December 2004 Archives

Senator Feinstein, returning from a trip to Iraq, has called upon the President to "tell the the American people the truth" about the length of time American troops will be in Iraq.

According to the Senator, every military representative she talked to while in Iraq said a pullout of US troops after the Iraq election would not happen. The told her it would be 2, 3, or 5 years at least.

Of course anyone that thinks honestly about the situation knows they are right. There will be an outside military presence in Iraq for, I think, decades.

Look at the Balkans. Ten years, and there are still troops there. Look at Cyprus. It's been 30 years there.

The question shouldn't be "How long will troops be in Iraq?" because the answer to that shoul be, as in Vietnam, "As long as is neccessary". The real question is "Can we get help from the international community, or will It be an American responsibility?"

Given the way we pushed away the international community when we invaded, I think we can look forward to 20 years of sending US soldiers into Iraq. Hopefully those soldiers will be accompanied be money and the Peace Corps as well.

The US House of Representatives struck a blow against home rule in Washington D.C. by passing a bill that would strip most of the gun control laws off the books in DC, and would limit what gun control laws the district could pass in the future.

The measure has no real chance to become law because the Senate is unlikely to pass it.

This vote was surely a response to groups, like the NRA, that are opposed to any form of gun control. Washington, D.C., is the only place where Congress can act like a state legislature and put in place such laws.

The bad thing about this is that the people of Washington D.C. do not vote for the people who are attempting to pass this law. They did vote for the people that wrote the gun control laws. So the House of Representatives is trying to force this law on people that diagree with it, but have no electoral recourse to change such a law. It's just like the pre-Revolutionary War situation for the US colonies - Parliment was overriding American laws, and Americans had no recourse.

Judge Victor Marraro in the Manhattan FEderal Court, struckdown the part of the PATRIOT Act related to ISPs and national security letters. Under the provision, law enforcement agencoeppies could issue a "subpeona" without judicial review that rqeuired ISPs to disclose personal information about their subscribers and barred them from discussing with anyone that they had received the subpeona. This included barring them from disclosing it to their lawyers.

Judge Marraro sad it was unique in American law in its "all-inclusive sweep", and had "no place in our open society". He continued by saying the "subpeona" violated the Fourth Amendment because it did not allow judicial review.

Thanks go to the ACLU for once again protecting our rights to privacy.

The SF Chronical has a great piece today that demonstrates how Bush is the real flip-flopper on Iraq. Contrast it with this piece showing the consistency of Kerry's message.

It's insidious how the Bush team has once again attacked its opponent in the area it is weak in, and has managed to convince people that Bush's opponent is the one with the problem.

In this campaign, besides the "flip-flop" issue, there's service in Vietnam, and safety from terrorism.

All three things are weak points for Bush (he's continually changed his message on Iraq and on many other issues, his National Guard service during the war includes time priods where he did not report, and his pre-emptive attack on Iraq has made us a bigger target for terrorists), yet he continues to attack Kerry on them.

astounding.

A few months ago I was stupid. I left my garage door open overnight. We didn't notice right away, but the next weekend when I went to get some tools to work on the house, I noticed a few things were missing, including a brand new chop saw, two nail guns, and my drill. All told we figure we lost about $1000 worth of stuff.

So, since I know how bad my memory is, I installed a timer for the garage door. You can get them from Garage Door Security. It took a bit of time to install, but now, after 5 minutes our garage door closes automatically.

If you don't have one of these, I suggest you get one. It's worth it.