Football

The economy is bad, states are short of cash, and Homeland Security is still playing “pretend to be secure” games with our airports and shipping ports. So where’s your money going? Here’s one place… Today’s Star-Ledger (New Jersey) disclosed that the State is now conducting an audit of the Rutgers University sports department, including stadium funds. The reason is a coach who gets $2 million per year in salary, plus a house and limousine, plus an apparent $250,000 per year bonus. Rutgers is a state university of New Jersey and receives massive infusions of tax dollars. Yet, the university has in the past managed to escape any serious scrutiny, even after the University of Medicine and Dentistry was found to be a cesspool of corruption and waste. The millions of dollars essentially embezzled from UMDNJ are not likely to ever be recovered; nor will most of the culprits end up in jail, if the past as any indication. Rutgers, which claims poverty on a regular basis and, like most universities, puts education into the back seat when they can have cheap grad students and adjuncts teaching, has no excuse for this lavish excess. Nor do we, as a society. Americans tend to tolerate this kind of wastefulness, as well as the professionalization of college sports. 

I believe now is the time for the Federal government to proclaim that any university that takes its money – in terms of financial aid or research grants – must de-professionalize their sports teams. That means going back to the days when there was a single coach who did not make more than the highest-paid professors; back to the days when games were played on fields, not in massive stadiums; back to the days when students were not recruited and given scholarships based on their athletic abilities. 

Universities love to pretend that sports are a profit center, and Rutgers will show you that inquiries rose dramatically when they started to throw money at the sports arena. What they won’t tell you is that they were already selective, and that the extra inquiries just waste money and paper. A precious few colleges or universities benefit from sports, but most lose a fortune and gain nothing. 

Colleges and universities are educational institutions. I see no reason why my tax dollars should be funding sports; that’s what Budweiser is for.

Insane passport security idea comes to fruition

If you visit <a href=”http://travel.state.gov/passport/ppt_card/ppt_card_3926.html”>http://travel.state.gov/passport/ppt_card/ppt_card_3926.html</a>, you’ll find a glowing description of the wonders of our new American passports. Now they contain RFID chips, the same technology used to track pallets of widgets. This is an absolutely terrific idea for identity thieves. Now, thanks to our wonderful new technology, falsifying passports has become just a little bit easier, assuming that border guards use them the way they’re supposed to (to speed things up by relying on the information from the little chips). RFID is hardly one of the most secure technologies on the planet, at least if dozens of articles in eWeek and other magazines are to be believed. But the important thing is that it’ll let the White House fire a few low-paid, loyal employees. Putting aside for the moment the wisdom of basing security around a radio device whose signal can all too easily be impersonated, has it never occurred to anyone that those in other lands seeking a passport to steal can now acquire a cheap device that tells them when they’re near one? What’s more, the clever thief can now figure out whether the passport is in the luggage, the handbag, or the pocket. Oh, the miracles of modern technology with no intelligence behind it.

State’s rights are great, except when they aren’t

Remember when President Reagan was still in charge? He was a big states’-rights fan. Really hated it when the Federal government stepped in and made the states conform to national rules – wanted to make the Federal government very small, like the Founding Fathers wanted it. Except, of course, when he didn’t. Reagan loved the FBI and CIA, especially when they investigated harmless people like the Sierra Club, and when they would plant explosives in various anti-war or environmental groups (in one case, years of prosecution ended when the judge discovered that the only violent member of a small green group was the FBI employee who had infiltrated it). States’ rights mattered, except when they didn’t, and they didn’t when he made the drinking age 21 across the country. Oh, states could resist, as long as they didn’t mind losing all their billions of dollars in highway funds. The Federal government was too strong, Reagan argued, as he used the CIA to train people like Bin Laden and countless South American thugs in torture and terrorism. But that was okay, because we were fighting communism, and the ends always justify the means. It must have been okay, because Reagan had an airport named after him. So did John Foster Dulles, incidentally.

Now we have the same issues. George W. Bush, who likes to pretend to be a conservative (though organized crime boss seems more appropriate, given all the billions given away to his friends, no strings attached, in the Iraq war – and the fact that most of what we have been supposedly building at phenomenal expense has recently been exposed as substandard and useless – and that he has blocked any form of auditors from preventing war profiteering). Bush also stood up for states’ rights, again and again. Except now, when he insists that the EPA is responsible for all pollution regulation and that states cannot overrule it or enact more strict rules. At issue is carbon dioxide emissions, which the Supreme Court – remember them? They appointed Bush in the first place – has ruled that the EPA must consider. The EPA, incidentally, has chosen to believe that while the Supreme Court can make the Chief Executive, it cannot tell the Chief Executive’s agencies what to do, and is refusing to do anything of the kind. Did you ever wish you were like the EPA or Microsoft and could ignore any judge in the land?

Several states have stepped in and decided that they would start enacting carbon dioxide caps, because for anyone not paid by ExxonMobile and the American Petroleum Institute (that’s hundreds of individual “researchers” as well as at least 40 different “research” institutions – including many people who used to work for the tobacco firms telling us that there was no link between smoking and cancer), there is a serious, real, imminent danger coming up. Global warming doesn’t mean that it’ll be 100 degrees in Saskatoon winters; it doesn’t need to. The climate doesn’t need much of a change to raise sea levels uncomfortably high, kill off lots of the fish we eat, greatly increase the savage intensity of hurricanes and tornados, create droughts and floods, and in short do all sorts of nasty things to us and our economies. So the states are starting to work on slowing down the rate of change. Unfortunately for them, and us, George W. Bush and his so-called conservative friends have decided that states’ rights only exist when the states agree with them, and they are pushing back in court, demanding that the Federal government prevail over the states.

States’ rights when they agree with you is hardly conservative thinking. The Republican Party should be ashamed of itself for leaning more and more away from conservatism and into the “corporate state.” Unfortunately, it seems that Ayn Rand would need to write several more novels for the average Republican to see this clearly – that corporate states are no better for individual freedom than union states.

Bad reporting, wrong conclusions

Some mainstream news media accurately reported the statements of Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats and Republicans in Congress: they would not support any more troops being sent to Iraq until George W. Bush provided a goal for our presence there, and the conditions under which we would leave.

Given how many goals we’ve heard for the war in Iraq, that doesn’t sound unreasonable. Originally we were told we would enter Iraq, eliminate Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction, and leave. We’ve done that – not that there were any weapons to eliminate. At some point, though, especially with the Bush and Cheney families making so many millions of dollars off of the war, one begins to wonder if that was ever really the goal.

It seems insane to be in a war without a stated purpose or any sort of end plan. That becomes an occupation, not a war. Indeed, it becomes colonization. If that’s why we’re there, saying it outright would certainly help the military. Then we could change our tactics and strategy to colonize instead of acting like targets for the benefit of private contractors.

The sad thing is that many news sources, particularly Fox, are mis-reporting the escalation-opponents’ argument, and they are doing it in exactly the same way as the Bush apologists – that is, claiming that the Democrats (Republicans who feel the same way are ignored so it can sound more partisan) are demanding an immediate unconditional surrender or withdrawal. Well, that isn’t true. They have said they’d happily support sending more troops, if there was a reason to do it other than “George Bush said so.” But so far, that’s the only reason we have.

It’s not good enough – and shame on those who lied to their readers or listeners so the Democrats would sound like a bunch of drug-addled 1960s hippies. We’ve had enough slams. Now that Democrats and Republicans are working together, all the media should be doing their part by reporting on it accurately and without bias. Unfortunately, some companies and commentators make more money when they get their audience riled up by spreading lies and hatred; and they’re misleading a good number of patriotic Americans, spreading dissent at home for their own benefit.

Logical failure in the antitrust division

How’s this for logic: Microsoft, having been found guilty of violating Federal law and illegally maintaining an effective monopoly, was released with a touch of the wrist (I wouldn’t call it a slap) and a promise not to do it again. Just like the last time the Justice Department settled similar charges. Yet, Microsoft continues to subvert standards so files and Web sites only work with Windows; refuses to make versions of its office software for any other platform (I’m talking Access here, though Mac users who want to read current Word and Excel files are also out of luck); and when it does make a hobbled version of its office software (free of Access, a key component, and unable to run Windows VisualBasic-based software based on Office) available for the Mac, it seems to make sure it leaves out key components and provides subtle incompatilities absent from, say, Adobe’s cross-platform products.

But this isn’t the time to talk about Microsoft violating Federal law, then committing perjury to cover it up, then being released without punishment after making hefty contributions to the right politicians. This is about Microsoft pushing their bought-and-paid-for politicians to go after Apple.

That’s right, Apple. You know how Microsoft has its own proprietary formats – two of them – for music? Neither one will work on iPods, because they’re not open to Apple, and won’t work on any Mac or Linux computer – unlike Apple’s DRM-version of AAC, which does work under Windows, albeit not under Linux.

Well, that doesn’t matter. Because Apple is being sued for its monopolistic practices, in keeping iTunes a closed system. That’s right – because Apple won’t pay Microsoft for a license to Windows’ DRM format, which is unusable on Macs, (let’s repeat this here – that’s unusable on Macs, which are Apple’s main reason for being in business) – Apple is being sued for monopolistic practices. Never mind that unlike Microsoft, with its huge bag of dirty tricks, Apple did not actually break the law to gain its market leader status. Never mind that you can play iTunes-encoded music on Windows PCs, and can load any MP3 encoded tunes, as long as they aren’t loaded with a proprietary Microsoft (or other proprietary) DRM which Apple would have to pay, onto an iPod. Never mind that you can even record music in AAC format – quite easily, in fact – and play that on an iPod.

Because Apple refused to pay for a license for Microsoft’s DRM software, which would not work on Macs, making Apple the maker of a music device that wouldn’t work with its own computer, Apple is now accused of monopolistic practices.

And it’s not like Apple, say, spread vicious rumors about competitive products (DR-DOS). Or deliberately altered the operating system to prevent people from running competitive products. Or bought out competitors to destroy them. Or paid other companies to engage in frivolous lawsuits (Linux users know what I’m talking about). Or charged companies license fees on software they didn’t install. Or subsidized money-losing products to gain dominance, successfully (XBox) or unsuccessfully (MSN). Or gave out massive campaign contributions to have lawsuits dismissed.

This one would defy logic, but it’s so openly corrupt and obvious the only thing that defies logic is how a judge refused to dismiss it.

Google and the GTA-316 (or GIA-316) picture frame

(There is GTA-316 technical support information in this blog – really, there is. First, though, I do have to say nice things about the only people in the world who seem to distribute the digital picture frame in question – Google.)

Google is an interesting company. After single-handedly saving most of the enthusiast sites on the Internet, by making it possible for their publishers to take time off from work to bolster their sites – not to mention helping pay for the server bills on more active sites – through paying a fair advertising rate, they then thank their publishers, who are receiving ten to one hundred times as much money from Google as they would have from anyone pre-Adsense, with an annual holiday present.

Let’s make one thing clear. Before AdSense, Internet advertising was almost always awful. Some enthusiast sites had acquired ad contracts for banners from specific companies, but most relied on the agencies, who sold popups, popunders, sliders, and all sorts of other obnoxious ad forms for maybe a quarter to a dollar per thousand impressions. Some companies got away with paying pennies for their CPM (cost per thousand impressions). Sleaze pervaded the Web as webmasters were unable (financially or otherwise) to get rid of the many lottery and gambling sites, and many resorted to porn or semi-porn advertisers. Then AdSense came, offering about half of what they take in – we have no idea, really, what their take is. To put that into perspective, Goto/Overture was paying ONE CENT for each click into their search network, even as they had a MINIMUM five cent (later ten cent) per click rate, which often skyrocketed into dollars per click for even relatively obscure keywords. That is, they were paying between 1% and 20% of what they took in. Then they cancelled the program entirely for most web-sites because they weren’t making enough money!

A good web site can now earn well over twenty times what it did before AdSense. That means a webmaster can quit their day job or at least work part-time, or take a leave of absence now and then. It’s a HUGE difference for the Internet.

Google shows a good deal of grace. Even relatively small players get a present every year – a scarf, then a rather nice AM/FM radio (operated with AA batteries, and with a cute “put me on my side” switch, and a light show to boot), then an electronic kit (USB drive, portable Ethernet cord, USB light, USB hub, and some other goodies), and now, their least useful present, an oddly chosen digital photo frame.

What’s funny about the digital photo frame is how it contradicts itself and Google. The company is normally environmentally friendly to an unusual degree; packaging is almost purely recycled and recycleable, without the usual peanuts and foam. But the GTA-316 (that’s the reference on the front page; inside the instructions it’s a GIA-316) is in itself environmentally almost a disaster, at least partly because it’s such a lousy design. Reports of instantly-breaking units abound on the Web. It apparently can’t handle most JPG files. There’s no reference anywhere in the instructions or packaging to its maker or their web site, so you can’t get software upgrades, and you can’t install it if your computer won’t handle mini-CDs. The user’s guide is laughable English, probably translated using Google Translate – “For the first time to use GIA-316, please connect the unit to your computer thru the USB cable provided, then you will see two removable drive. … you will see four default Folders … Plesae (their word) move your picture to the Photo folder, your Mp3 music to MP3 folder, MP4 movie to Mp4 folder before your file can be play.” The unit’s power adapter declares, Warning! You may use a kind of plug only, and the others can’t be used.” Didn’t anyone at Google look at this thing before buying thousands of them?

Battery life is reportedly an hour or two; it has to be kept plugged in, with a DC adapter using a trickle of current that multiplied over all the recipients adds up to quite a large usage. Amusingly, the instructions say absolutely nothing about plugging it in; the two listed power options are USB cable and batteries!

Oh, and by the way – it doesn’t work on a Mac, at least, when you first plug it in, and advice elsewhere on the Net to use Microsoft Paint is hardly helpful to us. The mini-disc supplied doesn’t seem to load on Macs either – very unusual since normally we can read Windows only discs.

Using Parallels Workstation, I can read the disc and install the software. Apparently this thing is made by SunPlus. The software offers some sort of transcoding. A search of the SunPlus site yielded this informative display (why oh why do people insist on Windows?):

Active Server Pages ¿ù»~ ‘ASP 0126′

§ä¤£¨ì¥]§tÀÉ

/search/index.asp, ¦C17

§ä¤£¨ì¥]§tÀÉ ‘../inc/entop.asp’¡C

Now, for the high points. First, Google sent me a present! If nothing else, I have this cool Europower adapter that should work in Asia as well, four AAA batteries, and a mini-USB cable. Also, as a picture frame, the thing – once you get it to show photos – is really quite nice. It also acts as a digital sound recorder, and can be expanded (they say) with an SD card. Once you find a PC to use it with, the thing does work as predicted, but DON’T try using it with a Mac under Parallels Workstation – it’ll just annoy you. Perhaps it’ll work under Boot Camp?

Google remains a class act, but I sure hope they think more about what they’re doing next year… oh, and by the way – I regret that I’m not nearly as good a class act. I didn’t send them anything.

Addendum on the GIA-316 digital photo frame:

I did get it to work, without any software. What it needed was a simple “real PC” running Windows. It will not apparently work on any non-Windows system, but Windows ME is just fine. Then all you do is open your photos in MS Paint and re-save them, then copy them into the device (or re-save them directly into the photos area of the device).

The supplied minidisc (do NOT use it in a slot loading CD drive!!!!) contains a transcoder utility that saves you from putting images into MS Paint and saving them. That’s all it does.

The audio recording facility I simply could not get to work at all, plugged in or not.

Well, their present from last year was good enough for TWO years!

Seeing blue and red all over

Now that the election is all over (by the way, thanks, New Jersey, for not electing Tom Kean), some interesting media biases have been highlighted, along with other interesting results.

First, it appears that the people responsible for winning the election for Democrats (as opposed to losing it for Republicans) are moveon.org and Howard Dean, the first for organizing all sorts of local parties and phone calls to remind people to vote; and the second for getting Democrats back into states and counties they had long given up on, echoing the Republicans’ “we don’t give up, anywhere” strategy. Republicans reached out to people who would have to be fools to vote for them: blacks, Hispanics, and Jews. Democrats apparently take those groups for granted…even now. But with Democrats suddenly appearing everywhere in the nation, something we kind of knew became clear ot everyone except mainstream reporters and Fox News.

This country was never as committed to either party – or as liberal or conservative – as newspapers and TV talking heads would like to say it is.

Even in the great Republican sweep that brought chickenhawk/sleazebag moralist Newt Gingrich and his crew into power, the election was hardly a landslide except in terms of who won the elections. Less than half of Americans vote, and only a small percentage of voters determine the outcome of elections. We are about as 50/50 as you can get, and only a tiny effort percentage of people really decide the elections, when all is said and done. That’s why MoveOn.org really won the election for the Democrats – they made tens of thousands of phone calls, and if 10% of those worked, they got enough people elected to swing both houses of Congress. Ditto Howard Dean’s efforts in regions once considered solidly Republican. Even most solidly Republican districts have at least one third of voters going Democrat…and likewise solidly Democratic districts.

Americans are neither solidly neoconservative nor solidly liberal nor solidly conservative. We’re a great big mix, and there are six of one and half a dozen of the other.

The sleaze is thick today: Tom Kean push-polling

Do you remember Tom Kean? He was the governor of New Jersey for eight long years, during which the size of state government exploded, the use of state cars was unrestrained, and tax money flowed like water. Then, after a Democrat was elected, Kean suddenly discovered that there was a MASSIVE budget deficit. Gee, what a surprise!

Now, his son is running one of the sleazier campaigns for office. First, an “independent polling agency” ran a series of phone calls where people were asked who they would vote for. Then, if they discovered that Senator Menendez was the biggest criminal on the planet, as alleged, who they would vote for. Then, reminding us what a patriot Tom Kean Sr. was (you remember his leadership of the “can’t get materials out of the White House” 9/11 Commission and subsequent distortion of fact in his role as “Path to 9/11″ movie man), asked us who we would vote for. The call, running 15 minutes before I hung up the phone, was very clever and left the impression that Tom Kean Sr. (not Jr.) was running against an organized crime figure who scoffed at the wrongdoings of Fat Tony.

Then came the TV ads. Lots of them, advertising some sort of phone call in which somebody we don’t know is whispering that they have to protect Senator Menendez.

And of course the initial accusations of wrongdoing against Senator Menendez. Yes, he’s probably guilty of a mildly sleazy deal himself, but it’s small beans by Senate standards, and nothing’s been proven. It is awfully interesting that a Republican partisan prosecutor made these accusations shortly before the election.

Frankly I don’t think Menendez is squeaky clean, but if you can judge a man by his campaign and his father, then Tom Kean, Jr., is one of the sleaziest politicians we’re likely to see. I didn’t appreciate his father’s abuse of the taxpayers of New Jersey, and I don’t appreciate his 100% negative campaign. He gets my vote – for Menendez – and I think we should “reward” all such sleaze-only campaigns with a vote for the other person.

(I’m not counting campaigns where the other person’s policies or record – real record, not some trumped-up list of charges based on no evidence – are brought up but these “whisper” campaigns where nothing true is used, with a lot of nasty stuff implied, and “independent” groups are hired to throw mud around.)

Update: looks like Tom Kean will win and become a US Senator. Polls show the “push polling” works. And here’s a great link explaining the method: http://www.patriotproject.com/2006/10/push_polling_wh.php

So why hasn’t the liberal media printed anything on push polling or the various swiftboat attacks? Could it be they’re NOT LIBERAL after all?

Bush let the terrorists win – and is still letting them win

The Bush administration likes to have people believe that if Al Gore had become president, based on the popular and electoral votes (as opposed to selected by the Supreme Court, then re-elected by means of more subtle electrion fraud), our response to 9/11 would have been different. The evidence shows that this is completely correct. We would never have fought Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. We would never have fought and beaten the Iraqi regime. We would never have implemented tougher security measures for air flights.

We would also not have lost the World Trade Center and a chunk of the Pentagon, because the terrorist attacks would never have occured.

The evidence of the 9/11 Commission and other sources is conclusive and hard to refute. Bush was briefed multiple times about security problems, even the specific “plane as bomb” scenario, in ways that make what was to happen nearly as clear as his fore-knowledge of Hurricane Katrina. His reaction was identical: ignoring the problem, because his own personal experts thought it irrelevant or even attractive. (And attractive 9/11 certainly was to George W. Bush, who had no popular mandate, who was down in the polls, and who had no popular following to speak of. After 9/11 he automatically became a hero and had a unified country behind him that gave him near royal powers; without 9/11 he could never have invaded Iraq, saved Halliburton from bankruptcy, and assured his and Dick Cheney’s continued wealth and power. Re-election was out of the question until 9/11.)

Had Al Gore been president, there is no question but that measures would have been taken to prevent the 9/11 incidents. Al Gore has never been known to be ignorant about important national security matters; nor has he put his own wealth ahead of the national welfare again and again. Whatever else you might think of him, and he isn’t my hero either, Al Gore does have a high degree of intelligence and can add two and two and come up with four – or, in other words, he can read intelligence reports and respond to them.

What’s more, there’s the infamous NORAD “call off the planes” command that has been wiped out from the nation’s history. When planes go off their courses and transponders suddenly disappear – very suspicious acts – the military is ready. War planes are supposed to take off and, if needed, destroy the wayward jetliners. The nation’s Air Force was definitely prepared for the 9/11 strikes before they happened; our generals are not morons. (I have enough respect for our troops and their military leaders to know that they had thought of this problem long before 2001.) But a command was apparently given to countermand this. All records of that command have been destroyed, according to our government, even though they would have been invaluable for prevention of a repeat episode.

After 9/11, Bush half-heartedly searched for Osama Bin Laden, but that search seems to have ended now. The troops are needed in Iraq. He also gave in to Bin Laden’s main demand, leaving our base in Saudi Arabia. And needless to say the war in Iraq is something Bin Laden would approve of: he toppled a secular dictator, killed tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, blemishing America’s reputation for at least the next few decades and bringing many new recruits to the loony terrorist fringe, is destroying America’s economy by putting is into hopeless levels of debt, and started a civil war in Iraq that may very well be won by Islamic extremists. Overall, an excellent haul for Osama Bin Laden.

I suspect G.W. Bush doesn’t mind at all. He’s been in power long enough to get electronic voting machines installed all over the country; redistricting and changes in election oversight nearly guarantee that his party will stay in power indefinitely; he himself will get paid for those hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money diverted to crooks and profiteers once he leaves office; and it’s all been one big party for him. Most of those killed in the terrorist attacks were New Yorkers, and New Yorkers usually elect Democrats; and the majority of those killed in Katrina appear to have been Democrats as well. Since Democrats are liberals and liberals are communists and communists are traitors, it all worked out quite well for Bush and his crowd, who only care about (some of) the Americans they know.

Shamefully, the political experts who coordinate hack columnists and commentators across the country have set up their talking points to insinuate that the recent election in Connecticut – where Al Lieberman lost the primary because he supported Bush’s actions to fight an endless war in Iraq instead of to protect the homeland – will weaken this country. Leaving Iraq would not weaken America. Spending all our money – and borrowing recklessly to spend money we do not have – weakens America. Diverting money from homeland security – making it impossible to protect our ports and chemical plants, and not even checking cargo sent on passenger airplanes – weakens America. Kicking out a guy who doesn’t care about his constituents is called democracy, not weakness.

If Bin Laden and his terrorist gang intended to destroy the united States, they did a great job of it so far. This country united against Bin Laden, but since then has been led down a path that leads to failure, dictatorship, and perhaps theocracy.

To think, if the Supreme Court had done their job and waited a mere 24 hours before choosing a president, the worst thing we would have to fear would be socialized medicine.

Who cares about stolen elections?

When the Supreme Court officially ended a recount that was leaning dangerously close to having a competent President, rewriting the Constitution by appointing George W. Bush to the Presidency, most Americans closed the book on that election. Sure, a few newspapers did their own recounts and found a clear mandate from Florida for Al Gore – despite the elimination of 20,000 voters from the rolls because their names were vaguely like those of convicted felons in other states – all 20,000 being from Democrat-voting areas. But after all, didn’t LBJ win a Senate seat in a tained election? Wasn’t Chicago, well, Chicago for all those years? So Democrats did it too. That somehow made it all right that Republicans stole one election. It was making up for LBJ’s Senate seat.

Evidence for the theft of the election kept piling up – but precious few Americans had access to it. The BBC ran a complete exposé along with the confession of one of the election thieves, and as noted newspapers did a recount later, discovering that Gore really did win the election (no matter how the ballots were recounted), but that was old news. The election was over and we were told to get over it. After all, the Republicans wrote an election reform bill. That would fix things.

Then, we had 2004. The newspapers told us that everything was just fine so we went along with it. Now we know that the voting machines in Ohio and other battleground states were rigged. Exit polls, before accurate to within a fraction of a point, suddenly veered off-track by 5.5%, and always in the same direction. Massive quantities of non-Republicans suddenly chose to vote Republican while all Democrats seemed to stay at home in some districts. Some areas ended up with more voter than voters. But Kerry, in an attack of gutlessness which thankfully he never showed in Vietnam, let it go, and the people agreed. Sure, we had the uncomfortable knowledge that one voting-machine company head had proclaimed he would do whatever it took to get Bush re-elected; and the evidence to show that he had fulfilled his pledge. Sure, we knew that most election-machine makers conformed to no laws in testing and operating their equipment, and that some were run by convicted felons, and that all were faithful to the Republican Party. But the election was over and the losers were being whiners. Get over it.

We have another election in 2006. We can expect the same dirty tricks we have gotten in the past: voting machines in poor districts suddenly moved without any notification, people thrown off voting rolls if they happen to be the wrong color or party, and of course those great, unaccountable, uncontrollable electronic voting machines. And I’m sure that no matter how it turns out, anyone who protests will be told to get over it.

So I ask my fellow conservatives, even those who continue to vote for Republicans knowing that there are practically no more conservative Republicans on a national level, — when will it be enough? When the Republic is declared obsolete? When the Constitution can be rewritten at will because there are no real votes? When there is a single party?

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out for me.
– Martin Niemoeller

To put it another way, do you believe in democracy only if you win?