Politics
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It begins already
McKinney alleges voting irregularities
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Shortly after the polls opened on Tuesday, allegations of voting irregularities began appearing on U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney’s campaign Web site.
I had no wait when I voted this afternoon. There were McKinney people waving signs outside the polling place though. I waved, they waved back.
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Getting out the vote
I’m off to go vote in the McKinney – Johnson race. It’s an open primary, so anyone (who is registered) can vote.
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It’s a small world
McKinney opponent Hank Johnson appears on Winds of Change, a very good blog I read periodically. I will be voting for him in the runoff. I wonder if this guest blogging thing will be the new craze.
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Update on local democracy
Nick is correct on the primary system. From the AJC
Anyone registered to vote as of June 19 may cast a ballot in the Aug. 8 runoff, regardless of whether they voted in the primary. But those who voted Tuesday in the Republican primary may vote only in Republican runoffs, and those who voted in the Democratic primary may vote only in the Democratic runoff.
Unrelated quote of the moment
“When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.”
– Marquis de la Grange -
Democracy working, somehow
Ralph Reed goes down to defeat, and Cynthia McKinney is in a runoff against a guy with no huge party support and didn’t seem to spend much money. How cool.
Does anyone know if you can vote in the runoff if you didn’t vote in the primary?
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A perfect one-sentence description
Of the current political situation anyway, from Winds of Change:
as poor a hand as it may be, you can’t beat a pair of twos with nothing.
That sums it up pretty well I think. The dems wouldn’t even have to try that hard at this point. Instead they’ll probably lose a house seat or two and then return to their default position of navel gazing. Perhaps it’s all a big plot by the Clinton faction to set the stage for Hillary in 2008.
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Saturday round up
- Magnificent photography from Afghanistan
- A guide to chopping foods
- Race, Advertising and the Sony Playstation.
- Big Brother mixes with the cast of Friends to create Dodgeball
- An insightful post on Energy from the Winds of Change; it starts
An optimist says the glass is half full, the pessimist says the glass is half empty and the engineer says the glass is the wrong size.
Read the whole thing.
- Some quite impressive numbers you’re not likely to hear about.
In less than three years, the U.S. economic pie has expanded by $2.2 trillion, an output add-on that is roughly the same size as the total Chinese economy, and much larger than the total economic size of nations like India, Mexico, Ireland, and Belgium.
I think Iraq is keeping the political class occupied, much like the Clinton scandals did in the late 90s, and saving us from grand new ideas.
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This happened without me
Rally for national sales tax draws overflow crowd
About 4,500 raucous tax protesters packed the Gwinnett Convention Center on Wednesday night to hear politicians, musicians and talk show celebrities call for the end of the federal income tax and the creation of a 23 percent national sales tax to replace it.I have yet to hear the logic of what gets taxed and what doesn’t, and why the IRS doesn’t morph into some national enforcement arm, but it’s a good trend.
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Funny line
I was reading part of the transcript of Rumsfeld vs the heckler (who’s a moderately well known anti-Bush activist, I’ve heard him on Democracy Now before) here in Atlanta last week. I came across this gem:
CHILD: Mom, do you have an Altoid?
MOM: Yes, I think so. Look in my purse.
CHILD: I don’t see any.
MOM: Oh, I thought I had some.
CHILD: LYING BLOODTHIRSTY MONSTER!I’ve always wondered how is it possible that people can believe the government, particularly this one, is more capable of a grand conspiracy than a grand failure.
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Quick zinger roundup
- “George W. — We will be forever in his debt.” (Bumper sticker quoted on Andrew Sullivan’s site)
- “If he was shot in the head by the front, that is good marksmanship, if he was shot in the head by the back, that is good judgement.” (from the WikiPedia entry on the outlaw and gunfighter John Wesley Hardin)
- “like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car”
and
“like how you’d sound if you drank a quart of bourbon, smoked a pack of cigarettes and swallowed a pack of razor blades… Late at night. After not sleeping for three days”
(people describing the singing voice of Tom Waits)