The Indian Government

The new Indian government has been reluctant to acknowledge the scope of destruction in India from the tsunami. There must be some political explanation, but I have trouble understanding what it is. These guys are just a little bit different. India is headed back for Communism after flirting with Capitalism for an all too brief period. Our buddies in the Congress Party. Just when we were worried about the possible impacts of a robust Indian economy on the US, we no longer have to worry. The Congress Party is in the process of leading the Indian economy down the tubes. Part of the Alice in Wonderland mindset is not acknowledging that they have problems caused by the tsunami.

The laser beam story

This is a story that has become so prominent that my wife mentioned it this morning. She was actually more up on the story than I had been at the time, as it had been on the 9pm and 10pm television news in Dallas. Charles Johnson has provided more information than I had seen before. Yes, this is not some kid with a laser pointer. This is a device that can lock onto and track an aircraft.

More Washington state politics

Ed Morissey says that Michelle Malkin and Stefan Scharansky are denting Christine Gregoire's armor. "Captain Ed" shows that he is still a major player in the blog world. He reads widely and I have found him a good source of information. He has led the rest of the world on several occasions in the last 6 monts (Swift Boat Vets and the 60 Minutes memos).

I continue to wrestle with Mozilla Firefox, while trying to blog and read Gmail

I am still almost completely using Mozilla Firefox as my browser. Only occasionally am I bringing up IE6. Usually, when I am using IE6, it is because that is still the binding for HTML pages on my Windows 2000 "Thick pad" computer at work (a COMPAQ Armada). Again, this morning, I have struggled with trying to copy URL's and text from Gmail and web pages, to use in blogging (with Blogger). The interaction of all of those is generally bad and frustrating. I have had to go with multiple tabs, because Gmail and Blogger, in particular, are incompatible. If you use Blogger, Gmail is permanently broken in that tab in Firefox.

A sneering tone: NPR, All Things Considered

I have hypothesized that the sneering tone heard from Robert Siegel was just a regional characteristic. The current cast (Michele Norris, Robert Siegel, and Melissa Block) provide the usual biased view of the world. I find that investigative reporting particualarly offensive. I often inadvertently tune in at 5:45pm, while I am on my 40 mile drive home, and catch wind of something, about which they are currently outraged. They generally are looking for instances where the President and the current government have offended their sensibilities. Barring that, they look for cases where local officials (say in New Jersey, a blue state), have stepped outside the bounds of propriety. Typically, the offenders are blue collar workers, people that the ATC crew might otherwise be championing. Barring all else, they will bemoan the plight of women in rural India (or you name the 3rd World country). I increasingly find the schtick tiresome, and even less frequently click to the local NPR station. Sadly, I support them with $25/month, as I have for the last 4 years. My wife comforts me that the television arm provides services that she uses in her Special Education class at school.

Something odd is happening at the Volokh Conspiracy

Glenn Reynolds, at Instapundit, had referenced a posting at the Volokh Conspiracy about statutory rape and the age of consent. The whole topic is politically explosive, from both the left and the right. What I understood is that in the progressive trend in the 1970's would have been to lower the age of consent to as low as 12 years. One group in favor of it were male homosexuals, with paedophile tendencies. There is an organization out there promoting such a thing, if not a younger age. A darling of the left, Larry Flynt, in the early 1970's had run pictures of a girl no older than 15 years old. That drew a lot of fire at the time, although it was legal until the end of the 70's. At that point, a different "progressive crowd" prevailed and we had an age of consent of 18 and had prohibited child pornography, pretty much worldwide (at least Europe and North America). This is the sort of topic that could well be revisited, but the Christian right and the wacko left (primarily, so-called feminists) would stop any such revision. Given that context, I can imagine that any discussion would be controversial, to say the least, and would draw really bad comments, if not hate mail. In this case, the seeming disruption and broken link is due to the Volokh Conspiracy moving to Powerblogs. Note their new URL.

The tsunami

No other country in the world has the ability to respond the way that the United States can. The big complainers about the U.S., like France, donated 100K euros. The U.S. pledged $35 M initially, and have set up a base in Thailand to support the relief effort. The USAF is flying in planes with relief supplies. The U.S. relief effort may top $1 B before all is done. The Germans are not so niggardly as the French, but are still pikers at 1 M euros. Part of the world resentment comes from the knowledge that they are second or third rate players on the world stage. During the Cold War, the Europeans could strut and pretend to be major players, but after the bankruptcy and collapse of the Soviet Union, the charade was over. Not that we don't like the Europeans. We are all Europhiles. We by BMW's and Mercedes (but not French cars in any numbers). We like the find French wines, the cuisine, and the atmospherics. That is mainly what they have left, sadly.

Questionable material

One of the sites that was referenced by what I found from Glenn Reynold's blog was a Dutch blog, "Kladblog". It has a whole range of material. I showed my wife a Japanese adveritisement for copy paper, where the copier changed into a robot and came after the woman who was abusing the copier: "Copier Strikes Back". I don't seem to be able to link to the article directly, but I can at least link to the blog.

The web has become a wide-open place (i.e., your children are likely to be exposed to about anything)

I had not realized what had happened since the U.S. law about pornography on the internet was struck down. There is all sorts of material no openly available. A well-known blogger, Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) had pointed out a blog that has links to a great deal of material, and the branching goes out from there. He had mentioned this one blog as an example of how content filtering failed to exclude much material that it meant to stop.

The war in Iraq

In the run up to the elections in Iraq, the Baathists and Zarqawi's forces are doing everything they can to disrupt or stop the election. If the elections happen, and are believable, the Baathists and Zarqawi's Al-Qaeda franchise will be on their way out. As long as the Iraqi people fear that the Baathists and/or Zarqawi might win, then our fight is just that much harder. The Andrew Sullivans and the Nation crowd all essentially want us to lose. Andrew Sullivan might dispute my characterization of his position, but he is at least helping to beat the drum, saying we are losing and that we are doing the wrong thing. The Nation crowd are also naturally hostile to anything that President Bush might try to do. They have all but said that they are on the same side as our enemy, as oddly enough, the Associated Press is, as well.

The Gubernatorial Election in Washington State continues to be a Farce

Ed Morrissey has some comments about Christine Gregroire's hypocracy in the vote counting process. David Horsey continues to be pretty even-handed in his treatment of the electoral process. David Horsey is an ultra-Liberal, but he is a great cartoonist, and he seems to be pretty intellectually honest. I highly recommend him.

the Gubernatorial election in Washington state

I like the way that the Democrats handled the Washington governor's race. They "found" enough ballots that allowed their candidate to "win" the election. These ballots appeared like mannah from heaven, when the Democrats looked to have lost the election. Even the Seattle Post-Intelligencer cartoonist, David Horsey, figured they had lost, and made a joke about the people who voted for the Republican.

Java Programming: Java 5.0 (JDK 1.5) and Eclipse

The latest version of the Eclipse IDE (3.1M4) finally implements "autoboxing and unboxing". The issue exists because of the existence of things like "int" and "Integer". The latter is a "box" class, while the former is a primitive type. With Java 5.0 (JDK 1.5), you no longer have to hassle with manual boxing and unboxing. The compiler now handles it for you (by generating the necessary code to box or unbox).

Our leftist buddies need to get over Christianity

I can confidently say that the majority of Americans can care less what other people believe or dont' believe. The exception may be people like the witches, who want to be prominently featured in the news. Otherwise, Atheists, Hindus, Muslims, Jewish people, Sikhs, Buddhists, and all the rest are free to believe and practice their religions as they please (unless they offend through practices which run afoul of the law). The percentage of people in the US who consider themselves Christians is quite high. I heard a figure in excess of 80% on the radio, yesterday. Christians need to be free to publicly practice their religion, as well, regardless of whether Leftist sensibilities are offended.

Tony Blair is a great man

When you read the transcript of Tony Blair's press conference in Iraq, you will first see how beastly the press are, especially the Brits, and what a great man that Tony Blair is. I am greatful that we have him as our ally in this great battle against a terrible enemy. Not only is our enemy radical Islam, but their Western allies on the radical left, especially in the Mainstream Media. Katrina van den Heuvel, of the Nation, is emblematic of those who are our foes. Laura Ingraham mentioned her statement about Michael Moore, this morning.

It turns out that Rumsfeld press conference questions were phony

We now learn that the unit in which the soldier who was being deployed to Iraq was in has a very high percentage of vehicles that are armored. This was a setup, trying to cause trouble, not a serious question. The reporter and his minions were doing us a disservice, not trying to help. The mainstream press has ignored this story, but it broke on the Free Republic web site last Friday.

President Bush: Time Magazine "Man of the Year"

I'm sure that ending up with President Bush as "Man of the Year" was galling for the Time Magazine people, but there was really no other option. In the face of constant daily attack, much of it from the mainstream media, President Bush persisted with his plans and was re-elected. The irrational and rabid nature of his opposition almost guaranteed his re-election, as John Kerry, the Democrats, and their allies, showed their increasing extremism. President Bush seemed to be the mainstream candidate who stood for values that were held by the majority of people.

Why I continue to like Susan Estrich

Susan Estrich is one of the sanest liberal commentators around. Because she is so sane, she is working at Fox News, rather than a CNN or CBS. Those of us, like Susan Estrich, who are in their fifties, know what she is talking about, when she writes of the bias for youth. She talks about the phases of life, as we now know them. Women in their thirties HAVE to have children. You just can't wait past that point. Plenty of women tried, but now know that it was a mistake. Men and women in their thirties are hard chargers. They are trying to make a place for themselves, and to gain early success. By your forties, you hope to consolidate your success. Except after the last economic downturn, there may not be anything to consolidate. A lot more of use are cautious about decision making than we were prior to 2001.

The great divide

There still is a great divide between the culturally liberal and the social conservatives. Michael J. Totten naturally falls into the liberal group. He was raised a Democrat and grew up and still lives in Oregon. He seems unable or unwilling to understand why the culturally conservative people from the South East and Texas are unable to embrace gay marriage, abortion, and the whole list of leftist causes. They are the people who want their children to be able to pray in school, to say a benediction at a high school football game, and to have the ten commandments posted in the classroom, as well as in the courthouse.

William Kristol isn't a conservative

In Howard Kurtz's blog, he says that Secretary Rumsfeld has lost the "conservative base", if William Kristol is critical of him. WRONG. All you have to do is read that William Kristol's friend is "John McCain", and you know that William Kristol is not a conservative. He has long shown that he is one of these odd creatures that pretend to be Conservative (like John McCain) but exhibit all the behavior of someone who is somewhere between "Centrist" and "Liberal". We can easily name them: John McCain, Chuck Hagel, and William Kristol. A while ago, you could have included Ariana Huffington in the list, but now she is an avowed liberal. As I have previously written, I knew where William Kristol really stood when he praised how unbiased that NPR correspondent Elizabeth Arnold was in 1996. I was not impressed, as I had spent the previous year yelling at my radio when Elizabeth Arnold was committing some verbal atrocity against Republicans and Conservatives in particular.

John Conyers

At one point, I had heard that John Conyers was a former Tuskegee airman, but I found out that wasn't true. He has built a career based on race-baiting. That has served him well in the last 40 years. Now, he is one of those trying to make Ohio into another Florida 2000. Mr. Conyers, who has long served in the House of Representatives (Ed Morrissey gave him a field promotion to Senator). The present crop of Democrats, like Mr. Conyers, are miffed at having lost the election, and since they won't assume any responsibility in the matter, they have to blame someone else.

Juan Cole has rubbed some people the wrong way

Professor Juan Cole, at the University of Michigan (home of the Voice Political party, SDS, and the misnamed SNCC, back in the 1960's), has raised his profile to the point that people are seeing how offensive his like of reasoning is. Michael J. Totten, who I really like, has taken a personal dislike for Professor Cole.

President Clinton is the ultimate sleazeball

When we find out that Marc Rich was involved with the oil-for-food scandle involving Saddam and the UN, you can be sure that the reason that Marc Rich was pardoned was not because of money. This was a sex-for-pardon operation, despite there being money involved, as well. Clinton took an interest in Denise Rich, and that was it took.

Bernard Kerik should never have been announced for Homeland Security

At least in the New York-based media, Bernard Kerik had a reputation that was unsavory. Given what was in the public domain before the weekend, there was enough to have shown that he was unsuitable. Since then, even more has come out. For whatever reason, the Whitehouse's vetting process failed in this case. Mark Halperin (ABC News guy) speculated with Gary MacNamara (on WBAP radio) about the reasons for the failure. We wondered if Rudy Giuliani might have been a factor in Kerik not being sufficiently vetted.

The FBI's past

For an outsider, there is little information, aside from news stories, to tell us what was happening within the FBI in the latter 1980's and early 1990's. The most visible incidents were Ruby Ridge and the attack on the Branch Davidians in Waco. There was also the intelligence failure that ended with the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Ruby Ridge and Waco were typical of the operations carried out by the FBI in the 1980's. They were targeting wacko right wing groups, almost regardless of the threat they posed. They had gone from conducting surveillance and arrests against the 1970's radical leftist groups to setting up wacko right wing groups and hoping to be able to massacre them. Ruby Ridge and Waco are prime examples. Getting rid of Louis Freeh and Janet Reno are steps in the right direction. The question is if the FBI is back to doing the work that they used to do, or are they still pursuing some weird political agenda?

I get the sense that the Democrats are at the point of self-destructing

The kind of rhetoric that we are hearing from the Democratic base makes me think that they will self-destruct as a party (thanks to Captain's Quarters and Shot in the Dark). I think that the Democrats may well rebrand themselves. We actually could see at least two parties form from the wreckage (the DLC crowd and the Nation people).

The copying business with Firefox seems to be a (rather doubtful) feature

One of the suggestions that I see is to install a plugin to allow you to copy and paste text. That's just great! If I use IE6, I can do that "out of the box". The issue has to do with Firefox trying to maintain formatting, and having that affect the ability to copy and paste.

I am back to using Firefox because the alternatives are worse

I tried the latest version of Opera. Opera is really fast and handles multiple pages nicely. The main problem is that it doesn't support all the features needed for Gmail and Blogger (namely, ActiveX controls). I need to do some more research, but I could not see how to fix the problem. IE6 is still so flakey on this machine, that the only alternative is to suffer along with Firefox.

I'm trying Opera as my browser, after giving up on Firefox

The obvious candidate to try for a web browser is Opera. I have an idea that there are "issues". Blogger only "sort of works" with Opera. I'm not surprised, but am disappointed. For example, there are no tabs on the Blogger editor and there is no icon for making links. I had to code my own link (not too much of a hardship, but still a bother).

I just officially gave up on Mozilla Firefox

I don't see IE6 as being a reasonable replacement for Mozilla Firefox, but it will have to do, until I can find something better. I just looked at the date on the download, and I see that lasted two weeks (since November 24, 2004). My gripe is that I should be able to touch type and the browser shouldn't do anything unexpected. I also ought to be able to freely copy to the clipboard and paste, and there should be no doubt about what happens. I tried to copy "Fast Times at Ridgemount High" from an HTML page, and Firefox didn't put it on the clipboard. That was the tipping point for me. After that, when I started to type this in Firefox, I typed an apostrophe, and the "Find" field opened at the lower left corner and took focus.

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor was a defining moment for my parents. My Dad had worked for a year to be able to attend the University of Michigan, and my Mom had just started, as well. She is a year younger. My parents were radio people, and they may have shaped my life along those lines, as well. I grew up listening to the radio, which was constantly on, before we had television. We lived in a trailer (temporary housing for veterans) when I was very small. I can remember hearing the radio, that a P-51 had been shot down over Korea (that's what I rememeber, at least). In any case, my parents heard the news about Pearl Harbor on the radio. My dad enlisted in the navy the next day. My mom attended school for a while longer, but it was stressful for her. She finally worked as a draftsman at Willow Run, working on radio-related work on the B-24 built there by Ford. Being a veteran, my Dad was able to finish college and almost finish a Master's degree, at Government expense (GI Bill). My Mom and Dad were both better prepared for life by the experiences they had during the war. And it was not only them, but a whole generation who had this common experience. Everywhere my Dad would go, he would meet another veteran. There was the PT boat sailor, and there was the P-51 pilot. My Uncle Chet was wounded at Guadalcanal, as a Marine. My Uncle Joe was a Tech Sargeant, whose weapon was a typewriter.

Tavis Smiley is leaving NPR

I was actually sorry to read that Tavis Smiley was leaving NPR. I must admit that I like his usual guest host better than I like him. One problem with NPR is that they look like the Kerry campaign: Northeast leftist white people. Tavis Smiley and our friend Juan Williams are some of the few exceptions.

I may yet be reduced to blogging with IE6

I keep having strange things happen with Mozilla Firefox. The lastest was that the text editor form had not data, when there was obviously text there that I had entered. (I notice that User Friendly has stopped touting Mozilla, in recent months).

Discounts on medical care and prescriptions for people without health insurance

In the Dallas area, PrimaCare and a network of pharmacies (largely grocery-store related) are giving discounted medical care and prescriptions to people without health insurance. I would be shocked if this is not a wide-spread phenomenon. There are too many people caught by the economic downturn and left, for a period, without health insurance. This is a way for health care providers to get their business. It is a practice that they can tout, and it helps people who are in need.

Peter Beinart on the Democrat problem

Peter Beinart is one of the liberal Democrats who is generally worth reading. There was a period of time during the campaign (in fact, until after the election), that he had become tiresome, reciting the campaign talking points. Since then, he has gone back to thinking and speaking on his own, to his benefit. He has his critique in the Sunday New York Post. My expectation is that the Democrats will not pay any attention to this argument. The conventional wisdom was that they were not loud and shrill enough to be heard, so they lost. At most, they might blame the loss on the evil Carl Rove playing the "values" card against them.

Mozilla Firefox and Favorites Icons

I found another minor issue with Mozilla Firefox. For "Favorites Icons" that are 32x32 pixels, you only see the upper left corner in the bookmarks manager. You do get to see the entire icon in the upper URL field, for some reason. Part of the issue is that the bookmarks manager and the browser are two separate applications. On the other hand, IE6, up to the latest updates and SP2 isn't showing 32x32 icons, so I guess I shouldn't complain. Examples are Tim's Toys and Scribbling.net.

Being sick is a waste of time

The worst thing about being sick is that it is a poor use of time. For example, on a day where I would be able to work 8 hours, I am home sick, instead. I would much rather be earning 8 hours pay. The culprit is bronchitis. My wife brought the bug home from school. She must have built up some resistance, through long-term exposure, as she is not really sick. I have not been living at home for most of the last three years, so I had not built up any resistance. In the face of a bad IT job market in Dallas, I had been off working in Minneapolis.

Once we had made the decision that I would only take a job in the Dallas area, then I waited 5 months until I found a position with a small software company (about 40 miles from home). The Dallas area is radically different from Minneapolis. I had a 14 mile commute on three different contracts in that time. In the Dallas area, the shortest commute that I have had in the last 16 years was 16 miles. That didn't last very long. After that, I was typically driving 25 miles each way. To do anything in the Dallas area, you can very quickly run up 20 miles. Fortunately, in the last 4 years, they have finally done the road work to improve the situation. Back in the early 1990's, a 37 mile drive to work was a nightmare. With the "High Five" project, they have radically improved a key choke point.

I find Ann Althouse's being nominated as the best conservative blog pretty ironic

I like Ann Althouse, and I visit her blog multiple times a day. She is a law professor at the University of Wisconsin, and she has voted Democratic in the past. Her sons reportedly voted Democratic in the last election. For her to be nominated as the best conservative blog seems strange, as she is more like the other law professors (Glenn Reynolds and Eugene Volokh, to name a few), who in may ways are more libertarian and socially liberal than the normal conservative. When I read her stories about Madison and the goofy happenings there before the election, I could see that she had moved to the right.

Software geeks: Java 5.0 autoboxing and unboxing

Yesterday afternoon, I tried my hand at some of the simple autoboxing and unboxing examples with JDK 1.5 (a.k.a. Java 5.0). Java has base types and then the boxed equivalent: for example, float and Float. In JDK 1.5, you should be able to write: Float x = 2.5; and it should automatically do the "new Float(2.5)" behind the scenes. If you do something like float x = new Float(2.5);, it should do the (new Float(2.5)).floatValue() behind the scenes. This is a nonsensical example, but it illustrates the point. I am using JDK 1.5.0 and the Eclipse 3.1m3 IDE. When I tried the simple autoboxing and unboxing, they failed. I'm running on a Windows 2000 machine. So the natural question is: "what's wrong?".

More Mozilla Firefox irritants

When I am replying to a Yahoo mail message, and type a "/", Firefox opens the "Find" field in the lower left corner and gives it focus. I have to hit the red "X" to close the field. When I try to type a URL, Firefox then opens the field, which is a bother, as I frequently type URL's. I had thought that the problem I had been seeing was unique to Gmail, but that is not the case. On the other hand, where I am working, they picked up a nasty virus/spyware from IE that Norton didn't catch and anti-spyware software couldn't clean up (that indicates to me that this was probably a virus). Certainly, anti-spyware software will not know about all the lastest bad things, especially if you aren't frequently updating. I guess I will stay with Firefox.

Today is the 130th anniversary of Winston Churchill's birth

I have long been an admirer of Winston Churchill. I have read and reread Volume I of his book The World Crisis. The first time I had seen the book was when I was about 12 years old, in a Carnegie Library in Ironwood, Michigan. When I had the opportunity, I bought a copy (which is in sad shape, as I have carried the volume around in briefcase and read the sections about warships, again and again). Churchill was capable of making mistakes. He had real experience in the army, and commanded a brigade in France in WWI, after he was sacked from the Admiralty over the Dardanelles debacle. In WWII, he almost was a bad as Hitler in his meddlings with military and naval matters. All too often, though, he had a better sense about what to do than some of his subordinates. That only encouraged him to meddle.

I have confirmed that Firefox goes into "find" when I type an apostrophe

When I am touch typing my posts for Blogger, I keep having to remember to turn off the page search, as Firefox opens it and gives it focus, everytime I type an apostrophe. I have not looked, yet, to see if there is a way to disable that feature. I really would like to disable it, as I like to use contractions like "can't" and "won't". Conceivably, I'm hitting the CTRL key when I'm typing, but I don't see how it would happen. I just disproved my theory about a straight apostrophe, as the ones I just typed didn't turn on the search. However, a few minutes ago, while trying to enter text into Gmail, it happened. I guess that perhaps I'm mistaken, and it is a (nasty) feature of Gmail.

Mozilla Firefox quirks

I have been using Mozilla Firefox as my browser for 6 days, both at home and at work. I am starting to be annoyed by a few quirks. The main issue is with copying URL's and text and then trying to paste that into another tab. Mostly, it is difficult or impossible to copy with either the copy from the right-click menu or by CTRL-c. I find that I have better success if I copy and past to Notepad, and the copy and paste from there. I do so much copying and pasting, I am really getting irritated with Firefox. Another issue is with what happens when I am typing along and suddenly, the "Find" field opens up and takes focus. It primarily seems to happen when I attempt to type an apostrophe. The "taking focus" part is what really is aggravating. I initially was also aggravated with the entry of an id and password into the Sitemeter page, but I am getting used to how to take advantage of what Firefox is doing for and to me. I had not trusted when Firefox filled in a password when I selected an id from the menu that popped, but I find that it is giving me a userid and password that works. That is fine with me.

Bill at INDC Journal

Bill, proprietor of the INDC Journal discusses the kind of hate which someone who states their opinions in a public forum is subjected. I mainly see the sort of vitriol from those on the left, but I have been assured that such activity is bipartisan. Michael J. Totten has received unwanted attention from both the right and left, as he is a liberal who is in favor of President Bush and the war on terror. Perhaps he is a former liberal, although I have trouble telling where he stands, except on the core issues, I agree with him.

IT Economics

I spoke with an aircraft structural engineer in early 1994, and he told me that his peak year for income was 1986. That same phenomenon has hit the "IT" world. My peak year was 2000, although the first four months of 2001 were even better. By the summer of 2001, I had to leave town to find work. I ended up in Minneapolis, were the market had not declined so percipitously as Dallas. Minneapolis turned out to be just lagging Dallas, not bucking the trend.

The IT field has changed, in that companies no longer place the value they did on skilled services. The prime consideration, now, is cost. I started to see that as far back as late 1996, when FedEx started the process of shrinking their vendor list and reducing billing rates. The people to whom I was contracted kept paying me the same rate despite their rate being cut. Towards the end, they were still getting about 19% while I received 81% of the billing. By January 1997, FedEx had frozen the work week at 40 hours. If we absolutely, positively had to work longer on some day, we had to have permission, and had to take off corresponding time. We were not allowed to bill over 40 hours under any circumstances. And that was before the NASDAQ collapse in March 2000 and before September 11, 2001. That was my early warning sign of "things to come". As I said, my income kept rising from there, so that my peak rate was in the latter part of 2000 and the first four months of 2001. From there, rates have steadily declined, so that I am back to where I was in 1993.

Needless to say, it has been a painful process. The only reason that I am even employed at all is that I kept learning new skills. And employers are now testing people on their skill level. That was unheard of in the 1990's. If anyone was doing testing, they overlooked me. I was always only subjected to the usual interview and questions about resume entries.

When people talk about higher paying jobs being replaced by lower paying jobs, there is some truth to the assertion, at least in some areas. That seems to not be true generally, but IT and manufacturing seem to have seen the greatest hit. We have people near us who had worked for decades at the Western Electric plant who were eventually laid off, as the plant transitioned from AT&T to Lucent, and then to Tyco. I'm sure that this is not an isolated situation.

So we are all sitting around, "waiting for the next shoe to drop" (are there any clichés that I have missed?). My answer is to contemplate a career shift (to doing historical research and writing, full time). The main question is how to successfully make the transition.

I got in trouble with Carrie Newcomer for a pretty tame comment

Apparently, Carrie Newcomer is very sensitive to criticism for her political position. I made the mistake of leaving a comment that was critical of her political speech, and suggested that she separate that from her music. I wrote: "I continue to enjoy Carrie's music. We have been fortunate enough to see her perform live, in Dallas, at Uncle Calvin's. I wish she would keep politics separate from her music, as while her position shouldn't be surprising, it seems pretty misguided an naive, and ignores what need to do to be doing to keep people from harm." I didn't write anything more than that, but she was offended, so I am cut off from any further communication. I'm sorry that she is so sensitive about her stance. I should have realized that this would be off-base, but it didn't occur to me that she would respond so negatively. I suppose the whole election business was a nasty shock, and a repudiation of what she is trying to do. This is how she responded:

Please refrain from using the comment cards as a forum to insult me and everyone who is wise enough to believe that there is a better way to live and approach problems then violence and aggression. It’s rude but even more to the point. . .it isn’t productive.

Good art is honest and has a core of truth to it. If I censor my most deeply held beliefs, then the art becomes an ineffective shadow of what it could be. I am true to who I am and true to my art. . .it’s called artistic and personal integrity. Art of integrity has a habit of ruffling feathers because it asks us to think.

Obviously what I have to say about compassion and justice doesn’t resonate with you. It’s really very easy Jim. If it offends you or you can’t be open enough to consider the spirit of what is being presented . . . . don’t listen. But, I do hope you can consider the growing edge of what I am saying and that what you choose to insult is intellectually sound, spiritually correct and has deeply compelling thought and history behind it. For now, we will have to agree to disagree.

The country is deeply divided and I think it’s more important than ever to encourage an honest and productive exchange of ideas. I will continue to do so in the most loving and positive way I can.

Tim Marshall, reeling from an Indymedia attack

Tim Marshall is a wargamer. He has had an interesting website ("Tim's Toys") with a lot of wargame-related graphics. He apparently also had a place for people to leave messages. As I noted, Niall Meehan, who writes for Indymedia in Ireland, left an offensive comment. As someone who has left a comment that was not meant to be very critical, but which offended, I am more sensitive to the issue about what is appropriate in a comment. As I have previously linked to Niall's piece, you might have already seen what he wrote. We are in more than just a "Red State"/"Blue State" conflict. The conflict transcends international boundaries. Some on the left, are simply misguided (and I don't mean that in a mean way), as Carrie Newcomer seems to be. Others are actively fighting the forces of civilization (anyone one from the Center-Left to the Right). I don't believe that Carrie and the "Friends Services" people are doing anything actively to aid the enemies of civilization, but they are also doing nothing that will keep us safe from them, either. Anyone is welcome to take whatever position they want. I would hope that they would at least not be actively opposing the forces of civilization in this conflict, and would certainly doing nothing that was illegal or immoral. I'm sure that some would even balk at those concepts (as being judgmental).

The ability to leave messages on a web site cuts both ways

A wargamer in New Foundland shut down his website, for now, because of a nasty comment by an ally of the more radical Irish Republican Army. The nasty thing is that these people are the natural ally of Carrie Newcomer and her friends on the left. They differ on the use of violence, but are both opposed to our government and our allies. I'm sorry to say that we seem to be at war, and I am not liking the fact that we are. I would rather that we could carry on a civil dialog, but that seems to be not possible. The Indymedia folk seem particularly radical. Charles Johnson ("The Dark Lord"), at Little Green Footballs, has poked fun at them, and I'm sure that they hate it. They call Little Green Footballs a "racist website", which is not what Charles' site is about. Instead, he is the best source in the blogosphere for news about the war on terror and the threat from radical Islamists.

Carrie Newcomer should stay away from politics

We like Carrie Newcomer's music, but could do without her political commentary. He email newsletter has more politics than I care for, given that she is so politically misguided. Her latest theme is "Betty's Diner", and that sets the look for her website, CarrieNewcomer.com. Be warned that it is all Flash, although it adds a good bit, and you can see and hear her perform songs. I suppose that you must expect that folk singers are pretty far to the left, and probably anti-war, even when it is a nonsensical position.

Demographics are a huge, almost unrecognized issue

If you don't think that demographics are important, ask the Lebanese Christians about how they lost their country. What is going to be the big story of the next 25 years is that the children per couple in Blue States is less than in Red States. The Democrats are doing a whole range of things that is driving their birth rate down. They promote homosexuality and abortion. They promote women working instead of having children. Isn't that enough? The bluest states have a number of children per couple/mother of as low as 1.5. That is a long way below the replacement rate. The Blue State populations will plateau and shrink, while Red State populations will grow, and at a good clip.

Windows Icon Editors

I had finally decided to do something about making favorites icons for the blogs and websites that I personally maintain. I have one website maintained by Violet, in Russia, and I let her do all the work, and accept her decisions with respect to web design issues, while I maintain editorial control over new content, once I had time to digest her original work (which I left as it was). I had found two articles about favorites icons, and had done some work with that. When got to the point of converting to .ico files, I tried a freeware product (@icon sushi). What that doesn't do is to correctly size icons. The product provides some editing capabilities, but is really an icon conversion tool (takes graphics files and produces icons). That leaves commercial products. The more full-featured products cost on the order of $40. The question is how badly I want to make icons, or can I wait two weeks. The leading contender, among icon editor products that I am considering is Icon Forge.

If I open a new tab on Firefox, I can access Gmail, after blogging

I just did an experiment by opening a new tab in Firefox, and then checking Gmail. That works correctly. The problem seems to happen when I try to use the same tab for posting to Blogger and then reading Gmail. Gmail is what actually "breaks", while trying to open to the mail UI.

I'm sorry to say that Firefox also doesn't work with Gmail after posting to Blogger

So much for Firefox. I still need to keep IE6 around so that I can read from Gmail after posting to Blogger. The problem is jointly with Blogger and Gmail. The sad thing is that they both belong to Google. Why wouldn't they be able to "interoperate"?

The Mozilla Firefox browswer

I'm experimenting with the Firefox browser and work. I have to say that it is much superior to the older Mozilla browser I am using at home. That browser is particularly unsatisfactory, partly due to its poor ability to work with Blogger and Gmail. I haven't tried Firefox with Gmail, yet, but intend to do so very shortly. I've had to retain IE6 due to the failure of Mozilla with some websites and the inability to post to Blogger and to read Gmail. Update: I seem to be able to read my Gmail. The older Mozilla browser failed after posting to Blogger. Before that, it worked. It was a combination of problems with Mozilla, Blogger, and Gmail.

The Ukraine: a new powderkeg

The situation in the Ukraine was created by the combination of an outgoing dictator and the desire by Russia to keep the Ukraine as a satellite. Just as people thought they were going to be allowed to elect a pro-Western government, they found that the establishment was going to keep hold of the "reins of power". Now, the streets of Kiev, the capital, are filled with hundreds of thousands of protestors. I don't know what to make of the "opposition candidate" declaring himself the winner. Shouldn't we at least try to get a fair count to see what actually happened? Both sides are showing their totalitarian history. If the Ukraine were a real democracy, we might actually try to count votes and everyone would respect the winner.

A Foundation for 17th Century Naval History Research and Marine Archaeology

My vision for what I would like to see is a foundation for 17th Century naval history research and to fund marine archaeology, especially in the Baltic, where there are said to be large numbers of wrecks from the 17th Century. Frank Fox says that there is a large amount of uncatalogued manuscripts in Britain from the 17th Century. He was also my source for the wrecks in the Baltic. I had conceived of such a foundation 2-1/2 years ago, but an advisor told me that the only way to be able to launch such a foundation is to already have a source of funding. Since then, I have been searching for funding sources, but have not found anything promising. I have been mentally planning for the day when something would become available. I have also been making connections with people with similar interests.

More software stuff: Eclipse and Java class files

I oversimplified the explanation about why there were no "+" signs in front of classes in the "Package Explorer" in Eclipse 3.0.1. In 2.x, it usually meant that the project "did not build". In 3.0.1, it usually means that Eclipse couldn't find the class files to go with the Java files. That is subtly different. In my case, Friday afternoon, the problem was caused by an ill-formed project in CVS. There were two versions of the code in the same project, sort of "sub-projects". If you do as was suggested, and check out the top level in the project, there was no .project file, and things did not work well. What I needed to do was to delete the project from my workspace and check out the folder tree for the version of the software product that I wanted to browse. That worked, and I got the "+" signs in front of the class names.

My "Love-Hate Relationship" with NPR

I have this problem, in that I prefer to listen to knowledgable people talking about politics and current events more than anything else. I can't handle "call-in" type show, though. In the timeframes in which I am traveling to-and-from work (6:30am to 8:00am and 5:30pm to 7:15pm), there really aren't any viable choices available other than NPR in the Dallas area. If the local Salem Radio Network show had Hugh Hewitt on, I would listen to that, but they chose to go with Michael Savage. In the time that I am traveling, he is almost exclusively taking phone calls and responding to them. In any case, I only have a moderate tolerance for him, although at this best, he can be entertaining (that is why he has the listenership that he does--not so much his message, although that is also a factor). The problem with NPR is the radical leftist bias. That bias is pervasive, although sometimes it is mild enough that I can stand to listen without swearing at the radio. What really grates is that our tax dollars are subsidizing these people in their extreme leftist ranting. "All Things Considered" is perhaps the worst, although PRI's "Market Place" is close. "Morning Edition" has their own peculiar way of being offensive, as they seem to think that art and music that ordinary people would find offensive is suitable for "drive time" in the morning (i.e., "The Boy With the Arab Strap" by Belle and Sebastian).

Software stuff: The Eclipse IDE

I ran into something odd on Friday, at my new job. I had installed the Eclipse IDE 3.0.1 on Thursday and checked out the code that I wanted to browse. Something about the Package Explorer didn't look right. I realized that there was no "plus" to the left of the classes. From previous experience, that meant that the code didn't build. With 3.0.1, the code is kept in a built state, incrementally. I called my friend at Qwest, in Minneapolis, and talked about the issue. He wasn't sure what the cause was. So, I did and experiment. I created a new project, package, and class. The new class had the "plus". Then I looked in the project with Windows Explorer. I saw that the class file was there for the class. Then, I looked at the project I had checked out. There were no class files, so that was the answer. For some reason, the class files weren't in that directory. Next, I looked at the properties for both projects. My new project had a JavaBuilder assigned. The project that I had checked out, didn't have one. I believe that the project is setup in a non-standard way that the Build.xml file for ANT is also non-standard. I need to talk to my mentor in this new job and ask some more questions. I'm pretty sure that he was instrumental in configuring this project, so he should know the answer. I believe that part of the answer is that this was old code, already setup, and relatively recently pulled into CVS. They had to make what they had work. They also were not familiar, in all likelihood, with Eclipse and CVS. Anyway, if anyone ever wanted to know why they don't see the "plus" (+) in the Package Explorer, the reason is that the class file is absent.

More complaints about NPR

On the way home, last night, I listened to a report on "All Things Considered" about the abuse of detainees in the Hudson county, New Jersey, jail. I thought that this being a "Blue State" county was ironic. The tone of the narrator was particularly offensive. He was almost sneering and seemed gleeful about the situation. The full-court press against the President and his administration hasn't subsided. This is just another instance of what is happening on NPR and the Mainstream Media, in general. About a half-hour later, I was reminded of another sore point on "Marketplace", where they are giving an update about the "next four years". They have a clip of the president, and then they play a mocking themesong. Occasionally, they will talk with a conservative (such as Grover Norquist), but usually the person is a leftist commentator complaining about their condition and how stupid the American people are for voting for the President. A variant of that spiel is that the President had succeeded in fooling the people. That sort of thing is close to causing me to stop listening to NPR (again). I had thought that the rhetoric might have subsided, but that seems to have been wishful thinking.

The local NPR affiliate is having financial trouble

Funny thing. The local NPR affiliate in Dallas, KERA, is having financial trouble. I have theorized that it is because of the rampant bias in both the national and local commentary. They also have the issue that they changed formats from folk music for much of the day to almost strictly the "national feed". That knocked my son off their listenership. It also greatly reduced my listening. In fact, for last two years, I have not been able to listen to NPR, at least up until the election, as I would find myself swearing at the radio. Life's too short to spend it listening to my money being spent on leftist propaganda. Worse yet, I am subsidizing the television arm of this operation, and have been for many years. My wife assures me that my money is helping to fund the excellent children's broadcasting, which she uses in her work.

The political wars have resumed

We had very little respite from the political wars. The Democrats were knocked back, flat-footed, but they are back punching as hard as ever. They have a new opening, by scape-goating the Marine in Fallujah who shot the prisoner. If you check with Sean Hannity, you will see that there are extenuating circumstances that at least explain the video. The video, in isolation, though, is what is being used to attack the Marines and the administration.

More SiteMeter woes

For the second day in a row, this blog and two others of mine are affected by a SiteMeter database outage. That is at least how SiteMeter presents the problem. Late yesterday, the sm1 database was accessible, and then by this morning, it was "gone" again. I am considering adding another metering service as a backup. Giving up SiteMeter isn't an option, as The Truth Laid Bear's EcoSystem depends on having open SiteMeter accounts. Some prominent bloggers are using eXTReMe Tracking, from the Netherlands. I may use that as a backup system.

Sitemeter isn't perfect: my database was down much of the day, so there were no statistics

Well, this was "one of those days". My sitemeter database for three blogs, including this one, was down for most of the day. I tried early this morning and then between noon and 1pm, and it was still down. This will be a big negative spike, as Anglo-Dutch Wars often gets 30 or more visits. Today, so far, there were 9. I don't know that I would add another of the meters, but it could provide some redundancy.

William Kristol continues to cause scepticism about his supposed conservatism

William Kristol continues to profit by his conservative label, but also continues to do and say things that cause us to be sceptical of his conservatism. The latest is his assessment of Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld. What originally got my attention was when he praised how balanced Elizabeth Arnold's (NPR) reporting was, I believe during the 1996 election campaign. I looked to see if I could find a quote online, but was unsuccessful.

Mitch Berg's story about Blue State secession is hilarious (to a Red Stater)

I just got done reading the first four parts of Mitch Berg's story about the secession of the Blue states. If you have a sense of humor, it is worth reading. If you are a "Blue Stater" who is easily offended, perhaps you should avoid reading this. So far, there are four parts to the story. I've linked to the first part, although I read the fourth part first.

I just turned off NPR

Since the election, I have been listening to NPR, mostly because it is the only thing on that is discussing politics and current events. Today, I turned on a Sunday afternoon show, and they were gloating about Hungary pulling out of Iraq, and at the other countries who are either planning on withdrawing or already have. NPR is largely the home to the ultra-leftists. The most reasonable people on the network (National Pinko Radio) are Mara Liasson and Juan Williams, and they are very liberal. The ultra-leftists don't like to be labelled as anti-American, despite having those tendencies. While they influence the impressionable, they largely turn off normal people, even those who might otherwise be Democrats. John Kerry, a leftist, looks almost moderate next to the NPR crowd. They are more closely aligned with the Nation and their ilk. I find them hard to take, but they helped re-elect President Bush and a more Republican House and Senate.

The Left's biggest potential problem is "demographics"

Demographics are perhaps the biggest issue in determining political outcomes. That is how the Lebanese Christians lost their country to the Muslims. In the US, many fundamentalist Christians have been having large families. Prominent people who bridged the gap between business and religion were promoting to the successful people to stretch and have more children.

The Left is taking positions that could doom them, demographically. They promote abortion, homosexuality, and women having careers over children. If their followers took their advice, their birthrates would be lower (they almost certainly are, already). Right now, they count on MTV and the colleges and universities to promote the leftist ideals to students, hoping to convert many of them to their viewpoint. However, once young men and women leave school, they are exposed to people leading normal lifestyles with normal values, and they are largely converted. Outside of the most extreme "blue" areas, the left is in trouble. Right now, they are in denial over this election, and I say that is a good thing, as they are doomed.

The Clintonites come out of this election seeming almost reasonable, compared to the Nation types

The Clintonites come out of this election as seeming like normal political combatants that we can engage and work through issues. The Nation crowd, however, come out of this election looking like they have more in common with the suicide bombers. That's a pretty nasty thing to say, but all you have to do is read Kristina van den Heuvel's little screed, and ponder what she wrote, and you can see that they are not "normal politicians". They are more like the Weather Underground or the Unibomber. I hope they don't go that far, but they are radical.

We live in a goofy world

When a phrase like "Human Rights" has been coopted by mean "Homosexual Rights", we live in a "goofy world". Another, similar case is "Choice" meaning abortion rights. I just finished reading Katrina van den Heuvel's rant about politics in the Nation, and we are in for more of the same, except worse. I also am always amused to see how Dutch names are written in print. I have written it the way that Dutch names have been traditionally written. In the Nation, they run "van" and "den" together, as if it were a single word. In reality, they mean "of" "the". Oddly enough, in Modern Dutch, "den" means "tree" or "fir", but that is an artifact of one of the periodic rewrites of the Dutch language. The modernist way would be to say "van de Heuvel". By the way, "Heuvel" means "Hill", so Katrina's name means "Katherine of the hill".

For the Democrats to win, they need to do something about the "Radical Left"

If the "Radical Left" will continue to be part of the Democratic Party, or even dominate it, the Democrats risk being in a permanent minority. The more Fundamentalist Christian wing of the Republican Party has been just a little bit quieter than in the latter 1990's and has benefitted from that by seeing a quite conservative Republican Party dominate the political landscape. The purists in the Democratic Party won't like President Clinton's advice to move to the center, but that is the only way to win elections. Instead, the Democratic Party collectively thinks (outside the Clintonite wing) that they need to have a purer, more extreme leftist message to win. Their take this time was that they didn't go far enough, just as in 2002.

The boy who threatened my wife's life was not in school today

I spoke to my wife in the late afternoon, before they headed to Hot Springs, and she told me that the boy who had threatened to kill her was not in school today. A vice-principal at least was in the loop, and the boy was out today. If he were to be back on Monday, she wouldn't stay in school. This seems like a situation for the police and juvenile justice, rather than the school. This apparently is another of these deals where a severely abused child was adopted, after having possibly been ruined for life. The adopted mother is very protective of the child and in denial about the child's behavior. If the mother is going to "save" the child (and his older brother), she will need to get them into a program that might have a chance to reprogram. They may be too far gone, but it might be worth a try. This could be the wakeup call. In any case, my wife needs to be protected from harm.

I'm sorry to be so angry

I'm in a pretty angry mood today. This morning, as she was leaving, my wife told me that one of her students told her: "I can kill anyone I want. You'll be the first one I kill." My wife is a special education teacher at a charter school in Dallas, and the boy is someone who has caused her trouble in the past. She recorded this threat, but I can't understand why at the minimum he wouldn't be expelled, much less being turned over to Dallas juvenile justice authorities. He comes across as an Emotionally Disturbed type. She has had experience with them in the past. At her last job before she had originally retired, she taught one class for ED students. Then, the first time she returned to teaching, that is all she had. That was a tough struggle, and she didn't last through the school year. As a souvenir, her car picked up some key scratches. Now, this boy who threatened her life had told her last year that he was going to take her turtle. She came in one day, and found that her room had been vandalized and the turtle taken. They had busted in through a window. You couldn't prove anything, but this kid had made the threat and apparently had carried it out. Now, he threatened her life. His homelife is such that he could plausibly have access to a handgun. The only good thing is that my wife and her friend will leave work early today to go to Hot Springs (Arkansas).

Our leftist buddies-continued

Our leftist "buddies" are our enemies. When you see things like this picture of the banner, you know where they stand, and why they need to be hammered. We are at war with an enemy within the borders of our country. I suspect is only a matter of time before they start engaging in terrorist acts, if they haven't already started. If they do start, they are liable to be startled when they are treated to what the bad guys in Fallujah are receiving. Our other "enemies within" with NPR and CNN of course are playing the game that we are somehow not winning big. The truth is that our enemies underestimated the ferocity of what they would face.

John McCarthy on "Progress and its Sustainability"

I was pleasantly surprised when I read John McCarthy's take on progress, economics, and the environment in his paper "Progress and its Sustainability". I was pleased that he was still alive and only 77 years old. That means that his work on Lisp and AI in the 1960's and 1970's was at a fairly young age. He was born in 1927.

There are many people from academia, of his age, who are leftist and pessimistic, but John McCarthy is sceptical of "global warming", thinks that growth and technological advancement will overcome any challenges. I was really impressed by what he has to say.

Why President Bush was re-elected

At this point, 8 days after the election, it is pretty clear that the President was re-elected due to people's concern about the war on terror. Most people wanted someone as president who they had confidence would be tough on fighting the war on terror. Things like "values" and "judges" were secondary issues that mattered in certain regions. The President was re-elected as part of the "total package", but you could be assured that he would continue to fight to keep the country safe.

Our leftist buddies

The shrillness of our leftist buddies' rhetoric since last Tuesday has increased. That was a predictable result, given the general looniness that we have come to expect from the left. There seems to be a high correlation between family and ethnic background, locality, and political orientation. The family, and our reaction to that upbringing, is probably the most inportant factor. Any change that occurs is likely to be gradual. For example, I was raised as a liberal Republican from Southwestern Michigan. Being in the Navy and experiencing the Carter and Reagan presidencies caused my move to the right. Even in the latter 1980's, I was pretty liberal. After having run around with my friends from Georgia for a decade and hearing many people talk about politics and life in a way with which I could relate, I have moved more to the right (I would call myself "center-right").

Democrats don't want to compromise

At least the mainstream Democratic party leaders and their media allies are not ready to compromise. James Carville is still promoting the value of triangulation, Clinton-style, but Howard Dean, Michael Kinsley, and Andrew Sullivan (only a former liberal) aren't in a place to compromise the core beliefs. For Andrew Sullivan, it is driven by "his special issue". He's not changing his lifestyle, so he is at odds with the anti-Gay marriage movement (and "values").

I had actually expected John Kerry to lead the succession from the United States if he lost, but he is not that radical. His buddies are, though. I was shocked that Lawrence O'Donnel is at the point of leading the succession movement. I knew he was "goofy" but I didn't realize how desperate he was.

Morale and competence in the Democratic Party

I recently wrote about "Morale and Compentence in the Restoration Navy" and noted the propensity for these sudden and devastating morale collapses that occurred on several occasions. I speculated that the reasons might involve the morale climate established by Charles II and the Duke of York. They had been radicalized by their father's death at the hand of Cromwell, and had few behavioral limits. The only thing that you could be assured was that they would do anything to advance the cause of the English navy. Otherwise, they carried on outrageously, and everyone knew it.

When I write the words, they remind me of the Clinton years. John Kerry seems to have had a somewhat different slant than President Clinton. The only thing you could count on with President Clinton was that he would govern from the right, as that was the only way to get elected. He would talk to the left, just a bit, to keep the lefties happy. He would wink and nod, and they were fooled. John Kerry was afraid to admit what his true tendencies were, but he could be relied upon to be true to them, when the time came to be counted. That is why he refused President Clinton's advice to find a way to be in favor of banning Gay marriage. President Clinton was very consistent with the loose morals of the Restoration. John Kerry was not so loose, but was still the wealthy elitist. I should say, he was the extreme-leftist, wealthy elitist. The Democrat crew talked a good fight, but they collapsed when confronted in a good fight. They lacked the moral basis for living. They liked how they lived, but might just have been a bit ashamed about it.

Pim Fortuyn knew what he was talking about

When Pim Fortuyn was campaigning, right before he was assasinated, he warned of the dangers of the large, unassimilated Muslim population in the Netherlands. Then he was shot and killed by an animal rights extremist. Now, the Dutch filmmaker, Theo van Gogh was killed by Islamic terrorists for making a movie about the abusive treatment of women in Islamic countries.

Nicholas Kristof on the Democrat defeat

I have enjoyed seeing the Democrats agonize over losing the election. Perhaps, a better way describe what I mean is that I find the process entertaining. I like politics, and they are talking the about that subject. Nicholas Kristof has an analysis where he says that if the Democrats don't move to the center (Clinton style) they will become even more irrelevant. Nicholas Kristof admires what Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did in Britain and would like to see the Democrats do the same thing here. The stakes are high, because if the Democrats keep letting Bill Moyers, Garrison Keillor, and The Nation speak for them, they are toast. I actually rather like David Corn, but he is to say the least, "misguided." He was the guy blocking for President Clinton 1996 and 1998, even though he disagreed with him and probably despised him. He was their guy, so the facts didn't matter.

You can't dismiss the "values" issue

Andrew Sullivan seems relieved at David Brooks' debunking of the "values" issue (i.e., anti-Gay marriage sentiment) as a factor in the election. That issue was a factor in my wife's vote, I was surprised to find. I shouldn't have been surprised, given her conservative religious background, but I was.

Anothe datapoint came from Tavis Smiley's NPR show last night. The show was better than usual, as there was a guest host for Tavis Smiley. He hosted the "Reporter's Roundtable" segment, and he spoke with Laura Washington, a Chicago Sun Times columnist, and Hollis Towns, who is managing editor of The Cincinnati Enquirer. Hollis Towns made the point that black people from Ohio voted for President Bush at a rate 47% above the rate in the rest of the country. Mr. Towns attributed that to opposition "to special rights for Gays" among the Ohio community of black believers. In this case, there was an effect of the "values issue" that mattered.

Clinton advised Kerry to move to the right on "Gay Marriage", but Kerry wouldn't compromise his core principles. He lost because of it. Clinton is unprincipled, so he had no problems doing this sort of thing while campaigning and as president. The problem is that the core, leftist Democrat principles are at odds with those of most Americans, especially Americans in "flyover country". All you have to do is look at the county-by-county map that shows red or blue, and the country is mostly red.

Would that we are free of the 1960's mindset

Wretchard, at the Belmont Club thinks that the 1960's mindset is finally dead, killed off with John Kerry's loss in the election. I'm less sure, as we still have the leftist institutions that were formed for this election cycle. Whether they continue or are shut down, post election, remains to be seen.

If the Democrats run Howard Dean, next time, they will show that they have been caught in the same timewarp as my aunt, uncle, and cousins from Eastern Michigan and Ohio. I have a cousin who was an Assistant Professor at Ohio State whose charter was to be a community activist. He described he and his wife as being so progressive that no one was to their left.

John Kerry still has his senate seat

John Kerry has done pretty well. He proved himself a player on the national scene, and got a big vote. He showed that he was not a Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter, or George McGovern. He still has his senate seat, and will undoubtedly keep it as long as he wants.

Someone needs to break the news to Tavis Smiley that his candidate has conceded

I was listening to Tavis Smiley on NPR, from Los Angeles, and he was still talking as if John Kerry could win Ohio because of uncounted provisional ballots. He doesn't seem to realize that John Kerry already conceded the election to President Bush. I'm afraid that Tavis Smiley is delusional. I hope he doesn't take it too hard when it finally sinks in that his guy has lost.

Senator Kerry was a statesman and conceded

Senator Kerry had the choice of being a "political suicide bomber" (along the lines of our good buddy, Albert Gore, Jr.) or of being a statesman. We are fortunate that he chose the latter. Senator Kerry and his running mate came very close to replicating Al Gore's performance in 2000, thought better of it, after "sleeping on it". The alternative conspiracy theory may be that the dreaded Karl Rove's goons stopped by and showed Senator Kerry "what they had on him" and he backed down. I'll leave that for the tinfoil hat types. I would much prefer to believe that Senator Kerry did the "right thing". Besides, I don't believe in an "all powerful Karl Rove" the way our leftist buddies do.

I don't see anywhere for the teams of Democratic lawyers to go

The way the Presidential race is turning out, with the majority of the country "turning red", there isn't anywhere close enough to be worth sending the suicide squads of Democrat lawyers.

The Democrats are said to be "giddy"

The Democrats have seen exit polling that causes them to think that they are winning. If you look at RealClearPolitics.com (highly recommended), President Bush still looks to be doing well.

The IT Job Market

I'm not sure that you can generalize about the IT job market from my situation, but I am now working in the Dallas area for the first time since May 2001. I had spent the last three years working in Minneapolis, on three contracts, two of them at the same place (with another in between). It did take me 5 months, however, to get a job.

I still have faith in the system

There were times during the 1990's when my faith in the system waivered, but in the end, we ended up with a Republican House, Senate, and the majority of governorships. For whatever reason, we had to go through eight years of President Clinton. That was just something that the country needed and wanted. The result was that Tip O'Neil's Democratic Party was dumped from its perch on power.

The part of me that wants to control what happens desperately wants to see Senator Kerry defeated (by a big margin). For the system to work correctly, we need to embrace the result, whether we like it or not. My concern is that the Kerry Democrats won't accept the outcome if they don't get their way.

Stealing the Election

There is a full-court press on by the Democrats to "steal" the election. I say that in the sense that they are prepared to "do whatever it takes" (legal, ethical, or not) to win the election. Losing the election is not an option. One doomsday scenario that I can imagine is that with Senator Kerry picking a cabinet and national security team, is that he will declare himself the winner of the Blue States and set up his own government (in otherwords, secede from the Union). We could potentially be replaying the election of 1860, as passions are that high.

Toss Up states

It can't be good news for John Kerry that states that he "ought to be winning" have moved into RealClearPolitics' "Toss Up" category. These states include Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The really hard core Democrat states from this list should be Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Ohio and Pennsylvania have been acting like Democratic states, but have been Republican in the past. Now, there is some prospect that even heavily Democratic Hawaii could be "in play".

I find the concept laughable that Walter Cronkite thinks that Carl Rove is behind the Bin Laden tape

Walter Cronkite is clearly delusional. He must be, if he now thinks that Carl Rove is behind the "Bin Laden tape". Forty years ago, I thought that Walter Cronkite was a good guy. I changed my mind, after thinking about his role in the Viet Nam War, where he sold the U.S. Public on thinking that we lost the Tet Offensive, instead of the truth, that we won the battle.

The hot buzz is that Yasser Arafat is dying of AIDS

If you believe David Frumm, the hot buzz is that Yasser Arafat is dying of AIDS. He went to France, because they could be trusted to keep the truth a secret. The story is pretty outrageous, but I can believe that it could be true.

Maybe it was 3 or 4 tons, not 377 tons

Now we find out that there wasn't 377 tons (rounded to as high as 400 tons by some media outlets), but 3 or 4 tons of explosives. ABC News, perhaps to compensate for the infamous "email", has been doing some good reporting. We also now think that Russian Special Forces may have taken this and other weaponry to Syria (including Saddam's WMD's?). Bill Gertz, of the Washington Times is a quiet and unassuming man, but he is continuing to be a leader in coverage of national defense and intelligence issues.

We just saw the lunar eclipse go "total"

Despite the day having been rainy and overcast all day, the clouds cleared enough, tonight, for us to be able watch the lunar eclipse out our back windows. The eclipse just went total. I took several pictures with my digital camera, but I do not have a suitable lens to do more than just capture a red, textured spot that I can enlarge. You can see stars in the background, to give the picture some context.

Climate change and "the hockey stick"

I was very interested to read an article at Tech Central Station about "the hockey stick" and climate change. There is an paper being published that refutes the Mann, Bradley and Hughes "Hockey Stick" model for the climate. What really caught my eye was a graph showing northern hemisphere temperatures from a the ECHO-G computer model. I am a naval historian and specialize in the 17th century naval history surrounding the Dutch navy. The graph shows a low point for temperatures right before 1700. What we know from 16th and 17th century naval history is that this was period of late season severe storms that may or may not have been hurricanes. The peak was "The Great Storm" ion 1703 that devastated the British Isles and Channel region. 1588 was during very low temperature point, as well. The storm that destroyed a significant portion of the Spanish Armada happened during one of these low temperature points. High temperature points may cause more storms, but the very low temperature points are at least as worse, if not much worse. During the First Anglo-Dutch War, storms devastated the Dutch navy. One was during a voyage to the Shetlands to convoy returning East Indiamen in August 1652. Another was in early November 1653, when the Dutch navy lost more warships in a great storm while escorting home merchantships that had been sheltering in Norwegian waters. Storms during periods of "global cooling" can be quite severe.

The full court press to steal the election is officially underway

The Democrats officially started their campaign to steal the election with their deployment of lawyers in Florida. The law suit is laughable on its face: "who do they think they're kidding?" The idea is that by requiring proper registration and identification at the time of voting, they are disenfranchising minorities, who the Democrats claim are too stupid to follow the proper procedures.

CBS News continues to show their true colors

CBS News and their treatment of the "explosives" story is showing that they are still partisan hacks, as if we didn't already know that. Mara Liasson didn't think that the "explosives" story rose to the level of an "October Surprise", but CBS News and the 60 Minutes crowd thought it did. They had hoped to drop this as a bombshell on next Sunday night, before the election. They ended up having to let the NYT break the story, and do it so early that there would be time to refute it, before the election.

October surprise, Democrat style

Apparently, the "explosives" story is at least one of the Democrat "October Surprises". I'm not convinced that it will be the only one, though. The "explosives" story seems to have originated with Mohammed Al-Baradai, the UN IAEA head. The US opposes a second term for him, as he missed Libya's weapons program and has been soft on Iran's program. Therefore, he has a grudge against President Bush. The spin, now, is that "oh, the 101st Airborne was at Al-Qaqaa on April 10th, but the 3rd Infantry Division was there the week before and didn't secure the site". However, a little back of the envelope calculation shows that it would take 100 men, two weeks, working intently, to have removed the explosives. There is also the issue that the site was under intense satellite surveillance, so the chances of the removal of 380 tons of explosives happening undetected in a week is remote. More likely, the explosives were removed before the war, as it could have been done with fewer than 6 heavily loaded semi's. It is plausible that if you are not concerned with safety, you can haul 80 tons in a semi trailer.

The "Explosives" story (more)

The "Explosives" story is getting widely disseminated, as even my wife heard about it, and she only listens to a music station in Dallas. Ed Morrissey has what appears to be the definitive word: the explosives that were missing were missing when our troops arrived in April 2003.

The "Explosives" story

Ed Morrissey has good coverage about the NYT's "Missing Explosives" story. When we took Iraq, the munitions may have already been moved. This could have been part of what Saddam apparently moved to Syria (along with his Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons: NBC). This story is "old information" and isn't news, except among our Democrat and leftist buddies. They are reduced to creating hysteria, at this point in the campaign. That, and John Kerry is demagoguing issues, hoping to find "traction" on one of them.

The BIG story in the Washington Times (not so big)

The big story that was pending in the Washington Times was not so big, in the blockbuster sense, but was important, nonetheless. The story is about how John Kerry lied about meeting with the UN Security Council in 2002, before his vote to authorize force in Iraq. If you thought that Albert Gore, Jr. was a serial exaggerator, then he pales in comparison with John ("Christmas inCambodia") Kerry.

The Washington Times big story for Monday 24 October

There is some buzz about what story the Washington Times will break tomorrow. It is said to be BIG. There is a "joke" page, that looks just like a Washington Times page, that says that Osama Bin Laden is probably dead. I would believe that. He has has all these opportunities to appear on video, and we haven't seen anything. Despite administration sources that place Bin Laden in Pakistan, I would bet that he is dead. It has been too long since we last saw the guy alive.

The Armed Prophet's employer

I have been reading the Armed Prophet about 1-1/2 years, and when he started the Washington Canard, I added it to my favorites. I only check them several times a week, as they are not updated that often. He made a reference to his employer, "TheThermoqueue". I played around with a thesaurus and realized that Thermoqueue was a reference to "Hotline".

After panicking, I realized that we have accomplished adults running the country

I have been in somewhat of a panic over the prospect of what the Democrats have in mind for November 3rd (seemingly after losing the election). I was reminded, yesterday, that "our guys" understand what is happening and are ready to deal with Kerry and Democrat shenanigens. We have adults running the country and who are ready to deal with the unruly children on the Democrat side, if they get out of line.

I'm reminded of a story that a Navy pilot told me in 1976 about the Naval Academy. He was a Naval Academy grad and a pilot, and he was allowed to joke about it. The question is: "What is the difference between the Naval Academy and a Boy Scout camp?". The answer is: "At at Boy Scout camp, they have adult supervision". Our Democrat buddies need some adult supervision.

I was shaken by news of what John Kerry plans post election day

Our prominent radio talk show host told the story, yesterday, of what John Kerry and his partisans have planned for the day after the election. I was greatly disturbed when I heard that even if John Kerry loses by 5 points, he will declare victory, select a foreign policy team (and I assumed a cabinet), and dispatch teams of lawyers to states where he lost but the vote was close. They saw how close they came to subverting the 2000 election, and are determined to do whatever it takes to win this one (even if it brings down the republic).

A P-3 just flew over

I heard a rumble and looked up. I was amazed to see a P-3 fly over, heading on a northerly course at low speed and altitude. I suppose that it must be a Naval Reserve plane based at Carswell on the other side of Fort Worth. The plane was painted in an overall light grey.

Periodically, as a country, we sometimes have to go off and do the wrong thing

I am hoping that this election is not one of the times where we have to go off and "do the wrong thing" for a while, just to "get it out of our system". An example was the abortive Jimmy Carter presidency. In some ways, the reign of President Clinton was also necessary in that regard. You can't say that was particularly successful for the Democrats, as it left us with a Republican president, house and senate.

We had to go through the Jimmy Carter episode to make the country ready to try the Conservative Ronald Reagan. I wasn't ready, even in 1980, as I was still a Liberal Republican, so I voted for John Anderson. By 1984, I was a believer in Reagan and voted for him.

John Kerry, blowing hot air as usual

As Ed Morissey points out, John Kerry's hot air about fighting the war on terror and "were Bush went wrong" is plain wrong, according to Tommy Franks (who knows better than than our unfavorite demagogue.

This should be required reading

This post should be required reading for good people who are considering voting for John Kerry. I have known people like Laura Armstrong and her father. Powerline has half the text of her recent speech. Her father was a hero and dynamic leader ("Black Bart") in the Viet Nam War who was killed in action.

Our "lefty buddies" don't seem to understand that people don't like what they are saying

I might say that our leftist friends don't "get it" that normal people don't like what they are saying. It is payback time for "entertainers" like John Stewart who find that they are losing audience share, now that they have gone totally in the Democratic tank. I also am amused by the lefty Hollywood reaction to "Team America". To some degree, it is an equal opportunity hit piece, but just nailing the "Hollywood elite" is enough to win plenty of points

Steven den Beste

We can only hope that Steven den Beste will start blogging regularly again. I miss his input. Fortunately, he is not able to stay totally quiet. He brings his expertise in electronics and systems to play on the 2004 presidential campaign and polls.

What I admire about Steven is that he is a "self-made man". The real world is all about what you know and can do, not about your education or credentials. That is why I take a dim view of attempts to impose certification on the software field. I see certification as a way to drive programmers who come from off-the-beaten track out of the field, and I see that as a crime (I am not particularly someone from that category, as I have an MS in Computer Science).

The

The ABC?Washington Post poll that has Bush and Kerry in a tie and the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll that has Kerry up one point are looking very implausible at this date. The latest from RealClearPolitics.com has the current set of polls as:

Poll                    Dates          Bush  Kerry  Nader  Spread     
Newsweek (LV)           10/14 - 10/15  50%   44%    1%     Bush +6 
Zogby (1211 LV)         10/13 - 10/15  48%   44%    1%     Bush +4 
TIPP (786 LV)           10/12 - 10/15  48%   45%    2%     Bush +3 
ABC/Wash Post (1203 LV) 10/12 - 10/14  48%   48%    1%     TIE 
CBS News (760 LV)       10/9  - 10/11  48%   45%    2%     Bush +3 
ICR (763 LV)            10/9  - 10/11  48%   43%    2%     Bush +5 
CNN/USAT/Gallup (793 LV)10/9  - 10/10  48%   49%    1%     Kerry +1 

Polls have gotten so crazy that it is hard to know what is happening. It is telling, however, that the Democrats are trying to discredit polling as not telling the whole story, now that their candidate is running behind.

Hopefully, some of the people "on our side" are looking at what might be done about the seeming electoral fraud conspiracy

I may be stretching it to call it a conspiracy, but it has that flavor. It seems to come out of the DNC and their associated 527 groups. Much of it seems to be funded by Democrat supporter George Soros. He is determined to have the Democrats win everything, if money can buy that result. One of George Soros' main issues is legalizing marijuana use.

It looks like there may be a "Bush bounce" out of the last debate

When Zogby shows the President up 4 points, after the last debate, I would say that there was a "Bush bounce". This morning's RealClearPolitics.com has it.

Last night's debate and polling

I had been curious to see today's Rasmussen tracking poll. It is out, and still shows President Bush with a two point lead. The online "instant polls" are useless, in that we know that the Democrats have specifically targetted them to skew the results. In the next few days, we should see new polling reflecting the results of last night's debate. My take on the debate was the President Bush won, and that seemed to be the take of some who are not for the President, as well.

Another big story is what is happening in Iraq

There are some signs that using Israeli-like tactics in Iraq are starting to pay dividends (sharp attacks against houses where terrorists are known to be). Glenn Reynolds has more of the story. The bottom line is that the local Baathist insurgents don't want anything to do with the foreign terrorists.

John Kerry's discharge from the Navy

I shouldn't have been surprised at this story, but I just had not "put two-and-two together" on my own. Apparently, John Kerry's original discharge was "under less than honorable conditions". Because John Kerry has not released all of his records, we don't know the details. Later, during Jimmy Carter's reign, they rewrote history and gave John Kerry an honorable discharge. Scott Johnson, at Powerline, has the story as we know it. As a former enlisted man and officer in the Navy, I believe that this had to do with John Kerry's activities in 1970 to 1972, where he seems to have broken the law. The most obvious case was his meetings with the Viet Nam Communists in Paris.

Nobel laureate on taxes

This seems noteworthy:

Nobel laureate calls for steeper tax cuts in US

Mon Oct 11, 5:21 PM ET   Politics - AFP 
 

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Edward Prescott, who picked up the Nobel Prize for Economics, said President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s tax rate cuts were 'pretty small' and should have been bigger. 

AFP/Royal Swedish Academy of Science-HO/File Photo 

'What Bush has done has been not very big, it's pretty small,' Prescott told CNBC financial news television. 


'Tax rates were not cut enough,' he said. 


Lower tax rates provided an incentive to work, Prescott said. 


Prescott and Norwegian Finn Kydland won the 2004 Nobel Economics Prize for research into the forces behind business cycles. 


The American analyst, who is a professor at Arizona State University and a researcher at the Federal Reserve (news - web sites) Bank of Minneapolis, said a large tax cut in 1986 had lowered rates while collecting the same revenue. 


But 'in the early '90s the economy was depressed by the tax increase in '93 by about four percent, and it's right at that level now,' Prescott said. "

this is from an AFP article from Monday, Oct 11, 2004

John Kerry and reducing terrorism to a "nuisance"

I understand what John Kerry was trying to say when he said that he would like to reduce terrorism so that it is reduced to a nuisance, not a war. That was the mode we were pretending to be in from the 1960's up until September 10th, 2001. During the Clinton years, there was the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, there was the 1995 attack in Oklahoma City, the Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia, the attack on the African embassies, and the attack on the USS Cole.

The only problem is that these were more than nuisances. There were a whole series of terrorist attacks from the 1960's up until the present. The vast majority were done by Islamic terrorists, with the next largest group being Communist-inspired terrorist cells (such as "The Red Army Faction").

The whole period from the 1960's up until September 10th, 2001, was characterized by not effectively dealing with terrorist attacks, and treating them as a matter for police and criminal prosecution. The fallacy was that they were "extra-national" when in fact, they depended on safe havens offered by friendly countries. The primary difference since September 11th is that we have gone after some of the safe havens, and are putting pressure on others of them. That includes special operations that don't make it into the MSM, but which are nonetheless effective (that apparently includes places like Mali).

The message that John Kerry is conveying, and which is not what he would have wanted to do, if he were more aware of the issues, is that he would let us lapse back into the mode of no effective action against terrorism.

You don't know what you don't know

I keep running into this issue: you don't know what you don't know. You generally run into this when you find someone who knows more than you. Often, the realization happens either on the job, or in a job interview. You thought you knew about a technical area, and find that you have an incomplete knowledge, instead. It is very humbling and often embarrassing when this happens.

John Kerry keeps revealing to us the limits of his knowledge. He will innocently say things, such as his statements about the nature of terrorism and how to combat it. John Kerry invoked his great experience as a prosecutor to give credance to his approach to combatting terrorism (or is it, "live with terrorism"). Bill Dyer has given us his opinion about John Kerry's capabilities and experience as a lawyer. John Kerry doesn't even have the basic credentials, anymore, as he let his law license lapse, and hasn't done anything to resurrect it.

If President Bush wins, you would see rioting in leftist enclaves

Passions are running high enough on the left, that I can visualize rioting at Berkeley, San Francisco, Province Town, and places like them, if President Bush wins. There is a segment of the left that "refuses to lose", and if they did lose, they would become unhinged. Our buddy, Terry McAuliffe's rhetoric is helping to inflame passions (as if they needed any help).

The myth of Al Gore "winning" Florida has persisted despite the reality that he lost. Expect to see this unbalanced thinking, but magnified.

There will be an attempt to delegitimize the election if President Bush wins

If you remember Florida in 2000, after the election, and didn't like it, you will not like what will happen this year, even if President Bush wins big. Even now, we are getting a preview, as there is an attempt to delegitimize the election results in Afghanistan. The use of violence was not able to prevent the election, so the next, logical step, was to delegitimize the result. The left, and their MSM allies, are determined not to give President Bush any sort of victory.

Despite the efforts of John Kerry's sister (a small factor, I'm sure) and the opposition in Australia, the pro-coalition prime minister in Australia won and increased his party's strength in the parliament. The left lost this one, but they will fight every battle, hoping to pick up some victories.

You can be sure that there will be an effort to prevent elections in Iraq, and if they are held, to paint them as illegimate.

Today's Rasmussen tracking poll shows President Bush ahead by 50% to 46%

Rasmussen says that "Today is the first time all year that either candidate has hit the 50% mark in our survey". He has President Bush ahead by 50% to 46% in today's tracking poll. That puts Rasmussen's three-day averaged number at 49.6 for Bush and 45.9 for Kerry.

Some goodies from Rasmussen

I have started to pay more attention to the Rasmussen tracking poll, and his other content. I thought that he had some really significant findings today:

October 7, 2004--The latest Rasmussen Reports Electoral College projection shows George W. Bush with 240 Electoral Votes and John Kerry with 169. There are now eleven states with 129 Electoral Votes in the Toss-Up category.

Today, we are moving Florida from Toss-Up Status to Leans Bush. In our daily Tracking Poll provided to Premium Members, Bush has been ahead by at least five percentage points for five of the last six days. In our last publicly released Florida survey, the President was up by four percentage points.

Last week, before the Presidential debate, three states moved from Leans Kerry to Toss-Up (Michigan, New Jersey and Maryland). Since that time, the polls in some states have drifted back towards the Democrat. But, none have moved enough at the moment to shift out of Toss-Up status.

The 240 Electoral Votes projected for Bush is his highest total of the year. He has been at 213 since the Republican National Convention.

For Kerry, the total of 169 Electoral Votes is his lowest total of Election 2004. Kerry was constantly in the lead and consistently above 200 projected Electoral Votes until mid-August. Kerry fell behind Bush in the Electoral College count during the weekend leading up to the Republican National Convention.

This is the longest I have ever been unemployed

In 1994, 2001, 2002, and 2003, I had been umemloyed, but the longest period was in 1994. That seems surprising, given the situation in 2001 and 2002, particularly. This year, however, is different. In 1994, I was unemployed for a period of 100 days (wall calendar time). This year is already 113 days, and counting.

I finally have several opportunities that are progressing. It looks like one or more of them could lead to job offers later next week.

I use my unemployment status as a gauge of economic conditions. 2003 was actually my best year since 2000, although my income had dropped off percipitously since 2000. In the IT field, salaries and consulting rates have plummetted. We are in a "new reality". At least people are now talking about rates that are more consistent with what was being offered in the early to mid-1990's, not what was prevalent in the mid-1980's (!).

It says something if Bush is ahead in New Mexico

New Mexico is considered a Democratic lock. If this is right, and I'm sure it is: New Mexico: Gallup/CNN/USA Today - Bush 50, Kerry 47, Nader 2 then things are really going down the tubes for John Kerry and the Democrats. This is Slate's take on the state of the election:

President Bush:
295 Electoral Votes: 179 solid, 116 close

Senator Kerry:
243 Electoral Votes: 164 solid, 79 close

This has closed some since yesterday.

This is RealClearPolitics take:

Solid Bush(176)
Leaning Bush(88)

Toss Up(54)

Leaning Kerry(67)
Solid Kerry(153)

What you don't hear on the MSM

On a talk radio show, today, I heard that 70% of the attacks against Americans in Iraq were done by mercenaries who were paid to do them. That is not something that I had read, even in the Wall Street Journal (one of their reporters knew of this and didn't think it newsworthy).

More polls

The poll landscape continues to evolve. The Kerry +2 from the Newsweek (1013 RV) 9/30 - 10/2 poll looks increasingly wrong. The most telling thing is that MSN's Slate Magazine (ultra-left wing political website) gives President Bush 300 electoral votes and John Kerry 238 (as of 10:02am CST Oct. 7, 2004). They aren't cutting the President any slack, and, in fact, are carrying on a leftist misinformation campaign. If they say the President is ahead, that gives the result more meaning.

The Slate guys must be on drugs

William Saletan and Chris Suellentrop, from Slate, must be in an "altered state" (drugs?), as their take on the Vice-Presidential candidate debate from last night seems to be totally wishful thinking. It seems what the Democrats have is two guys with "good hair", expensive suits, and little else. Perhaps they are "empty suits". At least John Kerry has a history where he stood for something, although he now pretends that history doesn't exist. His history is that he is an extreme leftwing anti-war politician. Now, he dare not let anyone know of his background (outside of the significant fraction of the world that doesn't depend on the MSM for news).

I didn't realize just what a "light-weight" John Edwards is

John Edwards has quickly revealed himself as a "light-weight" and a lout. I have toyed with various obscenities to describe him, but I would not want to insult his mother.

As usual, Dick Cheney has shown himself to be a responsible adult, unlike John Kerry and John Edwards.

I hope that we get around to pointing out that John Edwards has been a factor in driving up our health care costs and driving doctors out of medicine (in his trial lawyer role).

Polls have gotten unreliable, as they are "all over the map"

This week's poll results are divided into those that make out that John Kerry is either ahead or, at least, even, or that show President Bush with a four or five point lead. The effect of such polls can be seen in that Rasmussen now shows President Bush ahead (for today) by only one point. Rasmussen shows, however, that after the first debate, more people say that "finishing the mission in Iraq is more important than getting troops home as soon as possible". On this critical point, the President is winning.

The Newsweek poll is more than one standard deviation from the norm

For what it's worth, I ran the statistics for the current polling. The mean score for President Bush was 48.0. The mean score for John Kerry was 45.8 points. The mean difference between the two was 2.2 points. The standard deviation for the "delta" between the two men's scores was 3.114482. That puts the Newsweek difference of -2 at a greater than one standard deviation from the mean difference (at -4.2 points below the mean difference).

Drudge says that the WashingtonPost/ABC News poll shows Bush ahead by 5 points

Immediately after posting, I see that there is yet ANOTHER poll that shows President Bush ahead by 5 points. This time, it is the Washington Post/ABC News poll (according to Drudge).

Now, the latest Pew Research poll gives Bush a 5 point lead

More and more, the Newsweek poll seems to be bogus. As soon as I heard from a "prominent radio talk show host" that they had only polled Mountain and Pacific time zones, you knew there was something wrong. Then I heard that they had oversampled Democrats. With the latest Pew Research poll showing a 5 point lead for President Bush, we can safely discard the Newsweek and CNN/USAToday/Gallup polls. As new polls come out over the next day or so, we will be clearer on what is actually happening (obviously).

More polling

A prominent radio talkshow host says that internal Kerry Campaign polling shows a statistical dead heat with Bush ahead by two points. James Carvell and Stan Greenburgh's organization, Democracy Corps, shows Bush ahead by two points.