Democrat Christine Gregoire will be certified as the winner over Republican Dino Rossi in the Washington State governor’s on Thursday.  The Republicans are considering a challenge:

Republicans are demanding a list of voters in Washington’s most populous county as the party considers a court challenge of Democrat Christine Gregoire’s razor-thin victory in the governor’s race, officials said Monday.

…

Chris Vance, state Republican party chairman, said officials would decide whether to challenge the recount results after studying the voter rolls from King County, a Democrat stronghold that includes Seattle.

“We’re mostly posing questions,” he said. “King County is where we saw the votes changing. King County is the one county that was allowed to take ballots that were declared dead in November and bring them back to life in December.”

I don’t think Rossi has a chance.  They are far too timid.  I think the root problem is they have an insufficient lack of ethics to do battle with the Democrats in such a close race and win.

It’s not the intent to give people tips on smuggling things past the screeners but that is the effect as reported by NewsMax:

…the government has ordered airport security personnel to avoid touching female passengers between their breasts when performing patdowns.

Security screeners now will keep their hands to the “chest perimeter” of women unless detection equipment picks up the possibility that they are hiding explosives between their breasts.

The new method takes into consideration passenger discomfort while remaining steadfast in mitigating risks, said Transportation Security Administration spokesman Mark Hatfield.

The nation’s 45,000 screeners are being told to pat down the perimeter of the chest, backsides and abdomen, effective Thursday.

I suppose it makes as much sense as anything they are doing now.  Unless they are doing body cavity searches and completely disassemble all carry-on materials people will get things through anyway so I can’t see that it matters if they give terrorists a few “search free” zones on the outside of the body.

It’s all a waste of time and money.  It’s time to implement option 8 and use the saved resources for something more productive.

I’m tempted, so incredibly tempted to buy this shirt.  For myself it would be on the ragged edge of acceptability.  For my nephew Jason (going to Iraq in a few days) it would be perfect.

Thanks to Dutch Expat for pointing this out.

We drove a few miles up the road to Potlatch to visit Barb’s sister today.  We ate snacks, opened some more presents, played cards, the kids played video games, some worked on a jigsaw puzzle, and generally just hung out.  Pictures are here.  Kim made it back from Spokane safely and stopped in for a while.  She laid down on me in the chair and we both went to sleep. 

Joseph Kim and Kimberly Joe

I’ve taken a number of classes from Insights Training and some of them were from John Holschen.  John taught my entire family Defensive Folding Knife.  I took the class twice, the first time without the rest of my family and at that class John’s wife Martha was there to help teach the class.  John also taught Al Qaeda: Training and Tactics for Intl Terrorism which I took as well.

Recently John has been in Iraq as a security contractor.  While he was over there he got a call on December 15th.  His family had been in an auto accident.  One of his 18 year-old daughters (a twin stayed at home that day) was killed, his 15 year old daughter was seriously injured and is still in a coma.  His wife and and sons, ages 9 and 12, were also injured.

It’s really broke me up to read about this.  I have an 18 year-old daughter that isn’t the most safety minded person and I keep thinking of her.  She drove to Spokane yesterday and is supposed to be back today.

Thanks to Ry for giving me a pointer to this blog site which supplied me with the info on John and his family.

Today I was doing my usual review of the logs for www.boomershoot.org and saw a hit from someone trying to get information on building a specific type of bomb in Belgium.    That area of the world is increasing getting the attention of terrorists and I’m not surprised I’m getting hits.  I found an email address on this site: http://www.polfed.be/ which appears (I don’t read or speak the language) to be the police and sent them the information I have.

I also sent them links to these images:

http://www.boomershoot.org/general/BombSearchSep2001.gif
http://www.boomershoot.org/general/BombSearch2001.gif
http://www.boomershoot.org/general/BombSearch2002.gif
http://www.boomershoot.org/general/BombSearch2003.gif
http://www.boomershoot.org/general/BombSearch2004.gif

It would appear to me that the frequency of people searching for bomb building information might be useful from an intelligence standpoint.  When put in the context of other intelligence sources.  I’m hoping the Belgium police will take a look at the information.  The email I sent to the ATFE Inteligence Division had links to those same images and the images were never looked at (the only log hits on those images were mine).  I’ve decided to make the images more widely available in the hopes that someone will take notice and get the informaton to the right people.

A minor note on the September 2004 data–it is missing about 10 days of information and my ISP says he will reconstruct that month for me soon and when I have it I’ll update that image.

Update: The September 2004 data is now included in the 2004 image.

Christmas Eve was at my parents house.  My brothers and nieces and nephew were there too.  No snow this year which was a bit unusual.

The Jihad Watch is a wonderful resource for people trying to figure out WW III at the strategic level.  What are the goals of our adversaries?  Well, this recent post pointed me to what the recently released French hostages had to say:

Georges Malbrunot, giving details of his ordeal in the French media, said he and his colleague Christian Chesnot both feared for their lives at times.

Mr Malbrunot said his captors were driven more by Islamic holy war than Iraqi nationalism.

“One of the lessons we drew from our captivity was that we were immersed in Planet Bin Laden,” he said.

When the men were freed earlier this week, their captors said it was because of France’s anti-war stance.

But Mr Malbrunot told French television the influence of the al-Qaeda leader was especially strong while they were with “a cell of the Islamic Army in the north”.

“We were very aware of the fact that it wasn’t the Iraqi agenda that motivated our kidnappers, but the internationalist jihadist agenda.

“I think this is the real challenge for the next 10 years – the clash of cultures that these people are advocating, are seeking.”

It’s not about American imperialism.  It’s not about Israel.  It’s about converting or killing all the infidels in the entire world. 

Grumble, grumble.  Newsgator got an error downloading Fish Or Man this morning without me noticing and I didn’t get his update just before I left.  He ended up not needing to go Spokane.  Barb and I did go to Spokane and sat through the processing of several people accused of domestic abuse.  Now we are at a book store which Barb enjoys so the 2 hour drive (each way) is not a complete loss.

We do have some additional information that isn’t in Fish Or Man’s report.  His lawyer filed a Notice Of Appearance before start of court this morning and the next court date on the traffic stop case is in Court Room E, Spokane District Court, for 9:00 AM, January 21st, 2005.  If you are interested in attending you can keep up to date on the status by going to this webpage and selecting Spokane District Court and cases CR0070552 and/or CR0070553.

I’ve posted before about airport screening and wrote a fairly detailed essay on how airport screening is a complete and total waste of time and money.  Now Michelle Malkin reveals the Air Marshal program is a disaster too.  Here is a short snippet from a former Marshal that wrote her:

The entire mission is a complete failure and the American traveling public is as ineffectively protected as they were before 9-11. The end result has been a 3.7 billion dollar boondoggle which has only extended the government careers of the top managers and to ensure that their pensions have been padded another $1000 dollars a month for life.

It is my belief that the Air Marshall program could be useful.  However Director Thomas Quinn, as reported by Malkin, apparently has a severe case of cranial rectum inversion.  If Quinn and his cronies can’t be dumped and decent management put in place then it’s time to try my option #8 and get rid of the entire FAM program for domestic flights (option #8 isn’t feasible for international flights).

It took a little bit of time to figure this out so I’ll save others the trouble if they happen to plan on attending Fish Or Man’s hearing tomorrow and are an even greater procrastinator than I am on figuring out exactly where to go.

Court Name: SPOKANE COUNTY DIST
Court Date: 12/23/2004

Court Time: 09:00 AM

Court Room: 2 Court Address: 1100 W Mallon Ave
Spokane
99260-2043 WA

Directions and map

Case 

CR0070552 

 

 Criminal Traffic    12/23/04   09:00 AM   Court Room 2
Case 

CR0070553 

 

 Criminal Non-Traffic  12/23/04   09:00 AM   Court Room 2

About a year ago my wife bought three 1500 Watt space heaters at Walmart.  About a week ago my youngest daughter noticed the plug on hers was discolored as if it had overheated.  She checked the plug on her brother’s heater and found it too was discolored and reported it to me.  I checked the third heater and found it was even worse than the other two.  Since the heaters were tested by Underwriters Laboratory I sent them a picture of the plug and the information they requested such as information about the heater:

Holmes Group Inc
Milford, MA 01757 USA
Model: HFH2985
Made in China
Serviced in USA
Heater 120V 60Hz 1500W A/C Only
 3403DHX
UL
Listed 11C1
E91385

Today I received a letter from UL.  So far they are “doing okay” in my book.  It’s odd the return address on the email is different from the person that ‘signed’ the email.  And it took almost a week to send me a confirmation they received my email.  But it’s Christmas time of year and I give them a pass for now.

From: Lorene.A.Seeger
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2004 9:07 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Your report – space heater

Field Report Investigation Number: 2004FR-2260

Mr. Huffman,

Thank you for contacting Underwriters Laboratories Inc. The information you submitted has been forwarded to our Field Report Department and an investigation has been initiated. We will contact you if additional information is needed during the course of this investigation.

We would like to assure you that the information you provided will be thoroughly reviewed and appropriate action will be taken as warranted.

Since the information developed throughout the course of our investigation is confidential, we cannot provide you with details or the results of the investigation. However, we will notify you upon completion of this investigation.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention and assisting us in maintaining the UL Public Safety Mission.

Regards,

Craig M. Witt
Engineering Team Leader
Underwriters Laboratories, Inc.
[phone number and email address snipped]

— For more information about UL, its Marks, and its services for
EMC, quality registrations and product certifications for global
markets, please access our web sites at http://www.ul.com and
http://www.ulc.ca, or contact your local sales representative. —

********* Internet E-mail Confidentiality Disclaimer **********

This e-mail message may contain privileged or confidential
information. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not
disclose, use, disseminate, distribute, copy or rely upon this
message or attachment in any way. If you received this e-mail
message in error, please return by forwarding the message and
its attachments to the sender.

UL and its affiliates do notaccept liability for any errors,
omissions, corruption or virus in the contents of this message
for any attachments .
*****************************************************************

Ho hum… So what did you expect?  I’ve been saying:

• King County is my entertainment for the day
• I stand behind my prediction
• Washington State governor’s race

The AP story is all over now.  Here is one link and a snippet:

Democrats have claimed victory in the race for Washington governor by a razor-thin margin of eight votes, citing preliminary results of a hand recount they say puts Christine Gregoire in front for the first time.

…

More legal battles appeared inevitable. Rossi has said that he would consider challenging the election results in court if he loses the third count after winning the first two. Republicans have already started preparing for a possible court challenge.

…

King County Elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan, who confirmed that both parties received the recount data on Tuesday, said official results would be released Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.

…

Seven justices will hear the lawsuit brought by King County, the state Democratic Party and the secretary of state seeking to include the 723 uncounted King County ballots.

Rossi doesn’t have a chance and never did after the first count came out so close.