Living in Babylon

Scary new GUN CONTROL bills in the WA Legislature

2005-03-08T12:22:00.000-08:00

Here is a must-read summary of the plethora of new "gun control" bills the dems are trying to push through the legislature.

The worst ones are a more strict ban on so-called "Assault weapons" than the 1994-2004 Clinton Gun Ban (which we counted down to and celebrated the sunset of on this blog), and on ownership of .50 cal rifles. Conveniently, neither bill has been given a number yet, so the public can't look them up or search for them. Both bills include a provision for current owners of such firearms to maintain ownership, but this would include:

- registering the firearm with local police
- undergoing yet ANOTHER background check (us gun owners to way too familiar with these) - for an unspecified fee.
- renewing your registration and doing yet ANOTHER background check YEARLY after that.
- and the best part: Law enforcement agencies are allowed to conduct
an annual inspection of your home to ensure you are “safely and
securely” storing the assault weapon or .50 BMG rifle properly (no
definition of “safely and securely” is given).

Hopefully that last part will kill these bills if they ever get anywhere, heaven forbid.

Us gun owners need to keep being super-vigilant and active in the process until this current legislative session (and assault on our 2nd amendment rights) mercifully comes to an end on April 24th.

YYYYEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGHGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-03-04T11:56:00.000-08:00

I don't blog very often anymore, so I know this is a little late, but this is my take (and tribute) to Howard Dean being the chairman of the DNC.

I still just cannot believe that he is the chairman of the DNC. I mean, Terry McAwful was bad enough, but this is, to be honest, almost too good to be true. Dean is such an angry, dare I say, hate-filled man, and to have him as the head of your political party?! This is rich.

I honestly can't see this helping them in any way. He will serve to alienate broad swaths of the DNC faithful across the country simply because of his anger. Why, he hasn't been on the job very long and he has already accused Republicans of being evil......actually, here's my favorite excerpt from this story:

"Moderate Republicans can't stand these people (conservatives), because they're intolerant. They don't think tolerance is a virtue," Dean said, adding: "I'm not going to have these right-wingers throw away our right to be tolerant."

And concluding his backyard speech with a litany of Democratic values, he added: "This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good."

I love that sentence where he accuses "those right wingers" of being intolerant! LOL....

He'll move the party farther left, which definitely won't help them. But on the plus side, it will be pretty entertaining to watch, in the same sense that you can't take your eyes off a train wreck.

Finally, here's my tribute to Howard Dean, and "the scream". These little clips and remixes of the scream put to music are pretty funny:

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/multimedia/dean_outkast.mp3
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/multimedia/dean_insane.mp3
http://www.mostlynothing.com/files/deantwilightzone.wav

Sure, let's tax businesses an extra 1.6 billion....

2005-02-18T07:42:00.000-08:00

The democrat-controlled Washington state legislature (and almost undeniably illegally-gotten Governor's seat) is starting to make me uneasy already.

Not only is there a bill that would allow human cloning research to be done in the state (so long as they kill the clone before it would be born if it were a normal baby), but now there's this other bill to REQUIRE businesses employing over 50 people to provide health insurance for ALL employees.

Here is an article about it. The target of this legislation is, of course, Wal-Mart. Yes, the notorious human rights abuser is at it again. This time, even though they offer 8 different health insurance plans, the cheapest of which only costs employees $40/month, that's not good enough.

Some Wal-Mart employees say they can't afford the $40/month for health insurance, so the bleeding heart liberals see a chance to force businesses to give away money, and we all know they never turn opportunities like that down. They want to force these large companies to cover ALL employees' health care, OR, to pay an equivalent amount into the Washington Basic Health Plan.

It's estimated to cost WA state businesses about $1.6 billion, but the state mentions that that estimate was given by a business who received funding from opponents of the measure....oh, as opposed to the estimates from the State, who are proponents of the measure, and the ones who would be getting the equivalent of another tax windfall if it passed???

My idea for health care is working!!

2005-02-15T07:26:00.000-08:00

I just read this article today in the Seattle Times and was astonished. I've been preaching that the way to solve the whole health insurance mess is to just not have health insurance. That without health insurance, the cost of doing business for doctors would go down a LOT. Less staffing costs, less paperwork, etc. At the same time, you wouldn't see these inflated rates being charged, since the doctors don't need to play the game of getting 100% of what they need while only being paid 60% of what they charge.

Well, surprise, surprise. The free-market system works! There is a pharmacy in Lynnwood that is cash-only. No insurance at all is accepted, billed, anything. The pharmacy reports that this has decreased their staffing costs alone by 30%, and the prescription drugs there are priced competitively with the prices in Canada.

Of course, there is the predictable grumbling from the Insurance Commissioner, where, "The insurance commissioner is considering new regulations for such practices", a spokeswoman said. Of course. God forbid that anything run TOO efficiently for the government bureaucrats to make sense of it.

And of course the obligatory reference to "low-income people" not being able to afford a doctor on retainer through a cash-only basis, etc. (is someone forcing "low-income people" to do this? I must've missed that part...)

Anyway, it's nice to see that a few people are going against the flow of big insurance, and the free-market system is prevailing yet again.

Letters from Snohomish County's 44th Dist. Representatives

2005-01-31T11:02:00.000-08:00

Back on Jan. 10, 2005, I e-mailed my two Representatives. I live in the 44th district of Snohomish County. Both of our Representatives are Democrats. Funny thing is, our district voted for Rossi by 54.1% (Thank you, Dinocrats!)

Here is the text of what I sent to my representatives:

Dear Mr. Lovick/Dunshee, I am one of your constituents, and I have seen enough indications of irregularities that I do not believe Gregoire was legitimately elected. I do not think that the vote should be certified. I believe that the only way to restore public confidence in the election system and that the correct person was indeed elected Governor (no matter whoit turns out to be) is to hold a re-vote.
Our district, the 44th district, voted for Rossi overall, by 54.1%, and I truly believe that betraying the will of your constituents by certifying this greatly troubled and highly suspect election could lead to your losing your next election, because your constituents will not forget. Please vote the will of your constituency.

...and my name, etc. I immediately received a reply from Lovick's people saying that they received my e-mail and care about what I have to say. (I wish I had saved that e-mail, though it was pretty useless).

Only 17 days later (and over 2 weeks after Gregoirovich's certification) I got a response from Hans Dunshee. Not bad for Government work, eh? :)

Here is the full text of the e-mail I received from Mr. Dunshee on Jan. 27th (I'm not sure why it was formatted this way, but I'm posting it as I received it):

Scott,

First let me apologize for this "canned" message. I've had over 50
messages to me about this important topic.
I have spent many, many hours thinking about this. It is not yet time
for us to act. Our state's framers were populists who distrusted too
much power in one place. They didn't want the Legislature to manhandle
the other two branches of government, so they took power away from the
House and Senate and gave it to the secretary of state and our courts.
Dino Rossi is filing a lawsuit and taking his case to the courts. That's
the right decision for him. It'll wind up in the Supreme Court, and if
the court finds evidence of fraud or conspiracy, I'll be the first to
vote for a new election. Confidence in the integrity of the voting
process is very important to me. I will be working hard to ensure all
the changes are made to our election system so that these types of
questions don't arise again and we are better prepared.
It would be wrong to turn this into a political circus by having the
Legislature try to grab the power to pick a governor - or any other
office we choose. That's a very dangerous step. I voted to honor the
founding fathers and respect that separation of powers. We need to
protect our system of checks and balances so no single branch of
government can run amok.
No matter what the outcome, I am excited to get to work to create good
paying jobs, give a world-class education to every child and make health
care more affordable for all of us.
Thank you for taking the time to write. I enjoy hearing from citizens
back home and look forward to hearing from you again.

Sincerely,
Hans Dunshee

I just thought I'd share this with you because it's not entirely as bas as I expected. He actually prefers that the election contest be heard by the Supreme Court, and NOT the legislature. In fact, he says that would be a political circus. It is slightly troubling that he "...spent many, many hours thinking about this" to come to that conclusion, but I'll let it slide.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this letter with you all. I've forwarded it on to John Carlson and the Rossi campaign, because I know the Rossi campaign is looking for instances of Democratic officials saying the Legislature is the wrong place for the election contest to be heard.

Scrap Social Security

2005-01-19T08:42:00.000-08:00

That's right, scrap that rusty junk heap. I just read a brilliant article by Alex Epstein from the Ayn Rand institute which conveys my thoughts on the subject much more coherently than I ever could. The author sums up how social security works in one great sentence:

The rational and responsible are shackled and throttled for the sake of the irrational and irresponsible.

That's it in a nutshell. Well said. Here is the article.

Let's make doctor's jobs harder!! Yay

2005-01-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

It seems that outgoing Gov. Gary Locke and other liberal legislators have come up with a brilliant plan to tax doctors more. Wait. Let me be more specific. They want to give doctors who see medicaid patients a pay raise, and they're going to steal from the doctors who don't see those patients to pay for it.

Yup. The usual class warfare/envy crap they love so much. You see, it seems that the medicaid program typically pays only 45-65% of what medicare and other government health care programs pay (and even less than private insurance). Since doctors and clinics were essentially losing money treating medicaid patients, many of them stopped doing so, which has increased the demand on the remaining doctors who do see these patients.

So, what solution for this problem do the democrats come up with?? Rather than providing incentives, changing the program or its requirements for eligibility, or anything substantive, they go for the usual. Let's tax the evil doctors who don't see these patients, and give the proceeds to the wonderfully altruistic doctors who do! That way, we can FORCE everyone to be altruistic, right into bankruptcy!!

Ok, so I got a little carried away. But that's essentially it. They think pollution and the ozone layer are the most important transportation issues imaginable. So how do they address the issue? By taxing gasoline in a futile effort to change habits, forcing car makers to make much more efficient cars (and a lot more expensive - guaranteeing the less efficient cars will be on the roads longer), etc...This is no different. This will only encourage more doctors to vote with their feet and move to other states. Gee, how will that affect the demand for patients to be seen, geniuses??

Oh, and here is the article.

Fraudoire's to do list

2005-01-19T08:20:00.000-08:00

Step 1. Deny
Step 2. Deny
Step 3. Obstruct

It seems that we've reached the critical third step in her strategy. The Gregoire team has gone from denying that there were enough illegal votes/fraud to nullify the election to actively seeking to "throw out" the Rossi case in Chelan County.

Here is one story about it.

Fraudoire says the Legislature (solidly liberal democrats, mind you) is the correct place to contest an election. Never mind that state law says it isn't...can you think of a LESS objective place to settle an election? Even RINO Sam Reed agrees the courts are the correct place to contest an election.

Basically, they're trying to stop the fact-finding process, and don't want King County to send the evidence that will be requested, etc. Typical from a liberal. On the one hand, praise the election as "a model to the rest of the nation" or whatever she said, and on the other, block any attempt for open scrutiny to get to the bottom of what actually happened.

Bush hits homerun again

2005-01-18T11:48:00.000-08:00

Though it went largely unreported, President George W. Bush declared Sunday, Jan 16, 2005 to be "National Sanctity of Human Life" day. Read the proclamation here. It's definitely a must-read, and may I say once again how glad I am to have a man of such character and resolve and Godliness in the White House?!

I'm back - for now

2005-01-14T09:55:00.000-08:00

I was never really "away" anywhere, I have been spending my blogging time engaged in a great and ongoing tangential discussion about thumbprints, privacy, concealed carry permits, Christianity, our founding fathers, DNA databases, the Constitution, and more on a comment thread to one of Tim Goddard's posts on his blog. You can see his post (and the comments) here. Because it's not on my blog, and just a comment thread, there have been a few stinging jabs both taken and given by yours truly, but I am enjoying the great debate we've been having over there. (Tim isn't a big part of the discussion, it's mostly me and two other guys..well, if you read it, you'll see. It's long though). It's really great to be able to have such good, open debate with people.

"There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad."

2005-01-11T10:15:00.000-08:00

That title is a direct quote from "Baghdad Bob," Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf: The Iraqi Minister of [DIS]Information, from 4/7/2003.

Why do I bring that up now? Because the people in charge of King County Elections, Dean Logan and Bill Huennekens sound more and more like this joker with each passing day.

There is a great story in today's seattle times (here) about even MORE errors found in the vote tally. Of course, most of this information was recently uncovered by the efforts of the intrepid bloggers over at Sound Politics.

Read the story, but I have to share my favorite quote from King County Minister of [DIS]Information Dean Logan. The Times discovered what Sound Politics did, that the County's original report showed that they mailed military ballots two days after a federal deadline, but then the day before the story broke, they changed their report to say they mailed them the day before the deadline. (The post office has EVIDENCE that proves otherwise, mind you).

Now, Dean Logan says that the first date (which was after the deadline) was wrong because......

He said numbers on the report, which he produced himself, were inadvertently changed when converted to code for the Web site.

Yeah, that darned HTML will mix your dates up every time, won't it?! Does he think that no one else in King County works with HTML?

For crying out loud! Is this what the people are supposed to believe now? Their excuses for the plentiful errors that keep popping up get more and more silly with each passing day! I should make up a list of quotes from these two jokers.

** UPDATE #2 **: I had previously updated this post because of the comment and the related story in the Seattle Times saying that all military ballots were now explained. But as Stefan from Sound Politics points out here, the Seattle Times article does not account for all the ballots in question...they're still about 6500 military ballots short.

Ridiculous Susan Paynter article - "If you're pro-choice, pray for Gregoire"

2005-01-10T09:40:00.000-08:00

Aside from being just one more example of the Seattle P-I shamelessly campaigning for Gregoire, this article is so absurd I think it's a must-read.

Just the headline is ridiculous enough. Who are these "pro-choice" people going to pray TO, exactly?? Surely not the God of the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament, to Christians) who said to Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you..." (JER 1:5). Surely not the God of the New Testament who made clear that Jesus was considered the Messiah not from birth, but from His miraculous conception (MAT 1:20-21, LUKE 1:31).

So that rules out Jews and Christians - the two most populous groups of self-identified religious people in the U.S.A. (of course, most people are more relunctant than I am to call Secular Humanism a religion of its own).

Paynter repeatedly refers to Rossi as being "slick". Yet take a look at this sentence:

It's into this atmosphere that Rossi, the self-avowed moderate, stepped, an atmosphere in which the legal right to abortion has been eroded even in this state by shrinking access to safe terminations.

As I've pointed out before, these "safe terminations" are hardly safe for the unborn child inside it's mother's womb. This child gets sucked through a tube with a razor blade inside it, or gets shriveled, poisoned, and burned to death by salt, or dismembered limb from limb and eventually getting their skull crushed, and so on. I'd characterize the monsters filling young women's heads with the term "safe termination" as the ones who are slick.

She whines about how President Bush allocated $170 million for abstinence-only sex-ed programs (which works 100% of the time against STDs, "unwanted" pregnancies, etc), yet conveniently leaves out the fact that you and I, the American Taxpayers, contributed over $264 million to Planned Parenthood last year alone (This is a PDF file of their annual report). Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the United States.

Actually, as I'm re-reading it, she whines about a lot of things, mostly irrelevant. These range from on-air censorship to Ohio license plates - I kid you not.

Most of what she whines about centers on her own fear that Roe v. Wade will someday be overturned. It was a horrible decision that needs to be overturned, but not even that will outlaw abortion in America. No, that would leave it up to the states to decide. Undoubtedly many red states would make abortion illegal, but I don't think any blue states would follow suit. Yes, this would greatly decrease the number of abortions performed, but I can't see how anyone can argue that that is a BAD thing.

The Military Ballots

2005-01-10T09:08:00.000-08:00

There is a great article in the Seattle Times today (finally - a good mainstream media story) about the military ballots you may have heard about.

Just how badly did WA state screw up with regards to getting ballots to our troops overseas?? Bad enough that at the beginning of October, the U.S. Dept. of Justice threatened to sue our state because they were too slow. At that point WA was the only state who hadn't yet sent ballots to soldiers overseas!! (With less than a month before the elections!)

Read the article here.

Also, as if the article isn't enough, Stefan Sharkansky from Sound Politics has found what could be a King County cover-up, in his post here.

The "current" version of the King County "fact sheet on military ballots" shows that they mailed out the bulk of their ballots on Oct. 7th (the last day to be in compliance with the request from the feds).

Yet, this "current" version was updated on 1/9/2005 (a Sunday - the day before this story broke). Stefan found a cached version on google which showed that they didn't mail out the bulk of them until October 10th - which was also a Sunday, so they actually didn't go out until October 11th, I'm guessing.

Stefan asks a very good question about the timing of this "updated" version as well.

Great article about Gonzales today

2005-01-06T15:16:00.000-08:00

My friends, there is a GREAT article in the American Spectator today about the Democrats grilling Alberto Gonzales and defending terrorists. I would consider this a must read.

Read it here.

The "Baseball Bat" abortion case

2005-01-05T11:53:00.000-08:00

Here is an article about a case where a 16 yr old boy and his pregnant girlfriend conspired to kill their unborn child by having the boy hit the pregnant girl in the stomach with a 22" long souvenir baseball bat over a 2-week period. The baby then died of premature birth caused by trauma to the mother. The baby was buried in the backyard of the boy with help from his mother.

The boy has been charged with a felony, but if convicted, would only remain in custody until he is 21 (whoop-dee-doo). The girl gets off scot-free because it would have been legal for her to get an abortion.

Let me share a few tidbits of this article with you:

"...if the 6-month-old fetus had been viable, the boy would have been charged with manslaughter of a quick-born child, a 15-year felony. The girl could have then also received the same charge for aiding and abetting."

So, the fact that the fetus wasn't "viable" because it had been beaten with a bat several dozen times does not change anything?

Miranda Massie, a Detroit civil rights attorney, believes neither teen should be charged. "My heart went out to these poor kids," Massie said. "I believe it is a terrible mistake to be charged at all. This is a tremendous waste of public resources. What is Macomb County going to gain by criminal charges?"

Well, hopefully some shred of justice, dignity or morality, perhaps? I guess this is just your typical liberal pro-abortionist. Oh well, these "fetuses" are expendable anyway if they're not convenient enough for you, right?

"But being involved in causing a miscarriage is not as severe as murder," Caplan said. "Ethically, you could argue that this seems wrong, but the law draws a sharp distinction between killing your child and a fetus that's not yet viable. That may strike some pro-life people and conservatives as wrong, but that's the way the law is now."

Yep, sadly this is true. The laws need to be changed. How despicable it is that in this great nation which was based on Judeo-Christian values (and by Christian men - make no mistake about it) and claims to believe in "human rights", that we have laws that protect mothers from killing their own children! I've said it before and I'll say it again - Abortion is the single greatest human rights tragedy of our time. Over 44 MILLION babies have been aborted since the 1973 Roe decision in the United States alone!

Lori Lamerand, vice president of the Planned Parenthood Mid-Michigan Alliance, said pregnant teens have safer options available than terminating a pregnancy without a doctor. "It's always tragic when people resort to such drastic measures, when there are appropriate, safe medical measures are available," Lamerand said.

OH, REALLY?!?! You mean, safe like this? Or safe like this? Funny, none of these "safe medical procedures" are very "safe" to the unborn children, are they? The contemptible "doctors" who perform these "safe" procedures are violating the oath they took and are willingly, knowingly taking the lives of the most innocent of humans. They disgust me.

The parents of the teens were not aware of the pregnancy or the decision to abort it, investigators said.

Yet the mother of the boyfriend helped bury the baby...Riiiight....makes sense....NOT!

The laws and values in this country's legal system are totally backwards. There's NO value on the life of unborn children. I guarantee that if either one of these teens had murdered some animal on the endangered species list, they'd both be rotting in jail for a LONG, long time. But since it's just an unborn HUMAN child, eh, no big deal.

I saw a bumper sticker once that read:

"God, why haven't you sent us anyone to cure cancer or Aids yet?"
"I did, but you aborted him."

Amen to that.

Happy New Year!

2005-01-03T13:37:00.000-08:00

I'm back from my time off, and getting back into the swing of things.

The Seahawks actually managed to hold on and not self-destruct yesterday, giving them home field advantage this Saturday against the Rams. Since I have season tickets, I got my playoff tickets last week, and am very happy I get to use one! Maybe you'll see me there.

Stefan at Sound Politics is keeping up the good work, fighting the good fight, and finding simply amazing things (such as how there were 1782 more polling place ballots than polling place voters, among other astonishing facts...)

Tim from The Flag of the World is promising some big news tonight that Washington Republicans will be very interested in. I can't wait to read what that might be.

That's about all for now.

Merry Christmas!! (...am I allowed to say that, Mr. Sims?)

2004-12-28T13:43:00.000-08:00

But seriously - Merry Christmas! I hope the holidays found you well and that you did not only get what you wanted, but were able to give what you wanted to those you care about, and perhaps some needy families/people as well.

(BTW- did you see this story, about how the people in the red states give overwhelmingly more to charities?)

This is a perfect time to be reminded of the fact that it doesn't *really* matter who is in the Governor's office. Obviously it matters, but the Governor of this fine state doesn't control my future. God has a plan for my life, and I'm going to be following Him no matter who is in Olympia. Whatever happens, I'll still be serving the same God. The same yesterday, today, and forever.

I was getting a little too upset and obsessed with this whole saga. I still believe that, orchestrated or not, there was MORE than enough voter fraud in this last election that put Gregoire over the top by the third count.

The whole deal has definitely left a nasty taste in my mouth, and if/when there are public rallies to protest the election, call for a new election, etc., I'll be there wearing blaze orange :)

But I'm going to take a bit of a break from this on my blog. I'll still comment now and then, but I'm going to give it a rest for a while. It's probably good for me. Please go to Sound Politics to keep up with the latest. Stefan over there is also going to extraordinary lengths to obtain voter files, compile probabilities, compute various other things, and will soon run queries on voter databases, etc. I applaud the amazing job he has been doing ever since this whole thing started.

Anyway, I'll write back soon, but maybe not about the Governor's race. Happy New Year!!

Gregoire now "ahead" by 10 votes...

2004-12-22T17:11:00.000-08:00

Let's see...

Counting 336 magical mystery ballots during the first recount - free

"Enhancing" 717 ballots during the first recount - free (though I'm guessing they paid someone off)

Arranging to "find" ~~561~~ ~~573~~ ~~595~~ 723 new ballots during 2nd recount - expensive, I'm sure.

Paying for a 2nd recount - $730,000 (for real)

Paying off the entire WA state supreme court - expensive, no doubt.

Gaining a 10 point lead after losing the first 2 counts and getting WA state to reimburse you? - PRICELESS!

=====================================

This is the biggest bunch of hooey I've come across in a LONG time. It puts Chicago and New Jersey to shame. Let's look at this, shall we?

King County counted 59 more ballots than the last recount - 898633 to 898574. Gregoire gained 59 votes in this newest recount. Coincidence? Also, Gregoire picked up 47 "corrected" votes (by the 2-1 Dem party line board), while Rossi LOST 12 "corrected" votes. Seems like a HIGHLY unlikely split to me.

Stefan at Sound Politics says the probability of that break is about 3.1x10^-14.

Anyway, I'm highly nauseated just thinking about all that has gone on here and am going to stop posting for now for my own health.

Must-read post on Sound Politics

2004-12-22T13:14:00.000-08:00

It's about the 527 people registered in King County with the address of the King County elections office...I'm NOT making this up...

Here is the scoop. Thank you Stefan!! I hope this gets out to the local media (and that they mention it).

Almost....too....disgusted....to....type.....

2004-12-22T07:32:00.000-08:00

Preliminary reports from Paul Berendt (the head of the state democratic party who had the gall to call ROSSI a thief yesterday!!!) are that King County has done it's divine duty to the Democrat machine, and that after their "results" come in, Gregoire will be ahead by 8 votes - WITHOUT counting the newest batch of 723 magical mystery ballots.

Here is one story about it.

He also says Rossi should concede! These are the same people who said it was a TIE when Rossi won the first count by 261 votes. When Rossi won the second count by 42 votes, they said it was a TIE again...now Gregoirovich wins by 8 votes and they're "...confident Christine Gregoire has been elected the governor of the state of Washington."?!

I hope Rossi doesn't cave so easily if this does turn out to be true (which, as Tim Goddard reports, is not very likely). They're calling on Rossi to concede "for the good of the state"....GIVE ME A MAJOR BREAK!! What would have been good for the state is for Gregoire to concede after she lost in two straight counts! Besides, NO argument can be made that having Gregoire in the governor's office is "good for the state". We need someone to clean house, govern in a fiscally responsible way, and at least TRY to get this state back on the right track again, not just another liberal flunkie with the same old tired policies (higher taxes, bigger government, running businesses out of the state, etc).

The Republicans probably have hundreds of individual ballots they can take to the Supreme Court, (like the infamous Christine Rossi ballot, for example), and I hope they do it. What's "good for the state" has been long forgotten at this point, the gloves are off, and I hope Rossi fights for all he's worth.

There's no way that most people in this state (outside of Seattle) are going to accept that Gregoire is the winner by 8 votes on the 3rd count - especially after King County "FOUND" votes 9 separate times. Of course, with the way she mismanaged the Attorney General's office, she'll undoubtedly screw something up pretty soon, and then we CAN recall her (You need to be able to prove malfeasance for a recall election).

Woman gives birth to lump of tissue...

2004-12-21T16:00:00.000-08:00

Does this look like a lump of tissue? This baby, born prematurely at only 25 weeks, weighed only 8.6 ounces at birth - a fair amount lighter than a can of Pepsi.

Babies are routinely brutally, callously aborted at such an age. This diagram shows the dilation and evacuation method commonly used on "fetuses" up to 24 weeks old.

Funny thing...Neither this real-life baby nor the one in the diagram looks like "a lump of tissue" or "a fetus". They are babies. 100% human - NO question about it.

One of the left's biggest hypocrisies is how they stand up so strongly for "human rights", yet even more fiercely defend abortion.

Doctors believe in miracles (duh)

2004-12-21T11:52:00.000-08:00

There is a new study which finds that doctors *gasp* believe in miracles and are religious, for the most part.

They surveyed 1100 doctors nationally and found among other things that:

74% believe miracles occurred in the past
73% believe miracles can happen today
72% believe religion provides a reliable and necessary guide to life
55% have seen treatment results in their own patients that they consider miraculous

There are a lot of other percentages, inferences, etc., but I want to focus in on one:

Often, religious conviction, especially a belief in the miraculous, declines as level of education increases. This does not appear to hold true for physicians. Perhaps because of their frequent involvement with matters of life and death, physicians show significant openness to religion.

I have highlighted the first sentence in blue and italicized it because it is a perfect example of the bigoted views of "the liberal elite" in this country.

They firmly believe that the only people who actually believe in God, believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and that the events depicted in the Bible actually happened are toothless, uneducated, ignorant, simple, backwoods "hicks".

In reality, us crazy people who believe in God, the Bible, miracles and moral absolutes come from all walks of life and are in all professions and have all levels of education. It's laughable to me that these people printed that sentence as fact.

In my church alone, we have doctors, lawyers, brain surgeons (well, at least one), engineers, business owners (small and large), teachers, mechanics, housewives, bus drivers, janitors, unemployed people, high-school dropouts, people fresh from prison, etc! We also have people from I think 30-some countries around the world, so there are many different cultures represented as well.

We all have one thing in common: We believe that salvation is the gift of God by grace alone and is received through repentance and personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and His substitutionary death on the cross and resurrection. Assurance and evidence of God’s regenerating work will include the internal witness of the Holy Spirit and the external witness of a life being transformed. (Among other similar beliefs in the God of the Bible, and Jesus Christ, his Son, and that no one comes to the Father except by Him (Jesus)...)

As one gains more education, one does not lose their religious faith, as if there are some grand teachings out there in higher education which debunk God's existence. Rather, in addition to being called by the Father, I believe that it is man's search for truth which leads people to explore religion. They believe that there has to be more to this life than that it is all a great big cosmic accident. It is through convenience and arrogance that people either disbelieve or create their own God to believe in (see: "reformed", liberal Jews). These people don't want to know the truth - they only want to live any way they want to live, and create a God for themselves who affirms that they are "good people".

The human brain is far more complex than the entire telephone system of the United States, and we are to believe that it just accidentally happened, morphed from a single-celled organism in some ooze somewhere with no planning? No foresight? Somehow, throwing "millions of years" in your sentences here and there gives it plausibility, but I don't buy it (and neither do millions of other Christians - educated and not). No Sir, I am made in the image of my Creator. And I have just as much intrinsic value to Him as the smartest and dumbest among us. Certainly individuals excel in their own fields, above and beyond all others (Einstein, Mozart, etc), but our intrinsic, eternal worth is equal.

Especially doctors, who see the marvels of the human body on a daily basis, I would expect to be religious. The wonders of the human body are too numerous to list here, and I've already gone on too long, but I'm sure you can think of a few. And this is all without mentioning conception, birth, speech, consciousness, etc.

Ok. End rant. That assumption that only "stupid" people believe in God and miracles has always bugged me.

Stefan from Sound Politics goes to Tukwila...

2004-12-21T07:45:00.000-08:00

He put up a great post with his report, pictures and thoughts on the process down there. Here is his post.

Gregoirovich calls for Rossi to concede!

2004-12-21T07:35:00.000-08:00

And Paul Berendt, chair of the WA state Democratic party, calls Rossi "a thief"!

The gall of these people knows no bounds. Gregoire wants Rossi to pledge that he will accept the results of this 3rd (and flawed) count - even if he loses. Of course, that's not going to happen. Rossi has already won two legitimate counts and now there have been all sorts of shenanigans during this count, as we know, and she wants him to pledge to concede if she manages to eke out a tiny lead??

And all this after she was adamant that the first two counts were "ties"??

Here is one article about it.

Here is an article from the Times which I am including because the pictures are priceless. There is one picture of Dwight Pelz holding a ballot up to a reading light and the caption says he is trying to determine the intent of the voter ----- AND ----- the caption also says that the ballot was "enhanced" in an earlier count!

So they are first "enhancing" ballots, and then having a 2-1 team led by Dems hold them up to reading lights to try to figure out what the voter's intent was? Even after other people have marked it up too?

If I had one shred of confidence that this was an honest process left, that shred just got torched with a flamethrower. This is just such a total joke at this point that it's truly unbelievable.

A telling Ron Sims quote?

2004-12-20T07:50:00.000-08:00

There is a story in today's Seattle P-I about how Chris Vance says he has a "smoking gun" showing that the KC elections people knew about these signature problems before the election and that people failed to fix the problems with their signatures, etc.

I noticed one especially telling quote from Mr. Grinch himself (Ron "no one is allowed to say 'Merry Christmas'" Sims)

Here it is:

Both Democrat Sims, the county executive, and Logan were incensed by the GOP chairman's remarks.

"Mr. Vance said good things about King County Records and Elections when things were going his way," Sims said.

Now that Rossi's victory is threatened, "he is being bombastic. He is being incendiary and vitriolic. It's very unfortunate. But I don't believe that Mr. Vance or anyone else is going to be able to show that King County Elections acted inconsistently with the law."

He doesn't believe that anyone is going to be able to show that they "acted inconsistently with the law"....

Well, isn't that comforting? He doesn't come right out and say that they didn't, just that no one can prove it. And I'm sure you and Dean Logan have been very careful about that, haven't you Mr. Sims?

Temp. Restraining Order GRANTED!!

2004-12-17T15:20:00.000-08:00

I've been pretty down all day, what with the Snohomish and Pierce Co. returns, and the news that good 'ol King County has "found" another 150 magical mystery ballots, and posted a pretty despondent comment over on the Sound Politics blog...

But this is GOOD news! Finally! Let's hope it stands and they don't get counted. There's too much question about what happened with these ballots, where they were and weren't since they were originally rejected...

Even if, as one commenter on Sound Politics challenged, Gregoire wins *without* these 723 magical mystery ballots, I don't think Rossi should try to get them counted either. Even if they are correct that this is all through no fault of the voters, they are not counting a lot of military votes which were mailed out late by the county either, so tough cookies. They are of questionable validity AT BEST, thanks to improper storage/security, so I would not want them counted. Period.

And with the news yesterday that Rossi actually has a net lead in the King County hand recount thus far, bodes well for him. (Until, of course, King finds more votes over the weekend...)

The new King County Democrat slogan?

2004-12-17T14:37:00.000-08:00

Now that it's just about time to stick a fork in Dino Rossi (how DARE a conservative come so close to becoming Governor!), and after the 336 magical mystery ballots in the machine recount, the 710 "enhanced" ballots, the ~~561~~,~~573~~,~~595~~,573 previously rejected ballots (but supposedly because of the County's error), and the new batch of 150 previously rejected ballots just unearthed today, I think they've earned a new slogan for themselves reminiscent of an old Doritos slogan...

Vote all you want, we'll vote more!!

Pierce county helps Gregoire too

2004-12-17T13:56:00.000-08:00

They just reported and gave almost as many votes to Gregoire as Snohomish County did. Between the two of them, Gregoire has gained 75 votes! Geez! This is just downright ugly now, and we need some sort of explanation for why Snohomish and Pierce both had statistically significant anomalies with this recount, and that they both were surges for the losing candidate in both counties...

King County officials "find" 150 more votes...

2004-12-17T11:17:00.000-08:00

They entered a locked section of the warehouse and "found" 150 more "misplaced" absentee ballots they want to count now. That brings the total to 723 "misplaced" (fraudulent or tainted or questionable at best) ballots that they are undoubtedly going to count now.

Now 162 ballots are missing in King County...

2004-12-17T08:08:00.000-08:00

It's just total lunacy down there...Here is a story about the 162 missing ballots. They are in addition to the 573 magical mystery ballots, but are of the same type, and they want to count them too, but now they can't find them. If you notice in the list of these 573 voters, the last name starts at "Ch". These 162 are the names that start with A and B. They put these aside to keep them separate, but now they are missing. There's a shock.

It shouldn't matter too much, because I'm confident they'll "find" several hundred more anyway. This is just a total joke at this point. Former Secretary of State Ralph Munro is calling for a new election, and while I also believe that would be best, Ron Sims and the powers that be in King County would sooner admit that there's no global warming (one of the major sins of the secular humanist liberal democrat religion) than hold another election for Governor, especially when all the polls on such an election show Rossi with a 60% and higher lead. But forget about what the people want...

King County changed counting rules this morning to benefit Gregoire!!

2004-12-16T15:56:00.000-08:00

Click here for the full scoop!

They're now sending all "overvotes" to the completely biased canvassing board for review, in direct contradiction to their previous rules. When will the chicanery stop??? Geez, this is just total lunacy in KC at this point. Someone has to reign them in!

Snohomish boosts Gregoire's total

2004-12-16T15:16:00.000-08:00

Snohomish just reported, and not only did they add 203 votes to their grand total over the last count, but in this county that picked Rossi by over 6,000 votes, somehow, these extra 203 ballots produced a net gain for Gregoire of 44 votes!!

A 44 vote net gain for Gregoire??! Argh...I've updated my spreadsheets and it's not pretty. Not pretty at all....How can these new votes in a Rossi county break in such a huge way for Gregoire?? I guess it's more proof that Democrats can't follow directions.

WHAT ABOUT THE MILITARY VOTES????

2004-12-16T07:49:00.000-08:00

I don't seem to be hearing anything about this, but it's a major issue. As I recall, the elections people were late sending the absentee ballots to our brave men and women serving overseas. They got them and returned them right away, and then they didn't get back here in time, and they were not counted because they said that it was too late.

Now, if these King County people are so gung-ho about counting these 573 ballots because they say the mistakes were not the fault of the voters, then they MUST count the military ballots as well! Their lateness was the fault of the county, not our brave men and women overseas!

Where is the cry to count all of these votes? Could it be because 70% of the military voted for Bush, and only liberal voters get all this special treatment here in Berkeley North?

I really want to know how many military votes were not counted because they were "late", when they never received their ballots in time, and want to make sure that these get counted if these 573 magical mystery ballots in fact do get counted.

A real moron is counting your vote in King County

2004-12-16T07:38:00.000-08:00

On last night's John Carlson show, some imbecile called in, and identified himself as "Christopher", and that he is a "progressive", and that he is a vote counter for King County.

He then proceeded to say, on air, that "...if there were any nefarious activities going on [with regards to the vote-counting in King County], that it's just payback for Florida and Ohio".

Carlson was understandably incredulous that this guy said that, and got him to clarify and say it again, and he also said he'd been a vote counter for 5 years now!

Then Carlson was asking him why he was talking about Florida, since Gore never won a single count there - not the official counts, not the post-election count, not the two media counts, nothing - and he just went on and on about how "George-Whites-Only-Bush" stole the election, and he knows it, blah blah blah...

So then he brought up Ohio, and said that surely he can't think that Ohio was "stolen", because Bush won there by 120,000 votes!! And then the idiot retorted that there were "hundreds of thousands" of disenfranchised blacks turned away from the polls. John Carlson then reminded him that "The black Secretary of State of Ohio disagrees with you, Christopher".

Then the flaming moron proceeded to call the Secretary of State of Ohio an "Uncle Tom", saying he sold out his own people, blah blah blah....the guy is just a real winner. It's a classic display of liberal racism at its best if I've ever heard it.

So there you go...there's one of the non-partisan, non-biased liberals who is counting votes in King County. Sure gives you a lot of confidence that there's no fraud going on, doesn't it?

That guy has a pretty distinctive voice, so John was calling for any Democratic officials who might be listening to identify this guy and fire him tomorrow (today). We'll never know what happens though, probably.

Is this what it's like to live in Cuba?

2004-12-16T07:16:00.000-08:00

We can vote all we want, but the powers that be aren't going to let some pesky conservative run things no matter how many times that Republican wins...

Last night, the canvassing board (2 Dems, 1 Republican) voted 2-1 (there's a shocker) to reconsider the 573 supposedly erroneously previously rejected ballots.

In addition to this, they have decided, quote:

Election workers had found at least 245 of the 573 voters' signatures on paper registration records by Wednesday afternoon. They will continue checking the records and verify the ballots that belong to registered voters. Workers will then take those ballots out of their security envelopes and return them to the board for a final decision on whether they should be counted.

(This is from a story on komotv.com)

The signatures are on the outside of the envelopes. That is the reason why they rejected them in the first place, because the signatures weren't in their electronic database. But now they are going to take them out of the envelopes and then decide if they will be counted?? Why open them up first? The only possible reason has to be to see who voted for who, and if adding those votes will help Gregoire or Rossi...

In addition, here is another little tidbit from the Seattle Times story I linked to earlier:

It is uncertain how many of the disputed ballots will be counted. Election officials so far have found signatures for 245 of the voters. The canvassing board yesterday asked an attorney for an opinion on whether it is too late to accept new signatures from other voters.

Is it too late to accept new signatures?!?! Are they CRAZY?? It's one thing to get lots of dead people to vote for you, imaginary people and what not, but to openly ask if it's too late for new vote signatures 7 weeks after the election and over two weeks after it was certified??

Also, there is the matter of the vast majority of these magical mystery votes being from precincts which were very heavily for Gregoire - even more than the rest of King County. Pretty convenient, huh?

And on top of everything else, it is starting to be reported that Democrats are looking into "the nuclear option", where even if Rossi manages to win this 3rd count, then they could just have the legislature decide who wins (and our legislature is heavily democratic now). They say they don't want to do that, etc, but the fact that it's even being brought up should scare people.

Though I guess it's no different than all the times our state has spent taxpayer dollars fighting to overturn various initiatives the people overwhelmingly supported...

newer projections

2004-12-15T10:36:00.000-08:00

I've added more projections. These are based on the fact that King County already did a hand recount (all those "enhanced" ballots which the machines spit out, but they "enhanced" and sent back through again), unlike any other county. So they really shouldn't have many more votes for either candidate this time around.

I removed my projected pickups and votes left to count for King County for both candidates, and the result is that it is fairly certain now that if King County is NOT allowed to count their 595 (and counting) new votes, Rossi will win.

If they DO count them, and they break like the rest of the county did (and there's no reason they shouldn't), Rossi would win by about 14 votes (scenario 1). My other two scenarios both have Gregoire winning, by 15 and 48 votes right now...Of course, this is only if they are allowed to count this latest batch of magical mystery ballots....

Gee, it's funny that King County has had so many screw-ups, do-overs, etc., and that every single one of them has benefitted Gregoire...coincidence??

New: I have projections on my spreadsheet

2004-12-15T09:20:00.000-08:00

I've updated my Re-recount spreadsheet with the latest numbers, but also have included some projections of my own. Feel free to look at them. They're based on how many Rossi/Gregoire votes are left to be re-recounted, and the percentage each one gains from having their votes recounted. (That's a lot of recounting...)

In short, if King County doesn't get to count their 595 (and rising) "new", previously rejected votes, then Rossi should win by about 40 votes, just like the previous recount.

However, if they DO get to count those new votes, that will boost Gregoire by anywhere from 105 to 167 votes, depending on the split, making HER the winner by 63 to 125 votes or so...These unfortunate predictions will change as more numbers come in, and as we find out if KC is going to count these votes or not...stay tuned.

An on and on it goes...

2004-12-15T07:46:00.000-08:00

The ~~561~~ ~~573~~ 595 new votes from King County will be seen by a canvassing board today to determine if they should be counted. Republican lawyers are going to contest the counting of these previously rejected ballots, according to this article in the Everett Herald.

Yesterday afternoon, they said they had 561. Then 573. Now this morning they say they have 595 more...why, it's almost as if they're just manufacturing ballots! Go figure.

Also in the non-surprise category is that according to Stefan over at Sound Politics, this latest batch of magical mystery ballots are:

"...drawn from precincts that voted 63% Gregoire, 37% Rossi, as opposed to Ukraine County as a whole, which voted 59% Gregoire, 41% Rossi."

He means King County, but can you blame him for comparing it to Ukraine? Just about the only thing missing at this point is the poisoning of Rossi...stay tuned though. The democrats sure as heck aren't going to relinquish their stranglehold on this state's highest office without more shenanigans/suspicious events/dirty tricks/outright fraud - call it what you want...

Doonesbury hits the nail on the head

2004-12-14T14:31:00.000-08:00

This lefty cartoon really hit the nail on the head with Sunday's strip. If you want to know what liberals really think about conservatives and especially "the red states", click here.

Ruminations on King County elections, Dean Logan, etc.

2004-12-14T13:58:00.000-08:00

A lot of local conservative blogs have been hesitant to call what is happening at King County elections "fraud", "cheating", etc. Regular readers to my blog know that I'm not as trusting of the King County elections people and tend to favor the "fraud" explanations. But let's look at the conclusions we can draw from this latest pooch-screw under Dean Logan...

There are really only three viable explanations for all the shenanigans that have gone on at King County elections...

1) That they are crooked. Every suspicious incident there (of which there are many) has benefitted the same candidate. Make of that what you will.

2) That they are incompetent to a stupendous degree.

3) That they are both crooked AND incompetent.

Seriously, with all the shenanigans that have gone on there in recent years, these are the only viable explanations.

No matter which one it is, the citizens of this state deserve that office to be cleaned up, people fired, procedures changed, etc, so that maybe someday, many years from now, we might trust their vote counts once again.

DOES the Supreme Court ruling affect the 561 new mystery ballots??

2004-12-14T13:46:00.000-08:00

I just read the opinion for myself - you can read it here...

And I'm not so sure that King County is allowed to count these 561 ballots now. Or the 336 magical mystery ballots from the first recount, for that matter. It clearly states in the opinion that:

“‘Recount’ means the process of retabulating ballots and producing amended election returns….” RCW 29A.04.139 (emphasis added). The procedure for recounts is set forth in RCW 29A.64.041, and starts with the county canvassing board opening “the sealed containers containing the ballots to be recounted.” See RCW 29A.60.110. Thus, under Washington’s statutory scheme, ballots are to be “retabulated” only if they have been previously counted or tallied, subject to the provisions of RCW 29A.60.210.

So they are only to be retabulated if they have been previously counted. The 336 "new" ballots in the first recount wouldn't count then, as well as this new batch of 561 uncounted ballots, I would assume, correct? Basically, it's a REcount; you can't just keep adding ballots every time. It's to make sure the previous count was accurate.

The ruling also says this:

Petitioners also seem to suggest that recanvassing of rejected ballots is necessary because the methods employed by King County to allow voters to rehabilitate rejected absentee and provisional ballots run afoul of Washington’s statutory and regulatory scheme. But we find no support for this notion. We note that the county gave absentee voters who failed to sign their ballot affidavits until 4:30 p.m. on November 16, 2004, the day before certification, to sign and return the affidavits, in accordance with WAC 434-240-235. And although this regulation does not require as much, the county likewise permitted absentee voters with problem signatures until 4:30 p.m. on November 16 to provide an updated signature.

I'm no legal expert, so maybe I'm wrong, but I believe the translation of this is: "Tough cookies". They want to count these ballots with signature problems, and the court is saying that they had until Nov. 16th to fix those problems, so too bad. Tough cookies. Tant pis (a little French for you...)

I hope the Republican Party is going to do something legally binding that would stop King County from counting these 561 votes? All the local media (print and TV) are saying that the ruling does NOT affect the 561 new votes...but they're all drinking from the same kool-aid fountain gushing forth from the Democratic Party headquarters...

Is there any objective source out there who will tell us if this ruling means they are not allowed to count "new", uncounted ballots in a recount?? I'm very curious about this now.

Dems lose their silly lawsuit

2004-12-14T13:21:00.000-08:00

Yep, the same Washington State Supreme court that said parents can't eavesdrop on their children actually got one right, and voted unanimously to reject the Dems lawsuit.

This is great news for Rossi (and the citizens of this state), but this lawsuit doesn't affect the newest batch of 561 magical mystery ballots from King County, which are expected to give Gregoire just over 100 net votes. Here's to hoping Rossi's lead will be over 100 votes before the King County numbers come in. Right now, with 25 of 39 counties reporting, Rossi's lead has grown to 88....stay tuned.

Two words: RE-CALL

2004-12-13T14:23:00.000-08:00

So, as expected, King County has come through for Gregoire again in a big way. During the first recount, they came up with 336 magical mystery ballots (in addition to the 710 "enhanced" ballots - while no other county was "enhancing" ballots...). They apparently miscalculated, because after the first recount, Rossi was still in the lead, and amazingly did not give ANY reason for the discrepancy whatsoever.

That was a mistake they never intended to make, and do not intend to duplicate. Today it was learned that the now openly and unquestionably crooked King County Elections department "found" 561 new magical mystery ballots which were not counted in either of the first two counts. Their excuse this time is that the ballots were rejected because they didn't match the signatures on file, but that they should have checked the "original registration records", where, apparently, they matched up, though this is never mentioned.

Since King County went for Gregoire by roughly 58% to 40%, if these ballots match that ratio, Gregoire would pick up a net gain of about 101 votes, probably give or take a few, which might just be enough to swing the election since Rossi is currently leading by 71 votes.

Of course, after defiantly stating after both of the first two counts that Rossi's leads of 261 and 42 votes were both "ties", it will be quite something if she claims that a 30 vote margin for her is anything but a tie.

I think in any case we need to:
1) Fire Dean "incompetent" Logan - Head of King County elections, and
2) Hold a recall election, where Rossi is projected to be the winner by 60% or more.

Spreadsheets, more on the recount, etc.

2004-12-10T08:35:00.000-08:00

I'll keep updating my Re-recount spreadsheet as the results come in, and I put up a link (finally) on the navbar. Currently, 10 counties have reported, and Rossi has a net gain of ONE vote. Rossi has gained 29 votes to Gregoire's 28.

I really want to start making some projections for this recount, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I know that over on Sound Politics, they ran some numbers and are saying that Gregoire's chances of winning this 3rd count are at about 20%.

There's just nothing to go on to make any sort of predictions, unfortunately. The only one that can be made is that if Gregoire's people are allowed to change the rules of this election after it has taken place, they are going to count approximately 15,000 King County votes, which will no doubt make Gregoire the winner.

Barring that, I think Rossi should hold on to his lead since King County already counted every last one of their undervotes. Of course, King County also added 336 unexplained mystery ballots to their first recount that they still can't explain where they came from.

Stay tuned, it's going to be a barn-burner.

Another blow to parents...

2004-12-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

The Washington State Supreme Morons - sorry, "Court" - recently issued their unanimous ruling in State of Washington v. Oliver C. Christensen.

You're not going to believe this one...Here is a story in the P-I about it if you want to read a summary there.

Here it is in a nutshell...two young men (later at least one of them was discovered to have been high on methamphetamines at the time) in Friday Harbor approached an elderly lady walking down the street. There was a struggle, the woman fell and broke her glasses, and one of the youths took her purse and they ran off. This Oliver Christensen was a suspect, and they went to his girlfriend's house to ask if they could look for evidence there (the purse).

The girlfriend's mother gave permission, and they searched, but no evidence was found. They told her to keep a lookout for any evidence, etc. Later, Oliver called his girlfriend and her mother answered. She gave the phone to her daughter, who took it into her room and closed the door. Then the mother went to the base unit and turned on the speakerphone and took notes on the conversation. In the conversation, Oliver admitted that he knew where the purse was, and knew he was a suspect, etc.

During his trial, the girlfriend's mother was allowed to testify about the conversation she overheard. Another young man had already plead guilty to the robbery and identified Oliver as being involved in the robbery.

This loser was found guilty in trial court. Then an appeals court upheld that ruling, again finding him guilty. The Supreme Morons (including Bobbe Bridge, the infamous Justice who drove drunk, rammed into a car and left - hit and run - until other citizens were forced to physically stop her with their own vehicle. She had a blood-alcohol level of .22, nearly 3 times the legal limit, and maintains that she was not drunk, did not "hit-and-run", even though she admits to hitting the parked car and keeping on driving, and that she won't step down. Infact, she got off scot-free, didn't even have to go to the station, pay a fine, etc., like the rest of us peons would have to do in similar circumstances. She entered a plea deal where she has to attend some BS "substance abuse treatment" thingamajig. Yip-yip-yahoo. If anyone has a problem with my calling them the "Supreme Morons", I'm not apologizing. Virtually the whole gang of our "supreme justices" are a bunch of dishonest, corrupt nincompoops who aren't fit to decide what outfits they should wear, let alone sit on our state's highest court.) of our state decided to hear the case, and they unanimously decided to reverse the earlier decisions, and now this Oliver guy gets a new trial, without the testimony from his girlfriend's mother.

I've had it up to HERE with all this "privacy" baloney. People who are caught red-handed get acquitted all the time based on this junk "privacy" stuff. I applaud the mother for doing the right thing. I certainly would have listened in to my daughter's call too under those circumstances. We have a right as parents to make sure we raise responsible, upright citizens, and we need to do it despite what some renegade court decides. And that includes listening to their phone conversations when police suspect them of mugging old ladies, searching their bedrooms when we suspect they might have drugs, etc.

Hand recount has begun...

2004-12-09T10:20:00.000-08:00

I've made up a similar yet different spreadsheet for this new, 3rd count. It's basically the same, but I don't have all the data on the different types of counting machines and their accuracy, projections based on their accuracy, etc., because all bets are off now. Of course the biggest thing now is if Gregoire will be allowed to change the rules halfway through the process - something she said was unacceptable back in 1996.

If you've been under a rock somewhere, she is blaming this on the previous attorney general, saying they just copied what he had said previously, even though she had been in office for 4 years. The folks over at Sound Politics had a great analogy comparing this to a kid whining to his teacher that, "You can't flunk me for getting the wrong answers, I copied them off somebody else's exam!"

Here is my new manual recount spreadsheet if you want to follow along - I'll be updating this, and you could save it and update it yourself from the Sec. of State's webpage if you want to.

Here is the final version of my old spreadsheet, created for the first recount. I'm thinking about coming up with accuracy comparisons between the two counts, versus the original count, etc., but wondering if I want to spend that kind of time on it...

And the Stupidity Award goes to....

2004-12-08T13:45:00.000-08:00

Gary Locke! Yes, today our lame-duck Governor came out with a proposal to adopt California's Vehicle Emission standards by the year 2009. The logic is apparently along the lines of: If Mexifornia can keep shooting it's own economy in the foot over and over, losing more and more jobs while raising taxes and regulations, so can we!!!

Let's take a look at what the short and long-term ramifications of this horrendous legislation will actually BE, shall we? (Liberals (especially eco-freaks) always seem to have "good intentions" and lots of warm-fuzzies, but conservatives tend to look more at results, and what will actually happen if certain legislation passes...)

These draconian rules will basically force car manufacturers to make cars, trucks, and dreaded SUVs put out 25% less CO2 emissions than they currently do.

The only way to reduce CO2 emissions is to reduce fuel consumption. As I understand it, you basically reduce fuel consumption by making cars lighter or making engines much smaller (thereby crippling trucks, SUVs, etc).

From what I've been reading in my brief research for this post, it seems that if they actually make these cars (which is a long-shot, thankfully, though it will wind up costing car companies boo-koo bucks proving they can't meet the requirements, and there will be some kind of a deal where the car manufacturers have to pay states a settlement which the idiot politicians who passed this legislation will praise as a windfall for the state that they "brought home the bacon" to you, etc. Meanwhile, the cost of a new vehicle will rise substantially to pay for the settlement costs. Gee, thanks, morons!), we're going to see the worst of both.

Since cars are already pretty small, they'll have to make them lighter through advanced materials and technologies (especially for trucks and the like, where they can't reduce the engine size or you couldn't tow anything, for example), which will increase the price significantly.

The smaller, lighter cars will certainly help fill up graveyards around here. If you're driving a yugo, and get hit by an 18-wheeler, guess which one wins? It's the same thing whenever two cars meet. Force = Mass x Acceleration. It's not rocket science.

In addition to the decreased safety of smaller, lighter cars, the added expense means that people will hold onto their old cars longer, thereby polluting even more than if the legislation never passed. Cars are already polluting less every year, but these dumb laws that try to speed up the process will actually create MORE pollution!

And all this is without even mentioning the imbeciles trying to get us to drive hydrogen bombs - oops, I mean cars fueled by hydrogen - around town...didn't they ever hear about the Hindenberg?? Geez, people, come on!!

So, in short, the chances of the car manufacturers actually complying with these rules is slim to none, but we'll still get stuck with the bill for all the millions of dollars they'll have to spend on research and then on proving that they can't feasibly meet these deadlines, etc, thereby raising the cost of new cars significantly.

And if they actually DO meet these rules, we'll wind up with smaller, lighter, more expensive cars which are more likely to explode! So we're kind of screwed either way. Thanks again, Mexifornia!!

Snohomish County not required to print out electronic ballots

2004-12-08T07:59:00.000-08:00

So now it appears that Snohomish County will not have to print out over 16 miles of paper for this hand recount. I guess the tree-huggers can get some sleep now.

They will be using the little strip of paper which prints out each vote as the ballots are cast, out the back of these touch-screen voting machines. When I voted on Nov. 2nd, I asked a poll worker there (I live in Snohomish County) about how it worked, and if the votes get stored on the little cards they give you, etc., and she said that they get stored on the machine itself, on a hard drive, as well as being printed out on this little roll of paper, it's probably only 4"-5" wide, and just prints out every vote as it's cast, so it records it in two places.

They will be allowed to use this "tape" to count by hand. Of course, this is welcome news in that it will save time and money, but will still be less accurate than the first recount, where the computer tallied up the results.

Tree-hugger alert!!

2004-12-07T09:16:00.000-08:00

Tree-huggers, be advised: You would do well to leave the Democratic party. Why is that, you ask?

The same party that espouses to be fellow tree-hugging hippies have just paid for an unnecessary and proven less accurate FULL HAND RECOUNT of the entire state. Do you understand what this means for Snohomish and Yakima counties?

They are the two counties which used touch-screen voting exclusively. The votes were cast on computers and tabulated by computers. According to this AP story, the two counties will not be able to use the computer count.

They are going to have to print out a "ballot" for each voter who used the touch-screen method. They will then be counted by hand. Who would you rather have counting up things numbering in the hundreds of thousands...a computer or a bunch of people? Aside from being the "I'm a technophobe who resists any and all technological advances" approach, this manual count is inevitably going to be less accurate than the computer totals, which is exactly what Gregoire is looking for. But back to my point.

This needless, inaccurate hand recount is going to waste a LOT of paper. How much, you ask? Well, from this article, we learn that:

Laid end to end, all those printouts would stretch 16.7 miles. Stacked, they would form a tower about three stories tall.

Alright tree-huggers, once you've finished cringing in horror, consider this: If a liberal democrat selfishly cuts down many trees in the forest, will any tree-huggers make a sound?

Recount madness

2004-12-07T08:59:00.000-08:00

First, we have Gregoire's people going to the State Supreme Court seeking to get previously disqualified ballots counted (the depths these people will go to never ceases to amaze me). Further proof that they don't want every legal vote counted, just every Gregoire vote - legal or not.

Second, the Republicans and Democrats in King County have each nominated 80 "party faithful" to actually be the "recounters". One Republican, one Democrat, and one county-appointed "tabulator" will form each team. Sounds fair to me. But not to the Democrats. They don't want "activists" counting votes. They'd rather have a team comprised entirely of county-appointed "non-partisans" - HA HA HA - counting the votes with teams of party "activists" from both sides hovering over their shoulders at all times. Part of their lawsuit also seeks to stop King County from doing the recount this way.

Additionally, the Republican observers will be the same observers who were trained to watch the first machine recount. The Democrats are "training" literally hundreds of new observers.

Here we go again...

2004-12-03T14:42:00.000-08:00

Furthering their "Count 'em till she wins" strategy - er, I mean, "Count every vote" (twice if necessary)...the Democrats have launched a hand recount of the entire state. Sound Politics is calling this, appropriately, the Full State Hand Job.

Despite the fact that everyone including Democrat Dean Logan, head of King County Elections, openly admits that a hand recount will be less accurate than the recount which ended just before Thanksgiving, they have raised enough money to keep dragging our state through the mud for several additional weeks.

John Kerry put up $200,000 of the $700,000 plus which is needed as a down-payment to fulfill this recount, and another blogger claims to have a very good source who said that several local indian tribes donated $100,000 to the cause.

So hold onto your hats and get ready for at least three more weeks of additional questionable votes mysteriously finding their way to King County.

Netherlands Hospital Euthanizes Babies

2004-11-30T13:15:00.000-08:00

Here is the breaking story.

Summary: they are only killing babies who appear to be in great pain which cannot be eased, according to them, and if the parents agree.

Where to start on this one...[Note to my readers: incase you haven't noticed, a lot of the time, I try to share breaking news as it comes out, so I just type what comes into my head and post it, not carefully editing as some other blogs do. I guess you can take that for what it's worth.]

Here are some tidbits:

..."and U.S. euthanasia opponents contend that the proposal shows the Dutch have lost their moral compass."

This HAS to be the biggest understatement of the decade so far. THIS shows that the Dutch have lost their moral compass??

"The slippery slope in the Netherlands has descended already into a vertical cliff," said Wesley J. Smith, a prominent California-based critic, in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Now this is closer to the truth.

The hospital reporting this claims that doctors do this everywhere, but secretly, and that very well may be true.

It's the natural progression of things. I've long pondered the outrage from pro-abortion people when they see that some young mother has dumped her newborn baby in a dumpster somewhere. I've seen these pro-abortion people be upset about things like this many times, and it never ceases to amaze me. I've challenged some of them on it and they sound ridiculous to everyone but themselves. The conversation goes something like this:

[News on tv]: ...into a dumpster...blah blah blah...
[pro-abortionist(PA)]: Oh, how horrible!
[Me]: Why?
[PA]: What do you mean, why?
[Me]: Well, you support abortion, right?
[PA]: Yeah but-
[Me]: So...one week ago, 2 weeks ago, 4 months ago, you would've thought it was just fine and ethical for a "doctor" to go into that young mother's womb and kill that very same baby...so what's the big deal now?
[PA]: That's different.
[Me]: How?
[PA]: That was a baby, he had been born....not a fetus.....(rambling)
[Me]: Oh, I see. So, at what point, exactly, does that "fetus" become a baby?
[PA]: Well, definitely when it's born at least.
[Me]: Oh, so you support partial-birth abortion now too?
[PA]: No, I just-
[Me]: Well which is it? When does it magically become a baby? At some point you have made a distinction in your head where before some magical time, it's ok to kill that living human being, and after that time, it's not...so when is it?
[PA]: You're not being fair...that's not what I said...I don't think--...

Et cetera. I've never understood why it's ok to kill a baby if you think it's going to be too inconvenient for you, as long as it's still in the womb, but that it's not ok to kill your newborn/1 yr old/3 yr old/6 yr old/14 yr old who has gotten to be just too darn inconvenient....

It's just more of the hypocrisy of the left, on display. Leave it to the liberals to be the party who wants to kill innocent babies and old people, but will fight tooth and nail to save the lives of murderers.

Baghdad Jim McDermott is at it again

2004-11-30T13:01:00.000-08:00

He gave a talk at the UW campus medical center pushing his own "universal health care" plan to med and pre-med students. He talked about how Canada's failing, miserable system is "a prime model". He talked about how horrible the free-enterprise system is, and equates it to "...how much can I take out of the system?".

Here is a link to the story if you're interested.

This guy is such a joke, and you libs in Seattle keep electing him!! It really just cracks me up because you have such a fine representative of your collectively ludicrous beliefs...Someone who shares your ignorance of economics and common sense.

Rossi the certified winner

2004-11-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

Of course, Gregoire is insisting on a manual recount, even though the guy in charge of King "count 'em 'till she wins" County, Dean Logan - a democrat - said in the Seattle Times on Thanksgiving that a manual recount of 900,000 ballots is going to be less accurate than the machine recount they just did.

This is just beyond ridiculous now, and thankfully Gregoire's mantra of "count every vote" is exposed now. There are just ridiculous quotes from every liberal in the state on this, and I don't have the time to go into them all right now, but my favorite by far is the quote from the head of the WA state democratic party, Paul Berendt:

"This is a Karl Rove-driven operation in this state," Berendt said earlier this week, referring to President Bush's chief political strategist. "We are not going to let the Washington, D.C. Republicans steal this election from Chris Gregoire."

OOOoooohhhhh, so now Karl Rove is trying to "steal" an election from Gregoire, who has now lost 2 out of 2 times? Hmm...Funny, I didn't know Gregoire was the original winner. On top of that, the democrats got every silly advantage they asked for (including counting the same type of questionable votes in some counties but not others), and Rossi still won!

In any case, I don't want to waste my time on these blowhards. We'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out, even if it drags on for weeks. The good news is that I don't see how they can squeeze any more votes out of good ol' King County at this point. They already did a hand recount for all intents and purposes, and they allowed every last questionable, "enhanced", mystery, and suspicious ballot to be counted.

It's official - Rossi wins recount by 42 votes

2004-11-24T15:14:00.000-08:00

Here is the final spreadsheet. It looks like my "Scenario B" projection was pretty close. As early as yesterday morning it showed Rossi winning by 78 votes. Not too shabby for this non-statistician, in any case.

Also, here is where you can find contact information for the Gregoire campaign. If you have the time, you might consider calling them up and saying that you think it's time they recognized that the voters have spoken and that Gregoire should concede for the good of the State :)

He said it wouldn't be easy...

2004-11-24T14:36:00.000-08:00

The persecution of and discrimination against Christians continues. Here is the story.

In a nutshell:

The Principal of an elementary school in the S.F. bay area (shocking) is being sued by a teacher for discrimination. According to the teacher (a christian), he has been required since May to submit all lesson plans and handouts to the Principal, who will not allow him to use anything which contains any references to God or Christianity - INCLUDING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE!!

This is ridiculous, obviously, but not unexpected - especially in the bay area. Just more political correctness/separation of church and state nonsense run amok. I wish people would read the constitution (and the declaration of independence) for themselves. Perhaps then more people would actually know what it says in there...it's not hard to read!

I'll leave you with this quote from Ann Coulter:

There is no surer proof of Christ's divinity than that he is
still so hated some 2,000 years after his death.

Update - ROSSI WINS RECOUNT!!!

2004-11-24T13:00:00.000-08:00

Here is the latest spreadsheet.

Kitsap still isn't official, but Komo TV is reporting that Rossi is the winner of the recount - by 42 whole votes!!

So now not 1, but 2 complete vote counts (complete with a number of highly suspect irregularities in King Countay) have declared Rossi the winner - even though the moronic head of the democratic party is calling it a tie!

Now is the time for Gregoire to accept defeat and concede, and not subject us to another month plus of this nonsense. Of course, that requires class, something her and her party in general lacks.

What can we expect now? Well, the Democratic party can request hand recounts of specific counties or precincts, and if any one of those recounts changes the outcome of the election, then you and me (the taxpayers) will pick up the approximately $700,000 tab to do a hand recount of the entire state.

I'm sure we can expect a LOT more shenanigans from King County if and when they do a hand recount...Oh Joy.

All I want for Christmas is Rossi for Governor!!

spreadsheet update - 10:49am

2004-11-24T10:48:00.000-08:00

This is the latest update, with the official Whitman nubmers in. What a slow day. I'll definitely be updating once King County's numbers come in (unless I'm on the road).

King County ballot wording

2004-11-24T07:58:00.000-08:00

I just found out from Pull on Superman's Cape that the wording on the King County ballots (thankfully I don't live in King County anymore) is as such:

"Fill in the oval completely. If you don't fill in the oval, your vote won't count."

It will be interesting to see if these votes will be allowed or not (there is a hearing on Nov. 30th). Seems pretty clear to me.

Latest update - 7:22am, 11/24/04

2004-11-24T07:23:00.000-08:00

Here is the latest spreadsheet. I'm not including the unofficial numbers from Whitman and Kitsap - I'm just going to wait until they are official. They're not going to change much anyway.

Just three counties left, but the only one that matters is King, who said they won't be done until 3:00pm today. There is a great post over on Sound Politics with the latest news, and a rather ominous quote from a King County observer:

"After observing many, many ballots, one conclusion I may draw is that Republicans tend to follow the instructions on the ballots, while Democrats ignore them. I do not believe that the "enhanced" ballots will break in the 58% to 40% ratio."

Of course, that's not a big surprise is it? Republicans generally tend to follow rules and be upright, law-abiding citizens. Liberal democrats generally tend to view any rule or law as "The Man keeping them down" - which is why they feel a need to "celebrate" protests, unlawful behavior, and generally anything which goes against the judeo-christian ethic this great country was built upon.

This is just my guess, but I think that without KC's 710 enhanced ballots, Rossi will win by at least 200 votes. If we assume the 710 extra ballots break the same way as the rest of the county, then Gregoire would get 410 of those votes, and Rossi 285, a net gain for Gregoire of 125 votes.

Under that scenario, Rossi would win by probably 75 votes or less. However, these enhanced ballots are likely to break by a much larger margin because of democrats' inability to follow simple voting rules. It's probably going to be very, very close indeed.

11/23/04 - 3:10pm spreadsheet update

2004-11-23T15:10:00.000-08:00

Here is the latest spreadsheet.

Only 5 counties remain unaccounted for in the recount, and currently Rossi holds a 299 vote lead. Unfortunately, King County is one of the five, with all of its provisional and "enhanced" ballots still being tabulated...I guess we won't find out until tomorrow sometime. There isn't likely to be a large push one way or the other from 4 of the 5 counties, only King.

Spreadsheet update: 12:33pm 11/23/04

2004-11-23T13:34:00.000-08:00

Here is the latest version of the spreadsheet. (Note: you might need to clear out your cache to get the latest version)

This latest update added the recount numbers for Franklin and Whatcom counties, the two latest to report.

So far, the official count has Rossi ahead by 297 votes. My three projections all have Rossi winning by 297, 184, and 78 votes.

If we take the 710+ "enhanced", previously rejected ballots from King County and apply the same percentages from the original count to the candidate totals (and if these 710+ ballots break the same way as the rest of the county - that's a big IF), here is what you get:

Rossi picks up 285 votes and Gregoire picks up 410 votes, with Bennett getting the remainder. That's a net gain for Gregoire of 125 votes.

That would put Gregoire ahead in one of my three scenarios and REAL close in another. Hang in there...Phew...

Update on shenanigans

2004-11-23T13:13:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know I sounded a little harsh before, outright accusing the King County people of cheating because of their "enhanced" ballots and 10,000 mystery ballots, among other things. I still believe there are shenanigans going on there which are unfairly helping Gregoire, but I suppose I will take the wait and see approach, because, well, there's not much else I can do is there? If it turns out that there was infact no cheating or unfairness going on there I will eat crow, I have no problem with that.

The new shenanigans, which I just found on the Sound Politics blog are worth noting here.

First, King County has "enhanced" over 710 previously rejected ballots so far, according to this Seattle Times article. Basically they try to figure out who the voter meant to vote for, then fill in the correct bubble on the ballot and send it through the machine to get counted. A subjective process indeed. I really hope there are a lot of Republican observers there not letting them pull a fast one (basically everyone in charge of King County elections is a Democrat - a huge conflict of interest if you ask me, despite how they call themselves non-partisan...)

It's entirely likely that the outcome of the whole race will hinge on these "enhanced" KC ballots. Great. And the Republicans can't even challenge the ballots in court until after the recount is done.

In the same article, we learned that King County wasn't the only one to produce magical mystery ballots. Snohomish County reported that they found 242 ballots which were not counted in their original count. Snohomish County favored Rossi, but these ballots were supposedly from precincts which favored Gregoire. So we shall wait and see what happens with that batch of mystery votes as well.

It still doesn't sit right with me that all of these questionable irregularities favor Gregoire....it just doesn't seem possible to me that they would ALL work in her favor without manipulation.

Pierce county numbers are in - boost Rossi a little more

2004-11-23T13:00:00.000-08:00

Here is my latest handy-dandy spreadsheet.

So far there has been a net increase in votes by 849, out of 1,104,405 recounted so far. Rossi received 431 of those, and Gregoire 394 (The rest went to Bennett).

It's looking more and more like this will hold up and Rossi will be our first Republican Governor in 20 years! Of course, once again, it really hinges on the King County numbers, and if there's been any funny business...

Go Rossi!!

Latest update: 11/23/04 11:22am

2004-11-22T15:22:00.000-08:00

Here is the latest update.

This is a SUPER-update, as I have overhauled the entire spreadsheet. I've updated the "Current Leader" panel to be more accurate (using original numbers for counties which have not yet finished their recount and recount numbers for counties which have finished).

I also have listed and grouped the different types of voting systems in place in each county along with current accuracy +/- percentages for each county, every separate type of system, every global type of system, and overall total accuracy.

Also, I've created 3 scenarios with projections based on different ways of calculating how many changed votes there will be in each county based on the various accuracies of the various voting systems. One is specific to type (model numbers, etc), one is on generic type (optical scan/punchcard, etc), and one is overall accuracy average.

One thing that I find strange is that so far the punchcard systems are proving to be a LOT more accurate than the optical scanning systems....interesting....

So, there you go. I'm not a statistician by any means, so maybe something is off, and if you find something, please let me know.

Right now, my least Rossi-friendly projection shows him winning by 86 votes. Of course, it will all depend on the King County numbers, but I think if they have more than about 132 votes changed (see my spreadsheet), there are serious grounds to challenge that, based on the accuracy levels of the other counties using the same exact machines and system.

Spreadsheet updated: 12:55pm

2004-11-22T13:56:00.000-08:00

I've updated my spreadsheet with the latest numbers, and also added some colors and nifty features like a "Current Leader" box that updates with whoever is the current leader, and by how many votes. Rossi is ahead now by over 24,000 votes, but Gregoire has now picked up 9 net votes to Rossi's 2. Stay tuned.

My Recount spreadsheet is up

2004-11-22T11:49:00.000-08:00

Here is my recount spreadsheet.

It shows you both counts (by county), how many votes each candidate picked up or lost in each county, as well as the total number of votes added or subtracted from the original in each county. I'll be updating this as much as necessary as counties report in with their recount data. So, check back to see the latest numbers.

Dino in Dire Straits

2004-11-22T10:42:00.000-08:00

Why have every single one of these suspicious goings-ons resulted in more votes for Gregoire and/or less votes for Rossi?? Every single one! Sure seems fishy to me.

The latest news is that the dems over at King County have been "enhancing" certain ballots. What does "enhancing" a ballot mean, you ask? Basically, they are "undervotes". Basically, the optical scanning machine can't read the vote for some reason. Then election workers look at the ballot to "determine" the voter's intent, and then "enhance" the ballot (fill in the bubble properly) to reflect who the voter meant to vote for, and send it through the machine, which then reads it.

Not surprisingly, the republican observers are complaining that this is a very subjective process (yeah, especially when you have partisan liberal democrats running the show). King County had already "enhanced" 695 ballots out of 300,000 recounted, more than enough to sway the election alone. Further, they are supposed to keep these "enhanced" ballots separate, but republican observers say they are mixing them back into the general pile, making them impossible to pick out again.

Actually, thanks to Sound Politics, we have a very well-presented list of the four biggest complaints from republican observers in King County.

I know people say we should wait to see the result of the recount and then if there is a huge swing for Gregoire in King County, THEN we should make a big stink. Hooey. The time to create a ruckus is now! The time to get King County to shape up is NOW, before they finish recounting and "enhancing" all these ballots. Once that is done, it will be too late for Rossi. We could hopefully fix the system, but only in time for the next election.

ROSSI WINS BY 261 VOTES!!

2004-11-18T07:20:00.000-08:00

This is a smaller margin than previously anticipated, but welcome nonetheless. It means that there will be an automatic machine recount (not a hand recount), and we should know by the end of the day on Nov. 24th who will be the next Governor with certainty. Of course, after the machine recount, candidates can pay for a hand recount if they would like, but it costs upwards of $800,000 to do so.

If you look at the history of WA state recounts, you can see that usually they don't change much, and a recount has never changed the outcome of the election before. However, of the six recounts involving candidates (not initiatives, etc), the democrats seem to pick up many more votes for some reason. Here are the six recounts, and how each republican fared:

1968 - Gorton(R) - Net Change: -604
1976 - Garner(R) - Net Change: +13
1988 - Wight(R) - Net Change: +9
1996 - Smith(R) - Net Change: -3
2000 - Reed(R) - Net Change: -77
2000 - Gorton(R) - Net Change: -277

So if the republicans lose 600 votes like in 1968, that will spell doom for Rossi. If they lose 277 votes like in 2000, it appears Gregoire would win by 16 votes!

I heard Sam Reed (Our Secretary of State) say last night on the John Carlson show that he doesn't think the results will change as much as they did in the 2000 Gorton/Cantwell recount because of the changes they've made since then to minimize that sort of thing. So that's good news.

I guess we just have to hold our breath another week or so. I'm going to make up a new spreadsheet to track any changes county by county as they report in, and I'll try to post it up here, though it's a free site, and I'm not sure if they let you post files or not.

Rossi update: 3:18pm

2004-11-17T15:17:00.000-08:00

My own spreadsheet shows a projected victory for Rossi of 545 votes at this point. Of course, those extra 450 king county ballots might not be accounted for, so it might be more like a 100 vote margin.

Rossi update: 12:50pm

2004-11-17T13:51:00.000-08:00

Rossi is now ahead by 156 votes, and that number seems to be slightly increasing every time new votes come in. Of course, King County will undoubtedly push Gregoire over the edge unless his lead is much larger.

The updated spreadsheet Tim Goddard made over at The Flag of the World (one of my recommended blogs) shows that Rossi is still projected to win by 519 votes, but with all the additional provisional Gregoire ballots from King County, I'm not sure if that will hold up or not at this point. We'll just have to wait for the KC numbers and keep praying.

Racist cartoons about Condoleezza Rice

2004-11-17T10:46:00.000-08:00

Rush was kind enough to gather these in one place, but there are also many more I've seen through the years. It's just more proof that these oh-so-tolerant liberals are the true bigots...never seeing the person or intelligence, just the skin color.

Dr. Condoleezza Rice is smart as a tack, strong, and can take care of herself, so don't worry about her. And, we love you here at Living in Babylon, Condi!! We even declared a "Condoleezza Rice Day" back on 4/8/2004, and it shall be remembered annually on this blog.

Let these cartoons serve as a witness to the true composition and hypocrisy of the liberal soul.

Rossi Watch continues

2004-11-17T10:24:00.000-08:00

As of 10:23am this morning, Rossi is currently up by 64 votes. Let's hope this trend continues. In other news, the democrat Auditor of Yakima county is refusing to allow provisional ballots for Rossi gathered and authenticated in the same manner as the ones a judge ordered King County to count (all going for Gregoire, collected by democrat campaign workers).

Rossi is challenging especially based on the ruling from King County that they all must be counted. Looks like that ruling has a chance to work out for good in the end?

Rossi Watch 2004 continues...

2004-11-17T08:23:00.000-08:00

As of Wednesday morning, Rossi was leading again -- by 19 whole votes. It appears that the 10,000 magical mystery ballots possibly had been there all along, though it still seems highly suspicious to me. Just a hunch. Well, that, and the fact that I've lived in or near King County for 25 years and have developed a healthy distrust for the officials there.

The onslaught of questionable events helping Gregoire continued unabated yesterday, as not only did Grays Harbor County add 508 votes for Gregoire, but King County Superior court Judge Dean Lum (probably a liberal, I'll have to check) ruled late Tuesday afternoon that counting of 400 provisional ballots in King County can proceed.

I hope this can be appealed. It's really a bad decision, since these democrat campaign workers are out collecting affidavits which are supposed to be filled out in person (against the law), but since he pointed out that "...what is critical is that votes be counted", he will now hold a high position in the tenets of liberalism especially if Gregoire pulls this thing out. They are more than willing to bend or break laws as long as there is a warm fuzzy involved.

The warm fuzzy here is that "every vote be counted". It doesn't seem to matter how illegitimate a vote is...if it's for Gregoire, it needs to be counted. Is it a vote from an illegal alien? Doesn't matter, it needs to be counted - why shouldn't they be allowed to vote anyway? Is it the 14th vote from the same Fremont hippy? Doesn't matter, it needs to be counted. Etc.

And hey, who needs things like laws and results when you can have lots of warm fuzzies anyway, right? :)

Republican Party to challenge King County Provisional Ballots!!

2004-11-16T14:13:00.000-08:00

This is a sad, but necessary development. I told you the percentage of provisional ballots counted in King County was too high. Also, the democratic party went out of its way to turn in hundreds of highly questionable provisional ballots.

It's too bad it had to come to this, but I'm glad the Republican Party of this state is finally growing a backbone to stand up for itself and make sure that all the votes counted are actually legitimate.

I can't wait to see all these ballots and who supposedly filled them out...

Gregoire gets additional 508 votes from Grays Harbor County

2004-11-16T14:06:00.000-08:00

Here is the latest update from the Grays Harbor County recount...Gregoire picks up 508 votes - what a shock...

Election fraud - Washington State style

2004-11-16T10:53:00.000-08:00

My friends, I'm sorry I've been a little lax lately and not on top of the Rossi vs. Gregoire debacle. My little girl has had some health issues, but is doing well now, and I'm back, and fired up!

Just incase any of you have been in a cave somewhere, here is the latest:

This election for WA Governor was looking like it was in the bag for Rossi, with most estimates being that he would win by about 3,000 votes, not even close enough to qualify for an automatic recount.

The candidates can request the state do a recount anyway (at the candidate's expense), and Gregoire's people said they plan to do that, regardless of the outcome.

And then the liberals pulled out what you might call a "November Surprise".

Up until Monday afternoon (11/15), King County maintained that they had about 11,000 ballots left to count. However, on Monday they revised that and said they now had about 21,000 ballots left. They said they just "discovered they had 10,000 more uncounted ballots than previously estimated." I won't put the links up here, but there are stories about this in both seattle papers, komotv.com, etc.

Oops! The county with the most Gregoire votes mysteriously just "discovered" 10,000 votes 2 days before they have to be done counting!? It's more than a little fishy. Something stinks.

This is the same garbage they pulled in 2000 when Maria Cantwell supposedly beat Slade Gorton. With 2 days left to finish counting, King County "discovered" over 3,000 uncounted votes in that race, giving Cantwell the victory.

I really hope that they Rossi people are going to challenge these 10,000 votes. As well as the fact that King County is counting about 84% of their provisional ballots. Nationwide, only about 25% of the provisional ballots are actually valid and counted. However, King County (heavily, HEAVILY democratic) insists that 84% is the normal amount of provisional ballots that are valid in their county....

In any case, this smacks of the Chicago Graveyard vote that put JFK in the White House.

Oh, and the latest news is that Grays Harbor County Auditor Vern Spatz (a DEMOCRAT - surprise, surprise), says that they're going to do a recount of their county because they believe there was a problem with "a computer reporting system". This liberal Auditor also said that the re-count will likely add to Democrat Christine Gregoire's total votes for governor. How's that for objectivity?

Here is the link on that story:

Grays Harbor County officials are almost entirely Democrat, yet their county is going for Rossi by 231 votes at this point. Are the Gregoire people pulling out the thumbscrews trying to wring more votes out of close counties?

What I'd like to see now is Spokane county or some other large county that went for Rossi to "Discover" 10,000 new uncounted votes. Can you imagine the outrage?

Why is it that when people discover more votes at the last second for liberal democrats, all we hear about is how lucky it was, because it's extraordinarily important that EVERY LAST VOTE get counted (even if it was filled out by dead people, cartoon characters, etc), but if it was votes for Rossi, that wouldn't be allowed. It would be immediately challenged in the courts, shut down by "the authorities", protests in Fremont with their stupid giant puppets, etc. I guess democrats are the only people whose votes really count.

Anyway, never fear, there's still a chance that Rossi will pull this out. According to a local blogger out there who was mentioned in a recent article on blogs, Rossi is still going to win, but only by about 1,100 votes - triggering a recount (in which, you can be sure Republicans will lose votes). Here is that blog. He also has a nifty spreadsheet which he updates with the latest results.

Stay tuned, I'm still not convinced that King County is done "discovering" Gregoire votes yet.

Health Alert! HIV infects selectively along socio-economic lines

2004-11-05T11:42:00.000-08:00

Sorry folks, I couldn't help putting this quote up on my blog. This gem comes from the UW's student paper, "The Daily". It is from an article about the HIV vaccine trials that the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center are running.

Ok, here is the quote, from a UW senior who shall remain nameless (I don't want to be accused of libel or anything, she is not a "public figure", thankfully):

"The higher rates of HIV infection in minorities and the poor should motivate a person to want to help find a cure for something that is spread so unfairly."

Yep, you read that right. HIV is "spread unfairly", and that's why it's bad.

So now, not only do liberals want to redistribute wealth, but they apparently think that they need to redistribute deadly diseases too. Even better, why don't they create a disease to go after rich oppressive capitalist bigoted white males instead? Actually, maybe it was the rich white males who created HIV and engineered it to go after poor people, thus keeping them down...

I mean, can you believe the idiocy of this statement? Yes, there is some evidence that blacks are more susceptible to HIV for some genetic reason which they are still looking into. But "the poor"?? Come on, you have to be kidding.

This statement that it's bad because "...[HIV] is spread so unfairly" just blows me away. You know, there's a reason why it doesn't infect as many christians as the rest of the population. There is a little-known but 100% effective way to not catch HIV, and I'll let you in on the secret: It's to practice abstinence until you are married and then to practice monogamy once you are. Works every time.

You know, God doesn't just hand down rules and commandments to obey willy-nilly because He doesn't want us to have any "fun". They all are there FOR OUR OWN GOOD. Everything that goes against God's law is harmful to us humans in one way or another. They are to protect us against things like HIV, among a gazillion other things.

I could go on, but I just wanted to share this most ridiculous of quotes with whoever is reading this blog.

What the Left REALLY thinks

2004-11-05T09:19:00.000-08:00

There is a new article on Slate today...it's simply...astounding. I have writer's block because I am stunned, frankly, after just reading this. Here. Here is the link to the article:

Slate article

It's called "Why Americans Hate Democrats - The unteachable ignorance of the red states"

You can read it first, and then I'm going to post some thoughts below.

First of all, if anyone has "feelings of superiority", it's the liberal elites. There's this elitism present only in hardcore liberals which assumes that they know what's best for everyone else, and that people can't be trusted to make their own choices, etc.

Second, the literal Word of God is NOT contradictory. Anyone who says this has either not read or not studied the Word. And when it comes to the Bible, a literal reading is all that is allowed. You don't take the Word of God and mess with it, picking and choosing which parts you like, and discarding other parts which you are too politically correct to accept - God is God, and you are NOT.

And someone needs to tell her that believing the literal word of God won't spare you from hell (more proof she's never actually READ the Bible herself). The question is not whether you are a believer, but if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, and believe HIM to be the Son of God, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that no one can come to the Father except through Him. Heck, the Bible clearly states that even Satan and his demons believe in God, something that escapes the grand, complex, high-falutin' wonder of nature that is the liberal elitist mind.

Further, it is nothing short of absurd to suggest that christians are incapable of critical thought, and that by believing what the Bible says, we are being too "simple".

For crying out loud, people!!! There are few ideas I've encountered in this world as entirely moronic as their prized theories of evolution and "the big bang". There's no proof of either (survival of the fittest and natural selection do happen, but they don't have anything to do with the "evolution" of species). Argh. There's just too much to go into all that's wrong with these theories in this post. Here's a way one of our pastors talks about evolution:

"Good afternoon everyone. I had an interesting day. When I woke up, I was a one-celled creature swimming around in primordial ooze. By breakfast, I grew fins and swam around. After breakfast I grew some legs and walked up on dry land. Then by lunch I was walking on 2 legs, and now, here I am, talking to you people. Sounds pretty silly, doesn't it? But somehow if you throw in "several million years" in there somewhere, it's a very deep, rational theory which must be true."

And actually I do believe in the big bang. As in, God spoke, and "BANG!", it happened. The big bang people can't tell you where all the stuff that supposedly blew up came from in the first place, and so, it really doesn't even explain anything at all.

No, everything that we witness here on earth points to a designer, an architect. You don't just get order out of chaos; it is actually quite the opposite. The intellectuals on the left and in our universities would have you believe that order was created out of chaos, which has never happened without a plan. Without a design. Think about it for a second. You can put colored marbles in a jar in different colored layers, and then shake up the jar. Once you shake it up (creating chaos), you can shake that darned jar for 65 million years, but you'll never get all the marbles back in their original layers without a plan. Just by shaking (chaos), they'll never line up again (order). Things always progress from order to chaos, and then need a plan and effort to bring them back to order again.

And this is without even getting into the complexity of the human body and brain. The human brain is far, FAR more complex than the entire telephone system of the U.S.A., and it just happened by accident?? Anyway, I've dawdled on this long enough. To sum up, most christians I know have far more open minds than any of these liberals. Most have been searching and searching for answers, not content to settle on flawed theories like what I mentioned above, and ultimately coming to know the bullet-proof truth. The liberal just finds whatever explanation they can that will enable them to keep living their lives in whatever manner "feels best" to them, and so they won't feel guilty about it. They want a validation of their sinful lifestyles, basically. The christian is someone who ultimately desires TRUTH, and wants to conform his/her life to that truth, once they are fairly confident they have found it.

Anyway, the article goes on and on and she tries to lecture "the red states" and say that they are too hate-filled (there's a new one - one of these rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth Bush-haters lecturing against hate). And how we have no common sense (oh, like being for abortion and against the death penalty??), and how we cheat and intimidate (who always gets 100% of the DEAD vote?), and that capitalists have no morals (Sure, capitalism has ushered in an age of unprecedented wealth, health, and comfort, it must be evil!), and we can't understand reason, and on and on - (sounds pretty hateful, doesn't it?)

So, there you have it. The truth about what the left thinks of christians and conservatives. This is great news, though. I mean, it's annoying to hear stuff like this, but not unexpected. Jesus said we would be persecuted for His name, and if this is the worst of it, that's not bad at all.

And the best news is that they still just don't get it. They're clueless. They have no idea why morals and values are so important to a majority of Americans. They have no idea why character matters. They are still in denial that it's THEM, and THEY are why they can't win elections, and that's a great thing. After the 2002 elections, they said they didn't get their message out enough, and they needed to move "more to the left". Well, they did, and they lost even worse in 2004. And guess what? A lot of them are saying that they just didn't do a good enough job getting their message out, and that they need to move farther to the left, and that now the evil capitalists brainwashed 59 million people.

That's a great thing, because if somebody in charge of that motley crue actually were to take a step back and see that they were to blame and that they needed to compete in the arena of ideas and not just appoint activist judges who rewrite laws most Americans disagree with (though this is their only option because Americans will never vote for their hair-brained ideas), and rebuild their party, eventually, they might be able to compete again.

And the fact that they just don't get it is the "ignorance of the blue states".

BUSH WINS!! BUSH WINS!! BUSH WINS!!

2004-11-03T08:12:00.000-08:00

Wow, talk about decisive. If Kerry had any class at all, he would have conceded last night once it was obvious that Bush won Ohio to everyone but CNN, but, come on, did we really expect Kerry to show the same sort of class Bush would have if the tables were turned?

What is shocking to me is the magnitude of this victory. I always figured that Bush would win, and probably by a bigger margin than in 2000. What I didn't count on was Bush winning the popular vote by over 3.5 million votes, and all the republican pickups!

Bush won house AND senate seats in 2002 - the first time a president has picked up seats in both houses of congress in the first mid-term election! Then, he built on that lead, as the GOP picked up seats in the house AND senate AGAIN - not to mention increasing the Governorships as well! And hopefully Rossi can hold onto his slim lead here in WA, and we can have our first republican Governor since 1980! And Daschle lost his job...man, this was a slam-dunk, people! Praise God!!

Speaking of God, let's examine some of the results from yesterday's election, shall we? I'm continually amazed at how God turns all things for good. We all know what has been going on concerning "gay marriage" in this country. Yesterday, 11 states (including all-important Ohio) had constitutional amendments banning "gay marriage" on their ballots. This was a necessary step because of all the activist judges out there re-writing the constitutions from sea to shining sea, runnink amok, drunk with their own unaccountable power and sense of elitism.

Because of the gay marriage issue, evangelical christians turned out like never before in the voting booths. While they were in there, they voted for Bush - a pro-life, born-again prayerful man who represents their (and my) values. Karl Rove estimated before the election that there were going to be about 4 million evangelical christians voting who didn't vote in 2000 or maybe ever before. And Bush won the popular vote by almost 4 million votes.....coincidence?? Us christians know there is simply no such thing. And that is how God turned even this insidious threat to families into a decisive victory for Bush. For righteousness. For unborn babies, and against terror.

It's morning again in America!

Fake Orange Tan Alert

2004-09-28T07:03:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, the deep orange glow of a sunset---wait a minute, that's Kerry!!

Yep, just in time for the first debate Thursday night, the nation's most liberal senator is sporting approximately 2 pounds too much fake tan (and of course lying about how he got so tan, as proved by a college newspaper).

Here is a link to the Drudge Report article on it, which has a link to the college newspaper article.

Terrorist Home-Schoolers?!

2004-09-23T08:25:00.000-07:00

What will they come up with next? You have to read this article by Michelle Malkin. It's simply....unbelievable! Normally I would go on and on about something like this, but for whatever reason I just can't find the words. Perhaps reading the article, and knowing that it is true is just mind-numbing? In any case, here is the Michelle Malkin article.

Basically, some backwards school district (oops, is that an oxymoron?) has been working for almost a year to do a simulation of a terrorist attack for preparation purposes. Fine. The catch? The terrorists are a group of home-school "militants" named "Wackos against Schools"!!! Can you believe it!?!?

...And all this is after a recent (but little reported on) study showing that well over 30% of public school teachers in big cities send their children to private schools!! They recognize the abysmal failure most of our public schools have become, yet keep resisting the charter school and voucher program movements because of their best buddy, the good 'ol NEA! All the while, sending their own children to better schools...I wonder how they explain this to the parents of the children they teach?

Amazing...

Peaceniks Practice Vandalism

2004-09-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

There is a disturbing trend I have witnessed this election year. I have seen many, many yard signs for Bush/Cheney that have been vandalized, ripped up, cut up, torn down, etc. In particular, there is a large sign on a major arterial between Mill Creek and Snohomish that has been the site of repeated vandalism.

I remember the day I first noticed the sign, and how happy I was that someone else in our liberal, hippy state also supported President Bush. The very next morning, while driving by, I couldn't help but notice that someone had spray-painted a large black "ghostbusters" symbol right in the middle of the sign.

That remained for a while, until the homeowner obviously purchased a new sign and put that one up. The very next morning, it was vandalized again, this time with various colors of spray-paint blocking out Bush's name entirely. That remained up for a while until, you guessed it, the homeowner obtained and displayed yet another brand new sign.

And, just as surely and swiftly as before, the sign was vandalized again. This time, they cut out Bush's name entirely and there is just a big hole in the sign where his name was to this day.

My wife tells of a similar large sign visible from I-405 which has an identical tale. The owner of this property, however, displays all the vandalized signs as well, hopefully drawing attention to the problem.

Watching our local news, you would think that none of this is going on, though it is widespread. I did see a story once about how some elderly lady's small kerry/edwards sign was stolen. As usual, the blame was squarely placed on those evil conservatives (who also want to starve children, make old people sick, strip-mine the whole earth, etc). No doubt, there are probably a few conservatives who would steal or vandalize liberal's signs.

That being said, it seems there are a LOT more people vandalizing Bush/Cheney signs out there.

This should not be surprising, I suppose, because if I was a vandalizer, I would want liberals in office too. They are soft on crime, espousing the "rights" of criminals, victimizing the victims all over again. There are a host of other reasons, but the biggest one is that they claim to be the champions of "tolerance", when in reality they are the most intolerant people of all. No view is to be respected, or even allowed in the marketplace of ideas unless it affirms the secular liberal faith (and yes, it IS a faith all its own - read "America's Real War", by Rabbi Daniel Lapin if you want to learn more).

These are the people who talk about the need to erect a 7-mile thick, 45-mile high titanium reinforced wall between church and state, who are worried that the "religious right" is shoving their values down everyone else's throats, etc, etc, while at the same time telling our children that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality (in fact, we need to celebrate sodomy), having sex before marriage (even in your early teens), murdering unborn children, and so forth!!

Now, honestly, WHO are the ones cramming their values down everyone else's throats?! The religious right, of which I am proud to be a member, is merely practicing self-defense.

There is a story today of members of a painter's union grabbing a Bush/Cheney sign out of the hands of a THREE YEAR OLD GIRL, and ripping it to pieces before her very eyes. What kind of gutless, heartless, senseless, spineless, immature, vile, weasel of a coward do you have to be to do such a thing? I'm glad Matt Drudge is around, because he put up pictures of the young girl crying and a brief story about the incident, and then the Washington Times picked up the story as well. You can read it here.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but I'll stop here. And also, the vandalizers should be on notice, because my wife and I are going to talk to the property owners with these signs, and offer them financial assistance to keep buying signs. Maybe we'll put up a camera and try to catch whoever is doing this. My guess? It's probably not a teenager, but a middle-aged woman with a "Bush Knew" sticker on the back of her (probably imported) car.

teens, sex, and tv

2004-09-07T10:43:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well....it seems there is a new study out that establishes a strong correlation between teens' tv viewing habits and their sexual behavior. It seems that teens who watch a lot of "racy" television shows with sexual content are twice as likely to engage in intercourse than teens who watch little or none of those shows. Indeed, the head of the study said, ‘The advancement in sexual behavior we saw among kids who watched a lot of sexual television was striking.’

TV watching is certainly not the only factor, but definitely plays a part. This is kind of just another example of "science" telling us what we already knew, isn't it? Well, hopefully it is. Just one more reason not to let your kids watch 'Friends', or any other of the myriad of shows out there with sexual content (it seems like a lot of shows not only have sexual content, but they have made sex the theme of the whole show).

Text of great speeches from the Convention

2004-09-02T07:55:00.000-07:00

Hi,

I know that not all of you out there are watching or reading the speeches from the convention. There sure are some great speeches being given though. I've selected two to print here; One from Arnold "The Governator" Schwarzenegger and one from Democratic Senator Zell Miller. Even though Arnold is very socially liberal and Zell is a democrat (no one is perfect), boy were their speeches great. And Arnold's is likely to be especially effective, because since he is a movie star, he attracts people to watch him who otherwise wouldn't watch or care what was said at a national political convention. Zell's is definitely my favorite speech so far, and it was given with such vim and vigor, reading the text doesn't do it justice, but it's definitely worth a read. I'll save that one for last, and give you the text of the Governator's speech first. Enjoy.
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The text of a speech by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, as prepared for delivery Tuesday at the Republican National Convention:
---------------------------
Thank you. What a greeting!

This is like winning an Oscar! ...As if I would know! Speaking of acting, one of my movies was called "True Lies." It's what the Democrats should have called their convention.

My fellow Americans, this is an amazing moment for me. To think that a once scrawny boy from Austria could grow up to become Governor of California and stand in Madison Square Garden to speak on behalf of the President of the United States that is an immigrant's dream. It is the American dream.

I was born in Europe ...and I've traveled all over the world. I can tell you that there is no place, no country, more compassionate more generous more accepting and more welcoming than the United States of America.

As long as I live, I will never forget that day 21 years ago when I raised my hand and took the oath of citizenship.

Do you know how proud I was? I was so proud that I walked around with an American flag around my shoulders all day long.

Tonight, I want to talk about why I'm even more proud to be an American — why I'm proud to be a Republican and why I believe this country is in good hands.

When I was a boy, the Soviets occupied part of Austria. I saw their tanks in the streets. I saw communism with my own eyes. I remember the fear we had when we had to cross into the Soviet sector. Growing up, we were told, "Don't look the soldiers in the eye. Look straight ahead." It was a common belief that Soviet soldiers could take a man out of his own car and ship him off to the Soviet Union as slave labor.

My family didn't have a car — but one day we were in my uncle's car. It was near dark as we came to a Soviet checkpoint. I was a little boy, I wasn't an action hero back then, and I remember how scared I was that the soldiers would pull my father or my uncle out of the car and I'd never see him again. My family and so many others lived in fear of the Soviet boot. Today, the world no longer fears the Soviet Union and it is because of the United States of America!

As a kid I saw the socialist country that Austria became after the Soviets left. I love Austria and I love the Austrian people — but I always knew America was the place for me. In school, when the teacher would talk about America, I would daydream about coming here. I would sit for hours watching American movies transfixed by my heroes like John Wayne. Everything about America seemed so big to me so open, so possible.

I finally arrived here in 1968. I had empty pockets, but I was full of dreams. The presidential campaign was in full swing. I remember watching the Nixon and Humphrey presidential race on TV. A friend who spoke German and English, translated for me. I heard Humphrey saying things that sounded like socialism, which is what I had just left. But then I heard Nixon speak.

He was talking about free enterprise, getting government off your back, lowering taxes and strengthening the military. Listening to Nixon speak sounded more like a breath of fresh air.
I said to my friend, "What party is he?" My friend said, "He's a Republican." I said, "Then I am a Republican!" And I've been a Republican ever since! And trust me, in my wife's family, that's no small achievement!

I'm proud to belong to the party of Abraham Lincoln, the party of Teddy Roosevelt, the party of Ronald Reagan and the party of George W. Bush.

To my fellow immigrants listening tonight, I want you to know how welcome you are in this party. We Republicans admire your ambition. We encourage your dreams. We believe in your future. One thing I learned about America is that if you work hard and play by the rules, this country is truly open to you. You can achieve anything.

Everything I have my career my success my family I owe to America. In this country, it doesn't make any difference where you were born. It doesn't make any difference who your parents were. It doesn't make any difference if, like me, you couldn't even speak English until you were in your twenties.

America gave me opportunities and my immigrant dreams came true. I want other people to get the same chances I did, the same opportunities. And I believe they can. That's why I believe in this country, that's why I believe in this party and that's why I believe in this President.

Now, many of you out there tonight are "Republican" like me in your hearts and in your beliefs. Maybe you're from Guatemala. Maybe you're from the Philippines. Maybe Europe or the Ivory Coast. Maybe you live in Ohio, Pennsylvania or New Mexico. And maybe just maybe you don't agree with this party on every single issue. I say to you tonight I believe that's not only okay, that's what's great about this country. Here we can respectfully disagree and still be patriotic still be American and still be good Republicans.

My fellow immigrants, my fellow Americans, how do you know if you are a Republican? I'll tell you how.

If you believe that government should be accountable to the people, not the people to the government...then you are a Republican! If you believe a person should be treated as an individual, not as a member of an interest group... then you are a Republican! If you believe your family knows how to spend your money better than the government does... then you are a Republican! If you believe our educational system should be held accountable for the progress of our children ... then you are a Republican! If you believe this country, not the United Nations is the best hope of democracy in the world ... then you are a Republican! And, ladies and gentlemen ...if you believe we must be fierce and relentless and terminate terrorism ... then you are a Republican!

There is another way you can tell you're a Republican. You have faith in free enterprise, faith in the resourcefulness of the American people ... and faith in the U.S. economy. To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: "Don't be economic girlie men!"

The U.S. economy remains the envy of the world. We have the highest economic growth of any of the world's major industrialized nations. Don't you remember the pessimism of 20 years ago when the critics said Japan and Germany were overtaking the U.S.? Ridiculous!

Now they say India and China are overtaking us. Don't you believe it! We may hit a few bumps — but America always moves ahead! That's what Americans do!

We move prosperity ahead. We move freedom ahead. We move people ahead. Under President Bush and Vice President Cheney, America's economy is moving ahead in spite of a recession they inherited and in spite of the attack on our homeland.

Now, the other party says there are two Americas. Don't believe that either. I've visited our troops in Iraq, Kuwait, Bosnia, Germany and all over the world. I've visited our troops in California, where they train before they go overseas. And I've visited our military hospitals. And I can tell you this: Our young men and women in uniform do not believe there are two Americas!

They believe we are one America and they are fighting for it! We are one America — and President Bush is defending it with all his heart and soul!

That's what I admire most about the President. He's a man of perseverance.

He's a man of inner strength. He is a leader who doesn't flinch, doesn't waiver, does not back down. My fellow Americans, make no mistake about it terrorism is more insidious than communism, because it yearns to destroy not just the individual, but the entire international order.

The President didn't go into Iraq because the polls told him it was popular. As a matter of fact, the polls said just the opposite. But leadership isn't about polls. It's about making decisions you think are right and then standing behind those decisions. That's why America is safer with George W. Bush as President.

He knows you don't reason with terrorists. You defeat them. He knows you can't reason with people blinded by hate. They hate the power of the individual. They hate the progress of women. They hate the religious freedom of others. They hate the liberating breeze of democracy. But ladies and gentlemen, their hate is no match for America's decency.

We're the America that sends out Peace Corps volunteers to teach village children. We're the America that sends out missionaries and doctors to raise up the poor and the sick. We're the America that gives more than any other country, to fight aids in Africa and the developing world. And we're the America that fights not for imperialism but for human rights and democracy.

You know, when the Germans brought down the Berlin Wall, America's determination helped wield the sledgehammers. When that lone, young Chinese man stood in front of those tanks in Tiananmen Square, America's hopes stood with him. And when Nelson Mandela smiled in election victory after all those years in prison, America celebrated, too.

We are still the lamp lighting the world especially for those who struggle. No matter in what labor camp, they slave no matter in what injustice they're trapped — they hear our call ... they see our light ... and they feel the pull of our freedom. They come here as I did because they believe. They believe in us.

They come because their hearts say to them, as mine did, "If only I can get to America." Someone once wrote — "There are those who say that freedom is nothing but a dream." They are right. It's the American dream.

No matter the nationality, no matter the religion, no matter the ethnic background, America brings out the best in people. And as Governor of the great state of California — I see the best in Americans every day ... our police, our firefighters our nurses, doctors and teachers, our parents.

And what about the extraordinary men and women who have volunteered to fight for the United States of America! I have such great respect for them and their heroic families.
Let me tell you about the sacrifice and commitment I've seen firsthand.

In one of the military hospitals I visited, I met a young guy who was in bad shape. He'd lost a leg had a hole in his stomach ... his shoulder had been shot through.

I could tell there was no way he could ever return to combat. But when I asked him, "When do you think you'll get out of the hospital?" He said, "Sir, in three weeks." And do you know what he said to me then? He said he was going to get a new leg ... and get some therapy ... and then he was going back to Iraq to serve alongside his buddies! He grinned at me and said, "Arnold ... I'll be back!"

Ladies and gentlemen, America is back! Back from the attack on our homeland — back from the attack on our economy, back from the attack on our way of life. We're back because of the perseverance, character and leadership of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush.

My fellow Americans ...I want you to know that I believe with all my heart that America remains "the great idea" that inspires the world. It's a privilege to be born here. It's an honor to become a citizen here. It's a gift to raise your family here to vote here and to live here.

Our president, George W. Bush, has worked hard to protect and preserve the American dream for all of us. That's why I say ... send him back to Washington for four more years!

Thank you, America — and God bless you all!
==================================================================
Text of speech by Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia as prepared for delivery Wednesday at the Republican National Convention:
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Since I last stood in this spot, a whole new generation of the Miller Family has been born: Four great grandchildren.

Along with all the other members of our close-knit family, they are my and Shirley's most precious possessions.

And I know that's how you feel about your family also. Like you, I think of their future, the promises and the perils they will face.

Like you, I believe that the next four years will determine what kind of world they will grow up in.

And like you, I ask which leader is it today that has the vision, the willpower and, yes, the backbone to best protect my family?

The clear answer to that question has placed me in this hall with you tonight. For my family is more important than my party.

There is but one man to whom I am willing to entrust their future and that man's name is George Bush.

In the summer of 1940, I was an 8-year-old boy living in a remote little Appalachian valley. Our country was not yet at war, but even we children knew that there were some crazy men across the ocean who would kill us if they could.

President Roosevelt, in his speech that summer, told America "all private plans, all private lives, have been in a sense repealed by an overriding public danger."

In 1940, Wendell Wilkie was the Republican nominee.

And there is no better example of someone repealing their "private plans" than this good man.

He gave Roosevelt the critical support he needed for a peacetime draft, an unpopular idea at the time.

And he made it clear that he would rather lose the election than make national security a partisan campaign issue.

Shortly before Wilkie died, he told a friend, that if he could write his own epitaph and had to choose between "here lies a president" or "here lies one who contributed to saving freedom," he would prefer the latter.

Where are such statesmen today?

Where is the bipartisanship in this country when we need it most?

Now, while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrat's manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief.

What has happened to the party I've spent my life working in?

I can remember when Democrats believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny.

It was Democratic President Harry Truman who pushed the Red Army out of Iran, who came to the aid of Greece when Communists threatened to overthrow it, who stared down the Soviet blockade of West Berlin by flying in supplies and saving the city.

Time after time in our history, in the face of great danger, Democrats and Republicans worked together to ensure that freedom would not falter. But not today.

Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator.

And nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators.

Tell that to the one-half of Europe that was freed because Franklin Roosevelt led an army of liberators, not occupiers.

Tell that to the lower half of the Korean Peninsula that is free because Dwight Eisenhower commanded an army of liberators, not occupiers.

Tell that to the half a billion men, women and children who are free today from the Baltics to the Crimea, from Poland to Siberia, because Ronald Reagan rebuilt a military of liberators, not occupiers.

Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier. And, our soldiers don't just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.

For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.

No one should dare to even think about being the Commander in Chief of this country if he doesn't believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home.

But don't waste your breath telling that to the leaders of my party today. In their warped way of thinking America is the problem, not the solution.

They don't believe there is any real danger in the world except that which America brings upon itself through our clumsy and misguided foreign policy.

It is not their patriotism — it is their judgment that has been so sorely lacking. They claimed Carter's pacifism would lead to peace.

They were wrong.

They claimed Reagan's defense buildup would lead to war.

They were wrong.

And, no pair has been more wrong, more loudly, more often than the two Senators from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.

Together, Kennedy/Kerry have opposed the very weapons system that won the Cold War and that is now winning the War on Terror.

Listing all the weapon systems that Senator Kerry tried his best to shut down sounds like an auctioneer selling off our national security but Americans need to know the facts.

The B-1 bomber, that Senator Kerry opposed, dropped 40 percent of the bombs in the first six months of Operation Enduring Freedom. The B-2 bomber, that Senator Kerry opposed, delivered air strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hussein's command post in Iraq.
The F-14A Tomcats, that Senator Kerry opposed, shot down Khadifi's Libyan MIGs over the Gulf of Sidra. The modernized F-14D, that Senator Kerry opposed, delivered missile strikes against Tora Bora. The Apache helicopter, that Senator Kerry opposed, took out those Republican Guard tanks in Kuwait in the Gulf War. The F-15 Eagles, that Senator Kerry opposed, flew cover over our Nation's Capital and this very city after 9/11.

I could go on and on and on: against the Patriot Missile that shot down Saddam Hussein's scud missiles over Israel; against the Aegis air-defense cruiser; against the Strategic Defense Initiative; against the Trident missile; against, against, against.

This is the man who wants to be the Commander in Chief of our U.S. Armed Forces?

U.S. forces armed with what? Spitballs?

Twenty years of votes can tell you much more about a man than twenty weeks of campaign rhetoric.

Campaign talk tells people who you want them to think you are. How you vote tells people who you really are deep inside.

Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations.

Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending.

I want Bush to decide.

John Kerry, who says he doesn't like outsourcing, wants to outsource our national security.

That's the most dangerous outsourcing of all. This politician wants to be leader of the free world.

Free for how long?

For more than 20 years, on every one of the great issues of freedom and security, John Kerry has been more wrong, more weak and more wobbly than any other national figure.

As a war protester, Kerry blamed our military.

As a Senator, he voted to weaken our military. And nothing shows that more sadly and more clearly than his vote this year to deny protective armor for our troops in harms way, far away.

George Bush understands that we need new strategies to meet new threats.

John Kerry wants to re-fight yesterday's war. George Bush believes we have to fight today's war and be ready for tomorrow's challenges. George Bush is committed to providing the kind of forces it takes to root out terrorists.

No matter what spider hole they may hide in or what rock they crawl under.

George Bush wants to grab terrorists by the throat and not let them go to get a better grip.

From John Kerry, they get a "yes-no-maybe" bowl of mush that can only encourage our enemies and confuse our friends.

I first got to know George Bush when we served as governors together. I admire this man. I am moved by the respect he shows the first lady, his unabashed love for his parents and his daughters, and the fact that he is unashamed of his belief that God is not indifferent to America.

I can identify with someone who has lived that line in "Amazing Grace," "Was blind, but now I see," and I like the fact that he's the same man on Saturday night that he is on Sunday morning.

He is not a slick talker but he is a straight shooter and, where I come from, deeds mean a lot more than words.

I have knocked on the door of this man's soul and found someone home, a God-fearing man with a good heart and a spine of tempered steel.

The man I trust to protect my most precious possession: my family.

This election will change forever the course of history, and that's not any history. It's our family's history.

The only question is how. The answer lies with each of us. And, like many generations before us, we've got some hard choosing to do.

Right now the world just cannot afford an indecisive America. Fainthearted self-indulgence will put at risk all we care about in this world.

In this hour of danger our President has had the courage to stand up. And this Democrat is proud to stand up with him.

Thank you.

God Bless this great country and God Bless George W. Bush.

It's about manhood.

2004-08-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

This is a must-read article today in the New York Post. Enjoy.

"Anybody but Bush" not just a liberal slogan

2004-08-11T08:49:00.000-07:00

I live and work in the greater Seattle area. It is so liberal here that many of us rare conservatives refer to Seattle as, "Berkeley-North". As such, there are hordes of Volvos and VWs (all but Euro-trash cars are frowned upon) driving around with bumper stickers on them saying things like: "Defend America - Defeat Bush", "Peace is Patriotic", "Bush Lied", "Bush Knew", "Re-Defeat Bush", "Lick Bush in 2004", and my personal favorite, "Anybody but Bush".

(Full Disclosure: My wife and I own three cars, including one SUV and one full-size, V8, rootin'est, tootin'est, pollutin'est, gas-guzzlin'est pickup truck - ALL proudly sporting American Flag stickers as well as Bush/Cheney 2004 stickers.)

Yep, out here in these parts we grow a stubborn, ornery variety of liberal (organically, of course, with no added preservatives, hormones, or intelligence). You see, it is quite rare to see a "Kerry 2004" bumper sticker, because, well, let's face it....who can get excited about Kerry?? But that's not the point. These people are hell-bent on voting Bush out of office. Mind you, they don't want to vote FOR someone....no, they only want to vote AGAINST someone. But I digress.

There is a story today in the Washington Times where you learn that anonymous intelligence officials have told that Al Qaeda is planning a high-profile political assassination to lead off their next major attack. Here is an excerpt from the story (note the last sentence here):

Additionally, U.S. intelligence officials said they think that several al Qaeda terrorists already in the United States are part of the plot, although their identities and locations are not known. The targets, in addition to the financial institutions in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J., that have been the subject of public warnings, include such economic-related targets as oil and gas facilities with a view toward disrupting the November election. "The goal of the next attack is twofold: to damage the U.S. economy and to undermine the U.S. election," the official said. "The view of al Qaeda is 'anybody but Bush.' "

So there you have it. Al Qaeda has the same motto as the countless lemmings driving around Seattle with "Anybody But Bush" bumper stickers. Of course, these are the same people who rave about how wonderful Michael Moore's dumb movie is - the same movie Hezbollah (a Palestinian terror group responsible for lots of Israeli civilian deaths) expressed support for and offered to distribute.

I'm really sick and tired of these people - though some of them may "mean well". These people are actively providing comfort to the enemy, and seeking to weaken the defense of our nation from within. They think they are being "nice" or being "anti-violence", but really they are just a bunch of quasi-Osamas driving their beige volvos around our great nation.

Go Bush!!!

International team to "observe" our Presidential election

2004-08-09T10:27:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's right folks. For the first time ever, some group of elite Europeans is going to "observe" our election, and make sure it is "fair".

Here is a link to the story on CNN.

While absolutely ridiculous, this is just one more step towards the coming litigation of the upcoming election. The Kerry/Edwards team has hired thousands of lawyers all over the country to look into "election discrepancies", and now has managed to get some bunch of Europeans to "observe" our election. The story doesn't say what will happen if this group finds any "problems" anywhere...no doubt, no matter what happens, or even if Bush wins in a landslide, you can bet that they will try to litigate their way to the Presidency, and even if they can't get into the White House, they will do it anyway just to make it look like Bush didn't "really" win...

As Rush was recently talking about, if there was EVER a legitimate reason to have the courts look into election practices and results, it was Chicago in 1960 with the JFK/Nixon election. However, Nixon didn't do that, because he didn't want to put the country through it. Gore threw open the door to election litigation, and it will forever be open, unfortunately.

Anyway, let's hope that this doesn't continue. Of course, if Kerry gets elected somehow, you can bet that our President and country will always just do whatever Kofi Annan thinks we should do.

34 days left until the ban on "assault" weapons ends, mercifully

2004-08-09T10:11:00.000-07:00

That's right, only 34 more days, and then you can get out your folding stocks and flash suppressors again. You can go to a store and actually buy a magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds (as they were designed to hold) for less than $75, because they will be manufactured again and no longer "pre-ban" magazines.

There is a good article today about the ban ending and the left's "call to arms" to get the silly thing renewed: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/Beale20040808.shtml

Yes, what a good day that will be in America. It's almost morning again.

Wendy's-Gate, corn, etc.

2004-08-09T09:57:00.000-07:00

Did you see the absurd ruse the Kerry-Edwards campaign pulled the other day? It seems that the two of them were photographed eating inside a Wendy's restaurant, supposedly showing what "regular" guys they are. The only problem? Their lunches were from a local yacht club, not Wendy's.

This is just so typical of the left, isn't it? There's nothing wrong with eating at yacht clubs. What's so terrible about this is that the Kerry campaign thinks the American people need to be conned. As usual. They absolutely cannot run on their voting records (both of them have been ranked more liberal than Ted Kennedy by the ADA). And Kerry's flip-flopping is legendary. He is on every side of every issue now, at last count.

It's the whole mentality here that bothers me. They think "Hmm...we're really rich...We need to look more like 'regular Joe' types....I know, we could go eat lunch at Wendy's!" As if that isn't bad enough, then, they couldn't even suck it up and eat lunch at Wendy's once, to complete their little subterfuge - they couldn't even give up their fancy yacht club food...it just cracks me up.

This is what they have to offer voters, by the way. Lots of substitutes, falsehoods, lies, and ploys. Liberals talk a good game on strengthening the military, while gutting it at the same time.

And, all of this is on top of the Iowa corn incident, which is being reported much less...I don't even know if it is a story. I saw these pictures of Kerry and Bush on the Drudge report, and Kerry is standing there, waving with an ear of corn in each hand...the corn is still in the husk, and he looks like he doesn't want to be seen holding these things, much less knows what to do with them. Bush is seen eating corn off the cobb, like a normal person. Anyway, there's my 2 cents on that.

The Greatest Human Rights Tragedy of Our Time - ABORTION

2004-08-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

Mike Adams has written an excellent article about how abortion is the biggest human rights tragedy of our time - AIDS is second, not first.

Here is the link:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/ma20040809.shtml

My blogging hiatus

2004-08-09T09:46:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. I realize it has been almost two months now since my last post. If anyone is reading this, I would like to explain. After months of pointing out liberal hypocrisy, government waste, illogical rantings of the anti-gun crowd, etc., I just began feeling that my blog was "same stuff, different day", essentially. Anyway, I'm going to start posting here fairly regularly again, same 'ol stuff or not. The upcoming election is, I feel, one of the most important we have had in this country in a LONG time. Anything I can do to expose the left for what they really are, will hopefully help us.

2004-06-14T07:21:00.000-07:00

While I have memories about President Reagan, I was too young (I was only 5 when he was elected in 1980) to fully appreciate how special it was to have that man serve as our country's president, especially at the time that he did, after the general malaise of the Carter administration, the oil embargo, Iran hostages, etc.

He is without a doubt in my mind now, the greatest president of the twentieth century. I could ramble on, but I think the words of our current president, George W. Bush would be much better. If you have not yet heard or read the eulogy given by President Bush, it is worth a few minutes of your time. Trust me. And so, without further ado, here it is:
======================================================================

THE PRESIDENT: Mrs. Reagan, Patti, Michael, and Ron; members of the Reagan family; distinguished guests, including our Presidents and First Ladies; Reverend Danforth; fellow citizens:

We lost Ronald Reagan only days ago, but we have missed him for a long time. We have missed his kindly presence, that reassuring voice, and the happy ending we had wished for him. It has been ten years since he said his own farewell; yet it is still very sad and hard to let him go. Ronald Reagan belongs to the ages now, but we preferred it when he belonged to us.

In a life of good fortune, he valued above all the gracious gift of his wife, Nancy. During his career, Ronald Reagan passed through a thousand crowded places; but there was only one person, he said, who could make him lonely by just leaving the room.

America honors you, Nancy, for the loyalty and love you gave this man on a wonderful journey, and to that journey's end. Today, our whole nation grieves with you and your family.

When the sun sets tonight off the coast of California, and we lay to rest our 40th President, a great American story will close. The second son of Nell and Jack Reagan first knew the world as a place of open plains, quiet streets, gas-lit rooms, and carriages drawn by horse. If you could go back to the Dixon, Illinois of 1922, you'd find a boy of 11 reading adventure stories at the public library, or running with his brother, Neil, along Rock River, and coming home to a little house on Hennepin Avenue. That town was the kind of place you remember where you prayed side by side with your neighbors, and if things were going wrong for them, you prayed for them, and knew they'd pray for you if things went wrong for you.

The Reagan family would see its share of hardship, struggle and uncertainty. And out of that circumstance came a young man of steadiness, calm, and a cheerful confidence that life would bring good things. The qualities all of us have seen in Ronald Reagan were first spotted 70 and 80 years ago. As a lifeguard in Lowell Park, he was the protector keeping an eye out for trouble. As a sports announcer on the radio, he was the friendly voice that made you see the game as he did. As an actor, he was the handsome, all-American, good guy, which, in his case, required knowing his lines -- and being himself.

Along the way, certain convictions were formed and fixed in the man. Ronald Reagan believed that everything happened for a reason, and that we should strive to know and do the will of God. He believed that the gentleman always does the kindest thing. He believed that people were basically good, and had the right to be free. He believed that bigotry and prejudice were the worst things a person could be guilty of. He believed in the Golden Rule and in the power of prayer. He believed that America was not just a place in the world, but the hope of the world.

And he believed in taking a break now and then, because, as he said, there's nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.

Ronald Reagan spent decades in the film industry and in politics, fields known, on occasion, to change a man. But not this man. From Dixon to Des Moines, to Hollywood to Sacramento, to Washington, D.C., all who met him remembered the same sincere, honest, upright fellow. Ronald Reagan's deepest beliefs never had much to do with fashion or convenience. His convictions were always politely stated, affably argued, and as firm and straight as the columns of this cathedral.

There came a point in Ronald Reagan's film career when people started seeing a future beyond the movies. The actor, Robert Cummings, recalled one occasion. "I was sitting around the set with all these people and we were listening to Ronnie, quite absorbed. I said, 'Ron, have you ever considered someday becoming President?' He said, 'President of what?' 'President of the United States,' I said. And he said, 'What's the matter, don't you like my acting either?'" (Laughter.)

The clarity and intensity of Ronald Reagan's convictions led to speaking engagements around the country, and a new following he did not seek or expect. He often began his speeches by saying, "I'm going to talk about controversial things." And then he spoke of communist rulers as slavemasters, of a government in Washington that had far overstepped its proper limits, of a time for choosing that was drawing near. In the space of a few years, he took ideas and principles that were mainly found in journals and books, and turned them into a broad, hopeful movement ready to govern.

As soon as Ronald Reagan became California's governor, observers saw a star in the West -- tanned, well-tailored, in command, and on his way. In the 1960s, his friend, Bill Buckley, wrote, "Reagan is indisputably a part of America, and he may become a part of American history."

Ronald Reagan's moment arrived in 1980. He came out ahead of some very good men, including one from Plains, and one from Houston. What followed was one of the decisive decades of the century, as the convictions that shaped the President began to shape the times.

He came to office with great hopes for America, and more than hopes -- like the President he had revered and once saw in person, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan matched an optimistic temperament with bold, persistent action. President Reagan was optimistic about the great promise of economic reform, and he acted to restore the reward and spirit of enterprise. He was optimistic that a strong America could advance the peace, and he acted to build the strength that mission required. He was optimistic that liberty would thrive wherever it was planted, and he acted to defend liberty wherever it was threatened.

And Ronald Reagan believed in the power of truth in the conduct of world affairs. When he saw evil camped across the horizon, he called that evil by its name. There were no doubters in the prisons and gulags, where dissidents spread the news, tapping to each other in code what the American President had dared to say. There were no doubters in the shipyards and churches and secret labor meetings, where brave men and women began to hear the creaking and rumbling of a collapsing empire. And there were no doubters among those who swung hammers at the hated wall as the first and hardest blow had been struck by President Ronald Reagan.

The ideology he opposed throughout his political life insisted that history was moved by impersonal ties and unalterable fates. Ronald Reagan believed instead in the courage and triumph of free men. And we believe it, all the more, because we saw that courage in him.

As he showed what a President should be, he also showed us what a man should be. Ronald Reagan carried himself, even in the most powerful office, with a decency and attention to small kindnesses that also defined a good life. He was a courtly, gentle and considerate man, never known to slight or embarrass others. Many people across the country cherish letters he wrote in his own hand
-- to family members on important occasions; to old friends dealing with sickness and loss; to strangers with questions about his days in Hollywood. A boy once wrote to him requesting federal assistance to help clean up his bedroom. (Laughter.)

The President replied that, "unfortunately, funds are dangerously low."
(Laughter.) He continued, "I'm sure your mother was fully justified in proclaiming your room a disaster. Therefore, you are in an excellent position to launch another volunteer program in our nation. Congratulations."
(Laughter.)

Sure, our 40th President wore his title lightly, and it fit like a white Stetson. In the end, through his belief in our country and his love for our country, he became an enduring symbol of our country. We think of his steady stride, that tilt of a head and snap of a salute, the big-screen smile, and the glint in his Irish eyes when a story came to mind.

We think of a man advancing in years with the sweetness and sincerity of a Scout saying the Pledge. We think of that grave expression that sometimes came over his face, the seriousness of a man angered by injustice -- and frightened by nothing. We know, as he always said, that America's best days are ahead of us, but with Ronald Reagan's passing, some very fine days are behind us, and that is worth our tears.

Americans saw death approach Ronald Reagan twice, in a moment of violence, and then in the years of departing light. He met both with courage and grace. In these trials, he showed how a man so enchanted by life can be at peace with life's end.

And where does that strength come from? Where is that courage learned? It is the faith of a boy who read the Bible with his mom. It is the faith of a man lying in an operating room, who prayed for the one who shot him before he prayed for himself. It is the faith of a man with a fearful illness, who waited on the Lord to call him home.

Now, death has done all that death can do. And as Ronald Wilson Reagan goes his way, we are left with the joyful hope he shared. In his last years, he saw through a glass darkly. Now he sees his Savior face to face.

And we look to that fine day when we will see him again, all weariness gone, clear of mind, strong and sure, and smiling again, and the sorrow of his parting gone forever.

May God bless Ronald Reagan, and the country he loved.

CNN clueless about the constitution - surprise? I think not.

2004-06-04T13:44:00.000-07:00

Drudge has this up on his site now, and I'm not pretending to take credit for this, but it's pretty funny.

CNN currently has a list of possible vice-presidential candidates for the Kerry ticket, and among them is none other than Bill Clinton! They state the following:

"While federal law prohibits a person from seeking a third presidential term, the Constitution does not specify whether or not a former commander in chief can become vice president."

However, if one actually consults the constitution (yes, you can go read it for yourself!! There's no magic involved, but few people actually do read it, and rather rely on news agencies to tell them what it means - a dangerous practice indeed), take a look at the 12th amendment, the last sentence of which states:

"But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."

And you can see, by the 22nd amendment, that Bill Clinton, having served two terms (not to mention being impeached - please read Ann Coulter's excellent book entitled "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" for an in-depth look at impeachment in general, and why Clinton deserved impeachment many times over - and removal from office, for that matter), is no longer eligible for the office of the President of the United States - Thank God.

That being the case, thanks to the 12th amendment, Clinton is also ineligible for the office of Vice-President, much to the chagrin of liberals everywhere, I'm sure.

Of course, when should CNN or liberals start caring about what the constitution actually SAYS??

yet another good jobs report

2004-06-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

The latest jobs report is even better than expected, and they revised March and April upwards too. Maybe the word will finally get out to the general public that the economy is healthy and gaining (quite strongly, actually).

Of course, the 30 year old democrat playbook reads like this, "If the economy is bad during a Republican administration, blame the president for it 100%, and randomly pick a past president from over 50 years ago and say the economy is the worst it's been since then. If the economy is good during a Republican administration, scare everyone about inflation, and then blame the president for it, and randomly pick a past president from over 50 years ago and say inflation is the worst it's been since then".

So, get ready for the inflation scare! It will be all the rage on CNN-bs, etc., I guarantee it.

Banning cupcakes, barbeques and christmas trees?!?!

2004-06-04T07:51:00.000-07:00

What is the world coming to, people?!

First up, it seems that Duxbury's Chandler School in Boston has banned cupcakes at birthday celebrations.

The school used to provide cupcakes in class to celebrate student birthdays. Well, never fear - the nutrition police have clamped down on this positively evil activity. The school has a new handbook which "redefines the way students celebrate in class". The school says it found that "nutrition" is one of parents' top concerns, and cupcakes apparently don't fit in with their new nutrition program. (I have a wild suggestion: why don't they just focus on teaching the kids to READ and WRITE?? They seem to have difficulty in that area)

Anyway, you might be asking yourself what birthday kids will receive instead of cupcakes....the answer is: dragon stickers, special seat covers, a birthday pencil, and a starred birthday sash they can wear all day.

Yahoo.

Instead of a yummy treat, they get a bunch of crap that no one would want, especially a little kid. Seat covers?!?! Come on. And the so-called "birthday sash" is sure to make them the object of much ridicule if actually worn.

I guess it's just one more tiny step along the path of turning us all into a bunch of dandelion-eating vegan hippies.
=========================================================

In other news, here in Washington, new building codes are going to go into effect July 1st which prohibit all gas and charcoal barbeques on the decks of "multifamily residential units" (read: apartments and condos) without an overhead sprinkler system installed directly over the barbeque - which none of them have. This is just one more reason to not waste your money buy purchasing a condo unit, which you have little to no control over.

I'd love to see statistics on what percentage of apartment fires are started by barbeques on decks as opposed to, say, people falling asleep while smoking cigarettes in their apartments (which is still legal). I'm sure at least a small part of the motive behind these changes was brought by the nutrition police, because they believe barbequing (and red meat) are bad for you...
=====================================================

Another change buried in the regulations is the following: a ban on cut Christmas trees in apartments, meeting halls, stores, jails, schools, hospitals, day cares, and churches.

That's right, no more christmas trees in churches (or anywhere else). I have trouble believing that this also was purely for fire safety. With all the anti-christianity and anti-christmas tree people out there, there's no way that this new ban arose solely from fire concerns. I suppose it is to be expected when we are here, living in Babylon...
=====================================================

On a totally unrelated note, I just suddenly got a hankerin' for a big, juicy hunk of red meat, flame cooked on my barbeque tonight....and cupcakes. Yes, cupcakes for dessert. I think my daughter would like that very much. And maybe we'll have to get two christmas trees this year...one for upstairs and one for downstairs...

Kerry flips off a vet in front of school children!

2004-06-02T07:54:00.000-07:00

That's right, it's one of the many stories the mainstream liberal press doesn't want you to read. It's coming to you from newsmax, as reported by former congressman John Leboutillier. Here is the article.

What's worse than the oil-for-food scam?

2004-06-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

Michelle Malkin has just put out an article which documents the "ambulances-for-terrorists" scandal.

It even has a link to a must-watch video of armed terrorists shooting something (supposedly Israeli soldiers - you can't see the shots, only hear them), and then piling into two U.N. ambulances to make their getaway.

It is a very interesting article, and explains many different ways the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) have been using buildings, warehouses, and especially ambulances to provide cover for terrorists, print up counterfeit money, as well as smuggle arms, explosives, and terrorists.

As if that isn't bad enough, since 1950, the UNRWA has received $2.5 Billion U.S. taxpayer dollars, and the PRCS is supported by governments and organizations world wide, including the American Red Cross. This simply has to stop.

Good articles...

2004-06-02T07:10:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

I've been away/pretty busy for a while, but hopefully now I'll be able to update my blog a little more regularly.

First up, Mike Adams continues to shine the piercing light of truth on the shady liberal goings-on at UNCW.

In the next article, Walter Williams congratulates Bill Cosby for his statements, and takes a hard look at the problems (and their root causes) facing the african-american community today.

Next, everyone's favorite economist (or maybe just mine?) Thomas Sowell rips apart a recent Business Week article speaking of the need to help "the working poor", and explains why even that label is terribly misleading.

Liberal Propaganda - opening TODAY!!

2004-05-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, now YOU can see the very finest liberal propaganda hollywood can produce at your local multiplex delivered in rich, digital surround sound!!

A movie opens today called "The Day After Tomorrow", and boy, are the folks over at junkscience.com going to be busy!!

I don't have much time, so I'll just leave you with a couple of good articles about it:

Here is one about the movie in general, and the liberals' hope (especially Algore's fairy tales) for how this movie will change American policy in addition to defeating Bush (Note: how desperate are they getting? They're big hope is that some ridiculously fictitious movie will unseat Bush now?).

And here is one from the Cato Institute debunking the horrendously awful "science" behind the film.