h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn Pro." - Hunter S. Thompson

Wherefore:
Rep Dan Foley (R-FL) has just resigned subsequent to revelations about sexual conversations with congressional pages (male):

Wherefore:
Two former Diebold employees have now come forward stating that company executives applied secret software patches to about 5000 voting machines in Georgia in 2002:

Wherefore:
Baghdad is under absolute curfew until Sunday, with news of an attempted military coup being reported:

Wherefore:
The Senate has just passed a bill exempting the President of the United States from accountability for authorizing torture and suspending habeas corpus:

Wherefore:
Citizens in various parts of the country appear to be going crazy and shooting strangers or policemen at random:

Wherefore:
The administration is reported to be seriously contemplating an air assault, unprovoked, on Iran (but the generals are refusing to play):

Wherefore:
Midterm elections take place in 5 weeks, at which point either Democrats may take control of Congress. And then?

Here beginneth the second conversation concerning American politics. Or global politics if you agree that all politics is local. This has been a strange week.

The curfew thing is interesting. You posted this five hours ago. The Hindustan Times had something out on the internet eight hours ago, but Sydney and Reuters followed your post on the curfew by a full four hours. None of these mentioned a coup...if true, it would be very interesting...hard to believe the US could have been incompetent enough in setting up a govenment to permit that possibility...there is an inherent weakness in the current Iraq govenment structure...all we need is coups, self-igniting ayatollahs and a formal (rather than back-door) darst and we would back in Nam in 1968...

So, where's the coup evidence?

In placs of "darst" read draft...or conscription....

In other pre-election news, gasoline prices are dropping more rapidly in swing states than in non-swing states.

Due to my location, I get television and radio campaign ads for candidates in three states. The Republican ads are nastier than I can ever remember.

Re attempted coup: it took some digging, but I finally found this --
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15066939/

I got a push-poll phone call last night. The questions were highly inflammatory and obviously biased towards Republican incumbent Senator Conrad Burns. At the end of the "survey" the automated message said the poll had been sponsored by some group calling themselves "Common Sense 2006, Susan Carson, Treasurer". With a little help from Google I found these guys: a Ohio-based dirty tricks group already in trouble with the law. Read more:

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/15468494.htm



Karl Rove was just here last weekend helping craft strategy for Burns. Methinks I detect a whiff of his work.

Your correspondent e-mailed the campaign of Burns' opponent, Senator Jon Tester, right away. Hopefully someone there will follow up on this and expose "Common Sense 2006" to the public. If not, I might be forced to take drastic measures and write A Letter to the Editor.

It looks like being the dirtiest campaign since the end of the 19th century. And I remember it well.

Bob Woodward's book is also making a large splash in campaign framing.

"Bob Woodward's book is also making a large splash in campaign framing."

How so? All I've heard so far is that Bob Woodward had some sort of epiphany regarding the shrub, since his last book, in which he had been favorable.

As to Karl Rove, he's easy to track by his cologne: Eau de Putrifaction.

SC

It's hitting all the talk shows today, as is Colin Powell's new book.

Good initiative, Lil. And I found your legal style 1st entry a very classy piece of writing

*Tunes in*

Say that you wrote a book of science fiction in 1996 about a trio of draft dodgers who somehow come to assume power in a suspect election and then launch a war by lying about WMD, illegally invade another country, fail to have a post-invasion plan, fail to provide adequate troop strength, torture prisoners, illegally wiretap American citizens, create secret detention centers, eliminate habeas corpus, give no-bid reconstruction contracts to business cronies and commit other obviously impeachable offenses with no blowback from the American public....

Then perhaps introduce a character, a woman Blackhawk helicopter pilot who lost both legs in a RPG attack when her helicopter crashed in combat. She condemns the conduct of the "war" as nothing better than shallow sloganeering like "mission accomplished" and "cut and run" ...

It wouldn’t work as fiction… No one would believed it.

BE IT RESOLVED: ?????

.

I know the woman of whom you speak, although her name escapes me, and I hope she wins. The plot of this book should also include the fact that her political opponent has accused her of cowardice.

Tammy Duckworth, I believe, is her name...her opponent is probably another erstatz cowboy draft dodger/deserter...amazing stuff.

"I know the woman of whom you speak, although her name escapes me, and I hope she wins. The plot of this book should also include the fact that her political opponent has accused her of cowardice."

That's probably the *most* unbelievable part of all! Gobsmacked doesn't even begin to cover the gall...

SC

There is one thing that worries me terribly about all the bad things currently befalling the Republican Party this close to the election: will President Bush decide that an air assault on Iran would provide a nice little distraction for the American electorate? The disastrous badness of such a move is overwhelming, and yet I'm reading, over on dailykos, of a naval build-up in the area.

I hope a lot of people voice that very concern publically. That way if it happens perhaps the voters will be more skeptical of his motives.

*Sits down with a nice hot *

In any case, it's looking good for Strickland in Ohio after the latest polls. I really hope he wins- Mo, do you know about his health insurance policy? There was some category of federal funds that he refused throughout his tenure in the US House. His reason: he wouldn't accept that money until all his constituents had basic health insurance.

I have a lot of respect for Mr. Strickland, and I truly hope he wins. We could get some good policy out of this guy- though he wouldn't have far to go to beat Taft in my book.

The latest poll results here show that incumbent Republican Senator Jim Talent is in a dead heat with his Democratic challenger, Clair McCaskill with 13% of the vote still undecided.

We have two initatives on the ballot that will help Democrats - one to raise the minimum wage and the other on stem-cell research. But Talent has a large base in St. Louis that is going to be hard for McCaskill to overcome.