I did get a run in yesterday afternoon -- five and a half miles -- very nice run... but believe me, I was tired afterwards! I'm taking today off, using up vacation days because no vacation (and/or holidays) can be carried over to a new year. It's use it or lose it. So I'll probably be home all week. I say "probably" because I have a problem with a VSAM file that I need for the class I'm teaching next week. If I can get into the mainframe from home (dialing in over phone line with my laptop) and get into TSO and set up some IDCAMS and run the appropriate JCL then everything will be okay; otherwise I'll need to drive over to the office to work on it.
I don't know if I'll go for a run today or not... my left ankle was bothering me the last mile or so yesterday... certainly I would not go for another long run... maybe try for a short one. I've got an appointment to donate blood at 1:15 this afternoon, so I won't be going running following that. (Back during the spring I was running in a local 5k race and just got so tired at the two mile point that I had to walk for a few blocks and couldn't figure out why I was so exhausted until I realized that I'd donated blook the previous day.) They've certainly got me in their donor database this year... everytime the minimum wait period following a donation expires, I can count on getting a phone call within a few days. A few years ago I used to donate at blood drives at work, maybe twice a year, and would sometimes also make a donation at the local Red Cross headquarters, for a total of three donations a year. (Last year I was not eligible to donate all year because of some oral surgery involving a bone graft.) This will be my fifth donation this year, a personal record.
If you can donate blood, I urge you to do so. You might help to save someone's life.
I've been trying to keep quiet here about the nonsense in Florida... I am sick of hearing the whining from both sides.
However, I just have to say here something that I was saying to family and friends in the first days after the election... Back in 1961 when there was blatant election fraud in Chicago (enough to steal Illinois from Nixon and give it to Kennedy) plus indications of fraud in Texas so that an honest recount might have also returned that state to Nixon... so an honest recount could have given the election to Nixon instead of Kennedy. Nixon decided, for the good of the nation, not to contest the vote count. There is no greater lowlife scumbag ever to hold the office of President than Richard Nixon. I find it difficult to even say his name without feeling the desire to spit in contempt. And yet here is Al Gore displaying less class than Nixon.
And can you imagine anything more ridiculous than Gore sending William Daley out to make statements about how to conduct an election. (Note to non-US readers: Daley's father was the mayor of Chicago whose political machine rigged the 1961 election results in Chicago.... also responsible for the police clubbing and beating of anti-war demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago.)
Gore and his minions are attempting to force recount after recount, where they want to attempt to "discern the actual intentions" of voters who did not properly mark their ballots. They cite a 1996 case in Massachusetts as precedent for having a court interpret ballots. Uh, excuse me, but that case is a perfect example of the kind of outrageous vote fraud they are attempting to pull in Florida. It was a Democratic primary (much of Mass., just like much of Rhode Island, is essentially a one-party state; win the Democratic primary and you've got the election) and the challenger beat the establishment candidate by a narrow margin. A recount narrowed the margin. Then it was brought to court. The establishment lost. They shopped around for a different judge, finally found one, a Democrat with very strong party ties. She "examined" a collection of ballots that had previously been counted as having been left blank for this particular race and determined that they were overwhelmingly for the establishment candidate. This is the kind of thing Al Gore and his supporters are trying to pull in Florida.
And a word about absentee ballots. Most military bases do not postmark (time/date stamp) mail unless specifically requested to do so (Why? Beats me... who knows how the minds of military bureaucrats work?) But Florida requires mailed ballots to be have a postmark date to prove they were mailed prior to the deadline... it doesn't matter if they actually arrived prior to the deadline, if there is no date stamp they will not count them. More than forty percent of the military absentee ballots were rejected unopened because of this... and the Democratic lawyers insisted that this had to be so (even though they want to look at empty and mismarked ballots to discern how the voter had actually intended to vote). Now that publlic opinion seems to agree with (retired) General "Stormin' Norman" Swartskopf's outrage over this, Sen. Lieberman held a press conference to say that he thinks they should be "reviewed" -- but, of course, that is a pretty thing to say for public consumption but note that Democratic lawyers are still fighting to exclude those ballots.
The words and actions of Gore and his policical cronies and lawyers are just outright despicable. He is attempting to steal the election by absolutely any kind of trickery that he can... and if he ends up unable to conjure up enough phoney ballots to win, he is attempting to throw mud and slime on Bush in an advance attempt to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Bush's win, the opening shots of the 2004 campaign.
Please note that I have not said anything good about George W. Bush. (Hmmm, let's see... well, at least he's not Al Gore... other than that I can't quite think of anything.) Please also note that I did not vote for either one of these two losers. I'm simply saying that Gore's words and actions since election day are absolute proof that he is not fit to hold office. His conduct is disgusting.