Target Centermass

Month: May 2005

  • Repubs win Washington Gov. Election Challenge

    Did you think the 2004 election was over? Think again.

    A judge gave Washington state Republicans a victory on Monday that kept alive their legal challenge to last November’s razor-thin election win by Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire.

    Gregoire took office in January following a 129-vote margin of victory — the closest in a governor’s race in state history.

    Republican candidate Dino Rossi has refused to concede the race, which he won narrowly in the first count only to lose in a later, final recount.

    Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges has ruled Republicans can use what is known as “proportional analysis” in their legal argument to potentially take votes away from Gregoire.

    “That was a very good day in court for us,” said Mary Lane, Rossi’s spokeswoman. “If we had lost this, it would have been impossible to continue.”

    The trial in the Republicans’ lawsuit is scheduled for May 23.

    With the slim margin out of a total of 2.9 million votes, proportional analysis could tip the vote in either direction, since illegal votes, mostly from felons, would be subtracted from each candidate in the same proportion that votes were cast for them in each precinct.

    In the count after the election, illegal votes were disallowed in a way that took an equal number from each candidate.

    But in an example of proportional analysis used in court, if 10 improper votes in a precinct were found that went 60 percent for Gregoire and 40 percent for Rossi, she would lose six votes and he would lose four, instead of the votes being subtracted equally.

    Paul Berendt, the Democratic Party’s state chairman, said the ruling also helped Democrats, who will be allowed to present evidence in the trial of illegal voting that helped Rossi.

    Although I am extremely suspicious of Gregoire’s victory, I think it’s very safe to say that this matter is a long way from over.

  • U.S. Military Loses Contact With Two Jets

    Never let it be forgotten that flying military fighters, be it training maneuvers or war-time missions, is an extremely dangerous job. A search is currently underway for the pilots of two Hornets lost in the Iraqi theater.

    Two U.S. Marine jets from the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier were reported missing while flying in support of operations in
    Iraq, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

    The status of the two U.S. Marine F/A-18 Hornet aircraft and their crew was not immediately known, the military said in a statement.

    Contact was lost with the aircraft at 10:10 p.m. Monday (2:10 p.m. EDT), the statement said. There were no initial indications of hostile fire in the area at the time.

    Search efforts were underway, the military said. No further information was released.

    Navy officials at the Pentagon did not release any information beyond the military statement.

    My best wishes to the pilots and their families, but I don’t feel that this is a case of no news is good news. That’s a good chunk of time in an area we can easily cover.

    Should these planes be confirmed down, the question is this: how long until the lunatic terrorists pretend, I mean claim, that they caused it? I’m sure al-Jazeera is standing by for the press release.

  • Stupid Freakin’ Oncall Pager

    Now to finally see if there’s anything I want to blog out there.

  • Violence Mars Germany’s May Day

    Ah, I miss the pageantry of the martial May Day parades in Moscow. Instead, now it’s replaced by idiocy on parade in Germany.

    German riot police battled masked left-wing anarchists in Berlin and Leipzig on Sunday as sporadic violence once again marred May Day celebrations.

    About 100 people in the two cities were arrested, but police in Berlin said the extent of the damage was less extensive than in previous years.

    Throwing stones, bottles and signal rockets at police, a group of anarchists overturned a car in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district near the government quarter but were chased away by police before they could set it on fire.

    Kreuzberg — a Bohemian district populated with a mixture of immigrants, students and squatters — has been the scene of May Day violence for the past 18 years despite extensive prevention efforts by police.

    “We had predicted it would be quieter this year, but not completely without incident and that’s what’s happened,” a police spokesman said.

    The most tense moment came shortly before sunset on Sunday when a group of about 1,500 anarchists, many of them masked and wearing dark hoods, tried to march toward the Berlin headquarters of the Axel Springer publishing company.

    “Everything for everyone and everything for free,” they chanted.

    They were stopped by squads of riot police from getting closer than 150 yards to the building, where several conservative newspapers are published. About a dozen anarchists then tipped over a car and smashed its windows in front of photographers and journalists.

    “Everything has been peaceful up until now,” another police official said. “We had a few youths who got a bit over-excited and had too much to drink, but it’s calmed down again now.”

    After sunset, anarchists made another shortlived attack on police, hurling bottles and stones at police near a street festival.

    Ten were arrested in Berlin on Sunday evening after 65 were arrested late on Saturday and early Sunday.

    Earlier on Sunday, police in Leipzig turned water cannon on left-wing demonstrators who battled riot police. Thirty leftists were arrested for acts of violence to disrupt a court-approved march of 1,000 right-wing demonstrators.

    Everything for everyone and everything for free?!! These are not true principles of anarchy. Rather, this is the rallying cry of a bunch of spoiled babies coddled too long by a nanny state — kids fearing to face the competition of a successful and free capitalistic system. The world should be handed to them, doled out free of sacrifice or effort. Without a government, how would everything be freely distributed to everybody short of sheer and absolute theft which would, in turn, remove any incentive for an individual to be productive? With no government, no means to ensure goods are produced and distributed freely. With a government, no anarchy. These are not anarchists, but lazy socialists who dig the circle-A logo and the X Game approach to political displays.

    These fools are no better than the other deniers of human nature — the socialists that are dragging down the economies of Europe and the lingering communists still idealistically yearning for a workers’ paradise that could never truly be.

    Modern Europe needs some work before it’s again ready for an economically competitive real world.

  • Quote of the Week, 1 MAY 05

    We played remote bases, the kind of bases where guys went to bed with their rifles by their sides; not for safety, but for companionship.

    Bob Hope