Separation Is Good

Found at the excellent blog What Would Jack Do?

Our Troops Are Fighting For This ?

The Afghanis just had a national election last Thursday. They haven't finished counting the votes, so it is not known which cheater was the most effective. Yes, I said "cheater", because this was anything but a fair and free and democratic election.

Mirwais Yassini, deputy speaker of the lower house of parliament and one of over 30 people who ran for president, said he believes that both of the two main contenders are involved in widespread election fraud. He is talking about current president Hamid Karzai and his main opponent Abdullah Abdullah.

It looks like Mr. Yassini is right. The Afghanistan Free and Fair Election Foundation (AFFEF) has cited instances of "stuffed ballot boxes, illiterate voters being told who to vote for and biased officials." The AFFEF's "provisional report also details accounts of multiple voting, underage voting and election officials being ejected from polling stations by representatives of candidates."

The AFFEF sent 7,000 observers all around the country. The observers said "threats of violence against voters came from local powerbrokers, the Taliban and rival political camps."

Meanwhile, the observer mission from the European Union said "the election was well organised and was a victory for the Afghan people." With everything else that's been reported, I have to wonder just how far their heads were buried in the sand. Obviously, they were there to rubber-stamp the election -- not to see it was run properly.

Is this the wonderful democracy our American soldiers are dying for? We already knew of the anti-women laws they recently passed. Now it looks like there won't really be a legitimate winner in the election, and therefore won't be a legitimate leader for Afghanistan -- no matter how many votes are counted.

Frankly, none of the candidates running or leaders already in office is worth the life of a single American soldier. It is time to either declare victory or admit defeat (you choose) and get all of our soldiers out of Afghanistan.

And while we're at it, let's get all our soldiers out of Iraq -- now.

Public Options

Political Cartoon is by Mike Keefe in The Denver Post.

I've Joined The "Apple Army"

Since my desk-top computer quit on me a couple of years ago, I've been making do with an Acer Aspire 5315 laptop. I bought it new a couple of years ago for $350 dollars, and it's served me pretty well. But now it's starting to fill the screen with purple and blue lines every now and then, and they won't go away until I tap the computer a few times. Obviously, it was time to either try and get it repaired or just replace it.

So today, I went computer shopping. I came home with a brand new Apple MacBook (like the one pictured above). I've been wanting to try a Mac for a while now, so while I've got a few bucks I went out and splurged. It's the bottom of the Apple line, but it was all the money I could talk myself into spending. I'm still proud of it, and I think it's all I'll need.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to use the darn thing!

The American Way ?

Political Cartoon is by Stuart Carlson in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The Nature Of Blue Dogs

Found at the humorous site Seeds of Doubt.

Blogger Anonymity

Pittgirl was the pseudonym of a very popular Pittsburgh blogger. People enjoyed her comedic efforts and her verbal jabs at city government. But there are always those (probably jealous) individuals who want to hurt or bring down anyone doing well. Pittgirl knew her identity had been compromised, so she revealed it on her blog.

It turns out she was Virginia Montanez, a 35 year-old married mother of two. After she revealed her identity, her employer fired her. She had worked for a nonprofit called the Negro Educational Emergency Drive in Pittsburgh. Her former-employer won't say why they fired her.

Recently in Alaska, 43 year-old political blogger Jeanne Devon was outed by an Alaskan legislator (who should be ashamed of his cowardly actions). Her blog was called The Mudflats and she exposed right wing skullduggery in the northernmost state. Another Alaskan blogger, who writes The Immoral Minority, had anonymous right-wingers calling the school where the blogger worked. Regardless of political affiliation, these kinds of threatening actions should not be tolerated by anyone.

I started out blogging with a pseudonym myself, because I wasn't sure how my employer would react to my blog. But I finally decided that as a political blogger, I might have more credibility if I used my real name. But that was my own personal choice, and I fully understand why a blogger might want to keep his/her real name a secret (especially a woman-- it's shocking the kinds of abuse and threats aimed at females). The use of a pseudonym should be a personal choice of a blogger (who knows his/her own situation) and not a target of inferior intellects.

Take for instance, what happened to Montanez. All you have to write is one thing that your boss doesn't like and suddenly you're jobless. There are also nuts out there who will harrass and even threaten or hurt a blogger, just because they disagree with them and don't have the intelligence, wit or education to spar with them in a comment section of the blog.

Personally, I think anyone who resorts to name-calling, threats, outing a blogger or trying to get a blogger fired from their job is a SCUMBAG and a COWARD (and if you'll notice, they usually do it anonymously). Frankly, if you can't handle someone else's opinion and don't have the tools to present your own side, maybe you should just keep your mouth shut and stop reading the blogs. Name-calling, threats and outing someone just shows your lack of an argument.

I have a right-winger who comments on my blog often using a pseudonym. We've had some fun arguments. But I would never consider outing his real identity (even though I know it). I simply do not have the right to try and harm him or get him fired by releasing his real name. That would make me a snitch and a coward, and I was raised to not respect either.

That's what I think. My name is Ted McLaughlin and I live in Amarillo (and that's my picture above). I say what I want on this blog, and if you don't like that it's your problem. I've lived too long and experienced too much to care.

P.S. -- By the way, if your comment is nothing more than name-calling or threatening or has racist content, don't expect to see it -- it won't be approved. And I don't care what you think about that either!

The Bullies

Political Cartoon is by R.J. Matson in The New York Observer and Roll Call.

Cowboys Look Better This Week

Well, the Dallas Cowboys have two pre-season games under their belt now. Last week they played the Oakland Raiders in Oakland. The starting team looked OK, but they only played for most of the first quarter. When the subs came into the game, everything fell apart. The second and third stringers couldn't find their own ass with both hands -- on offense or defense. It was demoralizing to a true Cowboys fan.

This week was much better. They played their first game in their new stadium (and played a much better team than last week -- Tennessee Titans). Once again the first string looked very good on both offense and defense. They played the whole first half and finished the first half with a lead after going on a 53 second scoring drive right before the half ended.

But even more encouraging was the play of the second and third stringers. The offense put another two touchdowns on the board. The defense scored a safety and kept Tennessee off the scoreboard. It looks like the young guys have made a lot of progress in the last week.

At least, I hope so. If the injury bug strikes, we may need some of those young guys to step up and play well.

Toss Them Out !

Political Cartoon is by Pat Bagley in the Salt Lake Tribune.

Of Course They Exist !

Looks like there are atheists in foxholes after all. From the excellent blog of The Good Atheist.

Amarillo's Republican Newspaper

There are several Texas newspapers that are slanted to one political view or the other. But you usually don't realize it until you get to the editorial page. They try to do their news fairly, and keep their personal or company views in the editorial section. I don't mind that too much, because I can still get most of the news about both political parties. If I don't like the paper's political slant, I can just avoid the editorial section.

But the Amarillo Globe News doesn't do it that way. Their decidedly right-wing Republican slant is obvious even on what they "call" the news pages. Yesterday's paper was a reminder of this.

A few weeks ago, Tom Schieffer, an official candidate for governor in the Democratic Party, came to Amarillo to campaign. Three television stations, the Amarillo Independent (weekly) newspaper and this blog covered his appearance. But where was Amarillo's only daily newspaper? They were missing.

I was flabbergasted that the community's only daily newspaper could completely ignore the visit of a viable gubernatorial candidate, but they did. They obviously don't believe in providing both sides of a story to their readers -- only the right-wing side.

This was brought home again yesterday. Another gubernatorial candidate came to Amarillo to campaign -- Kay Bailey Hutchinson. The only difference is she's a right-wing Republican. You can bet they did not ignore Ms. Hutchison's visit! They sent both a reporter and a photographer, and there was a very nice write-up in the paper.

I hate being ashamed of my hometown newspaper, but what else can I be when they are so obvious about their bias?

Retire Already !

Political Cartoon is by Cameron (Cam) Cardow in The Ottawa Citizen.

christianity

From the excellent blog What Would Jack Do?