Posts

Showing posts from December, 2004

What happened in that Ohio recount?

Since you've heard nothing about it, your assumptions are correct: the Ohio presidential election recount looked just like the original count, with George Bush winning by about 119,000 votes. The results were announced Tuesday, December 28. However, if you were to search an "old media" website to find out about it, as I did, you would come up empty. Today's AP story about the 3rd-party candidates requesting a second recount caught my eye, and in reading the story, found out the above. Wondering why I didn't hear about the first, but admitting being on vacation may have had something to do with it, I searched the CNN and CBS websites for "ohio recount." Both sites have several previous stories about the demand for a recount, shining a bright spotlight on Jesse Jackson's latest embarrassing antics, but apparently, when the count actually happened, and it confirmed what rising star Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell had been saying all alon

Nice work, Kofi

Imagine your wife is trying to put your son in the bathtub. But he doesn't want a bath, and he kicks and screams and throws a tantrum. What if, as your way of helping out, you say, "you know, until all this kicking and screaming stops... I don't think we can put him in the tub." Some help you'd be. What every parent knows about not encouraging bad behavior is lost on U.N. head honcho Kofi Annan, who said yesterday" The decision (to) go ahead or not is the Iraqis' decision, not ours. But the violence, if it continues, will have an impact on the elections. Elections don't take place in a vacuum. Please stop being violent, or else you might get what you want! One more reason for Mr. Annan to pack his bags and go home.

Small Omission

The latest missile defense test failure has invited a cheap shot from the New York Times editorial page yesterday. If it were not for the mammoth waste of taxpayers' money, the latest failure in the Bush administration's obstinate deployment of a totally unproven missile defense system could be titled Star Wars: The Farce. Two years after ponderously scripted flight tests had to be suspended because of widespread technical gaffes, the Pentagon tried again this week - and failed again. An interceptor rocket sat inert and shut itself down when the signal was given to take off after an invader missile bearing a mock warhead out in the Pacific. The failure, at the cost of a mere $85 million, was the latest evidence that the missile shield, a complex grafting of various unproven technologies, remains firmly in the dream stage. Yet the administration is going ahead with hollow defense plans to soon "activate" the first missile silos along the Pacific coast in a ludi

Hot Stove!

Well, the Yankees have just signed Jaret Wright. We might as well concede the AL East right now. They've also picked up Tony Womack and jettisoned Miguel Cairo. The numbers on the two are pretty similar, though Cairo is a bit younger. But what I remember is that Cairo hit against the Red Sox in the postseason (.280), while Womack did not (.180). I'll also enjoy watching the lawyerly weasling they'll have to do to get out of the Giambi and Brown contracts. I like the trend.

Don't like the weather? Sue!

Just when you thought lawsuits couldn't get any more ridiculous, there is a new campaign afoot to sue the United States for natural disasters caused by global warming. A study of a 2003 heatwave in Europe may give Pacific islanders and environmentalists new ammunition for legal cases blaming the United States for global warming, advocates said on Thursday... The British-based authors said human activity, especially emissions of heat-trapping gases from fossil fuels, had at least doubled the risks of heatwaves like last year's in which more than 20,000 people died. Of course, as Victor Davis Hanson likes to point out, thousands of elderly Frenchmen died in the cities because their families were too busy vacationing on the Riviera, and nobody thought to buy air conditioning. Arizona gets a lot hotter than France, and there was no crisis there. But here's where the ridiculous gets more disturbing: Among other cases, eight U.S. states and New York City filed su

Alright, I'll say it

Congrats, Mark. Looks like Holy Cross put up a good fight though.

Bad Speech

I noticed a couple of disturbing items in the news yesterday. Seemingly opposite in their purpose, both are foreboding illustrations of government policies designed to restrict debate about the past. The first comes from France . A professor of Japanese at the University of Lyon is the subject of a criminal investigation for questioning certain aspects of the Holocaust. Prosecutors in the southern city of Lyon said the investigation would focus on "denying crimes against humanity." France anti-racism laws have made denying the Holocaust a crime, punishable by fines and even prison. Now I don't think I'd like to invite any Holocaust-deniers over for Sunday dinner, but shouldn't there be some outrage about the supression of free speech? Isn't this precisely the type of speech that civil liberties organizations were designed to protect? The second case also involves atrocities in World War II and again ties in with Japan. But the angle is completely

A Battle for the Ages

OK, maybe not. But tonight the Princeton Tigers travel to Worcester to take on the UNDEFEATED Holy Cross Crusaders, in a matchup sure to interest some of my fellow Banterers. GO 'SADERS!