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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 . *****************************************************************
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.
Certain San Francisco supervisors are choosing to ignore history. With so much evidence casting doubt upon the wisdom of banning civilian firearm ownership, they would be wise to abandon their plan. Considering all the easily-accessible information contradicting their claims of noble intent, one must pause and ponder what their true motivation may be.
Since it has been in vogue for cities to sue firearms manufacturers for criminal use of highly-regulated, non-defective products, it would seem legal ground has been prepared for similar suits in the reverse direction: that city politicians should be held accountable for death and destruction of public safety resulting from the flawed policies they enact. Perhaps we need to start a new holiday: Take a Politician to Court Day.
Fish Or Man should have found an attorney prior to coming out of the closet. Getting funding ahead of time would have been a good idea too. The attorney could have researched the case law related to the laws in question. Sometimes the case law will essentially turn what the legislature wrote into something very different than what the average person would think it to mean. Once Fish Or Man decided to actually proceed he would have had a much more accurate view of what the cops could charge him with and how to respond. He could have had a note from his lawyer to hand to the cop saying, in great detail, this is the law and my client is not violating it.
So, Fish Or Man wasn’t as prepared as he should have been. This doesn’t mean that he is totally screwed yet or that we should abandon him. I have the 23rd off from work and if the roads are decent and I can talk my wife into a trip to Spokane (about a 2 hour drive for us) I will be there to watch what happens on his first court date. It may be that Fish Or Man is an embarrassment to the gun community and he should be “left hung out to dry“, or it could be that he is guilty only of lack of planning and we need to support him. We’ll see and I’ll report back later this week.
If not a form letter then it’s probably a minor modification of one. I doubt that they really know what to say when confronted with their own bigotry. I can’t imagine their policies “ensure the effectiveness of Google ads“. I think it is more likely the “Google Ethics Committee“ believed they were being ethical when they banned firearms. And once a decision is made and they defend it against critics it is hard for people to admit they were wrong. It takes very strong character to be able to do that. Google, as a company, is probably not much above average in character. It’s just a battle we have to keep fighting one day at a time while showing all the character we can.
Subject: Re: [#17065471] Google AdSense Account Status From: “Google AdSense” Date: Mon, December 20, 2004 22:21 (GMT) To: Joe Huffman
Hello Joe,
Thank you for your email. I understand that you are disappointed with our current policies. We apologize for the inconvenience. However, we have certain policies in place that we believe will help ensure the effectiveness of Google ads for our publishers as well as our advertisers.
We review all publishers according to our Terms and Conditions and program policies, and we reserve the right to decline certain websites. As we grow, we may find that we are able to expand our program to more web publishers with a wider variety of web content.
Thank you for your feedback, and please know that we are working hard to make the AdSense program available to as many web publishers as we can.
Please feel free to reply to this email if you have additional questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Emily The Google AdSense Team
—————- AdSense publishers now have the option to display image ads, in addition to text ads, through AdSense. Go to https://www.google.com/adsense/faq#imageads to learn more.
With all the funerals and stuff going on here I was behind on things. I think I’m caught up now.
Technically this is somewhat old news but it doesn’t appear to be widely distributed. I got the first pointer to this info from Jihad Watch. ABC News in Australia reports the following:
…researcher Saiful Mujani of Jakarta’s Freedom Institute now believes Indonesia’s Muslims are less moderate than governments and academics suggest.
“The rhetoric claiming that there is no problem in the society…to me that’s too simplistic, that’s wishful thinking,” he said.
The Freedom Institute’s survey of 1400 people across Indonesia, found that less than 60 per cent of Muslims disagreed with Imam Samudra and Dr Azahari’s bombing campaigns.
Sixteen per cent, representing tens of millions of Indonesians, agreed with the bombers and another 25 per cent refused to disagree.
“There is a significant number of Indonesians, at least half, [who] do not have a negative reaction to that and they agree with silence at least, or protect this kind of activity,” Mr Mujani said.
“The bombers” refers to the bombing of night clubs and hotels that have been killing Australians. So at least 16% agree with the bombings and the actual number is probably closer to 40%. If there are a billion Muslims in the world and the fraction remains constant worldwide (yes, I know, BIG assumption here) then that means worldwide we have close to 400 million people willing to kill us because of we don’t adhere to their religious beliefs. This is very, very scary stuff. That has exceedingly powerful implications for our future and how we must respond to it. So why isn’t this a big topic for MSM in the US? I thought maybe I just had missed it. So I did a search on Google News. My search terms were “Freedom Institute Indonesia”. The only articles that referenced the study were these:
Nothing from anywhere outside of Australia. Why is this? Could this be the key (from the first article)?
Details of the negative attitudes to America and Australia revealed in the survey have been held back by the US Embassy in Jakarta, which funded the poll.
The US Embassy in Jakarta held back the numbers? The US doesn’t want this information known? Am I missing something here? Was the study obviously poorly done? Was this viewed as too encouraging news for the extremists?
We are in the middle of World War III and I think it’s important to know the size of our enemy’s supportors.
Update @ 21:45: I did a search on google.com, instead of news.google.com, for [“Freedom Institute” Indonesia] and found these:
Things just keep getting more fun to watch in King county. Especially when you have things like “ballot 81“:
…a ballot written in for “Christine Rossi”, hereafter known as “Ballot 81,” was sent to the canvassing board earlier this week. This is astonishing in itself, since there is no such candidate and this is obviously a joke. But what is more shocking is that the canvassing board didn’t throw it out, they cast this ballot for Christine Gregoire.
I’d like to think the democrat party is just digging it’s grave deeper with this kind of behavior. I still expect Gregoire to win. The Republicans just don’t lack enough ethics to stand a chance in a fight like this.
It is just a form letter. Nothing that wasn’t on their website. I responded, see below.
—–Original Message—– From: ACLU Correspond Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2004 7:13 AM To: Joe Huffman Subject: Your Feedback (Message #120150)
Dear Mr. Huffman,
Thank you for the question about the ACLU’s position on the Second Amendment. The national ACLU is neutral on the issue of gun control.
We believe that the Constitution contains no barriers to reasonable regulations of gun ownership. If we can license and register cars, we can license and register guns. The question therefore is not whether to restrict arms ownership, but how much to restrict it. If that is a question left open by the Constitution, then it is a question for Congress to decide.
If you are not already an ACLU member, we encourage you to help support our aggressive work on the issues you care about. To join please visit http://www.aclu.org/contribute/contribute.cfm or call 1-888-567-ACLU.
Sincerely,
D. Barber Correspondence Manager, American Civil Liberties Union
—–Original Message—– From: Joe Huffman Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2004 9:13 AM To: ACLU Correspond Subject: RE: Your Feedback (Message #120150)
I had already read your web page on the topic. My suggestion was that due to new information from constitutional scholars, which I provided references to in my email, it was time for you to reevaluate your position.
Cars are not constitutionally protected as are ‘arms’.
I will not be supporting the ACLU on any issue until the ACLU also defends the right to keep and bear arms issue–by far the most important issue in the Bill of Rights because it is only through the 2nd Amendment that the other rights can ultimately be guaranteed.
Just a few days ago I briefly mentioned that FishOrMan was coming out of the closet and doing things that I didn’t have the courage to do. Such as this. It didn’t take long from my post about it for something to happen again. His hearing date is Dec. 23rd at 9 am Courtroom A, 2nd floor of the Courthouse Annex in Spokane (I presume).
I don’t really know FishOrMan and I only know the side of the story that he is telling. But I know it’s true there is no law against open carry in Washington State and the state Constitution says, Article 1, Section 24:
The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men.
I would like to think that FishOrMan is a modern day Rosa Parks who was punished for daring to not sit at the back of the bus, or the gays that were beat up simply for the sport of it. For far too many years gun owners have been treated like crap and it’s time we came out of the closet and demanded our rights.
Inalienable rights are not asked or pleaded for. They are demanded and taken, by force if necessary. The police and politicians must stop this unjustified attack on our unalienable rights.
