Playlist 11/06/2004

1. The Libertines - Last Post on the Bugle (2:33)
2. VHS or Beta - The Melting Moon (4:20)
3. The Microphones - track 9 (Golden Braids) (3:56)
4. Lali Puna - Faking the Books (4:00)
5. TV on the Radio - Staring at the Sun (3:27)
6. The Dears - Who Are you, defenders of the universe? (3:42)
7. The Stills - Lola Stars and Stripes (3:50)
8. The Unicorns - Jellybones (2:43)
9. Doves - There Goes the Fear (6:54)
10. VHS or Beta - Alive (5:06)
11. Radio 4 - Start A Fire (3:33)
12. The Killers - Mr Brightside (3:42)
13. The New Pornographers - Testament to Youth in Verse (3:57)
14. Belle and Sebastian - Cover (Version) (4:00)
15. Brian Eno & David Byrne - The Jezebel Spirit (4:53)
16. Boards of Canada - An Eagle in Your Mind (6:22)
17. M83 - On a White Lake, Near a Green Mountain (4:43)
18. Squarepusher - My Sound (6:07)
19. Apparat - Repeat Till Overload (2:15)
20. Cujo - The Light (5:15)
21. Manitoba - Hendrix With Ko (3:57)
22. Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Moya (10:51)
23. Flying Saucer Attack - Rainstorm Blues (4:09)
24. The Decemberists - Clementine (4:06)

Glitch gave Bush extra votes in Ohio

Am I the last person to hear about this?

Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.

State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome.

U.S. Inspires World With Attempt At Democratic Election

With its typical biting sarcasm, The Onion is carrying a perfect story, one that really puts it all in perspective.

"After all of the recriminations, infighting, and general madness before the election, the people of this fractured nation still found the courage to show up at the polls," said Anas Salman, an Afghan U.N. official who was in New York during the American electoral experiment. "More than half of America's citizens—a large portion of them women—made a valiant attempt to choose their own leader, even though there was no guarantee their votes would be counted. It was truly inspirational."
...
"True, voter turnout in many parts of the world tops 90 percent," Salman said. "But it's understandable that the rate is lower in countries such as Afghanistan, where the government has raised fears of possible terrorist attacks at the polls. Our people showed great courage."

The last American presidential election, held in 2000, was also rife with problems. Myriad scandals arose concerning alleged fraud and ballot tampering. Although the Democratic candidate won the popular vote by a margin of half a million votes, the Republican candidate won the presidency with a strenuously disputed 537-vote lead in Florida, a state governed by his brother.

Ann Arbor Legalizes Medical Marijuana

Ann Arbor residents passed a ballot proposal, to allow the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, yesterday.

Proposal C will waive fines for medical marijuana patients and their caregivers who receive the recommendation of a physician or other qualified health professional to use marijuana for medical treatment.

The proposal also changes the current law in Ann Arbor to lower the fine for the third and all subsequent marijuana offenses for non medical users to $100. These fines include possession, control, use, giving away or selling of marijuana.

Although medical marijuana users would avoid fines under the law, the police are not required to return any marijuana that they may seize from patients.

(via TalkLeft)

Daily Show on election results

For those of you who missed the Daily Show on Nov. 3, you can relive the glory and the genius here...

(via BoingBoing)

Edit: It looks like the last site's gone down, so try here.

Fighter Pilot Takes Aim at School

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A National Guard F-16 fighter plane mistakenly fired off 25 rounds of ammunition at the Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School in South New Jersey on Wednesday night.

What the fuck? That's unbelievable. Is this serious? Like, come on, it's gotta be a joke. Nov 3, the day the president wins four more years, and already we have a fuck up of monumental proportions. This is unreal...

You are now leaving the reality-based community.

Welcome To Bush's MANDATE

google bomb!

Rodeohead

Incredible medley of Radiohead songs in a bluegrass/old timey rollickin' good time.

(via Screenhead)

Atrios' "Tax Fairness Act of 2005"

According to Atrios and TaxFoundation.Org, these red states are receiving "geographic welfare" (sarcasm?):

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
Idaho
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
North Dakota
Oklahoma
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Utah
Virginia
West Virginia
Wyoming

Long list, eh?

Juan Cole agrees with me about Hillary...

...and I agree with him about civil contracts, as much as it hurts me to say that (although that is essentially what I have been personally advocating all along)...

Since Jack Kennedy was shot in 1963, all successful Democratic presidential candidates have been southerners: Johnson, Carter, Clinton.

This is because image and marketing matter more in US presidential elections than substance, and white male southerners just mostly are only going to vote for one of their own.

My family has roots in Virginia and I apologize about this, but Virginia is just not going to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2008, unless Bush has so driven the country into the ground that Americans want anything but a Republican.

The Democrats need to find a southern governor with a southern accent who is a Baptist.

...

For instance, a lot of Democrats would like to see gay marriage or at least civil gay unions passed into law. This is a matter of equity, since gay partners can't even get into a hospital to see an ill partner because hospitals limit visits to close family.

This issue scares the bejesus out of the red states.

But if Democrats were sly, there is a way out. The Baptist southern presidential candidate should start a campaign to get the goddamn Federal government out of the marriage business. It has to be framed that way. Marriage should be a faith-based institution and we should turn it over to the churches. If someone doesn't want to be married in a church, then the Federal government can offer them a legal civil contract (this is a better name for it than civil union). That's not a marriage and the candidate could solemnly observe that they are taking their salvation in their own hands if they go that route, but that is their business. But marriage is sacred and the churches should be in charge of it.

It seem like such a shame to compromise on this issue, but when it comes down to it, I find myself truly believing that marriage is property of the church and that legal documents should be universally refered to as civil unions/contracts. The bottom line is that this strategy allows gay couples the same rights presently offered to straight couples, and shouldn't freak out the ever-more-powerful Religious Right.

My only question is this: what about the states that just passed gay marriage bans, especially MI and OH, where the bans actually restrict rights formerly held by some citizens?

It hasn't got to be all politics all the time...

The Vatican has realeased a new pamphlet on... Sex! No more repression says Pope... (well, maybe a little bit...).

The controversial book, It's A Sin Not To Do It, written by two theologians, promises the reader answers to "everything you wanted to know about sex but the Church (almost) never dared to tell you".
...
Bullet points on the jacket cover underline the central message: "Sex? God invented it. Original sin? Sex has nothing to do with it. Without sex there is no real marriage."

"When people think of the Church and sex, they think of prohibitions and taboos," said Beretta. "But there is a very different and positive side to Church doctrine which needs to be emphasised."
...
Another chapter likely to raise eyebrows unearths theological justification for post-coital masturbation for women who fail to achieve orgasm during intercourse.

Beretta told The Telegraph: "The Church is not against sex. Something needed to be done about the cliches and stereotypes. The Church is not only about forbidding the use of contraception and warning against the sins of the flesh.
(...)

(via BoingBoing)

The Day the Enlightenment Went Out

A telling article from a faculty member of Northwestern University, in mah home town. Garry Wills reminds us of the ideals our country was founded on and reprimands those of us who have forgotten. He makes another in a long string of comparisons of our country to our enemies, going even so far as to call the "War on Terror" a jihad, which is a statement I honestly can't disagree with.

He [the Dalai Lama] seemed to envy America its Enlightenment heritage.

Which raises the question: Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?

America, the first real democracy in history, was a product of Enlightenment values - critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences. Though the founders differed on many things, they shared these values of what was then modernity. They addressed "a candid world," as they wrote in the Declaration of Independence, out of "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Respect for evidence seems not to pertain any more, when a poll taken just before the elections showed that 75 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters believe Iraq either worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11.

The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what they had experienced from this country in the past. In fact, we now resemble those nations less than we do our putative enemies.

Boing Boing: Purple Haze

Just in case you're tired of looking at those boring maps which put all the dems on the coasts and all the repubs in "Jesusland," this one from BoingBoing might cure you of your blue-state blues.

Darryl's Attic

Lauren's Show at Improv Olympic
If you're in Chicago on a Sunday night, check it out!

We Lost.

Dan: it's not about who wins or loses, it's just democracy
Dan: of an interesting kind
Me: i know, and i wish i felt like there were no losers...
Me: but unfortunately, i can't help but feel lost.

Kerry's Called It Bush

Four more years, fellows.
Sorry, too depressed to blog. Things will obviously continue on as they have been for quite a while now, so I'm sure there will be plenty to say, very soon.

Zogby's Called It Kerry

311 EVs
as of 5:00 pm

Media Matters Election Watch

This is the spot to check. States called, when they're called, and who called them. Just in case something goes wrong. Oy!

(WASHINGTON, DC, November 1, 2004) - Media Matters for America (MMFA) today announced a comprehensive election night monitoring project. Posting in real time, MMFA will note when winners are called, state by state, in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The project will monitor three networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC); three cable outlets (CNN, MSNBC, and FOX); and public television (PBS). The monitoring chart, which can be accessed at www.mediamatters.org/election, will list all 50 states plus D.C. and the corresponding time at which each news outlet calls the results.


We intend to maintain the project throughout the evening, until all outlets have projected a winner.

Nationwide Election Incidents

This is a color-coded map of election incidents, really telling. Anyway, I'm too tense to blog, and it's not like anyone reads my blog anyway (I'm expecting outraged comments, bitches). I'm literally in physical pain. Wish me luck, and wish us all luck... and, well, pray.

Edit (6:17 EST): This site seems to be down... it's not reporting any incidents, whereas earlier today it was reporting nearly 2000... Weird.