Maid service

In today's installment of "Stuff We Like," I would like to present professional in-home maid service. Earlier this week, as part of preparing the house to be shown to potential buyers, the Geekette and I had Merry Maids come in and to a top-to-bottom cleaning of the house. The week before, a representative had come out to evaluate the house and figure out what they would be charging based on the number of rooms, the square footage, etc. We gave her a key which they then left on the counter after they were done cleaning. When I got home from work Tuesday evening, it was like walking into a new house. Now mind, the Geekette and I do a reasonable job of keeping the place clean. But we don't clean everything in a single day so seeing the entire place sparkling was a joy. Some observations:

• They made the bed. (I was going to do this before I left for the day but I spaced it.)


• They have some kind of uber-vacuum that does a better job than even our Dyson, which is certainly no slouch.


• They washed a mug that I had left on the counter.


• They thoroughly cleaned the appliances. They even cleaned the place in the washer where you put bleach and fabric softener.


• They cleaned the rubber strip on the bottom of the shower door.


• They refolded and rehung the towels in the kitchen and bathrooms.


• They cleaned the baseboards on the walls.


• They cleaned out all the dust and cat fur from the tangle of cables under the computer desks.


• Every surface was dusted. Dusting is the chore I dislike the most.

We'll probably have them come out and clean the place again before we move, or after we have all our stuff out. We have decided that we are going to have a professional maid service come and clean the new place at least once a month. We'll make it happen even if we have to eat ramen for dinner every night. The way they price it, you pay a certain amount for a weekly cleaning, and it's more if you go every two weeks or once a month. The tradeoff is that less frequent cleanings mean a lower monthly cost in the long term, but you don't have the house cleaned as often. I'm thinking once a month is probably good. That way we'll still need to do spot cleaning and we won't get lazy.

A study in contradiction

From today's Federalist email:

"I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found. I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials." --Howard Dean, refusing to pre-judge Osama bin Laden in December 2003

"I think [DeLay] is guilty...of taking trips paid for by lobbyists, and of campaign-finance violations during his manipulation of the Texas election process. I think Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston, where he can serve his jail sentence down there." --Howard Dean, rendering a guilty verdict against Tom DeLay this week

Dean's remarks were sufficiently offensive to draw the ire of even far-Left Demos like Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank: "I think Howard Dean was out of line talking about DeLay. The man has not been indicted. I don't like him. I disagree with some of what he does, but I don't think you, in a political speech, talk about a man as a criminal...."

Dean remains unrepentant, insisting, "There's corruption at the highest level of the Republican Party, and they're going to have to face up to that one of these days, because the law is closing in on Tom DeLay."

Actually, contradiction isn't the correct term. The word that most properly describes this behavior is hypocrisy. Keep it up, Howard. You're the engineer on a train that's barrelling out of control down the track toward the washed out trestle and, instead of applying the brakes, you're blowing the steam whistle and hollering out the window.

The latest on the Washington gubernatorial election debacle

According to this article in the Seattle Times:

King County's absentee-ballot supervisor has testified that she collaborated with her boss when she filled out a report that falsely showed all ballots were accounted for in the November election.

Nicole Way said in a deposition Friday that she and assistant elections superintendent Garth Fell agreed to the misleading report because officials didn't know how many absentee ballots were returned by voters.

The title of the article is "Election manager linked to false report." This isn't just a false report, this is plain and simple fraud. Regardless of whether or not it was intended to influence the result of the election, these people knowingly reported false information. They lied. I can only hope that the judge that starts hearing the case next week agrees that this election was so full of mistakes and fraud that he has no choice but to nullify the results and instruct the state to start over.

Light blogging alert

Over the next couple of months I'll be dealing with a rather large change in the lives of myself and the Geekette. No, we're not getting married, but a substantial sum of money is involved, not to mention a considerable amount of work. We're going to be moving into a new house sometime in July and we need to get stuff packed up and in storage, and get the current house ready to show to potential buyers. Therefore, I'll probably not be posting much during that time, and probably for a time after the move as we get settled in and unpacked. I'll try to put something up every so often but no guarantees (as if there ever were any in the first place).

Student who disrupted Ann Coulter's presentation speaks

Ajai Raj who, as noted previously, acted in a disruptive manner and asked Ann Coulter a lewd question after she gave a speech at UT Austin, has released a statement posted over at Daily Kos.

While reading this, I had to keep in mind that the profanity and invective that he uses is really no different from that used by Misha over at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller. Therefore I can't really condemn him for that. However, I have yet to hear of Misha attending a presentation by a prominent Democrat and doing his best to disrupt it.

Should this guy have been arrested? I don't know. Certainly he should have been kicked out of the room; I don't think anyone can reasonably argue against that. But I am not an expert on the law down in Texas. Interestingly, one of the first comments to the post at Daily Kos presents an argument as to why his arrest was justified, even though the commenter is himself a lefty. I don't know if his argument is correct but I must give him credit for having the courage to post it.

Another example of the tolerant left

So it appears that this fellow decided to ask Ann Coulter a rather lewd question and then follow it up with equally lewd gestures when she was speaking at the University of Texas at Austin.

I wish I could say that this behavior is exclusive to the left but I can't. The recent incident where a Vietnam vet spit in the face of Jane Fonda disproves any such hypothesis. There's also the incident during the presidential campaign where a guy was trying to shout down Howard Dean. Although that one did end with Al Franken tackling him and slamming him to the floor.... I will say, though, that this kind of behavior is more often committed by those on the left than those on the right. And that's just the stuff the news actually reports.

Update: Mike provides a link to another article on the incident and asks a question.

The answer, of course, is no.

Idiocy on parade

Via Sound Politics comes a link to a Kool-Aid-fueled diatribe against the war in Iraq, and in support of the terrorists who are currently murdering Iraqis, from someone who is so self-contradictory, well, see for yourself. First off, he states his unequivocal support for the "insurgents:"

For myself, I can say without hesitation that I support the "insurgency", and would do so even if my only 21 year old son was serving in Iraq. There’s simply no other morally acceptable option.

Usually we get moral relativity from the left. It's refreshing to see a lefty engage in moral absolutism, no matter how whacked. Shortly after, he refers to the founding document of the United States:

As Americans, we support the idea that violence is an acceptable means of achieving (national) self-determination. This, in fact, is how our nation was formed, and it is vindicated in our founding document, The Declaration of Independence.

He follows with an extended quote to prove his point and then lays this on us:

The Declaration of Independence is revolutionary in its view that we have a “duty” to overthrow regimes that threaten basic human liberties. We must apply this same standard to the Iraqi people.

Okay, this is some kind of satire, right? If we have the duty he describes, then we had an absolute duty to remove Saddam, and have an equal duty to remove the governments of Iran, Cuba, North Korea, China, the list goes on and on. Does this guy even realize what he's saying? Moving on:

Terrorism or not, there’s no doubt that the vast majority of people in the region and in the world, believe that the war was entirely unjustifiable.

Belief does not equal correctness. I'm sure that, when asked whether or not all the people in the world who believe Jesus Christ is the son of God are correct, he'd probably answer no, or answer that they are misinformed or misguided. I would hazard a guess that most people who think the war was unjustifiable don't know all the facts but are simply parroting the views of their governments and/or major media.

The argument most commonly offered by antiwar Americans (who believe we should stay in Iraq) doesn’t defend the legitimacy of the invasion, but provides the rationale for the ongoing occupation. The belief that “We can’t just leave them without security”, creates the logic for staying in Iraq until order can be established. Unfortunately, the occupation is just another manifestation of the war itself; replete with daily bombings, arrests, torture and the destruction of personal property. Therefore, support of the occupation is a vindication of the war. The two are inseparable.

And just who are perpetrating those bombings, the torture, and the destruction of personal property? Not the US forces. What happened at Abu Ghraib was wrong, and the people responsible are being made to pay the price by their own government, but it JUST DOESN'T COMPARE TO HAVING YOUR HEAD SAWED OFF ON CAMERA. Nor does it compare with what happened in that prison when Saddam was in power. Yet this guy would have you believe that things were better for all Iraqis then.

We should remember that the war (which was entirely based on false or misleading information) was both illegal and immoral. That judgment does not change by maintaining a military presence of 140,000 soldiers on the ground for years to come. Each passing day of occupation simply perpetuates the crime.

At the same time we have to recognize that the disparate elements of Iraqi resistance, belittled in the media as the “insurgency”, are the legitimate expression of Iraqi self-determination.

Since the "insurgency" is driven largely if not mostly by foreign fighters and foreign financial support (Syria, Al Qaeda, Zarqawi), I'd say that this statement is false on its face.

Independence is not bestowed by a foreign nation; the very nature of that relationship suggests reliance on outside forces. True independence and sovereignty can only be realized when foreign armies are evacuated and indigenous elements assume the reigns of power.

So, I guess Germany and Japan aren't independent. I'm sure they're glad to know this now. Actually, our goal is exactly that of having indigenous elements assumign the reigns of power, and also responsibility for the security of their citizens. It's just that we're still in a war situation and our enemy isn't yet completely defeated.

There’s no indication that the conduct of the occupation will change anytime soon. If anything, conditions have only worsened over the past two years. The Bush administration hasn’t shown any willingness to loosen its grip on power either by internationalizing the occupation or by handing over real control to the newly elected Iraqi government. This suggests that the only hope for an acceptable solution to the suffering of the Iraqi people is a US defeat and the subsequent withdrawal of troops. Regrettably, we’re nowhere near that period yet.

If anything, the actions of the "insurgents" shows that they are becoming increasingly desperate as the indigenous government of Iraq takes shape. As for internationalizing the occupation, there are about forty other nations who would be interested to know that their contributions didn't actually happen. As for the last sentence in that excerpt, I'll address that shortly.

It’s not the insurgency that’s killing American soldiers. It’s the self-serving strategy to control 12% of the world’s remaining petroleum and to project American military power throughout the region. This is the plan that has put American servicemen into harm’s way. The insurgency is simply acting as any resistance movement would; trying to rid their country of foreign invaders when all the political channels have been foreclosed.

Americans would behave no differently if put in a similar situation and Iraqi troops were deployed in our towns and cities. Ultimately, the Bush administration bears the responsibility for the death of every American killed in Iraq just as if they had lined them up against a wall and shot them one by one. Their blood is on the administration’s hands, not those of the Iraqi insurgency.

Ah, here's the standard lefty refrain we all know and love. It's all America's fault, not the fault of those who actually detonate the bombs or cut off the heads. Note that here again he conveniently ignores the fact that much if not most of the insurgency is composed essentially of foreign invaders itself and thus doesn't qualify as a native resistance movement. Now here's the really good one:

We shouldn’t expect that, after a long period of internal struggle, the Iraqi leadership will embrace the values of democratic government. More likely, another Iraqi strongman, like Saddam, will take power. In fact, the rise of another dictator (or Ayatollah) is nearly certain given the catastrophic effects of the American-led war.

And a bit later:

Are Americans prepared to offer their support to the same brutal apparatus of state-terror that was employed by Saddam? (Rumsfeld’s unannounced visit to Baghdad last week was to make sure that the newly elected officials didn’t tamper with hiscounterinsurgency operatives, most of whom were formerly employed in Saddam’s secret police)

But, but, didn't he say that everything was better under Saddam? Isn't that view rather incompatible with the presence of a "brutal apparatus of state-terror?" Which one is it, Mike? Was it all flowers and sunshine or was it a terrible dictatorship? You can't have it both ways, even though the attempt to do so is a staple of far-left thought.

We should also ask ourselves what the long-range implications of an American victory in Iraq would be. Those who argue that we cannot leave Iraq in a state of chaos don’t realize that stabilizing the situation on the ground is tantamount to an American victory and a vindication for the policies of aggression. This would be a bigger disaster than the invasion itself.

That's right, an American victory, and thus a success of the Bush administration's policies, would be the biggest disaster imaginable. After all, it doesn't matter how many millions Saddam killed, it doesn't matter how terrible Iraq would become if we just pulled out and left it to the mercy of the fascists, it doesn't matter how many more Iraqis would die, it doesn't matter how many more terrorists would be trained at newly created training camps in terror-controlled Iraq, it doesn't matter how many more Europeans and Americans would die in attacks carried out by those terrorists, above all WE CANNOT ALLOW BUSH TO SUCCEED IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM! EVEN IF IT MEANS THE DESTRUCTION OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE DEATHS OF EVERYONE IN IT! Better to be dead than admit that, yet again, a Republican president did something to make the world a better place.

This man is beneath contempt. I can't believe I just wasted this much time on him....