Archive for October, 2004
This is a really easy endorsement. Deborah Senn (D) was a complete failure during her term as Insurance Commissioner. Her office was a nightmare and the regulations, obligations, and liability her office imposed on the industry made it impossible for individuals to get health insurance coverage. And as Attorney General she can do a lot more damage to many more industries. Deborah Senn cannot become AG.
Rob McKenna (R) has is a fairly mainstream candidate that has the support of law enforcement, a large number of industries, and a large bi-partisan list of officials.
Protect us from Deborah Senn, vote Rob McKenna for Attorney General.
For SPI, I have to endorse Terry Bergeson. She has been an excellent advocate for working toward excellence in our school system. And has worked hard for system that sets standards and tests to ensure accountability. Judith Billings is trying to ride the current anti-testing wave (anti-WASL and anti-No Child Left Behind) back into the SPI office. If we eliminate or neuter the WASL and ignore the NCLB testing requirements, we will just be taking a step back to the 70’s and 80’s where there were no standards or accounability for students failing. We can not return to the failed policies of the past. If there are no objective requirements for graduation (WASL) then a high school diploma will continue to be completely worthless.
Vote for Terry Bergeson
For legislative bodies I prefer to have as many members as is practical, to minimize the number of people each legislator represents. But in this case I am for shrinking the County Council. The Council is more than a legislative body because it does have executive responsibilities, which makes fewer members desireable. This has been demonstrated by the inability of the Council to function since the merger with Metro (when the Council grew to 13). Additionally our current 13 members costs quite a bit of money, converting to 9 will save costs.
Vote YES on the first question.
Proposal 1A would make the changes immediately, and 1B would delay the changes. If we’re going to shrink the council — it might as well happen right away, rather than trying to fit into the politician’s life plans.
Vote 1A on the second question.
I’m really tired of Seattle politics. We had three votes on the monorail, where good sized majorities approving each time. The last vote was a final authorization to go ahead and approved funding (through a stupid mechanism, but that is another issues). It would be nice if something could actually happen.
This initiative, which has been labeled “Recall the Monorail”, is just pathetic. It doesn’t undo the last monorail vote, all it does is prevent the construction of the monorail. This is intentional, because the backers want to leave the funding source which they hope can be used to prop up the Sound Transit light rail.
Please Vote NO on this stupid initiative.
Despite the title of the initiative, this is not about cleaning up Hanford. The purpose of the initiative is to give interest groups and their lawyers the authority to sue the Federal Government and the contractors at Hanford for “damages”. This is simply a measure to enable the interest groups and plaintiff’s bar to enrich themselves at the expense of the general public.
Vote NO on I-297
It is finally time for Washington to allow charter schools. Despite the rabid campaign of the WEA, charter schools are not some evil scheme to destroy our public schools. Forty states have authorized charter schools, and in most of those states have far fewer restrictions on the charter schools. Charter schools have been extremely successful at engaging children in inner cities, where the current system regularly fails.
The attacks by the WEA and their allies are just bizarre. How can charter schools steal money from public schools, when charter schools ARE public schools? And the New York Times article that “found” that charter schools perform worse than regular public schools was horrific. The “regular public schools” include rich suburban schools, while charter schools almost entirely serve poor, minority, and inner city areas. When charter schools are compared against inner city “regular public schools” with similar demographics, charter schools regularly come out ahead. This can be clearly demonstrated by the large numbers of parents that want to get their children out of the failing “regular public schools” and put them in charter schools.
Vote YES on R-55
I’ve fallen behind on my endorsements. I’ll start writing more, but they’ll be a lot shorter.
I’ve released the Imperium Zorloci Electoral Vote Count. Unlike the MSM maps, mine includes where a state was expected to go according to the polls (and my guesses). Then as the actual results come in States will move from the polling section to the actuals section. And there are several levels of grouping and totals.
I’ll be updating this frequently from now until the election is finally over (whenever that is). On election night, I will be actively tracking election results from as many tv stations as I can and I will retrieve results directly from battleground state Secretary of State websites.
UPDATE: I’ve added a running list of changes and log entries per Mumbo Jumbo’s advise.
Again composed from RealClear Politics.com’s Battleground State Polls and OpinionJournal.com’s Electoral College Calculator.
Kerry has made gains in this update. He has regained New Hampshire and captured Ohio (though I’m not too confident about this call). But Bush is getting very close with his capture of New Mexico. The oddball in this update is Hawaii, traditionally an extremely reliable state for the Democrats, but the only two polls in October give Bush a small lead. I can’t give the state to Bush (the margins are small, there undecideds are many, and I find it hard to believe that it will go to Bush), so I’ve dropped it into the Toss-Up category.
Continue reading ‘266 vs. 248′
Again composed from RealClear Politics.com’s Battleground State Polls and OpinionJournal.com’s Electoral College Calculator.
I’ve added Iowa to Bush’s column (RCP Average of Bush +3.5) and taken New Hampshire away from Kerry (RCP Average of Kerry +0.7). This makes Bush’s math much easier, and Kerry’s much more difficult.
Continue reading ‘261 vs. 228′