Taxes

Well, the yearly pain of doing my taxes is over. I did an initial estimate of them a few months ago, but didn't finalize until now. I didn't really see any reason to hand my money over to Uncle Sam an earlier than I had to. Fortunately, I'm getting back about twice as much from the State of Iowa as I had to send to the Feds, so it should all work out in the end. Last year, Iowa was lightning-fast at sending out the refunds, I had it direct-deposited in my checking account 4 days after I e-filed. I doubt I'll be that lucky this year, but it'd be nice if I got the Iowa refund before the Feds get around to cashing my check...

Good Question

I watched Meet The Press this morning, and about choked on my orange juice at this exchange:

MR. RUSSERT: June 30: You're going to turn the keys over to the Iraqis. Who do you turn them over to?

AMB. BREMER: Well, that's a good question, and it's an important part of the ongoing crisis we have here now. We've always said that there are two dimensions to dealing with the problems of Iraq. One, of course, is the military dimension, which we're working on right now, but the other is to give a political perspective for the Iraqis to have more and more responsibility. We've been working on that for months. We are now working with the secretary-general of the U.N.'s special representative here, Mr. Brahimi, to figure out the best way to get a representative government in place before the end of June so it has a little practice and then turn over sovereignty to it on June 30. And I'm confident that working with him and with the Iraqi people, we, in fact, will get that. We'll get a representative government in place before June 30.

"Well, that's a good question"?!?!?! What the hell kind of answer is that? I think post-June 30 Iraq is going to make the current situation look mild. I think it's time for Bush & Powell to go to the UN, hat-in-hand, and ask for some help.

My Fellow Democrats

Okay Democrats, put away your false outrage, and stop crying wolf on Bush over his WMD joke at the correspondents' dinner. It was a joke, it was funny, and the President is allowed to poke fun at himself once in a while. Save your outrage for something truly outrageous, like what Bush appointee Thomas Scully pulled in getting the Medicare Prescription Drug bill passed. Threatening to fire the accountant in charge of coming up with the cost estimates for Congress if he revealed the true cost of the program, rather than the fictitiously low numbers the administration was feeding Congress in order to get the bill passed:

But there was an even bigger question raised about the program's looming cost; one raised by Medicare actuary Richard Foster.

Foster is a 30-year veteran of the Medicare process, relied upon by both Democrats and Republicans for his unbiased accounting. He calculated the cost of the bill and the number he came up with it was much higher than the $395 billion touted by the Bush administration and the Republican leadership. Foster "had projections that were between $500 and $600 billion over 10 years for the drug benefit," Moffit said.

Cybele Bjorklund, a top health-care staffer for House Democrats, had relied on Foster's numbers for years. At least until last June.

"I had asked [Foster] for information on the effect and cost of particular proposals," Bjorklund told ABCNEWS, "and he said that he had at least part of the information ready, but that he was not allowed to give it to me. I asked him why, because under the law we are entitled to access this information and he had prepared it, and he was clearly unhappy with telling me that he couldn't give it to me. And he said that he'd been threatened."

Bjorklund said Foster told her that Medicare Adminstrator Thomas Scully - a Bush political appointee - had called him into his office and told him he couldn't give cost estimates to Congress anymore without Scully's prior appoval.

"I was not happy about that," Foster told a congressional committee Wednesday. "I could ignore orders, but I knew I would be fired."

That night, Bjorklund said, she caught up to Scully and confirmed Foster's story. "I said, 'How can you do that? You need cause, he's protected'. And he said, 'If he gives that to you, I will fire him so fast his head will spin.' "

"It struck me as a political basis for making that decision," Foster said Wednesday. "I considered that inappropriate and, in fact, unethical."

Election Strategy

Regardless of who wins the Democratic nomination, I think this is an excellent strategy to employ in order to remove Bush from office. Sure, the economy is recovering, but are any jobs coming out of this recovery? Weren't the Bush tax cuts going to lead to more jobs? Where are they, and when can my wife get one?

Time to pack it in

After last night's primary in Wisconsin, I think it's time for Dean to pack it in and go home. Edwards, on the other hand, got a shot in the arm from his unexpectedly strong showing, and could receive another one from former Dean supporters when Dean exits the race. The word right now is that Dean will stop campaigning today, but leave his name on the ballots. I'm ready to throw my support behind Edwards for the nomination, I've never been a big fan of Kerry, and the nomination process thus far has been so one-sided, it's left a bad taste in my mouth. As one caller from Florida said last night, as I was watching Larry King report results on CNN, "This is Democracy? I haven't even had a chance to vote yet, I wanted to choose Gephardt, and it's looking like I won't even have a choice of who my candidate is by the time we hold our primary." I'm paraphrasing a bit there, but her point was valid.

The apple doesn't fall far from the Bush

It seems like George W. Bush passed along his alcohol problems to his daughters, according to reports of them getting caught trying to buy alcohol in Texas.  Is it a big deal?  No, not at all, most kids drink under age.  Does his daughter have an alcohol problem?  Yes, she does.  If your desire for alcohol is so strong that you do stupid things that hurt yourself and your family, then you have a problem.

If you're the son or daughter of the President of the United States, have the common sense and/or the restraint to not break the law.  Despite what Bush's daughters might like to think, they're not just average college students, and when they get in trouble with the law, the whole nation knows about it, not just the kids on their dorm floor.  Exercise some restraint, and save your dad some embarassment...

Party Crasher

Things just got a whole lot more interesting in Washington, thanks to the defection of Senator Jeffords from the Republican Party. I'm glad to see the Democrats back in control of the Senate, this will hopefully make for more centrist policy... My new Mediaform CD Duplicator arrived today. This thing is pretty cool, I can easily make at least 11 CDs in an hour now. The best price I found on it was from Insight, if you're interested...

Cliffhanger

It's going to get nasty. The Curmudgeon has an excellent plot of the polling data from Florida. It shows exactly how bogus the votes for Buchanan were in Palm Beach County. If the recount shows Bush winning Florida by less than 3,800 votes or so, the Democrats are going to scream holy hell. Rightfully so, the Presidency of the United States of America may very well hinge on a poorly designed ballot in Palm Beach County, Florida. That one county, with 7% of the vote in Florida, accounted for 20% of Buchanan's total for the entire state! In a county that's two-thirds Democrat? I don't think so, in fact, I know it's not so, the only fair thing to do is to have a re-vote in that county. It's going to get very very ugly in the next week, this election is going to be tainted if Bush wins. People will point to a Gore victory in the popular vote, and allegations of fraud in Florida. These are the type of things that start civil wars in other countries...

Time to get rid of the electoral college? That's what Bill Press says in his column today. I think that we should do away with it, but I somehow suspect that how John Q. Public feels about this will be closely tied to who he or she voted for...

So what did Nader accomplish for all his efforts? He didn’t get his 5 percent. He didn't qualify the Green Party for federal funding. He didn't succeed in building the Green Party. He only succeeded in destroying the Democratic Party and, perhaps, denying Al Gore the White House. And, of course, if that happens, everything that Nader supposedly supports -- environmental protection, worker safety, consumer protection, a woman's right to choose -- would be systematically destroyed by a Bush administration.

Welcome to all of you finding my site via BirdBrain's Nest. Don't you just love referer logs?

Ever wonder how Apple lost the education market? Here at "UNI" Gateway still has the majority, but the smart folks are buying Dell boxes now. In another year or two, Dell should have the majority. Mac support is weak to non-existant. The central computer folks don't support them, and the only places they're used are the Education and Arts colleges.

No matter who wins this race, The Onion has certainly called it correctly.

I don't know if my heart can take another night of drama. First the Vikings - Packers game, and now the election!

I was up until 2:30 Central Time, watching the results come in. I went to bed after the election was called for Bush, but I was thinking about how close the votes were coming in, that it could really still go either way. Imagine my surprise when I woke up at six this morning to find that it still can...

I said yesterday that it would all depend on Florida. I guess I was right, but I didn't think it would turn out like this. I didn't really think Gore would win the popular vote, but it looks like he has, by 233,000 at the time I write this.

So what's going to happen? The Bush people are claiming that the absentee ballots in Florida are going to favor them enough to ensure a Bush victory, but CNN was reporting that there are still uncounted votes in Broward County, Florida, a county where Al Gore has been getting 60% of the votes. Conclusion? It's anybody's ball game.

If Bush does win Florida, and the electoral vote, with Gore winning the popular vote, Bush is going to face serious legitimacy issues. Democrats will call for the abolition of the electoral college, and the Republicans probably won't pass it through Congress. This is exactly what happened in 1876 and 1888, the Republicans were in power, and they blocked attempts to change the Constitution.

It could get even more wild. Imagine a scenario with Bush winning Florida, and Gore winning Oregon, that puts the electoral vote at 271 for Bush, 267 for Gore. Those votes aren't actually cast until December, intense lobbying of the electors could conceivably sway things to Gore. If Gore has won the popular vote, pressure could be brought to bear on Republican party electors to switch sides. It's unlikely, but it'd only take two of them to do so to force an election by the House. It'd only take three electors to switch their votes to make Gore our next President.

I've got to wonder how this plays to people in other countries. Take a step back from the election and look at it as you would if it were happening in some other democracy. We've got one candidate who has (apparently) won the majority of the votes, but he may not be the President, because the son of a former President is ahead by a few hundred votes in a province where his brother is Governor. If this were another country, the American press would lament the archaic electoral college system as being bogus, as distorting the will of the masses. We'd also start wondering about fraud. I don't think there was any fraud here, but it's bizarre that the election hinges on Florida, where Bush's brother is Governor, but Gore's campaign manager for the state is the Attorney General...

Can I go home and get some more sleep?