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lyrics posted below the fold

All this exploration into "how" the GOP may manipulate the vote, whether it's "calibration" issues, whether it's "intentional" or not... what is the #1 method used internationally for determining vote fraud? Exit polls.

From wikipedia, with numerous references cited there:

Exit poll interviews of voters leaving the polling place have been used in other countries to expose election fraud. In the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, for example, exit poll discrepancies were an indication of possible election fraud. A re-vote was eventually ordered and the election result was overturned.

Exit polls are more accurate than the "opinion polls" conducted on small sample sizes. For one thing, they occur immediately after the voter votes, so there's almost no chance at all of error in reporting. Second, the sample size is huge. As such, the margin for error is reduced from the typical Gallup-type poll MoE of 3-6% to something like .5-1% - this is well-documented information. There should be nothing controversial about what I've said so far...

Why won't anyone simply step up and admit that they didn't do enough? This is a forgiving nation, so Hastert should have stood up and said something like:

"The halls of Congress have been disgraced, and as the Speaker, I take full responsibility for the mess. But it's also my job to clean up the mess. I should have done something sooner about this. But I didn't because I just didn't believe there was a pedophile in our midst. If I am guilty of anything, it's being naïve."

cont'd below the flap...

Hastert sought to blame Democrats for leaking sexually explicit computer instant messages between Foley and former pages from 2003.

"We have a story to tell, and the Democrats have -- in my view have -- put this thing forward to try to block us from telling the story. They're trying to put us on defense," Hastert said.

There was already a diary on this here, but I think it's important, even if it's disgusting, because the Republicans are going to try to tell their "story", and it is going to try to somehow make this all look like something a lot more benign than it is. I know it isn't right to make people look at this stuff, but if you can stomach it, it's important that enough of us actually know what it is that's being talked about- it's not just the by-comparison G-rated quotes that appear in the articles.

This transcript, below the fold, is from ABC News. My goal is to keep it in the information spectrum when and if it is needed.

What a horrible, horrible moment in our government.

"They bore a striking physical resemblance to one another.  The facial features were limpid, facile and smoothly devoid of the crags, crevasses and craters inscribed on the faces of beatific people who lived on a constant cocktail of stress, motion, travel, deadlines and psychological combat."

"Hunter S. Thompson and the Dalai Lama were nearly portrait perfect facsimiles of one another.  In parallel lives, both men dedicated themselves to the spiritual uplift and the political liberation of poor and downtrodden peoples.  The Dalai Lama is the world's most gracious embodiment of compassion, serenity and beatitude.  Hunter S. Thompson was the world's most outrageously outspoken champion for the rights of the under-classes."

- Michael Carmichael

"I would shoot with Dick Cheney everywhere, anywhere, and not think twice about it," she said Sunday night. But she said, "The nature of quail shooting ensures that this will happen. It goes with the turf."

The rest of the article is here.

I've never hunted quail, so I, like so many other Kossacks, am not qualified to really evaluate Mrs. Armstrong's remark.

Quail hunting Kossacks, please help me out by taking the poll...

cont'd...

Everyone seems to be chalking it up to "typical Bush arrogance", but that's always seemed fishy to me. I mean, it's simply TOO EASY to use the FISA courts- the law was written to be that way.

cont'd...

In Sacramento, Calif., two women were arrested for going topless in protest against several initiatives backed by Gov. Schwarzenegger in Tuesday's election. They were part of a group called Breasts Not Bombs. But down in Southern California, a junior at Chapman College has been allowed to roam free and shirtless for a year. He uses his naked chest to advertise birthday wishes and other student messages at $1 a piece.

continued on the flip...

Whatever... Purpose number two of this diary: I checked with the search feature and apparently there hasn't been a poll on this. We can't think about politics all the time. If you're a baseball fan, take the poll. And if you're not a baseball fan, well, take the poll anyway.

Oh yeah- if your answer is "no", please explain why. Thanks.

And some obligatory text from the CNN article because of the 1-sentence rule:

New York's busy Penn Station returned to normal on Friday after a rush-hour false alarm caused by a suspicious substance found in a soda bottle near Amtrak's ticket counter, authorities said.

The scare came a day after authorities warned of a possible terror threat against the city's subway system.

Police closed the station's main entrance and about half of Amtrak's main platform near the place where the bottle was found.

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly later said the whole incident "appears to be a prank" and the liquid was "a Drano-type substance," referring to the household drain cleaner.

Open the floodgates- here come the pranks. Well, I'm just glad that my NY subway experience happened 2 weeks ago (boy the March in DC was huge, and fun).

BREAKING NEWS

Embattled Rep. Tom DeLay is indicted on a new charge of money laundering by a Texas grand jury, AP reports.

Bottom of the page, leftover from that other indictment:

DeLay foresees return to leadership role

And if you don't think that's funny, then give me something better. Consider this your Delay Joke page.

They are NOT INCOMPETENT. Venal, greedy, dishonest, corrupt, yes, but they are doing exactly what they mean to do.

more below fold...

Conflicts of interest could sideline Roberts in some cases

WASHINGTON (AP) -- John Roberts is an appeals court judge with a multimillion-dollar portfolio, a spouse who is a successful lawyer and a broad roster of clients from his days in private practice.

Those all mean he probably will have to disqualify himself from dozens of Supreme Court cases should he become chief justice. It is an situation that, while not unusual, would leave the nine-member court with a potential for tie votes.

Roberts, whose confirmation hearings began Monday, can minimize his problems. For example, he could put his money in mutual funds or other types of investments. But ethics experts say his early years on the Supreme Court will require diligence to avoid conflicts.

And he's been put up for chief justice?

...the failure at the Convention Center would have been fairly easy to put right. Reporters drove there without problems. One took a taxi.

What, one wonders, was Fema/the mayor's office/the governor's office doing while all that was played out on live TV?

One lesson agencies might want to learn is that someone senior should do nothing but monitor TV.

Amazing as it sounds, I would feel that my tax money was better spent if they were to institute this policy right away (at least until We the American People learn how to get better control of our hiring process)

Cuban President Fidel Castro told more than 1,500 doctors Sunday night that American officials had made "absolutely no response" to his offer to send them to the U.S. Gulf Coast to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.

cont'd after the fold...

It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.

cont'd below the fold...

When I interviewed FEMA Director Mike Brown on Countdown last night, I took him into the future and asked him if, when New Orleans was "reopened," he would look back at the greatest step in that process, the decontamination of the water now drowning the city. He agreed completely. It's not just water -- it's water with decomposing people and animals in it. And it's water full of chemicals and solvents and battery acid and anything else dangerous in a city. And it's water destroying homes and foundations and roads. And it's water ruining, of all things, the water system.

continued after the fold...