The Cool Blue Blog

Blog birth

My friend and co-worker Bryan Ash has started his own blog.

Currently he's fooling with Ruby and SQLite3.

Check it out.

Carnival of Principled Government

Feeling a little under the weather at the moment, but you couldn't do better then to head over to She's Right where Charity is hosting the 17th Carnival of Principled Government.

Check it out.

Oh, and Eric Klein of the Lifeboat Foundation is predicting President Thompson.

One can only hope....

Bloggers are dangerous to Democrats

Apparently it's not enough that Democrats want to silence conservative talk shows, now the new Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, has introduced an amendment to S.1, the Ethics Reform bill, that

  would require political bloggers with readership over 500 to register as lobbyists. If they fail to register, they could face criminal penalties up to one year in jail.

"Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself," according to a statement from GrassRootsFreedom.com

Can't wait to see what they do next.

Is that 100 hours over yet?

UPDATE: Captain Ed says: not to worry

Whether or not one agrees with lobbyist registration, the definition obviously does not include bloggers, or at least those whose political activity is limited to blogging. One would have to make $25,000 in a quarter just to qualify for the registration

Fighting the information war

Fox News has a story on the Milblog Conference held last month in Washington DC.

"The Bush administration and the DoD [Department of Defense] have not been very effective in the information war," explained Andi C., who, like many "milbloggers," prefers not to use her full name. "Milblogs have been doing the heavy lifting. Both entities could learn a thing or two from milbloggers."

Ain't that the truth. Read the whole thing.

(hat tip to Blackfive)

Service interruption

Sorry about the lack of posting but Typepad expericened a serious service interruption on Friday which was followed by a particularly busy day Saturday combined with an internet access problem.

I'm not sure that the internet access problem is fixed, but Typepad seems to be.

So here I am attempting to resume regularly scheduled programming.

Headin Down That Road

Democrats Deny Having Pre-War Intelligence

by Scott Ott

(2005-11-11) — Democrats in Congress today rejected President George Bush’s accusation that they’re trying to rewrite history, which shows they supported the Iraq war based on the same intelligence that drove his decision to send in the troops.

“We had no pre-war intelligence,” said Sen. John Kerry, “History will show that none of the leading Democrats had substantial intelligence. Anyone who remembers what we did then knows that the president is making a baseless allegation. I think history will bear out my contention that we Democrats lacked the intelligence to make such an important decision.”

The junior Senator from Massachussetts said he continues “to faithfully support the troops who uselessly die for a lie in Iraq.”

“Our troops deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war will remain firm in our conviction that we didn’t know what we were doing at the time,” Sen. Kerry said. “It’s important, on Veteran’s Day, to remember that our Democrat commitment to our military hasn’t changed.”

White House spokesman Scott McClellan repeated his categorical denial that the Bush administration “ever manipulated anyone’s intelligence or ignorance.”

Flying again

Hook is back!

Welcome home.

We missed you.

Some new blogs

A brand now blog is born. Cold Beverage has a post called If Iraqis could vote on Tuesday

Well, it's official. If those newly liberated citizens FIGHTING FOR THEIR FREEDOM in Iraq were allowed to vote in the U.S. presidential election on Tuesday, Kerry would win Sadr City!

Horserace is an interesting blog with insight into polls and campaigns

In general, what I would like all my readers to do is to begin thinking like social scientists, not like journalists. Journalists look at a result and just report it. They do not take the time to consider how the result was produced. They are generally unskeptical. If you get a source with "credibility" who says X, Y and Z -- well that is good enough for the journalist. Social scientists do not do that (at least, the good ones do not). They are skeptical of every result until the method of that result has been understood and evaluated. Journalists on Fox will yim-yammer all day about this poll, about how the "race is getting (GASP!) even (GASP! GASP! GASP!) closer" without even looking at the method. The Fox journalist figures, "Opinion Dynamics knows what it is doing. Let's run with this!" But, if you are interested in reporting the truth, this is exceedingly unwise. St. Paul in 1 Thessalonians exhorts us to "test everything. Hold on to the good." Now, he was speaking of more weighty matters than sampling Republicans, Independents and men over the weekend, but the logic applies here as well!

And finally, the new blog, Far From Home, written from the front lines in Iraq is described by it's author as

a place for Deployed Soldiers and their Family and Friends...and of course anyone interested. There are forums, an adopt a soldier list and a place to add more to the list. There is a public image album anyone can upload to, and also private albums.

Check them out.

Help a blogger, help yourself

Greyhawk of the Mudville Gazette needs financial help to keep his excellent blog alive.

The contributions of this man and this blog to all of us are substancial and important. It is he who is the nexus of the MilBloggers and over the years has given some terriffic insights into current events both civilian and military.

Not to mention that he was an important member of the crew of the USS Surprise (inside joke, there).

To the extent you want quality voices in the realm of citizen journalism, whether you agree with him or not, you want Greyhawk to blog on.

So please, be cool and cruise on over to the Mudville Gazette and donate what you can

Help him blog on forever

Bloggers who have served

Jeff Quinton is surveying the blogosphere. He's trying to determine how many bloggers have served or are serving in the military.

My information is as follows:

Frank LoPinto: USAF, 1975-1979: 607th Tactical Control Squadron, Luke Air Force Base, Az. Computer specialist

My son Stephen, is currently serving in Iraq with the 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division. He's a combat medic. I run the Golden Dragons web site for his crew and their families.

If you're a blogger and have served, cruise on over there and let him know.