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A New Dawn

651 replies on “A New Dawn”

State of the Senate Races.

One peculiarity of this race is the presence of 25,000 undervotes, that is ballots in which someone voted for President but not for senator. Such ballots are perfectly legal, but it seems unusual that someone would stand in line for a long time to vote for President but skip the extremely visible and contentious Senate race. Some observers think that these voters may not have marked their Senate choice darkly enough on the ballot so the optical scanners missed them. In a hand recount, some of these votes will be picked up. Of great concern to Coleman is that 18,000 of the undervotes came from counties that Obama carried.

Yesterdays Votemaster.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/Maps/Nov09.html

GOP Senate Caucus Will be More Conservative

One of the effects of the election is to move the center of gravity of the Republican senatorial caucus sharply to the right. Six Republican senators won’t be in the new Senate, either due to retirements or defeats and three more are threatened. On the whole, they were a moderate bunch according to the ratings of conservative interest groups.

http://www.electoral-vote.com

COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENT

Geez – I know my words in this latest post are awe inspiring, but even I think some of you could do a better job. Anyone up for the next post? Potential topics include:

* the Bush/Obama transition process
* the GOP meltdown
* the Inauguration
* the Pakistani/Taliban battle
* the Iranian political landscape
* the Russian withdrawal from Georgia

Or – whatever!

šŸ™‚

Good one from Whirlpool.

How many people on the Australian Communications and Media Authority does it take to ban the whole internet?

5

an aethesist
a muslim
a hindu
a christian
and a buddhist

Speaking of the GOP meltdown, David Brooks is lamenting that the moderates from the coastal states have been routed and left the ultra conservatives from the middle states to grumble about they weren’t right wing enough.

It really is funny, even though Brooks just says it wrong and doesn’t seem to be amused in the slightest. His forecast is a rump movement that will spend a few years lurching to the extremes before saner heads prevail.

He seems resigned for a fair time in the wilderness, and, considering the godawful fuckup they’ve made of things, a right and fitting penance one would think.

Ecky, that last one is a zinger!

It’s a hybrid! LOL

If it wasn’t so bloody tragic it would be funny (like the homeless vet), America is in for a very bad time.

Looks like they found a few missing votes to count. Approx 90k of them!

Alaska Update: Thousands of Ballots ‘Found’, One-Third Remain Uncounted in the State’s Still-Fishy ’08 Election:

The Division of Elections reports there are now 90,635 ballots remaining to be counted. This means nearly 29 percent (28.8%) of the total vote has not been counted yet.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6654

Sorry Chris, never ended up getting back to WP today.. went fishing for a bit with my kids and then spent the last few hours doing house/kid stuff .

I did spend a few minutes playing with the winged bats over at Bolters house.(don’t worry people, completely disinfected before I came here) šŸ˜‰

When I get bored, I like to post there under various monikers… to elicit rabid responsesā€™ šŸ˜€ … this is my favorite so far today… mainly cos it’s actually the most science based thing I’ve read (although it’s completely insane)

Letā€™s put this entire CO2 debate into perspective with actual physics.

Imagine a 60 cm (2 foot) cubic box.
This represents a typical ā€œgrabā€ of atmosphere.
Now fill it to the brim with golf balls ā€“ youā€™ll get 2,744
This represents all the molecules in the atmosphere.

Guess how many golf balls represent CO2?

ONE Golf Ball.

Water vapour has 900.

Guess how much we humans contribute to the volume of the ONE Golf Ball?

A 4mm diameter ball bearing.

This is the physical reality of Global Warming

If you want to be scientific look at the physics.

If you want to play with computer models watch Shrek!

Komorikid (Reply)
Tue 11 Nov 08 (05:25pm)

Well, makes sense to me šŸ˜€ šŸ˜€ šŸ˜€

what can I say it’s always a laugh šŸ˜€

Spammy

412 Gaffhook Really good news. I couldn’t figure how come Stevens was so far behind in the polls yet he looked like winning. I wonder if they are from a heavy Democrat area, and that’s why they mysteriously disappeared. Might be an investigation into this.

Quite a good horoscope at Salon re the GOP future.

The GOP’s last chance: Become Democrats

With all trends running against them, Republicans’ only hope is to reinvent themselves as pragmatists. That, or nominate Sarah Palin and go out in a blaze of glory…………………

The painful truth for conservatives is that the dogs aren’t eating their dog food — and every national trend indicates that they will never eat it again. Which means the GOP faces a wrenching choice: remain true to its increasingly irrelevant and rejected ideology and fade into political insignificance, or remake itself as essentially a more moderate version of the Democratic Party.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2008/11/11/republicans/index.html

Spammy, on the weekend I saw a piece of climate scepticism in the SMH (Michael Duffy) who said that figures at the Hadley institute would confirm that the climate has cooled recently.

So I checked, and they said no such thing, in fact the site was wall to wall climate change data!

Where do these people come from, and which planet do they live on? ‘Cause they sure as hell don’t live on this one!

For those who missed this the first time.

Stop Australian Internet Censorship.

Australian Senator, Stephen Conroy, is set to introduce mandatory Internet filtering in 2008. This petition has been organised to put an end to the filtering in Australia, before it begins!

Existing reports (some even conducted by the Australian Government) show that ISPs and customers will be forced to pay if mandatory filtering is introduced. The 2003 Ovum report on filtering commissioned by the Howard Government even finds that smaller ISPs will not be able to absorb the costs like large ISPs.

From Christopher Hitchens on Slate:

“And if you think our own press and media are too uncritically adoring, just spend a second or two exposing yourself to the overseas version. On election night, I spent a little time on British and then on Australian television. For expressing a few mild doubts about the new president-elect, I was forcibly reminded in one case that the first 14 (I think it was) presidents of the United States could have owned Barack Obama, and was informed in the second case that just 40 years ago, he would not have been allowed to vote in the election, let alone win it. ”

http://www.slate.com/id/2204240/

Poor Chris. If he was given short shrift on Lateline it had nothing to do with his criticisms of Obama. It was because he was clearly inebriated and was carrying on like an argumentative drunk.

KR – it’s just crazy out there… mainly cos lots of them are either 1: crazy or 2: out there šŸ˜‰

The other day, some bat-freak was ripping into me on bolters blog … in HER opinion… summers have been colder the last few years… she admitted that she’d only been in Southern inland NSW (Bombala) for 4 yrs after 25+ years in OLD, “but it’s colder man, all the people I talk too say its been cold and that means its colder from Rockhampton to Eden, a third of the country!!”

What could I say?

Wanna buy a hat? = http://zapatopi.net/afdb/

422

Spammy, I want one! ROFLOL

But OK, some mad fruitloop on a blog is one thing, but a person who gets published in a rag like the SMH is another altogether. (The Bolter, let’s face it, is a magnet for flat earthers and Al beanie wearers, and makes his living at it.)

Well since Steven Conroy is clearly “flavour of the month” around these parts. šŸ™‚
Let’s just hope he can do better than the farce of Internet filtering, when it comes to getting the ABC some decent funding from those misers in Treasury.
There’s a fine article by Quentin Dempster about the funding issues
and the sad tale of radio national here.
Well worth a read.

The Price Of Creative Independence At The ABC

Traditional or digital? After the recent controversy over Radio National, Quentin Dempster argues that the ABC’s future is bright ā€” but only if it sticks to its high standards
There has been a tendency by some to see the recent controversial changes to Radio National as a symptom of the broadcaster being pulled in two different directions: traditional quality broadcasting on one hand, and the digital revolution on the other.

The truth is a little more complicated, but perhaps also a bit more hopeful.

http://newmatilda.com/2008/11/10/price-creative-independence-abc

Remember the campaign the Librarians from Alaska were running to stop Sarah Palin getting elected because she censored books. Now we have the same thing in Australia happening to us. But it is not the evil Republicans, those friends of the fundies. It’s the Australian Labor Party. I worked for the ALP at the federal election. I worked for the ALP at the state election. Somebody has to pay and it won’t be pretty!

Looks like a few questions need to be asked in Minnesota and will be a good thing there will be a recount.
Maybe some dirty tricks unfolding:

At four different points in the night vote tallies for Al Franken decreased significantly even as tallies for Norm Coleman continued to increase from the previous timed tally. These four points are indicated on the graph below by the arrows. Decreases in Al Franken’s tally of 7903 votes occurred at 2:04 am, 105 votes at 3:42 am, 9529 votes at 3:58 am, and 3313 votes at 5:20 am. A total of 20,850 votes appear to have been subtracted from Al Franken’s total throughout the evening. At only one point that we could determine was there a decrease in Norm Coleman’s vote tally. This occurred at 2:09 am where 4252 votes were subtracted.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Evidence-of-Republican-Fra-by-E-Nelson-081110-788.html

Chris, please go ahead with you article on net censorship. Freedom to communicate without fear or favour is the life blood of any democratic process. I can’t believe Conroy is carrying on like such a pork chop. Besides, what is it with Ministers for Communication? Since Alston they have been complete and utter fuck-wits!

Howard’s sedition laws still stand, Mick Keelty is stiil top Comm. cop despite his zealous buffonery over Dr. Haneef. Even Paul O’Sullivan, Howard appointed ASIO spook-meistre backed off on Haneef when all the facts “came to light”.

So let’s give the Pixie and his pipsqueak, pecksniff Minister Conroy a bit of Ticster Larry Dooley. ChrisB, come on down!

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2008/11/11/tomo/

425
Gaffhook

“House prices only go up!” ROFLOL

I loved it Gaffy, they covered everything, including those who said it was all going to end in tears and the corrupt lending practices that ballooned this monster into gargantuan dimensions.

It should be compulsory viewing on all modern history (err, economics) courses!

Kirri @ 423
Your’re right of course, I hate they way these professionals can just say any old horseshit and never get called on it but what can you do?

Chris @ 429
Yeah, I should have warned you Chris but if you wade through the BS there are some worthwhile idea’s to be found. I very much agree that online petitions are worthless, although I’m in the minority who think paper one’s are worthless as well. The idea of targeting Fielding and Mr X in their electorates with pamphlet campaigns, door knocking etc is one that makes sense to me. I don’t believe anything will shift Conroys (Rudds) position on this, but Fielding and Mr X are shocking populist and that can be used for the forces of good for once. In fact getting it defeated in the Senate would be perfect, Rudd gets to claim they tried to keep the promise, the other jerks get the blame(even though they’re right) and we win … perfect šŸ˜€

Oh the joys of a jolly good snark. šŸ™‚

Over at Firedoglake. Jane Hamsher writes

Sarah Palin seems to have a special place in her heart for bloggers:

Ms. Palin directed most of her media criticism at liberal bloggers, whom she twice called, ā€œthose bloggers in their parentsā€™ basement just talkinā€™ garbage.ā€………………………………

…………How would Sarah feel if someone called her an ignorant, freeloading bubble headed piece of trailer park trash whose daddy told the AP she spent the weekend scrambling to return her stolen clothes to the RNC?

Just trying to keep a sense of perspective here.

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/11/uh-sarahyou-sure-you-want-to-go-there/

Oh yeah, I should have added that the idea of targeting Mr X and Fielding is to lobby them to demand a tougher filter. Basically the idea seems to be that by convincing those two to go hard on it, the Gov won’t be willing to do want they want and in the end it fails. So don’t lobby them to drop it, lobby them to make it strict as hell.

It’s a bit dangerous though, imagine it they succeed !! šŸ˜®

Mornin’ All,

David Gould at 322 Says:
ā€œI suppose the fact that Gallup predicted an 11 per cent win and Obama only won by 6.5 means that Diebold was operating big time?ā€

David, only wood-ducks have faith in receiptless, unscrutinised, unverifiable ā€œvote-countā€, touchscreen computers because whoever programs the computer could, if they were dishonest, program a bodgie result.
Thank goodness no-one from the companies who make and program the ā€œvotingā€ computers, companies and who are also significant donors to the GOP, is dishonest.
A couple of States have only mail-in pencil marked paper ballots. Amazingly, in those States there are rarely if ever any disputes about the final tally.
Our way of tallying votes is electorally and democratically superior to that of our Sep cousins because at our retail ā€œpoint of saleā€, customers get to mark their own ā€œreceiptā€. If consumers make a mistake or are not happy with how they mark their ballots before popping their actual, as opposed to their electronic votes in the tally box, they can have another go.

Of course, Republican-driven fears of rampant voter fraud perpetrated by ACORN proved unfounded. (So, we should note, did Democratic fears of an election stolen through massive purges of valid voters — though that was thanks partly to the vigilance of voting-rights groups who brought lawsuits in some states in the weeks before the election.)
But, reports the Los Angeles Times, advocates of election reform still think there’s a whole lot of room for improvement. They’re talking up the idea of “universal registration,” which would have the government take the initiative on voter registration, as is done in other major democracies.

About time too, and one less way of having the follies of FL 2000 and OH 2004 repeated.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/is_voting_reform_on_the_horizo.php

Tues Nov 11:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/doonesbury;_ylt=AqFDG6qkRWDOypC1jDCRolwl6ysC

Tues Nov 11:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/tomtoles;_ylt=AoEzVm4yxHdv0p2ysMZqEgMl6ysC

Tues Nov 11:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/jeffdanziger;_ylt=Al9IHVGYue1W_y1jLYfSbaEl6ysC

Tues Nov 11:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/patoliphant;_ylt=Ag8_MUsFOuwpNBajX7yiLhYl6ysC

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/62611

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/62594

Enemy Combatant,

All you would need is for computer experts to go through the programs to check them for dodginess. While I am sure that the vast majority of computer experts are rabidly dishonest Republican fanatics, the Democrats might be able to find one or two willing to help them out for enormous piles of cash …

75% is a good number. The Kid is starting out on a high…in fact, the highest ever:

“The visit by Obama was tough for Bush, having to hand over to a Democrat, Obama’s presence a flesh-and-blood repudiation by the electorate of Bush’s legacy.

What made it even tougher was that it came on the day that Obama recorded the most favourable ratings ever for an incoming president, 75%, while Bush finally broke all records, with the most unfavourable ratings ever, at 24% – lower than either Truman or Nixon.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/11/george-bush-barack-obama-meeting

And while speaking of the Black House….er…Tan House… OK White House ….visit (and that pesky sanitised handshake issue) you might also want to check out this :
http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/7245

Many thanks John Hay….and it was a pleasure to meet you at the Jube as we watched the world change before our eyes.

On the Internet censorship issue. Yes they are stupid bastards and yes it’s doomed to miserable failure while Australian citizens are locked into a patronising, nanny state driven by the right wing puratinism of Rudd, the idiot Victorian morality of Fielding and the rank opportunism of Xenophon.

Bastards! I say. And again, Bastards! Fucking puritanical bastards!!

But haven’t we covered that enough already?

David Gould: CNN’s vote count now has Obama on 53% and McCain on 46%. They are still counting absentee votes in some places, and that’s pushing up Obama’s total inch by inch.
Also, from tomorrow, they will start counting tens of thousands of votes in Alaska, which will decide the winner of that Senate race.
The Democrats could still get to 60, but they’ll have to pick up Alaska, hope Al Franken wins the MN recount, and finally put all their resources into winning the December 2 Georgia Senate runoff election.

436
DG
Stephen Spoonamore is a very high Repug who has turned and giving evidence at the ongoing trial, reference to it has been made here many times, and is one of the best IT guys in USA. However the difficulty is the problems with getting Diebold to hand over the “software programs” for “testing” as they are hiding behind IP laws. Turdblossoms current IT man Connell was subpoened to give evidence the Friday before the elections and also was told to come back on Monday lunch time to give evidence under oath the evening of the elections. While you make a mockery of it i would just remind you that it is very real and ongoing. You can google stuff about the trial if you wish. It is obvious that you do not follow links and read the stuff available.

LMFAO šŸ˜€

Sure, sure, this advice comes from someone who believes that conservative ideology needs to be burned to the ground and the ashes made into an artificial ass that he can then fuck into dust that he can then take a post-orgasm piss on, but, you know, otherwise it comes from the heart.

Guess who? šŸ˜‰

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

Afternoon all all- how goes it?
Ferny – is that true about the sanitised Handshake???
The daily reality of what this means for our world is till sinking in.

Is this the same Stephen Spoonamore who claimed that the 2008 election definitely would be stolen by GOP hackers? He had McCain winning by two electoral votes. Credibility? Not so much. Conspiracy theory paranoidiac? Oh, my, yes.

“Spoonamore says that the GOP wanted e-voting to steal elections but now foreign governments will be hacking and the winner will be determined by the best hackers.”

ROFLMAO

Progressive,

On the numbers that CNN have up, Obama has 53.3 and McCain has 46.7. I do not think that it will change much from this point – it might reach a 6.8 lead, but I do not know if there are enough votes left to give Obama that much of a boost.

jen – the handshake lotion thing is true, but apparently they all do it and to be fair, it seems resonable

I am also wondering on what basis it is claimed that Spoonamore was ‘a very high Repug’. I have seen claims of this on a number of web sites. However, he makes no mention of any links to the GOP in his deposition in the Ohio case and i cannot find any credible biographical information on him apart from that in his deposition.

The deposition also makes no claim that he was ‘in the know’. It is in fact a speculative piece suggesting methods of hacking the voting system and putting forward hacking as the reason why certain actions – such as the destruction of hard drives – might have taken place.

he handshake lotion thing is true, but apparently they all do it and to be fair, it seems reasonable

Call me old fashioned, but I think I’ll stick with the “wiping my hand on my shirt while screwing up my face in disgust” method. šŸ˜‰

Flaneur @ 452

I still believe those pictures of you in The Australian and Huffington Post brought about an early end to your run for PM(07) and POTUS (08)… imho šŸ˜‰

and spitting first of course.

Oh yes! Obviously spitting first. How did I forget that? šŸ˜‰

And Spam Box, you are probably right. šŸ™‚

What a big sook Hichens is!!
Gets on television pissed and tries to be the agent provocateur and then can’t handle it when he gets called on it.
He supported Bush until even he couldn’t defend it any longer , and now he is still sabre rattling and trying to paint Obama as weak.
Let’s hope that when the ABC hes been reviewed that they are no longer obligated to present the views of complete prats to achieve so-called “balance.”

I don’t know who Hitchens is or what he said/did? (please forgive ignorance)

Have to go do things right now, will check back later

Spammy- sorry.
was referring to Ferny’s post on Chritopher Hitchens @421.
He’s a tosser who used to represent “the Left” until he decided to support the Iraq invasion based on the Leftist ideology that totalitarianism should be destroyed by democratised nations. – ie: liberate the oppressed – even when ultimately it means killing them .
He has never admitted that he was wrong – just says Bush mismanaged it. Duh! And then bangs on when pissed off his face on Lateline pontificating about his superior position on everything.
Another sad ending for a concern troll.

Hitchens is as left as Genghis Khan’s non left foot.

Last time I saw someone as pissed as that on TV was the infamous incident with Mike Willesee. Ol’ Chris had a lean that made the Tower of Pisa look positively vertical. I’d have sworn he was about to disappear face first off his seat while vehementally (and slurringly) maintaining his horizontal demeanor was by far the superior position on the programme.

High Hopes for Obama

A new Gallup poll shows that 68% of the people have a favorable opinion of President-elect Barack Obama. Also, 65% think the country will be better off in 4 years. Just after George W. Bush was elected the first time and also after Bill Clinton’s first election about 50% were expecting things to be better in 4 years. Thus Obama enters the White House surfing on a wave of good will. That has real consequences. Even if the Democrats end up with 57 or 58 seats in the Senate, the Republicans will be very loathe to filibuster his initial legislation since they will clearly be blamed for the consequences of not letting a popular President carry out his program.

more…
http://www.electoral-vote.com/

P J O’Rourke is having none of the denial that clothes many of his fellow conservatives. “It’s all OUR fault” he cries:

Anyway, it’s no use blaming Wall Street. Blaming Wall Street for being greedy is like scolding defensive linemen for being big and aggressive. The people on Wall Street never claimed to be public servants. They took no oath of office. They’re in it for the money. We pay them to be in it for the money. We don’t want our retirement accounts to get a 2 percent return. (Although that sounds pretty good at the moment.)

What will destroy our country and us is not the financial crisis but the fact that liberals think the free market is some kind of sect or cult, which conservatives have asked Americans to take on faith. That’s not what the free market is. The free market is just a measurement, a device to tell us what people are willing to pay for any given thing at any given moment. The free market is a bathroom scale. You may hate what you see when you step on the scale. “Jeeze, 230 pounds!” But you can’t pass a law making yourself weigh 185. Liberals think you can. And voters–all the voters, right up to the tippy-top corner office of Goldman Sachs–think so too.

We, the conservatives, who do understand the free market, had the responsibility to–as it were–foreclose upon this mess. The market is a measurement, but that measuring does not work to the advantage of a nation or its citizens unless the assessments of volume, circumference, and weight are conducted with transparency and under the rule of law. We’ve had the rule of law largely in our hands since 1980. Where is the transparency? It’s one more job we botched.

Although I must say we’re doing good work on our final task–attaching the garden hose to our car’s exhaust pipe and running it in through a vent window. Barack and Michelle will be by in a moment with some subsidized ethanol to top up our gas tank. And then we can turn the key.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/791jsebl.asp?pg=1

Americans OK with Democrats in charge, poll suggests.

Sen. John McCain railed against Democratic control of Washington during his closing argument of his presidential campaign.

Not only did Obama beat McCain in the presidential election, the Democrats picked up seats in Congress. And a new national poll suggests why a majority of voters didn’t seem to buy McCain’s argument.

In a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday, 59 percent of those questioned think that Democratic control of both the executive and legislative branches will be good for the country, with 38 percent saying that such one-party control will be bad.

This auger’s well for the senate, especially Georgia.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/11/one.party.poll/index.html

Hi there all.
What’s all this about US pollies slapping on the antiseptic (no pun intended) hand gel after meet and greet sessions with the populace? If they have to go through that routine after a mere handshake, what do they have to do after casual sex with a constituent?
But I suppose you never know who’s carrying transgenic Staphylococcus aureus:
http://www.cartoonstock.com/blowup_stock.asp?imageref=nki0025&artist=Kim,+Nick&topic=infection+protection+

New Pelosi team shifts to the left.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has promised to govern from the middle next year, but her new House leadership team is shaping up to be more liberal than her old one.

The departure of Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), coupled with left-leaning additions to the leadership lineup, is causing angst among Democratic centrists and conservatives.

House Democrats managed to add at least 20 new members to their caucus, many of whom hail from traditionally Republican areas of the country.

But despite the additional centrist Democrats, the caucus may move to the left because many committee chairmen and members of leadership are liberal.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/new-pelosi-team-shifts-to-the-left-2008-11-11.html

jen @ 461 – Hi jen – But I don’t remember Herr Dr., (PhD) ever even appearing to be ‘on the left’ like Hitchens once did. We need the DLP back for characters with those politics.

Ferny @ 471 – Sorry Ferny G. I should have mentioned that the casual act in GWB’s case should be conducted by a rampant male Alaskan moose by means of its antlers. With antlers, I understand that there are many parasitic mites and other bugs that live in the fine velvet hairs at the pedicles and horny bifurcations that would migrate with the disturbance and give him hell afterwards … šŸ™‚

Forgive me if Iā€™ve missed something on this in my frequent absences, but as far as the future goes here on Politic101, has there been any thought given to the direction we take now the election is over?
We started off as part of PB, an Aussie election polling blog last year, moved on to a thread on US politics, then to our own site here on the US election, so where to now?

Should we just follow and discuss the progress in Barackā€™s main areas of proposed change, such as foreign relations: Iraq, Afghanistan, the M-East (one of my hobby-horses), and domestic change: health reform, financial reform etc. ?

Is that interesting enough for us to chatter about? I would have thought so. And we could go off on tangent threads on other topics as t takes peoplesā€™ fancy ā€“ literature, film, etc, as some other local sites have done such as LP, although I havenā€™t been part of it over there.
What do the senior custodians reckon? Catrina, EC?
—————————
Ferny G @ 474
Thanks. Yes, it’s a little known extra string to my bow. This is the first time that particular knowledge has come in handy. I had been saving it up for a dinner party should the conversation falter, but in 30 years of convivial dining, there hasn’t been a lull long enough for it to be inserted. Bit of a shame really, eh?

A good “kick-’em-while-they’re down” outline of GWB’s disastrous Presidency is in

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081117/engelhardt

He governed for the super rich. Presumably Haliburton will add him to their board, along with the reprehensible Cheney. Probably they’ll give them an interest free “loan” on the north side of heaps.

JV I think moose antlers are too kind for GWB and his bunch of delinquents – rogering them with bull prods and tasers come to mind instead, as well as some water boarding if they refuse to answer questions at any Congressional or Senatorial inquiry into their perfidiousness.

There are a couple of sites now offering the idea tht the imbecile is off to Paraguay before he gets charged with war crimes.

One site here that when you link says that the Imbeciles daughter bought a huge farm there while she was there with a united nations group.

Why was there a covert land buy in Paraguay involving the Bush family?

Paraguay doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US. When George W. Bush probably had the greatest fears of being prosecuted, did he have an exit plan? Is the plan ready and waiting, just in case

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=10758

Another story here

Unless Bush plans to make his escape to Paraguay while still ‘President’, his exit from the Oval Office will make him vulnerable to process for violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996 passed by both houses of Congress without dissent. The act covers every crime that may be charged to Bush as of this moment and as of the time Bush will exit the ‘cover’ of the Oval Office. The act deals specifically with his deliberate “killing, torture or inhumane treatment” of ‘detainees’ at Abu Ghraib, GITMO and the gulag archipelago of ‘detention centers’ throughout Eastern Europe. Violations of the War Crimes Act that result in the death of a detainee carry the death penalty and there is no statute of limitations.

http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/

Couple of good videos.

“Ecky, youā€™re the soul of compassion re Hitch.”

Ferny, Hitchens is a Rumplestintskin who took the king’s schilling then drowned baby Veritas when people sussed his duplicitous game then called him out by name.

His writing on Mother Theresa, Orwell and the deific virus is first class; often breathtaking in phrase-making, epistemological exactitude and scope. But he took the money to boost BushCo’s war. I sense he can no longer fool himself, that the innocent dead “speak to him” and that’s part of the reason he’s punishing himself with the turps. In the C.H. article from Slate you linked there is a smarminess that hints heavily at self-loathing.
Anyway, enough of the Dr. Sigmund Psychobabble routine.
Way I see Chrissie-poos is as a literary Joey Lieberman.
—————-
JV sez…

Should we just follow and discuss the progress in Barackā€™s main areas of proposed change, such as foreign relations: Iraq, Afghanistan, the M-East (one of my hobby-horses), and domestic change: health reform, financial reform etc. ?

Is that interesting enough for us to chatter about? I would have thought so. And we could go off on tangent threads on other topics as t takes peoplesā€™ fancy ā€“ literature, film, etc, as some other local sites have done such as LP, although I havenā€™t been part of it over there.
What do the senior custodians reckon? Catrina, EC?

jv, pretty sure that’s what Cat has in mind, I certainly support the idea of keeping a serious weather eye on The Main Chance but not being bound by any inflexible guidelines. Our evolution since breaking with PB has exceeded any early expectations for mine, and I think keeping things bubblingly blogging along after the inauguration till the mid terms is a great idea.

eg, paddy is reading Deer Hunting with Jesus, I’ve read it and so have a couple of other regulars so perhaps after the summer hols we could do a thread on Joe Bageant’s book about the”Real Virginians”.

When we’ve got critical creative mass as we have at Pol 101, it’s a pity to waste it.
Sheeeet, remember the days when you punched out a letter to ed. wondering if they were gonna publish it, and even by the times they did, you’d moved on to something else. The instant feedback here means it’s almost always possible to share one’s thoughts with somebody who cares.

John Hay, lovely to see you, hope you pop by and set up a spell regular ‘n’ all.

EC – Then, here’s to ‘critical creative mass’ šŸ™‚

[His writing on Mother Theresa, Orwell and the deific virus is first class]
Yes, Hitchens is a all over the place like a mad person’s custard, but I too can’t dismiss him entirely when he applies such surgical dismemberment to fantastical beliefs. Sure, he likes a drink, but, well, who doesn’t ? After all, it would be early morning where he is in the US when our ABC has him on Lateline, so he’d just be into his second or third pre-breakfast ‘hair of the dog’ about then, so needs to be cut a bit of slack.

Goodness me. Did I hear someone mention my name? šŸ™‚

Speaking of Joe “the writer” Bageant, I’ve just finished his book and I’m mighty impressed.
So much so, that I really wondered what he would make of the election result.
Well bugger me….These here intertubes are a wonderful thing and a quick google produced the very thing I was looking for.
Joe’s response to a SMH writer on election night.

Joe Bageant railed against George Bush but insists Barack Obama is a long way from securing Redneckville. Nigel Bowen gave him a call.

If rednecks had philosopher kings, Joe Bageant would be a shoo-in for the throne. When the Herald calls, it’s 6.30 on election night and the author of Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War is lamenting the lack of political buzz in his home town of Winchester, Virginia.

“I thought people would be a little more excited.” Bageant says. It’s election night but politics is not the main topic of conversation at the bar. “Though one guy said to me, ‘I’m so damn mad at George Bush, I’m going to vote for a nigger’.”

http://www.smh.com.au/news/us-election/good-ol-boys-off-song/2008/11/07/1225561136694.html

BTW Ecky, I’m still chuckling over your description of Hitchens as
a literary Joey Lieberman. šŸ™‚

Pelosi’s power reigns supreme.

After delivering a 20-seat pickup for House Democrats on Election Night, Rep. Chris Van Hollen wanted out of his grinding campaign job and into a more powerful leadership post.

ā€œThe one option I am not exploring is continuing as the chairmanā€ of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, an exhausted Van Hollen (D-Md.) said the day after the election.

It sounded like a reasonable plan ā€” until Speaker Nancy Pelosi got wind of it. Pelosi already had someone else in mind for the Democratic Caucus chairmanship that Van Hollen sought.

ā€œWhatever Nancy wants, Nancy gets,ā€ a Democratic lawmaker said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15536.html

GOP vows to go all out for Chambliss.

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Ensign said Wednesday the GOP is making an ā€œall-out pushā€ to help Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) win his Dec. 2 runoff election.

Ensign and Chambliss, during a conference call with reporters, outlined a series of steps being taken to put the incumbent over the top in his campaign against Democrat Jim Martin.

http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/gop-vows-to-go-all-out-for-chambliss-2008-11-12.html

Obama may reverse Bush policies on stem cells, drilling, abortion.

Two other executive orders from Bush — one dealing with a so-called “gag” order on international aid organizations regarding abortion, the other with oil and gas drilling on federal lands — also are receiving increased scrutiny.

Obama’s transition team is reviewing hundreds of Bush’s executive orders, according to John Podesta, Obama’s transition co-chair.
President-elect Barack Obama could reverse some of President Bush’s most controversial executive orders, including restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, shortly after taking office in January.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/11/obama.executive.orders/index.html

One-Party Rule is Popular

Toward the end of the campaign, when Republicans saw that Barack Obama was going to win, they began running ads saying effectively: “We need to elect Republicans to the Senate to prevent one-party rule.” Turns out that wasn’t a good strategy. A new CNN poll shows that 59% of the people think one-party rule will be a good thing and 38% think it will be a bad thing. In addition, the poll showed the favorable/unfavorable ratings of the Democrats at 62%/31% whereas for the Republicans it is 38%/54%. In other words, people have no problem with one-party rule provided that the party is the Democratic Party.

http://www.electoral-vote.com

Paddy, I thought that quote was almost the best line of the election:

ā€˜Iā€™m so damn mad at George Bush, Iā€™m going to vote for a niggerā€™.

…when I read that article originally. Talk about rednecks for Obama! LOL

I’ll have to read the Baigent book. When I heard him on Philip Adams a while back he sounded interesting. When I finish CLinton’s autobiography which I decided to re-read to get some of the characters in today’s scene in perspective. Actually, there are a lot of interesting parallels with Clinton’s win in terms of his policies and the economy at the time, although it wasn’t nearly as dire as it is today.

Chris B
Change a few words in this article and it could be what the future holds for all us nutters here at 101.
This could be the template for mr We’ve got us a “Convoy” and Pixie. Ain’t censorship loverly.
Keating did predict we were heading for a banana republic!

No one should go to prison for advocating democracy in their own country, no one should go to prison for practicing free speech on the Internet — not even for one year, not even for one moment.
The cruel sentences meted out to these brave dissidents prove that the Burmese thugocracy has no intention whatsoever of loosening its grip or changing its ways.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Burma-blogger-gets-20-year-by-richard-power-081112-705.html

485
Morning Kirri. It’s a bloody good read and Bageant hits just the right balance. He writes with loads of respect and a genuine affection for the people he grew up with. But he’s under no illusions about the failed system, that has exploited and used them so badly.
He’s none too pleased with the results of the “American dream” in poor white Virginia.

Meanwhile, on a more tabloid note.
Here are some nice shots of the “chosen one” on the campaign trail. šŸ™‚
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0810/callie-bp.html

In a digital world, it really helps to have a photogenic first family.

Poor Joe Lieberman. He’s just a poor twisted soul.

See….he’s just twisted again.

Oops…he’s twisted back.

And there’s another one……and another……..

He must a loved Chubby Checker

Interesting interview with Mark Newton of Internode re the Rudd govt’s internet filtering shemozzle.
LOL
It really is a complete dog’s breakfast, so I’m beginning to think we might even see the departure of Conroy from the portfolio in the new year. šŸ™‚
The audio is a bit scratchy and fairly lengthy (24 mins). But it covers lots of ground and really demolishes the whole fantasy about filters actually doing anything but pissing people off.

http://techwiredau.com/2008/11/follow-up-interview-with-mark-newton-of-internode-re-australian-internet-filter/

there seems to be so much hear on conroy and filters that maybe there needs to be an Aus politics discussion section here, or do we not want to seem to be competing with PB??

493 Andrew The title is politic 101, so it is not limited to just US politics. It’s just that we had a big election in the USA.

HUGE NEWS ON ALASKA SENATE RACE:
Democrat Mark Begich has hit the lead.
He’s now 3 votes ahead, with tens of thousands more absentee votes left to count!
Hopefully it’s Senate Seat No 58 for the forces of good!

Several Dems benefit from Barack bounce.

Running in a deeply conservative southeastern Alabama district that was once home base to segregationist former governor George Wallace, Democratic Congressman-elect Bobby Bright wanted nothing to do with Barack Obama.

He pointedly refused to endorse Obama and, when asked in October whether he was supporting Obama or John McCain, Bright sidestepped the issue entirely: ā€œYouā€™re asking me do I support George Bush or are you asking me if I support Barack Obama? I support America.ā€

more…
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15534.html

It is joke that that race is so close given that it is against a convicted felon … They are weird up there in Alaska.

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