Drinking Liberally®

The Dems didn't just grab both U.S. Houses, they also made great gains with Governorships and State Legislatures. This is the story not being widely reported by the national news. There's a great analysis over at Daily Kos. Lots of pretty maps!

Posted by wdpankow at 02:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Not sure what's in store now that the Dems have taken over both houses of Congress? I think it was best described in this pre-election warning from Stephen Colbert:

"...A world where the Constitution gets trampled by an army of terrorist clones, created in a stem-cell research lab run by homosexual doctors who sterilize their instruments over burning American flags. Where tax-and-spend Democrats take all your hard-earned money and use it to buy electric cars for National Public Radio and teach evolution to illegal immigrants. Oh, and everybody's high!"

We deserve a good laugh after the past 5+ years.

Posted by wdpankow at 01:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

In general, news & blogs have been quiet this year on voting irregularities- most probably because those of us that make stink are usually on the losing side of the battle. Given the good news from last week in taking the House & the Senate back, we're sitting much nicer to do some actual reform to the way we handle one of our most basic democratic institutions.

In particular: GET A PAPER TRAIL. When 18,000+ votes go missing, I'd say it's time someone really looks into the fact that a large portion of our voting machines are produced by a company owned by someone highly partisan. Never mind the fact that said company (Diebold) also makes ATMs that the general public would go ballistic over if it didn't produce a receipt.

Posted by carden at 01:03 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

The long-awaited editorial in Military Times newspapers is here. It appears in all 4 publications:

ArmyTimes
NavyTimes
AirForceTimes
MarineTimes

The online comments are worth a look.

Posted by wdpankow at 01:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tuesday is Election Day. Make the most of it:

1. VOTE! (most important)
2. Volunteer
3. Attend Drinking Liberally at Player's Retreat, where we will be watching the returns come in and, hopefully, celebrating.

Posted by wdpankow at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the United States Central Command portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos, in a chart that the military is using as a barometer of civil conflict.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/world/middleeast/01military.html

Meanwhile, the House Majority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) knows where the blames surely lies. Not with Rumsfeld, but with the generals. This is not sitting very well with the troops.

Posted by wdpankow at 05:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

As more and more higher ups in the current administration are starting to get the concept that Iraq is becoming un-winnable, a couple of news articles yesterday tell a tale of a much more serious problem:

Manhattan security company Kroll withdraws from Iraq

Bechtel pulls out after 3 rough years

You know your war is going badly, when your hired bodyguards and/or mercenaries think it's too dangerous to still be there. Seeing as how most of these companies work on a cost-plus model (incurred costs + percentage profit), that means that not only is it too dangerous, they're willing to give up guarenteed profit to get out of there.

Posted by carden at 11:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)