101 Ways Fonda Can Redeem Herself

This post has been bumped to aquire more fondness for Fonda.

"Hanoi" Jane Fonda claims she has found God and now realizes the error of her ways when she was young. She says she really loves the military and always has. It was just some childhood stuff that she took further than she ever intended. Really, we should accept her apology and feel sorry for her because of the tragic threesome she was forced to endu...

*thump*

*ca-chung-chug-bump*

*THUD!*

Sorry about that. I got dizzy and fell down from rolling my eyes too much.

I'm sure it's blatantly obvious that she could care less about the troops and she's only looking to make a quick buck off of her book. She's not even remotely sorry for what she did. If she were really sorry for what she did she could have really done something to show it. In fact, I have compiled a partial list of things that would redeem her in the eyes of many Americans.

101 Ways Fonda Can Redeem Herself

1. Have her ashes shot from a cannon, like Gonzo...only while still alive.
2. Take all of the proceeds from her book sales and donate them to Vietnam veteran (The American ones) based charities.
3. Give all willing Vietnam vets a chance at their own threesome. Heck, maybe they could just run a train on her.
4. Force her to marry her long lost lover, John F. Kerry, for life. Her only reprieve would be if she could get him to sign his DD-180.
5. Burn herself in Tienanmen Square.
6. She could uncover and capture Osama Bin Laden
7. Send a hand written letter to every Vietnam veteran, living or dead, apologizing for her behavior. Each page would need to be at least one page in length or contain one genuine tear of her sorrow.
8. Re-marry Ted Turner. - by: Tran Sient
9. She should have to spend time in a locked room with the mothers, daughters, wives, and sisters of those tortured and killed because of her big mouth, tiny brain, and nonexistent heart. - By: Patty-Jo
10. Check herself into the Hanoi Hilton until each and every living Vietnam Vet provides her with a personal letter of forgiveness. - By: Ogre
11. How about watching Barbarella continuoulsy for the exact same time that all Americans were held POW from 64 to the last returning POW? - By: GMRoper
12. How about funding college for the grandkids of those who died in the Hanoi Hilton. - By: GMRoper
13. How about giving everything she owns away and living as a cloistered nun in comtiplative prayer for the next 150 years? - By: GMRoper
14. Liquidate all of her assets and divide the money among the families of all those who lost their life in Vietnam and then die bitch die! - By: David Holtz
15. Well, we could put her on a deserted island with the sexual predator-in- chief Slick Willie and see how long she can resist his persistent charms. - By: Billy Budd
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As you can see I didn't go the full 101. I'm looking for the good citizens of the blogosphere to help me out on this. So send me your tired, your poor, your huddled crasses. I am now accepting all input from anyone. If it goes over 101 then so be it. I managed to grab seven off the cuff and I wasn't even born during Vietnam. I'm sure some of you out there have much better zingers and much better experience. (any and all responses will gain a link to your blog as well.)

Stress sucks

Well, I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be able to get done this week. I'm going to be rather busy with things. What things you may ask?

1. I need to get my last class registered (which is overbooked) so I can graduate. Did I mention that today is the last day of registration?

2. The IRS wants $910 for tax year 2003 because they recieved a W2 from the Navy I left in 2002. Calling the Navy (DFAS Cleveland) they informed me that I owe 1,900 due to overpayment. I need to call DFAS Denver (Which is cloded today due to a blizzard.) in order to fix my W2 because they were the ones who sent out the fraudulent W2.

3. My subcontractor was dropped from our contract and we need to put in our resumès to the primary contractor if we want to keep our jobs. It's not too big of a deal but employment concerns are always very stressfull.

4. Wait for the next thing to break in the house. If anyone out there owns a home you will understand what I'm talking about. We've just been through some circuit breakers (small cost but big stress if you don't know what it is. We thoght the water heater had gone out.) and a complete replacement of our AC and Heat pump system. A crack was fixed in our car window today as well. What's next?
5. The thing I forgot. There's always something.

Please pray for the job to offer me a huge raise and everything else to work itself out the way the lord had intended.

Stress sucks.

MOOOving to greener pastures.

Within a week or so I shall have my new digs ready to go. I have recived my passport for Munuviana!

Right now it's just a blank canvas waiting to be painted. I shall have to change that first. For those that want to prepare your links you can direct the new ones to:

http://www.warmonger.mu.nu

I'm also thinking of buying http://www.warmonger.us (sort of a play on URLs)
Do you think that's the right one? Let me know.

Freedom from hospice

I'm sure everyone's heard that Mae has been released from the hospice and sent to a hospital where she has been recieving the proper care she deserves. If we're lucky, we'll get a note of thanks from Mae herself in a few weeks, once she has recovered.

We have real issues in America when things like this happen with frequency. I'm sure that for this one life we assisted in saving there are probably twenty out there that we never even heard of. Is this the America that we should be expected to live in? Are judges, with or without a law degree, considered gods of their own creation?

Something is wrong with the way things work and I hav no answers on how to fix it. Does anyone know for sure what needs to be done? Is it the judges? The hospices? Is it us?

Blogger News Network goes Google News

Yes, it's official. After some wrangling with the code of BNN it is now accessible through Google News. We went live while we were all sleeping last night. Today is a good day for BNN and bloggerdom in general.

Let me begin by saying that no average aggregator blog can become a news source. I need real content outside of repeating what other people say in order to become Googleworthy. Even the likes of Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit and Little Green Footballs have been unable to get in on the grounds of not having enough original material. Well, that's all we're about, original reporting material.

So what does this mean for BNN?

It means we should be expecting more hits from Google than ever before. If you are capable of wording things appropriately you can get your story read by more people by being more relevant to their search. The more relevant we are to their searches the more hits we get. Remember, the more hits we get the more likely people are to click the obligatory link back to your own site, meaning more traffic for your own blog.

This also means that we are more of a legitimate company to businesses looking to advertise on news services. We're official now. We can be considered real news and be able to leverage that point with advertisers. No longer are we just those rascally bloggers in their pajamas. Now we're rascally bloggers in pajamas with credentials.

This leads to yet another potential benefit: We could call ourselves official press. I am currently unclear of what makes a press corps person official or not. Are there dues to be paid? Do we need little "press" badges? (Badges! We don't need no stinking badges!) I'm sure that at the current time there are locations that will take the fact that Goggle accepts us as news as admission of a real source and allow us the same privileges based on that. Others will not be as easy. I'm sure that if one of us tried to claim press at the White House press room we would be laughed at, but that might not always be the case.

We are not quite there as of yet. We need to push our bounds, do interviews with who we can and act as official press when we have the opportunity. Town hall meetings, public announcements and other press related avenues are merely a stone's throw away. There will come a day that your everyday blogger will be given the opportunity to ask the President a question, as press.

Cross-posted at: BNN

UPDATE: BNN hit the front page next to CNN. Here's the image. Robert Hayes has one up as well.

Granddaughter legally yanks grandma's feeding tube against wishes of living will

Is this Worldnetdaily story true? Is Mae Magouirk being murdered at a hospice? Oh, I'm sorry. That's the wrong word. Allow me to be PC: euthanized against her written wishes by her granddaughter.

Maybe this story is complete junk and maybe it isn't. All I see so far is a single article from a single paper. Here are a few choice tidbits:

Mae Magouirk was neither terminally ill, comatose nor in a "vegetative state," when Hospice-LaGrange accepted her as a patient about two weeks ago upon the request of her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy, 36, an elementary school teacher.

Also upon Gaddy's request and without prior legal authority, since March 28 Hospice-LaGrange has denied Magouirk normal nourishment or fluids via a feeding tube through her nose or fluids via an IV. She has been kept sedated with morphine and ativan, a powerful tranquillizer.
...
Todd explained that Gaddy had only a financial power of attorney, not a medical power of attorney, and Magouirk's living will carefully provided that a feeding tube and fluids should only be discontinued if she was comatose or in a "vegetative state" – and she was neither.

Maybe I can get a power of attorney to mow Michael Moore's lawn and do the same to him? Is that all that's needed? A quick power of attorney for anything?

The dehydration is being done in defiance of Magouirk's specific wishes, which she set down in a "living will," and without agreement of her closest living next-of-kin, two siblings and a nephew: A. Byron McLeod, 64, of Anniston, Ga.; Ruth Mullinax, 74, of Birmingham, Ala.; and Ruth Mullinax's son, Ken Mullinax.
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In her living will, Magouirk stated that fluids and nourishment were to be withheld only if she were either comatose or "vegetative," and she is neither. Nor is she terminally ill, which is generally a requirement for admission to a hospice.
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According to Mullinax, his aunt's local cardiologist in LaGrange, Dr. James Brennan, and Dr. Raed Agel, a highly acclaimed cardiologist at the nationally renowned University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center, determined that her aortic dissection is contained and not life-threatening at the moment.

Okay, so Mullinax says the doctors said this. Where were the doctors for comment? Couldn't we get a statement from them?

Gaddy, however, was not dissuaded. When Ken Mullinax and McLeod showed up at the hospice the following day, April 1, to meet with Todd and arrange emergency air transport for Magouirk's transfer to the University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center, Hospice-LaGrange stalled them while Gaddy went before Troup County, Ga., Probate Court Judge Donald W. Boyd and obtained an emergency guardianship over her grandmother.

This is just way too confusing. Is the only thing stopping this woman from consciousness a judge granting someone complete custodianship based on the sole testimony of a granddaughter? So you're telling me that if I can slip a twenty under the judges robes (or a hot blonde) I can get some old person the hospice treatment? Maybe we really need to rethink the judicial system in this country. While they ask for the citizens of America to foot the bill for their home security they give us reason to want to violate that home security. Is this what I'm seeing or is there a piece missing from this case?

I see only one possible avenue of truth that could be derived from this. Was Mae Magouirk lucid or vegetative upon her removal from the hospital illegally? (Yes, it was illegal. Her granddaughter did not have the proper authority at the time. She effectively granny-napped her.) If she were vegetative then I could understand this. It would be a granddaughter carrying out the wishes of an old lady that wants to go. If she was lucid then we have judicially assisted murder by way of hospice.

Cross Posted at: BNN

Potentially my last Terri post

Today I recieved an e-mail from Corie Schweitzer at Insane Troll Logic. At first I thought to myself that this was going to be another one of those things that would make me want to smack another right to lifer upside the head for not knowing when to quit. Fortunately, she had the sense to come at this from an intelligent angle. For that I commend her.

This whole fight should never have been about "right to life" vs. "right to death". It should have been about "right to choice". Her entire article outlines the bull in several states, particularly Texas, that removes one's right to choice in America. She prings to light the fact that most states carry laws that do not reflect a person's own interests but the interests of what some doctor would want.

Go read to whole thing: LINK

P.S. I would be posting about Mae Magouirk as well, but I haven't done enough to look into it yet.

Five Questions Meme

William Teach over at Pirate's Cove hooked me up with the five questions meme. This is how it goes:

1. Leave me a comment saying “interview me”. The first five commenters will be the participants.
2. I will respond by asking you five questions.
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some.)

Here were the five questions. I'll split them up into separate posts. Anyone who knows me understands that I have this problem with my fingers: there is no off button.

1. If you could be any superhero, which one would you be?
Kyle Raynor, the new Green Lantern.

Everyone loved Hal Jordan as Green lantern. I hated his guts to the core. He was some smart jock hotshot that was given everything. He took advantage of it and never paid a price. It was a bad example of the cool group.

The Kyle Raynor style GL is different. For him it runs off of his creativity. Whatever he can make in his mind it can happen with his ring. I think that would be absolutely awesome for me. Being a big geek, I've actually laid awake at night imagining what I could have done with the GL ring in this or that situation. It makes anything that you can dream up. It feeds off of your imagination. That has got to be the coolest superpower that money can buy. Not even for the "anything at your fingertips" aspect of things, but for the inventive, thought provoking nature of it.

Question 2 (This is the long one.)

2. How would you spend the perfect day?
10:00 AM - My wife wakes me up with an ice cold beer. (I'm about 30 pounds lighter and not worried about gaining weight.) We talk about meaningless plans to go absolutely nowhere on the island and how our son is having such a great time back in Washington with Grandma. She continues to be amazed at how well he can read and how well behaved he is.

10:10 AM - She finishes the last three or four gulps of beer in genuine "chug" fashion and ends up with that little drizzle of beer run down the left side of her neck, between her tanned, supple breasts, catch the corner of the small crevasse under the one on the left and become absorbed underneath it. (Oh, did I mention she was naked?)

I eagerly, yet delicately, take one slow lick that spans the bottom of her breast, slowly up her chest, along her tender neck and end at the corner of her lips where we end in a long thirsty kiss and embrace. We have wild, passionate monkey-sex until we both explode, panting heavily and sweating profusely.

10:11 AM - Just kidding.
10:30 AM - She gets up after a couple of minutes on her back catching her breath and walks out the door, still nude. She stops at the doorway, looks back over her shoulder with the bottle in her hand and says "go back to sleep."

11:20 AM - She wakes me up with a single spoonful of food. I taste some meat, probably pork, cheesy and several other things that I am too asleep to try and recognize. All I know is she is working on yet another meal that is par for her course...which is nothing short of phenomenal, four star, experimentation.

I give her the thumbs up as I try to fathom the taste she's just put in my mouth and she skitters towards the door again. I hear something sizzling louder in the background. Before she leaves the room I manage to swallow quickly and blurt out "that's excellent honey!" before she leaves the room. Again she stops at the doorway, and blurts out "go shower."

11:25 AM - While in the shower I try and remember if she was wearing anything other than her cooking apron. I vision was pretty foggy and could have been mistaken, but it appeared she had not put any clothes on other than her apron to protect her while she was cooking yet.

11:45 AM - Nope, I wasn't mistaken. I find her on all fours cleaning up something sticky that had fallen on the kitchen floor with a Clorox wipe. Since it's sticky, she's scrubbing a little and making that irresistible body movement that has gotten many a man ogle many a woman without even know they're ogling. She stops, turns her head back to look at me and gives me a giddy, approving nod. (Use your imagination.)

12:15 PM - By this time we've cleaned up and at least found underwear and tee-shirts. Fortunately, the concoction she made up for lunch was in the crock pot and ready to eat.

She pulls a bottle of chardonnay from the refrigerator, pulls the stopper off, (It had been opened the night before.) and pours us each a glass with what looks like white chili but isn't. We talk about our plans for that evening and laugh about a few things. She hands me a list of things she needs me to pick up in the village. She explains that she has to go to the other side of the island to pick something up and it would just be faster that way. There's no real rush, it just needs to be done by six, when we go out.

12:45 PM - Fully dressed in one of those flowery summer dresses, my wife goes out to pick up her items. One the way out we exchange a slow, close kiss and she gives me a quick grab and a look as she heads out the door. I decide it's about time to check my blog and do some World of Warcraft.

12:50 PM - 100,000 hits! Alright! I guess it was the right thing to send those social issue solutions off to congress after all. Who would have thought we could get a unanimous vote of confidence in both the House and Senate? The French might even adopt the idea.

*Yawn*

I'll check my e-mail tomorrow. I'm sure none of it's going anywhere. I'm glad Glenn Reynolds volunteered to guest blog on American Warmonger. He's so kind and eager to help out since I converted him from worshiping Satan. He even got Markos to help out!

It's time for some hardcore troll killing...Warcraft style...Level 61? Oh hey! they created a new level just for me! How kind of Blizzard!

- Time Passes -

04:00 PM - Man that was fun! I didn't think you could take on a monster like that by yourself and WIN! Utterly amazing! Well, I better go out to the village or no nookie for me tonight!

04:15 PM - I run around through the shops, picking things up wherever they're needed. Somehow I end up with one of those coconut drinks with way too many umbrellas as I meander my way through the little vendor shops. For some reason there's a bungee jumping place. I've never tried it and have always wanted to. It only takes about ten minutes out of my schedule and was well worth it. Woo Hoo! That was such a rush! I'll have to rub it in to my mom. (She was deathly afraid that if I tried it the cord would break so she forbade me from trying it at every opportunity I ever had.)

04:50 PM - After collecting all of the stuff, apparently for tomorrow's lunch, I take the water route back to the beach house. Crisp blue water is lapping at my ankles as I stroll along the beach without a care in the world. For some reason I have a Corona in one hand and the bag of groceries in the other. It's not one of those brown paper bags that are awkward to handle or the plastic ones that cut your hands. It's the kind you bring from home, with the nice leather handle that's easy to carry no matter how much stuff is in it.

05:00 PM - I arrive at the beach house, drop the stuff on the kitchen counter and hear the water running in the bathroom. She's home and she's in the shower. I take a quick peek at the clock.

Yep, we've got time. Fortunately, we upgraded our bungalow to one with a deluxe open shower. You know, the kind that's not just a tub with a nozzle. It has about four jets with a couple of seats. I really love the feel of her skin when it's wet and soapy like that.

05:10 PM - Yep, I told her it would be quick. We're both satisfied and that's what counts. Time to get dressed up to go out.

05:20 PM - Okay, I'm ready to go. My wife has just started putting on makeup. She's not going to put on much tonight since it's been warm out. I guess that gives me some time to play around online for a while. Maybe I can scan through my e-mail now.

*Click* *click*

My, that was nice of Markos to handle all of the hate mail for me. I guess someone who's been dealing in hate for so long would have a talent for being able to remove it. It's good that he's changed.

Let me check a few blogs since I have time. Hey, Rusty, Teach and Roper are going to be the new Deans at Harvard, Yale and Stanford! That's just as good as when DC was named the new director of homeland security. Jane started it all when she was named editor in chief of the NYT. She paved the way for less bias and more truth to come out in the world. I just love it when my friends succeed.

06:01 PM - Ding Dong! Hey, it looks like the limo's here. So where's my wa- WOW! I know she looks great all the time but that dress is just stunning! We're ready to go to dinner now. I'm so glad we rented the big limo. It would have been such a let down for my first time in a limo being packed like sardines in the back. (No, I've never been in a limo.)

07:30 PM - After the nice champagne treatment in the limo and the enjoyment of the company of around ten of my good friends we've crossed the ferry back to the mainland and found our way the restaurant. I have no idea how much this is supposed to cost, I'm just glad that Tony Blair decided to pick up the tab. I hope nobody spits anything when I ask about the spotted dick.

09:00 PM - Man, I've never had that before. That was the most incredible food with the most incredible wine I've ever had. I should have warned that guy with the violin not to come over. I hope the string marks wear off of his face. It just felt so good to beat one of those annoying guys down like that. Well, it's time to go to the club. It's my birthday and everyone's buying for me!

09:30 PM - It was so nice of Tony to reserve the VIP room for us. It's too bad he couldn't stay. He was a real card, that one. Alas, leading a country does have its disadvantages.

Well, now to the club. We dance until about 11:30 PM when my wife whispers in my ear that she has a special surprise waiting.

11:30 PM - We go up to the roof of the club and there's a helicopter primed and waiting for us. Luckily, that new drug that came out which prevents you from getting too drunk while maintaining a comfortable buzz was available to me on the market. It really works wonders. That company was such a wise investment when it was trading for $0.10 a share. Now that they've split even ten times and are sitting at $100 a share I'm really kicking myself for only putting in $10,000. (That comes out to $51,200,000 dollars for those with no calculator.)

11:55 PM - After a beautiful ride the two of us arrive back at the bungalow beach house. We scamper inside out of the chopper's wash and into the house. She starts to giggle a little bit as she leads me to the room that I haven't been allowed to go into all week. She tells me to wait at the door as she's stripping off clothes down the hallway. She enters the mystery room with a quick glance back and a giggle as if she knows something, enters the room and locks the door.

11:59 PM - I hear the click of the lock opening and her voice saying "Okay. It's time. Are you ready? I'm ready, come on in." I stand there with a look of utter amazement like none I haven't had since I was a small child. It's incredible! It's amazing! It's...

12:00 AM

I'm sorry, you only asked for a day. That's all there is in a day. It's over now. Go home and make your own dreams happen. I'm still working on mine.

(Honestly, I absolutely love surprises. The end is perfect for me.)

Question 3

3. You have 5 minutes with Tony Blair: what do you ask him?
Five minutes, hrm. That's about five quick questions. Here goes:

1. Is the British media completely blind to concepts outside of ultra liberal or is that just how it looks to America? Are there papers that we don't get press about that are completely conservative?
2. Why, after all of the ridicule you have received, did you have the faith to stick by George W. Bush even though it could have cost you the next election?
3. Have you ever wanted to just kick another head of state squarely in the nuts, and if so who would it be? Chirac? Putin? Schroeder? Someone else?
4. I know that many politicians are simply reacting to what they think people want them to hear but you have proven yourself to be one that thinks about things for himself. Is there any topics floating around in the back of your mind that you believe would be an excellent idea to implement but know you would never get enough backing for to implement? If so, what would it be?
5. What do you make of this whole Camilla Parker Bowles thing?

Question 4

4. Who do you think is the greatest President ever?
I am going to have to trick question this. I don't think there is a "greatest" anything, even the president. Sure I could throw the big names around, Ronald Reagan, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, et. al., but I don't believe that any one of these men (or women in the future) are any better of a person than the other. Every one of the presidents we have had have faced challenges in their terms.

Kennedy had the Cuban missile crisis. George W. Bush had 9/11. Lincoln had a civil war. What would any one of these men have done in the other's situation? Can we say that JFK, the real one, could have handled 9/11 better than Bush? Could we say that Bush would have caused the United States to become two separate countries? None of us can say one way or the other. They are different men with different minds and completely different ways of dealing with things.

I know this is going to sound like a big fat cop out, but I think that the only real answer I can give to this question is that all of the presidents of these United States were the greatest president. I say this not because they did the best they could, but because they were elected by a greater body than themselves. They were elected by what could be considered the greatest set of minds on the face of the planet, IMHO: Americans. (WE THE PEOPLE are the greatest president.)

Question 5 - Finally!

5. Jello or pudding, and why?
That's an easy one. Pudding.

All you can do with Jello is watch it wiggle. If I wanted to watch something wiggle I'd go look at some porn or something. Besides, I can never get it to stay on the infernal spoon!

Pudding, on the other hand, is very versatile and has something that gelatin could never have: a taste outside of flavored sugar.

Pudding sticks to your spoon but comes off smooth and creamy with a simple lick. It's great cold or at room temperature, while Jello will actually turn into starchy Kool-aid at room temperature.

Effectively, you can make your pudding have nearly any flavor available in ice cream. You can even turn you pudding into ice cream.

Yes, pudding is definitely my choice. If I haven't convinced you that pudding is better than Jello let me ask you this hypothetical question:

Which would you rather lick off a couple of hot female wrestlers? Yes, pudding covers more ground.

Thompson's ashes to be shot from cannon

I never really bought into the whole "Father of Gonzo Journalism" jibe with Hunter S. Thompson. Sure, he was probably a firm fixture in many activist movements but I was never really influenced by any of that. I really didn't care. I'm sure many people besides me have felt the same way. Would the same hooplah have been made if a more professional yet less "free-wheeling" journalist had died? Probably not. Overall, he was nothing to me. I was not really a fan of his. To the journalistic world he was a hero whose steed was a big giant fist...or a blue guy with a hooked nose. He was an idol to those that carried a pen.

There is one single solitary way that I have the utmost respect for him: The way he had planned to be memorialized. There's just something bad-ass about having your ashes shot from a cannon.

Go read the article:
LINK

Compared to who?

I'm sure you've heard references between George W. Bush and Hitler, or Stalin, or Mussolini or even Satan. How about a comparison to Thomas Jefferson in the 1800-01 elections. Source: Presidential Campaigns - Paul F. Boller, Jr.:

By the end of December it was clear that the improbable had happened: not even one of the Republican electors had witheld his second vote from Burr after all and as a consequence there was a tie for first place: 73 votes for Jefferson, 73 votes for Burr, 65 for Adams, and 64 for Pickney. This meant that, according to the Constitution, the "high-flying Federalists" were going to have their way: it was now up to the House of Representatives, controlled by lame-duck Federalists, to choose the President. The obvious choice was Jefferson; everyone who had voted in 1800 knew he had been running for first place. But what was obvious wasn't necessarily palatable to die-hard Federalist Congressmen; many of them preferred Burr if only because they disliked Jefferson so much. And Burr did nothing to dissuade them from supporting him for first place, though he did nothing directly to advance his cause.

On February 11, 1801, the House of representatives met in the unfinished Capitol building in Washington to pick a President. The town was crowded with people; hotels and boarding houses were chock-full and in one place fifty men slept on the floor with their coats in blankets. When the balloting began in the House chamber, every Congressmen but two was present; and one of the two, who was ill, lay in bed in an adjoining committee room and had his ballot brought in for him to sign. Each state had one vote, which was determined by a majority of the state's delegation; but if the delegation was tied the state cast a blank ballot. On the first ballot Jefferson failed to get the nine votes necessary for election; eight states went for him, six for Burr, and the other two were evenly divided and did not vote. So the congressmen tried again - and again and again. As the balloting continued with no change in the results, many of the Congressmen sent out for nightcaps and pillows and took short naps between ballots in their chairs or on the floor wrapped in coats and shawls. Six more days and thirty-five more votes produced the same outcome. It began to look as though March 4, designated as inaugural day by Congress in 1792, would come and go without Adams's successor being chosen. Outside the Capitol building there were noisy demonstrations for Jefferson. A score of men in a huge sled went shouting through the streets waving a big banner bearing the words, "Jefferson, the Friend of the People."

There were numerous efforts to break the deadlock. Some of the Federalists approached Burr promising him their support if he agreed to carry on Federalist policies if he became President. Burr resolutely refused to give such assurances; he held back, though, from bowing out of the contest for first place. But Hamilton, who had helped bring Adams down, now intervened to prevent a Burr victory. He had not really changed his mind about Jefferson; but he held Burr in even lower esteem. He regarded the New Yorker as the "Catiline of America," utterly without principle, public or private, who would employ "the rogues of all parties to overrule the good men of all parties." Jefferson, by contrast, though a "contemptible hypocrite" and "inctured with fanaticism," at least had some "pretensions to character." "I trust the Federalists will not finally be so mad as to vote for Burr," he wrote New York Senator Gouverneur Morris. "I speak with an intimate and accurate knowledge of character. His elevation can only promote the purposes of the desperate and profligate. If there be a man in the world I ought to hate, it is Jefferson. With Burr I have always been personally well. But the public good must be paramount to every private consideration."

On February 17, six days after the voting had begun, several Federalist Congressman who had been supporting Burr and failed to get any commitments from him decided to cast blank ballots and end the dead-lock. On the thirty-sixth ballot that morning, one Vermont Congressman and four from Maryland abstained from voting and thus gave those states to Jefferson; and Delaware and South Carolina, previously for Burr, cast blank ballots. The outcome: Jefferson won with ten votes to Burr's four. As news of the House's decision spread through the land, exuberant Jeffersonians fired guns, rang bells, and proposed toasts to "Jefferson, the Mammoth of Democracy." But the Federalist Gazette of the United States huffily reported that the price of whiskey and gin had risen since Jefferson's election and sniffed: "The bells have been ringing, guns firing, dogs barking, cats mewling, children crying, and Jacobins getting drunk." Jeffersonians had jeered that Adams was "President by three votes" in 1796; Federalists now retaliated by calling Jefferson "President by no votes" because of Federalist abstentions in that "certain points of Federal policy...would be observed" if he became President. Jefferson vigorously denied giving any such assurances; but it seems likely that some of his supporters sought to reassure the Federalists about what he would do if he became Chief Executive.

Hrm...how many similarities to Bush and current times can you see in that? I see at least five. You should too. I highlighted them. Don't see the link? Here:

73 votes for Jefferson, 73 votes for Burr,

Didn't bush have a virtually deadlocked vote with Gore? I'm pretty sure everyone remembers this election. It has been the topic of debate between Republicans and Democrats for some time.

many of them preferred Burr if only because they disliked Jefferson so much.

WOW! If you can't pick this one out you may want to get a new prescription for your glasses...or check yourself into the moonbat wing of the loony bin.

Wasn't this most recent election supposed to be the "Anybody but Bush" election?

On the thirty-sixth ballot that morning,

These guys voted and re-voted for six days straight. They cast their votes a total of thirty-six (36) times in order to get a winner. There were no lawyers deciding who won the election, no judges deciding who would be president. It followed the path of a legitimate "checks-and-balances" democracy. For all of the whining and crying about how close this election or that election was Bush's "close calls" were nothing compared to what Jefferson went through. Remember that number the next time someone says that Gore or Kerry were robbed: Congress voted 36 times to decide the President over six days of continuous voting.

President by no votes

Okay, this is a pretty easy one. Anybody? No? Okay: Selected, not elected.

~~~~Side moral to this story~~~

If anyone can remember a while back to when I booted my first person you will remember that the last straw was his comparison of Bush to Hitler. I initially intended to throw this post up as a quick rebuttal but looked at the situation a bit more deeply and decided not to get into the pissing contest anymore. You can compare Bush to nearly any group or person if you dig deep enough. There is very little, save the current war on terror (and that's debatable), that is new or different than things that have already happened someplace, sometime in history.

I see both sides, left pissing and moaning about different things. They are outraged that there is a filibuster. They're infuriated that Bush stole an election. Terri Schiavo was murdered, or was given a merciful freedom from her prison. They both say that this or that is the first time [fill in the blank] has ever happened in [xx years, months, ever]. They really don't have a clue what they're talking about. The only thing it does is turn things into an angry issue with only two sides, both of which are usually wrong. Even though they tote their superior knowledge of history repeating itself they are too blind in their own rage and are destined to do just that.

[end rant]

Crossposted at: BNN

Just a smidgen of work

Go check out GM Roper's new eagle. It came from a photo he took an a trip to Alaska. He took the photo. I did a quick photoshop and put it online. It's a really sweet picture. You can get stuff like that as well. Just ask me or e-mail me, or my partner Ogre. We're in the business of doing this kind of stuff.

Pumping Pixels

...and since I'm on the subject, go vote for GM Roper in the KotB tourney. I do.

Even geeks get computer stupid

Okay, I admit it. Even us ùber-geeks get computer stupid. Let me explain.

Today I installed a new video card into a computer that was using onboard video. I went into the bios like I'm supposed to, changed settings, rebooted, everything seemed like it should work. I had even seen the card work on a different computer. No problems right? Wrong.

I just spent an hour wondering why I couldn't get my monitor to kick in with the video card. I chacked and re-checked everything. Removed the card and reseated it. Finally, in an act of desparation I went to the manual to look and see if there was an extra special setting that I had missed. Nope, not a setting out of place.

I then went to the troubleshooting section:
Problem, screen is blank

1. Screen Saver is enabled - not a problem
2. PC is in standby mode - not a problem
3. PC is in hybernation mode or is off - not a problem (Are people really this stupid?)
4. Monitor connector is not properly connected to the back of the PC - Okay, I guess I really AM that stupid.

Monitor cable has now been moved from the built in video card into the new one. Everything works fine now. Yes, even ùber-geeks are computer stupid sometimes.