Christine Gregoire, no backbone on 912

The governor of the state of Washington is spending this week trying to drum up business in Asia, the biggest creditor of the US. But regardless, it is incredible, that given all the suffering caused in the past two weeks by Katrina in New Orleans, not a peep has emerged from her administration concerning Intiative 912. I912 would repeal the tax on gasoline imposed by the state legislature this past spring. Its purpose is to fund critical transportation construction in this state. Such projects as replacing the 520 bridge and redoing or redirecting the Alaskan Way viaduct would be addressed by this tax on gasoline. However, the Mugwumps of Washington politics are attempting to remove this tax via initiative.

And what has the good gov done about this?

Absolutely nothing. No word to inspire those who think govt is responsible for the safety of its citizens and this tax is essential to maintaining our safety. No word to support I912 either.


Update 9/20/05: the Survey USA governors' rankings have come out and our Ms. Gregoire has dropped in her approval rating to 45%. She ranks 38th out of 50. I predict the trend to continue if she does not get a backbone.

It is time for the woman to shit or get off the pot. I sure as hell hope that with this wiffly a record, she gives up running again. Or the Repugs will eat her lunch next time around. Perhaps that is what is stalling her: fear of them. Let me give her a bit of advice--you never govern from fear and you NEVER let them know you are afraid.

What a wuss.

Karl Rove to head up Reconstruction in New Orleans

God, I hate to say I told you so, but as I mentioned in the prior post, we have continued our downward slide and reached the point that the idiots truly are in charge, where it's harder and harder to keep a lid on it. At least for a couple of days.

However, I am noting with dismay that www.dailykos.com, the blog read by more politicos than the top 8 conservative blogs in the blogosphere, seems to be missing a key point in the continuing tragedy of the drowning of New Orleans. That is the fact that Karl Rove has been put in charge of the Reconstruction effort.

To say that this is like the fox being in charge of the henhouse, is understating the degree of the problem rather like saying the sun is sorta hot. Karl fucking Rove??? The master of political spin and schmooze. Jesus on a popsicle stick, this is the biggest financial undertaking by the US government since the South was rebuilt after the Civil War. It is estimated to cost more than the Iraq war. And Bush is going to do it w/o raising taxes. The implications are staggering.

First, this means we will be even more in debt to the Chinese. They already hold so many of our IOUs that they can call our tune as to how they direct their economic efforts. They get to do capitalism their way--which means more and more opression for their workers. More and more pollution of their air and water (anyone been to Beijing recently? seen the sun or just a grey cloud?). And we will be required to be complicit in whatever they want to do, because they hold us by the short ones. And don't you forget it.

Then, Karl Rove is going to be throwing out all this money, these billion dollar potloads of money, just to make the political problems go away for his boss. Forget true planning and recreating a vibrant city by involving New Orleans citizens from all walks of life. The contracts are going to Halliburton and the wages got slashed by executive order. That's how Karl Rove is going to do things. The rich will continue to get richer. And the rest of us will rot.

We really need a Democratic opposition that is unified, on point and FUCKING LOUD. I don't care if Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid takes their clothes off during a press conference as long as it draws attention to the major, major embezzling operation that is taking place in broad daylight under the sanctimonious cover of reconstructing New Orleans. Unless something is done, it will impoverish all of us.

Is it just me?

Or have we descended another rung closer to sheer idiocy running the country?

Word from Capitol Blue's Doug Thompson is that GWB is prone to severe mood swings, abuses his staff and swears like a drunken sailor. Oops, make that a dry drunken sailor.

Then Bill Frist has gone out on a limb and declared that we should be teaching Intelligent Design alongside science in elementary school. As Edward noted in Obsidian Wings, I hope Harvard rescinds his medical degree retroactively. Why Mr. Frist thinks he has a snowball's chance in hell of capturing the Repub nomination for Preznit in 08, I'll never know. It's not his charm that will capture the voting public.

The killings in Iraq continue unabated. Cindy Sheehan, who is a decent woman with an unanswered question, is being 'swift boated' by the right wing scum bags such as Rush Limbaugh, who accused her of faking her son's death. I am NOT kidding about that. Yet, even though we lack an exit strategy the Army today said it would maintain its 100,000+ troop force in Iraq for at least another 4 years? Anyone want to hazard a guess as to our ultimate numbers of dead soldiers will be? At this rate, we will be there longer than we were in Vietnam. I'm just waiting for the 6 o'clock news to restart broadcasting body counts of dead rag heads. Now that would make all of us feel so much better....

When are all those who left their brains at the door and voted for Bush in '00 and '04 going to realize that the guy is 6 slices short of a loaf of bread? He's passed Reagan in sheer numbers of days taken on vacation while in office, and he still has 3 years to go on his second term. Knock, Knock, is anyone home? I know George isn't. He's biking and swimming and socializing with all the right folks. Not that trailer trash at Camp Casey. Why those are just parents of suckers. You know, those dumb enough to join the military, go to Iraq and get themselves killed.

And if that isn't enough, just watch the red tide flow out as we spend $200 billion a month on the debacle in Iraq. All for the cause of $2.75/gallon and climbing gasoline. I sold my tech stock last month and bought shares in an international oil firm. I might as well profit from all this stupidity.

GEORGE BUSH IS A FRIKKIN' IDIOT!!!

WHY AREN'T PEOPLE PAYING ATTENTION???

Further Evidence that Norm Coleman is a douchebag

My excuses to atrios, but this was too rich not to quote.

Uff da!

Norman Coleman -- not quite a genius, from the Guardian.

The Democratic Staff Report on the UN Oil for Food Program.


...the Senate report found that US oil purchases accounted for 52% of the kickbacks paid to the regime in return for sales of cheap oil - more than the rest of the world put together.

"The United States was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions," the report said. "On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales."

Just in time for a certain guest, George Galloway.

Mother's Day 2005

I'm a bit on edge this mother's day. Frankly I think it's a bit of a made up holiday. One that forces folks to invent pasts where their mothers were a bit nicer and cared a bit more about them than was real.

The major reason for my skepticism is that my mother suffers from narcicisstic personality disorder. It took me almost 40 years to identify it and another 5 to try to do something about it. There is no cure, and those who try to erect healthy boundaries to protect themselves usually find it exacts severe punishment. As a result, I won't be calling to her house today and haven't sent a card. So of course today puts me more out of sorts than most days. But I'll get over it. There's no other way out.

Does Focus on the Family promote hatred of gays?

I'm having a debate w/ a fellow who is generally a nice guy, but sometimes I think that he is too nice for his and other's own good. I posited that Focus on the Family, James Dobson's born again outfit, promotes hatred of homosexuality. He doesn't think Focus on the Family promotes hatred of homosexuality because they don't advocate killing gays.

Frankly I think there are different ways of promoting hatred of homosexuality and not all involve urging that gays be killed.

He thinks this is just way too sensitive.

So does anyone have any better info on what the real agenda is for Focus on the Family and homosexuality? Am I, rational person that I think I am, being too sensitive?

I DON"T THINK SO. But, please let me be the first to offer you a platform to sound off on this issue.

Schiavo and the Pope, some points of comparison

In all the brouhaha over the past 2-3 weeks regarding Terri Schiavo's final death and the death of the Pope, it is important to look at some of the contradictions that are not resolvable and to my mind, reflect rather badly on their protagonists.

First let's hear from the Pope, or his minions:

..."Even for people infected with AIDS or for those who want to use condoms to prevent AIDS," said John Paul 11 at the International Congress of Moral Theologians in Rome in 1988, "the Church's moral doctrine allows no exceptions."

Carlo Caffarra, the pope's spokesman for marriage and family issues, added that if an AIDS - infected husband couldn't manage to maintain "total abstinence" for the rest of his life, then it was better to infect his wife than to use a condom, "because the preservation of spiritual goods, such as the sacrament of marriage, is to be preferred to the good of life."...

Culture of Life

Second, let's hear it from the Schindlers, Terri Schiavo's parents:

..."Testimony provided by members of the Schindler family included very personal statements about their desire and intention to ensure that Theresa remain alive. Throughout the course of the litigation, deposition and trial testimony by members of the Schindler family voiced the disturbing belief that they would keep Theresa alive at any and all costs. Nearly gruesome examples were given, eliciting agreement by family members that in the event Theresa should contract diabetes and subsequent gangrene in each of her limbs, they would agree to amputate each limb, and would then, were she to be diagnosed with heart disease, perform open heart surgery. There was additional, difficult testimony that appeared to establish that despite the sad and undesirable condition of Theresa, the parents still derived joy from having her alive, even if Theresa might not be at all aware of her environment given the persistent vegetative state. Within the testimony, as part of the hypotheticals presented, Schindler family members stated that even if Theresa had told them of her intention to have artificial nutrition withdrawn, they would not do it. Throughout this painful and difficult trial, the family acknowledged that Theresa was in a diagnosed persistent vegetative state..."

Guardian Ad Litem's Report

And then we get into the intrusion of the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.

First, President Bush:


"Bush's brand of forthright tough-guy populism can be appealing, and it has played well in Texas. Yet occasionally there are flashes of meanness visible beneath it.

While driving back from the speech later that day, Bush mentions Karla Faye Tucker, a double murderer who was executed in Texas last year. In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. 'Did you meet with any of them?' I ask.

Bush whips around and stares at me. 'No, I didn't meet with any of them,' he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. 'I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' 'What was her answer?' I wonder.

'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me.'

I must look shocked -- ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel, even for someone as militantly anticrime as Bush -- because he immediately stops smirking. "

From: "Devil May Care" by Tucker Carlson, Talk Magazine, September 1999, p. 106

Second, Senator John Cornyn of Texas:

"I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence."

Cornyn

The Houston Chronicle describes the situation:

"...Republican leaders' frustration with the courts has flared with the U.S. Supreme Court's ban on execution of criminals who killed as juveniles and its refusal to intervene on behalf of Schiavo's parents, who sought to block removal of her feeding tube...."

Houston Chronicle

I'll leave Delay and Frist for later dissection. But you get the picture, I would hope. In this madhouse, no one is really in favor of life unless it feeds their own interests. No one. Including the Pope.

Paging Norm Coleman, Paging Senator Coleman

When we last left our feckless Senator from MN w/ the fancy dental work, he was frothing at the mouth and demanding the head of Kofi Annan, graduate of Macalester College in St. Paul, and Secretary General of the UN. Seems that Mr. Annan's son, Kojo, had gotten involved in some shady dealings with the UN's Food for Oil Program and Norm and his buddies were absolutely certain that the corruption was profound and could be directly traced back to Mr. Annan.

Well, comes the word last week, and t'aint necessarily so. Seems that Kojo did take a consultancy w/ a firm under suspicious circumstances and it was for a couple hundred thousand dollars, but that, in today's Washington, is chump change. Why I am sure that Neal Bush has grifted millions of dollars from companies eager to use his schmooze factor using his family's connections. And look at the classy whores he gets for free in Japan.

At any rate, have not heard squat from Senator Coleman since the UN investigative report was issued. Should you wish to read all 144 pages, you can find it here:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/03/29/oil.for.food/index.html

And if you can find behavior that is even a hundredth as egregious as the stink coming from Halliburton and their cozy corporate compatriots in Iraq, I'll send you a genyouwine Pentagon bolt worth at least $450. Honest.

Alberto Gonzales does not merit confirmation

The editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune says it far more eloquently than I could:

Editorial: Alberto Gonzales has blood on his hands
January 6, 2005 ED0106A



When the White House announced in November that Attorney General John Ashcroft would depart and be replaced by presidential counsel Alberto Gonzales, it was a good news-bad news sort of day: good news that Ashcroft, enemy of the Bill of Rights in this war-on-terror era, would be departing; bad news that he would be replaced by Gonzales, enemy of the rights of prisoners of war and architect of policies that led to the abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Since November, the bad news has gotten large amounts worse as horrific abuses of prisoners have been documented, especially by the American Civil Liberties Union and documents it forced into the public domain. Which leaves us to ask: Why in the world should the United States be saddled with an attorney general who, from the White House, framed cockamamie legal policies that sought to make it permissible for American forces to commit war crimes?

Indeed, when Gonzales comes before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, the committee must challenge him to explain fully both his role in authorizing torture and his rationale for doing so. If the answers aren't satisfactory, and it is impossible to imagine how they could be, then the full Senate should reject his nomination and tell President Bush to pick someone else.

At the height of the Abu Ghraib scandal, someone leaked to Newsweek a memorandum Gonzales authored in January 2002 which argued that the war on terror had "rendered obsolete" the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture and abuse of prisoners of war. The conventions, he said, did not apply to enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan. Gonzales also was a principal architect of Bush's order authorizing the secret trial of combatants from Afghanistan by military tribunal.

Only within the last few days has it become known just how key a role Gonzales played in the formation of a notorious Department of Justice memo issued in August 2002. That memo defined torture quite narrowly -- it said that only physical pain "of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure" amounted to torture. It also said the president had inherent authority to authorize use of extreme means of interrogation on detainees suspected of terrorist activities.

Gonzales asked for the memo and discussed draft language with its author. Small wonder that, according to a "senior administration official" interviewed by the New York Times, the memo hewed closely to views already held by senior White House officials.

That memo, by the way, was rescinded by the Justice Department last week (a bit of tidying before Gonzales' confirmation hearing) and replaced with a new one that explicitly rejects the reasoning put forward in the first.

Gonzales has a great deal to answer for. He contributed substantially to prisoner abuses that brought the United States into worldwide disrepute and sullied its record for valuing human rights. If the Judiciary Committee should find his answers evasive or uncompelling, he doesn't deserve to be attorney general of this nation.

Why we must continue the fight against the Iraq war

The photo is so very apt and yet so very, very sad. Both girls had no choice over their parents. Yet that is where the similarity ends. View it and weep for what our country has become.

Evil runs rampant in the world at times

Rachel Corrie's death almost two years ago was a signal event in my life. I learned then that people that I thought were rational and caring, could in one instant be turned into raving lunatics, akin to those they sought to eliminate.

It is frightening to hear supporters of the state of Israel sound like Waffen SS members when they talk about the Palestinians and when they erect prison walls that take even more Palestinian property. The Israelis have become in some sense, what they were reacting to when they formed their country.

By this criticism I do not mean to exempt the Palestinians from their heinous behaviour, e.g. the promotion of The Protocols of Zion, the absolute fabrications about Israelis being devils, the promotion of suicide bombing. These are all horrific and I condemn them.

But Israel is in the driver's seat. They have the weaponry, the money, the power. They have, to me, the greater responsibility to behave in a civilized fashion. If they can't and they descend to the level of those whose territories they are occupying, they have become just as bad. And frankly, they don't realize it. They are too personally involved, too invested to be able to look at the deteriorating situation in a rational and detached light. And without that, they are no better than those they oppress.

What was Solomon's solution in this situation? What the Israelis are doing is cutting off an arm and giving it to the mother. Solomon threatened to cut the baby in half. Until and unless that is done, there is a very grave danger that the arm will in fact be cut off. And the entire entity will die as a result.

Stratfor says we have lost the Iraq War

This came from a friend who can read the Andrew Sullivan site w/o ill effect:


"STRATFOR ON THE WAR: Like many other smart analysts, the pro-war Stratfor military experts have concluded that the war to control the Iraq insurgency or to erect democratic institutions in Iraq has been lost (subscription required). I think it's time to start truly absorbing this possibility. Why lost? Because we blew the opportunity to control the terrain with insufficient troops and terrible intelligence; because all the institutions required to build democracy in Iraq have already been infiltrated by insurgents; because at key moments - they mention the fall of 2003 or spring of 2004 - we simply failed to crush the insurgency when we might have had a chance of success. Short version: we had a brief window of opportunity to turn our armed intervention into democratic liberation and we blew it. Money quote:

The issue facing the Bush administration is simple. It can continue to fight the war as it has, hoping that a miracle will bring successes in 2005 that didn't happen in 2004. Alternatively, it can accept the reality that the guerrilla force is now self-sustaining and sufficiently large not to flicker out and face the fact that a U.S. conventional force of less than 150,000 is not likely to suppress the guerrillas. More to the point, it can recognize these facts: 1. The United States cannot re-engineer Iraq because the guerrillas will infiltrate every institution it creates. 2. That the United States by itself lacks the intelligence capabilities to fight an effective counterinsurgency. 3. That exposing U.S. forces to security responsibilities in this environment generates casualties without bringing the United States closer to the goal. 4. That the strain on the U.S. force is undermining its ability to react to opportunities and threats in the rest of the region. And that, therefore, this phase of the Iraq campaign must be halted as soon as possible.

They recommend withdrawing U.S. forces to the periphery of Iraq and letting the inevitable civil war take place in the center.

DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN? The war has not been a complete loss, Stratfor argues, because it has engineered a slight shift in the behavior of neighboring regimes, and has allowed us to have a new base in the Middle East. The conclusion:

Certainly, it would have been nice for the United States if it had been able to dominate Iraq thoroughly. Somewhere between "the U.S. blew it" and "there was never a chance" that possibility is gone. It would have been nice if the United States had never tried to control the situation, because now the United States is going to have to accept a defeat, which will destabilize the region psychologically for a while. But what is is, and the facts speak for themselves. We are not Walter Cronkite, and we are not saying that the war is lost. The war is with the jihadists around the world; Iraq was just one campaign, and the occupation of the Sunnis was just one phase of that campaign. That phase has been lost. The administration has allowed that phase to become the war as a whole in the public mind. That was a very bad move, but the administration is just going to have to bite the bullet and do the hard, painful and embarrassing work of cutting losses and getting on with the war. If Bush has trouble doing this, he should conjure up Lyndon Johnson's ghost, wandering restlessly in the White House, and imagine how Johnson would have been remembered if he had told Robert McNamara to get lost in 1966."

Interesting Vote Facts/

I've been out with the flu compounded by holiday stress, but the following article roused me sufficiently from my torpor to pass it along to those still faithfully visiting this site.



20 Amazing Facts about Voting in the USAA BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Angry Girl, Nightweed.com

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.




2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.




3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.








4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."




5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.






6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.




7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.




8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.






9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.




10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.




11. Diebold is based in Ohio.


12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as senior managers and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.




13. Jeff Dean, Diebold's Senior Vice-President and senior programmer on Diebold's central compiler code, was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree.




14. Diebold Senior Vice-President Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.




15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
http://www.blogger.com/app/>



16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here .)




17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.


18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.





19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.






20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

A bleak Christmas for an Army amputee

This comes a day after the publicity about Rumsfeld's cavalier response to the Army soldier who asked him why the troops were not getting the armor that they need.

I think that we should be responding by contacting those listed at the end of the article.

And Merry Xmas to you too Secretary Scrooge Rumsfeld.

Postscript: Markos at www.dailykos.com provides evidence that the lack of protective equipment cannot be blamed on insufficient manufacturing capacity:

Bush, Rummie lie about armor
by kos
Fri Dec 10th, 2004 at 18:47:04 PDT

The press is suddenly showing some spine on the issue. Shocking.
The Bush administration moved swiftly to quell criticism from troops Thursday by outlining plans to protect all military vehicles used in Iraq. But two companies under contract to the Pentagon said their offers to boost production went unheeded [...]

Former Republican congressman Matt Salmon of Arizona, a spokesman for ArmorWorks in Tempe, Ariz., said his company will finish a $30 million contract with the Pentagon this month to make 1,500 armor kits for Humvees. "We are at 50% capacity, and we could do a lot more," he said. "They are aware of it."

Armor Holdings of Jacksonville told the Army last month it could add armor to as many as 550 trucks a month, up from 450, said Robert Mecredy of its aerospace and defense group. "We're prepared to build 50 to 100 vehicles more per month," he said.
This all comes only a day after Rumsfeld claimed it wasn't an issue about money, but about "physics". In other words, there was no humanly possible way to increase production of vehicle armor.
I'm sure it wasn't about money, and it sure as hell wasn't about physics. So what was the reason for this borderline criminal neglect for our soldiers' safety?

What else? Rank incompetence.

Senator Norm Coleman, Republican tool par excellence

Senator Coleman, it should be noted, beat former Vice President Walter Mondale in an election to succeed Senator Paul Wellstone after Wellstone was killed in an airplane accident

Senator Coleman, thus far has been more of an embarassment than an asset to the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Seems ol Norm last week called for the resignation of Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the UN, over the Oil for food scandal currently being investigated by the Volcker Commission. Norm got 5 US representatives to join him in his denunciation, one of whom said Mr. Annan should be jailed immediately (so much for innocent until proven guilty, eh?). Of course, no mention of the fact that one of the biggest corporations to profit under the Oil for Food program was Halliburton. But never mind.

Yesterday came word from the Bush Administration throughthe mouth of former Missouri Senator John Danforth (who's mostfamous act prior to this was shepherding the nomination of that horrid US Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas through the Senate back in '91). Danforth is the US Ambassador to the UN. Here is what Danforth had to say to Reuters:

"We are expressing confidence in the secretary-general and his continuing
in office," Danforth said, "No one to my knowledge has cast doubt on the
personal integrity of the secretary-general. No one."

"We are not suggesting or pushing for the resignation of
the secretary-general," said Danforth, adding that he was speaking forthe White
House and the State Department.

Sen. Coleman has just had his rear end carved up and handed to him by his own Administration. He is considered to be, by Danforth's words: "No one." Coleman has demonstrated how easily he is bought by his party. Wellstone, it should be remembered, had the principles and the guts to stand up to everyone, including his own party. Let us hope that Minnesota voters throw this bastard out.

The absent candidate

I listened to the press conference last Friday where Paul Berendt announced that the Democrats had gathered enough money to pay for a manual recount. Present at the podium were Berendt, and Booth Gardner and Gary Locke. Where was Chris Gregoire? Why was she playing the shy violet? What's the deal? This was HER recount. She had said she wasn't going to play unless ALL the votes were counted. She should have been up there taking responsibility for the whole thing. But once again, she will not step up to the plate. If the recount fails, she will have less than nothing to show for it. A most lackluster performance.

42 votes

May I refer all and sundry to my Sept. 17, 2004 piece? Ms. Gregoire became yet another example of the fate that awaits a politician who starts to believe her own press releases. That's like drinking the kool aid. I'm afraid we are in for another month of hand wringing. But I would point out that if the shoe were reversed, I would fully expect the Rossi camp to be clamoring as loudly if not louder still for a hand recount. Only thing is that they would have no trouble posting the deposit.

I am thankful for these Republicans

Today is Thanksgiving and we are to be giving thanks for all those good things that providence has blessed us with. I was not in a particularly thankful mood this am until I read the Seattle Times. There were two articles there that made me remember that not all Republicans are menacity personified as is Geo. Bush and Dick Cheney and the other members of their cabal.

So here are the articles, and may we hope that the coming year will provide us with the will and the opportunity to rid ourselves of the plague that currently occupies D.C.

http://tinyurl.com/4jato

http://tinyurl.com/69sfs

A site to savor

Courtesy of Sisyphus Shrugged. I thought I had seen it all, but an observer of contemporary political life, who pens in verse, now this is worth pointing out:

http://www.madkane.com/notable01_04c.html#11_22_04

Prequel: This here's the south

I went to law school at the University of Kentucky in the early part of the '70s. For those that don't know, it's located in Lexington, Kentucky, a lovely bit of geography if you like rolling hills, white fences, large mansions and thoroughbred horses. All picture perfect.

One of my classmates, actually two of them, were named Andrew Thornton. The first Andrew Thornton, the one this story is not about, was an inoffensive type. Wrote a letter to the editor of the student newspaper complaining about how smokers were trashy because they left their butts and ashes everywhere without regard to cleaning up after themselves. He, of course, was marginalized, because this was the center of tobacco production. There were tobacco warehouses and drying barns w/in blocks of the law school. During certain times of the year you couldn't escape the smell. But cigarettes were 35 cents a pack, and practically everyone smoked, so nobody paid attention to that Andrew Thornton.

The second Andrew Thornton, or Drew, as he liked to be called, was a former police officer from Fayette County (Lexington's County) on the narcotics task force. Drew was not someone that I tended to gravitate around for many reasons, chief among them his law enforcement background. Turns out Drew had been high society Lexington, his family was in the Blue Book that listed only the top names, and he had gone to Sayre School, the private school for those of a certain class. How he ended up in law enforcement, I do not know. But what came clear a few years later, was that Drew did not leave his narc background behind. He started dealing in drugs at some point, probably during his law school career and used his connections to help his career. Several years after graduation from law school he had a huge network built up where he and those who worked for him were regularly importing huge amounts of cocaine up from Mexico and/or South America. There's a badly written book out there about his story titled The Bluegrass Conspiracy. Although, the writing is execrable, the gist of the story is true. Drew was able to convert or subvert law enforcement through out the Commonwealth of Kentucky so that he could run his drug business.

However, this being Kentucky, things can and do have a tendency to go badly wrong. As they did for Drew. Seems that Drew's preferred mo was to fly a plane up from S. America or Mexico w/ large bales of cocaine, each with a parachute and transponder attached for ease of recovery. Then at pre-arranged locations, the bales were pushed out of the plane, the parachutes opened and voila, instant mega cash. Drew would jump out at the last minute, put the plane on automatic pilot directed into the Appalachian or Smoky mountains, the plane would crash in wilderness presumably, and Drew would be laughing all the way to the bank.

Until his last flight, when Drew jumped out strapped to a bale of cocaine. Turns out that the combination was too much for the parachute, which couldn't take the excess weight and collapsed. Drew 'bought the farm' so to speak on someone's driveway in eastern Tennessee or western Carolina. The plane crashed into the mountains further east. The authorities, finally driven to investigate after the homeowner put in a complaint, found the plane and located some of the cocaine bales. Well at least one. It was also up in the woods. It had been opened by a bear, who had engorged himself on the contents and died nearby shortly afterward.

Drew Thornton, a sterling example of Lexington's finest in law and in law enforcement.