Welcome to the New AmericaWhere the Right can Dictate Your Personal Decisions

This fucking story made my blood boil. Fucking right wing control freak mother fuckers.
We're going to take your asses down. FUCK YOU!
Druggists Refuse to give out The Pill

here's a quote for you:
In Wisconsin, a petition drive is underway to revive a proposed law that would protect pharmacists who refuse to prescribe drugs they believe could cause an abortion or be used for assisted suicide.

"It just recognizes that pharmacists should not be forced to choose between their consciences and their livelihoods," says Matt Sande of Pro-Life Wisconsin. "They should not be compelled to become parties to abortion."

.........so, birth control is now abortion?
what the fuck is wrong with these people?

Evil GOP Co-opts 'Moral Values'

Here's a good story on how Republicans seem to distort the meaning of catchphrases like Family, Moral and Traditional Values. Or how they've turned the word "Liberal" into a dirty word.

Liberals dismayed by 'Moral Values' claim

Here's a couple quotes that stood out to me:

"The religious right has successfully gotten out there shaping personal piety issues � civil unions, abortion � as almost the total content of 'moral values.' And yet you can't read the Old Testament without knowing God was concerned about the environment, war and peace, poverty. God doesn't want 45 million Americans without health care."

"One thing Jesus was absolutely clear about was helping the poor, and the welcoming of strangers. Maybe this election was a wake-up call to have a serious conversation about what morality means, to look at what sort of country we're becoming."

Maybe there's a reason behind teaching kids (including me!) to sing in church

"Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
with the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
forward into battle see his banners go!"

um, yeah.

Bush Is a Parasite on Democracy

This was a bumper sticker i saw on the back of a car this morning. I liked it.
Happy Monday!

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Legendary Minneapolis Venue First Avenue Closes
This club was made famous by Prince in Purple Rain. Tina and i went there in 2000, on the way to moving to California, and saw Thomas Mapfumo, the Lion of Zimbabwe, perform. Frankly, it's surprising the club lasted as long as it did. Most clubs have a very short lifespan.

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Big surprise, San Franciscans feel betrayed by Bush's re-election.
San Francisco in No Mood for Tolerance after Bush Win
This quote stood out to me:
"I have family in Idaho, but I told my wife we're not going to visit them now. It's all Republicans there," said Ron Schmidt, a public relations executive. "We have family in Indiana and I don't want to go there either."

I agree for the most part. I will avoid red states if i can, and frankly, there are few reasons to go to those states, other than to see family in Indiana. But most of my family lives in Michigan, which was a "safe" blue state.

Quite a Protest

Ground Zero suicide follows post-election despair

A man fatally shot himself at Ground Zero of the World Trade Centre in New York, and friends believe the tragic suicide was a political protest against President George W Bush's re-election and the war in Iraq.

The body of Andrew Veal, 25, a university research worker from the southern state of Georgia who was engaged to be married, was found on the site of the September 11 terror attacks yesterday morning, his family and officials said.

Veal didn't leave a note, but those who knew the sensitive young man said he sent a grim message by choosing to end his life where almost 3,000 people perished.

"I'm absolutely sure it's a protest," said Mary Anne Mauney, Veal's supervisor at the University of Georgia survey research lab. "I don't know what made him commit suicide, but where he did it was symbolic."

"I see it as a political statement," agreed co-worker Stacey Sutherland. "He was so opposed to the war."

When Veal failed to show up at work on Wednesday, his pals assumed he was upset that Bush had beaten John Kerry in the race for the White House and was taking a few days off.

"We figured he was just devastated," Mauney said.

But fears for his safety grew when he didn't returns calls from his mother and his fiancee, an Iowa college student who was supposed to meet him in Seattle this weekend for a family wedding.

Hope turned to heartache yesterday when Veal's body was found. He had a head wound and police recovered a shotgun nearby.

"Andy was so anti-violence, I can't even see him holding a gun," Sutherland said.

Mauney said that other than the war and the election, she didn't know what might have been troubling Veal.

"I told his mother there are some people so sensitive and intelligent and passionate they don't belong in the world the way it is today," she said.

Map Mania

This guy over at The Blogging of the President has assembled a great assortment of maps interpreting the election with a proportional electoral map, county-by-county, kids' votes, and more.
We've Gone Map Crazy!

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And this bit of vandalism in North Carolina is only the beginning, to be sure.
Vandals Hits GOP Headquarters in North Carolina

More Election Fraud

While it might certainly seem like i'm obsessed with this, i'm not as obsessed about the election as i was, say, Monday.
though i had reached my burnout period a while ago.
Still, this election fraud problem needs to be addressed and looked at to ensure that the vote count we came up with on Tuesday is the correct one.
Voting Machine Error Gives Bush 3,893 extra votes in Ohio
Is this just the beginning?

Here's another story on the same subject
E-Vote Glitch Inflates Bush Total

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Meanwhile, the Democrats do what they do best, blame each other for their defeat.
This time, they're blaming San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. Weak, very weak.
Some Democrats Blame One Of Their Own
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Even high school students in Boulder, Colo., are pissed off about the Bush win on Tuesday.
Sleepover Protests Bush's Policies

Students at Colo. High School Protest Bush

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And don't forget to apologize to the world for America's error once again.
But hey, we tried, right?
Sorry Everybody
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Ah, i like this posting on Craig's List. Sounds like me!
MC w/59,017,382 Americans
Or read the text below:
>>>
You people, who voted for Bush. Who are you? Why did you do this to us? The man who did nothing to prevent 9/11, failed to react when the attacks occurred, and failed to find the two maniacs who orchestrated the attacks...has been re-elected!!??

Three years ago, everyone in the world cried over New York. You homophobes from Nebraska came and laid wreaths here. But you couldn't give an inch when we needed your help to get rid of this psycho-president. So here we are, in New York, scared of further attacks while this crackpot wages his crusades, and scared of you anencephalic neanderthals who stood up for his failures. To the east of us are islamo-fascist extremists who will stop at nothing to destroy the symbols of Western capitalism. (Yes, those symbols would be the Empire State Building, the broadway shows, and the Stock Market that you smelly, drooling, cow-eyed tourists come and stare at.) And to the west are hoards of pentecostal fundamentalist christians who are waiting with sweaty palms and bated breath for the wrath of God (in the shape of hairy mujhadeen) to come and burn this Gomorrah to the ground.

I don't know you. I don't have your myopic values, your religious fervor, your sanctified hate. And apparently, I don't have as many friends as you do, lemmings. So as this country slides into the stinking shitpuddle of conservative fascism, let me make one request: Don't stay in touch. Don't visit New York and enjoy its food, sites and entertainment. Don't see movies made in Hollywood. Stay in South Dakota, Ohio, and Alabama. Don't look to the coasts for entertaiment and excitement, then wipe your ass with us when we really need your support. Stay at the mall. Play with yourselves in your SUVs. Molest your suburban babysitter. But don't come 'round here no more. We don't know you, you're not our friends. You want values? Stick w/Britney and her 60-second marriages, I'll take an honest fag anyday.

It's hard being a New Yorker these days. It's hard being brutally attacked by a terrorist fanatic. It's hard being used as a backdrop for mindless nationalist posturing. It's hard getting shit on by inbreeds from Utah every election. It's hard being a New Yorker. But I'd much rather be a proud, sad, New Yorker than a mindless pious fuckwit from Jacksonville, Florida with a cross on the wall and six copies of Playboy tucked under the sofa.

So fuck you, red America. Stay out there, in the darkness with your satellite cable and 10-acre supremarkets. Drive around your suburbs in your retarded Hummers. Pretend you have somewhere worthwhile to go. Becasue without New York, and Los Angeles, and all us interesting blue-state people, your world is a boring, lonely place, and you deserve it. We're different, we don't suck.

We may never win an election, and all that proves is that majority rule is a woefully imperfect way to chose a leader.

Next time you want to come and have fun in New York, visit Tarramt County, Texas instead, assholes.

this is in or around Sodom and Gomorrah, USA

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buck up some more fellow progressives
Hello, Uranus? Got Any Room? Must. Move. Away. Cannot endure more Bush. Soul about to implode. Right? Not so fast
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And stay angry.
Guilty, Disgusted, American

Election Fraud??
There are Real Discrepancies
...And other misgivings

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Hate to already spring this on people, but some serious allegations are already being made regarding the potential for voter fraud and mischief in Ohio and Florida.
The differences in the exit polls and the machines are striking in those states, whereas most other exit polls almost perfectly match the outcome in other states.

This is just beginning to build but it's striking that it's already emerging two days after this election.
Here's an email i received this morning:
>>>>
I'm passing along some information related to the possibility that this election was rigged. Although I haven't seen enough of the evidence--and am not sufficiently confident in my statistical analysis abilities--to be able to verify this for you, I do think that fraud may have occurred, perhaps on a massive scale, and that this warrants serious further investigation. Perhaps some of you math types can take
a closer look and tell me what you think.

Do not forget that the Walden O'Dell, hard-core Republican fundraiser and chief executive of Diebold Inc (the company that makes most of the voting machines), said in a letter dated Aug. 14, 2003, that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its
electoral votes to the president next year." (see http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.htm).

I also find it fishy that Rove said that they would get 4 million more votes than they got in 2000 and, apparently, they did. Almost exactly.

I'm sure that you're all aware of the very serious problems with the electronic voting machines. If not, check out this site: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/.
Wired has an article out on e-voting in this election at Watchdogs Spot E-Vote Glitches.

Okay, so the info about fraud in this election is below. Much of it comes from
Exit polls analysis versus reported vote count.

I want everyone to see this and at least have a choice as to whether they want to be depressed because Bush won this election, or because Bush stole this election.

Black Box Voting and Greg Palast's report of a million votes thrown out in Florida before the election even began aside, basic numbers show that this election was a fraud, it was stolen just like the 2000 election was stolen.

Look at a site which lists the exit polls before they were "corrected." Correction is the procedure by which the exit polls are retrofitted to match the figures provided by the vote counting machines. It is easily done by changing the exit poll results, such as the 2.00 a.m. re-assignment of the Nevada exit poll scores which was done without varying the sample size.

Results can be also changed by other methods like screwing with the weighting (weighting in statistics is a coefficient assigned to elements of a frequency distribution in order to represent their relative importance).

So let's check out raw exit polls vs. announced results

Here is one list as an example of raw exit poll data: All exit polls predict Kerry victory, though early polls not considered reliable

Then look at the results by state, such as here:
Elections

The GOP says that the exit polls are not large enough samples and so there is a large random error in the results. If this were true, then the exit polls would scatter on either side of the actual result, ESP. if the final result is so close to 50/50.

When we compare exit polls with actual results we see a skew - but ONLY in states which the Republicans had previously stated to be target states in play. The skew favors Bush every time.

The exit poll results are not scattered about the mean, they are all on the Kerry side of the vote counts as issued by the states except for a few of states where the final figures are very close to poll figures.

Here are the figures. They list the four contemporaneous and uncorrected exit polls. Kerry is listed first and Bush second in each pair of figures. Published = the figure presented as the vote count as of 10.00 a.m. EST on 11/3/04

AZ Poll one 45-55 Final 45-55 Published 44-55
CO Poll one 48-51 2nd 48-50 3rd 46-53 Published 46-53
LA Poll one 42-57 Final 43-56 Published 42-57
MI Poll one 51-48 Published 51-48 Published 51-48
IOWA Poll one 49-49 3rd 50-48 Final 49-49 Published 49-50
NM Poll one 50-48 2nd 50-48 3rd 50-48 Final 50-49 Published 49-50
ME 3rd 55-44 Published 53-45
NV: 3rd 48-49 Published 48-51
AR: 3rd 45-54 Published 45-54
MO Final 46-54 Published 46-53

These tracking polls are as expected and within the margin of error. But in othe states that is not the case. Either the exit polls were wrong or the vote count is wrong:
WI Poll one 52-48 3rd 51-46 Final 52-47 Published 50-49
PA Poll one 60-40 3rd 54-45 Final 53-46 Published 51-49
OH Poll one 52-48 2nd 50-49 3rd 50-49 Final 51-49 Published 49-51
FL Poll one 51-48 2nd 50-49 3rd 50-49 Final 51-49 Published 47-52
MINN Poll one 58-40 3rd 58-40 Final 54-44 Published 51-48
NH Poll one 57-41 3rd 58-41 Published 50-49
NC Poll one 3rd 49-51 Final 48-52 Published 43-56

Taking the figures and measuring the size and direction of the poll to supposed vote count discrepancy, you will see:
OH Bush + 4%
FL Bush + 7%
NH Bush + 15%
NC Bush + 9%
etc.

Also:
...in several swing states, and EVERY STATE that has E-Voting but no paper trails has an unexplained advantage for Bush of around +5% when comparing exit polls to actual results.

In EVERY STATE that has paper audit trails on their EVoting, the exit poll results match the actual results reported within the margin of error.

So we have MATCHING RESULTS for exit polls vs. voting with audits vs.
A 5% unexplained advantage for Bush without audits.

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Here's what what one mainstream paper says:
>Exit Polls: Early Numbers Misread and Misused
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Fruit has returned to being deposited in my chair. a mysterious person has been putting various fruit in my chair at work off and on for the last few weeks.
today, the fruit returns. an apple. oh wait!
after reading the little tag, it's an Asian pear. it certainly looks like an apple. it's round.
also, i found a very tiny chocolate chip on my keyboard.
this can only mean apocalypse is upon us.
in the past, there has been a banana, pear, orange and persimmon -- DEF: the usually orange several-seeded globular berry of a persimmon that is edible when fully ripe but usually extremely astringent when unripe -- and...am i missing one? can't recall.

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it must be true that stress does in fact cause memory lapse. how else to explain that the unbelievable amount of stress upon my shoulders has enabled me to not only forget the specific paper i needed for my appointment with the DMV this morning to renew my license (despite the fact i have two copies, i can now only find one and i left that one at work - idiot), but also i pulled my salad for lunch out on to my kitchen table, only to then forget it there.
i am officially dumb sometimes
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guilt is good.
when we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Sunday afternoon (gorgeous down there, btw), i noticed in all the bathrooms, there was quite a thought-provoking sign.

next to the paper towels near the sinks was this:
TOWELS = TREES

it made me take less.
see, guilt is good.

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i guess i won't be smoking my post-election day celebratory cigar i got in Monterey at Cool Cat Cigars. that was a cool place though. the dude working the counter had the best facial hair. mostly white, except for right around the mouth, which was tobacco-stained.
but his moustache was one of those long ones that went over his mouth entirely so you can't see his lips. and his handlebar part of his moustache was super long and in twisty curly Qs pointed out thanks to some fine wax.
He was a fine gentleman.
Fare thee well, gentle man.

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ok, i'm not getting ahead of myself here.
i'm kind of shaking after reading this government document regarding the Selective Service, which is the draft.
but apparently, same old financial aid/register tie-in. Ooooold law.
http://cryptome.org/sss110404.txt

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update: 4 p.m. PST

got some more stuff on the e-voting controversy that is continuing to swirl around on the web.

E-Vote Goes Smoothly, but Experts Skeptical

this next one's much more emphatic.
Kerry Won

here's a story from Salon, which is subscription only (here's a tip - sit through the 60-second or so commercial to get a free day pass each day, well worth it) that sort of discounts what some blogs are saying, so it's a good wake-up call, if nothing else.

Did e-voting fraud help Bush steal the election?
The Internets are abuzz with rumors that Bush won with the help of rigged electronic voting machines.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Farhad Manjoo
Nov. 4, 2004 | Lefty Web sites are buzzing with a supposed "statistical analysis" that they say proves that Republicans stole the election by rigging paperless touch screen machines. According to the analysis performed by a Democratic Underground regular who goes by the handle SoCalDemocrat, states that use electronic machines were all showing strong Kerry support in exit polls, but when the results came in, the states went to Bush. The polls (which are based on interviews with voters as they leave the polls) indicate that voters in the state really voted for Kerry, the lefties say; the machines distorted or changed their votes. "Maybe Dubayah believes God will see him through this, but it's going to take more than blind faith to pull the wool over the data and the facts," SoCalDemocrat writes.

But as we see it, SoCalDemocrat's evidence is quite thin. For one thing, he appears to be wrong on the facts. While he's correct that exit polls showed a Kerry victory in many states that actually went to Bush, this didn't only happen in states that use paperless touch screen machines.

The most obvious example is Nevada, the only state in the nation to use what many computer scientists consider to be the safest touch-screen machines -- machines that print a paper ballot that is reviewed by the voter as each vote is cast, a so-called voter-verified paper trail. In Nevada, the last exit polls showed Kerry leading Bush by 49 to 48 percent, with 1 percent for Ralph Nader. The actual result was a win for Bush by 51 to 48 percent.

And even in states that did use paperless touch-screen machines, it's not clear that Bush made his gains in the areas of the states that used them, rather than regions that use other machines. For instance, in Florida, it's the state's large South Florida counties that use paperless touch screens. But Bush did worse in these regions in 2004 than in 2000. In the 2000 race in Miami-Dade, Bush got about 47 percent of the two-party share of the vote, while Al Gore received 53 percent; this year, Bush only got 46 percent of the two-party vote there, while Kerry got 54 percent. What this means is that in the move from punch-card machines (which, as everyone remembers, Miami-Dade used in 2000) to paperless touch-screens, Bush actually did worse, not better. At the same time, the president gained in Orange County, Florida. In 2000, Gore beat Bush in Orange County, whose largest city is Orlando; this year, Kerry lost to Bush there. And Bush didn't need rigged machines to do it: Orlando uses paper-based optical-scan voting machines -- which computer scientists consider more reliable than the touch screen systems.

Even if unfounded, the Democratic Underground set's suspicion is understandable. The exit polls were odd. And who can forget the infamous pledge of Wally O'Dell, CEO of touch-screen machine vendor Diebold, to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush this year? (Ohio, however, used few paperless touch-screens.) It's certainly worthwhile to scrutinize how the technology functioned in this year's election, but to date there simply isn't the evidence to conclude that the election was "stolen" using it. One way to make sure future presidential races are above such suspicion would be to add paper trails to all the paperless machines.

-------
I have some good news today.
Long absent, absinthe to become legal in its native Switzerland

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even better news. People want to fight Bush supporters.
Straight male seeks Bush supporter for fair, physical fight
Let the games begin!
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a quote from my good friend in the State That Would Be Florida:
"What gets me is the fact i'll never know the satisfaction of having defeated that smug bastard in a election and have to watch him admit defeat.
I wanted to see him stunned and angry."
Agreed on that sentiment.
though somehow i feel like Bush's just due is still coming. Karma's a real bitch.
then again, where the hell was karma during this election? out to play?

I was listening to npr last night, Terry Gross was interviewing one of the editors at New Yorker. He was clearly devastated and filled with grief.
One thing he said that was most striking concerned violent extremism and that we're likely to see some of that, in-country terrorism, and potentially violent actions against the U.S. government in protest, which i think will likely, in turn, bring about a bigger and much scarier police state.
Man...this is going to only harden people's attitudes.

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maybe this is why Florida voted the way it did.
Liquefied Heroin Discovered In Fruit Juice Boxes in Florida
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and a sign there's still humanity in the world, despite the re-election of the evil one.
this morning on 880-S, in a super busy area of the freeway, there were several cars stopped in the middle of the road.
Then i see a middle-aged executive looking woman get out of her car in the middle of the road because there was a damn KITTEN in the middle of the freeway.
then another guy gets out of his car and tries helping the woman get the kitty.
all of a sudden this big semi truck comes rolling up and i think it's over for the kitty and she darts in front of it and the truck stops in time. i was watching all of this as i slowly drove by, then out of my rearview mirror.
it looked like the kitty made it to the side of the road but i can't be sure. at least they got the kitty out of the road.
i can't imagine how a tiny kitten got on the freeway other than by some asshole dumping it out of the window or something. so sad.
so i am hoping the kitten made it safe and sound.
people are good, aren't they?
not everybody is an asshole.
Like, say, Republicans/Bush.

have a nice today and tomorrow! (but screw you on Saturday)

Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings

---

Any proper Republican would be laughing at me right now because i have feelings.
And it's true, i am officially in the minority. People want to believe in some religious mumbo jumbo than face the true reality of our world.

I'm completely crushed, deflated, have little hope for our future.
I'm frightened for our future.

I still don't understand how this could happen.

In fact, I woke up at about 4 a.m. last night with nightmares.

I actually felt like crying last night. Still do.

People need to really look hard at the final vote tallys in Ohio and find out why there was a discrepancy between exit polls and the raw data.

As well as florida.

I know this sounds like i�m grasping at straws here and it�s likely too late to change anything now.

My God, I just read something that compared present-day U.S. to 1920s Germany and the rise of Hitler.

It�s just blowing my mind, all of it.
Well, i know where i CAN live now, west coast or upper east coast and that�s about it.

But even here in California, there�s not a ton of solace.

I will say this, the red states are officially my enemies. I will boycott those states at all costs. None of my money that i can help will be going to any of those states. i realize i should be as angry if not more so with the federal government but this is something i can do.

I'm happy about Michigan turning to Kerry, but still. There's simply no reason to go to any red state. Fuck 'em.