Musings of a Patriot

Year: 2006

  • Getting Answers to Old Questions

    I just remembered something I wrote back in September. Tuesday made it possible to answer some questions I asked clear back then. I had said that “between the presidency and the two houses of congress each of the major parties should be in control of at least one of the bodies – thus forcing the…

  • Code for Old Blog Tools

    I thought I would add the html code from some blog elements that I am putting away but which I may want to use again. Here is the html code for the election projections: <a href=”http://www.electoral-vote.com/”><img alt=”Click for www.electoral-vote.com” src=”http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2006/Icons/ev-small.png” border=”0″ height=”72″ width=”72″ /> <img alt=”Click for www.electoral-vote.com” src=”http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2006/Icons/ev-small-house.png” border=”0″ height=”72″ width=”72″ /></a>

  • Non-Sequiter

    I stumbled on to another example of blind loyalty by our senior senator. In character for the man who said that the alternative to attacking Iraq was, “we could have attacked North Korea, Iran, or Syria instead,” Senator Hatch said that, “you’d have to tarnish every young American who served over there,” for Donald Rumsfeld’s…

  • Ideal Politics

    Now that election day is over – here are some things I would like to see (ideally) in politics: Two candidates running against each other who canvas together, advertise together, and publicly seek to achieve 100% voting in the area covered by the office they are seeking. I could just imagine two candidates who have…

  • Reactions to Voting

    First, an issue I have long thought about. I think that the option to cast a straight party ballot should be removed. Voters should be voting for candidates, not parties. I have no objections to a voter going down the ballot and voting only for the candidates from a single party, but they should be…

  • Choose Your Words Carefully

    As I was driving around today between the hospital and various other places I noticed a number of news articles about the verdict in the Saddam Hussein trial. Their titles got me thinking about the power of words. One paper titled their article “Dictator gets Death.” Another talked about the “deposed Iraqi leader.” A story…

  • Judging Judges

    Last week someone pointed me to www.firejudgelewis.com and asked me what I knew about the court she serves in. I think the name of the site makes their position obvious. I went back to my voters guide to see if it had anything about the judge. It appears that Judge Lewis has the lowest ratings…

  • Good News on Frontrunner

    I was excited to read this news. Now if only we could get to the point where they ran the same story with one little tweak. I would like it to read that “Frontrunner Commuter rail line in Utah County is 50% complete.” That will take a while. Voters in the areas covered by the…

  • Good News From Iraq

    The report that the Iraqi Prime Minister called for the removal of American military checkpoints in Baghdad was the best news I have heard from Iraq in a long time. The reason it was good news is because we removed the checkpoints. I’m sure some would argue that the fact that violence escalated in Baghdad…

  • Campaigning for Ballot Measures

    As we approach elections next week there is a ballot measure which has been severely underexposed in my opinion. In Utah County it is on the ballot as an “Opinion Question”. In Salt Lake County it is “Proposition 3”. I have no idea how it has been publicized in Salt Lake County, but here we…