Target Centermass

Author: Gunner

  • 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

  • Experts Claim Akbar May Never Be Executed

    Every day that convicted murderer Sergeant Hasan Akbar continues to live is a day too many. Now, some supposedly say he may not meet the justice to which he has been sentenced.

    Some experts think Army Sergeant Hasan Akbar may never actually face execution, despite being sentenced to death for attacking his fellow troops.

    The military has not executed one of its own since 1961.

    Akbar was sentenced to die this week for killing two officers in March of 2003 in a grenade attack in Kuwait.

    Currently, there are five people on military death row; three whose cases are in appeals and two are awaiting action from the president.

    Akbar’s trial goes to automatic appeal.

    Hours after giving a brief, barely audible apology, Akbar was sentenced to death by a military jury for attacking comrades with a rifle and grenades early in the Iraq invasion.

    He could have been sentenced Thursday to life in prison with or without parole for the March 2003 attack on members of the elite 101st Airborne Division at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait. Two officers were killed and 14 other soldiers were wounded.

    […]

    Jurors took about seven hours to reach their decision Thursday. Last week, the same 15-person military jury took just two and a half hours last week to convict Akbar of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder.

    The sentence will be reviewed by a commanding officer and automatically appealed. If Akbar is executed, it would be by lethal injection.

    Although the defense contends Akbar was too mentally ill to plan the attack, they have never disputed that he threw grenades into troop tents in the early morning darkness and then fired on soldiers in the ensuing chaos. Army Capt. Chris Seifert, 27, and Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone, 40, were killed.

    Prosecutors say Akbar launched the attack at his camp — days before the soldiers were to move into Iraq — because he was concerned about U.S. troops killing fellow Muslims in the Iraq war.

    “He is a hate-filled, ideologically driven murderer,” chief prosecutor Lt. Col. Michael Mulligan said. He added that Akbar wrote in his diary in 1997, “My life will not be complete unless America is destroyed.”

    Akbar is the first American since the Vietnam era to be prosecuted on charges of murdering a fellow soldier during wartime.

    “Hasan Akbar has robbed me of so many things,” said Tammie Eslinger, Stone’s fiancee, after the sentencing. “He stole my love, my family, my dreams and my future. But he could never steal my spirit.”

    Seifert’s widow, Theresa, said she was satisfied with the military justice system. She called Akbar “a nonentity to me.”

    Defense attorney Maj. David Coombs told jurors that a sentence of life without parole would allow Akbar to be treated for mental illness and possibly rehabilitated.

    “Death is an absolute punishment, a punishment of last resort,” Coombs said.

    Yes, death is an absolute punishment. Tell that little whine to the victims, his fellow soldiers that he killed in a cold, premeditated manner. Death is an absolute punishment that won’t come too quickly or too painfully for this creature.

    Funny thing about this story, though, is there are no statements from experts doubting his possible execution. Just a headline and an opening paragraph that make claim of those so-called experts.

  • Laramie Men Face Charges for Snow Phallus

    It’s spring, and young men’s fancies turn to thoughts of … cold penis sculptures.

    Two Laramie men are facing obscenity charges for allegedly building a snow sculpture of a phallus in their front yard.

    Brandon Arp, 20, and Aric Davenport, 19, were arraigned Friday in Albany County Circuit Court on charges of promoting obscenity. Both men pleaded not guilty and are free on a $1,000 bond.

    If convicted, they could each face up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

    According to police reports, the men made the sculpture in the 1200 block of Custer Street on April 21. Reports say the sculpture was “offensive to other residents in the area.”

    The sculpture was destroyed, and initially, police said no citations had been issued. That same morning, a second sculpture involving an “anatomically correct snowman” was destroyed in the 700 block of South 17th Street.

    Laramie Police Commander Dale Stalder said police questioned whether the sculpture was protected under the First Amendment.

    Davenport’s attorney, Michael Vang, has filed a motion challenging some of the claims. Vang said it was unclear who was offended by the sculpture or how it violates Wyoming obscenity laws.

    State statutes say a person promotes obscenity if he or she “produces or reproduces obscene material with the intent of disseminating it.”

    Additionally, that person is guilty if he or she “possesses obscene material with the intent of disseminating it” or “knowingly disseminates obscene material.”

    In this case, Vang said the obscenity statute was “being selectively enforced.” Police failed to show how the sculpture was obscene under the First Amendment, he said.

    Sheesh! Alright, folks, now we’re getting silly in our law enforcement. If there’s ever been a harmless obscenity, I’d say one that will shortly melt would qualify.

    The selective enforcement issue is exactly why these charges will go nowhere, but a little sense of perspective should have kept them from going this far.

  • Phil’s Answers are Up

    Phil has his answers posted to my interview questions. As I’d expected, he did a far better job answering than I did questioning.

  • Fall of Saigon — Thirty Years Later

    Vietnam Marks War’s End

    Tens of thousands of people gathered here today to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war with the fall of Saigon to Communist forces and the defeat of the US-backed South Vietnamese regime.

    Gala celebrations got under way in the southern economic capital, now renamed Ho Chi Minh City, as people massed on the street in front of the former regime’s presidential palace, now called Reunification Palace.

    Top leaders including Communist Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh, state President Tran Duc Luong and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai were joined by Raul Castro, Cuba’s defence minister and brother of President Fidel Castro at the ceremony.

    “The victory of April 30, 1975 opened a new era for the Vietnamese people. This glory and this victory belongs first of all to the heroic Vietnamese people,” declared Nguyen Minh Triet, politburo member and party secretary of Ho Chi Minh City.

    The glory and victory of the invading North, the actual aggressors along with their Soviet allies, were not to be shared by all of the Vietnamese people, as thousands were subsequently killed by the conquering communists and thousands upon thousands more suffered for almost two generations under the dictatorship of a gasping, dying ideology that now turns to the “aggressor” U.S. for friendly cooperation.

    The day is also marked rather differently by John and the denizens of Argghhh!!!. I especially direct you to the remembrances of the day in the comments, where several, including some vets, have posted their memories of the moment. Here’s a painful one from John:

    I just stood behind my Dad in the family room, watching the blood flow from the 5 Purple Hearts his tour in Vietnam garnered… as a little bit of his soul leaked out of each one, as he sat watching the television.

    In his book Summons of the Trumpet, an excellent history of the U.S. involvement in Viet Nam, Dave R. Palmer did not write of the glory of the fall of Saigon but instead looked at how the U.S. failed an ally and scrambled to save what and whom it could.

    Meanwhile, with the time bought by the ARVN stand above Saigon, the United States was able to evacuate most Americans and tens of thousands of South Vietnamese who were related to Americans or were marked for death because of their affiliation with various U.S. activities in South Vietnam. The last group out was extracted in a day-long helicopter shuttle started after North Vietnamese gunners began shelling the city. Two American marines were killed when a round struck the building which had once housed the MACV headquarters. The last to die in the long war, neither had been born when the United States began to back Diem with advisors in 1954.

    When the final chopper lifted off, carrying the last marine guards, it signalled the humiliating end to a once bright American dream of preventing a communist takeover of South Vietnam. The trumpet was silent.

    That is the true heritage of the day. And the U.S. military has unfairly been forced to labor vigorously to salvage its reputation — globally, historically and in the eyes of the American people — ever since that day thirty years ago, a day when the American military did not lose but the U.S. did.

  • Death Sentence for Murderous Traitor

    One huge step closer to justice.

    A United States soldier has been sentenced to death by a military court for killing two comrades and wounding 14 more in a “hate-filled, ideologically-driven” attack launched on the eve of the Iraq war.

    Hasan Akbar, a Muslim, confessed in his diary that “destroying America is my greatest goal”. He is the first soldier since the Vietnam era to be convicted of murdering a comrade during wartime.

    The sentence, which will be automatically appealed, makes him only the sixth person on military death row. The last military execution carried out by the US was in 1961.

    Relatives of his victims wept as Akbar was shackled and led from the courtroom at Fort Bragg, an army base in North Carolina.

    “Hasan Akbar has robbed me of so many things,” said Tammie Eslinger, the fianceé of Major Gregory Stone, who died as a result of the attack at a military camp in Kuwait two years ago. “He stole my love, my family, my dreams and my future.”

    Akbar, 34, from Los Angeles, was among members of the army’s elite 101st Airborne Division preparing for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

    After rolling two live grenades into troops’ tents as they slept, he raised his rifle and shot at those who tried to flee the attack.

    Maj Stone, 40, was hit by 83 pieces of shrapnel. The other victim, Captain Christopher Seifert, 27, was shot in the back.

    In a computer diary dating back 13 years, Akbar documented his hatred for the military and US government, a dislike of white people and conflicting loyalties over the pending invasion of Iraq, which began two days after the incident. “I will have to decide to kill my Muslim brothers fighting for Saddam Hussein, or my battle buddies,” he wrote.

    This is the sentence that is deserved and that I’d hoped for, though I did say that I would not be surprised if he managed to dodge axe (or noose or firing squad or whatever is currently proscribed by the military for offing swine). Justice will truly be done when Akbar draws his last, hopefully painful breath.