FlamingText

"One of the Great Comebacks"

That's what McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis is calling it.

Beware men who tell you that math isn't real.

Meanwhile, early voting is favoring Democrats.

Shenanigans, Pt III:

Justice!
....Department gets involved. Curiously, my county here in Washington is on the "watch list." I feel safer already.

Shenanigans, Pt II:

Acorn answers voter-fraud allegations.

Wherein the embattled community organization points out:
"In nearly every case that has been reported, it was ACORN that discovered the bad forms and called them to the attention of election authorities, putting the forms in a package that identified them in writing as suspicious, encouraging election officials to investigate, and offering to help with prosecutions."

In other words, the only reason anybody even knows about the alleged registration fraud (a misdemeanor, as distinct from vote fraud, a felony) that is, in the hyperbolic words of John McCain “destroying the fabric of democracy,” is because ACORN itself reported suspicious registrations, as required by law.

My favorite Republican alarmist, explaining why Ohio Republicans are working so hard to throw out 200,000 new voter registrations because of the possibility that a tiny portion of them might be illegitimate? Ken Blackwell, Ohio's Secretary of State during the 2004 election cycle. Take it away, Ken:
"Election Day this year may bring the kind of chaos you expect from a category-five hurricane - with radical groups sending the nation into a protracted legal battle even worse than the mess back in 2000."

Mr. Blackwell, it must be noted, knows all about lawsuits and has good reason to fear the "legal mess" that might be caused by citizens challenging a suspicious election. It is perhaps telling that the "chaos" he is worried about comes in the form not of a stolen election but of a legal battle over an alleged stolen election. Considering that he is now on the side claiming to be concerned that voter fraud is destroying the fabric of democracy, one wonders why his warning isn't more focused on the threat of widespread fraud that the voter purges are purported to address than the threat posed by challenges to suspect electoral outcomes.

Shenanigans, Pt I:

This builds on my previous post. I'll post these as I get them:

Here is a CNN story on the likelihood of election-day "glitches" due to unreliable voting machines. Like most coverage of this issue, it is carefully worded to characterize the problems with these machines, such as "flipping" votes to another candidate, as technical snafus and not as design features. If this were the case, the inaccuracies would be spread across the board, creating a net benefit for nobody. It would be just as likely to flip a vote from Republican to Democrat as vice-versa. Statistical analysis of previous elections shows this not to be the case.

The touch-screen systems in particular are described here as "similar to ATMs," which is a great example because I've never once had an ATM randomly "flip" my request for a withdrawal, say, into a request to purchase stamps. I can't think of one time that has ever happened.

Here is the money quote, from the closing paragraph:
So how can voters on Tuesday be absolutely sure that their ballots are being recorded with 100 percent accuracy? They can't, most election observers say.

And therein lies the power of the Bush-era voting system. It's a revolutionary concept in elections I like to call "taking their word for it."

Believe Me, I Desperately Want To Be Wrong:The Ukraine and the Orange Revolution

I just got done looking at this lovely site, a short first-person pictorial account, complete with broken English, of one guy's experience during the Orange Revolution following the Ukrainian presidential run-off election in November 2004, and lasting through to January of 2005. The reasons this is on my mind should be pretty obvious, but since I don't really feel like leaving things vague like I usually do I'll make it clear: I'm wondering what people can do next week if the election is stolen.

The protests in the Ukraine were overwhelmingly of a peaceful nature, which is a good thing for several reasons, not the least of which is that it did not give the legions of police officers in riot gear or the military brigades standing at the ready any excuse to wade into the crowds of up to a million citizens in Kiev and other locales and start shooting. The lack of bloodshed was probably aided by schisms that had developed in the military and intelligence organizations, with key figures dissuading General Sergei Popkov from following through on the planned crackdown. While preparations were underway to put down the protests which had rendered the capitol immobile there were reports of officials within the intelligence community leaking warnings of the coming violence to opposition leaders.

The demonstrators in the Ukraine received substantial financial and organizational aid from many overseas pro-democracy organizations, most notably the U.S. State Department, although this fact was not widely advertised during the revolution proper. The student organizations that were instrumental in directing protest had received extensive training in non-violent protest techniques from various sources prior to the election itself, and had for months been laying the groundwork for a public response in the eventuality of election fraud. Ironically, Colin Powell was one prominent critic of the election shenanigans taking place there, where posted results were off from exit polls by as much as 14%, a statistical impossibility.

It is my belief that this is the model a successfully contested election must follow: Widespread peaceful protests accompanied by a general strike and swift legal action to address the legal issues raised by the election. The victory in the Orange Revolution did not occur when the opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko was installed into office. The victory was when the country's Supreme Court ruled the election results invalid and ordered a re-vote with international observers present. Thus the revolution was not a coup but the reversal of a coup. Although power did indeed change hands, it did so following a (decisive) election. The integrity of the state was preserved.

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If this coming election follows the pattern of other stolen elections, in the next couple of days we will be seeing what's known as the "rabbit story," a story that is intended to scamper across the public consciousness and distract public attention while providing a believable explanation for why the election results are going to be so different from what all the projections and analyses have been saying to this point. The idea is for the story to present a plausible "game-changer" scenario -- perhaps a sudden foreign policy shift (the infamous "October Surprise") or some supposedly major sea change in the issues affecting voters' decision this coming Tuesday. Whatever it is, whether it's increasing coverage of "the Bradley Effect" or the unexpected late-campaign success of negative campaigning or the impact of Obama pre-empting a game of the World Series ("Obama Loses the Baseball Voter!"), it should enter the news cycle in the next two days and stay around through the weekend.

It will provide a cover story to explain why, in effect, math isn't real. "Dewey Defeats Truman" will be invoked. Again, if the previous pattern is followed, the major media outlets will downplay accusations of vote-tampering, or if they do address them will concentrate on "equivalencies," implying that such incidents are isolated and equally distributed on both sides.

When the rabbit runs, that will be the signal that the fix is in.

For Ida

It's her birthday today.

"Losing to Mothra was the crowning indignity."

Plus, special bonus Pic:


"I now present my running mate, an unstoppable engine of destruction and beetle-god from another dimension: Megalon!"

Their short-lived reign of terror soon degenerated into petty squabbling.

So Childish

Indeed, it will be a sad day when candidates for the highest office in the land will have to contend with a media landscape where a single frame plucked from a video can be taken out of context and made into a news story all by itself, with no direct relevance to the greater political discourse whatsoever...

This:

Calls to mind this:

Therefore: