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Guantanamo != Iran

Posted by Mr. Anonymous on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 1:46:16 AM
If you have trouble understanding the title of this post, then you need to understand that for us geeks, "!=" means "not equal to". I chose this because it amazes me how stupid, or foolish, some people continue to be. In the last letter to the editor printed in the Seattle Times today, writer Maureen Searle of Seattle says that even though the suits the British sailors wore were baggy, they still beat the orange jumpsuits they have to wear at Guantanamo.

I read such comments and I wonder if the letter writer understands the monumental gap in logic they've just demonstrated. It would be laughable if there were anything resembling some comparability between the Iran hostage crisis and the capture of battlefield terrorists. But of course there isn't, which is what makes Maureen look like an idiot. Sometimes I wonder if the Times doesn't make these letters up. But knowing looney Seattle, I'm quite sure Maureen is serious. And that's what makes it all so sad.
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Traveling in the HOV Lane

Posted by Mr. Anonymous on Sunday, April 08, 2007 1:43:32 AM
It's reported on the news that the police are cracking down on drivers traveling in the HOV lanes on the east side. I suppose this is welcome news. The Seattle Times had an article on April 4 indicating that 5 police cars, in conjunction with a helicopter, patrolled the area near Preston and nailed 31 people in 3 hours. A couple of people were going over 90, and one was at 104. So, 31 people in 3 hours means about 10 cars per hour, or about 1 every 6 minutes.

I suppose that's a good thing. But I think there are times when such enforcement is just salt in the wound. For example, a couple months ago I was making my usual commute home from Kirkland to Issaquah on a day when it snowed heavily in the afternoon. It took me about 4 hours to make that commute and a lot of it was spent sitting on the freeway in south Bellevue. I noticed at that time a couple of cop cars that were sitting in certain spots to catch HOV offenders. On that particular day I think they should have opened up all the lanes to everybody and try to clear the freeways as quickly as possible. For all the whining about CO2 emissions and global warming, what effect does it have for cars to sit, running, on the freeway for 3 or 4 hours without moving much?

And there are times when the traffic is blocked by an accident or some other problem. Couldn't we suspend the HOV rules during those times in order to benefit the entire population using the freeways, rather than worry excessively over improper HOV use? The situation seems to call for a little reasonableness intelligently applied.
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Iraq and Vietnam

Posted by Mr. Anonymous on Saturday, April 07, 2007 2:03:36 AM
It's always interesting to me how people can be so myopic and, often, just plain blind to events that don't meet their idealistic view. A case in point is the opinion piece by David F. Schmitz in today's Seattle Times.

The information at the end of the article says that Mr. Schmitz is the Robert Allen Skotheim Chair of History at Whitman College in Walla Walla. Sounds impressive. But Mr. Schmitz sees in Vietnam the pattern for "limiting war." He recites the usual litany of similarities between the events and situation in Iraq now and Vietnam back in Nixon's day, including building up of troops, a congress that was determined to end the war, and a president who refused to listen to the people. Then he talks about the Cooper-Church Amendment which basically required the president to bring the troops home. You can read the article here.

The problem is that the war didn't really end when the US pulled out. Instead the north continued the war against the south in Vietnam and the south quickly fell to the communists. Additionally we had the killing fields in Cambodia. The US was the buffer that prevented a slaughter from taking place. Once we pulled out of Vietnam, all hell broke loose and the country fell.

The situation in Iraq is comparable in this respect, that if we pull out the country will fall to the terrorists and the Iranians and we'll end up with a much worse situation than we have now. So what's interesting to me is how Mr. Schmitz totally ignores this aspect of history and doesn't even mention it at all. Just bring the troops home, that's all anybody cares about! Really? Then why do 61% of the people feel that we shouldn't pull out of Iraq immediately, and that we ought to give the "surge" a chance before leaving, hmmmmm?
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Iran And The British

Posted by Mr. Anonymous on Thursday, April 05, 2007 11:47:04 PM
I think there was a time awhile back when the British were a prouder people. When their military would not so easily surrender and allow themselves to be captured, as happened a week ago in the Persian Gulf. If you've been asleep for the past week and a half, you should know that the British navy was inspecting merchant ships in Iraqi waters, under orders from the UN. Two rigid rafts hold 15 sailors had just inspected a ship when an Iranian boat moved in and captured the sailors.

The Iranians claimed that the sailors were in their territory. But a GPS identification by the British placed them 2 kilometers inside Iraqi waters. Worse, the coordinates given by the Iranians of where the sailors were picked up was in the same location! They flat out contradicted themselves! Of course, when they realized they had screwed up, then they release coordinates the next day that were in Iranian waters. What arrogance.

But what disturbs me is Britain's lukewarm efforts at retrieving their men. They "demanded" their release. They "refused to negotiate". Meanwhile the Iranians showed broadcasts of each and every one of them apologizing for entering Iranian territory. The men were obviously coerced and nobody took it seriously. But I can't help but wonder why the British didn't wield a bigger stick.

What would have happened if Tony Blair had told the Iranians, "I'm ordering a battle group to proceed directly to the Persian Gulf. When they arrive you will have one last chance to return our men, unharmed and unabused. If you do not, then we will fire a cruise missile into Tehran, and do so once every hour, on the hour, until our men are released. You have been warned."

The Iranian's would have hollered and howled like the jackals they are, no doubt. And they would have held the British sailors until that battle group arrived. But would they have kept them if the British actually did launch a cruise missile? Or would they have then caved in and capitulated? As it is now, they know they can bully the British and get away with it, even when they make themselves look like fools in the process.

So I ask, where is the British resolve? (I'm afraid the US would have done exactly the same thing. Yes, the men were finally released, but only because the Iranians got one of their captured diplomats back from Iraq. That's when the Iranian president "pardoned" the sailors and returned them as a "gift" to the British. The whole episode makes me nauseous).
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Don't Ask Don't Tell

Posted by Mr. Anonymous on Thursday, April 05, 2007 11:28:12 PM
If you're not aware, a woman was killed on the University of Washington campus on Monday of this week. Her former boyfriend stalked her, found her, and killed her. He had threatened her life and so she went to court and got a restraining order. She informed the UW. Everyone agrees she did all the right things. And now she's dead because the university didn't put a protection plan into effect for her. Someone dropped the ball and this woman, Rebecca Griego, paid for it.

Now we find out that her ex-boyfriend, Jonathan Rowan, moved here 10 years ago on a short - 90 days - visa, and never went back. He has been here illegally for 10 years! Worse, a cop pulled him over for a DUI about 5 years ago, but couldn't ask him about his immigration status. Why not? Because the Seattle city council passed a resolution forbidding the cops from doing so! Generically called "Sanctuary Laws," they tie the hands of police and allow foreign nationals a free pass to stay here illegally.

One has to wonder what, if anything, was going through the heads of the city council when they passed such a bone-headed law. And some of those people are still on the council. I wonder what part of "illegal" they don't understand?
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Dems Too Full Of Themselves

Posted by Mr. Anonymous on Thursday, April 05, 2007 11:14:55 PM
You know, I really don't care all that much if this or that congressional delegation wants to travel to some foreign country and pow-wow with the leaders there. Such excursions are mostly junkets in reality, but I generally don't care about it.

However, Nancy Peolosi's trip to Syria and Israel crosses the line of what's acceptable. To shuttle between the two countries, and then announce to the world that both sides are willing to pursue a path of peace when in reality neither side said anything of the sort, is disturbing for a couple of reasons. First, it shows that Pelosi is not cut out for big-time international diplomacy. The Washington Post put it best when it characterized her efforts as "foolish."

But secondly, and this is more worrisome, it strikes me as an unconstitutional thrust by the House Speaker to usurp Executive powers. Perhaps I'm the only one who thinks it goes this far. But if Pelosi and her gang are attempting to execute diplomacy on behalf of the US, then they are treading in the President's water and attempting to speak for the country, which is clearly unconstitutional. It probably won't be played up that way by the press, but it sure appears that she's trying to do the State department's job. I'm sure Condi Rice is fuming.

At this point I cease to empathize with the Democrats and their efforts to improve the situation in Iraq. Pelosi has clearly stepped over the line and needs to be called on it.
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Wacky Washington

Posted by Mr. Anonymous on Wednesday, April 04, 2007 11:40:53 PM
Few states have as looney a leadership group as does Seattle, and Washington in general.

Interestingly, the Seattle Times would rail about the Republican dominated congress and presidency, but never about Seattle and Washington where Democrats are in charge: Seattle Mayor, Seattle City Council, King County Executive (Seattle is in King County), King County Council, Governor, both houses of the state legislature. If that's not domination, what is!

And as a result we get wonderful things like:
A light rail line that parallels the main highway (I-5), doesn't go all the way to the airport, and doesn't solve much of the transportation problem. In addition, it's costing us $1,000,000 per foot to build it!

Gridlock on the highways. No new highway has been built in the last 20 years, yet the area keeps growing and growing, adding more and more cars to the overcrowded highways. Why won't they build more roads? Because they are afraid that if they do, it will attract more people to the area and hence more traffic. Like not building the roads has prevented that. Sheesh. The other reason is that they're hoping everyone will magically abandon their cars and ride the buses or light rail. Of course, they don't have enough bus capacity, nor routes, to handle something like that, but why worry about details?

Talk of removing a couple lanes in downtown Seattle and dedicating the lanes to bikes. Anyone who has ever had to travel through downtown Seattle traffic during rush hour can tell you what a fine idea this is.

A governor who lost the election, yet wound up winning because the Democratic controlled King County managed to keep "finding" more votes until she finally won. What a travesty our last election was! Christine Gregoire lost the election on the slimmest of margins, less than 100 votes. So they "recounted" and she got close but still didn't win. Then they "found" some ballots in heavily Democratic King County and lo and behold, she won! When the Republicans brought a lawsuit over the election fiasco the judge refused to permit evidence of the illegal ballots. Over 400 ballots were found to be illegal - dead people voting, double-counted ballots, or improper registrations.

Now they want to make it easier to steal the election by: allowing registration on the same day as the election and going to all-mail voting. Can you say "voter fraud"? I knew you could.

The legislature forced a tax hike down our throats to "pay for roads and transportation." They promised us it was worth the extra "pennies" we had to pay because it would fix the Alaska Way Viaduct as well as pay for replacing the 520 floating bridge (yes, we have floating bridges here), improvements to existing roads, and more buses. Yeah, right. They now estimate the replacement cost of 520 as over $4 Billion and of course there isn't enough money to pay for it, so we'll need to raise taxes.

It's worse because they can't even decide how to replace the viaduct. Rebuild the existing elevated structure? Build a tunnel? Go to the surface streets? You'll notice that none of these options includes repairing the existing structure, which the engineers have said can be done, and would be the cheapest option of all. And of course, we have to replace the viaduct because there's a good chance it'll fall down in the next earthquake.

The legislature passed a bill to regulate masseurs of animals! Yeah, we sure needed that.

The legislature just passed a 2-year budget. "Doesn't raise a nickel in taxes!" they claim. The Republicans point out that it doesn't raise taxes because it assumes the economy is going to grow so much that they won't need to. Guess what's going to happen in next year's legislative session? Oh, you guessed.

And on and on.

And not everything is the result of the bozo politicians. The courts just decided to award $1,000,000 to protesters from the World Trade Organization (WTO) protests of a few years ago. If you didn't catch it, there was massive damage done to businesses downtown, and a virtual shutdown of the city. So, of course, you reward the protesters, right? Only in Seattle. Only in Seattle.

It's not all bad of course. The area really has some of the most beautiful country you could ever lay eyes on. Ocean, mountains, lakes, it's really got everything. Unfortunately, including some of the looniest politics you're likely to find anywhere.

I don't excuse the Republicans either. They do looney stuff on occasion too, but the Democrats make them look like pikers. Sometimes all you can do is stand there and shake your head.



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