9/18/03

UH OH.  BAD NEWS FOR THE ACLU

I'm taking some heat for my expressions of agreement with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision on the California recall.  My point is simple.  Equal protection under the law means that everyone's vote should have an equal chance of being counted.  Having said that, my support for the decision was based on the oft-stated "fact" that ballots cast on the punch card voting machines are more likely to be tossed than are votes cost by electronic means.

Uh ho.  Looks like this assumption is not quite right.  Two respected institutions, The  California Institute of Technology and MIT,  conducted a study of error rates with various voting machines.  Would any of you care to guess the results?  Well, you don't have to ... because I have them right here.  Here are the error rates .. the percentages of votes cast with errors, using different types of machines:

Optical scanners have an error rate of 3.3%
Touch screen systems have an error rate of 3.0%
Data Vote systems have an error rate of 3.2%
Punch Cards?  They have an error rate of 2.5% ... the best of the bunch.

Isn't that just typical of the way things go today?  Those evil punch card voting machines turned out to be the most error free of the machines in use today.  The full 9th Circuit Court will have this information when considering the earlier decision of its three judge panel.  We could see a reversal here.

WHAT ARE THE POLLS REALLY SAYING?

Leftists are proudly celebrating polls showing that an "unnamed Democrat"  would beat George Bush in 2004.  Well, guess what?  There will be no "unnamed Democrat" on the ballot in 2004.  The Democratic candidate will be named, and as soon as the name is known to the voters things don't look quite so good.

Examples:  In the latest polls where Democratic candidates are actually named Bush beats Kerry and Dean by 15%, Gephardt and Gore by 12%, Lieberman by 11%, and Hitlary by 10%.  The others, Brown, Sharpton and Kucinich aren't named because their candidacies are regarded as jokes and they don't have a chance in hell, as they say.

There will be much more news about various polls every single day before the election next November.  Candidates are going to watch these polls and modify positions as they go along.  Here's one thing you won't learn reading the New York Times or The Washington Post, or listening to CNN. It's a historical look at presidential polling.

First, every single incumbent president (Bush is the incumbent, for those of you who graduated from government schools) has been behind in the polling moving to reelection.  This goes for Reagan, Clinton and for George Bush (41) when he was Reagan's vice president.

You are hearing much made of Bush's declining approval numbers.  At the same point in his first term Ronald Reagan's approval ratings were lower than Bush's are now .. at 47%.  Clinton's approval ratings were even lower, at 44%.

So ... while the joyous leftists in the media are trumpeting Bush's low poll numbers, it might give you some comfort to know that they're higher than either Reagan's or Clinton's at the same time in their presidency.

PLYWOOD

There was quite a demand for plywood along the Virginia and North Carolina border earlier this week.  Do you think it would have been OK If I had rented a truck, loaded that truck with plywood at Atlanta prices, and then drove that truck to North Carolina to sell that plywood with a 100% markup?  That would make me evil, right?  How dare I try to make a profit from the agony of these poor people in the path of Isabel?

Somehow we've adopted the idea that the law of supply and demand should be set aside when the demand is based on need.  You should only make profits on things that people don't actually need.  You hear this often from people calling for socialized medicine.  They just don't think that it's right that evil pharmaceutical companies, medical service providers and hospitals should actually make money off of sick people. 

America has become the all time champion of civilized man in meeting the needs of people ... and it is because of our system of free enterprise and economic freedom that allows one to use their creative energies and the laws of supply and demand to grow their wealth.  No other system, including socialism, has done as well.  It's time to celebrate, not condemn, those who make a profit by identifying a need and then taking extraordinary measures to meet it.

MAKING MY POINT

Yesterday I told you that many people will refuse to evacuate their homes along the Virginia and North Carolina coastlines because of the problems they know they will have with government officials when they try to get back.  Yesterday my point was made when one jurisdiction in the path of Isabel informed residents that once they left their homes they "would not be allowed to return."  Given the choice, and only a Cat-2 storm, I'm staying.

FREE PLUG

I think I have discovered what may be the most beautiful spot in Georgia.  It's in the North Georgia mountains near Clayton, a place called Waterfall.  This is quite possibly the most beautiful, and certainly the most challenging golf course I've played in many years.  Click here for a look.  By the way, I didn't get home until 8:30 last night from this marvelous round of golf ... thus the limited notes today.  Suffer.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

Will The Hildabeast be a candidate for president in 2004?  Yesterday Bill Clinton said that his so-called "wife" really hasn't made up her mind yet.  Some people in New York are somewhat surprised that Hillary is even considering the race, given her pledge to serve the entire six-year term as New York's senator.  Anyone who believed Hitlary when she made that promise is a profound fool.  She's a liar.  Ignore that fact at your peril.

Ann Coulter, who wrote the book "Traitors," is now prepared to name one. It's the publisher of The New York Times.  If giving aid and comfort to the enemy is the definition of treason, Ann Coulter may have a point.

Now here's a good question, though a bit insensitive.  Yasser Arafat is a terrorist.  He is the roadblock to the roadmap.  Israel wants him out of the way.  There have even been suggestions that they should kill him as they have done with so many Hamas leaders.  Why is that such a bad idea?

Wesley Clark is absolutely surrounded by Clintonistas helping him with his new presidential candidacy.  This is rather unusual considering the fact that Clark obviously had no friends in the White House during the Clintonista regime.

Actually, Emmett Tyrrell has a somewhat better idea for Arafat.  Remove him from his battered compound and pack him off to France.

George Will says that  "Letting California ferment as a cautionary example of vulgar democracy would be best for California. The more unseemly the recall becomes, the better are the odds that Californians might shrug off self pity over their self-inflicted sufferings and make a wise choice, for a change."  Californians making a wise choice?  I want front-row seats for this one.

Did Saddam Hussein provide sanctuary for one of the Islamic terrorists accused in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Towers?  No matter what proof we have, Democrats will still find a way to make Saddam look like a innocent victim of Bush aggression.

What it the sentence for killing two police officers and a security guard in the robbery of an armored car?  Evidently the sentence is 22 years in jail.  Three people dead, and you get 22 years.  That's just a bit over seven years per life. 

Yesterday I told you that former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich was calling for a war tax on the rich to pay for the action in Iraq.  Well, a former Clintonista speaks and Democrats jump.  Now Delaware Democratic Senator Joseph Biden has taken the idea to Capitol Hill.

NEALZ LINKS FOR NUZE

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
World Net Daily
NewsMax
Wall Street Journal opinions
Washington Times
Washington Post
Real Clear Politics
Media Research Center
The Drudge Report
The Associated Press
SF Gate