EckerNet.Com

I’m having some internal problems eliminating spam, so I’ve decided to take the big plunge and upgrade my MoveableType installation to 3.2.

This will likely take place Sunday, October 30th. During that time EckerNet.Com will probably be offline. Hopefully it returns in short order.

Wish me luck.

NOTE : Anyone ever done this before?

UPDATE : OK so it may not happen now. Got everything ready except the MySQL backup. Running into problems with that. Anyone that has done this before. How critical is this backup procedure??

“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.”

- George S. Patton

Even in defeat, Hugh Hewitt can’t help but stoke the fire. A fire that should rightfully be burning out.

I think Ms. Miers has been unfairly treated by many who have for years urged fair treatment of judicial nominees.

By whom?? Care to provide a single example?? No of course not. And I know why. There aren’t any. Pointing out facts is not unfair treatment. The facts may not be pleasant but they are facts. Remember the old rule, “Don’t shoot the messenger”?

If you disagree, provide facts to support that. Don’t just play the victim.

She deserves great thanks for her significant service to the country.

I agree. I don’t think anyone has disputed that. Anyone.

But here comes the the blockbuster

She and the president deserved much better from his allies.

Deserved?? We elected a President, not nominated a dictator.

Much better?? Much better than polite disagreement? Hugh, we weren’t the ones blindly tossing around words like “sexism” and “elitism”. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with someone. If your view of how government should work is that we should blindly follow their lead regardless of whether we disagree, then may I suggest Facism?? I hear Syria and Iran are lovely this time of year.

If I disagree with something my elected officials are doing, especially if it’s contrary to what they promised they’d do, then I will speak up. I will do it politely and with the respect that all involved deserve. I will not freely toss around charges of “sexism” or “elitism”. I will argue my position using whatever facts I have available. If in the end I am wrong, then so be it.

I guess I consider that “much better”, Hugh.

My goodness. Probably the best news I could receive this morning. Miers has withdrawn herself from consideration for SCOTUS.

Under withering attack from conservatives, President Bush ended his push to put loyalist Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court Thursday and promised a quick replacement. Democrats accused him of bowing to the “radical right wing of the Republican Party.

Now hopefully the President actually selects a nominee that reflects the fact that we control Congress. There are a whole series of candidates that conservatives would find acceptable. And I think most that were part of the anti-Mier-pick crowd would be willing to support the president on any of them.

The rift in the part was deep. And I wonder how quickly and how completely it will heal. Certainly, many were shocked and hurt by the fact that the White House could so easily dismiss it’s greatest supporters as elitists and sexists. The mud-slinging by some who supported Miers was a little surprising.

How quickly will some on the “anti-Miers” side let bygones be bygones? Certainly, most conservatives will support the president. But will they do it with the same zeal and persistence that has marked his base in the past? Or will they remain ever vigilent and wary that they will be betrayed again?

Certainly a good SCOTUS pick will go a long way in satisfying many of his former critics. Illegal immigration is another area where atonement can easily be done.

But for now the focus should be on the next SCOTUS pick. Then we heal the party in preparation for 2006 and 2008.

Doug points out that The Poliburo Diktat is making a blog family tree of the blogosphere.

For those of you that don’t understand that. If you are a blogger then the person that inspired you to start a blog is generally considered your “blogfather” or “blogmother”. Anyone you inspired to start a blog are your “blogson” or “blogdaughter”. Get bloggers to list their blog “relations” and you can create a blog tree.

I’m feeling a bit left out. I don’t have a blog-father. This site originally went online in early 2001 before blogs really existed. And it’s gone through many evolutionary steps to become what it is today.

So since I don’t have a blogfather, does that make me a blogbastard?

OR

Since the origins of EckerNet.Com takes place between when personal websites began and when blogs began, does that make me “The Missing Link”?

OR

If you take a creationist view of it, since I just one day decided to purchase this domain and bitch alot without any real inspiration, does that make me a “BlogGod”?

It’s all a bit confusing. No idea where I fit in. I wonder if I can get a Blog Paternity Test….because certainly Blog Alimony would be more than welcome. Now I just need to find a Blog Lawyer.

John Hawkins has a great roundup of rebuttals to common pro-Miers arguments. I think he pretty much covers them all. Check it out.

The great part is there is no pro-Miers argument that can’t be easily refutted. So everything eventually boils down to “Trust Bush”. Not. Gonna. Happen.

Finally the White House seems to be accepting the fact that supporting Miers has become a futile gesture. I sincerely hope that isn’t just idol gossip. I think if the Miers nomination is withdrawn, they will find that the conservative side of the Republican Party will be more than forgiving.

Michelle Malkin has done a great job on coverage of a Condi Rice photo that was released by USA Today last week. The photo has since been removed by USA Today’s website but you can find a copy of both the USA Today version and the original version at Michelle’s site.

Michelle and her, as usual, knowledable readers have done a great job demonstrating how someone purposely modified her eyes to make her appear almost demonic. Their point is well made and I agree.

However, she has glossed over a point…that being USA Today’s apology/explanation :

Editor’s note: The photo of Condoleezza Rice that originally accompanied this story was altered in a manner that did not meet USA TODAY’s editorial standards. The photo has been replaced by a properly adjusted copy. Photos published online are routinely cropped for size and adjusted for brightness and sharpness to optimize their appearance. In this case, after sharpening the photo for clarity, the editor brightened a portion of Rice’s face, giving her eyes an unnatural appearance. This resulted in a distortion of the original not in keeping with our editorial standards.

Cropping for size and adjusting brightness/sharpness I understand. But lightening her face is necessary why?? Lightening her hair or suit wasn’t necessary (both black), but lightening her skin is??

What’s the matter USA Today? Is Condi too black for your tastes?

Ok I’ve been out of touch of the news for awhile, so I figured I’d take a spin through the world and see what’s going on.

Here’s the news as I understand it. Let me know if I screwed anything up or missed something

In celebration of Iraq passing it’s Constitution via Democracy, Syria decided to assasinate a Lebanese Prime Minister. Said Lebanese dude was mistakenly counted as the 2,000th US military death in Iraq. The confusion over the death caused oil prices to drop. The resulting lower gas prices caused global warming overnite which instantaneously formed Hurricane Wilma, which smacked around Florida for awhile. Cindy Sheehan decided to protest the existance of hurricanes by tying herself to the White House fence. The sight of this caused Bush to rethink his Miers nomination, especially since he just nominated some guy that once helped him make change for a $20 as Fed Chairman. He was gonna nominate Rosa Parks but changed his mind after hearing she died in shock after hearing the Vikings beat the Packers.

I think I’m up to speed now.

Yeah, I’m part of the big time bloggers!!

Or at least that’s how I felt when I received an invitation by John Hawkins of Right Wing News to participate in his latest blogger poll. While also a boost to the ego, mostly I’m honored to be asked to participate especially given the listing of the others that generally are invited to participate in said polls.

The results of the latest poll on the right-wing variation of “Who should rule the world” is up. Apparently my picks didn’t go over so well, as I don’t seem them on the list at all.

Apparently nobody wants a team of Carrot Top, Paris Hilton, Suge Knight, Michael Jackson and Jamie Farr running the world.

Oh well, hopefully I’ll pick better ones next time.

North Dakota didn’t quite meet our hopes this year. As it turns out the big 18 inch blizzard a few weeks ago had a huge impact on the pheasant population. Some locals claimed up to 75% were killed. Considering we saw trees entirely stripped of their limbs, I wouldn’t entirely doubt that claim.

Nonetheless, it was an absolute delight, although extremely exhausting. The dogs have definitely improved over last year. I all of them did very well. Even teaming together to box in a pheasant, forcing it to flush. Even Sadie seemed to start to get the idea of what she is supposed to do…although her puppy stamina wasn’t quite up to the task towards the end of the day.

In the end, the MN Militia returns to defend MN. The other members of the MN Militia have encouraged me to begin a category of posts on which I discuss various hunting tactics we’ve used and their results. I’m still undecided on that. Mostly I’m not sure if anyone outside of our group would be interested. And also I’m just not sure how I would go about writing them up in adequate detail to make them useful to anyone. Any opinions or suggestions let me know.

Highlights of the trip

- 20 seconds into the trip the first cock joke is made

- 40 seconds into the trip, the Extremist crushes my trigger-finger in a window thereby ensuring a good excuse for any poor shooting on my part this weekend

- My new pup, Sadie (8 months old), flushed her first bird, unfortuanately it was a hen so we were unable to shoot it.

- CCs wife makes great meat and a wonderful batch of chili.

- Team 2’s vehicle had a blow out and absolutely shredded their right rear tire, resulting in a loss of several hours. On the plus side we learned alot about oil wells and how to steal compressed air from one.

- One of the dogs went head to head with porcupine. Point. Match. Winner for the porcupine.

- Two cups of coffee in the morning makes for a very jumpy driver for Team 1. Apparently, Team 1’s vehicle is able to go from 80 mph to 0 mph in less than a second and vice versa.

- The new jukebox in the our favorite Dickinson watering hole does NOT have “Sweet Caroline” by Neal Diamond. This caused much distress and disorientation on our part. We left feeling unfulfilled.

- A new form of driving entertainment was invented. Details will not be revealed until we get a patent. Heh…this is what happens when you get a bunch of computer geeks and engineers together in a vehicle for 8-10 straight hours.

UPDATE : CC, a member of the MN Militia in good standing, pointed out I missed a big event from this weekend. It is mentioned below. I apologize for the oversight. He may take a beer out of petty cash.

- The local dickhead (title given by the other locals) of the area tried to get a conservation officer (CO) to bust us. Said CO went through all our bags, coolers. Check out our guns. Checked out our hunting land permission. Basically everything he had rights to do. Nothing was found, and we were left alone to continue our legal hunt….thereby contributing to the local economy. The above mentioned dickhead got chewed out by some of the other locals as a result. Making friends with locals = good.