I almost got ACORN’d

America: I understand that volunteers staff the polling stations, but is it too much to ask for competence?

I went to vote yesterday & upon feeding my ballot into the machine, it made the standard sound that it had accepted my ballot.  However, the tally on the machine did not change.  I thought since I was voting on 2 ballots, it would change after I fed through the second ballot.  It did not.  Apparently, there were 15 or so machines in Tulsa that malfunctioned yesterday.

I alerted a volunteer & she had the next person in line submit one of their ballots & the number again stayed the same.  Concerned, she placed a call to the election board (whose website, incidentally, doesn’t appear to have changed since it was first created).  While doing this, I peeked at the machine’s receipt roll & noticed that it had repeated entries of “stuck ballot.”

After conversing with the election board, she came back to inform me that she couldn’t do anything.  I asked if I should fill out a provisional ballot.  She said no & that she was sorry but it seemed that my vote was lost.  At this point, I began to suspect she was an ACORN secret agent.  Shaking that idea, I determined she was simply incompetence, so I called the election board & after receiving the spiel about how Oklahoma’s voting system is so great because it leaves a paper trail, I was assured that my vote would be counted.  After double-checking with the technician who had arrived on site during my call, he informed me, after repeating the aforementioned spiel, that my vote would be manually re-fed through the machine.

The fact that my vote was nearly derailed by a doofus, while initially grating & ultimately meaningless on the federal level, has since turned into a great story.

Liberal media?

I have no journalism experience, but something caught my eye with today’s [October 8th, 2008] edition of The Oklahoman.  Below, the image on the left is a scan of a physical copy of today’s Oklahoman with the clear headline “Obama sarcastic; McCain defends.”   For some reason, the online version of today’s paper, found at www.newsok.com, has a different headline as you can see in the image on the right: “Economy shapes second debate.”  I found it odd that there are differing headlines between what appears to be the exact same article.  Also weird, the link to the online article is http://newsok.com/obama-sarcastic-mccain-defends/article/3308736.

       
Now, for those unfamiliar with The Oklahoman, the paper is run by the Gaylord family, a group who has historically injected their conservative political & religious beliefs into many aspects of the paper, i.e. beyond the editorial pages.  They’re like Rupert Murdoch with religion.  The paper has even been named The Worst Paper in America by The Columbia Journalism Review.  In fairness, they have toned down a bit since this scathing article, but a rabid dog without teeth is still rabid, got it?  Am I being too conspiratorial in thinking the editor(s) manipulated the headlines in a format to cast negative light on Obama? I’d appreciate feedback from anyone out there with any journalism cred to help me clear up this situation.

VP Debate Bingo!

Some friends & I, ever the social butterflies (but certainly not losers!), plan to get together & plan VP Debate bingo this evening.  These were the best bingo sheets I could find after 10 seconds of searching [via HuffPo].  I think as the gimme free square on the Palin sheet, it should be “rambling, embarrassingly uninformed non-answer” whereas Biden’s would be his dad’s admonition to “get up, champ!”

I also see there are others who will be imbibing during the debate.  I’ll be surprised if they last the entire 90 minutes.  Anyone else have any crazy plans?

Heads & tails

So do I write about an update on my dad or McCain’s new, bat-shit religious crazy VP pick? Coin flip. Dad it is.

The cancer hasn’t spread to the bones, bladder or lymph nodes. We have surgery scheduled for the week of September 22nd & not a bit too soon considering the samples that came back malignant are considered moderately aggressive & highly aggressive, respectively (Gleason scores of 7 & 9 for you cancer wonks). We’ll be headed to Detroit for the surgery. I’ll have more news as it is available.

Ok, fine. So I’ll include this, too:

*If the above video won’t play, try THIS

Schadenfreude

http://tinyurl.com/ohteddy

You’d think he would have seen this coming down the tubes.

Oklahoma politics: keepin’ it lively

So there’s a wonderful story circulating through the Oklahoma papers this morning. Oklahoma County Commissioner Brent Rinehart, who is running for re-election and will face trial this fall for felony campaign finance charges, has produced and will mail a comic book to his constituents detailing his trials and tribulations against, according to said comic book, “gays, liberal good ol boys and Satan.” As we’re not too far removed from local House Representative Sally Kern’s rant, I’d say these are dark, embarrassing days to be an Oklahoma Republican. That is unless you support these flavors of “thought.” I’m curious to see what the kids at The Lost Ogle will have to say…..

Ok, now it’s REALLY official

Referencing an earlier post, the Congressional passage of the bill to expand the federal government’s surveillance powers further reinforces my belief that Congress, and especially the Dems as they’re the ones in charge, is a pack of spineless wieners when it comes to standing up for what is right, which not coincidentally tends to be on the opposite side of Dumb Dumb & his administration’s actions.

From the NYT article: The measure gives the executive branch broader latitude in eavesdropping on people abroad and at home who it believes are tied to terrorism, and it reduces the role of a secret intelligence court in overseeing some operations. Of great importance in this bill is the provision that grants immunity to the telecommunication companies who collaborated with the government to illegally wiretap the phone calls of Americans after 9/11.

Again from the article: There is nothing to fear in the bill, said Senator Christopher S. Bond, the Missouri Republican who was a lead negotiator, “unless you have Al Qaeda on your speed dial.” Dumb ass. That line might play in Hooterville but it don’t got no legs with those of us with book learnin. Actually, book learnin has nothing to do with it. Being an American has everything to do with it and blatently violating the privacy of Americans affects us all.

I was quite disappointed to see B.O. amend cower from his earlier stance promising to filibuster any bill granting immunity to telecom companies. Maybe he needs a new campaign poster:

o, hai

Miss me, dear readers? I’ve sure missed you. You see, after making it through my first 100 blog posts, I decided to take a little respite. At least that’s what I have now decided to declare it. As is the nature with a blog, I’m only really writing to express something I’ve recently been thinking about. It doesn’t have much, if any, impact on anyone else but for some reason, y’all keep tuning in to see what I’ll say next….and I thank you.

So to the point: for those Hillary supporters I have heard complaining about the outcome of the Democratic primary, primarily through print & video [and fortunately from no one in my own life], and who are threatening to vote for McCain, I have a few numbers for you: 88, 72, 68, 53.

88 is the age of the oldest of the 4 liberal Supreme Court Justices, John Paul Stevens.
72 is the age of the oldest of the 5 conservative Supreme Court Justices, Antonin Scalia.
68 is the age of the youngest of the 4 liberal Supreme Court Justices, David Souter.
53 is the age of the youngest of the 5 conservative Supreme Court Justices, John Roberts.

Go ahead, HRC supporters, and vote for McCain. See what happens when the current laws you hold dear to your heart & to your cause come before a Supreme Court to which John McCain will make at least one appointment. So suck it up, decompress for a few months, get a little perspective, then get onboard. K?

Thank you, Internets, for finding everything

This Sunday, the minor league baseball team in St. Paul, Minnesota will be giving away a great prize to its first 2500 fans. The prize allegedly is in honor of National Tap Dance Day but it is clearly meant to honor Senator Larry Craig of “hypocritical right wing Republican who was foot tapping in a stall in the men’s bathroom of the Minneapolis-St.Paul airport to solicit sex from an undercover officer then blaming it on a wide stance once he was caught” fame. The “bobblefoot” will no doubt end up on eBay soon.

Biting off the soundbites

Bill Moyers had a great interview with Jeremiah Wright this past Friday on “Bill Moyers Journal.” It was refreshing to watch a journalist go to the source, avoid showing only the sensationalistic clip of Wright’s fiery sermon, and instead show the minutes of the sermon prior to his phrasing of “God damn America.” If you have some time, give it a view.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04252008/watch.html