Texas

Loss in Ohio, Losses in Iraq

The Democratic activists of the Swing State Project, some of whom went to Ohio to work for Congressional candidate Paul Hackett, are celebrating after his surprisingly close loss to Republican Jean Schmidt. There is no doubt about it -- tonight's results represent a tidal wave in Ohio (and perhaps national) politics. In 2004, the Democrat running in OH-02 lost by 44 points. Tonight, the Democrat, Paul Hackett, lost by a mere 4 points -- just 4,000 votes out of over 114,000 cast. This was a lot ... (read more)To get around Bayesian filters, some spammers have resorted to ASCII art, spelling out words with characters and really small text. I've been online long enough to remember when people used to create ASCII babes you had to print to view. Back in the late '80s, whenever I retrieved a printout from the University of North Texas computer science lab, there were always a bunch of suggestive or even explicit ASCII trollops waiting to be picked up. It wasn't easy for the object of your affection to ... (read more)

My Friend the Warblogger

Michael Bolduc, one of my college pals from the University of North Texas, grew up to become a warblogger. This was, of course, a source of distress for mother and I. You do everything you can to raise them properly, but ultimately all you can do is love them, cherish every day together, and hope they make the right decisions. When Mike ventures into political subjects on his weblog, I'm pretty sure that we'll pick opposite sides whence comes the War of the Bloggers, then meet in a trench where ... (read more)