infinite improbability

Vote early and often

Correction, scratch the "often" part, that's voter fraud and we don't want that. But, if the early voting in Florida is any indication, voter turnout this year is going to be higher than its been in a long time. My dad was down at the Supervisor of Elections office this morning to help make sure that there wasn't any funny business (there have been reports of Kerry people trying to intimidate Republican voters who are waiting in line), and he estimated that it was at least a 2 hour line to vote--that's dedication for you, because this is the middle of the day, when it's hotter than hades outside. So, if you're waiting till election day to vote, it would probably be a good thing to get to the polls early and to be patient, because there might be quite a wait. Unless of course, all the early voting means that it won't be that bad on election day because everybody already went to the polls.

Man tries to run down Katherine Harris, calls it "political expression"

For those of you who don't remember, Katherine Harris was the Florida Secretary of State during the 2000 election, and is now a US Representative. This sounds like something out of the Onion, but on Tuesday, a guy who is obviously supporting her opponent tried to run her down with his car, and said of his actions "I was exercising my political expression!" and "I did not run them down, I scared them a little!" Now, where I come from, driving your car over the curb and directly at someone who is on the sidewalk waving campaign signs, only to swerve at the last minute isn't just trying to scare them a little, it's assult with a deadly weapon, and that is what the guy was charged with. This whole election season has been bizarre, and this just adds to it.

Anarchists for Kerry

No, seriously, there was a kid out waving signs for Kerry today who had some homemade anti-Bush slogan sign in one hand and a sign with nothing but an anarchy symbol in the other. Now, it's good that the kid has some sort of political interest, but I'd think that the other Kerry people who were out wouldn't want him waving around an anarchy symbol, it's not exactly good PR for Kerry when a little goth kiddie who wants anarchy is supporting him. So, are we supposed to conclude that a vote for Kerry is a vote for anarchy? Because if we are, I think that's precisely the opposite idea the campaign wants to get across to voters.

Of eclipises and the end of the world (series, that is)

The total lunar eclipse tonight is a good karmaic sign for the Red Sox. The ancients thought that eclipses were a sign of the end of the world, and since, if the Red Sox win, it will bring on the end of the world, the eclipse is signalling a victory by the Sox.

How's that for convoluted logic?

A bit of baseball history

I know that certain people, who shall remain unnamed, think that where I'm from lacks any sports tradition or ethos, and I don't want to get into that argument again. What I do want is to draw your attention to an interesting article in the Sunday Bradenton Herald about the spring training history of both the Cardinals and the Red Sox in this area.

The following is an excerpt from the article They called Manatee home in the Sunday Herald.

ROGER MOONEY

It was a start of a long love-affair between Bradenton and spring-training baseball.

Read the rest of the story.

This week's sign of the apocalypse

No, I'm not talking about the Red Sox being up two games to none in the World Series (though it might bring on the end of the world if they win), I'm talking about synthetic lawns. I suppose that fake grass is an asthetic improvement on the ugly stone lawns that some people do down here in Florida, but still, you've got FAKE GRASS IN YOUR YARD, for crying out loud!

Pray for my uncle

Please pray for my uncle, Don Allen in California. He is undergoing a heart transplant as we speak.

An open letter to Manchester United fans

Dear Manchester United fans,

I hear that you are all up in arms about Malcolm Glazer wanting to buy your beloved football team. You think he's an outsider who doesn't belong. I know how you feel, all of us in the Tampa Bay area felt the same way when he bought the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We thought he was an outsider who didn't know the team and who wouldn't spend the money he needed to. We called him and his sons Joel and Brian all sorts of names, and since I am sure you all will want to do the same when he buys your team, I'll make it easy for you and suggest some insults. Among our favorite names for his sons were "Frick and Frack" and "Tweedledum and Tweedledumber," and one of the popular suggestions was that he bought the team so that his rather nerdy looking sons could pick up women by using the line "I own a football team." Apparently, they were not successful, so now he has to go and buy them a new toy, the world's most famous football team.

Now that we have the ready made insults out of the way, I would like to point out that although we spent several years insulting everything Glazer did, it turned out that he and his boys not only know how to run a sports team, they do a very good job at it. According to The Economist, the Buccaneers, which were worth somewhere around $127 million dollars when he purchased them are now worth over $800 million dollars, which is a pretty darn good increase in value. Mr. Glazer is not loose with his spending on the team, but he is willing to spend money to improve the product (despite the fact that John Gruden and Bruce Allen are currently being idiots), and he took the team from the league laughingstock to a valuable product. You do not need to fear that Malcolm Glazer is going to destroy the storied legacy of Manchester United, he has sufficent sense not to do that, and I can almost guarantee you that in ten years, you will all be asking yourselves, "Tell me again why it was that we all complained about Glazer?" I know that's what we're doing now.

Fellowship 9/11

If you ever wondered what would have happened if Michael Moore investigated the actions of Aragorn, Gandalf and the rest of the Fellowship (or even if you didn't) this spoof of Fahrenheit 9/11 is just pretty darn funny.

Another lie from the Kerry camp

The Kerry campaign is running an ad in Florida which claims, among other things, that George Bush wants to drill for oil off of the coast of Florida. Kerry commercials have made other claims that could be argued are just distortions of Bush's position, but the oil drilling claim is a flat out lie, no matter how you slice it. Bush is not going to drill for oil off the coast of Florida, he has promised as much in his campaign speeches in Florida (I heard him in person say, "I will not allow oil drilling off the coast of Florida," which is a pretty straightforward statement), and during his time in office, he has made the rules for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico much more stringent than they were under Clinton.

Not only is Kerry lying about Bush supporting oil drilling off of Florida's coast, as I blogged about back in April, Kerry has come out saying that he supports at least some drilling off the coast of Florida himself. So, basically, the guy's a hypocrite, trying to scare Florida voters into thinking that Bush wants to destroy the environment with oil drilling, when Kerry's the guy who actually supports it (that is, if he hasn't flip flopped, which wouldn't be suprising since he's flip flopped on every other issue).

More photos

These photos are from Getty Images and I'm posting them because I'm in them.

I'm to the left of the President in the first row, holding the Bush Cheney sign and taking a picture.

Here's a picture where you can see me better, though I don't look so great because I'm squinting from the bright sun.

Bush rally photos

Here are my photos from the Bush rally yesterday.

The rest of my photos are below, and in chronological order. All photos copyright Kathryn Brightbill, Oct. 2004.

Mel Martinez is the Republican candidate for Senate in Florida

Mel Martinez

Mel Martinez

If you look closely, that's Lee Greenwood singing

Secret Service sharpshooters on a nearby building

Jeb Bush

Jeb

Jeb

President Bush

Copyright Kathryn Brightbill, Oct. 2004

Worst. Debate moderator. Ever

This is mostly of interest to Florida readers, since they were the only ones who had the chance to see it, but last night was the first debate between the two candidates for US Senate, Mel Martinez and Betty Castor, which, since this is a key election in a key state, was moderated by Tim Russert. I don't think that I've ever heard a moderator who was as bad as he was. He wasn't particularly biased towards one candidate or the other, it's just that instead of asking questions and letting each candidate answer, and being as unobtrusive as possible, it was like watching an inquisition. He'd ask a candidate a question, and then if they weren't covering the points he wanted them to, he'd interrupt to grill them. When I watch a debate, I want to see the candidates front and center, particularly when it is such a contentious race as this one is, and the attack dog style of questioning that Russert did belongs on a Sunday morning politics show or a cable news show, not on a Senatorial debate. If I wanted to see attack dog questioning, I'd watch the O'Reilley Factor.

Preview of coming attractions: This morning I went to Bush's campaign stop in St. Pete, and got some totally awesome photos (the benefits of VIP tickets, you get to be close), so I'll be posting them tonight when I get back from work.

How can there still be "undecided" voters?

If we're to believe the pollsters, somewhere around 6% of voters are still undecided whether to vote for Bush or Kerry. I can understand that there would still be undecided voters two or three months ago, but now, with less than a month to go before the election, when the two candidates have fundamental differences on so many issues, I have to say that there are no true undecideds left, just uninformed voters. You either agree with the direction Kerry wants to take the country or you agree with the direction that Bush wants to take the country, and it's pretty obvious that there are significant ideological differences between the two. If you don't know who you're voting for yet, you better go out and get informed soon. If you honestly believe that the direction that Kerry is going to take the country is the best course, then vote for him, and if you honestly believe that Bush is taking the country in the right direction, then vote for him. Just don't give me any "undecided" cr@p when you just haven't bothered to do your homework to find out what the candidates believe and haven't decided what you yourself believe. And if you honestly don't know who the best guy is, then don't go vote for one guy or another for silly reasons--either find a solid reason to support a candidate, or else stay home.

Bottom line? Be informed.

Sometimes having political connections is great

I'm psyched, my mom pulled some strings and got me a VIP ticket for President Bush's campaign stop in St. Pete on Tuesday. Only not so great thing is that it's a morning visit, so I have to leave at around 4:30 am to get up there when the doors open. Should be cool though.

TMQ printed my haiku!

In last week's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column, when Gregg Easterbrook was ranting about The Day After Tomorrow being scientifically inaccurate, he said that the temperature of space is absolute zero, which it isn't (absolute zero is limit temperatures can approach but not reach). So, I e-mailed him (one of many who did) and probably since I included a haiku, he referenced me and printed my haiku. Scroll down, it's in the "Reader Animadversion" section near the end of his extremely lengthy column.

Here's the column. So, now that I've gotten TMQ to print one of my haiku's, all I need to do is e-mail Jim Rome and get him to read it on air and my life will be complete (not really).

Another sign that the apocalypse is upon us

This woman is nuts.

Finally

Finally. The Bucs won a game, and showed some glimmers of hope in doing so, even if it was against the Saints. They did some of the little things that they didn't do in the previous four games, so maybe this means they're getting their act together. Or, maybe not, but at least I can hope.

Naming names

Tommy over at TampaBlogs asked me to expound on my rant about local politics in my random entry of a few days ago. So, what follows is a discussion on local politics in one county in Florida (Manatee County), and may or may not be of interest to most of my readers.

I'm not quite sure how much I should or shouldn't say on the issue in question because some of what I know isn't general public knowledge. The brief summary is that Donna Hayes is the Republican candidate for the Manatee County Commission District 5 seat. Hayes is also the current chair of the Manatee County Republican Executive Committee, hereafter referred to as the Executive Committee or just the Committee. Paul Sharff was the vice-chair of the Committee under Donna Hayes for a number of years, and then when Hayes decided not to run for reelection as chair, Sharff was elected. He later stepped down for "family reasons" and Hayes was elected to replace him. The part of the story that the public knows is that several weeks ago, Sharff came out and publicly endorsed the Independent candidate for the County Commission, Julie Aranibar. Sharff stated that the reason he was doing so was that Hayes had misused her office and the county Republican headquarters to gain and advantage over her primary opponents, basically accussing her of unethical behavior. Sharff's accusations are bunk.

As for what I referenced in my previous entry, basically, Sharff and Hayes disagreed on several things, including whether or not the Executive Committee should endorse one Republican candidate over another in the primaries. Hayes said no, Sharff said yes. Anyway, as an upshot of their differing opinions on that as well as other issues pertaining to the direction of the party, Sharff started trying to pack the Executive Committee with his supporters, with the result that then Hayes started recruiting her people to join. Sharff criticizes Hayes for trying to stack the Committee, but he conveniently ignores the fact that he was the one who was doing it first. Anyway, Paul Sharff is a business partner with Manatee County Sheriff Charlie Wells' wife, and is a political ally of Wells. One of the people that Sharff was trying to get on the Executive Committee was Wells' mother-in-law (the mother of Sharff's business partner). It's here that I should issue the disclaimer that I have absolutely nothing against the Sheriff's mother-in-law, from what I know of her from various political functions she's a very nice woman. (end disclaimer) If more than one person is running for Precinct Committeeman or Committeewoman, then the existing members vote to chose between the two. Before the vote when said mother-in-law was up for election on the Committee, someone (I don't know who, except that it was a Hayes supporter and not the person Sharff thinks it was) circulated a list of which person to vote for in contested precincts, and the aforementioned mother-in-law was not on the list. She ended up not being elected, and everything hit the metaphorical fan (I don't have permission to elaborate). Obviously, they haven't gotten over that event because reading between the lines, it's at the center of a lot of Sharff's criticisms of Hayes, and as I said before, it's one of the main reasons why he is doing what he's doing.

Fast forward to election year 2004, Donna Hayes decides to run for the open County Commission seat, wins the Republican primary, and suddenly instead of supporting the Republican candidate, Sharff, the Sheriff, and their buddies are suddenly actively opposing the Republican candidate for office and spreading bold faced lies about her to the media. Sharff has a massive ego and cannot stand it when something doesn't go his way, and all he gives a flip about is his own self-advancement. Hayes is a strong woman who he is unable to control, and since he can't control her and can't use her to advance himself politically, he'd rather try to destroy her, no matter what it does to the Republican party (despite claiming that he's acting in the best interests of the party). Donna Hayes is not capable of the sort of devious scheming that he's accusing her of, she's a woman who truly has the best interests of the citizens of Manatee County at heart, and she would make an excellent County Commissioner.

What I learned from the Vice Presidential debate

I learned that:

John Edwards has better hair than Dick Cheney, and although Edwards probably spends lots of money on getting it cut, my sister thinks that it looks like a Fantastic Sam's cut (I think his hair is trying to remind people of a young JFK or something). In any case, Kerry/Edwards seems to have the corner on the botox and hair "product" market. All of that tossing of footballs that they do doesn't disguise the fact that they're flaming metrosexuals.

Compared to Dick Cheney, who seems to be a walking encyclopedia, John Edwards looks like an intellectual lightweight. Also, the way answered questions without deviating from the coached script (which was obvious to me, at least) made it seem like he's incapable of having an independent thought of his own.

One word: Gravitas. Cheney has it in spades, and seeing him splitscreened with Edwards makes Edwards look like a spoiled little boy.

Kerry plays the race card

John Kerry keeps running around saying how Republicans are trying to keep blacks from voting in key states, which is a ridiculous scare tactic that is just not based in fact. The state that's under the magnifying glass the most is Florida, and I know for a fact that Republicans in Florida aren't doing anything to supress the black vote, unless Kerry considers Republicans trying to convince black voters that the Republican party will best represent their interests to be supressing the black vote. In other words, if Kerry is playing the race card as much as he's doing, the reason he's doing it is because he and his advisors are worried that Republican efforts to win over the black vote are working. Since 2000 in Florida, wooing black voters has been one of the top priorities for Republicans, and it must be working because the personal attacks that have been made by Democrats against local black Republican leaders are unprecedented. And, if Kerry and company actually think that they can scare black voters away from the Republican party with their rhetoric, they are demonstrating how little regard that they have for the intelligence of non-white voters (nobody except those who are already supporting Kerry are going to buy the argument). But then, what do you expect from a guy who's inner circle is almost entirely white? If the Bush administration hates minorities so much, then why is it that they are the ones who have minorities in real positions of power, instead of the token jobs that minorities got under Clinton, and will get under Kerry? My prediction, by the way, is that the first minority president will be a Republican, though that's a topic for another blog entry.

The reality of what happened in Florida in 2000 was that there was a certain small percentage of the population who were too stupid to figure out how to fill out a ballot, and it's not the Republicans fault that white people weren't the only stupid voters. By best record, voting stupidity in 2000 was an equal opportunity malady.

random entry

I feel as though I ought to blog about something, since I'm trying to be less sporadic in my entries, so here goes.

I've been around local and regional politics in my hometown for a good part of my life, but sometimes the level of pettiness is so great that even though I thought I'd seen it all, I'm still somewhat dumbfounded by how juvinile it can get. We've now got the former chairman of the Republican Executive Committee and the county Sheriff, both of whom have political connections reaching to the highest levels of government, actively supporting the Independent candidate instead of the Republican candidate (and current Executive Committee chair) for a local County Commission seat because a power struggle over control of the Republican Executive Committee. Power struggles happen all the time in intra-party politics, but this turned particularly nasty because the past chairman and the current chairwoman (who is the current County Commission candidate) were both trying to get their people on to the Executive Committee, and it all turned personal when the Sheriff and the past chairman got upset because the Sheriff's mother-in-law lost out to a supporter of the current chairwoman. So, all because they are mad that the Sheriff's mother-in-law didn't get on the committee, they'd rather have someone who isn't a party member elected.

And well, it doesn't make me hopeful for the future of democracy when the sort of people who run political smear campaigns just because they are mad that somebody's mother-in-law didn't get the political position that they wanted ther to have can get in positions of influence and power.

(and, hint, hint, this is one of the reasons why Josiah needs to get tampabayblogs up and running so that I can take those sorts of people on by name where people will know what I'm talking about, instead of ranting about immature behavior by politicians in generalities).

Mount St. Helens volcano cam--update: warning level raised

In case anyone's interested...

From" http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/

Update 10-2: Might want to keep an eye on this, the watch level has been raised.

No, I will not fix your computer

I want this shirt. I think that the worst thing about having a degree in computer science is that whenever anybody you know has a computer problem, no matter how small, instead of trying to fix it themselves, they come running to you. I feel like I'm enabling people in their computer illiteracy when I help them, because they're never going to learn if somebody does it for them, and the reason I know how to fix things is because I had to learn or else it wasn't going to get fixed. Ok, I'm done ranting, I feel better now.

Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!

Facts from the Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division:

Some of the known perils of Dihydrogen
Monoxide are:

Despite these dire effects, DHMO is found in every lake, river, and ocean in the world, as well as in schools, hospitals, and even your home. Something clearly needs to be done about this dangerous chemical. Join the fight against this grave threat to our health and well being.

Horsefaces

In the interests of getting cheesy burro to return Kerry's website as the first link when entered into google, I am posting this cheesy burro link. Yup, it's silly, and no, I don't think Kerry is a cheesy burro, though, come to think of it, his rather large head does look a bit like a cheesy burro.

Read more about the cheesy burro googlewhacking plan here. And, once more for good measure: cheesy burro. Ta ta for now...