Keepin’ static like wool fabric since 2006
I was struck by this story by Holly J, a woman who attended the recent anti-war protest in Washington. It’s mostly about the anti-anti-war protesters, who frighten her on her way to the protest. Then she unexpectedly comes face-to-face with one, and finds some perspective on the whole issue.
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Part two of Frontline’s News War is on at nine tonight. I’ve never fully understood the Valerie Plame business or the Scooter Libby trial that’s going on right now, but I have a feeling this is going to be the show that makes me get it. You can watch part one online here.
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I enjoyed listening to some of NPR’s Intelligence Squared program on the way home from work, “Is America Too Damn Religious?” A gem from the first speaker, Rev. Barry W. Lynn:
After every major school shooting in the United States, members of Congress insist that, if we posted the ten commandments on every schoolroom wall, we would stop the next violent student uprising from occurring. They’re never willing to talk about gun control, they’re never willing to even talk about spending money to work with avariced young people but decalogue display is the panacea. But you know, if proximity to holy words really made us better people then the presence of Giddeon Bibles in night-stands in motels would have ended adultery long ago but it has not, it is not that simple.
Full program here.
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I shouldn’t have been so pessimistic. The Dems have gained at least thirty seats in the House and will have a comfortable majority. My old little league coach, Joe Donnelly, won his election by 8%. I’m happy. What has me ecstatic, though, is that the Dems are going to take the Senate, 51-49.
It looked like a lost cause earlier in the evening, when Harold Ford, Jr. was trailing big in Tennessee and George Webb was trailing by 30,000 votes in Virginia. Losing both of those races would have meant 50-50 at best. But then, with around 80% of the precincts reporting, Webb started closing the gap. Every time I hit Cmd-R, it would be slightly narrower. And then, suddenly, he was up by 3,000! That was the moment when I realized this could happen.
It’s all down to Montana and Virginia. Virginia official polls have Webb up by more than 8,000 votes, w/ 99.75% reporting. For some reason, CNN reported this as an 11,000 vote difference earlier in the night, when Webb was only up by 6,000. They just took 5,000 votes from Allen. Don’t know what was up with that. Depending on provisional ballots, there will probably be a recount, but I’d be shocked if it changed anything. Al Gore was only down 500 votes in Florida in 2000. Eight thousand is impossible.
In Montana, CNN is showing a 4,000 vote Tester lead with 84% of precincts reporting. I believe that almost all of the remaining 16% are from Yellowstone county, where Tester is leading by 1,273 votes. Whoever designed CNN’s county-by-county listings should be shot. Why can’t CNN show all the Montana counties on one page? And even worse, why can’t it show me just the counties which haven’t fully reported? In any event, the 84% number can’t go any higher until tomorrow morning, when Yellowstone county has a recount. Assuming no huge changes, Tester will win by 1% and the Democrats will take control of the Senate.
In non-political news, everyone should watch the Mercury Transit tomorrow morning. It lasts from 11:12 AM to 4:10 PM in Mountain View, so it should be visible on the east coast as well.
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I’d encourage everyone to watch HBO’s Hacking Documentary special free on Google Video. It’s 81 minutes long and follows Bev Harris, the woman who found the Diebold source code a few years ago and sent it to CS professors. It’s absolutely absurd that electronic voting software isn’t required to be open source. Possibly even more absurd is that Diebold tallies votes using Microsoft Access!
Some places to follow the election live tomorrow:
The general consensus seems to be that the Democrats will gain 20-30 seats and retake the House, but come up just a bit short in the Senate. I’m really nervous about all this. If that’s what happens tomorrow, I’ll be happy. The Dems need to pick up about 15 or 16 seats to take it, and my guess is that they’ll do it by less than people are expecting. Maybe 20, maybe less.
Senate.. I think the Dems take Montana and Virginia, and the Republicans take Tennessee. That leaves Rhode Island and Missouri. The people on CNN predicted that Rhode Island would go Republican and Missouri would go Dem. That’d mean a 50/50 Senate, which is a Republic majority. I’d believe that. I’m worried about Missouri and Montana, though.
Update: I looked over all the house races at electoral-vote and I counted 16 or so that were almost guaranteed democratic pickups. There’s another 15 really close races on top of that, so I can see the 20-30 pickup number.
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