Posts from — January 2008

С Рождеством Христовым to my Orthodox friends who are still waiting to see how the calendar reform works out.

While independents and the media decide who will be the nominee of the Democratic party on Tuesday there will be a real democratic election in the Granite State to select the replacement for Nin, the retiring white and black tom, the long-serving mascot of the Mount Washington Observatory.

As these pictures show, the position is not exactly a day on the beach, but somecat has to do it.

Via Cookie Jill at skippy the bush kangaroo, The Mount Washington Mascot Primary features Marty, Sarah, and Wilson as candidates for this important position. I’m personally leaning towards Marty for his age, experience, and long coat.

Voting takes place from 8AM until 7PM [EST] on Tuesday, January, 8^th.

Today marks the Feast of the Epiphany, end of the twelve days of Christmas, and Día de los Reyes in Spanish-speaking countries.

This is the customary day for gift exchanges in many Christian cultures as it marks the visit of the three magi to Bethlehem with their totally inappropriate gifts.

If you are Orthodox, of course, tomorrow is Christmas on your calendar. Being Orthodox is a good excuse when someone asks why you haven’t taken down the Christmas decorations yet.

Florida License Plates

Beneficiary

A weekend feature of Why Now.

No one mentioned this to me, but apparently Romney wins Wyoming GOP caucuses, CNN projects

(CNN) — Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will win the Wyoming Republican caucuses, CNN projects.

With 91 percent of precincts reporting, Romney has won eight of Wyoming’s 12 delegates.

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson has won two, and California Rep. Duncan Hunter has won one.

I guess “None of the Above” gets the final delegate. Given the stealth nature of this event, it doesn’t look like moving the date forward is an instant recipe for success, unless you are looking for political junk mail to burn in your fireplace.

Quiddity of UggaBugga has a little chart up comparing age and finish among the candidates in Iowa. Except for Richardson and Clinton who have only a three week difference in age, in both races the older you were, the worse you did.

As is typical of the Florida legislature, there’s always time to screw things up but never time to to actually fix them. So it goes with Amendment 1 on the ballot on January 29^th, along with the possibly meaningless Presidential primary vote. Even if your vote for a Presidential candidate doesn’t count, your vote on Amendment 1 most definitely will.

Republicans will vote for this turkey reflexively because “it’s a tax cut,” without really reading it to find out who’s taxes are being cut and by how much. The Florida division of elections has a PDF of the Property tax initiative, which is actually the existing law with all of the changes made by the initiative superimposed.

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The big story on the Democratic side in Iowa was the “massive” turn out, apparently fueled by young people voting for Obama, right? Wrong – there was no massive turn out, there was simply a much better turn out than the pathetic showing in 2004.

There are more that 2 million registered voters in Iowa. The “massive turn out” was a total of less than 360,000 voters for both parties. That is less than 18%. It’s a lot better than the single digit turn out in 2004, but it is not something to be proud of, nor to trumpet. In the meaningless Presidential primary in Florida in 2004 the turn out was better than 20%.

The parties need to look at this mess. Iowa wants to be first, but they don’t bother to show up. Given the brutal conditions in the state at this time of year, Iowa would be better off with a date in the late Spring and give the number one slot to Hawaii. Another possibility is no primaries or caucuses of any kind until after the vernal equinox.

Hey, all you slackers, don’t think death with get you out of your cell phone contract: Family Stuck Paying For Deceased Father’s Cell.

The ever helpful Sprint [my local phone company] shows its steadfast insistence on the terms of contracts, even if the individual who signed the contract is no longer among the living.

This is one of the reason John Edwards is, and sounds, angry, because this type of behavior is endemic in what corporations laughingly refer to as “customer service.” I probably wouldn’t even have noticed this if the Mumbai bureau of Sprint hadn’t called me at six bloody thirty this morning to “give” me two free cell phones. The young woman couldn’t understand that I didn’t want something that was free. I then gave her a free gift – an expanded vocabulary of vernacular American English.

[Please note: I am NOT a morning person.]

I just learned an important lesson today – if you receive a gift card, use it immediately!

Family members feel obligated to buy me presents, but have no idea what to buy, so I get gift cards. I had three gift cards to the same unnamed Bookstore chaiN, two from last year. I would normally use them on the ‘Net, but this Bookstore chaiN has an annoying policy about gifts cards on the ‘Net – you may only use one card per transaction. Say you want to buy something worth $60 from them and you have two cards worth $75, you can only use one of those cards and must use a credit card for the difference.

Now if you make the trek to a local store in this Bookstore chaiN, you can use multiple cards, but everything in the store is full retail price. They win and you lose.

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Well, I’m 1 for 2 on predictions, with Huckabee taking Iowa and Edward second on the Democratic side. Obama convinced young voters to come out and join the caucuses, which was his margin of victory. The only thing I really regret about Iowa is Chris Dodd’s decision to withdraw. I would have liked to have rewarded his stand on the Constitution in the meaningless Florida primary.

I will stand by Edwards and Huckabee in South Carolina.

New Hampshire is weird, so I’ll go with Clinton, Obama, Edwards for the Dems, and McCain, Huckabee, Romney for the Reps.

I don’t understand why Kucinich decided to go right in Iowa by telling his supporters to make Obama their second choice. The move seemed totally out of character.

Together Again

Burn something!

[Editor: I’m using this shot from November, because today they are under a wool blanket and Sox is the only blob that can be readily identified. Korats and korat mixes are single coated and don’t have the outerwear for these temperatures. I have also lost the free use of my right hand, thanks to Ringo, but a butterfly bandage closed the wound.]

Friday Ark

In Memoriam

Cat Daddy & Dr. Squeaky had to say goodbye to the noble greyhound, Tuffy.

No experienced interrogator questions anyone without a tape running. This is even more critical if the interrogation is not in the questioner’s native language. Even with a transcript, you preserve the tape, as an analyst may want a new translation to check something that was learned from another source.

It is ludicrous to claim that the only records of an interrogation of an important target are hand-written notes. That is not the way professionals do it.

The tapes also serve as leverage to open up other suspects – letting them hear what their “friends” have said about their involvement. It is much more effective that just telling them.

Update: Associated Press report: unemployment rises to 5% and only 18,000 jobs added in December.

Oil is at $100 per barrel; gold is at $860 per ounce; the dollar is in the tank; the stock market hasn’t even kept up with inflation for the last 7 years. There aren’t enough jobs added every month to cover new workers entering the market, much less employ people who have been laid off. Bread is $2.50 per loaf, milk is $5 per gallon, and gasoline over $3 per gallon.

More and more people are losing their homes and falling behind on their other debt payments, as the financial games of the banks are exposed, along with the total failure of the government and Federal Reserve to regulate.

More than 3900 American service members have died in the total disaster that is Iraq, while Afghanistan is on the verge of collapse, and Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country, is at risk of chaos.

This is what happens when you give the keys of government to the Republicans. If we climb out of this swamp, everyone has an obligation to remember that fact and teach it to each new generation – no compromise, no exception, no quarter.