A lesson in strategic voting

Posted by Richard

The new LA Times poll, just released tonight, shows Majority Now Favors Recall; Schwarzenegger Leads Rivals. Republicans are learning to vote with their heads and not with their hearts as they’ve been doing since nominating Lundgren. In the old days, McClintock could have won major Republican support from people thinking about purity and not about [...]

Greek Yoghurt

Posted by Richard Bennett

The angry, protesting mobs are at it again, according to the Associated Press:

Outside the U.S. Embassy in Athens, demonstrators hurled bottles and yoghurt at riot police during a rally to protest the occupation of Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
Greek yoghurt is awfully fine stuff, so maybe the message was really one of love and admiration. [...]

I learned something tonight

Posted by Richard

Watching the California recall debate tonight, I learned some things about the candidates:
1. Bustamante is a sleaze who’ll say or do anything to get elected.
2. Tom McClintock would make a great governor for Nevada.
3. Arianna’s ambition in life is to be Howard Dean’s running mate.
4. Arnie is the second coming of Ronald Reagan.
Dean really [...]

Fixing the Internet

Posted by Richard Bennett

Interesting article about the Internet’s next iteration, The Internet Reborn, via Volokh:

A grass-roots group of leading computer scientists, backed by Intel and other heavyweight industrial sponsors, is working on replacing today’s Internet with a faster, more secure, and vastly smarter network: PlanetLab.
Most of the article deals with common-sense enhancements to speed up web browsing and [...]

Signs of life

Posted by Richard Bennett

sacbee.com — Business — Pessimism on growth, jobs in state

Lieser noted there are some positive trends emerging. Exports of California goods are increasing, although computer and electronics shipments are still lagging. There are signs of life in the Bay Area, including an uptick in venture capital investments and sales of semiconductors.
“We’re seeing the early stages [...]

Sunshine Superman

Posted by Richard Bennett

Douglas W. Kmiec on Ninth Circuit & California Recall on National Review Online:

The sun shines brighter on the golden republic today because in court, law prevailed over politics, and in so doing, allowed politics to have its appointed day.
Yup.
The WSJ was disappointed by the ruling, however:

We have to confess, though, to being a tad disappointed [...]

Broadband TV takes off in Asia

Posted by Richard Bennett

Reuters reports that Asian telco now offer pay TV services:

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian phone companies are rolling out new pay TV services using their broadband Internet networks, injecting fresh competition into an industry dominated by cable and satellite operators.
The trend has taken off in Asia first because the technology is already in place: [...]

Anti-Muslim tirade

Posted by Richard Bennett

Part of President Bush’s address to the UN today was a tirade against the modern slave trade:

Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the United States is using sanctions against governments to discourage human trafficking.
The victims of this industry also need help from other members of the United Nations. And this begins with clear standards [...]

Ninth Circus slaps activist judges upside head

Posted by Richard Bennett

Here’s the opinion of the en banc panel allowing the Oct. 7th election to go forward in California. Based on yesterday’s oral arguments, they didn’t have to sweat on this one at all. Simply put, the ACLU had no case, and as good a lawyer as that Laurence Tribe character may be, he couldn’t pull [...]

California voting

Posted by Richard Bennett

The absentee ballot for Santa Clara county, CA is a punch card with numbers on the holes. Since I don’t have my own Pollstar machine, I had to punch the holes out with a pen, and remove the hanging chads by hand, per the instructions. I can see that this might be hard for an [...]