Brewing voter fraud story out of Florida

By now you've probably heard of this growing voter fraud story from Florida. I hadn't reported on it yet because I wasn't sure the story was for real. Nonetheless, there are enough folks dogging it at this point that it would seem unfair not to report the facts and let you guys decide if something fishy is going on. Here are a few links.

- "Whistleblower Affidavit," (the story that got things rolling), from BradBlog.

- "Addressing questions, programmer says vote-rigging prototype could be used for optical scan machines," Blue Lemur

- Gets LOTS of the latest updates on this story here. Read the rest of this post...

Highlights of Rep. Conyers' "Ohio Voting Irregularities" Forum Now Online - Watch It Here

Like the title says. Or watch the entire 3 hour forum here on C-Span. Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday evening open thread

Bunnies... Read the rest of this post...

How to Write an Email

Having worked on Internet stuff since 1995, I consider myself somewhat an expert. And I've got to tell you, far too many people can't write an email for the life of them. Perhaps this isn't surprising, since many Americans don't write too well offline either. But still, I have to deal with 100s of emails a day running this blog, my own business, and for many of my clients, and I've gotta tell you, far too many people do not realize that their emails are simply NOT getting read by me or anyone else out there.

Having said all of that, you guys are surprisingly good. The quality of email I get via this blog FAR surpasses the crap I have to wade through for my clients on their sites. I don't know how they handle it without killing baby bunnies.

Anyway, here are my suggestions to really tick people off.

John's Top Tips for Insuring Your Email Does NOT Get Read

1. Don't include any subject line at all - that ALWAYS gets my attention.
2. Make the subject something catchy, like: "Read this"
3. Just send me a URL with nothing else in the content of the message.
4. Send me some article, from God knows where, and don't include the URL of the article so I can link to it, or even confirm if it's for real.
5. Send me WORD documents as attachments, I never read those because of viruses.
6. Tell me to post an article that's already on the blog.
7. Ramble for a long time and don't get to the point until, oh, the 7th paragraph.
8. Ask me a question that you could answer quite easily with Google.
9. Send me an email about a typo I've made (which is fine) and then get really bitchy and holier-than-thou about it (not so fine).
10. Complain incessantly about me not posting some article or link you've sent as if I'm doing it on person just to spite you.
11. Don't update the clock on your computer so your email automatically flies to the bottom of the heap since my computer thinks it's hours old.
12. Send me that email about "Dear Dr. Laura" that quotes Leviticus and talks about selling Mexicans as slaves. That's as funny now as it was FOUR YEARS AGO WHEN IT WAS WRITTEN.

Ok, now that I've vented, let me say this more nicely. I do read all the emails I can, but in a world where many people have hundreds of emails to scroll through every day you need to do what you can to get yours read beyond the first sentence. I try to read them anyway, not everyone is as nice :-)

And now back to our regularly scheduled blogging experience.

PS Feel free to chime in with your worst email crime. Read the rest of this post...

I want Howard Dean's love child

Well, maybe not. But still, read this speech he gave today at GWU. It's everything you could ever want in a Democrat. And he's the only one saying it.

"We cannot win by being 'Republican-lite... there's only one thing Republican power brokers want more than for us to lurch to the left - and that's for us to lurch to the right."

Read the rest of this post...

David Hackworth: A Draft is Likely Coming

I called it, I called it, I called it. Let's see how Bush weasels out of this one. My prediction? He'll wait until another terrorist attack, ANY terrorist attack no matter how small, and use that as an excuse to reinstitute the draft since conditions will have "changed" since he made the promise during the election that there would be no draft.

Uh, Democratic party, hi there, any interest in holding Bush's feet to the fire on this issue too?

Echo, echo, echo, echo, echo...] Read the rest of this post...

Another troubling report from ABC about our troops not having what they need

According to ABC News, the troops in Iraq simply do not have the armor they need to protect their vehicles. The Marines are having to put metal on the sides of their own vehicles - they call it Hillbilly Armor - to protect themselves. According to a Colonel Zimmermann of the National Guard, interviewed by ABC News, 95% of his unit's 300 trucks do not have appropriate armor. Then they interviewed this young 24 year old college student talking about how the windshield on the front of his truck is "basically a window of opportunity to get shot."

It should be a crime the way this president has abandoned our troops. And it's even more a crime that the Democrats haven't done squat with this issue in terms of embarrassing the Republicans. If Bill Clinton had sent our troops into battle, and 3 years later they STILL didn't have what they needed, he'd be impeached again.

Where is our party? Where is the courage? Where is the backbone? Where are the leaders? Read the rest of this post...

Early evening open thread

- Read the rest of this post...

The Catholic Church and Hitler

But hey, they're Christians, and whatever self-appointed Christian leaders do in the name of Christ is 100% okay, infallible, and you simply CAN'T criticize it or them or you hate all Christians and are a bigot.

So I guess all of this is a good thing according to the religious reich, I meant "right." Read the rest of this post...

Good taste or poor taste?

If it helps you decide, the Pope is freaking out over it.



Look closely at the picture... Read the rest of this post...

Bush: Support the Troops; Rumsfeld: Fuck 'em

If this wasn't such a serious subject, it would almost be funny. Yesterday, Bush was in California urging Americans to support the troops. According to the Associated Press:

The time of war is a time of sacrifice, especially for our military families," Bush said, wearing a tan military jacket with epaulets. "I urge every American to find some way to thank our military and to help out the military family down the street.

Yet, as John notes below, almost at the same time, Rumsfeld was telling the troops to go fuck themselves because they wanted proper equipment: You go to war with the Army you have.

Ok, here's how I want to support the young men and women who are fighting and dying in Iraq: Give them the equipment they need to keep them alive. Oh, I know, saying that probably makes me unpatriotic. But we pay an awful lot of our tax dollars for military equipment. The thought of American kids picking through garbage to find supplies should horrify the President and the Secretary of Defense.

So, Mr. President, when you say "In this season of giving, let us stand with the men and women who stand up for America, our military." I say, "In this season of giving, let us provide the men and women who stand up for America, our military, the best available equipment to let them do their jobs. In this season of giving, let us not make the men and women who stand up for America, our military, pick through local landfills to find scrap metal."

I bet most Americans would agree.

Read the rest of this post...

Bob Novak, honorary black man

Well, it's the second time that Novak has played the black card in the past few months, and to my best knowledge, he's not even black. First it was when he said people were criticizing Condi Rice cuz she's black (yeah, her support for the war that was a lie had nothing to do with it), and now he's accusing anyone who thinks Clarence Thomas is sub-par of being a racist. You can watch the video at Crooks and Liars.

I'm trying to imagine Martin Luther King fighting side by side with Bob Novak, and I'm just having a hard time seeing it. Never saw Novak in any of those history photos getting attacked by the police dogs, having the fire hoses turned on him, but maybe I just missed it.

This is part of a larger strategy the right has waged for years. Accuse the left of being what the right really is. If you praise Mary Cheney then YOU'RE the homophobe, not the parents and the president who's selling her out. Don't like religious right wingnuts ruling the land, then you hate ALL Christians. Are you pro-choice? Then you're anti-Catholic. Have a problem with Alberto Gonzales throwing away the Geneva Conventions? Why do you hate Latinos? You get the picture.

It's sick and we need to call them on it and put it to a stop. Or even better, let's all ask Novak and all the other new-found Republican civil rights advocates to support some new civil rights legislation, to prove their MLK bona fides. Then let's see if they put their actions where their mouth is. Read the rest of this post...

Online poll for DNC chair

Kos has set up an online poll to see who the blogging community wants for the new Democratic National Committee chair. I'm for Dean. I simply think we need someone strong, with strong views, who isn't afraid to fight, and won't back down. And the whole "scream" thing is about as relevant as Kerry's medals. Nice how the media apologized for it AFTER it killed Dean's campaign.

As Dean himself said, I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. I'm for Dean.

You? Read the rest of this post...

Rummy tells complaining soldiers: Tough Luck

From AP:

"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?" Wilson asked. A big cheer arose from the approximately 2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and hear the secretary of defense.

Rumsfeld hesitated and asked Wilson to repeat his question.

"We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north," Wilson said after asking again.

Rummy's reply?

"You go to war with the Army you have."

No, that's ridiculous. You don't go to war with what yo have when it's a war of convenience. That's absurd. We had time to build our stocks, if needed. I hope the troops heard Rummy loud and clear. You voted for this guy, you own him. Read the rest of this post...

3 straight months of 100,000+ job cuts

This is created by and owned by the GOP. This is what happens when you let the GOP run everything without any checks and balances. Bush is getting ready to bring in yet another economic team but the problem is that he's looking for another Kool-Aid drinker who will just go along with his ridiculous agenda of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, corporate welfare and over spending. Now who out there remembers being told by this administration and the increasingly delusional Greenspan that high energy prices would not impact the economy? Just because we're closer to the low end of the $40-$60 range does not mean that this range is good. It's still damned expensive, compared to the recent past.

Employers posted 104,530 cuts in November, up 2.6 percent from the previous month, according to a survey sponsored by international outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas.

"Not only are more companies announcing job cuts, there are more jobs being eliminated in each announcement," said the outplacement firm's chief executive, John Challenger.

"Higher health care and energy costs for employers and employees are definitely taking a toll. Companies are being forced to enact more cost-containment measures to protect profits."

Read the rest of this post...

Prison abuse scandal expands, included harassment of US personnel

Isn't the world lucky that the Bush team wants to export this kind of democracy? Sounds more like the dictatorships that we're supposed to be overthrowing.

U.S. special forces accused of abusing prisoners in Iraq threatened Defense Intelligence Agency personnel who saw the mistreatment, according to U.S. government memos released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The special forces also monitored e-mails sent by defense personnel and ordered them "not to talk to anyone" in the United States about what they saw, said one memo written by the Defense Intelligence Agency chief, who complained to his Pentagon bosses about the harassment.

Prisoners arriving at a detention center in Baghdad had "burn marks on their backs" as well as bruises and some complained of kidney pain, according to the June 25, 2004 memo.

FBI agents also reported seeing detainees at Abu Ghraib subjected to sleep deprivation, humiliation and forced nudity between October and December 2003 — when the most serious abuses allegedly took place in a scandal that's remains under investigation.

Joe Navarro, a retired FBI agent who teaches interrogation techniques to the military and is familiar with interrogations at Guantanamo, said using threats during interrogations only stands to taint information gleaned from the sessions.

"The only thing that torture guarantees is pain," Navarro told AP Tuesday. "It never guarantees the truth."

One FBI e-mail released by the ACLU said [Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D.] Miller "continued to support interrogation strategies (the FBI) not only advised against, but questioned in terms of
effectiveness."

Read the rest of this post...