Global warming: get busy

AUSTIN, Texas -- On the premise that spring is too beautiful for a depressing topic like Iraq, I thought I'd take up a fun subject -- global warming.

Time magazine warns us to "Be Worried. Be Very Worried." On the other hand, my sister is on the Global Warming Committee of the Unitarian Church in Albuquerque, N.M. They go around replacing old light bulbs with more energy-efficient models. My money's on my sis.

It's a good thing the phrase "the tipping point" became a cliche just in time to help us describe global warming. Just a few years ago, we were more or less cruising along on global warming, with maybe 50 years or so to Do Something about it. Suddenly, the only question is how soon to push the panic button, and 10 minutes ago appears to be the right answer.

Election aftermath

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Despite an opposition boycott of Sunday's (April 2) nationwide poll, Thailand's billionaire prime minister expects to be re-elected but then suffer insults, allegations and condemnation by thousands of protesters determined to cripple his government and snarl Bangkok's streets.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra hoped this Southeast Asian nation's rural and urban poor would help re-elect his welfare-friendly Thai Rak Thai ("Thais Love Thais") party, which thrust him to power in 2001 and endorsed him in February 2005 with 19 million votes.

Clean-shaven Thaksin has been portrayed as Adolf Hitler by his enemies in speeches, published commentary, and huge posters caricaturing him with a swastika on his forehead and a black moustache -- prompting a public complaint by Israel's embassy.

After the election, Thaksin may unleash lawsuits against his critics, whose speeches mixed legitimate issues with rants and unproven allegations.

Nice!

I liked the Hackwell article. He also has played a role in what was done to destroy us. He knew about it. We spoke to his office on more then a few occasions. He helped the snakes cover this hole thing up!

I wish the whole truth for once could be told. One day all these evil people will be brought to the light of justice, I am certain of this. It's just that in my life I have never seen justice work, ever. The truth is always hidden and twisted. Oh well, maybe one day.

Bob, when the truth is this obvious and people refuse to listen and or act on it, I always long to check their pockets for a receipt. They are usually involved or covering for somebody!

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Bush's "New Kind of Democracy" for Iraq

When President Bush said that the new democracy he's creating in Iraq may not resemble the one we have here in the United States, he wasn't kidding. In fact, in Bush's convoluted world of political delusion, he serves not only as the high exalted King of America, but the supreme mullah of Iraq as well. How else do you explain his brazen demand of the Shiite leadership that they remove their interim Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jafaari, because he "doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept" the recently nominated candidate. The story was reported Wednesday in the NY Times.

The "personal message from President Bush" was delivered to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Shiite political bloc, by the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad. The Shiite bloc had won a plurality in Iraq's parliamentary election last December. It nominated Mr. Jafaari in February to remain prime minister for four more years.

Through a glass Darkely

A serious question has been raised as to how C. Ellen Connally, a little-known, underfunded, African-American municipal judge from Cleveland, running for Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court against a well-financed incumbent, could have received more votes than John Kerry in 12 counties in Ohio. Not just a larger percentage of the vote. She drew more votes than John Kerry in these counties, in a race for Chief Justice that drew 1,195,882 fewer votes, statewide, than did the presidential race. The matter will be forever known, in the words of Reverend Jesse Jackson, as “The Connally Anomaly.”

The 12 counties are: Auglaize, Brown, Butler, Clermont, Darke, Highland, Mercer, Miami, Putnam, Shelby, Van Wert, and Warren.

Read the full article as a PDF.

Targeting the voters in Cincinnati

TALLY OF REJECTED PROVISIONAL BALLOTS, HAMILTON COUNTY, BY LOCATION

Cincinnati        3179
Harrison            60
Cleves              40
Loveland            34
North Bend           9
Miamitown            7
Terrace Park         5
Hamilton             4
Hooven               2
Addyston             1
Pisgah               1
Subtotal          3342
 
Not Completed      136
Rejected          3478
Total Counted    10507
Total Issued     13985

Note that of 3342 rejected provisional ballots on which the location was filled out, 3179, or 95.12%, were from Cincinnati.

In the 2004 presidential election, there were 408,238 votes counted for president in Hamilton County. Of these, 138,352 (33.89%) were in Cincinnati, where Kerry got 94,052 votes (67.98%), and Bush got 43,636 votes (31.54%). Elsewhere in Hamilton County, Bush got 172,003 (63.73%) votes, and Kerry got 96,904 votes (35.91%).

In two sentences:

Targeting the voters in Toledo

TALLY OF CHALLENGED VOTERS,
LUCAS COUNTY, BY LOCATION

Ward 8             121
Ward 2             111
Ward 4              76
Ward 6              62
Ward 17             39
Ward 13             32
 
Subtotal           441
 
Toledo             810
Suburbs            120
Total              930

Note that of 930 challenged voters, 810 (87.1%) were in Toledo. 441 (47.4%) were in six wards. 370 (39.8%) were in four wards. 232 (24.9%) were in two wards.

In the 2004 presidential election, there were 215,720 votes counted for president in Lucas County. Of these, 133,977 (62.11%) were in Toledo, where Kerry got 91,066 votes (67.98%), and Bush got 41,472 votes (30.95%). Elsewhere in Lucas County, Bush got 43,664 votes (53.42%), and Kerry got 37,355 votes (45.70%).

Here are the tallies for the wards listed above. For all 24 wards in Toledo click:

Faith-based voting

Oh, those glitches!

For some reason we tolerate them a lot more in an election - that is to say, in the mechanics of democracy, something we affect to believe in so fervently we're willing to go to war to make sure other countries have it - than we would in, let's say, our banking system.

Last week's primary election fiasco here in Chicago and Cook County - a fiasco of such ballot-eating magnitude that the city and county, which each had separate deals with Sequoia Voting Systems, are withholding more than $30 million remaining on their respective contracts with that company - should have generated howls of outrage. Instead, the tone of the local coverage of the chaotic transition from punch cards to optical-scan and touch-screen voting struck me more as tepid bemusement.

Jim Wallis speaks in Columbus

“Where in the bible do you find all this stuff about patriotism?”

Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong, and the Left Doesn't Get It, held a public lecture at St. John Arena at The Ohio State University on March 28, 2006. The lecture was followed by audience dialogue.

Wallis began his lecture with a reference to a conference held in Washington DC that very day. The richest and most powerful leaders of religion, met with the leaders of the most powerful nation, to discuss the so-called “war against Christians”.

“I am a person of faith too, and that is not my faith!” He proclaimed that the religious right was created by the political right and needed a counter movement. Nonetheless, he insisted, to not create a mirror image of that on the other side of the spectrum.

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