Victor Yushchenko

President Victor Yushchenko is the current president of Ukraine.  He won an election in 2004 after a total of three ballots.  For some reason the first two were fixed in favor of the establishment candidate.  A certain person running for Congress in Utah’s Third District was in Ukraine when the election happened, with his wife and children.

When the congressional candidate arrived in Ukraine, there were all sorts of campaign signs for the establishment candidate and the opposition leader had very little visible support.  The people in the capital expected that no matter the real turnout, the establishment candidate would win, a Viktor Yanukovych.  After the voting day and expected results were announced, President Yushchenko went to the central gathering area of the capital city and demanded a new vote, that the results were not correct or fair and that everyone who agreed with him should gather there.  The speech also stated that while they were supposed to be having free elections, the elections were far from free and that Ukraine was still under the dictatorship of the party.  This was also after Yushchenko was poisoned with dioxins in November of the same year, probably a little known chemical called “yellow rain” that was used in chemical warfare against Afghanistan by the Russians.

People bussed in from the country side and literally millions of people rose up to demand a re-vote.  The military was called in to disburse the crowds and the official state news was lying like crazy about what was going on in the city.  In Ukraine, instead of closed captioning, there is a person who is shown in the corner relating the news in sign language due to large amounts of hearing loss related to the Chernobyl atomic energy disaster from 1986.   The military decided they would not fire on their fellow countrymen and one of the translators of the news finally decided that she could not continue to lie for the government either and signed to everyone that the news was a lie and that Yushchenko supporters were gathering in the capital to rally for fair elections.

Many world leaders said they would not accept the results as legitimate and after two more ballots, Yushchenko was declared the winner by 52% to 44%.   This series of events is known as the Ukrainian Orange Revolution.

Russia needs their own Orange Revolution.  The party officials and people in power still rig the elections and pick their party men to win the elections.  Now the Kremlin officials aren’t even really trying to hide that the elections will be fixed.  The linked article has this very curious paragraph though:

The purpose of the falsification is to boost the legitimacy of 42-year-old Medvedev – who will take over from Putin in May as Russia’s third post-Soviet leader.

Analysts admit that Medvedev would have won the election anyway without Kremlin interference – but on an embarrassingly small turnout. While a sizeable chunk of the population is happy with Medvedev because they see him as a joint-architect of Russia’s economic revival, analysts say there is widespread voter apathy because his victory is seen as a foregone conclusion.

also, from later in the article:

The Kremlin used similar tactics during December’s parliamentary elections, which the OSCE’s parliamentary assembly described as “neither free nor fair”. Analysts today noted that Russian voters had become increasingly accepting of official vote rigging and no longer regarded it as anything unusual. . .

“No-one needs to be instructed any more. Everybody knows what to do,” said the political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky. “The technology has been proved over the past four years in Russia. Once the polls close unused ballot papers are taken, filled in for Medevdev, of course, and thrown into the box. The boxes are then stamped and re-opened a second later. Then they start to count.

“The technology is very easy. You don’t need to make it complicated. Every election commission member is personally responsible. The central election commission also knows it can rely on governors. They are more interested in protecting their business interests than in democracy in this country.”

And who is running against Medevdev?

Medvedev is competing against three other candidates – the veteran communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhironovsky and a fake democrat, Andrey Bogdanov. The Kremlin has prevented Mikhail Kasyanov, the only genuinely democratic challenger, from taking part in the poll, claiming that signatures on his election petition had been falsified.

The Kremlin by the way, is a short hand reference to the Government of the Russian Federation.  The government is picking its own president apparently.  A revolution in Russia is needed, the first one didn’t really take.

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World’s Shortest Personality Test

Your Personality Profile

You are pure, moral, and adaptable. You tend to blend into your surroundings. Shy on the outside, you’re outspoken to your friends.You believe that you live a virtuous life… And you tend to judge others with a harsh eye. As a result, people tend to crave your approval.

The World’s Shortest Personality Test

I am 50% Normal.

You Are 50% Normal

While some of your behavior is quite normal… Other things you do are downright strange You’ve got a little of your freak going on But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

How Normal Are You?

I am apple pie, I guess.

You Are Apple Pie

You’re the perfect combo of comforting and traditional. You prefer things the way you’ve always known them. You’ll admit that you’re old fashioned, and you don’t see anything wrong with that. Your tastes and preferences are classic. And classic never goes out of style.Those who like you crave security. People can rely on you to be true to yourself – and true to them. You’re loyal, trustworthy, and comfortable in your own skin. And because of these qualities, you’ve definitely earned a lot of respect.

What Kind of Pie Are You?

Why is Google Maps So Interested in the Wasatch Front?

If you go to http://maps.google.com and type in an address, it will find the address and show you where it is.  You can then select “street view” and all of the streets google has a street view will be highlighted in blue.

Google has photographed almost all of Salt Lake Valley and you can look at the houses on the streets of the valley.  It extends north through Bountiful and up into Farmington.  Tooele, Erda, Grantsville, and Lake Point are covered.  It goes south through Lehi, Pleasant Grove, Cedar Fort, Eagle Mountain, Orem, Provo, Spanish Fork, Payson, and Santaquin.  It also covers east of the valley including Park City, Heber City, Midway, and even Henefer.

Las Vegas is covered, but mostly only the main roads, not every neighborhood in the area.

San Diego is covered, but again mostly on main roads and not as extensively.

Los Angeles, Denver,  Phoenix and other major cities have similar coverage as Las Vegas and San Diego, but still nothing as extensive and complete as the coverage of the Salt Lake area.

There are a number of websites dedicated to interesting pictures from google maps.

One person seems to have found a street fight in progress.

Google uses a car with a camera array with eleven cameras to capture a 360 degree view of where they drive.   Here are some pictures of other cars they use.  There is a fleet of these cars.

Maybe Salt Lake City is more interesting than other cities, or maybe it was just first.

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NASA and the Challenger

Twenty-Two years ago, the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed during launch.  The date was January 28, 1986.  I was in Mr. Wilson’s Fifth Grade Class and while we were not watching the launch, a TV was brought in for us to watch the news coverage of the event.

Were I was really doesn’t matter, what does matter is that NASA got away with a cover up of what happened to the remains of the astronauts after the destruction and the decision making process that led to the launch under those circumstances in the first place.

It was a very cold day and ice had actually formed on some of the controls and parts of the shuttle, two pictures of the ice can be found here.   NASA claimed to have consulted with Morton Thiokol prior to going ahead with the launch, but NASA is the only business in town that sends people into space and if Morton Thiokol contradicted that statement it would probably put Thiokol out of business.  NASA also had many reasons to cover up their bad decision making.  If you think that they did not have bad decision making at NASA the later cover up about the Challenger should change your mind.

The basic sequence of events describing the destruction can be found here.   The launch began, the O-Rings did not seal properly and began to leak as well as vaporize from the intense heat, a little over a minute in the leak became more serious and fuel was leaking in an uncontrolled fashion causing a fire to expand, the liquid fuel tank to disintegrate and the remaining fuel to burn in a not quite explosive fashion.  The solid rocket motors ripped loose from the change in balance and the shuttle broke up in the process.

The first story from NASA is that all seven astronauts died very quickly in the original break up and would have only suffered a little.  The evidence uncovered over time shows otherwise.  A later NASA report indicates that the cause of death was not positively certain, the forces of breakup would not have been likely to cause serious injury and it was possible that the crew lost consciousness prior to the 207 mph impact with the water.  If the breakup did not cause serious injury and the people could lose consciousness because they were still alive, it is likely that the cause of death was the impact with the water.  The report is so non-committal and attempts to still color the events as innocuously as possible while avoiding the more likely difficult truth.  This page indicates that the likely cause of death was the impact with the water.  The uncomfortable question is whether the crew was awake and alert for the two and a half minute drop down to the water.

The Miami Herald daily newspaper also publishes Tropic, a weekly Sunday magazine with longer and more investigative articles.  Tropic carried an article about the cover up after the Challenger break up on November 13, 1988.  NASA prevented local medical examiners from having access to the remains of the crew.  The crew cabin showed no evidence of a rapid decompression of the type that would cause unconsciousness.  The remains of three of the crew members were driven in plastic garbage cans over several miles of highway in the back of a pick up truck to an air force base to keep them out of the jurisdiction of the medical examiner and to avoid any additional press notice.  There were many lies told and facts hidden and evidence destroyed.  Because NASA is the only space employer in town, people keep quiet to keep their jobs.  The whistle blower about the O-rings did the right thing but at the time of the printing of the article was finding it difficult to find work in the space industry.

The cover up did not work entirely, but that did not stop NASA from trying.

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Conversation with my 2 year old.

She was busy playing and “peetending”. I asked her if she was pretending and she said yes.

I explained that “pee-tending” is when parents are trying to potty train their child and remind them to go potty at regular intervals.

Later our two year old was telling me that her “peetending” was in the potty for some reason.

Kids are cute.

Sort of like this one. Don’t talk back to Darth Vader, ’cause he’ll get ya.

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Obama’s Security at Risk?

There are two stories out of Dallas, Texas about a campaign rally on Wednesday, February 20, 2008.  Barack Obama was scheduled to appear at Reunion Arena in front of approximately 17,000 people.

According to the Forth Worth Star Telegram, the screening of people attending the event was cut off about one hour prior to the event.  Local police, speaking on condition of anonymity expressed concern that so many people were admitted without even a cursory screening.  The Dallas Deputy Police Chief said that the order to not screen attendees was intended to speed up the seating process.  Source.

The next day, the Secret Service responded by denying that any order to suspend screening was issued adding that there was no need for magnetometers at the venue.  So in other words, we didn’t issue the order and even if we did there was no security risk because there was no need for metal detectors there anyway.  To finish off the statement, the Secret Service spokesman stated that they worked together with local law enforcement to “come up with a robust and comprehensive layered security plan that didn’t rely solely on any specific countermeasure to secure the area.”  Source.  

So, as the story unfolds, several local police officers noticed that security measures were relaxed approximately one  hour prior to an event where Barack Obama was to be speaking and the Deputy Police Chief went on record claiming that it was intended to seat people more quickly and while it might seem bad, the crowd seemed friendly.  Nice work there Chief.  The next day, the Secret Service denies that the order was given and the lack of screening of people was not an issue either.

In this case, I tend to believe the local Dallas Police as they may still be hurting from when another very popular person was killed in Dallas about 45 years ago.

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Typing Speed?

Only use this link in Firefox or another browser with superior ad blockers.  It more or less crashed Internet Explorer with spybot.

68 words

Speedtest

Sen. Chris Buttars and Racial Politics

“And they make a man an offender for a word. . .” — 2 Nephi 27:32; Isaiah 29:21

He has stepped on a land mine again. According to the Deseret News, the Salt Lake Tribune, and other news sources, Utah State Senator Chris Buttars said the following: “This baby is black, I’ll tell you. This is a dark, ugly thing[.]” Senator Howard Stephenson already called Senate Bill 48 “the ugly baby bill”. This bill was apparently designed to aid in the transition of the split of the Jordan School District in equalizing capital outlays for building new schools. The Utah Democratic Party is also supporting the bill in spite of Sen. Buttars comments. The news reporting about Sen. Buttars comment is drowning out the discussion about public funding for public school buildings.

The comment from Sen. Buttars shows a lack of appreciation of the current political environment, inartful wording, and racial insensitivity, not racism.  The bill was already called an “ugly baby”.  Sen. Buttars added on with words that are racially charged and have additional meanings that make sense in the context of the debate.  According to this dictionary, “black” can also mean deliberately harmful, inexcusable, without any moral quality or goodness.  “Dark” can mean evil, iniquitous, or wicked.  “Ugly” can mean disagreeable, unpleasant, and morally revolting.  Sen. Buttars certainly could have picked better words for disagreeing with the bill.

On the day of the comment made, it was brought to Sen. Buttars attention that he had breached the rules of decorum on the Senate floor. He immediately apologized for his comments and later left early for the day. Sen. Buttars also issued an apology to people who were offended by his remarks. Jeanetta Williams who currently heads the NAACP in Salt Lake City at first accepted the apology, then remembered prior comments by Sen. Buttars and decided to call for his resignation. Ms. Williams has been leading the NAACP of Salt Lake for approximately 16 years. As of two years ago, there has never been an independent audit of the funds of the organization and there have been other irregularities and complaints about Ms. Williams administration of the local organization.

Sen. Buttars also stated that he thought a certain school desegregation case was wrong too, tried to re-word his statement and ultimately to justify his beliefs based on the outcomes of the case without success. A better argument may have been that the national government should not be involved in local educational decisions and about the proper nature and role of the government but the point was never raised by Sen. Buttars.

Former Mayor Rocky Anderson once told James Evans, a black leader of the Salt Lake County Republican party that “to show slavish, blind obedience and deference to a dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights-violating president” is a bad thing.  “Slavish” can mean like a slave, or to blindly imitate something in a sycophantic way.  It is impossible to know for sure if Mr. Anderson meant to be intentionally offensive and hide behind the other meanings of the word slavish but that his words were pointedly addressed to a black individual is suspect.

However one may feel about these episodes, political discourse has degenerated to the point that the real issues are being shoved to the wayside while the public debates about whether or not someone should resign for having an opinion too far out of the mainstream.  There have been several controversies about the word “niggardly” which means stingy, miserly, or not generous.  The etymology of the word comes from the Norwegian word nigle and is similar to the word niggling that means trifling, small, or petty.  The other prohibited “N-word” comes from the Spanish, Portuguese, French, or Latin word negro, noir, or niger which all mean “black”.

Most of these complaints about racism have no substance to them.  Most politicians are actually victims of their enemies that make a big deal out of nothing.

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