Blog o’ the Week

We meant to mention this blog over the weekend, but other things came up. Music and Molson, mainly. 🙂

Nate does a great job with the site and thought it is about time for him to get his props. He doesn’t get paid and gets little recognition for his hard work.

Have a look for yourselves-

http://www.kuyd.org/blog/

Keep up the great work, Nate!

Choking on Breakfast

This one is too good not to mention. If you have been following the creationism/junk science/intelligent design/evolution debate debacle, you will definitely appreciate this post.

The other half of this site chocked on her breakfast after reading the following comment in Saturday’s Journal-World:

“Altevogt said he sees himself as giving voice to conservatives who he said are often painted as lunatics or idiots.”

If you have read what Altevogt has said recently you will also laugh whenever you read or think about the comment above. John ‘Mr. Hypocrisy’ Altevogt says Professor Mirecki is a bigot and Nazi, but it’s not OK in Altevogt’s parallel universe for anyone else to use those words or similar characterizations when describing causes or initiatives he supports. Hello Mr. Pot. Meet Mr. Kettle. Why, John, would anyone EVER think uber-cons like you and puppet master Phill Kline are lunatics or idiots? Poor guy. Must be another case of an unfair and biased media. We cry with you, John.

For what it’s worth, we think Altevogt is challenging Phill Kline for the ‘Likes to Hear Himself Talk’ award. Is there anyone who is more attention and media hungry that either of these two egomaniacs?

*

We have a guest blogger coming in tomorrow. You’ll really like what this little lady has to say.

P.S. -Is anyone up for a Kline/Altevogt gubernatorial ticket? How about a Kline/Geitzen ticket?

The End is Near

Sorry for the lack of posting activity, but we are nearing the end of the semester- and that means finals. Hooray! Yipee!

Sarcasm aside, we’ll be posting more soon on Kline’s SCOTUS appearance today. There is conflicting information on whether or not Kline is the one arguing or if it is Jared Maag, the former SCOTUS intern/fellow. We hope to have confirmation later today.

If it’s true that Maag is the man, we applaud attorney general Kline for realizing his lack of courtroom exerience might not be a good thing for the State.

We know- hell must be freezing over.

Supreme Arrogance

In a case with huge implications, it’s nice to see the attorney general is looking to a seasoned supreme court veteran to argue the constitutionality of the Kansas death penalty. Because, in a case of this magnitude, the victims, their families and all Kansans deserve nothing less.

Back to reality: enter Phill Kline’s world. He’s decided to take the wheel for the Dec. 7 Supreme Court capital punishment case oral arguments. Seriously. We are not kidding.

Here’s what the Wichita Eagle has to say about Kline’s legal prowess and experience arguing similar cases:

“Kline has not previously argued before the Kansas Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court. He is known as a skilled political speaker, able to mesmerize a small Rotary Club luncheon or a crowded hall.” Click the link to read the entire article.

Are you kidding me?!?!?!??! Golly- if he’s able to mesmerize a church congregation or Rotary Club, hell, he’s gotta be good enough to mesmerize the Supremes, right? He’s never even completed a jury trial in his life, let alone oral arguments in the Kansas Supreme Court or US Supreme Court!!!!!!! Someone convince me this is nothing more than a political stunt to show the electorate he really does know what the inside of a courtroom looks like (besides showing up a the Kauffman trial and getting verbally bit** slapped by the judge. More on this story in a later post.) Why doesn’t Kline have the same standard for appearing in water rights issues? How about the Limon case? Where was he during the whole school finance fiasco?

The attorney general’s office has at least one attorney (Jared Maag) who at least knows how to get in and out of the Supreme Court. A Kline insider tells us Maag recently completed some kind of Supreme Court fellowship- at the US Supreme Court. Why doesn’t Kline defer to this guy to make the arguments?!?!?!? How can Kline justify how Maag is good enough for the Supremes, but not good enough for him??? Maag’s good enough to tutor you and teach you how it’s done, Kline, but not good enough to give the argument himself? Give us a break.

I’m sure the families of the victims are feeling grrrreat about their chances having a novice like Kline speaking to the Supremes.

Way to put Kansans first, Kline. Then again, what else should we expect?

Confidentiality and Identification

We have received some rather interesting tips over the past couple days regarding Kline or his associates. Some are obviously fake, but others may turn out to be factual. In order to determine this, we use a few different techniques.

One of the first methods we use to validate the claims are to validate where the poster/emailer is geographically located and other identifying information specific to where the post/email originated.

For example, we can tell generally within a 36 block radius (sometimes much more accurate) where the computer from which the message was sent.

A great feature of a module we use on this blog is the visitor reporting tool.

We are able to see pretty much anything we want. For those of you who know what a MAC address is, we can also see what yours is and compare it against a database that tracks MAC usage.

We know the browser you use, your operating system, your internet access provider and yes, your location, to a degree. (It’s amazing to use the newer data mining techniques to research this type of data.) In short, any blog or casual web site owner can identify you, if they really want to. There is NO anonymity on the internet. Period.

To illustrate, we can tell you that last night, we had visitors from Atchison to Pittsburg to Salina to Shawnee, and other points. The Atchison visitor used a computer located at 825 Edmond St. and used Charter Communications for internet access. The Shawnee visitor was located close to K-7 and uses RoadRunner. The Salina visitor accessed a terminal at a high school running IE 6 with service pack 1 installed (note to user- time to visit Windows Update). We could say more, but we do want to protect the anonymity of everyone. But rest assured, we’ll be able to separate fact from fiction.

Yesterday, for example, 27 (maybe more) visitors were accessing this blog from computers in Memorial Hall in Topeka, Kansas, strictly based on IP address. We are assuming most of the users were also using newer computers based on the category of MAC addresses. Anyone care to confirm this? Incidentally, Memorial Hall is where the attorney general’s offices are. Oddly, four computers in that office were responsible for nearly 10 percent of the overall hits we have received this week…

For what it’s worth, we do not collect your data for any other reason than to validate who you are. We don’t sell it, give it away, etc. What happens here, stays here.

Check back later for the plea agreement.

‘Mass’ Props

Thanks to all the legal eagles who have been offering help and advice. We’ll continue to need your help to obtain future documents or to point us in the right direction. So, if we didn’t respond to your offer, we will soon.

Spreading the work around will help everyone remain anonymous.

More Trouble For Kline

Following our breaking news from yesterday, more sources have come forward to share information on a wide variety of serious allegations against Kline and his staff.

One of the most serious allegations involves a current investigation by the Kansas Ethics Commission into violations by Kline and his inner circle. Sources indicate three staffers are currently being investigated by the Commission for offenses unrelated to yesterday’s breaking news.

We have also learned a division deputy is being investigated for unrelated ethics violations as well, stemming from acceptance of unauthorized gifts.

We are attempting to obtain written proof of these allegations and will post information here when they become available.

We’ll save the rest for future updates. You are not going to believe some of the stuff coming out of his office. Before we began this blog, we had enough to post something new about Kline’s illegal activities once a week through the end of 2006. That has changed over the past week. We’ll continue to confirm allegations with multiple sources before posting anything, as was the case yesterday and today. We will not post anything based on fact-less accusations or rumors unable to be proven.

Today’s reference:

Kansas Ethics Commission phone number: 785-296-4219

Attorney general’s main office line: 800-432-2310

-We are also in need one or two more private practice lawyers to substantiate and access information relating to yesterday’s breaking news piece and future investigations. It turns out some legal papers can only be accessed by members of the bar. Go figure. Please email us at firekline@gmail.com.