Jon’s Corner of the Whirled

The Center for Public Integrity has published an eye-opening accounting of the rhetoric from the Bush administration that lead up to the invasion of Iraq.

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.

These arguments are along the same lines as HR 333. which calls for the impeachment of Vice President Cheney.

Dennis Kucinich wasn’t allowed to debate in the Nevada primary debate after all. Democracy Now! did provide him the opportunity to speak on the same topics that the other candidates were asked about. Follow this link for listening options.

The election process needs to be reformed. If the Democratic Party wants to become the party of the future, they should abandon the current nomination process and adopt a uniform process for the whole country. It should be a popular vote, conducted across the country at the same time. No state should have an undo influence on the results, and all the candidates have to make their case to everyone.

From the Los Angeles Times:

A Nevada judge said Monday that Democratic presidential candidate Dennis J. Kucinich must be included in today’s candidate debate in Nevada.

Senior Clark County District Judge Charles Thompson said if Kucinich was excluded, he would issue an injunction stopping the televised debate. …

This is great news for a man that has been unfairly treated by the mainstream press.

I went Saturday and yesterday to Meldrum’s Bar again to do some steelhead fishing. I hadn’t been there in many months, but things haven’t changed since my last posting on the subject. A lot of the same people still fish there, the fishing success is as sporadic as ever, and the geese are still fighting. The Clackamas County Sherrifs showed up for a while to talk, and I actually had a state trooper check my salmon tag. I now feel justified spending the $46 bucks for the license and tag this year.

I was surprised to see all the boats in the Willamette considering how many logs, trees, and UFOs (Unidentifiable Floating Objects) there were going downstream at a good clip. The water was chocolate brown, and as high as to be expected during this time of year. A bit of excitement occurred when a guy out in a boat seemed to have lost his motor. Steam started pouring out of it pretty close to the mouth of the Clackamas, and everyone watched him as he drifted downstream trying to get it running. He drifted out of site, about that time the police were contacted, but eventually he managed to come back upstream on his own.

There were only two fish landed (almost 3, but the guy’s leader broke when he was hauling the fish on shore) in the 14 hours I was there for the two days. Of course, none of the fish were on my line. This is not the sort of fishing you want to take your kids unless they have infinite patience and you don’t mind them learning a bunch of new four letter words. There is also one guy who thought Hamms is good for breakfast (well 6:30 am, I suppose he could be working nights), so eating habits might be better learned elsewhere…

I tried to make observations about all the different plunking rigs I saw there, and I’m going to put a posting together that shows pictures of all the different ones I saw.

The weather station software stopped working a couple of times in the past 24 hours, so I tried another Serial to USB converter I had available. I’m pretty sure the converter that shipped with the La Crosse WS-2316 was the culprit because I could get things working by stopping the software, removing the USB device, reinsert it, and reenabling the software. The symptoms seem likely to be a driver issue with the original adapter. I guess I’ll know if that is true after this new adapter runs for a while.

I wonder if the protocol for the WS-2316 is published anywhere… It would be interesting to see what it provides and perhaps create some different software to process the data. After a bit of searching, it appears there is a little information on the protocol here and here. Maybe if I can find some free time, I’ll try to put together an application to get the data from the unit. I’m using the WUHU software right now, and it works ok, but I’d like to optimize the data I collect for what I am interested in.