On The Third Hand

This is the first post in a series on the war against tyranny. In the series I’ll be taking a look at just who’s war this is. I’ll give you one hint, it’s not Bush’s. We’ll start by taking a look at why Gore lost in 2000.

First things first, Gore lost. The U. S. Supreme Court did not make George W. Bush President of the United States. The U. S. Supreme Court put a stop to useless round after useless round of ballot recounting in the State of Florida. Vote recounts allowed by the Florida Supreme Court because the Florida Supreme Court wouldn’t muster the courage to say, “No more.”

The whole mess started off by crappy ballot design in (as I recall) two Florida counties. People voted for the wrong candidate. People couldn’t punch out the damn holes. It was a mess. So it became round after round of trying to figure out who meant to vote for whom. Thing is, after every re-count the winner continued to be George W. Bush.

To any reasonable person it became abundantly clear, there were those people who just couldn’t stand the idea of Bush becoming President of the United States. People who would use any excuse, or manufacture any excuse, they could to avoid having to admit their candidate lost. Who, as it turns out, use the SCOTUS decision to halt the endless Florida recounts as proof of a conspiracy to rob Al Gore of his rightful prize.

All the ballot recounts came down to determining who people meant to vote for. This done by careful study of thousands of ballots where the vote was not clear. Because the damn ballots had die cut “chads” that were a bitch to punch through.

So mistakes were made. Sometimes the chad hung on. Those votes weren’t the problem really. Who the voter meant to vote for was readily obvious. The problem lay with those chads that weren’t really punched out at all. Chads that bulged, or where the die cutting was torn. Ballots where, as far as any body could tell, the voter went to vote for one candidate, then changed his mind; so you ended up with a ballot where two chads were partially punched out.

In short, people made mistakes. They either voted twice (or more) for the office of President of the United States, or they did not vote clearly. Simple mistakes really. Mistakes easily corrected by asking for a new ballot. A request Florida poll workers could and would fulfill. But people didn’t feel like correcting.

So they put their errant ballots in the ballot box, and we got the Great Meaningless Recounts of 2000.

All because people couldn’t be bothered to correct their errors, other people couldn’t stand the idea their votes wouldn’t count because of those errors, and still others couldn’t stand the idea of Albert Gore losing.

Round after meaningless round of trying to eke out enough “well, he just might have meant to vote for Gore, so we’ll give him a pass and add another to Albert’s column” votes was a result. To the point even some of Gore’s supporters started to say, “Enough!” With the SCOF (Supreme Court of Florida) aiding and abetting the petulent snit.

Until the SCOTUS said, “Enough” and shut it down.

So, how did it get to that point? How did Gore lose? That’s for the next post in the series.

Beltway Traffic Jam

The Pamela Report: Atlas Interviews John Bolton (Pamela runs the blog “Atlas Shrugged")

Why the world should stand back and let Israel do what it has to do.

Update: I have changed the link above to the gentleman who wrote it. It appears that Israpundit may have posted an e-mail pass-around without mentioning it as such. (If I had know it was a pass around, I would have gone hunting for the original and linked it. Sigh.)

From Michael Yon. Jihad - The lust for self-destruction and someone to blame

Please go read this post at Rantings of a Sandmonkey: In praise of the human spirit. (In fact, just bookmark that blog, if you haven’t already.)

Dozens killed in Egyptian blasts

At least 83 people have been killed and scores more wounded in bomb attacks in the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheikh.

An explosion in the Old Market area was followed by two blasts in the Naama Bay area, where a car bomb tore off the front of the Ghazala Gardens Hotel.

Most of the dead are Egyptians, although foreign nationals are among the victims, officials said.

Note that BBC is not using the word terrorists… but I am.

The Sandmonkey has had it.

Cedar Revolution Exported to Syria

I hope he is right. But I also hope you all will excuse me while I suspect that Assad will discover his ‘inner tyrant’ and stomp down on those who want freedom.

The following is a must read… and it has a surprise ending too. But it doesn’t reflect very well on airport security. So here you are: The Sandmonkey Airport Incident and The Sandmonkey Airport Incident part 2.

Oh, and before anyone gets offended at the titles, please note that The Sandmonkey is the blogger. He’s Egyptian. You can call him Sam if his pen name bothers you. If you aren’t reading him, btw, you should. He has an interesting perspective on things.

A few notes taken while walking the “Arab Streets.”

Via al-Messa: “America Is Sticking Its Hands Into Boiling Oil.”

Since the events of September 11, 2001, America has conducted fierce campaigns against Muslims under the pretext that Islam is the cause of terrorism. And therefore, she spared no effort in throwing some of its believers into prison, while at the same time holding conferences in various places to show how close our cultures are. She imposes at these conferences ideas and suggestions that contradict our religion. She concentrates in particular on women’s rights and their equality with man, even in regard to inheritances!!

America does not know that Islam honors women and their situation in the loftiest way possible. And it gives them rights and advantages that American and European woman have yet to achieve.

He must be refering to the Islamic “right” of Muslim women to be the victim of an “ honor killing,” a practice that idiots like this writer have exported to Berlin. A city that has recorded six of these “advantages” in the last four months! Truth be told, it appears as though there is a “trade deficit” in these murderous acts.

LONDON (AFP) - Known cases of murder and rape committed to protect a family’s honour are on the rise across Europe, forcing police to explore the reasons behind such crimes and how to stop them, officials said.

At a two-day conference in London, British police spearheaded a campaign to fight so-called honour-based violence, typically committed against women to protect a family’s reputation.

And another Muslim right exposed. The right for it’s female population to be viewed as less important than a family’s “reputation.”

The “writer” goes on to complain at the sight of women leading men in Friday prayer.

As part of its policy of violating our religious doctrines, America and her media machine have been encouraging a new phenomenon: A woman leading men in Friday Prayer!!

America surprised us and challenged Muslim feelings by finding a woman in New York [Amina Wadud] to lead men in Friday Prayer. The woman tried to find a mosque that would permit this new innovation, but all of the mosques closed their doors to her. Initially, the churches did the same, but one of the cathedrals permitted a group of women and men to pray with them on a Friday, in an ironic scene that caused laughter and raised anger and disgust. It was literally a farcical scene!! [note: In all the online references of this event I found no such description, not surprising. - ed]

And yesterday America surprised us again, when another foolish woman, Asra Nomani, said she would lead Muslims in Friday Prayer in Boston. And after that, in San Francisco, and then Washington, and then several other states!!

And that my friends, is the best example of “self fisking” seen in months. On the one hand he claims Muslim superiority in giving females basic human rights, then goes on to belittle those women that avail themselves of the American style of femine rights.

Check the links to their names and the Boston link for background on these two brave women. They are both Islamic scholars and authors, hardly people pulled from the crowd by the American “media machine” as a publicity stunt. Also here is an excellent PBS Frontline interview with Amina Wadud.

Cross posted within the Cranial Cavity

I’m having a deja-vu to the 1980s, when as a young lad stuck on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain I watched with some bemusement the safe and comfortable citizens of Western democracies rallying for “peace” and protesting aggressive American policies, while around me people were risking if not life than certainly limb and their future marching for freedom, democracy and human rights.

Chrenkoff, from Good news from the Islamic world, part 5: the special pro-democracy edition

Across the Bay has an interesting analysis in: The Semantics of Numbers. Recommended reading.

BBC has some good pictures, for those who like galleries.

The right way

And no government sponsoring of that one. Somehow they all managed to get there without being bribed or coerced, and even without free bus trips. I wonder why they made such an attempt? Could it be that they understand the value of freedom?

Via Ace. Thanks, Ace, and may I say that you did not, in any way, disappoint this reader (who is vastly uninterested in what she can see in the mirror any time she wishes).