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Referendum on Obama ?

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been noticing a reoccurring phrase from the talking heads in the US media.

This election is a referendum on Obama.

Give me a break! If this was a referendum on Obama it would be suggesting that all of those dumb white lazy Americans were actually thinking about voting for Obama instead of cleaning guns and beating the women folk with their bibles.

Reality is that white Americans are not dumb, the majority are not cleaning their guns, only a very small percentage are beating their womenfolk, and this election is not a referendum. However, looking at the situation from the media perspective, they do need a narrative that will last out the election season, and we have some of the ducks lined up. Obama is representing a substantially new series of policies and an attitudinal shift, he is popular, knows how to motivate an audience, knows how to construct sentences, and according to people who know him a lot better than we do, actually knows how to speak with a lot more depth than he chooses to deliver on the campaign trail. McCain in contrast is building on a familiar landscape, a national reverence for anything and anyone military, and an somewhat old-boy, beer on the balcony, best mate persona, his foreign affairs acumen established as a prisoner of war, and that ‘Rodger RamJet: Hero of our Nation’ thing.

Roger Ramjet is a patriotic and highly moral but not too bright superhero (kind of a jet age Dudley Do-Right), who is typically out to save the world, with help from his Proton Energy Pills (“PEP”), which give him “the strength of twenty atom bombs for a period of twenty seconds”. The World is invariably saved by dispensing violence towards the various recurring criminals who are traditional characters in this form of entertainment.

But, it gets worse … doesn’t the following quote sound a lot like General Petraeus, John McCain, and the McCain Campaign crew?

On government missions assigned by General G.I. Brassbottom, Ramjet encounters various nemeses during his missions. Typically he is caught, and must be rescued by his crew of sidekicks, the American Eagles (named Yank, Doodle, Dan and Dee – a play on “Yankee Doodle Dandy”.) Although his Eagles appear to be children, each of them, except for Dee, flies his own individual ramjet aircraft expertly, along with being obviously much more savvy than their leader.

I’m going out on a limb here and I’m suggesting that the media have already figured out that a ‘national referendum on Obama’ is just what is needed to create a multitude of interesting talking points, and justify a media bias to cover attention of the more interesting candidate. Think of the alternative – repeats of a kid’s TV animation series from the 1960s? After all, there are still 24 days to the Convention, 95 days (or 2,280 of those 24×7 media hours) to fill before this election is done and dusted (excluding recounts and associated supreme court rulings) and 173 days until the Inauguration.

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Content referencing Roger RamJet courtesy of Wikipedia.

611 replies on “Referendum on Obama ?”

Memo to Steve “Schmuckens” Schmidt:

“Spin this, asshole!”

Well before Senators Barack Obama and John McCain rose to the top of their parties, a partisan shift was under way at the local and state level. For more than three years starting in 2005, there has been a reduction in the number of voters who register with the Republican Party and a rise among voters who affiliate with Democrats and, almost as often, with no party at all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/us/politics/05flip.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1218006286-ZRIav8PFI1t+t0pmNhOjQw
—————————
Wed Aug 6:
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/doonesbury;_ylt=A0WTUZvONJlIuRQBxhgDwLAF

Wed Aug 6:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/billday;_ylt=Au2kq3NqJ6ZRsKOQjYegMOTXj5Z4

Wed Aug 6:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/billschorr;_ylt=AjXhjabgoP9FHAJspHUbeB8xvTYC

Obama hasn’t closed the deal yet.

Some of my Chicago friends who support Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) already are speaking as if his victory is a done deal. I hate to burst their bubbles, but a nagging question still haunts the Obama euphoria: Why isn’t he further ahead in the polls?

After all, they gush, his superbly managed campaign of “hope” and “change” seems to be humming along, as strong as the euro against the dollar. Meanwhile, the popularity of the Republican brand seems to be as weak as a subprime mortgage.

Yet after running as much as nine points ahead of Republican rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in major polls, Obama’s lead has mostly evaporated, especially in key Midwestern industrial swing states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Why?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0806pageaug06,0,6970038.column

McCain’s new TV ad is critical of Bush and Obama.

John McCain conceded in a new television commercial yesterday that “we’re worse off than we were four years ago,” and said he is the candidate best positioned to usher in an era of change.

“Washington’s broken. John McCain knows it,” says the commercial, which is implicitly critical of both President George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

It is unusual for a presidential candidate to part company with an administration of the same party, but McCain has little choice, with public opinion polls showing the public is eager for change after eight years of the Bush administration.

http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/wednesday/nation/ny-usmcca065790572aug06,0,4847089.story

Corruption rents the U.S. Senate
Any form of government is only as good as those who occupy its seats of power
There is something eternal about the corruption of an octogenarian United States senator.

It’s another in a long line of stories about flawed human beings fouling their own nests. Where would literature be without powerful men who persist in replaying a drama of excess, corruption and hubris?

If we needed more proof that the culture of Capitol Hill is terminally ill, we have it in Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens. A federal indictment last week revealed that Stevens accepted more than $250,000 in favors from his state’s leading oil magnate.

Now that’s the type of article we need a lot more of.
http://www.dailyastorian.info/main.asp?SectionID=23&SubSectionID=392&ArticleID=53300&TM=81901.21

Well. Here’s another one.

Obama takes strong lead in new poll
Barack Obama has moved into a 6 point lead over John McCain in the American presidential election, according to a new poll.

The Associated Press-Ipsos poll put the Democratic Party candidate on 47 per cent against the Republican’s show of 41 per cent.

Another poll released yesterday gave Mr McCain a slim lead over his rival for the first time.

But the new poll suggested that strong support among women, ethnic minorities and younger voters had pushed the African-American senator further ahead.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/2507763/Obama-takes-strong-lead-in-new-poll.html

The Strange Death of Republican America.

Today no one can even envision when the Republicans will control the presidency and both houses of the Congress as they did just two years ago.

On July 29, President George W. Bush appeared at the Lincoln Electric Company in Euclid, Ohio, where he spoke about energy and then asked the audience for questions. The opportunity for people in a small town in the Midwest to pose a question directly to the president of the United States is a rare one, possibly a once in a lifetime experience. “And now I’d like to answer some questions, if you have any,” said Bush. But his request was returned with silence. Bush filled the air with an awkward joke: “After seven-and-a-half years, if I can’t figure out how to dodge them, I shouldn’t…” The audience tittered nervously. Bush continued, “If you don’t have any questions, I can tell you a lot of interesting stories.” The crowd laughed again, but no one raised a hand. “Okay,” said Bush, “I’ll tell you a story.”

http://www.alternet.org/election08/94050/the_strange_death_of_republican_america/

A new AP/Ipsos poll has some good news for Barack Obama, with him leading John McCain thanks to big advantages among his core demographics.

The numbers: Obama 47%, McCain 41%, with a ±3.1% margin of error. The two are tied among men, usually a GOP-leaning demographic, while Obama takes a 13-point lead with women. McCain has only a 10-point lead among whites — compared to President Bush’s 17-point lead in 2004 — and Obama has a 55-point lead among non-whites.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/08/poll_obamas_core_groups_launch.php

Calling McCain “The old guy” and “a wrinkly gray haired guy” must hurt. 😈

Corruption charges roil politics in Miami
In June, months after reports surfaced that $500,000 the so-called Center for a Free Cuba took from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was missing, that agency temporarily suspended all its programs providing money and support for government opponents in Cuba. USAID’s 2008 budget for Cuba projects totaled $45 million. USAID was responding to a directive from Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/13448/

It was only four days ago that the Gallup Daily tracking was showing Obama and McCain at 44% each and a bunch of us were getting nervous. Since then Obama has been gaining ground slowly and the numbers are currently showing Obama ahead by 4% (Obama 47%, McCain 43%).

Voter preferences fluctuated in the time immediately after Obama’s much publicized overseas trip. First, Obama’s lead stretched to nine points near the conclusion of the trip, only to disappear when McCain moved into a precise tie with Obama near the end of last week. Now, the race seems to have reverted to where it has been for most of the summer, with Obama holding a narrow advantage.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/109279/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Holds-4Point-Advantage.aspx

528 Chris B

McCain’s crew are idiots if they didn’t see that coming! Paris, the archetypal self-publicist gets handed an almost international platform to strut onto by a ‘wrinkly old guy’ and she wouldn’t take it??????

Whatever money he pays these clowns is wasted, but I’m so happy he does! LOL

I’ve only heard the Hilton ad on radio this arvo, but I must say, she plays McCain for a complete mug.

And quite sassy too.(She’s not what you’d call ‘my type’ usually! LOL)

Now, will Moses make an appearance too? And claim he’s been defamed by comparison with a terrorist Muslim?

To a nation so stepped in Car Culture, Alaskan, Floridian or Californian offshore drilling is easily sold to the majority as a perfectly reasonable option.
No goddamn tree-huggers gon’ compromise their patriotically wholesome American Way of Life.
I think this was (past tense) a factor in Johnny Bomb-Bomb’s poll pullback in the last week. Few politicians come a gutser when they appeal to true believers of heavily reinforced national hagiography. American motorists celebrate their cars. Screw the environment!

Uhmmmm, as for Paris………..well, she didn’t write the couch-to-camera piece (so totally cool the way she used her high hells to prevent herself from sliding) but I was surprised at the modicum of wit she managed to muster in her delivery. The only other time (singular) I witnessed Paris vocalising on film, it was mostly of a non-verbal nature:)

http://www.commondreams.org/views/070900-104.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x8RpnUne2U

We need to be careful here……for some of us the “wrinkly

old ” tag is getting much too close for comfort!! 😆

I’m sure that Gerard Henderson was aware of the ironic connection when he titled his piece in today’s Sydney Morning Herald:

“Why Costello can still be the one”

But really, even an oblique allusion to Obama (and that’s surely what it is), does not get any reflected light into the dark recess that should have contained something akin to charisma, but alas, lies gapping and empty in the ominously silent Cossie.

On the one hand, all the world has seen that Obama exudes the stuff, while anyone who watched Cossie over the last decade has seen nothing more than a few jokes in question time and not a lot else besides.

Keating’s absolutely right: he contributed virtually nothing of structural significance, and displayed a complete lack of anything remotely similar to the quality of ‘leadership’.

Costello can still be the one?

The one what?

On the Cossie issue, if I may, I had a strange image of Cossie and Horatio Hornet (aka the Brengun), after hearing that he’d possibly consider the leadership if Nelson stood aside and a spill was not required.

(By the way, I blame Ecky for my strange cartoon hallucinations! LOL)

Scene:

King Herod (Cossie) sits on the throne and watches enthralled as Salome (Nelson) dancing seductively, offers a silver platter to her father, and lifts the veil on it to reveal….her own head!

But as Keating so astutely put it today, no one is EVER going to see a musical written about Peter Costello!

Alas, this scene would make a damn fine ballet adaptation, wouldn’t it? LOL

Catrina @ 530,

Whilst Gallup is showing Obama with a 4 point lead, Rasmussen has McCain with a 1 point lead nationally.

As I’ve said before, this is far from over – Obama can’t afford to parade around as President-elect with these sorts of poll numbers (and he should stop wasting money advertising in states like Georgia and North Dakota…)

Maybe he could do a solo gig: Cossie Fans’r Fruity

…and he could get to wear the wig! LOL

537 Swing Lowe Still a long way to go, check out the other polls above though. One at 5% and one at 6%. I can’t wait for his ads during the Olympics. If he gets them wrong it’s backwards if they’re on song it’s forwards.

No Crisis Is Immune From Exploitation Under Bush
By HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON

Tucked away on the Cayman Islands sits Ugland House, an unassuming, nondescript building of modest scale and size. However, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), this five-story office building is home to more than 18,000 corporate entities, nearly half of which have U.S. ties.

In the past few years, the number of corporations flocking to places like the Cayman Islands to evade U.S. taxes has exploded. One of these companies, former Halliburton subsidiary KBR, has used offshore tax havens to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal taxes. To no one’s surprise, instead of cracking down on KBR, the Bush administration has rewarded the company in April of this year with a 10-year, $150 billion contract in Iraq.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121798030763715107.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

It’s getting a run everywhere. Latest on CNN’s site.

Paris Hilton spoofs McCain ‘celebrity’ ad.
The celebutante thrust into the presidential campaign in an ad by Republican candidate John McCain has issued a tart rebuttal, in a scantily clad, tongue-in-cheek kind of way.

When you use the Google news it show around 3,000 results. Can’t wait for Britney’s reply.

Backfires badly on McCain, age is not what he wanted highlighted. The Hilton’s ad demographics, may reach an audience, McCain was strong in, with the wrong effect.

The national polls gyrate wildly, in part due to a margin of error of about 4% for each poll. One way to smooth the variations is to average the polls in some way. Here is a simple way. All the Real Clear Politics national polls have been assigned to the week in which they occurred (e.g., Jan. 1-7 is week 1, Jan. 8-14 is week 2, etc.). The average of each week was then calculated and plotted against week number. Here is the graph. The points above the horizontal orange line show Obama ahead of McCain.

http://www.electoral-vote.com

The North Carolina waterfront community of Elizabeth City witnessed an early skirmish in a high-stakes political battle over registering new black voters, which may help decide the outcome of the presidential election.

Republican voter Richard Gilbert last year challenged the eligibility of several students at historically black Elizabeth City State University to vote in a municipal election. The local elections board dismissed Gilbert’s complaint that students are only temporary residents in the town of about 20,000 people.

Similar fights over voter qualifications will be waged this year, particularly in Southern states, as Democrat Barack Obama’s drive to register hundreds of thousands of new black voters clashes with Republican suspicions that get-out-the-vote efforts recruit people who aren’t eligible to cast ballots.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=atnbqUvhWPWs&refer=us

Florida, where the poll gave Obama a lead of 2 percentage points, the white vote split just 53% to 39% in favor of the senator from Arizona. McCain also trails by 2 points among voters in Ohio, where he leads his Democratic rival by only 49% to 42% among white voters. In Pennsylvania, Obama is ahead of McCain by 7 points, a margin made possible by the fact that nearly as many white voters (45%) support Obama as back McCain (46%).

If you think this is just a bunch of statistical mumbo jumbo, you’re wrong. As with most things in this country, race matters in this election. Blacks will vote overwhelmingly for Obama because of the importance they attach to electing this nation’s first black president.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20080805/cm_usatoday/mccainsraceproblem8212amongwhitesthatis

According to a report by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project released last week, the most important state in the ad war between Barack Obama and John McCain is Pennsylvania, where the two candidates and the Republican National Committee spent a total of $10.3 million on ads from June 3 to July 26.

This is nearly $4 million more than was spent in the second-ranked state, Ohio, which is home to a much closer presidential contest.

http://www.politickerpa.com/michaelgsovski/1104/presidential-candidates-spend-10m-tv-ads-despite-questions-effectiveness

I got a laugh out of Paris Hilton’s tongue in cheek reply to McCain. You know, I think she’s a great deal smarter than we might think.
I note also a new poll out today has Obama with a 6 point lead over McCain: 48-42.

Anybody watch The West Wing just now on cable?… It was the one where they do the debate… got me thinking… At the start I go in thinking ‘if only’ something like that happened here it would be good.

Then again, I kinda liked our last one (rigged badly, front row full of bovver boys)… yet the “pinhead” got up!

The WW one makes for good TV, but ours was better for drama! (mind you, I would be spitting chips about the whole thing if the uglies got up! )

***Disclaimer, I reckon cos I referenced the WW it relates to US politics ;), **** so is on topic (thin I know but hey) 😉

549 Enemy Combatant

Yeah, ‘only three more months’! LOL

If ParisH runs more ads that then maybe that could ‘spice’ things up a bit, eh?

I’m still amazed at how easy Macca is making it…for Obama! LOL

561 Catrina

She really put the stiletto into Macca didn’t she? And dropping in an energy policy that clearly had some sense in it defused the whole ‘celebrity bimbo’ thing in one deft moment.

Her writers need a round of applause! LOL

MoDo does a scathing piece on McCain’s descent into the Stygian cave and his ferry ride with Rove:

The Arizona senator who built his reputation on being a brave proponent of big solutions is running a schoolyard campaign about tire gauges and Paris Hilton, childishly accusing his opponent of being too serious, too popular and not patriotic enough.

Even his own mother, the magical 96-year-old Roberta McCain, let slip that she thought the Paris Hilton-Britney Spears ad was “kinda stupid.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/opinion/06dowd.html?hp

…she does him over and spares nothing:

Some of McCain’s old pals in the Senate are cringing at what they see as his soulless transformation into what he once scorned.

“John’s eaten up with envy,” said one. “His image of himself was always the handsome, celebrity flyboy.

“Now somebody else is the celebrity,” the colleague continued, while John looks in the mirror and sees his face marred by skin cancer and looks at the TV and sees his dashing self-image replaced by visions of William Frawley, with Letterman jokes about his membership in the ham radio club and adventures with wagon trains.

…ouch! The chicks sure know how to hurt a white-haired old guy, eh?

Freddie Mac drops $817 billion for the second quarter and the stock goes seriously south and drags Fanny Mae along for the ride.

The whole market follows their lead.

No surprises here, but apparently Wall Street was not expecting such a hefty loss. Well, guess what, there’s probably more where that came from!

CNN data digging below the skin …

Most Important Issues To Your Vote

Economy 48%
Iraq 18%
Health Care 13%
Terrorism 9%
Immigration 9%

Apparently Obama voters are more concerned with the first three while McCain voters are more concerned with the last two. I have no idea how this statement plays into anything we can work with other than McCain seems to be capturing a the minority opinion while the other guy seems to be capturing support on the issues that most Americans are concerned about.

http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/politics/2008/08/06/issue1.schneider.economy.poll.cnn

What Obama is up against:

” We see a vast machinery built for our protection
reengineered into a device for our exploitation. We behold
the majestic workings of the free market itself, boring ever
deeper into the tissues of the state. Ultimately, we gaze
upon one of the true marvels of history:
democracy buried beneath an avalanche of money. ”

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/frank2

An interesting article over on MSNBC siting GOP’s Pawlenty (a potential McCain VP) praising Obama’s positive tone.

ARLINGTON, Va. – Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, often mentioned as a possible running mate for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, said Wednesday GOP candidates would do well to adopt a positive tone like that of McCain’s Democratic rival Barack Obama.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26057415/

566 Megan

There’s some wonderful imagery in that piece, describing the opulent indulgences of the Republican Imperium in Washington:

Every spigot was open, and every indulgence slopped out for their gleeful wallowing. All the cliches roared at full, unembarrassed volume: the wines gurgled, the T-bones roasted, the golf courses beckoned, the Learjets zoomed, the contractors’ glass buildings sprouted from the earth, and the lobbyists’ mansions grew like brick-colonial mushrooms on the hills of northern Virginia.

…it’s Rome before the fall in every aspect.

Electoral Vote talks about Catrina’s ‘referendum’ thesis:

Political guru Charlie Cook wrote a column that discusses polling data showing that a majority of the voters aren’t weighing Barack Obama vs. John McCain. They are considering whether Obama is up to the job. If he is, he wins; otherwise, the other guy wins, and it doesn’t much matter who the other guy is. Obama has to make himself appear presidential and McCain is doing everything he can to make him appear defective, hence all the negative ads already. Obama can count on the black vote, most of the Latino vote, and a large chunk of the under 50 vote. The big question is the gray-white vote–white voters over 50. If he can get something like a third of them, he can win, otherwise McCain wins.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

…and here’s the link to the Cook article:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cr_20080802_8275.php

I caught a snippet on the radio with the English economist Roger Bootle asking the question who is the individual most responsible for the global credit crunch?

And guess who? Yep, Mr Magoo himself, the Central Banker who could never see the bubble, Alan Greenspan.

The hagiography is crumbling, bit by bit. (Of course there was an admirable vanguard of economists calling this for many years if you knew where to look.)

Bonjour Bludgeurs,

{figured if someone took the trouble to translate and publish us “en Francais”, then it was OK to bung on a bit of side for a day or two}:mrgreen:

KR, dig MoDo’s last sentence:

“Steve “Schmuckens” Schmidt has converted the Straight Talk Express into the Dire Straits Dirge. Dumb trade!”
[well, close enough to win a panatella maybe]

Yep, electoral-vote’s analysis frames The Equation well.

The big question is the gray-white vote–white voters over 50. If he can get something like a third of them, he can win, otherwise McCain wins.

Kirri at 572, thought of you as I was listening to the same guy on ABC radio.
I remember back in the late 90’s when economics journos/stenographers hung off, parsed and scrutinised Greenspan’s every word like mesmerised devotees at King Mammon’s Court.

Tues Aug 5:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/jeffdanziger;_ylt=Angjdoq3eUFT1oI..n8k0S7V.i8C

G’day Ecky, you win the MoDo ‘putting words in her mouth’ Award of the Week!

It’s funny how often we do that sort of thing around here, like when David Brooks told McCain to stop flogging the Surge (after I’d dubbed it the Albatross!).

Maybe they should just hang out here for nuggets…or, you don’t think they already do???? LOL

As for the Maestro, well he’s out of his time now, that’s for sure, and as the mutant creature he’s created wreaks havoc across the globe, the louder the calls for his image to be dismantled until his name will be synonymous with disaster, flood, famine, earthquake, plague and all manor of pestilence rolled into one.

You read it here first! LOL

Yeah, Kirri, I can see it now…….”economically disadvantaged” mobs, les nouvelles enrages, will mass around “key” bourses and Saddam his statues:)

Stop Press: Bin Laden’s driver’s trial at Gitmo ends in spilit verdict.
Guilty of abetting (ah, der!), but not guilty of conspiracy.

More, as online newszines hit teh inter-tubes.

564
Kirri
I think you may have a typo at 564 . It should be mil not bil.
But who cares what does a few 0000’s really matter when your shares drop from $67 to $8. And good old Fannie might be doing the big slide in to second base by the weekend.

As the housing crisis continues unabated, worries about the solvency of the two government-sponsored mortgage finance behemoths has pushed the companies’ share prices down considerably. Freddie Mac’s stock closed Monday trading at $8.04 per share. In August 2007, Freddie’s stock traded at $67.20 per share.

Fannie Mae also is off its 52-week high of $70.57, closing Monday at $13.60 a share.

Freddie Mac’s second quarter results were announced at 6:30am Wednesday and caused its stock to fall even further in before the bell trading on Wall Street. Fannie Mae is set to announce its second quarter results Friday.

http://www.builderonline.com/mortgages-and-banking/freddie-mac-posts-821-million-loss.aspx

577 Gaffhook

As you say Gaffer, what’s a few couples of zeros these days? (yep, of course is mill, not bill. I was almost going to write it as 0.82 Billion, just to make it clearer but changed only part of my mind apparently! LOL)

These days everything seems to be in billions…GM, Ford etc don’t just drop millions anymore, except as small change down the back of those gigantic SUV seats, that is! LOL

I am sure that i read somewhere that who ever wins Ohio is usually the Prez.

Seems like they are still having problems there with those dreaded counting machines.

There is a court argument over the machines and looks like Ohio Dem sec of state Jennifer Brunner is making sure there is an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff when it comes to counting the votes. Loks like these Jens are Hot on the pace to keep the bastards honest.

The touch-screen voting setup used in half of Ohio’s 88 counties doesn’t work properly, and the former Diebold Election Systems should pay as a result, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said in a court filing yesterday.

The move comes fewer than 90 days before Ohio voters go to the polls in an election that could decide the presidential race, but Brunner says safeguards will be in place by then in the affected counties to mitigate any risks.

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/08/06/brunner.html?sid=101

Off topic, but related to energy saving and computer use…both things are high on the list of blogger activities, so relevant for us:

A free download to set power down criteria for your PC:

http://www.verdiem.com/edison/

It’s a 28mb file with a very simple interface to instruct when your computer gets throttled back to as little as 5% of your usual standby consumption.

It’s also got a neat calculator to show how much energy and money you will save for every setting.

Once you’ve set it, just click in the upper right corner to get the icon to run in your system tray at the bottom of your screen.

Now, returning to POBUS mode….

579 Gaffhook

Good to see Diebold getting outdone by the pencil, eh?

Outsourcing your voting system to partisans of the Imperium (in Decline, as in Fall) hardly seems to have much to do with democracy, does it? LOL

Another poll reflecting the same as the two yesterday.

Barack Obama leads John McCain 45 percent to 39 percent in the latest CBS News poll. Despite Obama’s highly-publicized foreign trip and McCain’s recent high-profile advertisements, the findings are unchanged since a CBS News/New York Times poll released last month. The percentage of undecided voters – 13 percent – also remains steady.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/06/opinion/polls/main4325670.shtml

Reactions to Hilton Video.

Is it safe to say this is the best acting performance we’ve yet seen from Paris Hilton? Maybe the most shocking thing about the Hilton video is how neatly it fits into this year’s campaign narrative.

If both candidates and their supporters were not concerned with the positive and negative aspects of celebrity, they would be ignoring this. Instead, it’s well-cushioned between the general election’s biggest viral videos, Obama’s “Yes We Can” Will.i.am. video and McCain’s “Celeb” ad, both of which use Hollywood to push a political message.

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/groundgame/

Come November, more Americans might cast their ballots on paper than in any other election in U.S. history.

That wasn’t supposed to happen. If everything had gone according to the government’s $3 billion plan to upgrade voting technology after the hanging-chad fiasco in Florida in 2000, that sentence would read “electronic machines” instead of paper.

Instead, thousands of touchscreen devices are collecting dust in warehouses from California to Florida, where officials worried about hackers and fed up with technical glitches have replaced the equipment with scanners that will read paper ballots.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/story/631548.html

Paris is drawing attention to the wrinkly white haired old guy, something Obama can’t do.

I wonder what bounce Obama will get from the Hilton video?

Think it’s called the Hubba-Hubba bounce, Chris B, after the world renowned anthopo-psephologist.

Getting teenagers to care about the U.S. election.

Sophy Cohen, a student at Santa Monica High School, writes:

The opinion of youth has never been held more highly during a presidential election as it is now. Young people hold the answer to the world’s growing problems and to the chance to fix them. So what’s the problem? That kids are not informed enough and have grown not to care.

But at my school, the majority of kids became informed. We had a mock election last semester, with students discussing the candidates in government and economics classes. A booth was set up with paper ballots for a schoolwide vote. Meanwhile, volunteers from Rock the Vote came and registered students who were 18. The winner of our mock election was Barack Obama by far.

More and more young people are taking part, but I still believe we have a chance to do more.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thehomeroom/2008/08/reaching-the-yo.html

592 Enemy Combatant

Paris looked pretty bouncy to me Ecky, but I’ll have to go back and have another look after I’ve wiped the steam off my glasses! LOL

It’s wonderful isn’t it? I mean the bimbo celebrity talks back, makes sense, shows some wit (only one ‘t’, careful!), and plenty of legs, and skewers the old guy on his own petard.

Even if that’s all she achieves, I’d call it redemption and nearly payment in full for all the dreary waste of media space the poor (irony) goil has foistered upon us these last few years.

Ok, Paris, let’s call it quits, but don’t feel you have to stop shafting the old guy, eh?

The Whine-Track Candidate.

Back in the languid summer of 2004, George Bush left it to a shadowy 527 group to rough up his opponent. Straight talker that he is, John McCain is keeping the dishonest slime in-house. His campaign spent much of July in high dudgeon over nearly everything Barack Obama did, had done, or would do. In record time, the disdain shot from campaign subconscious to television screen by portraying Obama as dissing the troops like Jane Fonda, pirouetting for cameras like Paris Hilton, and playing to black rage like Al Sharpton.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=7c975910-3ce4-49fc-ad91-9db8ffeb0d34

The NYTimes makes its position on the Hamdan show trial (or should that read: no-show trial?):

We are not arguing that the United States should condone terrorism or those who support it, or that the guilty should not be punished severely. But in a democracy, trials must be governed by fair rules, and judges must be guided by the law and the evidence, not pressure from the government. The military commission system, which falls far short of these standards, is a stain on the United States.

…I’d call it a complete travesty, and when Col. Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor in Guantánamo Bay resigns on the assessment that the trial is only for show, and is rigged by the government for just one outcome, then you’d have to say it’s a very poor day for rule of law and any notion of upholding the constitution of their country.

Bush more than deserves impeachment, many times over.

Paris shows the best form of attack comedy. Should be a lot more of it. MoveOn take note.

Amusing slip of the tongue on ABC news radio today.

A Dr Malcolm Cook (?) from the Lowy Institute was being interviewed about the idiot’s latest speech on Chinese human rights.

Near the end he spoke briefly about the two presidential candidates. He called McCain ‘McCain’ but Obi became “President Obama’.

Nice if it becomes part of the lexicon before the election.

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