Nauseating

California Governor Gray "Not My Real Name" Davis spoke to the faithful yesterday, taking the offensive against his recall.

sacbee.com -- Politics -- Davis stands by his record

Gov. Gray Davis, opening a new phase in his campaign to hold on to his job, took his case directly to the voters Tuesday -- accepting criticism for acting too slowly on the energy crisis but not offering any apologies.

He accepts criticism but doesn't take responsibility, or even admit he might have just goofed, even if just a little. Oh, wait, that's not how The Faithful see it:

Dan Terry, president of the California Professional Firefighters Association, disagreed, saying Davis had taken responsibility for the energy crisis and "laid responsibility where it belonged."

"I am proud of my governor," he said. "He did a good job."

Yes, yes, a great job of doing a $50 billion shift in California's fortune, from plus $12 billion to minus $38 billion all because of a one year spike in state income.

Also, I'm confused. If he took responsibility, then how can he lay responsibility "where it belonged"? If he accepts responsibility, it's his. But, no, he didn't accept a damn thing. He just shifted it to someone else. He's a victim, damnit, wahhhhh. Such a lovely picture of a governor.

Of course, the nature of this audience tells you who the intended audience really was:

Arriving onstage with his wife, Sharon, at his side, he was welcomed with a standing ovation from an invited crowd of about 300 union activists and supporters. They frequently interrupted his address at UCLA's Ackerman Hall with cheers, chants, boos and standing ovations.

Or, as Dan Waters (also in the Sac Bee) puts it:

Davis' 20-minute speech to a carefully selected audience of enthusiastic supporters at UCLA was clearly aimed at arresting his popularity plunge -- one that threatens to make him irrelevant as the recall becomes an assumption, and the contest among Bustamante, Schwarzenegger and others takes center stage. And Davis' chief target was Democratic voters, many of whom are ready to jettison him, especially because they have another Democrat in Bustamante waiting in the wings.

Waters also zeroes in on the, er, alterations Davis loves to make to history:

The governor described the 2001 energy crisis, which saw Californians experience power blackouts and soaring utility bills, as something foisted on the state by Enron and other greedy energy suppliers. However, Davis glossed over and distorted his refusal early in the crisis to allow utilities to sign long-term supply contracts that would have protected them and their customers from soaring spot market power prices. That refusal has been singled out by even the most objective critics as Davis' chief failure -- one magnified a half-year later when he sought long-term contracts at much-higher prices.

Davis cryptic version: "I refused to give in to pressure to raise rates astronomically." Reality: Rates would have risen only slightly had Davis acted earlier, and they did rise astronomically to pay for the much more expensive contracts his administration signed later.

And as for that small problem of the deficit, I again defer to Mr. Waters for the clearest and truest explanation:

The record differs markedly from Davis' self-serving version. When the state experienced a $12 billion windfall in 2000, Davis publicly declared that he would stoutly resist pressure from either party to spend it because it likely would be a one-time phenomenon, stemming from a flurry of stock market activity in the volatile high-tech industry. If the money were to be committed to ongoing spending or permanent tax cuts, Davis said then, the state could face massive deficits as future revenues returned to normal levels.

In fact, however, Davis and lawmakers quickly agreed to spend about $8 billion of the windfall on ongoing programs -- tax cuts, education and health care primarily -- and when revenues did return to normal, the state had an $8 billion "structural deficit" that was papered over with bookkeeping gimmicks and loans in the ensuing three years. It leaves the state with an immense ongoing deficit and equally massive debts.

So, Davis said one thing then ran as quickly as possible to do the opposite.

A Constitutional Lesson

Reuters "reports"" that Fox News is suing Al Franken. At issue is Franken's use of the phrase "fair and balanced" on the book's cover. Fox News uses that as a tag phrase for their news broadcasts. Says Lisa Johnson, spokeswoman for Franken's publisher:

In trying to suppress Al Franken's book the News Corp is undermining First Amendment principles that protect all media by guaranteeing a free, open and vigorous debate of public issues.

First Amendment...?

The First Amendment begins "Congress shall make no law...." Doesn't say a thing about a private business suing another for copyright infringement. Thus, Ms Johnson's statement is the usual rhetoric, an effort to wrap oneself in the safety and protection of the Constitution when it doesn't even apply.

Unless they want it to, in which case it would seem to me it could undermine the very notion of copyright protection. Is Fox's claim legit? I don't know. Seems like a debateable question, which means it goes to court. But no way is this a First Amendment issue. None at all.

Enterprise

In case no one has mentioned it, twenty-six years ago the Enterprise flew for the first time. While it would never fly in space, this space shuttle would prove that the bricks could indeed "glide" to a safe landing. It also verified that the shuttle could be, er, shuttled to and fro on the back of a modified 747. I believe the Enterprise, OV-101, now is on display at the Smithsonian.

Democrat Love

Gads, love these people:

"Schwarzenegger is going to find out, that unlike a Hollywood movie set, the bullets coming at him in this campaign are going to be real bullets and he is going to have to respond to them," warned Mulholland in an interview with a camera crew from ABC NEWS.

No further comment needed.

Hot, so hot!

They are melting in Europe, with temperatures like....

A weather station in southern Paris reported Monday it had recorded 25.5 degrees Celsius (77.9 Fahrenheit) overnight, the highest nighttime low since France started keeping records in 1873. The previous record was 24C (75.2F), recorded on the night of July 4, 1976.

Less than 80 degrees (American) overnight, and they're complaining? Sheesh. Poor people.

Actually, I should be more sympathetic. As a San Franciscan born and raised, I'm used to a temperature that could be called moderate. I mean, you got up in the morning and the temperature was between 50-55. By evening, it was 50-55. Sometime during the night it dropped to 50-55. That's winter. Summer rises to 55-60. Oh, yes, there are variations; this weekend it was more in the 70's. Nonetheless, over the course of a year the temperature sits in a ten degree range.

Now I live in the Sacramento valley, and temperature can swing 30+ degrees over the course of a day. It'll be in the mid-90's today. July had a record number of 100+ days. Ugh. Hate it. Been here some 17 years and have yet to adapt. I hate summer.

So, sorry, Europe.

An Insult

The Guv says....

Davis said he has "gotten the message. I understand a lot of people signed a recall." But he also called it "an insult to the 8 million people who went to the polls last November and decided I should be governor."

No, what's insulting was his concealing the true and coming size of the state deficit in the days leading up to that election. What's insulting is how he claims he isn't giving state employees a raise, while at the same time negotiating raises. How do you do that? Last year, rather than give state employees a 5% raise, he agree that the state would pay 100% of the contribution to an individual's retirement account, essentially 5% raise. This year, that was going to end; employees would resume paying into their retirement account. As compensation, they would get a 5% raise.

Naturally, he doesn't want to do that now, given the deficit he managed to run up. So here's the deal: Employees waive that 5% raise. In exchange, they get an extra one "personal day" off each month. Surprise! That's effectively a 5% raise! What happens is that the employee can take the day off or they can allow it to accrue. Forever, or until they retire, whichever comes first. This has been done before. The reviled governor Pete Wilson (well, reviled by the wildly liberal state unions, that is) did the same, circa his first year in office. Surprise, that saved the state a prompt billion or so. Bigger surprise, it's current cost to the state is several billion dollars...and growing! Lo and behold, Gray wants to do the same because it looks great on paper and in the headlines. Please, though, no one look behind the curtain.

Damn, this guy sucks.

Happy Birthday, Katie!

No, no, not Couric. This Katie is my daughter. Today is her 18th birthday. I can't wish her happy birthday in person because she's in US Air Force basic training. She's more than a few miles away, very much out of communication with me. With luck, I'll get a letter.

So there's my daughter in military service. And there's my old chief's oldest son in the Navy, currently somewhere in California. And there's his younger son, somewhere near the DMZ in Korea. And on and on. I seem to know an amazing number of people who have volunteered to put themselves in harm's way for their country.

Amen.

Love and kisses, Katie!

Somebody save us...

...from Gray Davis!

The recall is a go. The California Supreme Court has rejected all challenges, including silly ones from The Guv himself, and October 7 remains D-Day for the Davis administration. One of Davis's objections was that he wasn't allowed to be on the list of candidates. As you may know, the recall ballot will have two questions. #1) Should Davis be recalled? #2) If so, who do you want to replace him? The list for #2 is unoffically huge (300+?). I say unofficially because that's the number of applications that have been requested and/or distributed. The final tally of those who have actually filed won't be known until after 5pm Saturday.

And while many see this as evidence of California insanity, Daniel Henninger says it well:

So how is it that Californians are ridiculed as zany for trying to recall a politician-governor who has wasted not only the public trust conferred by election but $38.2 billion of their money, the state's current deficit?

Amen.

Now Arnie is in the race, and the smear begins. First was the perky Katie Couric, quoted via Rush Limbaugh (no link to his specific musings, because I don't know how "permanent" his links are), wherein she immediately implies Arnie is a Nazi. Now today comes this idiot...

Here's a question Jay Leno forgot to ask Arnold Schwarzenegger when he announced his candidacy for governor of California on last night's "Tonight Show": "Will you renounce your support for Kurt Waldheim?"

Puh-leez! Spare me!

Guilt by association: Isn't this the exact same tactic that liberals complain about and label "McCarthyism"? Against McCarthy they railed that membership in the Communist Party didn't mean they were a spy. (Well, many were, but that little fact is, er, ignored.) Now Arnie likes a guy who was a Nazi, and (gasp!) his father was a member of the Nazi Party (during WW2, in Germany/Austria, at a time when pretty much everyone was, or they were in a concentration camp). No, let us never discuss the idea(s) a person might have. So much easier to slander him instead.

From the same opinion/slam piece:

Rather than confront his Waldheim problem head-on, Schwarzenegger has proclaimed his disgust for Nazism, raised money for education about the Holocaust, traveled to Israel (where he met with then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin), and given generously to the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, which in 1997 bestowed on him its National Leadership Award. "He wants no truck with … Waldheim," the Wiesenthal Center’s Rabbi Marvin Hier told the Jerusalem Post. "He probably did not have any clue as to the seriousness of the allegations against Waldheim at that time [i.e., 1986]. To suggest that Arnold's an anti-Semite is preposterous. He's done more to further the cause of Holocaust awareness than almost any other Hollywood star."

(Emphasis mine.)

And despite all that, the piece wraps up in the very next paragraph with....

Clearly, though, that won’t be enough. If Schwarzenegger doesn't renounce Waldheim in a highly public way, he can forget about ever becoming governor of California.

By God, just because a rabbi states the matter correctly, absolving Arnie of any implied guilt, doesn't mean the liberals will. They can't! Damnit, he's a Republican!

The only thing clear is that hacks like Noah (who?) and Couric (highest paid talking head on TV?) will do whatever is necessary to stop any Republican from gaining any public office. In this, they are the perfect reps for Gray Davis, who can never campaign on his record (which sucks, remember the $50+ billion swing in California state economics, from a $12 billion surplus to a $38+ billion deficit), so constantly goes on the smear offensive.

And they wonder why we want him (and them) to go. Don't go away upset, don't go away mad, just go away.

The Morality of Liberty

Part of what PM Tony Blair told Congress yesterday:

This is a battle that can't be fought or won only by armies. We are so much more powerful in all conventional ways than the terrorists. Yet even in all our might, we are taught humility. In the end, it is not our power alone that will defeat this evil. Our ultimate weapon is not our guns, but our beliefs.

There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values or Western values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban; that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people; that Milosevic was Serbia's savior. Members of Congress, ours are not Western values. They are the universal values of the human spirit, and anywhere--anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.

The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defense and our first line of attack.

And just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify around an idea. And that idea is liberty.

We must find the strength to fight for this idea and the compassion to make it universal. Abraham Lincoln said, "Those that deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves."

And it is this sense of justice that makes moral the love of liberty.

I can really begin to like this guy, liberal as he is.

California and the woe of budget

My state is in a world of hurt, and it is everyone's fault except the Governor's. Just ask him, he'll tell you. He isn't responsible for a damn thing. Which sounds like a good reason to recall him, if you ask me.

You see, I'm a big fan of personal responsiblity. If I screwed up, then I screwed up; no need to try and blame someone else. Which is why the phrase "society is to blame" has always made my skin crawl. No, you stupid bastard, you are the one who robbed the damn bank, not society; now stand there and take it like a man. (Oh, sorry, you already did! That's why you're here....)

Anyway, here's the governor of the largest state in the Union. We have fiscal wealth that rivals that of other countries (what, seventh largest economy in the world, or something like that). And we are in a world of fiscal hurt and it is not the fault of the state's chief executive. That doesn't make sense. If a corporate CEO makes decisions that cost the company money, it's his fault. Nevermind the outside influences and such, the job of the CEO is to anticipate those occurences and plan accordingly. Failure to do so results in job failure, which in The Real World is known as, "You're fired!"

In the Artificial World (i.e., the "public sector"), that's never the case. You're not allowed to blame anyone for anything, which is why they have the reputation that they have, the rep of being selfish, lazy, uncaring, slow, etc. I've worked in the public sector for some fourteen years now, and I know that that for most the reputation is a lie. For others, it is earned and deserved. Gray Davis is one of the latter.

Let's face it, people, he panicked. When 9/11/01 happened, it was immediately foreseeable that nothing was going to be the same. We depend on our elected officials to respond accordingly. Instead, we saw many of them pretend that the only thing that was going to change was their ability to spend even more money. Enter, Gov Gray.

He has delayed, stalled, or ignored the state budget issues ever since he was first elected, nevermind his recent re-election. The former state controller, a fellow Democrat, even points this out. She warned him (and us) time and again that there was a reckoning a-comin', and the sooner we start to take care of it, the better.

But, no. Gray continued to spend. He didn't just spend on existing programs, he created new ones. He had a multi-billion dollar fund, financed from gasoline and other transporation taxes, from which he could dispense highway projects, presumably to those he owed, er, a favor to. More generously, this projects were special ones (to him) that he reserved the right to pick and choose. When the money started getting tight, this shifting of revenue continued.

Fiscal 2001-2002 was going to be tight, but nothing was done. Fiscal 2002-2003 was patched with lies, half-truths, borrowed money, and the complete ignoring of the budget crash already in progress. If you want to say that state Republicans are equally to blame for that lack of reaction (or responsibility), go ahead; lots of blame to go around. But Gray is The Boss, or so he continually trumpets. And his budget projections were spectacularly rosy, because, well, he wanted to get re-elected.

Know how he says he's not cutting funding for public safety? Liar! The budget for the California Highway Patrol has been chopped 10%, their academy has been shutdown, and some 500 or so officers have received letters that they are "surplus" and may be subject to layoff starting this coming September (the state's Department of Personnel Administration [DPA] has to give that much warning prior to layoffs occuring). In addition, some 300 non-officers of the CHP received a similar notice. It's an interesting letter; I'm holding one, the one addressed to me.

No cuts in public safety funding? Liar!

There is some illusion out there that the Governor didn't give any state workers a raise last year, that he held the fiscal line, and that a lot of state workers are pissed off because he's opposing a 5% raise. Wrong. Last year, state workers' unions agreed to waive a 5% raise. In return, the state would pay 100% of their retirement contribution. This was effectively a 5% raise, but on paper it didn't look like one; no one's gross pay increased, just their net take home. The deal was this would only last one year, that this year the retirement deduction would go back into effect and there would be a 5% raise to offset that, thus resulting in a tiny (1%?) increase in net, take home pay. That deal was signed, passed by the state legislature, and put into effect.

What Gray is trying to do now is renig on the deal. He wants the employee's to forego the 5% raise and pay 100% of their retirement contribution. This means an effective 5% pay cut from what people have been receiving for the last year. This is what the state employee unions are screaming about.

When the local shop steward explained the deal last year I laughed. I knew Gray would try and pull something like this, that he was paying for union support of his re-election. This is why I won't join the stupid state's union; it's so blatantly partisan, and so utterly shocked when it gets slapped in the face and stabbed in the back. Poor, silly bastards.

This is exactly what Gray did with the "energy crisis". He panicked, signed huge deals with the power companies, and was "shocked" when he saw how rotten the deal he had negotiated was. He's still trying to re-negotiate those contracts, poor silly bastard.

And people wonder why I want him recalled? For god's sake, he's worse that incompetant, he's dangerous. He took a massive surplus and turned it into a history-making state deficit. That was bad enough, but he knew it was coming. He hid the true size and knew it was going to get bigger. And bigger.

And bigger.

There are some 30+ states running deficits this year; California's is larger than all the others combined. California's deficit is larger than most state's entire budgets. It is so huge and out of control, the mind boggles.

My motorcycle will cost $400+ to register next year. That's one of Gray's "cures" for the deficit. To pay for the (coming) increase in other taxes, and because of the possibility that I'll be laid off, I can no longer afford the monthly payments for the motorcycle. I'm selling the motorcycle, dropping my 45mpg vehicle and converting to a 25mpg vehicle. The car is paid for, and after the registration increase will cost under $200 to register next year. Thus we see how tax increases will stimulate the economy.

And pigs can fly....

Please don't tell me that we can't afford a recall. It's a deficit of $38+ billion (rumors put it close to $50 billion, but those are rumors). The cost of a recall election is approximately $26 million. Do the math. The cost of this election will add 0.07% to the existing deficit. Whoopee. And well worth it to get rid of the Gray.

Please don't tell me this is a Republican plot to steal a legitimate election (egads, just like 2000....). In my mind, Gray stole the election. Face it, the Republicans nominated an idiot--and he came within a whisker of winning! If he had kept his mouth shut, he would have won. Plus, look at all the budget manipulation that Gray engaged in leading up to the election. There was already a deficit, but it ballooned (again and again) starting the day after his re-election. Hmm, odd, that.

Certainly, it can get worse. Frankly, I expect California to go bankrupt. That will make for an interesting situation. Exactly, how does a state go bankrupt? Fiscally, I mean, because at a governmental level, we're already morally bankrupt.

UPDATE:

I forgot a few details. In the CHP, lieutenants and above have been given a 10% pay cut; sergeants got a 5% pay cut. Remember what Gray loves to say and repeat, no cuts in public safety. 'Tis the big fib, I think.

Do not tell me that this "twarts the will of the people". The People signed the recall petitions. If those signatures pass muster and the recall makes it to the ballot, The Will of the People will speak again. If Gray is tossed out on his ass it will be due to the "will of the people."

That entire "will of the people" argument, coming from politicians like Gray, makes me nauseous. Prop 13, the one that cut property taxes almost 25 years ago, was the will of the people, yet public officials like Gray continue to lament about it, fight against it, and seek ways around it. His concern for the people extends precisely one step short of his concern for his own political career. That is, he is concerned about The People only when, and in the context of, it furthers his own political goals.

Anti-American Pollsters

Opinion Journal has this editorial from Fouad Ajami, which reads in part:

In the days that followed the attacks of Sept. 11, a young Palestinian gave expression to the image America holds out in places where its shadow falls: the boy passing out sweets in celebration of America's grief wondered aloud as to the impact of the bombings on his ability to get a U.S. visa. He felt no great contradiction. He had no feeling of affection or loyalty for the land he yearned to migrate to. He grew up to the familiar drums of anti-Americanism. He had implicated America in his life's circumstances. You can't reason with his worldview. You can only wish for him deliverance from his incoherence--or go there, questionnaire in hand, and return with dispatches of people at odds with American policies. You can make foreigners say the sort of things about America you wanted to say yourself.

Very good point. Something to think about when the next Pew survey comes out.

Let's have a laugh

Oh, she's upset:

Is the ghost of Sen. Joe McCarthy alive and well in Hollywood? That is certainly on the minds of many outspoken liberals in Tinsel-town these days. The latest conspiracy theory focuses on the just-announced axing by ABC of very vocal anti-Iraq war activist Janeane Garofalo's new sitcom, ''Slice o' Life.''

Though the alphabet network had given Garo-falo and Universal Tele-vision a thumbs up on the show for next season, network execs changed their minds, telling Daily Variety and other industry outlets it was ''the direction of the series story line'' that led to the dumping of ''Slice''--just days before the show's pilot was scheduled to be taped in Vancouver, British Columbia.

A source close to Garofalo tells this column the actress and comedian was furious by the last-minute change and believes it's yet another example ''of a network bowing to the perceived power of the Bush administration. ... Janeane is convinced her politics and all the hate mail the right-wing lobby stirred up during the war is what is behind all this.''

What makes this funny is that it wasn't all that long ago that she was crowing that her anti-war (anti-freedom?) stance was the reason the series was picked up in the first place. Now that's the reason she lost the job. Puh-leez, can we make up our minds here? Sorta like Mike "I cannot tell the truth even if it kills you" Moore bragging about his great change of fortune when Icon Productions opted to finance his next pack of crap, only to also latter change their minds.

Midway

Sixty-one years ago, World War II was raging and the pivotal battle in the Pacific began, namely the Battle of Midway. I like to remember this battle because it is arguably the point around which the entire war, in the Pacific and in Europe, turned. US defeat here would have meant a dramatically different war against the Japanese. Oh, we probably still would have won, but when? How much longer would it have taken? If the Japanese plan had succeeded, and their forces had come out more or less intact, how would that have effected battles that were yet to come? And if we had to devote more resources to the Pacific, how would that have effected our European campaign? I submit the obvious, that things would have been very, very different, up to and including a less-than happy outcome to the entire war.

Midway also illustrates the entire notion of the "fog of war." The US won by a combination of skill, courage, determination, pluck, and sheer luck. In turn, the Japanese lost for almost the exact same reasons, only in their case the luck was almost all bad. Before Midway, the Japanese roamed and ruled the Pacific. After Midway, they were on the losing end of things. Yamamoto had tried to guarantee his country twelve months of victory following Pearl Harbor; he could only deliver six.

After Midway, the US could starve Japan because bit by bit, we controlled the Pacific. Cut off from external supplies, Japan's war machine began to starve. After Midway, the outcome of WW2 was a foregone conclusion. Oh, there were still times here and there where it could have been different, but the key, the focal point, was Midway. I've yet to identify a similar event in Europe; the closest -- and perhaps the one, only I don't know it yet -- was when Russia stopped the German advance. Right there, at that moment, the outcome for the War of Europe was a foregone conclusion, because from then on Germany was on the retreat. Some silly mistakes by the Allies here and there almost allowed a surrender that would have left Germany intact, but that was not meant to be.

And if you are really into this stuff, consider: I have read the the Battle of Hampton Roads (USS Monitor vs. CSS Virginia [the Merrimac]) was actually the key battle of of the US Civil War. Most historians focus on Gettysburg, but the argument is that at Hampton Roads, the Confederates almost succeeded in breaking the Union blockade. If they had done so, they would have had a guaranteed supply route to their European benefactors, namely the British. It would not have lasted, as the North could outproduce the South, would have built more warships, and eventually sealed the Confederates back up. In the meanwhile, though, there would have been a growing chance that the British would enter the war on the Confederate side. It goes without saying that if that had happened, the United States would be a very different place today.

Gettysburg was where General Lee's winning streak ended, but that end became inevitable at Hampton Roads. Think about it.

Depressing

Does anyone else find this depressing?

Air France's Concorde made its next-to-the-last commercial flight Friday, an emotional trans-Atlantic journey completed in 3 1/2 hours as the supersonic jetliner nears the end of a pioneering chapter in aviation.

Much like our retreating from space since landing on the Moon, we are now retreating from the sky. Early airliners were noisy, dangerous, etc., but we kept going until we finally created the DC-3. They complained about the Boeing 747, but it created the present age of inexpensive air travel. The Concorde was never meant to be the be-all end-all of supersonic flight, but no one ever followed up on the idea. Instead, we regulated it out of existence in the US...for suspect (at best) reasons.

Cover up

So there's this woman in Florida who insists that Florida DMV is violating her right to religious freedom because they insist she remove her veil for her driver's license picture. How this is so, I do not know, especially given that driving is not a right. If you can't comply with the applicable laws for obtaining a driver's license, and Florida requires a full-face photo, then you don't get a DL. Seems simple.

But no, assorted and sundry lobby and "civil rights" groups feel otherwise. What makes this all the more interesting is the sidebar attached to this CNN article. See, the woman is asserting that revealing her face would violate Islamic religious law, a higher authority as it were. But, the sidebar has this to say about photo ID's in established, Muslim countries:

Driver's identification rules in Muslim nations:
Saudi Arabia: Women aren't allowed to drive
Iran: Women wear a traditional chador, which does not cover the face.
Egypt: Women do not cover their face in I.D. pictures
United Arab Emirates: Women do not cover their face in I.D. pictures
Oman: Women do not cover their face in I.D. pictures
Kuwait: Women do not cover their face in I.D. pictures
Qatar: Women do not cover their face in I.D. pictures
Bahrain: Women do not cover their face in I.D. pictures
Jordan: Women can drive if their faces are covered but do not cover their face in I.D. pictures

Now, don't mean to hold up any of these Arab states are paragons of human rights, but these are countries where Islamic law is often The Law. And they require the veil to come off for photo ID. So who is the higher authority, the "experts" her attorneys will trundle into court, or the existing laws and standards of Islamic states?

Oh, and besides, turns out she's a recent convert, so who is telling her that it is an absolute, no exception, that her face remain covered for "modesty."

Linux on a Laptop

I've dabbled with Linux before, but this time I think it may be serious. Why? Because I have this little old Gateway 600 laptop and it occured ot me that it is the near-equal of my main desktop computer. So why shouldn't it be able to run Linux?

I downloaded Red Hat v9, burned the CD's, put the first one in the laptop's CD drive and...voila, it runs. Not a single install or operational issue so far. The only feature I haven't tried yet is the wireless NIC. The onboard wire NIC is eth0, and the wireless shows as eth1, so the system recognizes it, even correctly ID's the hardware, so sometime this week I'll give it a shot.

I had a brief issue creating a FAT16 partition that would allow me to move files from the Windows XP side to the RH Linux side. Seems that users under Linux couldn't mount the partition, while the root (superuser) account could. Only root didn't have permission to modify the permissions. Weird. A one minute search via Google provided the answer, the correct syntax to add to the fstab file, and voila, problem solved.

(fstab is the file the system parses on boot to tell it how to mount what filesystems -- drives and drive partitions. The line I had to add was "/dev/hda6 /mnt/fat vfat users,noauto,umask=000 0 0". Don't ask me -- yet. It just works.)

Well, no duh!

Why is 'Idol' beats Oscars in viewers surprising? That show had a veneer pretense of not being manipulated toward a conclusion, whereas the Oscars had a lying bastard win an award for best documentary when the tripe he produced clearly was not.

But, hey, as he says, "How can there be inaccuracy in comedy? You know." (Scroll down a bit to read the relevant transcript). So we shan't take any of his sputters too seriously; in fact, not seriously at all.

Day of Defeat

I play this game waaaaay too much. After most of a week of reading torts, contracts, and crim law (oh my!), few things were more relaxing than charging into Thunder, trusty Thompson in hand, blasting away. If you like first person shooters, own a copy of Half-Life, and are willing to play on-line, then you owe it to yourself to go here and download the Day of Defeat mod. Do it for the liberation of humanity...well, if you play on the Allies side, at least. Remember: Back the attack!

Man in Space

See, I agree with this guy when he says:

The bottom line is that the shuttle is too old. ... It would be very difficult to make sure it is in good shape. We ought to just stop going into space until we get a good vehicle. If we aren’t willing to spend the money to do that, then we should be ashamed of ourselves.

How do you honestly dispute the opinion of the guy who designed the shuttle (and darn near everything that came before it)? This stuff looks far more interesting than just cranking out another Columbia-like shuttle.

Don't shoot me, I only type here

All right, I've shamelessly neglected this site, these pages, and the scant attention I ever attracted. Sorry. Is that sufficient? Apologies always seem to make up for things...don't they? C'mon, it's intentions that are important, not results! Haven't you been listening?

Sorry. Again. First year of law school...done! Study mates are taking a full course load during the summer. They want to graduate a year early, bless their little advocate hearts. I just want to survive, thank you very much. Besides, this is the last summer with my daughter; she wings to the USAF come August, just about the time I start Law School Year Two. So, I think I'll leave myself more or less Free this summer, thank you very much. Again.

Quoting Tommy Lee Jones in "The Fugitive": My my my my my my my. So much has happened in recent weeks. We clobbered Iraq. Oh, sure, that was expected, but this fast? With no significant resistance? We paused and The Media lept upon it like we were staggering from a body blow, but really it was 1) the weather, and 2) some more weather. Then, Saddam did pass from the field. Where is Saddam? Reduced to molecules and floating about, or skulking in a cave of one sort or another. I don't care which. He be gone and that's all right by me.

Ah well. Enough for the moment. Time to peruse the news I've been missing....