Machine politics

I'm tired of What This All Means. The Onion makes me cry.


Voting Machines Elect One Of Their Own As President

Missing the bota

It seems Gregorio "Kilili" Sablan and Pedro Agulto Tenorio 'should' be headed for a runoff in the Delegate race in the Northern Marianas, "Where America votes first". Both men are leading in incomplete results from the Commonwealth Election Commission, since neither has 25 percent of the vote, nevermind fifty percent.

But there was no CNMI Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives when a 50 percent plus one vote for Governor and Lieutenant Governor was approved by voters last year.

Absentee ballots will be counted Nov. 18, according to the Saipan Tribune. Agulto would have to make up 360 votes to catch Kilili.

The Tribune says 650 absentee ballots have been received so far, while the Marianas Variety says there are 1,112 absentee voters.

It seems Tenorio is still the only candidate who submitted finance reports to the Federal Election Commission.

That dog don't hunt

Sure, a lot of Republicans are looking for the last boat off of the Titanic, but why on earth would Vice President Dick Cheney endorse John McCain at the last minute? Does anyone think there's an undecided voter who's going to think 'well, if Dick says it's okay...'?

This seems like another Cheney hunting accident with McCain as the victim. Sure, he's still got his fans. So does George Bush: two people stood up for him in USSP last night. Those people have already made up their minds.

McCain is desperately trying to stay away from these associations. Oh, and according to Taegan Goddard, Barack Obama helpfully responded with "I'd like to congratulate Senator McCain on this endorsement because he really earned it."



Surprise, surprise, surprise -- Gomer Pyle

Studs Terkel

Studs Terkel died Friday. He was one of the good ones.

Don't know him? You're on the internet, and he's worth whatever time you can spare for a Google. One of the good ones.

Now it's Hawaii

Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle claims Barack Obama is even "the other" in Hawaii: "Senator Obama likes to say he's from Hawaii. But, the truth is, I've never met him in my life."

Writer Paul Theroux disagrees in The Daily Beast.

She's met Theroux, though "I don’t have a lot of free time for reading," she is said to have said. See, there were other choices besides Sarah Palin.

Further proof that Obama is an elitist: I'm not familiar with Pico Iyer.

Election Night Lottery

Idly, I wonder if this is legal:

Ken --

I want you to be there with me on Election Night when the results come in.

We're planning a big event that will include tens of thousands of supporters in Grant Park in downtown Chicago.

We're saving some of the best seats in the house for 5 people who make their first donation to the campaign before Sunday at midnight.

If you're selected, you can bring a guest, and we'll fly you in and put you up in a hotel for the night. You'll go backstage at the big event and -- no matter what happens -- you'll have a front row seat to history as we celebrate the supporters who got us over the finish line.

Any donation counts -- whatever you can afford. Show your support at this crucial time with a donation of $5 or more, and you could join me on Election Night:

https://donate.barackobama.com/frontrow

This movement for change has been a testament to the power of ordinary Americans coming together to achieve extraordinary things.

I look forward to having you there on Election Night.

Thank you,

Barack

American idol

Christians praying for a better economy at the 'Wall Street Bull'? (Bowling Green, actually. I know, I know) Tell me it isn't so.

Not really, but there's actually a grain of truth there. A woman namedCindy Jacobs picked the anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash as 'a day of prayer for the world's economies' and the Word went out on the fundamental grapevine.

The bull story is getting some internet traction, but come on now, the source is Wonkette. It's probably a good sign that I can still be surprised by people's gullibility-- not jaded and faded yet, by Ba'al.

I bit, I'll admit. I followed the boingboing link supplied by my brother and went on from there. On some level I wanted it to be true, so I read every blog I could find and all of the comments. The price was 45 minutes wasted; the jokes were priceless.

The bull was a throw-in, but worshipping an idol was too good for Wonkette to pass up. That's my impression, at least. Their photos look more like performance art than some people looking for their fifteen minutes of fame.

Good theater, but Jacobs actual message is less funny and a bit scarier:

For this reason, we are meeting with intercessors at the New York Stock Exchange and the Federal Reserve Bank and its 12 principal branches around the U.S. on October 29, 2008. We are also going to intercede at the site of the statue of the bull on Wall Street to ask God to begin a shift from the bull and bear markets to what we feel will be the “Lion’s Market” or God’s control over the economic systems. While we do not have the full revelation of all this will entail, we do know that without intercession, economies will crumble.

Wow, what if she'd gotten to George Bush a few years ago?

Odds and ends update:

No word from the Vatican, but they're vetting priests. Sorry, no Palin joke here.

Wall Street could use a little religion

There's sharia law, of course. (I tried to go to another Washington Post article via the Daily Beast cheat-sheet, but the geniuses at their registration don't recognize Saipan's 96950 as a valid U.S. zip code. I left a sarcastic note.)