The score does not lie
The Washington Redskins have proved to be a time-tested election predictor. In the previous 15 elections, if the Washington Redskins have lost their last home game prior to the election, the incumbent party has lost the White House. When they have won, the incumbent has stayed in power.
The history:
On 30 October 2000 the Washington Redskins lost to the Tennessee Titans, 27-21 The Incumbent Party lost. Bush won.
On 27 October 1996 the Washington Redskins defeated the Indianapolis Colts at home Democratic President Bill Clinton won re-election over his Republican challenger, Senator Bob Dole of Kansas.
On 1 November 1992 the Washington Redskins lost to the New York Giants at home, 24-7, Republican President George H. W. Bush lost his re-election bid to Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas.
On 6 November 1988 the Washington Redskins edged the New Orleans Saints at home, 27-24, True to form, Vice-President Bush emerged victorious.
On 5 Novem
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How stooopid is this??
According to Bill Moyer's NOW show on PBS:
62% of Americans still believe that Iraq and Al Qaeda were working together
43% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein PLANNED the 9/11 attacks.
I mean just how dumb is this?
The facts are out there.
I was castigated by someone once for comparing the Rovian Political Machine to the "Big Lie". Need I say more?
OUT
Big Life Changes
Oh where do I start....
I want to Teach. How is that for a start?
I want to write. There isn't that better. I got the two biggest issues out on the table for all to see.
How do I get there and what is the road map are of course the questions raised by the two innocuous statements above.
In order to teach in this state, and in most states, I need to go through a rigorous vetting process called credentialing. This state is actually one of the toughest, but with the "No child left behind" program in it's under funded state, the reality is that all states will have tougher requirements for teachers.
In order to teach then I need to go back to school. This of course requires an income, which I do not have right now. WE have an income, I just don't have one, so I guess you could say L has an income and I am a kept Man... Well don't say that but you get the idea.
In order to go back to school I need a job or jobs that all
"So you want to write?"
A very clever literary device available to bloggers is the ability to write entries in the past. Variously called back dating or as I call it "BackBlogging" the clever blogger can insert a piece where it fits the best.
In this case this short piece on my desire to write, is not being written today, Oct 27 as it says on the date line, but Tomorrow Oct 28th, by writing it today Oct 28th, and setting the date for yesterday Oct 27th.
Yea I'm thinking of doing some Time Travel stuff.
So brother G sent me this great book called "Writing for Science Fiction" by a fairly famous Sci Fi writer whose name is unimportant now. Ok its Orsen Scott Card, of the Ender series fame. I read it when he sent it and put it away.
Turns out its part of a series by the Writers Digest people of small tomes that explicate the various parts of Fiction writing.
MW, G, L, and a host of other people represented by initials so as not to r
One Week left to decide a Nation
I am burnt on this one. Toast. Put a fork in me.
I can't bear to watch the news, to hear one or the other candidate blather on and on about their "message".
If I have to hear Monkey boy say "You can run but you cannot hide" I think I will Puke.
If I have to hear ol Granite Face drone on and on anymore about some arcane bit of economic theory I think I will faint.
I wonder how the people in the swing states are holding up. Heck the only ads we get are the local races and an apparently unopposed run by Sen Schumer.
And in one week, the only thing we will know is where the Democrat and Republican Lawyers are going to be for the next who knows how long till the courts decide this election.
Delicious irony though if Bush wins the popular vote but looses the electoral college. Don't ya think?
Scary Quote of the day
In a disturbing article in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine , the writer Ron Suskind told of a meeting he'd had with a senior adviser to the president. The White House at the time was unhappy about an article Mr. Suskind had written.
According to Mr. Suskind, "The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' " The aide told Mr. Suskind, "That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality."
Lets examine this quote carefully.
People like "them" (ie journalists) are from reality.
This infers that People like "us" are not. "Us" being the Bush Administration.
People from "reality" believe that solutions come from studying whats really going on an
I have NOT Fact Checked this
Do You See A Pattern Here?
DEMOCRATS
* Richard Gephardt: Air National Guard, 1965-71.
* David Bonior: Staff Sgt., Air Force 1968-72.
* Tom Daschle: 1st Lt., Air Force SAC 1969-72.
* Al Gore: enlisted Aug. 1969; sent to Vietnam Jan. 1971 as an army journalist in 20th Engineer Brigade.
* Bob Kerrey: Lt. j.g. Navy 1966-69; Medal of Honor, Vietnam.
* Daniel Inouye: Army 1943-47; Medal of Honor, WWII.
* John Kerry: Lt., Navy 1966-70; Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V, Purple Hearts.
* Charles Rangel: Staff Sgt., Army 1948-52; Bronze Star, Korea.
* Max Cleland: Captain, Army 1965-68; Silver Star & Bronze Star, Vietnam.
* Ted Kennedy: Army, 1951-53.
* Tom Harkin: Lt., Navy, 1962-67; Naval Reserve, 1968-74.
* Jack Reed: Army Ranger, 1971-1979; Captain, Army Reserve 1979-91.
* Fritz Hollings: Army officer in WWII; Bronze Star and seven campaign ribbons.
* Leonard Boswell: Lt. Col., Army 1956-76; Vietnam,
You gotta just LOVE the internet
Here is another example of the completely outrageous stuff that runs around the Internet everyday. It is very typical of the Right Wing to put this stuff out so that the sheep of the world go BAAA BAAA and not their head in agreement. It is a very "Rovian" method. Ascribe philosophies and sound bites to the Left, especially if they don't actually ever believe that, and put fear in the hearts of Americans.
My comments are posted blatantly in-between. What cracks me up the most is that the Right still has to go out of their way to bash Clinton 3.75 yrs after he is out of office. What it has to do with this election is beyond me.
Anyway on to the comedy bits (again):
I'm trying to get all this political stuff straightened out in my head so I'll know how to vote come November. Right now, we have one guy saying one thing. Then the other guy says something else. Who to believe. Lemme see; have I got this straight?
Clinton
This is the sickest and darkly funniest spam I have ever recieved.
Ok I want to put a bunch of caveats here becuase our civil liberties are so restricted now a days with that crazy bunch of neo cons running the government. Since sooner or later Ashcrofts storm troopers are going to scan this site for subversive information I feel it is paramount that I put these disclaimers here:
1) The following is a copy of a spam email I got.
2) I do not support nor do I offer any of the things in this e-mail below.
3) I have never given aid to arms dealers.
4) I removed any contact information so no storm troopers get confused.
5) The intent of this blog post is for amusement only.
Ok get the message Mr. shred the constitution Attorney General?
On to the comedy bits:
hello our potential customer
We would like to introduce our newborn site, where you can shop around most wanted and needed items in your life. Our weapon section has wide range of hard-to-find machine guns, s
On to November!
Finally the debates are over. I watched all three, well all four if you include Darth Vader and the Breck Girl.
I'm glad they are over, because it means that we are less than four weeks away from ending this long march.
Unlike the last two debates however I did not take notes as they were broadcasting. So this is mostly off the cuff thoughts. And not many of them.
First kudo's again to the President for ceasing this absurd game he plays of trying to be "everyman" and sound dumb. He may have a problem with "intellectuals" but he is no idiot. The man went to Yale for god’s sake. YES it would have been lovely for the Democrats if he played stupid for all three debates like he did in the first. But he didn't, and if he wins the election I for one will be glad to know there is some glimmering of intelligence behind that face.
Kerry came across again as cool and poised. He marshaled the facts well as the pundits said h
Could this be the real reason?
Here is the query of the week. What was that bulge on the President's belt in the first two debates.
The wit's of American are saying that it is a scrambled transciever so that he can get talking points during the debates.
It would explain my perception that Bush seemed so much more "on it" in the second debate. He practiced using the earphone more.
Nah!
Fun with Computers
So in January of this year I did my semi annual reformatting of my hard drive. Problem was I grabbed the wrong W98 disc and inadvertently put W98 not W98se on my computer.
Not too clever.
So I always knew that this year some time I would have to do it again. In discussions with Brother Greg, he suggested that I could alleviate my blue screen problems by going to Windows 2000 in my next HD scrub. He suggested also that it just ran a hell of a lot better due to drives being formatted NTSD or something instead of FAT 32.
So finally I got him to send me a copy, I backed everything up and took the plunge today. Contrary to his advice however, I did an "upgrade" instead of a new install because a) it said I would be able to keep my other programs and b) it would change my drive to NTSD or whatever its call.
So let me tell you W2000 is sweet. It runs so nice, its clean looking and has a lot of great bells and whistles.
However it’s also ve
And Round Two goes to...
Well both of them!
There is no question that this was a better performance by a sitting President of the US in round two tonight. He was animated and excited looking like he was "itchin' to get goin'" on every question. We saw a side of George W. Bush that we have not seen in a long time I felt, the intelligent person. He was much more the person who beat Ann Richardson in the debates for Texas Governor than the person who showed up for the first debate, or even the '00 debates.
I read a great article somewhere talking about the evolution of Bush's way of speaking in public. That it was an affectation, and that videotapes and press conferences from his early public speaking years show an intelligent and well spoken man who pronounces words correctly and puts sentences together well. This is the person who showed up tonight.
I'm feeling like I’ve been listening to a broken record at this point on the third round now, in
Ok let me try to get this straight.
The Duelfer Report.
We didn't go to war in Iraq because Saddam Hussein was creating WMD's.
We didn't go to war in Iraq because Saddam Hussein was about to make Nuclear Weapons.
We didn't go to war in Iraq because Saddam Hussein was supporting Al Queda.
We didn't go to war in Iraq because Saddam Hussein was giving WMD's to terrorists.
Nope.
Apparently now, according to the President we went to war because:
"The Duelfer report showed that Saddam was systematically gaming the system, using the U.N. oil-for-food program to try to influence countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions," Bush said as he prepared to fly to campaign events in Wisconsin.
Oh and apparently even though the Duelfer report contradicts this, we went to war because Saddam Hussein was (to paraphrase Douglas Adams) "... doing so with the intent of restarting his weapons program once the world looked awa
That New York Times Article
You may have heard about the NYT article from Sunday on the Iraqi Aluminum tubes that were supposedly purchased to make weapons grade Uranium before the war. This one fact pushed the Senate and the Administration to war more than any other "fact". That the Intelligence was incorrect, and may have been pushed onto the Senate, UN and American people by people with an agenda is very alarming.
Or maybe not. The reality is that it is a very long and involved article, more suited to the Times Magazine or the Atlantic, which I doubt many American's will take the time to read about. Well I finally took the time to read it tonight.
In excruciating detail it covers the process from discovery that Iraq was buying these Aluminum tubes, through to the speech Secretary of State Powel made to the UN. This article dovetails very nicely with the Hirshfield articles in the New Yorker (which he has developed into a book that has just come out) regarding
Two boys and their Sandbox
First of all, let me say that my best hope for this Debate was that Mr. Edwards would not say something stupid to affect the good progress that the Kerry / Edwards ticket has made after the first Presidential Debate. I might have hoped that Mr. Cheney would say something unusually heinous (above and beyond his normally vindictive manner) that would show the American people the kind of person he really is. It was interesting to note also that Mr. Cheney is only 12 yrs older than Mr. Edwards.
It will come as no surprise to you that I do not like Dick Cheney. He is probably the finest example of the usage of Goebels’ “Big Lie” philosophy I have seen in American Politics in years. He states with same absolute conviction both the truth and the lies that this Administration has been repeating for the last year. And of course the American people believe him. He is the President’s attack dog and flack catcher. It is a role that other Vice Presidents’ have ta
2004 Twin Rivers Council Camporee - Emergency Prepardedness Weekend
Well they were not prepared for us!
It would be mighty helpful if you skimmed this article in the Albany Times Union first before reading on. Don't worry it will open a new window and you can close it and come back to this blog when you are done.
Ok so you get the idea. If you click on the cool logo above you will see some of where we were this weekend. Anyway we took off from the Church at 5:30 on Friday and got there around 7pm. Our Scoutmaster was able to take the temporary troop trailer into the site but Alex and I backpacked the 1/4-mile in or so to where we were camping. We pitched our tents in the dark and I was quite impressed that all the boys were able to cope in the dark, especially my Screaming Eagle patrol as they are the youngest (all are 11 yrs old).
The place was packed. As you can imagine 2000 scouts (this is adults and boys) takes up a bit of space. The Pangaea Puddle is really big,