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It's Tough Being a Conservative in a Leftist State

So far about 43% of the vote in Washington has been counted, except for the absentee ballots. With a few exceptions, every race I voted in has gone the opposite of how I voted. This didn't surprise me, but it sure disappoints me.

My friends and I are going to end up paying higher taxes to fix roads out here. Roads that should already be getting fixed with revenues that are already coming in to the state and county, but that are being spent on boondoggles that we don't need.

The estate tax is going to continue to be alive and well for some time. It doesn't affect me yet, but I bet it will affect my kids.

Private property rights aren't going to be respected. That means that friends of mine with a few acres are going to have to set aside 70% of their property and leave it untouched, and they won't be compensated for the taking.

People in Washington are going to have to pay higher utility rates because the energy companies are going to be forced to increase their percentage of so-called "renewable" energy or pay fines. Interestingly enough, in a state that gets most of it's electricity from hydro power, hydro power isn't considered "renewable", but "wind power" is. And don't get me started on the chemical pollution created to create the materials needed for "solar" power.

People in King County are going to have to pay more sales tax too. To fund mass transit, because the mass transit ridership isn't high enough to pay for it.

We're also going to have to put up with Maria Can'tVoteVeryWell for another six years.

There are some bright spots though. Darcy Burner looks like she's not going to win, although it's still too early to tell.

Covington is probably not going to have to pay even more property tax for a parks district we don't need. That's probably good. Maybe it will slow down our city council's ridiculous drive for growth. We don't need to turn this city into a giant shopping mall. There are enough of them around already.

I-91 Looks like a winner. Only 13% of the vote is in though, so it's still too early to tell if the people of Seattle have had enough of subsidizing sports teams that never seem to appreciate what they have, or that seldom come through for the fans.

All in all, it's a rough night for conservative ideas out here on the Left Coast, indeed, across the country. We're just going to have to keep on fighting though, and speaking up for the truth. Eventually the other voters will come to their senses.

The Nuclear Option

THE (sic) world's energy supply is heading for crisis, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned yesterday, predicting "skyrocketing prices or more frequent blackouts" unless urgent action was taken.

The IEA, an energy policy adviser for its 26 member countries including the UK and US, which was established during the oil crisis of 1973-1974, called on governments to build more nuclear power stations to help cut greenhouse gas emissions and also take steps to reduce the growth in demand for energy. It predicted that global energy needs will surge by 53 per cent over the next 25 years and that crude oil prices could exceed $100 a barrel by 2030.

Read more.

That's funny... I thought that the world was worried about "global cooling" before 1975. Seriously though, the article is advocating nuclear power as a clean alternative to the current means of producing energy.

Can you see the greens going for nuclear power? The problems with radioactive waste take a lot longer to clean up than the waste from even the most polluting sulfur smoke belching coal fired power plant. Heck, out here on the left coast, they want to make us use wind power, and tear down the hydro-electric dams and other power plants.

N.M. Cops Sue Burger King Over Marijuana-Laced Hamburgers

ALBUQUERQUE — Two police officers have sued Burger King Corp., claiming they were served hamburgers that had been sprinkled with marijuana.

The lawsuit says Mark Landavazo and Henry Gabaldon, officers for the Isleta Pueblo tribal police, were in uniform and riding in a marked patrol car when they bought meals at the drive-through lane Oct. 8 of a Burger King restaurant in Los Lunas, N.M.

The officers ate about half of their burgers before discovering marijuana on the meat, the lawsuit said. They used a field test kit to confirm the substance was pot, then went to a hospital for medical evaluations.

"It gives a whole new meaning to the word 'Whopper,"' the officers' attorney, Sam Bregman, said Monday. "The idea that these hoodlums would put marijuana into a hamburger and therefore attempt to impair law enforcement officers trying to do their jobs is outrageous."

Three Burger King employees were arrested and charged with possession of marijuana and aggravated battery on an officer, a felony. They later were indicted.

Read more.

What's wrong with this picture? This incident took place in New Mexico. The employees that spiced up the officers' burgers were arrested and indicted. That should be the end of it. If the officers want to sue the restaurant or the franchise, that makes sense, but to sue a company based in Miami over the actions of a few employees of a franchisee looks like another case of lawsuit abuse to me.

What are those cops smoking?

Exit polls show Democrats favored

In surveys at polling places, about six in 10 voters said they disapproved of the way President Bush is handling his job, and roughly the same percentage opposed the war in Iraq. They were more inclined to vote for Democratic candidates than for Republicans.

In even larger numbers, about three-quarters of voters said scandals mattered to them in deciding how to vote, and they, too, were more likely to side with Democrats. The surveys were taken by The Associated Press and the networks.

Read more.

I can't help but wonder... are these the same exit polls that had John Kerry winning the presidency?

Update: Sadly it looks like the exit polls are right this time. The Democrats will take control of the house, and two of the worst words I can imagine are going to be spoken: Speaker Pelosi. I almost couldn't type it. I knew there wasn't too much chance out here on the Left Coast of seeing a Republican victory, but this went worse than I expected.

Well there'll be plenty of meat to blog about in the years to come. Hopefully president Bush will start rooting around in his desk drawers for his veto pen. He's going to need it.

Alexander not expected to play against Rams on Sunday

Shaun Alexander is not expected in Sunday's game against St. Louis, coach Mike Holmgren said on Tuesday.

Alexander underwent a CT scan and magnetic-resonance image tests on his left foot on Monday and Tuesday, and Holmgren said that Alexander could be on the field, running later this week, but he is not expected to play this weekend. Holmgren said Alexander probably would need a full week of practice before returning.

Holmgren also said that quarterback Matt Hasselbeck could be back at practice later this week, but isn't expected to return until the Nov. 19 game at San Francisco at the earliest.

Read more here.

More bad news for the Seahawks. They've gone 2-3 without Shaun Alexander. Sure they won last night, but that was also against the worst offense in the league. Maurice Morris has taken up the slack admirably, rushing for 138 yards last night.

The Seahawks are going to need to step up again on Sunday though. The Rams are a much better team than the Raiders. A loss for the Seahawks next week and the Rams will be tied with them for the lead in the NFC West.

Time to go exercise my franchise...

I'm off to vote, and then off to work.

Remember, Republicans vote today. Democrats vote tomorrow. (just kidding).

Get out and vote, or at least remember to mail your absentee ballots before the post office closes.

Another Unpatched Windows Bug

For the second time in less than a week, Microsoft has acknowledged that attackers are exploiting a critical, unpatched flaw in Windows to snatch PCs from their owners.

The new bug, which is in an ActiveX component of Microsoft XML Core Services 4.0 -- a service that lets developers use scripting languages such as JavaScript and Visual Basic to access XML documents -- is being put to work now by attackers, Microsoft admitted in a security advisory posted late Friday.

"We are aware of limited attacks that are attempting to use the reported vulnerability," said Ben Richeson, a program manager with the Microsoft Security Response Center, in a blog entry Saturday. "We'll continue to monitor the situation and provide updates should the situation change," Richeson added.

...

This is the second advisory Microsoft has posted in the last week concerning a zero-day flaw, one which attackers already are exploiting. The first called out a critical flaw in Visual Studio 2005 last Tuesday. It also was the fifth vulnerability affecting Internet Explorer that's been disclosed since the browser updated to version 7 on Oct. 18.

Read more here.

%*#@!# - I like Internet Explorer 7! Five vulnerabilities already? If I could plug the Windows Live toolbar into Firefox I'd ditch IE faster than Ted Kennedy ditched Mary Jo Kopechne.

Wikipedia full of plagiarism

Daniel Brandt, a longtime critic of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, says his analysis shows the site is rife with plagiarism.

Brandt said he found 142 instances of Wikipedia copy lifted from other sources after studying the site with a software program that picks up matches with other material anywhere on the Google search engine.

...

The site's administrators said they have reviewed the instances of plagiarism, many of them in biographical entries, and removed some as a result of Brandt's complaints.

Others contain material already in the public domain and will remain as is, they said.

Read more here.

So besides having problems with people posting malware through the site, now they have problems with plagiarism. Things are looking less good for them all the time.

57 Iraqis Charged In Abuse At Prison

BAGHDAD, Nov. 6 -- Iraq's Interior Ministry has charged 57 employees, including high-ranking officers, with human rights crimes for their roles in the torture of hundreds of detainees once jailed in a notorious eastern Baghdad prison known as Site 4, officials announced Monday.

...

"Whoever abuses power and authority will be held accountable, regardless of their position or background," Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told reporters in an opulent room in one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces. "This is giving a lesson for those in our ministry who may want to violate the law."

Source: 57 Iraqis Charged In Abuse At Prison - washingtonpost.com

Good for the Iraqi Interior Ministry!!! This is evidence that they intend to live by the rule of law in Iraq. It's sad that so many people had to be involved in this kind of prisoner abuse, but it's good that Iraq is doing something about it.

I can't help comparing this to how the media and the left handled the reports from Abu Graib. They acted as if they had been the ones to uncover the criminal acts that took place their. The newspapers and nightly news programs were all over that, spinning it as if it were proof that the U.S. military was the epitome of evil in the world.

They pretty much buried the fact that it was the military itself that started the investigation into those acts. In fact, months before those scandals made the headlines, the military had release information about the investigation.

In that case, as well as this one, it showed that the people in positions of authority weren't about to tolerate this sort of abuse. The difference then was that trumpeting the news in the headlines made the U.S. and our soldiers all look bad because of the slant.

This time, the article's spin is more balanced. In some ways the Iraqi Interior Ministry comes away looking like they want to get serious about upholding the law. In others the article gives the impression that it's hopelessly corrupt.

Iraq has a challenge before it as it struggles to bring the rule of law to its people. This is a sign that they're making progress, and that's a good thing.

Update: TexasFred comments on "former" Baathists