Petition for proper Ohio Recount

slated in mainstream at 2:56 am

Keep Ohio Recount Non-Partisan: Sign the Petition

information: Following Up On Ohio Election Hearings & Recount

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Pattern of Florida Election Results

slated in mainstream at 11:51 pm

Not new. But nonetheless, unbelievable.

Surprising Pattern of Florida’s Election Results

Ethel says this well:

FUN MATH
In an interesting summary of voting by county in Florida, we find amusingly named Liberty County, wherein there were 4,075 registered voters, of which 8% were registered Republicans and 88% registered Democrats. The final vote tally was 3,021 votes, 1,927 for the Republicans and 1,070 for the Democrats. A similar pattern is seen in many other counties.

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Ohio Recount: Hope Returns

slated in mainstream at 12:19 am

HOLD UP
remember this?

(14:10:08) Cxxxk: can i give up hope yet ...

well, permission rescinded.
There will be a recount of the presidential vote in Ohio!!

hurray hurray hurray!
it’s not everything… but it could be…

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08 November 2004 Monday

slated in mainstream at 3:25 am

A beautiful post. I would have named this one something like ‘Values vs. Ideals’, but I trust the author knows better. Do read this one.

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Blue states to Reds

slated in mainstream at 2:01 am

Read this article at theregister.co.uk by the New Democrat Outreach Program, published Sunday 7th November 2004. Blue states to Reds. [referred by a gentleman in ‘the forums’]

We Blues will come out of the Bush era no worse for wear, although you Reds will come out very much diminished, deeper in debt, and less able to improve your circumstances by your own powers.

It really is rather sneering and harsh, but I can live with that.

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Election-related, and Responses part II

slated in mainstream at 4:08 am

A friend directed me to this map you see here of the 2004 US Presidential Election Results and a Map of Pre-Civil War Free vs. Slave States.

He also directed me to this very informative and I’m sure completely comprehensive and scientific chart of the average IQ by state, and the candidate they voted for. I asked a friend how Hawaii could have beaten us geniuses in Maryland, and he reminded me that Stitch is there to break the curve. *edit: the makers of said chart pointed to a possibly more reputable chart. if someone finds more factual evidence toward this end, i’d be interested to hear/see it.

and another friend brought this one to my attention: Greg Pallast’s Kerry Won I don’t know if that’s supposed to be exhilarating or extra depressing. Not that it should necessarily be given a lot of credence, but it is out there. And that site directs on to Democracy Spoiled, a grim account of ballot spoilage. Greg Pallast concludes:

Several friends have asked me if I will again leave the country. In light of the failure — a second time — to count all the votes, that won’t be necessary. My country has left me.

and Part II: smattering of IM and spoken responses I had from friends regarding the election results:

(19:58:29) cxxx: but yeah, our country is split pretty much down the middle on issues.
(19:58:45) cxxx: good luck to bush for keeping all of us happy for the next 4 years.

(3:19:29 PM) Mxxx: its a dark day in america
(3:21:12 PM) Mxxx: notice how bush gets elected and the clouds roll in

“Reagan was a really bad president. he’d sleep through his cabinet meetings. but at least he’d have cabinet meetings. this president (Bush) just held his first cabinet meeting in three months!”

I will tell you that I believe my grumpiness about this whole thing is slowly beginning to wear off. blogging is form of therapy, after all. ‘doesn’t mean I won’t be having more politically-charged material here for a while yet. maybe even scattered through the next four years. hey, worse things could happen.

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04 November 2004 Thursday

Jeff Nelson Political Signs

slated in mainstream at 11:47 pm

Stately Victorians against Iditotic Incumbents

A friend brought this site to my attention. I think it’s excellent

I do wish my neighborhood looked more like this. Instead, it’s actually pretty full of Bush signs… although there are a few heartwarming Kerry signs.

I wonder when my disappointment and disdain and frustration and disgust for this whole situation is going to wear off. Or at least turn productive. It’ll have to turn productive.

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The glass is half Ohio

slated in mainstream at 9:49 pm

*this article began at 11:09. i’ve come back to it occasionally and added to it in the subsequent hours

whatever differences I felt with the elder Bush were over what was the right policy. There was much he ultimately did that I ended up admiring. ... But what troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don’t just favor different policies than I do – they favor a whole different kind of America. We don’t just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.

I came across this post as I was reading this post.

Given the current (and past few years) state of this country and notably the state of Ohio, and between the Ohioans who voted for Bush and the Ohioans who voted for/almost voted for Nader/no one.. I’m just not sure where to draw my faith in the American public and in their goodwill and sensibility.

“The glass is half-full”—nearly 50% voted for against Bush/for Kerry. Well yes. That’s fine. But it seems to me that we took over Iraq because of a handful of ‘bad people’ and the power they had (which is all a whole bunch of crap, btw. That invasion is one of the most unjustified crimes every committed by any government anywhere.).. Here, 50% of the country is in full power throughout the House, Senate, and sitting comforably in the Oval Office… and they’re crazy. They don’t believe in equality. They don’t believe in shades of grey. They don’t believe in accepting others for who they are, though it may be different and even weird and unattractive to theirselves. Nor do they believe in global warming.

They do believe that terrorists “hate freedom” and that we were saviors in Iraq and that 52% could be any sort of a mandate of heaven—and ~~that Bush could be a good President~~ scratch that, they believe that Bush has been a good president.

Despite an utterly incompetent war performance in Iraq and a stagnant economy, Mr. Bush held onto the same basic core of states that he won four years ago – as if nothing had happened. It seemed as if people were not voting on his performance. It seemed as if they were voting for what team they were on.

â€œThey hate us because we don't know why they hate us."—Bill Maher

True for the Middle Easterners and true for the rest of the world and true for the half of us who voted against Bush, despising the other half because they clearly don’t get it.

Remember back in the day when we kept ‘colored’ people as slaves? When schools were segregated. When interracial marriage was disgusting and mixed children were abominations. When only white men could vote and own land. When birth control or even avoiding sexual intercourse at a particularly fertile time of one’s monthly cycle was considered sin.

Well back in the day nothing. Many of those things are still considered morally right (segregation) and morally wrong (birth control) by Americans today. And other Americans who think they’ve achieved something by growing past those things and striving toward unity and equality, turn around and say “gay people? gay people getting married!? abomination!” and “abortion? who cares about someone else’s circumstances and the health/safety of the mother and what are shades of grey and extrenuating circumstances? evil!”

At least if people want to believe these things and behave this way, let them not pledge “one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all.” Cuz it’s all such very much crap.

Is it a country that does not intrude into people’s sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn’t trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us – instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?

Divided indeed. This map shows the breakdown of voting results by county.

Counties won by less than 5 percentage points:

Bush 162
Kerry 131

I think that shows remarkable division!

All that said… the glass is half full. Because we survived all of that and I was born and I’ve always loved being mixed and no one dares call me an abomination (let’s not start) and so maybe (slowly and dumbly) even the current crop of Americans will grow up and find something new to suppress and be afraid of.

Besides. My father’s American. And there are others—even many—who embody what many of us envision as the idealistic and worthy/worthwhile true-to-claim Americans. There’s hope as long as that.

Faith.

read Thomas L. Freidman’s ‘Two Nations Under God’

also glance at these other articles (relevant to this post and the past few):

Bush, an unemotional profile.
The Day the Enlightenment Went Out, by Garry Wills
War? Jobs? No, Character Counted Most to Voters, by Kate Zernike and John M. Broder
On the Avowed Left Coast, a Feeling of Being Left Out, by Dean E. Murphy
and as previously mentioned, though the president will unfortunately be the same, changes in the ranks will happen: Who Comes, Who Goes, Who Stays in a New Bush Council, by Steven R. Weisman
America’s Shifting Reality, by George F. Will
When Will Grown-Ups Be in Charge?, by Marc Fisher
The Once and Future Hope?, by Richard Cohen

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Fleeing the country

slated in mainstream at 8:06 am

found through the textdrive forum and through amenroma.com

Electing to Leave: A reader's guide to expatriating on November 3

“Should one candidate win, those who opposed the Iraq war might hope to find refuge in France, where a very select few are allowed to ‘assimilate’ each year. Assimilation is reserved for persons of non-French descent who are able to prove that they are more French than American, having mastered the language as well as the philosophy of the French way of life. Each case is determined on its own merit, and decisions are made by the Minist?re de l'Emploi, du Travail, et de la Coh?sion Social. When your name is published in the Journal Officiel de la R?publique Fran?ais, you are officially a citizen, and may thereafter heckle the United States with authentic Gallic zeal.”

Wonkette Answers: Where to Now?