about D&D. I still have a box, stashed away in the recesses of my basement, that holds a Player's Handbook, a Monster Manual, and, of course, the DMG with that big red monster on the cover. Duct tape is the only thing keeping these battered volumes together. Stuffed into the box with them are a collection of adventure modules, stacks of character sheets, and folders full of carefully drawn maps of cities, kingdoms, and worlds that have existed only in my imagination. It's a pretty big box, this one. And no — as I inform my wife every year or two — I won't get rid of it.

That's because I've long harbored a secret notion in the back of my mind: Wouldn't it be awesome to get a game going again?

I have the same notion sometimes and have recently put that notion into practice with some of my fellow geek friends.

Posted by Pete at 03:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

ABC Channels Dowd

Over at Winds of Change they have evidence that ABC dowdified a Schwartzenegger quote to make it look like Schwartzenegger was supporting Kerry when he really was criticizing him.

For those who do not know what dowdify means, it is a practice, perfected by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times on our current president, which removes crucial areas of quotes and replaces them with .... thus completly changing the meaning of terms like they or it, which in turn completely changes the meaning of what the person quoted says.

In this case ABC changed Arnolds meaning of like Kerry did from being a criticism of a mistake and being evasive into meaning being correct and straightfoward.

In the case of Dowd she famously changed Bushs meaning in saying they're not a problem anymore from they're meaning dead and captured terrorist to they're meaning not dead and not captured terrorists. As of this posting the New York TImes has still not run a correction even after being made aware of the misquote by thousands of people like myself and having many other newspapers refuse to carry Dowds column because of the lack of correction. Hopefully ABC will admit what they did and run a correction.

Update: Unlike the New York Times, ABC has issued a correction on the Schwartzenegger misquote. The Kerry spot also comments.

Posted by Pete at 10:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Today's Victor Davis Hanson

I hope Victor Davis Hanson is right today in his predictions about the majority of the American people today. My fear is that he is not and that too many are in denial of the tragedy. Here is the quote:

John Kerry is probably going to lose this election, despite the "Vote for Change" rock tour, despite Air America, despite Kitty Kelley's fraud hyped on national media, despite Soros's moveon.org hit pieces, despite Fahrenheit 9-11, despite the Nobel Prizes and Cannes Film Awards, despite Rathergate and ABC Memogate, despite the European press, despite Kofi Annan's remonstrations, despite a barking Senator Harkin or Kennedy, despite the leaks of rogue CIA Beltway insiders, despite Jimmy Carter's sanctimonious lectures, despite Joe Wilson, Anonymous, and Richard Clarke — and more. You all have given your best shot, but I think you are going to lose.

Why? Because the majority of Americans does not believe you. The majority is more likely to accept George Bush's tragic view that we really are in a war for our very survival to stop those who would kill us and to alter the landscape that produced them — a terrible war that we are winning.

By the way, Hansons book The Western Way of War was very good and I recommend it to anyone interested in military history/strategy or Ancient Greece.

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Should Bloggers Be Above the Law?

No I do not mean that Steven Segal should start blogging. Jeff Jarvis asks: Let's say you know something the government wants to know. Maybe you published it on your blog, maybe you didn't. The government subpoenas you. They go after your personal records. They use lawyers to harass you and possibly bankrupt you. They threaten you with contempt if you don't tell.

Would you go to jail for your weblog?

And if you feared you might go to jail, would you continue to go out of your way to ask tough questions, dig up sensitive information, publish controversial views, or challenge the government?

I would not go to jail. I would tell them what I knew if the law requires it. Bloggers and other journalists are not above the law. Neither is anyone else. And this has nothing to do with the First Ammendment as it provides no special rules for journalists. Jarvis is referring to Judith Miller of the New York TImes and her knowledge of leaking Plame.

My only problem with this case is that I do not think a crime was committed by revealing Plames identity since no one has demonstarted that she was a covert operative, which involves being overseas for the CIA in the past five years under cover. The law does not say it is illegal to reveal the identity of CIA employees in general.

Back to the question Jarvis posed, I think I agree with the response by Reynolds on instapundit: Contrary to frequent assertions from professional journalists, there is no special First Amendment protection for members of the press. Such protections, to the extent they exist at all, exist only as a matter of statutory or regulatory grace. Under the First Amendment, everyone enjoys the same protection as "professional journalists." Ms. Leggett probably had First Amendment grounds for refusing to turn over all of her notes, but not for refusing to testify to a grand jury, and not for refusing to make her notes available for copying (rather than seizure). Her refusal to testify may make her a heroine to journalists, but it does not make her a First Amendment heroine.

Posted by Pete at 08:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 14, 2004

A Climate of Fear Part 6

Finally a tiny break in the climate of fear as two Bush supporters set up a trap for a pro Kerry thief in Washington (via drudge). They hid out in the woods with a video camera after some of their pro Bush signs were stolen and caught someone stealing their new signs and handed him over to the police. Unfortunately one of the two Bush supporters is too fearful of reprisals against him and his property to give his name.

Previous Climate of Fear posts can be found here.

Posted by Pete at 04:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Third Debate

I did not bother to watch the debate last night. From what I read it sounds like Bush came off well, Kerry only mentioned Vietnam once, and from the debate questions I read it seems that moderator Bob Schieffer was completely in the tank for Kerry. I watched too much baseball the past few weeks and only checked on the games every once and a while.

Instead last night I watched Godfather Part II. I listened to The Godfather novel on tape a few months ago and had been meaning to watch this movie to see how it compared. I still like the first movie better, but part II is really good. Especially the flashback scenes of Vito rising to become the Godfather in the 1910s which are all taken from the book. Although the movies leave some parts of the book out they did a remarkable job of keeping the story intact. Although the present day plot in part II is good enough, I liked the complexity of the first movies plot and the character development of Michael in part I more. Tom Hagan was my favorite character the first time watching the movies, but now I find Michael and Fredo more interesting.

Right now I am uploading my final project for grad school. It is over 200 MB and my professors said I had to upload it as one file. The network I am using is not that fast and I started uploading it about two hours ago and it looks like it is about through.

Posted by Pete at 02:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Legitimacy

What the Democrats are doing now according to this Drudge Report article and other recent stories goes beyond trying to win an election and into the territory of threatening the very fabric and legitimacy of our democractic republic. I think it is very important that Bush is reelected. I think it is even more important that whoever wins this election does so in an open and honest way and that the loser accepts this and moves on to the next election. The Democrats do not seem to understand that it is sometimes less important to win a particular election than it is for the legitimacy of the government to remain intact:

VodkaPundit says it well: I don't mean to say that Republicans haven't used dirty tricks, or won't in the future. But I have yet to see them pull anything as crass as replacing a losing candidate with a more-popular one just weeks before election day, and in violation of state law. I have yet to see Republicans calling on the world's most corrupt international organization, run largely by apparatchiks from the world's most brutal dictatorships, to pass judgment on how we run our elections. I have yet to see the Republicans encouraging their own to commit fraud by shouting "Fraud!" where none yet exists, putting at risk everything we've built here in the last 228 years. Because, in the end, that's what the national Democrats are doing: They're trying, however inadvertently, to destroy the Republic in order to rule it.

Posted by Pete at 02:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Laszlo Ujhazy

I bet you do not know who Laszlo Ujhazy is, do you? I did not either until a few days ago when I learned about him doing research for a school project at the University of the Incarnate Word. Laszlo was the original owner of the property the university is now housed on and the surrounding area which is just north of downtown San Antonio.

Born in 1795, Ujhazy was at one point a member of the Hungarian Parliament and was the governor of Komarom in Hungary. They revolted against the Hapsburgs from 1848-49, but were defeated with the help of the Russians. Ujhazy was exiled after the revolt was crushed and came to America and settled in San Antonio next to Olmos Creek. Once here he kept fighting for freedom and became an abolitionist. He visited the White House several times and Lincoln made him the Consul to Ancona, Italy during the civil war here. In 1868 he was the presiding officer at the Republican Nominating Convention in San Antonio. He died in 1870.

I thought this was a cool life story and it reminds me how this city of over a million people was only farmland a hundred and fifty years ago. It is also good to know that even though Ujhazy died with his dream of a free Hungary unfulfilled, it did come true over a hundred years later. The good guys do win sometimes even if it takes awhile.

I got all this information from a card near the statue of Ujhazy located in the university library near the entrance. The correct way to spell Laszlo Ujhazy is with an accent over each vowel, except the y and I have no idea how to make those symbols with movable type.

Posted by Pete at 09:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 13, 2004

Mass Graves

This story about babies found in mass graves shows what is wrong with Kerry's vision of the world and why we must never submit our foreign policy to a global test (via lgf):

Mr Kehoe said that work to uncover graves around Iraq, where about 300,000 people are thought to have been killed during Saddam Hussein’s regime, was slow as experienced European investigators were not taking part.

The Europeans, he said, were staying away as the evidence might be used eventually to put Saddam Hussein to death.

It is after all far more important to make sure Saddam stays alive than it is to help identify his thousands of innocent infant victims.

Update: Junkyardblog has more: In Fahrenheit 9-11, Michael Moore portrays Iraq as an idyllic land where kids flew kites.

If he's right, Moore worshippers, where did all the dead babies come from? And how did they end up in mass graves?

And then there is this quote: Mr Kehoe investigated mass graves in the Balkans for five years but those burials mainly involved men of fighting age and the Iraqi finds were quite different, he said.

"I've been doing grave sites for a long time, but I've never seen anything like this, women and children executed for no apparent reason," he said.

And if Kerry and Moore had their way these graves would still be being filled, not uncovered.

Posted by Pete at 06:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Don't Get Out The Vote Part 2

One more example of the problems that occur when people do not register themselves to vote and the flaws of get out the vote efforts. The Volokh Conspiracy has two stories on how Repulicans in a Nevada voter registration effort threw out Democrat registration cards and Democratics in a Florida voter registration effort threw out Rebublican registration cards.

Previous Don't Get Out The Vote post.

Posted by Pete at 01:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Liberal vs. Conservative Humor

I am looking forward to Team America: Strike Force. A lot of leftists are not and many Hollywood celebrities seem to hate it already. They do not think it is very funny at all. Daily Kos does not find it that funny. (via Andrew Sullivan) Sean Penn does not like it either. INDC Journal dredged the depths of Democratic Underground to come with this post about how those types seem to hate the film. (also via Andrew Sullivan)

I suspect that most conservatives in modern America are able to laugh at themselves more than a lot of liberals are able to laugh at themselves. Conservatives are definitely able to laugh at themselves more than most leftists. That certainly seemed true during the second presidential debate, from what I have read about it, where Bush was quick to make self-deprecating jokes.

When The Simpsons portrays the Republican Party as meeting in a dark castle with various stereotyped members including the rich Texas guy, Count Dracula, Ranier Wolfcastle, and Krusty the Clown and they are plotting evil ways to destroy the environment, I find that very funny. I also found Sideshow Bobs tirade that Your guilty conscience makes you vote Democrat. But deep down you want a Republican to cut your taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king! to be very funny. Is there a liberal equivalent to IMAO, which does the funniest parodies of the political figures I know of? It regularly has Karl Rove stepping out of the dark shadows to give his evil advice, Bush is portrayed a cowboy barely able to pay attention to his job, and Donald Rumsfield is always about to go on a hippie killing spree. While IMAO makes fun of Kerry and other liberals it focuses most of its energy on other conservatives and sterotypes about conservatives.

Posted by Pete at 01:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Stolen Honor Part 2

Instapundit has a post with about a half a dozen updates to it on this issue.

Here is part of Reynolds take on it: I think this whole thing illustrates that campaign finance "reform" is a terrible disaster. First, it hasn't cleaned things up -- it's just produced a sub rosa battle of rich guys and interest groups. Second, it's coarsened the political dialogue even further, since candidates have some incentive to play nice, but independent groups don't. Third, controversies like these are undermining free speech. And, finally, all of this is hitting in wartime, when we don't need this kind of nastiness, etc.

The Kerry Spot has a scary quote from a Kerry campaign official about Sinclair Broadcsting: I think they're going to regret doing this and they better hope we don't win.

Posted by Pete at 09:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Yearbook Photo

Some school boards have too much time on their hands and not enough sense. This school board wants to ban a student who shoots trap and skeet from having his senior picture in the yearbook because it has a shotgun in it. It is a perfectly fine picture and the school board needs to lighten up. Because of this school board policy staement 'We encourage the use of school sponsored publications to express students' points of view. They shall be free from all policy restrictions outside the normal rules for responsible journalism.' the boy, with the help of the NRA is now sueing the school board.

Posted by Pete at 09:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Stolen Honor

For some reason liberals think it is not an abuse of boradcast liscenses or of campaign finance laws to show anti-Bush stories or pro-Kerry stories on TV, but it is an abuse to show anti-Kerry stories. I agree with Frum that the McCain-Feingold law was a terrible blow to the free speach of ordinary americans and that the only people who benefited from the law are media organizations who were left free to say whatever they want about political candidates.

It is also scary how quickly Democrats use the law to stiffle critics. First threatening TV stations who show the Swift Boat Veterans commercials with lawsuits and now threatening stations who dare to criticize Kerry. Specifically the film titled Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal interviews POWs who, while still POWs claim that that 'Kerrys testimony - filled with lurid fantasies of butchery in Vietnam on the part of U.S. troops - demeaned them and led their captors to hold them longer.' I certainly think news organizations have the right to talk about issues like this. Apparently the Democrats do not.

Posted by Pete at 08:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 12, 2004

Another Person Who Gets It.

LT Smash gets it also. Here is part of the relevant quote: Kerry just doesnt get it – we cant wish this conflict away. Our terrorist enemies will not be deterred by tougher law enforcement, a broader coalition, or the careful application of soft power. They must be crushed militarily, and defeated ideologically. Ultimate victory will require a determined focus, greater sacrifices, and the steadfast will to carry on through difficult setbacks.

John Kerry doesnt have the heart to win this war. A vote for him is a vote for retreat

Posted by Pete at 03:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Don't get out the Vote

Stories like this (via the Kerry spot) remind me why I do not like get out the vote campaigns. People in this story were getting paid to register voters and were paid by the voter registered, so they got people to register multiple times to get a bigger pay check. I am not opposed to helping people register when they need help, but I am opposed to registering people just for the sake of registering them. If you do not have what it takes to make the minor effort it takes to register to vote on your own, I doubt you will make the effort to make an informed vote. And if you are not making an informed vote, then you are ruining democracy. Democracy is only better than other systems when people are making an informed choice. Otherwise we might as well just pick our leaders by lottery.

Australia is even worse than the United States in this case because they make everyone vote there no matter their level of ignorance about the candidates or issues. Making people vote when they are ignorant of what they are voting for is even worse than registering lazy people.

This all reminds of me my high school civics class. We discussed each day how the government worked and focused on various current political debates. The big issue at the time was prop 187 in California which would ban illegal immigrants from certain state government services. On your eighteenth birthday my teacher would give you a voter registration card. That was good because everyone in the class had received a basic civics education, knew what the current election issues were, and having never registered before, needed the help. But even the people who I disagreed with had informed opinions, which is not the case with the multiple registrations story above.

Posted by Pete at 02:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sick Edwards

The latest lying Edwards quote is (according to drudge): When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk. Get up out of that wheelchair and walk again Why would anyone want this man to be one heartbeat away from the presidency?

Posted by Pete at 01:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Disgruntled Democrats

For anyone who thinks I exagerate threat from disgruntled Democrats, go read this thread at Deomcratic Underground where the posters discuss various forms of terrorism that could be used to stop the broadcast of an anti-Kerry documentary. For instance this comment by one poster: Yes, i was thinking the same thing. Anyone have friends at the power company so they could cause a blackout or something? Like make a trasformer blow? I think that could be the only way to stop this is to make the power go out.

(via the corner)

Posted by Pete at 01:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

One More Reason Not To Live In Canada

Now the Canadian government is fining people for making insulting comments. Not threats or harrassments, just insults.

Posted by Pete at 11:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

One More Nobel Prize Post

At least one nobel prize winner is talking some sense. To bad all nobel prize winners are not this smart.

Posted by Pete at 09:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Mark Steyn Column Spiked

For the first time ever Mark Steyns column has been spiked by the Telegraph (via powerline). He makes the obvious points that if you negotiate with terrorists, then it encourages more terrorism and that it is more important to act right in responding to terrorist attacks than that you feel right.

Posted by Pete at 08:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 11, 2004

Someone who gets it

Here is someone who, unlike Kerry, gets it. Waiting for stuff to happen before acting is not good enough any more.

Posted by Pete at 10:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A Climate of Fear Part 5

The Bush campaign has sent this letter to the AFL-CIO asking them to stop having their thugs assault and intimidate Bush supporters.

According to this Wall Street Journal column the violence by Kerry supporters was worse than I had realized in Florida. One of the Bush volunteers had to go the hospital after a Kerry supporter forced his was into the building and broke the volunteers arm.

In a possible related story in Spokane the Bush/Cheney headquarters was broken into and equipment was stolen.

When will Kerry tell his supporters to stop assaulting and intimidating Bush supporters?

Previous Climate of Fear postings can be found here.

Update: Oops, that was the Spokane Bush office not the Seattle Bush office that was broken into.

Posted by Pete at 04:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Two Australian Movies

I have recently watched two Australian movies directed by Rob Sitch that were both excellent and both based on true stories. Saturday night I watched The Dish, a movie about the giant telescope in the small town of Parks, Australia that relayed the TV signals from the first astronauts on the moon. It is a fairly simple story about the scientists who work at the dish and how they have to overcome a couple of mishaps (like losing Apollo 11 after a power outage) to make sure the signals reach NASA. The different scientists are each unique and the town is full of colorful characters who have to interact with important people who descend on the town because of the landing, like the prime minister of Australia and the American ambassador. The film does a good job of showing the small, but important part these people played in letting us all see people walk on the moon. It is very optimistic and captures the excitement of space exploration well.

The other film is The Castle, which is about another group of weird Australians. This is a story about a very loving family that is happy in its home right next to an airport and a giant set of power lines. Almost all is going well for the family until they receive an eviction notice stating that their home is going to be torn down to expand the airport. They do not want to leave their home and enlist a friend who is a small time lawyer who tries in vain to help them out. At one point he tells a judge they should not be kicked out because that goes against “the vibe” of the constitution. Besides being funny, it tackles important moral issues about the often abused government practice of eminent domain. In this case the airport and the corporation involved have other options, but it is cheaper and easier to kick out the people who have lived in these homes for years. This is also a very optimistic movie and although it has some funny foul language at times it is, like The Dish, a fairly clean movie that few will be offended by.

Posted by Pete at 01:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Is Terrorism like Prostitution?

Below is an excerpt from a long Volokh Conspiracy post about John Kerry's recent anology of fighting terrorism to fighting prostitution and illegal gambling. I agree with the conclusion that John Kerry is missing something big and further think that if he is elected the war on terrorism will quickly revert to pre a 9/11 strategy of reactive law enforcement rather than proactive war, which will be a very dangerous switch. The whole post is here:

Eugene Volokh: So I continue to be troubled by Kerry's choice of analogies in his quote, which as you recall is this:

New York Times: When . . . Kerry [was asked] what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, he displayed a much less apocalyptic worldview. "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance," Kerry said. "As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life."

Eugene Volokh: It seems to me that our attitudes towards what is a not deeply threatening level of terrorism (which, I agree, is more than zero) should be vastly different from our attitudes towards what would be a tolerable level of prostitution or illegal gambling. And the difference is so great that I wonder whether the person who makes such an analogy is missing something big.

Posted by Pete at 01:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Baseball Thoughts

I have liked Jose Lima since he was with the Houston Astros and thought he was a good fit for the Los Angelos Dodgers. He played very well the other night and it turns out he really likes the United States of America and wants to become a citizen. He even sang the National Anthem and God Bless America (one of his favorite songs) at a Dodger game earlier this year. (via powerline)

I am glad the Dodger's had their best season since 1988 this year. I was very glad that the three teams I like most (Angels, Dodgers, and Astros) all made the playoffs. Now it looks like none of them may make it past the first round. The Angels and Dodgers have both been eleiminated and the Astros are one game away from possible elimination. Who do I want to win it all now that the Dodgers (my #1 team) and Angels (#2) are gone? 1. Astros 2. Cardinals 3. Red Sox 4. Braves 5. Yankees.

Posted by Pete at 10:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 09, 2004

Second Debate

From what I read today so far my predictions on the second debate all came true, except for one. I predicted that Kerry would mention Vietnam five times without prompting and it turns out he only mentioned it once. I also predicted that one of the times would be in relation to monetary policy, but it turns out it was a question about his religious beliefs.

Posted by Pete at 11:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 08, 2004

Nobel Prizes

Both powerline and dangerousdan have good Nobel Prize posts. Apparently they gave the literature prize to a Communist who writes plays that not even her fans like that much. They gave the peace prize to someone who goes around planting trees, but does not seem to do much to, you know, promote peace. She is a better pick than Jimmy Carter was, who almost always promotes stability over justice. Frankly the peace prize means nothing to me if it does not go to people who promote a just peace. A peaceful stability is often worse than a just battle. I think they should have given it to Ronald Reagan who did more to promote a just peace than anyone else over the past 50 years.

Update: It turns out the Nobel Peace Prize winner may be, how shall I put this gently, a bit nuts. She is sure that HIV was created in a lab somewhere, even though all rational scientific evidence disputes this.

Posted by Pete at 02:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Salon has officially lost it

I used to read articles from Salon.com on a daily basis soon after it first came online back in the late nineties. It had good variety of articles and it I think it is healthy to read opinions by people who you disagree with in case they are right and you are wrong. Some of its best articles were not of a political bent and covered aspects of culture and society you did not read other places and they occasionally even had conservatives write for them. Over the past few years they have been drinking the heavy concentrate anti-Bush kool-aid a bit too much. Pretty much every day most of the articles are about how Bush is the worst president ever/Rove is an evil manipulator/Cheney is doing the bidding of Haliburton!!!/Republicans are intentionally destroying America and the world. The general issues articles are gone for the most part and there is no place at all to have even a token conservative like Andrew Sullivan.

And today I can officially announce they have crossed over from regular high octane anti-Bush rage into anti-Bush lunatic tinfoil hat rage. One of their main stories today: Bush had an invisible listening device during the last debate where Karl Rove was telling him what to say. They provide no actual evidence for this bizarre conspiracy except that in one picture of Bush during the debate his back looks a little weird and some internet sites say it must be the case that Rove was giving him the answers. And like all good conspiracy theories there is no way to disprove it.

The funny thing is that Bush did not do a good job with answers or give answers that sounded like someone else telling him what he was saying. If Bush had given an amazing performance where he ran circles around Kerry that would be one thing, but he did not do a very good job and did not sound like he was getting help. I still read Salon, but more because it is fun to watch a liberal intellectual train wreck and not because I think that it will convince me I am wrong about anything.

Posted by Pete at 01:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

OBL Dead

I for one am of the opinion that Osama Bin Laden is dead. He was probably killed at Tora Bora. Wasnt the last time we saw recent video footage of him back at the end of 2001? Lots of audio footage claiming to be from him has come out in the past few years, but no video. Powerline agrees with me here and so does LGF.

Unlike John Kerry and a big chunk of the media I do not have a Great Man Theory of terrorism and think Bin Laden is just one man among a vast network of terrorist groups and their supporting countries that need to be killed.

Posted by Pete at 10:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Not Serious

Jonah Goldberg goes after people who are not serious about the war with both barrels today in one of the most devastating columns I have read in a while. Not serious in this context does not mean that you always opposed the war. That can be a serious, although I believe wrong, position. Not serious does not mean you think the administration screwed up its execution. That can be a serious position too and is probably partly true. Although I think people who think this war is more screwed up than others need some perspective and to read some military history books.

Not serious means sticking your finger in the political wind to see what the most popular position is today and basing your statements and votes on that. Not serious means accusing your political opposition during a war of lying when you said the same thing for the same reason. Not serious means believing diplomacy works in every situation, even for a genocidal fascist dictator who has repeatedly invaded and attacked countries without any provocation and who for over a decade has laughed at UN security counsel resolutions, kicked out and deceived weapons inspectors, tried to assassinate an American president, and repeatedly tried to shoot down American fighter jets.

Not serious it this case means John Kerry.

Posted by Pete at 09:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Gerrymandering

Mickey Kaus (scroll down a little to read the relevant part) seems to agree with me that gerrymandering is a big problem and thinks the press will start covering it more now that it is going to help Republicans more than Democrats this election. The best quote from Kaus: Incumbents have become even more sheltered from defeat in recent years. In fact, since 1998 only 16 incumbents have lost.

That is not how American democracy is supposed to work.

Posted by Pete at 09:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 07, 2004

Traffic Stats

According to sitemeter I am getting over a dozen unique visitors in a typical day and some of whom (from comments they have left and from domain names) I suspect I do not know. Not bad so far. Now if I can just multiply that by about 10,000 times or so I will up there with instapundit, sullivan, and the other big names.

Posted by Pete at 02:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Climate of Fear Part 4

Democrats are now joking about and making excuses for people trying to kill Republicans. Jim Gray, chairman of the Knox County Democratic Party had several choice words about the incident after someone shot at the Bush/Cheney headquarters in Knox County (via instapundit). First the joke that the Republicans: could be happy that at least one Democrat supports the Second Amendment. He also tried to make an excuse for the shooter: But I mentioned it could be someone mad that their yard sign was stolen.

Here are pictures of the Knox shooting that Jim Gray is making lame excuses for. (also via instapundit)

Professor Brainbridge also has a good list of many of the recent violent anti-democratic actions of Kerry supporters. He is specifically telling Kerry to call of his thugs. As of this writing Kerry still has not done so.

Finally National Review has an article today about the Anti Bush/Republican violence. Stanley Kurtz talks to many Bush supporters who have had their signs stolen and have sufformed from keyed cars and other forms of intimidation. He comes to the same conclusion that I have: There is a climate of fear.

Previous Climate of Fear entries:

Climate of Fear Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Update: Over at powerline they have the text of a letter from fifty congressmen to Attorney General John Ashcroft that requests investigations into some of the recent attacks against Republicans. Unfortunately powerline does not provide a link to the letter or say who signed it so I do not know if only Republicans signed the letter.

Posted by Pete at 08:54 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Why am I still up?

Why am I still up when my two final essays for grad school begin tomorrow morning? Baseball of course. Right now the Angels are down 4-3 in the top of the ninth. The umpire just robbed Troy Glaus by calling an obvious ball a strike three for the final out of the eighth inning and may have just cost the Angels the series. This is the fifth baseball game in the 2 days I have watched at least part of. I had to keep flipping between the Twins/Yankees and Angels/Red Sox games tonight because the Twins/Yankees game went to the 12th. My favorite three teams were all in the playoffs this year and as of this posting only the Astros are leading their series. The Dodgers and Angels are both down one game and it looks like the Angels may lose this game.

Posted by Pete at 12:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 06, 2004

Climate of Fear Part 3

The Kerry Spot has a long post up with several new incidents of voter intimidation by Kerry supporters. They are happening across the country and are worse than in most years. So far no one has been killed, but that is because Bush supporters have been lucky. There have been multiple cases where Bush supporters could have been killed. Besides the cases (including shootings) listed in previous posts (here and here) on this blog we now have reports of arson and vandalism doing damage in the thousands of dollars. In many cases the vandals seem to be armed as well, with bayonets and other weapons. Thankfully the police have caught some of these criminals and they will be prosecuted.

It is ironic that one of the forms of vandalism that seems common is to spray paint or burn swastikas on the property of Bush supporters. A few weeks ago Al Gore called people who criticize Democrats on the internet digital brown shirts. So far Gore has made no comment on the actual brown shirts trying to intimidate and kill Bush supporters. And neither has any other prominent Democrat as far as I can tell.

The Kerry spot says that now is the time to stand up to these thugs even if it means hiding your signs at night to protect them. I have a W 04 sticker on my car and no Kerry supporter is going to scare me out of keeping it there.

Update: Two more updates. Kerry supporters trespassed and disrupted the Wisconsin Republican headquarters yesterday (via drudge). Powerline has more commentary on the Wisconsin attack and also uses the brownshirts analogy. Kerry (and most of the media) is still silent on the violent and anti-democratic actions of his supporters.

Posted by Pete at 04:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

VP Debate

I was busy during the debates last night so I did not get to watch and have only read excepts of it. Since many other people have been writing letters to the editor before the debates even began saying who they thought won, I will therefore give my unbiased opinion that Cheney beat Edwards soundly.

I will miss the next debate as well since I have better stuff to do on a Friday night than a watch a freaking debate so I will give another verdict now so I do not have to worry about it later. I will even write it in the past tense: Bush did a better job in this debate than he did in the first. He seemed much more in control of the evening and hammered Kerry hard on his senate record. Kerry held his own at times, but he came off as too haughty. He also mentioned his service in Vietnam five separate times with out prompting, once in response to a question about monetary policy and the federal reserve. He did not bring up either his time in the senate or as lieutenant governor under Michael Dukakis. The town hall debate format was proved once again painful to watch and should be eliminated.

Posted by Pete at 02:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 05, 2004

Updates to site

I finally figured out what to do with the code to get blogrolls and my sitemeter working the way I like.

Also I was walking in the school parking lot today and saw a Washington license plate that said The Evergreen State and I thought that was a boring state slogan. They should call it The Exploding Mountain State. That is much more exciting. And they need to do it soon before Hawaii takes that slogan.

Posted by Pete at 05:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Hostile Educational Environment

As much as I dislike much of the hostile work/education environment lawsuits of recent years, I found this case delightfully ironic. It seems a feminist professor at University of North Carolina singled out a conservative white male Christian student for criticism in a class email. He successfully protested and the Department of Education agreed that the professor had acted illegally in singling him out. The university has in response to the incident instituted diversity training for its faculty telling them that it is wrong to single out Christian, white, male students and treat them differently. I dislike hostile environment laws, but if you are going to have them then they need to apply to conservative, white, male Christians as well.

Update: The Volokh Conspiracy posted a link to the DOE's letter (warning PDF file) which states that there is enough evidence to determine that harassment and discrimination occurred against the student, but the university acted promptly to fix the problem.

Posted by Pete at 01:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Climate of Fear Part 2

Here is my original Climate of Fear post.

This is starting to get scary. Shots were fired into the Bush/Cheney campaign headquarters in Knox. A few weeks ago someone shot at the republican headquarters in Huntington.

Republicans are scared to put Bush posters and stickers on their lawns and cars. And from this story about the defacing of Bush signs, it appears their fears are justified. If Bush wins I fear it will only get worse as a lot of Democractic Underground types will not accept a Bush victory peacefully.

Update: Now they are even using chainsaws against Bush supporters. (via instapundit)

Second update: Now they have destroyed the Bush/Cheney headquarters in Orlando, Florida.

Posted by Pete at 01:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Another Friend's Blog

I recently realized that I have not linked to him yet, here is my college roommates blog. He warned his readers when he linked to me that I was significantly to the right of most of them. So I guess I will warn my readers that he is to the left of me on most issues, but his blog seems to be more rambling and not that politically focused (his little motto is Dreams inconsistent angel things). One recently political post (I cant figure out how to do permalinks on his site) he made was about Nader and to briefly sum up, he is mad at democrats for keeping Nader of the ballot if they believe every vote should count and mad at republicans for supporting Nader only to screw Kerry over. I was actually approached by a Nader supporter on the University of Houston campus back in June and did not sign the petition to put him on the ballot. Maybe if I did not live in Texas and lived in Florida or Ohio or another potential close state I might have acted differently, but I think unless a third party candidate has a serious chance of winning (such as Perot in 1992 or Teddy Roosevelt with the Bull-Moose party) that they should not be on the ballot.

He also mentions in that entry that people who know about Chomsky either love or hate him. I hate him.

Posted by Pete at 10:40 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Electoral College

In an earlier post I linked to electoral calculators and predictors. Here is a new site that measures current poles that puts it today at Bush 321/Kerry 200. I suspect it will be slightly closer than that, more like Bush 310/Kerry 228. And here is a site with a contest that lets you guess on which way states will go and that has a prize for a best guess.

And now for something completely different, here is a US archives site that has a collection of WWII pictures. Your tax dollars at work!

Posted by Pete at 10:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 04, 2004

Felon Voting

Dangerous Dan has a long post about felons and voting rights, where he does a good job of laying out the argumments for and against this issue. I think he comes down slightly against felons having voting rights.

I am against felons having the right to vote as well, but I am rare in that I think too many people vote as it is right now. This presidential election, like many others, is probably going to be decided by swing voters, who have the least well thought out opinions and votes.

I also think it is too easy to vote. Besides practical problems like being able to vote without showing any picture ID and fraudulent absentee voters, voters are often ignorant about what and who they are voting for. I would even be in favor of a test of basic civics knowledge that people would have to pass before being allowed to vote if it could be administered fairly. Democracy is only better than other systems of governments if the voters are well informed. Jonah Goldberg had a recent column about this issue that I liked.

Posted by Pete at 01:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Lawrence v. Texas

I thought the Supreme Court was wrong to overturn the Texas sodomy law as it was constitutional, but that it was an unjust law and that Texas should have gotten rid of it on its own. I saw this at the corner, which says that the ACLU is now trying to overturn other constitutional (but sometimes stupid) laws through this decision. Such as laws against adultery, which while in my opinion are constitutional, are also unjust.

The decision is also being used here by someone arguing to overturn polygamy laws, which I think are both constitutional and just.

The question of justice vs constitutionality is overlooked too often as they are not the same thing, but often treated as such. Discrimination laws are the first to come to my mind. I think it is unjust for the government or private entities to discriminate against people because of their race in almost all cases. But I think it is unconstituional (because of free association rights in the first ammendment) to prohibit discrimination by private entities, even though most people and the supreme court would disagree. It is both just and constitutional to prohibit racial discrimination by government entities. An example of an unjust law and unconstituional (also for free association reasons) law would be Jim Crow laws which required private parties to discriminate.

Posted by Pete at 01:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Iran

Iran may be teetering on the brink of revolution, but not many people in the media are talking about it. Jonah Goldberg has a column about it here and Michael Ledeen has many columsn such as this and this. We can all hope that the Iranians will revolt and put in place a less terrorist supporting, freer, and more democratic government. What to do about Iran was the question I wanted to know most about during the last debate as neither candidate has laid out a clear plan for dealing with Iran apart from Kerry wanting to help their nuclear program by giving them nuclear fuel.

Most Iranians are younger than I am, which means they do not remember the Shah and do not know any life other than living under the Mullahs. It appears they have figured out that life is much more pleasant living in a free society like the U.S. than living in a totalitarian theocracy. I hope that which ever candidate is elected, he will help these revolutionaries.

Update: Roger Simon has more.

Posted by Pete at 01:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Mt. St. Helen's

Here is a cool site with a webcam of Mount St. Helens. Your tax dollars at work!

Posted by Pete at 01:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Hanging a Picture

More crushing of dissent in John Ashcrofts America (via drudge). If this story is accurate, it is the principal and vice principal who should be fired, not the teacher.

Posted by Pete at 11:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Do Not Call

The Supreme Court has let stand a decision to allow the Federal Do Not Call list. I was always torn about the list. Even though it was always obvious that the law is constitutional and just to me, it seemed like this was not the sort of thing the Federal Government was for.

I have a free home phone line but never use it and have not received a telemarketing call in years. I might feel differently it I got them nightly. I also once worked in sales for about two years and could never bring myself to do unsolicited calls even though I knew a few people who made decent money that way. I knew how annoying those calls were and after a few minutes of trying I could not do it anymore. And from what I understand about do not call lists, my former industry is exempt because you had to have a state license to sell what I was selling and most do not call lists exempt calls from state licensed people.

Posted by Pete at 10:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 03, 2004

The Dark Crystal

I borrowed a DVD of the Dark Crystal from a friend the other day and watched it yesterday. You may remember this movie as the muppet fantasy movie that Jim Henson and Frank Oz made in the early eighties. I had never seen it before and some friends told me it was cool. It is not. It is messed up. What the hell was Jim Henson thinking? Muppets in this form are not entertaining, they are disturbing. Especially the ones that look like evil birds. This thing is supposed to be a childrens movie, but do not show it to your children unless you want to mess them up as well. There is a reason the vast majority of movies do not use puppets and this is it. I suspect many people who are my age now had nightmares when this movie came out. If this movie had been animated instead of muppet based it might have been ok, but it still was a poor combination of fantasy genres.

I also borrowed Labyrinth from the same friend a few months ago. Not quite as disturbing, but still messed up. At least David Bowie was kind of cool in that one. It seems like filmakers figured out that muppets are not the way to go in fantasy film making since there are hardly any muppet movies made any more.

Posted by Pete at 03:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Global Test

Here is an early copy of the global test that John Kerry wants to submit our nation to.

Posted by Pete at 03:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 01, 2004

Keep the 17th Amendment

According to this report from the Harvard Crimson (scroll down to see this point, ignore the part about orgies) Supreme Court Justice Scalia said that he thought the 17th Amendment was a bad idea. I agree that it was a bad idea at the time, but do think that it is a necessary amendment today and we should keep it. Originally senators were supposed to represent states and house members were supposed to represent the people. Now that has been reversed with senators more likely to represent the people and respond to their ideas. The vast majority of house races, most estimates put it around 95%, are not competitive and many times the Democrats and Republicans do not even run candidates. I had to vote libertarian in the last district I lived in because my only choices were Democrat, Green, Socialist, and Libertarian.

Gerrymandering has made the races that way and it is unlikely that this situation is going to change short of multiple Supreme Court decisions. In an ideal world we would go back to how it originally was designed: no gerrymandered districts and state legislators picking senators. But we do not live in a perfect world and Senate races now are competitive a lot if not most of the time. Almost half of the Senate races this year are competitive. And for the people to be properly represented some of our representatives need to know that we can kick them out if we do not like them anymore.

Posted by Pete at 01:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

What's in a name

There are several debates as to what to call the new Washington D.C. baseball team. The Expos is already out as that was not a good name in the first place. The Senators, Generals, and Grays are all ok names. Some of the humorous names suggested so far are Lobbyists and Gridlock. My own humorous suggestion is since they are naming everything else in DC after him, we might as well call them the Reagans. I personally like animal names and would suggest Badgers or Caribou or Howler Monkeys. But cat (tigers, lions, panthers, etc.) and bird names (blue jays, eagles, cardinals, orioles, etc.) seem more poplar than other animals so maybe Bobcats or Eagles (appropriate for Washington). Regional names like Marlins or Yankees are ok as long as they are not boring (Texans) or stupid (Devil Rays). Stupid names in general are bad like Wizards or Magic. Since they got rid of the Bullets for being too violent, maybe we should bring back some violence into the situation by calling them the Gladiators, Daisy Cutters, or WMDs.

Posted by Pete at 01:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Cool Cat

I recently listened to two different Cat Who mysteries books on tape. The first of these was The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal and I was very disappointed in it. For those of you who have not read any of the series, the books are about a newspaper reporter named Qwilleran who solves crimes using the intuition of his two cats. In the Cardinal book, Qwilleran is hosting a party for the cast of a play after the plays last performance and after the party is over the last person to leave, the director and local high school principal, is shot to death in Qwillerans driveway. The actual mystery surrounding who killed him is kind of boring and gets easily resolved in the end. There is a huge mystery about who the director is and what he was up to since he has all these mysterious plants growing in his house and lots of counterfeit cash and had lied about his identity and education. But none of this resolved. The one part of the book I found really interesting and the author did not go anywhere with it. It reminds me of several Michael Crichton novels where he will go off on a tangent that is much more interesting than the rest of the book.

I told a classmate that I was disappointed in the book and she recommended I read some of his earlier stuff like The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern. So I listened to that one and though it was much better, it was nothing spectacular. Danish Modern was written in the late sixties so some of the dialog is pretty entertaining with lots of That is a cool cat man! type phrases that are not out of place. The newspaper photographer was especially funny and there is a well written scene with him drunk. Danish Modern revolves around the decorating industry (I assumed Danish Modern was some sort of food when I looked at the title, it is really a furniture style) and a possible theft of millions of dollars worth of jade items. No unresolved mysteries here in this book, but I think I am going to stick with Raymond Chandler and Phillip Marlow for my next mystery.

Posted by Pete at 10:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Washington State

IF there is one person who is running for reelection who needs to be defeated it Washington's Senator Patty Murray. The woman has no clue as to how the world works or what motivates our enemies. Here is her most famous quote about why Bin Laden is so popular because he is: out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We havent done that. Bin Laden does not think that women should be let out of the house, much less be allowed to work. Bin Laden (if he is still alive) does not think day care centers should exist. The people of Washington need to have enough self respect to kick this woman out of the senate.

Posted by Pete at 09:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack