documentary / hit piece really just defend Hitler? Was it a slip or did I mishear. Something along the lines of when the History Channel starts referring to Hitler as an anti-christ they lose her...

Anyone else catch this?

Voter Suppression first...

So I'm doing GOTV work today in rural Nevada. In Wellington, early voting was between 10 and 1 today at the Topaz Branch Fire Station. It seems that someone was calling into the rurals here, and apparently they told this gentlemen that early voting was 4-8 at the community center (It most assuredly was not, which is importantly because early voting was only this Saturday and next Saturday in Wellington.) We got him to the polls 10 min before they closed. Unfortunately, he didn't recall who it was that had told him the incorrect information over the phone. Dirty tricks don't just happen in the big cities. Keep in mind while the rurals may be 70-30 for McCain, there is still a 30 to be had. Voter suppression like this is often harder to detect in the rural regions of America because no one is looking. Constant vigilance.

Sheer idiocy second...

The other incident of the week was on Sunday/Monday. As the politically active guy in my circle of friends, I was asked to check on the registrations of a friend of mine and his family. He was spooked that voter purges might have taken some of his family off the rolls. Turns out the registrar got the birthdate of one of his sisters wrong as well as incorrectly listed his mother as having requested an absentee ballot. I then rechecked my family's registration and discovered my brothers middle name had been misspelled and i was incorrectly listed as having voted via absentee ballot in 2006. This merited investigation. I have close contacts with press in my home town of Reno, and pointed them in the direction of this issue. The next day, the full story came out (local press is so much better than national press), and the story ran in the paper. 12,600 people in Washoe County were incorrectly listed as having requested an absentee ballot because the local registrar of voters had accidentally merged the fields in their database for having voted early in the primaries and having requested an absentee ballot. (Turns out it was an honest, if stupid, mistake that cut across party lines.) The problem should have been completely fixed this Friday. The minor issues (wrong spelling, wrong birthdate) could not be fixed, and may very well cost said individuals their vote if their ballot gets challenged. That said, an accident of vigilance may have saved 12,600 votes in Washoe County. (Admittedly 12,600 votes across party lines)

That said, be ever vigilant. Defend our right to vote. Whether through malice or simple stupidity, it is FAR too easy to become disenfranchised. Just because Obama probably has this in the bag, don't let up, don't stop, keep your eyes open. Don't let your guard down.

(Edited to add)
Link to RGJ story regarding absentee ballots:
http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?...

Crazy church lady
She denies evolution
Only America...

Brave old war hero
Daddy's boy lost five aircraft
Ace? Not for friendlies.

Safe choice in white veep
While nothing new or novel
It's not Hillary

Black man runs for prez
And it is not Al Sharpton
He might even win.

the Republicans voting against her (i.e. for Barack)? Personally, I know too many Republicans that switched registration to vote against Clinton in my home state, so I'm wondering about this whole Limbaugh / Texas / Clinton thing. Who gains a net benefit out of this?

(The idea that somehow, she is the only candidate strong enough to handle the Republican slime in a general election.)

In 2000, Al Gore took New York by 25%. Hillary took her Senate seat, previously held by a Democrat, by 12%. That means that at least 6.5% of the people who voted for Al Gore, in a close election year mind you, refused to vote for Hillary. Now, if Al's response to the Republican slime machine was considered to be weak in 2000, that means that Hillary's was that much weaker.

Conservatives vote for causes. And their slogans are simple and straight to the point. i.e.

- Stop abortion! Cut taxes! Vote for Jesus! Vote for Capitalism! Vote for Strong Defense!

There is a simplicity and power to the absolutes. And the Republicans have mastered this approach. Even when you disagree, you understand and respect their stance because you know exactly where it is they stand. It is a method which continually inspires.

The Liberals also have causes. But we run as moderates. You'll win sure, but only because people are voting against the Republicans, not because they're voting for you. Give me a moderate Dem slogan that isn't just an anti-Republican rant. There isn't one.

- Go moderation! Fight for the middle path! Status quo! A vote for a Democrat is a vote for
- incremental change! Vote for compromise!

Real inspiring. The problem is that while you may win as a moderate, you'll never inspire. You're basically resigning yourself to being the lesser evil. You won't shift the debate, you won't convince anyone that your stance is correct, you're only convincing them the Republican stance is going too far. You may win, but allow the center to drift ever rightward. The electorate pays little attention to politics, they believe that the center is in the middle, in between where the two parties stand. Whenever you move center, you push they center farther away. We don't hate moderate and centrist Dems. On a lot of issues they're right. But they cannot be in charge of the party rhetoric. The party has to stand for something, and standing for moderation is they same as standing for nothing. It is a self-defeating path.

However, I am not saying that moderates should be discounted when actually implementing policy. What I am saying is campaign for something big not something small.

He came by Reno for a house party last night. I thought he was reasonably impressive. He could use a little finishing, some of his jokes could be easily taken out of context if heard in TV clip form. On the whole however, he was very personable and direct.

Most interesting, the house party was four houses down from where my conservative aunt and uncle live. So I stopped by and asked if they wished to attend, as I would be going. They agreed to come along and see him speak. My aunt is a Republican whose is a Giuliani supporter who also likes Hillary, and my uncle is a libertarian type. They are both against the war. My uncle walked away a Richardson supporter, and my aunt now likes Richardson more than Clinton, because Richardson's stance on getting out of Iraq is much stronger and faster. (Yes I know, Giuliani's stance is weak, but she doesn't care. She likes him because of personality reasons.) Both are well educated, but this is the first election season they've paid any real attention to politics. Both voted for Bush.

Full disclosure: I'm an Edwards supporter with Obama as a current second choice.

Just a view from the campaign front lines.

You have the simple straight forward method.

In human life,
3583 US Dead, 25830 Wounded (DoD numbers as of 7/4/2007 taken from http://icasualties.org/oif /)
And in money,
$440 Billion (Taken from http://costofwar.com on 7/5/2007)

But $440 Billion is a difficult number to wrap one's head around. It is so large, it is difficult to comprehend how damaging such a waste is to our nation. Forgive the coldness of what I suggest here, but if you consider the financial cost of this war in human terms, the impact on out nation becomes more evident. Money represents work, power, energy, the potential to enact change, for better or worse. And if the average earnings of a person over their lifetime can be calculated, you arrive at a dollar value of a human life. The equivalent in dollars of what it takes to purchase the labor of the average person from birth to death. In reverse, you can take an amount of money and divide it by said number to arrive at the cost of an endeavor in human lives. Not the loss of lives necessarily , but the cost in lives. The effort, blood, and sweat that go into seeing a project through.

Using the highest possible lifetime earnings estimate (GDP per capita of $44,000 * Life expectancy at birth of 78 for ~$3,432,000) the Iraq War still has cost us the equivalent labor of 128205 lives and the actual lives of 3583 for a total of 131788 American lives.

Using a far more realistic estimate (Median household income per household member of $23,500 * Life expectancy at birth of 78 for ~$1,833,000) gives you the grim total of 240043 lives spent and 3583 dead for a total cost of 243627 in American lives.

Let that sink in for a bit. A quarter of a million lives wasted.

As heartless it may be to reduce human life to a mere dollar sign, it is surpisingly effective in illustrating just how much this war is costing us. And it serves as a reminder that if from this day forward we lose not even a single brave soldier, American lives are still being lost.

(Edited for grammar)

I'm thinking of putting up a bumper sticker, I'm just trying to decide what kind is best.

-A constructive bumper sticker. Something like "Democratic and Proud." "Obama/Clinton/Edwards '08" "Any Democrat in '08"

-A destructive bumper sticker. "No Blood For Oil" "Bush's War" "Republican = Corruption"

-Or A subversive bumper sticker. "Where have all the Republicans Gone?" "Bush has destroyed the Republican Party" "McCain in '08" "These aren't real conservatives" "Ron Paul in '08"

I trying to decide which one would do the most good. I don't care so much about proclaiming my beliefs as maybe changing a mind or two. Keeping in mind I live in Northern Nevada, which is rather conservative, what might be the best approach?

-Edited for spelling

A friend of mine asked me if I had one, and I had to tell him no. I'm looking for an up-to-date list of all the scandals of this administration, and I was hoping to avoid having to assemble one from scratch. Do we have something like that archived here?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Man Pierces Milosevic's Grave With Pole

March 5, 2007, 11:49 PM EST
BELGRADE, Serbia -- Former President Slobodan Milosevic's grave has been desecrated by a man who pierced it with a wooden pole in an ancient Balkan ritual to make sure that an evil spirit never returns, his former party said Monday.

The man, whose name is Miroslav Milosevic but who is not related to the ex-Serbian president, said he carried out the "performance" to spite Milosevic admirers who have been preparing to mark the first anniversary of the autocrat's death.

...

Full story at
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wi...

Did this story hit DU? It's AP, but still, is it real? In any case, I don't know quite how to respond to this. Yeah, I got nothing.

Hillary supporters are confounded by the vitriol of the attacks levied against her. They believe that these attacks may sabotage her in the general election. They may be right.

But first let me say that most, dare I say nearly all, of us will vote for her in the general should she win in the primaries. Should she win the primary, I don't think anyone here would still prefer a Republican. We don't want to sabotage the 2008 election. We are still on the same side, even if we oppose your candidate of choice.

But our attacking her serves a very real purpose. By demonstrating our discontent, we inspire other candidates to take a less moderate and more ideological stance. Some of us believe in the virtue of campaigning at the extremes even if we do not believe we should be governed by the extremes. No one is inspired by a moderate. You win converts in politics by preaching strong ideology, that is why the Republicans were able to grow so quickly from Reagan forward. They gave no ideological ground. Even if you don't believe in a black and white stance, preaching flat grey is a suboptimal approach at best.

Sure, you may win a single election by moving center, but by doing so you push the center away from you which hurts your cause next election. People do not pay close attention to politics, they judge the center to be in between the two parties. Therefore when one party moves center, the entire country moves away from that party because they assume that the center is still in between the two parties. Only by running from the center can you pull the country with you.

That is why many of us attack Hillary. Any who aim for the center do so at the cost of the entire party. She aims for the middle on every issue you can name, to the detriment of us all.

If you're disgusted by it, fine. But realize there are good reasons for attacking her. We're trying to force her, and any other candidate running, a little farther left than dead center. Winning with a complete moderate is no more than a push at a blackjack table. We want to win something in 2008, not just prevent another Bush.

To end, I leave you with a short paraphrase I attribute to Abbie Hoffman:
I'm really not as extreme as I seem. The reason I do what I do is to make what I truly believe seem reasonable by comparison.

...Even before the researchers had made the serendipitous discovery about the minibar key, they had released a devastating critique of the AccuVote’s security. For computer scientists, they supplied a technical paper; for the general public, they prepared an accompanying video. Their short answer to the question of the practicality of vote theft with the AccuVote: easily accomplished.

The researchers demonstrated the machine’s vulnerability to an attack by means of code that can be introduced with a memory card. The program they devised does not tamper with the voting process. The machine records each vote as it should, and makes a backup copy, too.

Every 15 seconds or so, however, the rogue program checks the internal vote tallies, then adds and subtracts votes, as needed, to reach programmed targets; it also makes identical changes in the backup file. The alterations cannot be detected later because the total number of votes perfectly matches the total number of voters. At the end of the election day, the rogue program erases itself, leaving no trace...



...Even before the minibar lineage of the AccuVote key had been discovered, the researchers had learned that the lock was easily circumvented: one of them could consistently pick it in less than 10 seconds.

If skeptics cannot believe what they read about the ease of manipulating an election, they can watch the 10-minute online video: the AccuVote lock is picked, a memory card is inserted and the malicious software is loaded; the machine is rebooted, and within 60 seconds the machine is ready to throw the election in favor of any specified candidate...

So what we have in summary is:

10 seconds to pick the lock to open up the motherboard. (or less if you have the publicly accessible key)
60 seconds to install malicious software and reboot.

70 seconds alone with a voting machine is all it takes to through the election.

Beautiful times no?

<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/business... >

In regards to any complaint or comment about "liberal" courts or activist judges by anyone, this should become the party's standard response:

With the appointment of Harry A. Blackmun to the Supreme Court by Richard Nixon on June 9, 1970, the Republican Party has filled the majority of seats on the Supreme Court. Currently, the Court stands at a 7-2 Republican to Democrat ratio. No Chief Justice has been appointed by a Democrat since 1953. Any complaints regarding the conduct of the courts should be forwarded to the party at fault, the Republican Party.

Associate Justice John Paul Stevens - Appointed by President Ford on December 19, 1975
Associate Justice Antonin Scalia - Appointed by President Reagan on September 26, 1986
Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy - Appointed by President Reagan on February 18, 1988
Associate Justice David H. Souter - Appointed by President G.H.W. Bush on October 9, 1990
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas - Appointed by President G.H.W. Bush on October 23, 1991
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg - Appointed by President Clinton on August 10, 1993
Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer - Appointed by President Clinton on August 3, 1994
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. - Appointed by President G.W. Bush on September 29, 2005
Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. - Appointed by President G.W. Bush on January 31, 2006

In fact, it is my belief that this should be our campaign slogan going into the fall elections:

Any complaints or blame regarding the state of affairs of the nation as a whole should be placed directly on the shoulders of the party at fault, the Republican Party

The Republicans have controlled the Supreme Court since 1970.
The Republicans have controlled the House of Representatives since 1994.
The Republicans have controlled the Presidency since 2000.
The Republicans have controlled the Senate from 1994 to 2001 and since 2002
The Republicans control every branch of government and have for quite some time.
And haven't they just done a wonderful job?
It's a good thing government has been so blessed and righteous since the Republicans took control.

Make it into a commercial with pictures of Katrina and the war in Iraq playing in the background or something along those lines. I figure too many people out there assume the Democrats have any power over the government's actions these days.

You can look through this yourself if you want, but according to Department of Defense (which means it does not account for secret installations) we operate 860 military bases in foreign countries as of 2004, and 3842 within our own borders, 4702 total. (The summaries are on pg 12 of the 2004 report.)

I'd use the 2005 numbers (2639 domestic and 737 foreign, 3376 total), but I personally doubt that the military has closed 1326 bases since then especially given their budget has been increasing not decreasing. I think the military made an accounting change reclassifying what counts as secret or that they made a change regarding what is classified as a military installation.

In any case these numbers are the absolute minimum. And you wondered how the military can spend all that money?

For the 2004 DoD report:
<http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/20040910_2... >
For the 2005 DoD report:
<http://stinet.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD... >

Just food for thought.