Thanks to John Cole at Balloon Juice who has a roundup of Iraqi synergetic ankle-biters with one cohesive voice telling us why the Iraqi elections are just like those in Vietnam.

Captain Ed at Captain's Quarters has this gem from MSNBC with Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) making an ass of herself on the Iraqi elections. Captain Ed also has a good piece on John Kerry's appearance on Meet The Press.

And Catastrophic Success! By the Pundit Pap Team.

Update: The Guardian also has a Vietnam spin on the Iraq elections.

The Weekly Standard has invited the Power Line trio to submit columns on a rotating basis.

Check out the piece by The Big Trunk for 31 January.

With the Iraqi election coverage among other pressing matters I have neglected to keep up to date on Wisconsin's voter registration investigation. So to catch up there were two Milwaukee Journal Sentinel articles Saturday.

One was by By Greg Borowski who has been doing a good job staying on top of the story. It is pretty much a recap of the ongoing investigations, and a couple examples of growing mistrust from Milwaukee area voters. Nothing really new so I won't go into it further.

The other article is by Jim Stingl and is a pretty poor piece of journalism filled with snearing partisan jibs and misstatements. Stingl took the list of unverified voters and found a few of the people through transposed numbers, or mislabed streets (i.e. road instead of court).

I was just chatting with one of those shadowy voters from the fabled land of invalid addresses.

Johann Hauser-Ulrich was the very first name on the list of more than 1,200 Milwaukee voters who may or may not be up to something sinister, like voting for Democrats.

It wasn't hard to find him. I just went to the address listed, 1335 N. King Drive. The place is an aquarium store, which struck me as fishy. But Hauser-Ulrich, 20, has lived upstairs since moving here from Minneapolis in September to attend UWM.

[...]

Although I lack arrest or subpoena power, I launched my own investigation last week that involved tracking down these frauds and realizing what nice, honest people most of them seemed to be.

The other thing that became quickly obvious is that the Milwaukee Election Commission can't keep its numbers straight.

Most voters are not lost; the digits in their addresses are just transposed or messed up in some other creative way.

Using a highly sophisticated voter address cross-checker - OK, the Milwaukee phonebook - I quickly deduced that the no-good cheat at, say, non-existent 5305 W. Whatever St., actually lives at 5365.

So I guess we should hold off a bit on slapping handcuffs on people like this.

And the commission hasn't quite figured out the difference between Blue Mound Road and Blue Mound Court. You'd think from looking at the dreaded list of invalid addresses that the Blue Mound cabal just north of Miller Park is trying to bring down democracy.

"You mean I'm one of the fraudulent voters? Oh, my God. I've been voting for years at this address," said Karen Heerhold, a retired county budget analyst, whom I found hiding in plain sight on Blue Mound Court.

While Stingl admittedly says, "I'll admit that I didn't locate every voter I looked for." Duh—no one said that there were not a few errors that could be traced down. But he blames the election commision for errors like transposed numbers, when it was the voter who wrote down the information. Further Stingl insinuates that because he was able to find a few voters that the majority of the list is also made up of good voters.

If Stingl can continue his work and find a majority of the voters on the remaining bad cards, I will write him a personal appology, other wise he is a partisan hack, and needs to put the jug down and step back.

Ali Fadel replaced the former mayor of Baghdad Ali al-Haidari, who was gunned down January 4 for por-American loyalty. Fadel says he is not worried about that, and in fact wants to erect a monument to honor President Bush.

"We will build a statue for Bush," said Ali Fadel, the former provincial council chairman. "He is the symbol of freedom."

Fadel said he received numerous threats on his life as the council chairman, and expects to get many more in his new post.

"My life is cheap," Fadel said. "Everything is cheap for my country."

As for his own protection, the new mayor will be traveling in a new $150,000 SUV complete with bulletproof windows and flat-resistant tires.

After a car accident Larry D. Green was declared dead on the scene. His body was taken to a morgue and his family notified. But...

Larry D. Green was declared dead on the scene of a car accident Monday night. His family was notified and his body taken to a morgue. Medical examiner J.B. Perdue was called to the accident scene Monday but did not examine Green then.

About two hours later, Perdue was documenting Green's injuries from being struck by an automobile when he noticed the body take a shallow breath.

"I had to look twice myself just to make sure it was there, that's how subtle it was," Perdue said.

Larry Green is alive, and has reportedly regained his ability to move his hands and feet. Green is in critical condition at Duke University Medical Center, according to family members.

"We're just concerned about his health right now. We're angry, but we're also relieved," his brother Steve said.

Meanwhile, County Manager Chris Coudriet said four Franklin County paramedics - Pamela Hayes, Katherine Lamell, Wade R. Kearney and Paul Kilmer - have been suspended with pay.

Mr Green's brother is certainly understandable in the anger of his mixed emotions. After all, his brother was laying on a slab expiring when he should have been getting medical treatment.

The medical examiner whom was the one most qualified at the scene to pronouce him dead, did not and so and was the one derelict, not the paramedics. The paramedics are well trained but much less qualified to prounouce an accident victim dead. Suspending them was wrong.

Batton said he has not yet determined which paramedics checked Green's vital signs. However, no one hooked Green up to an electrocardiogram monitor, which gives an electric reading of the heart, Batton said.

A flat-line on an EKG monitor generally signifies that a person is dead.

Randall Likens, deputy director for Franklin County Emergency Services, said paramedics "don't declare people dead. Only a medical doctor can do that."

Though state law outlines how people can be declared brain dead, no statute says who is authorized to declare a person dead, said Dr. John Butts, chief medical examiner for North Carolina.

"As a practical matter, people are regularly proclaimed dead by medical personnel who are not physicians," Butts said.

Still it is my opinion that this is a case of passing the buck. The medical examiner, a doctor and most qualified expert on the scene, should be responsible for whether or not an EKG is used, as well as the one substantially more qualified to pronouce death.

This post probably should be in the "Entertainment" catagory instead of "Media Bias." But I will give the LA Times the benefit of the doubt because I know they are still trying to pick themself up after their heros took such a beating last November (yes I'm biased, but not against Democrats typically, but against political stupidity).

Read the whole story for your self but here is a good falvor of it:

Websites call it the Boxer Rebellion.

To others — and many in Washington suspect that California's other senator, Democrat Dianne Feinstein, is among them — her lambasting of Rice casts Boxer as an attack dog whose tactics will alienate mainstream voters. Feinstein had introduced Rice at the confirmation hearings.

But whatever others think, to those who have watched Boxer's political career over almost 30 years as a Marin County supervisor and a member of the House and the Senate, the only difference this time is that the whole nation may have been watching. The rest is vintage Boxer, the signature style of her whole career.

"This is just Boxer being Boxer," said David Sandretti, the senator's communications director.

Or, as Bruce Cain, who heads the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, put it: "It's very simple. Boxer looked like Feinstein until the election. Now she's Boxer again."

Boxer professes to marvel at how she has suddenly become the hot Democratic celebrity. She is lionized by her blogger fans as "a true liberal, unlike the weenie-Dems in the Senate and House. " She "has the courage of her convictions," one blogger wrote, comparing her favorably to the "conscience of the Senate," the late Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.).

"I'm rather amazed at the response," she said in an interview. "I've been this way all my life."

And she was amused when "Saturday Night Live" parodied her questioning of Rice and her hair, which Boxer, 64, recently frosted, so that "if and when the gray starts growing in I don't have to worry." The skit lampooned her use of charts during the Rice hearings by, among other things, placing a miniature volcano on her desk and having it erupt periodically.

She also may be giving Democrats political cover — playing the bad cop to help party leaders like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) avoid the fate that befell former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who was defeated after Republicans targeted him for blocking judicial nominations.

Unlike Reid and Daschle, Boxer (like Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York) comes from a solidly blue state where her fervent liberal views are less likely to provoke a backlash.

The bloggers who said, "a true liberal, unlike the weenie-Dems in the Senate and House," is typical as one part (far left) of the multiple base that is causing the "divide and render conquerable" reality of the Democratic party.

It may be true that Babs will give some political cover to Reid and others to indulge in obstructionism, but it probably will do more harm to defeating unity within the Democratic party. Aslo there are plenty of conservative blogs out there to blow the lid on any political cover she may provide.

Take a peek at the website "President Boxer."

No the website isn't run by Babs, and I doubt she has anything to do with it. However, it is rather funny to read what the Wingnuts and Moonbats are posting and commenting on. Not to mention tons of links to other Wingnut, Moonbat blogs.

They seem to have an awful lot of post on WMD's (or the lack of them).

A large number of Iraqi's turned out and cast their vote defying threats and violence in Iraq's first free election in more than 50 years. The election was marred with 9 suicide bombings that killed at least 44 people.

With car bombs being the weapon of choice for terrorists, and the fact that driving during the election was prohibited, probably accounted for a relativly low effect the terrorist had on disrupting the process.

MSNBC:

Women in black abayas whispered prayers at the sound of a nearby explosion as they waited to vote at one Baghdad polling station. But the mood elsewhere was triumphant, with long lines in many places in the city: Civilians and policemen danced with joy outside one polling site, and some streets were packed with voters walking shoulder-to-shoulder toward polling centers.

"This is democracy," said Karfia Abbasi, holding up a thumb stained with purple ink to prove she had voted.

CNN:

In former president Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, polling stations were virtually empty. But in other parts of the country booths were packed with people casting their ballots, many of them for the first time in their lifetime.

In the northeastern town of Baquba, CNN's Jane Arraf found a polling station where a long line of Iraqi voters chanted and clapped their hands in front of the camera.

One voter told Arraf that Sunday's vote was a "bullet in the heart of the enemy."

Further north in the Kurdistan town of Salamanca, CNN's Nic Robertson reported seeing a 90-year-old woman being taken to a booth in a wheelbarrow. Others came on crutches to cast their ballot.

In the southern city of Basra, ITN's Juliet Bremner reported that turnout was almost 90 percent. She said voting was peaceful and orderly with elated Shias -- oppressed for decades under Saddam -- "determined to cast their votes in their desire for freedom, peace and food."

FOX:

After a slow start, men and women in flowing black abayas — often holding babies — formed long lines, although there were pockets of Iraq where the streets and polling stations were deserted. Iraqis prohibited from using private cars walked streets crowded in a few places nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with voters, hitched rides on military buses and trucks, and some even carried the elderly in their arms.

"This is democracy," said Karfia Abbasi, holding up a thumb stained with purple ink to prove she had voted.

Turnout was brisk in Shiite Muslim and mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhoods. Even in the small town of Askan in the so-called "triangle of death" south of Baghdad, 20 people waited in line at each of several polling centers. More walked toward the polls.

Rumors of impending violence were rife. When an unexplained boom sounded near one Baghdad voting station, some women put their hands to their mouths and whispered prayers. Others continued walking calmly to the voting stations. Several shouted in unison: "We have no fear."

"Am I scared? Of course I'm not scared. This is my country," said 50-year-old Fathiya Mohammed, wearing a head-to-toe abaya.

At one polling place in Baghdad, soldiers and voters joined hands in a dance, and in Baqouba, voters jumped and clapped to celebrate the historic day. At another, an Iraqi policeman in a black ski mask tucked his assault rifle under one arm and took the hand of an elderly blind woman, guiding her to the polls.

Besides the moderate violence the optimism was tempered by a low trunout among the Sunni Muslims. Most in the media believe that it could undermine the new government and increase tensions between ethnic religious groups.

But many of the Iraqi's themselves that I have heard speak on the subect say that isn't the case. They say that the dividing line will be between those that want a secular form of government and those that want a theocracy.

It hardly seems likely that Iraq will want a theocracy. They have a pretty good example of why it isn't the freedom they seek right next door in Iran. Even if the assembly they voted for today puts forth such a theocratic constitution, from the hunger for freedom I have seen in the past several hours, the people may not be willing to ratify it next August.

As long as I can hold out tonight, I am going to try to do a little live blogging the Iraqi historical Elections. I have one TV on FOX and the other on CNN.

The polls opened on Sunday in Iraq and security was on high alert as citizens came out in droves to eagerly cast votes for the first time in over 50 years, according to FOX News' Geraldo Rivera.

Interim President Ghazi al-Yawer was among the first to vote in the country's first free elections. "Deep in my heart, I feel that Iraqis deserve free elections," al-Yawer said after voting in Baghdad, shortly after polls opened.

Less than two hours into the historic election, one policeman was killed and several people were injured as a homicide bomber blew up his vehicle at a security checkpoint near a polling station in west Baghdad. Mortar fire and explosions were also heard in central Baghdad.

In spite of the death and several injuries the polling station was spared. The checkpoint has served it's purpose. Helicopters are also crisscrossing overhead to help give cover and discourage the terrorist.

Updates:
0050HRS - Rivera reports a blast at a polling station in Bozrah in Iraq.

0115HRS CST - Suicide bomber blows himself up at a polling station in West Baghdad and rumors of a suicide boming in southern Baghdad. Mortar fire reported landing near a few others. (FOX)

0130HRS CST - Sort of quiet with the vote ongoing. Something about watching the Iraqi people kip their finger in the ink and then look at their finger sort of chokes me up just a little.

0134HRS CST - Military reports that though several police and civilians have been killed, most missles and mortars are falling in open areas or in the river.

0156HRS CST - FOX reports that the Abu Grav polling station had to be shut down and moved to Azalea 13 miles away. Because no one is allowed to drive for security reasons people by the hundreds-maybe thousands are walking the 13 miles to vote according to Shepard Smith on site at Abu Grav.

I also notice that Captain Ed is peiodically updating the election on Captain's Quarters.

02:30 CST - MSNBC reports, "insurgents made good on threats of violence, launching three deadly suicide bombings and mortar strikes at half a dozen polling stations across Iraq. At least 14 people were killed, including five policemen." That would be the numbers on my earlier reports.

0305HRS CST - As "Decision Day" in Iraq, the Iraqi's continue to ignore the terrorists as they vote in record numbers. In some of the quieter areas they are scurrying to get more ballots as they people turn out in droves. Fox also reports a 5th suicide bombing that killed one (hopefully just the terrorist) and injured 16 others. FOX also says that not a single US soldier has been killed today as of the report.

0335HRS CST - Darn I didn't catch the city and I will try to get an update later, but FOX just reported that one polling place was estimating about 25,000 passing through per hour. Some of the polling places must be quite large, or I am going to look silly if I have to correct it later.

0528HRS CST - Well I dozed off for a while and I am going to wrap it up shortly as there is only a couple hours to go. What they are reporting now is the initial early guestimate is about a 57 percent overall turnout, which sounds quite low from earlier polls.

There have been reports of people dancing and celebrating in the streets after voting and waving there ink stained finer proudly. One Iraqi gentleman told a CNN reporter that Sunday's vote was a "bullet in the heart of the enemy." The picture on the right is an Iraqi soldier guarding a polling place. The one at the right above the soldier is an invalid woman being taken to a voting station.

Over all it looks like a success with some expected violence. I was supprised to see several women carring a child with them, but maybe they didn't have a choice. Last I heard was that 27 were dead in 9 suicide bombings. Lets hope now that al-Zarqawi will be looking for new work if he isn't captured first.

The Iraqi people are on their way. The picture on the left is the ink stained finger of Rose at "Diary From Baghdad," who was naturally afraid of voting and didn't make up her mind until the end.

The Iraqi people haven't really chosen government leaders yet, only an assembly which will write a new constitution for Iraq, but many that are chosen now will likey be part of the new government in elections later this year. If they can draw up a constition as determined as they were to vote, it should go well.

0642HRS CST - The lastest estimates are now that turnout was 72 percent which is much better than the 57 percent that was reprorted earlier. On another note most of the networks seem to be worried about friction between the Sunni and the Shiites in forming a new constitution and government. From the interactions that I have had with Iraqi bloggers through comments I get the feeling that the dividing like for the Iraqi people is between those that want a secular government and those that want a theocracy.

You maybe have never asked that question, but scientists have, and now they have shot detailed images revealing just how one virus does it.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Looking like something out of a science fiction movie, a remarkable animation created by researchers at Purdue University, in collaboration with the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry in Moscow and The Tokyo Institute of Technology, illustrates a virus ten thousand times smaller than the head of a pin infecting a living cell.

Combining two different imaging techniques, crystallography and cryoelectron microscopy, Rossmann and his team took thousands of pictures of a virus called T4 as it infected E. coli bacteria, a variety of which is commonly associated with food poisoning. "The crystallography technique is able to obtain the structure of individual proteins at an atomic resolution where we can see individual atoms and see their relationship to each other," Rossmann explains. "The electron microscopy enables us to look at larger units such as the whole virus."

They found that the 'docking bay' or baseplate of T4, which latches onto the surface of other cells, changes shape. The proteins that form the normally hexagonal, honeycomb-shaped baseplate rearrange themselves, causing it to open in to a star shape. This enables the virus to infect the E. coli by piercing its outer surface and injecting its DNA into the cell. "The proteins kind of slither and slide across each other in undergoing very large structural changes," Rossmann says.

Understanding how T4 infects cells will help science and medicine to fight diseases around the world. The virus could also be used as a nano-sized DNA injection machine, delivering healthy DNA into cells whose genetic material has been damaged by injury or disease. This so-called gene therapy is being developed more and more to prevent and treat genetically-based diseases, such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease, where parts of the DNA in the cells of the patient are not functioning properly. "In knowing how T4 injects its genomic material into a cell, we might be able to adapt T4 to target human cells," Rossmann explains. "So you've now got a virus which can target a specific cell and introduce a specific gene into the cell which it requires." Gene therapy using T4 remains a distant possibility.

Read the entire fascinating story at ScienCentral.

Adelanto Official Resigns as Citizenship Is Investigated

Adelanto, California councilwoman Zoila Meyer resigned her four-year post after authorities found that she was a legal alien resident but not a U.S. citizen. To be eligible to hold elected office a candidate must be a US citizen investigators from the San Bernardino County district attorney's office said on Friday.

She signed candidacy papers Aug. 3, declaring under penalty of perjury that she was a U.S. citizen.

She won her four-year post in November by 75 votes.

Vanella said Meyer resigned after investigators told her about their findings. A criminal investigation is continuing.

The LA Times story is short with few details but with a one minute google I learned that last November Meyers bid unseated a sitting Adelanto councilman.

In the Adelanto City Council race, the winners are apparently Charley Glasper with 1,511 votes and Zoila Meyer with 1,356 votes, according to Wednesday's numbers released by the county. Both are expected to take the oath of office Dec. 8.

They successfully unseated two sitting councilmen. Meyer had the second most votes, leading Councilman William "Bud" Porter by 142 votes.

Adelanto's two appointed councilmen, William "Bud" Porter and Steve Baisden, who ran on a slate with Mayor Jim Nehmens, apparently have been ousted in favor of Glasper and Meyer.

As if widespread voter fraud isn't enough, now we have had foriegn aliens sitting in government making decisions for US citizens. What a condensending attitude towards our system.

A billboard blitz will be unveiled early next week thanking Hollywood for the re-election of President Bush.

The advertisements feature the faces of liberal Hollywood icons Michael Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Ben Affleck, Martin Sheen, Chevy Chase, Barbara Streisand, and Sean Penn.

Billboard creator Citizens United, a group that advocates a return to traditional American values, has purchased the use of three billboards near the Kodak Theatre (home of the Academy Awards) for the month of February, which includes Oscar Night, Sunday, February 27.

Asked about the campaign, Citizens United President David Bossie said, "We're taking on Hollywood. We've done it in the past." Of the organization's many actions, one of its most famous challenges to Hollywood was Celsius 41.11, a documentary exposing "the truth behind the lies of Fahrenheit 9/11," the Michael Moore anti-Bush mock-umentary.

A fitting tribute don't you think? May I add my thanks.

Nine out of ten European Union citizens know little to nothing about the new EU constitution, and a full third of them never even heard of it. Yet half of those polled said they would vote in favour of the treaty.

It will be up for referendums in 10 out of 25 of the member states. The EU-wide poll, was taken last October by Eurobarometer.

The EU-wide poll, conducted by Eurobarometer in October last year, found that only 11% felt they knew the content of the European Constitution "globally".

Some 56% said they knew a little, while 33% had never heard of the constitution.

Despite their apparent ignorance, 49% said they would vote in favour with only 16% firmly against - mainly because they feared a loss of national sovereignty, the survey indicated.

The new constitution, approved by the EU last month, faces a plebiscite in 10 countries, including the UK, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.

More than 33% of those questioned said they had yet to make up their minds on whether they supported the constitution, with hesitation particularly high in the 10 countries where a vote will be held.

Parliaments in Lithuania and Hungary have already ratified the constitution, but a single "No" vote could stop the treaty in its tracks.

As I am not affected (as least directly) by the "EU Treaty" there is little I know about it, but I did skim a small portion of it and I was not very impressed. What I read would raise a few flags were I a citizen in Europe, especially if I was in the UK.

Part of Title I - Article B states:

"to promote economic and social progress which is balanced and sustainable, in particular through the creation of an area without internal frontiers,..." [my emphasis]

In several other places of what little read, I see that word "balanced." Free markets and democracy are not created through "balance", in fact balance often is a hinderance to democracy, and it smacks of socialism.

Title II - Article G subsection 3(c) states:

"(c) an internal market characterized by the abolition, as between Member States of obstacles to the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital;"

While free movement of goods and persons is desireable, it is also a national security issue, that with Europe's present problems with terrorists and high muslim population of unknown affiliation, would put member states at an even higher risk.

But I suppose it is no diffeent than movement among our states, and depends more on the national borders. We in the US certainly have nothing to brag about on border security.

Having only read Title I and a small portion of Title II, I have seen enough to know that if I was affected by the "EU treaty," I would not be in a hurry to vote in favor of it.

News of voting problems in Milwaukee has renewed a push for a voter ID. The mounting irregularities in Milwaukee has increased concerns around the state raising pressure for reform. The bill has more than 30 co-sponsors, more than the bill that was vetoed in August of 2003 by Governor Jim Doyle.

Representative Jeff Stone (R-Greendale), and Senator Joe Leibham (R-Sheboygan), authored a photo ID bill, which is to be introduced Monday. Some cities have already begun passing photo ID requirement resolutions.

But Stone and Leibham acknowledged that they don't know yet of any lawmakers who opposed the '03 bill who may change positions and support the new bill. The Assembly fell five votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override that veto.

Leading Assembly Democrats agreed, and a spokeswoman for Doyle said the Democratic governor remains opposed to photo ID.

"This is another bill where we'll be spinning our wheels," said Assembly Minority Leader Jim Kreuser (D-Kenosha).

In Milwaukee the number of people recorded as having voted is 269,212 and the number of ballots that were actually cast at 277,535, and a clear gap of more than 7,000 people who voted on Nov. 2 and cannot be accounted for in city records.

There were 1305 same-day registration cards that couldn't be processed, some where voteres listed no address and dozens didn't have a name at all on the card.

Some 2,800 verification cards sent out to same-day voters were returned as undeliverable.

Still puzzling is that opposition is as strong as ever against a standard voter ID.

The '03 photo ID bill was approved by the Assembly and the Senate, but it was vetoed in August of that year. Doyle said at the time it would jeopardize the voting rights of 85,000 senior citizens who lack photo IDs and would cost $850,000 a year.

Doyle spokeswoman Melanie Fonder on Friday noted that the governor reiterated his opposition to photo ID this week.

"He wants more people to vote, not fewer," she said.

But we should only count legitimate votes, and apparently Doyle doesn't care if they are from a different city—or even a different state for that matter. Without plausable identification there is little chance of knowing. Democrats have come up with various excuses for opposition to a voter ID.

But a leading Assembly Democrat, caucus chairman Robert Turner of Racine, said Republicans are pushing voter IDs simply because they want to discourage voters who tend to vote for Democrats.

"I don't see any large-scale violation of voting laws, and those who are doing it, the photo ID wouldn't stop them," he said.

Kreuser said he would introduce a "motor voter" bill that would enable people to register to vote as they get driver's licenses, which Rep. Jon Richards (D-Milwaukee) sees as a way to alleviate some voter registration problems.

"I think there's a tendency to address any voting problem that we have and say the answer is photo ID," Richards said, referring to Republicans.

These excuses for opposing a voter ID are lame. Others have said that many don't have an ID and cannot get out easily to get one. But I haven't seen them complaining about elderly or invalids not being able to rent a movie, or use the library. They haven't complained about these people not being able to cash checks due to lack of ID.

Of course these excuses are a canard and only meant to keep the voting process as loose as possible to favor the Dimwitcrits Democrats.

Captain's Quarters is staying on top of the story and recomends that "Wisconsin residents should express their sentiments directly to Doyle and their Assembly representatives."

Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) announced plans to reintroduce FMA (Federal Marriage Amendment), now titled the Marriage Protection Amendment. Both the House and Senate rejected FMA last year.

This amendment does more than just prevent same-sex marriage. Allards's new version bans, "marriage or the legal incidents thereof" from "any union other than a union of a man and a woman." "The legal incidents thereof" can include just about anything from benefits to civil unions.

Although I have my doubts that it has any better chance this time, opposition has not been visibly strong. HRC and other activist organizations seem to be too busy bashing Republicans instead of attempting any meaningfull lobbying of them to win support, and taking Democrats for granted. And with fewer Democrats in the House and Senate, instead of taking Democrats for granted they need to be lobbying boths parties.

The national gay rights groups have issued a "unity statement," pledging to work toward "Civil Rights, Community, Movement." There are two problems with this approach. First, there is the problem of focus. These groups should be striving to ensure that gay and lesbian Americans and their families can live and work and contribute fully to society without fear of retribution by the state; this is priority one.

Unfortunately, too many of the groups are still using their talking points from last October, endlessly bashing Republicans and, most significantly, President Bush. Last year, the most powerful of these groups, the Human Rights Campaign, bet the farm on the slogan "George W. Bush, You're Fired." They made defeating the president — rather than winning over hearts and minds to support civil rights for gays and lesbians — their top priority, and the main focus of their $30 million budget. While the HRC fiddled against W, thirteen states (all but two of which voted not to fire Mr. Bush) passed laws denying same-sex couples access to marriage and other public institutions.

HRC spent $15,000 on cable TV ads last week, on the day of the inaugural, to attack the president's record of saying one thing and doing another. They do have a point, especially where gay issues are concerned. But why advertise on TV to prove it? Those who already agree with that line of thinking are likely on their side.

Those who don't — a large portion of the 51 percent of Americans who voted to re-elect President Bush — are the hearts and minds HRC needs to win over. And if complaining about the president turns off the very people you need to win over, aren't you setting yourself up for defeat?

Therein lies the problem. It seems to me that HRC is merely going to complain and continue bashing for the next four years, hoping to put the Democrats in power in 2008. But meanwhile they are spending their credibility as well as money away—not only with a few Republicans that they might influence—but also with a big chunk of the American people.

Which brings us back to the Marriage Protection Amendment. Given the state of our culture today, there's no doubt that traditional marriage needs protecting. Adultery is as popular as ever. Divorce has become the norm. And most families include someone — a cousin, at the very least — who's had a child out of wedlock.

It is worth debating whether government — rather than families and churches — should enforce the sanctity of marriage and try to curtail the rates of adultery, divorce and illegitimate births. On these matters, however, the Marriage Protection Amendment is silent.

The Marriage Protection Amendment only protects marriage from same-sex couples, and prevents judges and the federal government from giving them that rite or "the legal incidents thereof." Keep in mind that gays and lesbians are a very small percentage of our population, involved at most in a tiny fraction of adulterous liaisons and the resulting divorces. If government is going to protect traditional marriage, and heterosexuals cause 90 percent or more of the problems, why not start with them?

But then, the notion that there is a fixed, unchanging standard of traditional marriage is itself a fallacy. Until about a hundred years ago in this country, traditional marriage was a union of one man and one woman until death. For most Americans, this is still the ideal; many, however, fail to remain as one flesh. The traditional definition of marriage was changed in the laws of every state to accommodate this new reality. Government made divorce legal, reserving moral judgments for those authorities outside the realm of the state, such as family and church. Why not hold gay and lesbian couples to that same standard?

The author Brian Holmes is spot on. If the gay community wants to win the hearts and understanding of the American people there has to be less outrage and more communication.

People were allowed to cast ballots, despite registrations with wrong information

Election workers are quite busy on election day, but when same-day registration cards are handed back without a name on them, or no address it really isn't that hard to notice—assuming they look at it.

I have been voting in Wisconsin longer than I care to admit, and I know that if you register at the polling place they send you over to a separate table. You fill out the form and had it back showing an ID. If someone hands one back with name and/or address missing (not to mention illegible), if they glance at the form at all it is obvious. It is right at the top for crying out loud.

Milwaukee officials said Thursday that 1,305 same-day voter registration cards from the Nov. 2 election could not be processed, including more than 500 cases where voters listed no address and dozens more where no name was written on the card.

But the revelation of the actual number of cards that couldn't be processed, far lower than previous estimates of 8,300 or more, raised new concerns, because it leaves a clear gap of more than 7,000 people who voted on Nov. 2 and cannot be accounted for in city records.

The problematic same-day registration cards, the number of which was revealed in response to a Journal Sentinel open records request, could quickly become the focus of a major investigation launched Wednesday into potential voter fraud in the city of Milwaukee.

Previously Lisa Artison, executive director of the city Election Commission has contended that the gap is due to illegible cards, cards with incomplete information or cards that are duplicates. Tom Barretts Chief of Staff Patrick Curley said he believes the problematic addresses - less than 1% of those who voted - are a sign of procedural problems in the Election Commission office, not widespread fraud.

But a Journal Sentinel review of Milwaukee computer records shows that 269,212 people were recorded as voting, while 277,535 votes were counted.

While the framework of the joint investigation is still being developed, James Finch, the special agent in charge of the FBI's local office, said Thursday that the bureau's first task will be to look at questionable voter registration cards.

The city's own breakdown of the 1,305 cards that could not be processed showed 548 people were given ballots without listing an address on the cards and another 48 did not provide a name.

And among many other problems, 141 gave addresses later found to not be in the city. One of the cards provided to the newspaper shows a voter clearly listing "Wauwatosa" as her city of residence. Nevertheless, she received a ballot and voted in Milwaukee.

It is possible she filled out the card wrong, listing a Wauwatosa address where her Milwaukee address should have been. The woman, whose phone is disconnected, could not be reached Thursday night.

But that is not all. There is still other widespread failure yet to be figured out.

In addition to the cards that could not be processed, city officials have had nearly 2,800 verification cards - out of 73,079 sent out - returned as undeliverable. State law requires those be submitted to the district attorney's office.

That number is higher than the 1,200 invalid addresses found by the Journal Sentinel, because the newspaper's review did not cover apartment buildings, due to problems in how the addresses appear in data bases.

But city officals have plenty of plausable (in their mind) excuses.

A few of Lisa Artisons:

Lisa Artison, executive director of the city's Election Commission, said "layer upon layer" of human error likely is to blame for the problems, which came as election workers faced a crush of voters, tens of thousands of whom registered at the polls.

Asked what could account for the remaining gap, Artison said there are many possibilities. Among them: Clerks who, after the election, scanned voter log books from the city's 312 wards may have missed some bar codes that are used to track each voter.

"There is a huge window for human error," said Artison. "They might miss a page. They might miss several pages. And there is a margin for human error at the polling places."

Milwaukee Ald. Mike D'Amato said:

...despite the recent criticism, he thought the city election was conducted well.

He noted the 1,200 votes from invalid addresses found by the newspaper represented about 0.4% of the total votes cast. D'Amato said the investigation by McCann and Biskupic was prompted by partisan complaints.

"The problems are a function of the openness of our system and exist statewide," he said. "Yet they continue to attack Milwaukee."

As long as Democrats refuse to go along with meaningful voter registration reform because looser controls favor their party the system will not be fixed.

State Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale) is expected to introduce a new photo ID bill, though it is likely to face the same hurdles as the last one, which Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed.

Update: Captain Ed at Captain's Quarters has a graphic of Milwaukee's on-site registration card.

In 14 countries Iraqi expatriates vote in the nation's first free elections in more than half a century.

In Syria on Friday, an Iraqi expatriate, voting in the nation's first free elections in more than half a century, said he felt "as if I've just been born."

In London, an Iraqi woman called it "the best thing I have actually ever done in my life." And in Australia, the first person in the world to cast a ballot in the elections described himself as "very excited, very happy."

"Happy because I vote — the first time in our life we were allowed to vote for a democratic government," Shimon Haddad told CNN. As manager of the biggest voting center in Australia, he voted about 15 minutes before the polls officially opened at 7 a.m. (2000 GMT Thursday) in Sydney.

Iraqi expatriates — a great many of them exiles who fled Saddam Hussein's dictatorship — can vote in 14 countries from the United States to Europe to the Middle East. As many as 280,000 expatriates are expected to vote.

Voting in Iraq will take place Sunday. Unlike in that country, voters in most others had little fear of their security in going to the polling sites.

The jubilation was clear everywhere, including the United States, in which Iraqis can vote in one of five cities.

Burkhart Advertising and Viacom both rejected billboard ads for PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). The billboards showed Pamela Anderson denouncing KFC on behalf of PETA.

The ads show Anderson next to the words "Boycott KFC — Live Scalding, Painful Debeaking, Crippled Chickens."

According to PETA, Burkhart initially asked for a dressed-down version of the ad when discussions began earlier this month. But later, according to PETA, the firm said it "didn't want to attack KFC" because they are a potential client.

"We support the right to reject an advertisement that is misleading, offensive or otherwise incompatible with individual community standards, and in particular we do not disseminate obscene words or inappropriate pictorial content."

Jodi Senese, executive vice president for Viacom Outdoor, said she didn't know the exact reason PETA was denied in South Bend, but in general the company handles PETA's requests on a case-by-case basis.

The ad is usually rejected, she said, if it contains information that is "unsubstantiated, or pejorative, or inflammatory."

If you ever get a chance, watch Penn and Teller's PETA clip from HBO. It is hilarious but put your beverage down first.

Whatever it takes I suppose. I know a few people that will drink for any occasion, but I have to wonder if this guy just wanted to dull the inevitable.

A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking 60 bottles of beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.

Rescue teams found Richard Kral drunk and staggering along a mountain path four days after his Audi car was buried in the Slovak Tatra mountains.

He told them that after the avalanche, he had opened his car window and tried to dig his way out.

But as he dug with his hands, he realised the snow would fill his car before he managed to break through.

He had 60 half-litre bottles of beer in his car as he was going on holiday, and after cracking one open to think about the problem he realised he could urinate on the snow to melt it, local media reported.

We are finally starting to see some investigations in Milwaukee on voter registration discrepancies. Yet in Racine unless I have missed something they still has their feet dug in, despite indications of glaringly obvious voter fraud.

On election day in Racine organizations were observed serving as "matchmakers" for ID'less voters (one report says 30 van loads) that couldn't meet minimal identification standards. Vouching for someone you have no personal knowledge of is not vouching. It is voter fraud and a felony.

Below is a letter to the editor January 26 by Lou D'Abbraccio Racine county GOP County Co-Chairman that was in Wednesday's Racine's newspaper, The Journal Times.

---

Voting integrity
It is interesting that the day after a number of prominent Milwaukee Democrats were charged with a premeditated conspiracy to vandalize Republican Party vehicles on Election Day, and the day after trial dates were set for two individuals affiliated with organizations aligned with the Democratic Party accused of voter registration fraud in Racine, The Journal Times opines that Republican efforts to ensure the integrity of the election process are not "about fairness, they're about harassment and disenfranchisement."

Racine is not Richland Center, and everyone doesn't know everyone else here. The integrity of the process is entirely dependent upon our ability to ensure that eligible voters, and only eligible voters, are able to vote.

Our laws are woefully inadequate to ensure this objective, but The Journal Times believes we should not even follow the minimal, legally mandated step of ensuring after the fact that those who voted were legally entitled to do so.

The Journal Times expects the voters of Racine to accept that an established voter attesting to a voters residency is proof positive.

In fact, on election day we observed the so called "Election Protection" organization serving as matchmakers for voters unable to meet the minimal standards of identification necessary for registration. These voters had no personal knowledge of the people they were vouching for, they merely claimed to meet the legal standard of claiming to live in the same ward.

Moreover, on election day there were numerous instances of Republican volunteers attempting to challenge voters with questionable identification, only to have those challenges ignored by poll workers.

Racine does not regularly purge the voter rolls, which is part of the reason that, as The Journal Times states, "a quarter of eligible voters didn't cast ballots."

Encouraging civic participation through voting is a laudable goal - but so is ensuring that the process is fair.

Requiring a government issued photo ID at the polls will help, but until Democrats end their intransigence on this issue, we'll have to settle for insisting that existing laws be upheld.

Lou D'Abbraccio

Racine County Co-Chairman Bush Cheney `04

---

What is needed is for people in Racine county to contact their state Legislature. Here is the contact information.

Assembly District 61
Representative Robert Turner
(608) 266-0731
Email: rep.turner@legis.state.wi.us

Senate District 21
Senator Cathy Stepp
(608) 266-1832
Email: sen.stepp@legis.state.wi.us

DJ Drummond one of the great writers at PoliPundit has a twenty-item questionnaire compiled and voted on by PoliPundit readers. The questionaire is in letter form and sent to congress, although he intends to also send a copy to the white house.

The questions are quite good and cover a range of issues including immigration/border control, illegals getting IDs, voter registration and ID, and Iraq strageties. I do not suggest that you necessarily use the same questions; use some or all whatever works for you. The letter is an example of what we can and should do as bloggers and blog readers to let our legislators know we are concerned.

It also reminds them that with the rise of the blogs, we are not just watching the main stream media, but them and their voting records as well. That just as has happened with the media (i.e. Rather Gate and ABC's recent soliciting for funerals on Inaugeration day, just to name a couple), thousands if not millions of voters, can be focused on their miss-steps through blogging.

Please vist PoliPundit and see the questionaire they sent to congress, just for inspiration.

District attorney, U.S. attorney launch probe into invalid voter addresses in Nov. 2 election

And about time too. On January 20, Mayor Tom Barrett appointed a task force to review problems and procedures after mounting complaints from bloggers and GOP Rep. Jeff Stone. And of course the Journal Sentinel staff have done a good job of analyzing voter data and keeping the story active in the paper as it has developed.

Barrett appointed as one of the main task force investigators Lisa Artison, executive director of the Election Commission. Now isn't that like sending a rabbit out for a head of lettuce?

Thanks to Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann, who said he and U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic agreed to investigate potential problems together.

Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann said he and U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic agreed to investigate potential problems together. The effort will also include the Milwaukee Police Department and the local office of the FBI.

McCann told the newspaper the group of prosecutors and investigators, including one with computer expertise, will try to "see if there was voter fraud or not. That's the major thrust."

Meanwhile, a separate state audit that is to include a focus on Milwaukee's election problems could be put into place as early as today. Those problems ranged from registration cards that weren't processed before the election to absentee ballots that were not counted until weeks after the election.

So here is some of what we have already learned going into this joint investigation, and hopefully we will find clear answers to.

This week, the newspaper reported finding that more than 1,200 votes Nov. 2 came from invalid addresses, with nearly 75% of those coming from people who registered at the polls. Of those, a sample showed about 20% could be explained by data entry errors, such as transposed digits.

In addition, the newspaper found that 186 votes from invalid addresses were among about 5,600 addresses challenged before the election by the state Republican Party as non-existent.

Meanwhile, the newspaper's latest review of the city's records shows several hundred cases in which the same person is recorded as voting twice from the same address, though it appears to be the result of already-registered voters who re-registered to vote and consequently are listed in the database twice.

The Journal Sentinel found 314 cases where this may have occurred with the same address listed twice, and many others cases where people with identical and uncommon names are listed as voting at two addresses - perhaps due to reregistering at their new address on election day.

The 314 cases examined do not appear to be ones where one person was issued two ballots.

They do point, however, toward sloppy or flawed data entry into a system that did not have enough safeguards to prevent duplicate entries or provide enough oversight of those registering to vote to prevent people from doing so twice.

On a practical level, the problem increases the gap between the number of people recorded as having voted (269,212) and the number of ballots cast (277,535) - a difference the newspaper previously placed at about 8,300.

The city's estimates had put the gap at more than 10,000.

Officials still have not fully explained that gap or provided access to registration cards that could not be processed because of illegibility or missing information. Those cards haven't been entered in the city database.

But although they haven't been entered into the database and probably never will, sadly they did vote on November 2, 2004.
Captain Ed continues his "Cheese Wash," and suspects that Lisa Artison may have a sleepless night tonight.

Power Line weighs in noting: "Voter fraud is the great unacknowledged issue of our time."

First a report in the Independent News & Media (UK).
By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Global warming is 'twice as bad as previously thought'

Global warming might be twice as catastrophic as previously thought, flooding settlements on the British coast and turning the interior into an unrecognisable tropical landscape, the world's biggest study of climate change shows.

Researchers from some of Britain's leading universities used computer modelling to predict that under the "worst-case" scenario, London would be under water and winters banished to history as average temperatures in the UK soar up to 20C higher than at present.

Globally, average temperatures could reach 11C greater than today, double the rise predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the international body set up to investigate global warming. Such high temperatures would melt most of the polar icecaps and mountain glaciers, raising sea levels by more than 20ft. A report this week in The Independent predicted a 2C temperature rise would lead to irreversible changes in the climate.

The new study, in the journal Nature, was done using the spare computing time of 95,000 people from 150 countries who downloaded from the internet the global climate model of the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research. The program, run as a screensaver, simulated what would happen if carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were double those of the 18th century, before the Industrial Revolution, the situation predicted by the middle of this century.

Here is the problem I have with the science editor Mr Connor writing this piece. In his headline he grabs his readers attention with "Global warming "is twice as bad," not "might be twice as," which he quietly admits later in the text.

Of course Connor had to tone it down, because that isn't even close to what David Stainforth of Oxford University, the chief scientist of the latest study actually said. What Stainforth concluded in this study is reported at NewScientist.com:

But the climateprediction.net team stress that they are not saying we will see double-digit temperature rises if CO2 emissions go unchecked. "We're saying we can't rule it out".

He also said:

Some iterations of the models showed the climate cooling after an injection of CO2, but these were discarded after close examination because the temperature fall resulted from an unrealistic physical mechanism, says Stainforth. In these scenarios, cold water welling up in the tropics could not be carried away by ocean currents because these were missing from the models.

In other words, garbage in, garbage out. This of course was easy to catch because it ran contrary to expected results. What about the other bad or missing data that doesn't run contrary to expected results. It isn't like we have a handle on, or actually know all the data necessary to run a fairly accurate computer model to begin with. There just isn't a simple formula that can be used.

In an article fresh out today at JunkScience.com about this same study:

Well blimey mate! Distributed computing project demonstrates that multiple machines running programs hard coded to guesstimate warming in response to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide do, in fact, guesstimate such warming! How do they do it?

But wait! There's more! So "alarming" is this discovery (according to Black) that they've decided there's "no such thing as a safe level of carbon dioxide" - the very stuff of life that feeds the plant life that supports our biosphere (stop exhaling, that man!). Well, now we know CO2 to be so dangerous, so directly causal, we can solve a few other little mysteries like anomalous warming around the Antarctic Peninsula - it must be all those blasted minke whales exhaling around there and causing the collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf! Perhaps we can trade greenhouse credits for whaling - that'll help save the planet.

On a positive and rather more serious note, the ridiculous emissions of our shrieking Jeremiads suggest that the great global warming scare has just about run its course. About time too!

JunkScience.com has a more serious look and analysis of global warming in a report yesterday, with graphs back to 1880.

Yesterday Michelle Malkin had an interesting column in the New York Post about DHS awarding Eugueni Kniazev a green card. The problem is that Eugueni Kniazev was killed in the 9/11 attack.

On Jan. 15, immigration officials sent a notice to Eugueni Kniazev of Brooklyn. The letter informs Kniazev, a Siberian immigrant, that he is now "deemed to be a lawful permanent resident of the United States." The notice directs Kniazev to obtain a new alien registration receipt card (a "green card"), and instructs him to appear at the immigration office at 26 Federal Plaza with his passport and three recent photos.

The letter warns Kniazev not to travel outside the United States without approval.

But Eugueni Kniazev won't be appearing at Federal Plaza. He won't be traveling anywhere. Kniazev, 47, was an employee of Windows on the World on the 107th floor of the North Tower. He was murdered in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Let me repeat that for the clueless paper-pushers at the Department of Homeland Security: Eugueni Kniazev won't be picking up his green card because he has been dead for nearly 31/2 years.

A Homeland Security spokesman told me it's up to family members to notify the government when a green-card applicant dies. "It's unfortunate," he said, but there is no mechanism in place to prevent this from happening again.

Did Homeland Security learn nothing from the dead-hijacker visa fiasco?

Michelle also talks about it here on her blog.

Hindrocket at Power Line has summed up my feelings when he says: "It's hard to say which is a worse mess: enforcement of immigration laws, or enforcement of voting laws."

Najaf, Iraq is the holiest city in Iraq to the Shiite Muslim majority. Political battles are heating up, but there is little violence or ethnic divisions.

Many don't know much about the national candidates, but they know who is running locally. Just as they say in the US, "All politics is local." They are concerned with bread-and-butter issues like long gasoline lines and internet access for everyone.

"I can't say this man is not good," candidate Asaad al-Taee, a teacher, says of his opponent, the incumbent governor. "But everybody, they have their own plan."

Najaf has a hot race for the local governing council between Iraq's two major Shiite parties. Although those parties are united in a joint slate for the national assembly, they are rivals on the local level.

The incumbent governor, Adnan al-Zurfi, heads a slate of candidates from the Dawa Party. Al-Taee leads the ticket for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, better known as SCIRI. The party that wins will control the 41-seat council, which will choose a new governor and other local officials.

Al-Taee says he supports creating a council for Najaf that has legislative and budget authority; the governor would serve as the executive authority bound to carry out decisions of the council.

He also says he would have the local university, Kufa University, affiliate with leading educational institutions in England, Germany and Finland, where he lived in exile during Saddam Hussein's rule.

He promises to bring fast Internet connections to the city and help remedy the fuel shortages that have resulted in long lines at gas stations. "There are things we must take care of," al-Taee says. "For the students, for the farmers, for the merchants and for the visitors

Incumbent al-Zurfi emphasizes hard-won improvements in security in Najaf, a city where last year U.S. troops battled militiamen loyal to a renegade Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr.

Al-Zurfi says that he has quieted down al-Sadr's supporters for the election and that his election security plan should keep voters safe from Sunni Muslim militants who have been attacking elsewhere in the country.

Even the rhetoric is tame. Al-Taee says security in Najaf could be better, but he acknowledges it's "not so bad" now.

Tuesday, al-Taee and al-Zurfi were surrounded by their supporters at an informal candidates' forum at the Najaf Human Rights Center. Female candidates of both parties wore the traditional black abaya robe and head coverings. They spoke about improving the lot of the poor and the orphaned.

CNN also has reports of Iraqi politics, but is reporting less esnthusiasm in the Iraq city of Karma which is about nine miles northeast of Falluja, along the canals of the Euphrates River.

Flyers that read: "Participate in the elections to build a strong Iraq," were distributed by Marine troops from Regimental Combat Team 7 (RCT-7) to try and get an understanding of sentiments for the upcoming elections. They met with the people, local leaders, and sheiks.

Although most say they don't know who the candidates are or where to go to vote, they say they will vote come January 30.

Shakir Jiyad Aswad, father of 10, said Karma residents want to elect a nationalist, someone to preserve religion and defend holy places. "We want one Iraq," he said. "I'll probably vote for [Iraq's interim President Ghazi] al-Yawar."

He took the opportunity to tell Col. Craig Tucker, commander of RCT-7, about the generator he said was bombed during the Falluja offensive in November. The colonel promised to send a civil affairs team to file a claim for him the next day.

Abd Al-rahman, a 24-year-old Iraq Force Protection Services employee says he'll vote for interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. He says he has received a 200,000 Iraqi dinar bonus from him.

Ghanem Juhayir, 20, says he's been out of work for months. He says Allawi harmed the community by allowing the Falluja offensive. "The Iraqi forces are worse than the Americans, and Allawi controls them," he explains. He says he expects to learn about the candidates on TV. And if not, he will probably vote for al-Yawar.

Ted Turner has his mouth in gear again while his mind is elsewhere impressing a crowd at the National Association for Television Programming Executives's. And again for making a comparison to 'Hitler'.

In 1996 Ted Turner apologized to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for comments he made comparing Rupert Murdoch to Hitler.

Now again, this time comparing FOX as an arm of the Bush administration, and FOX NEWS' popularity to Hitler's.

Ted Turner called FOX an arm of the Bush administration and compared FOXNEWS's popularity to Hitler's popular election to run Germany before WWII.

While FOX may be the largest news network [and has overtaken Turner's CNN], it's not the best, Turner said.

A FOXNEWS spokesperson responded: "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind — we wish him well."

Maybe Turner isn't aware of the fact that FOX beat CNN and MSNBC combined for Bush's Inaugeration.

NASA scientists have calculated using data from the Indonesian earthquake, effects on the Earth's rotation, decreased length of day, change in the planets shape and shift of the North Pole.

All earthquakes have some affect on the Earth's rotation said Dr Richard Gross of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Dr Benjamin Fong Chao of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD.

Gross and Chao have been routinely calculating earthquakes' effects in changing the Earth's rotation in both length-of- day as well as changes in Earth's gravitational field. They also study changes in polar motion that is shifting the North Pole. The "mean North pole" was shifted by about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) in the direction of 145 degrees East Longitude. This shift east is continuing a long-term seismic trend identified in previous studies.

They also found the earthquake decreased the length of day by 2.68 microseconds. Physically this is like a spinning skater drawing arms closer to the body resulting in a faster spin. The quake also affected the Earth's shape. They found Earth's oblateness (flattening on the top and bulging at the equator) decreased by a small amount. It decreased about one part in 10 billion, continuing the trend of earthquakes making Earth less oblate.

To make a comparison about the mass that was shifted as a result of the earthquake, and how it affected the Earth, Chao compares it to the great Three-Gorge reservoir of China. If filled, the gorge would hold 40 cubic kilometers (10 trillion gallons) of water. That shift of mass would increase the length of day by only 0.06 microseconds and make the Earth only very slightly more round in the middle and flat on the top. It would shift the pole position by about two centimeters (0.8 inch).

The devastating mega thrust earthquake occurred as a result of the India and Burma plates coming together. It was caused by the release of stresses that developed as the India plate slid beneath the overriding Burma plate. The fault dislocation, or earthquake, consisted of a downward sliding of one plate relative to the overlying plate. The net effect was a slightly more compact Earth. The India plate began its descent into the mantle at the Sunda trench that lies west of the earthquake's epicenter.

Two Milwaukee men, including one who ran for the State Assembly, await trial on charges of election fraud in Racine County.

A Dutch court judge jailed a 46-year-old criminal for robbing a bank. The strange part of the story is that the judge allowed the robber to claim the cost of the gun he used in the robbery, as a business deduction.

The bank robber thus has been allowed to claim £1,400 (about $2600), the cost of the gun, as a legitimate business expense. Subtracting that from the gross proceeds of £4,700 (about $8800) that he stole he is still £3300 or about $6150 ahead.

The prosecutors said that the judge had followed sound legal precedents. (What no taxes?)

Leendert De Lange, a spokesman, said: "You can compare criminal acts to normal business activities, where you must invest to make profits, and thus you have costs."

Therefore drug dealers would be within their rights to claim the cost of a car used to ferry the drugs around, he said.

However, Mr De Lange scoffed at the hypothetical example of a drugs dealer claiming his Ferrari against the proceeds of his crimes.

"No, he would have to prove that he needed the car to transport the drugs and I hardly think he would transport them in a Ferrari."

Omar has a good analysis of the alledged Zarqawi's recent tape, where Zarqawi claims that the rule of the majority violates the principle that laws must come from a divine source.

Some highlights:

Has he forgotten that the opinion of the majority was respected in the early days of Islam? Has he forgotten that the prophet himself used to ask the citizens of the "Madina" for their opinion (and folow it) in more than one ocassion when a critical decision-making was needed?

I'd like also to ask Zarqawi another question: if the majority was to mean the Talibans or the radical Wahabists, would he be against that majority?

Frankly speaking, I think there's a good possibility that this tape is either fake or mere show-business because this tactic used to be Saddam's defense method against rumors; whenever there was a rumor about him being sick or injured he would appear the very next day, all the day on TV, radio, newspapers and even toilet papers to prove that he's still alive and in power.

I mean, the threat didn't appear out of the blue; it was there all the time and despite that threat, the people have made up their mind and expressed their willingness to vote and take the risk.

Hundreds of car-bomb attacks and nearly 2 years of killings haven't stopped the majority of Iraqis from declaring their will to vote or to run for offices. Now is it possible that a stupid tape can do that? I don't think so.

Read the full post.

The Milwaukee country voting ballot discrepancies continue to pile up according to analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. JS has found more than 1,200 ballots cast that were from invalid addresses in the city, or in many cases couldn't be located at all.

The number is a result of a detailed computer analysis by the Journal Sentinel of the city's voter records and represents about 0.4% of the 277,535 ballots cast in the city in the hard-fought election. Some of the problems may be due to flawed record keeping, such as transposed digits or incorrect street names. Many others, however, cannot easily be explained.

The newspaper's review, the most extensive analysis done so far of the election, revealed 1,242 votes coming from a total of 1,135 invalid addresses. That is, in some cases more than one person is listed as voting from the address. Of the 1,242 voters with invalid addresses, 75% registered on site on election day, according to city records.

While the number is not enough to have determined the outcome of the statewide presidential contest, the revelation prompted renewed criticism Monday by state Republicans and raised concerns at City Hall about how well records were kept on and after a frenzied election day.

Already, the newspaper has reported that about 8,300 more votes were cast than the number of people recorded by the city as voting. This appears to be due to cases where cards from those who presented identification and registered on election day could not be processed, a gap that the city's own estimates had put at more than 10,000.

In any case, those are not included in the city database and are not part of the paper's review, which involved checking each voter's address against two separate lists of properties in the city.

A spot check of addresses that came back as invalid found cases where the address in question is a park, a baseball diamond and at or near the W. Wisconsin Ave. bridge. In most cases, though, there simply was no building at that address.

One of Mayor Tom Barrett's staff said that he believes the findings are problematic, but not widespread fraud, and that improvements are needed. If not fraud, what else would one call address' where there are no buildings, or just park benches. Improvments indeed!

Lisa Artison seems to be seeing the light and says that the "new statewide voter system is very badly needed and long overdue."

Lisa Artison, executive director of the city Election Commission, said simply: "The results you obtained make it clear the new statewide voter system is very badly needed and long overdue."

But that system, to be online late this year, will do little to safeguard against problems with same-day voter registration, or with the flood of registration cards the city received in the final days before Nov. 2.

While those who register on election day have to present valid identification, it is impossible to check on the spot if the address provided is valid.

Isn't it obvious yet that the "same-day" voter registration is at the root of the problem and needs to be done away with? There is no reason that voters can't be registered long in advance. The other problem not mentioned is that a more secure ID system needs to be put in place, and the anyone can vouch for anyone else without ID has to go.

In Newport, Michigan, Detroit Edison shut down the Fermi 2 Nuclear Power Station Monday afternoon. A leak of radioactive coolant happened around 5PM, in the containment in the building that houses the nuclear reactor.

The NRC says the coolant was leaking at a rate of 50 to 75 gallons per minute. Exactly how much coolant was lost is not known.

The NRC has issued an "Alert" for the plant. All nuclear plants use four emergency classifications to describe problems, and "alert" is the second level of severity, meaning something is happening or has happened that would degrade the level of safety at the plant. "Alert" level does not indicate damage to the plant, and there would be little or no radioactivity released.

A spokesperson for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission office in Chicago says the plant was shut down without complications and nonessential workers were allowed to leave for the day. Detroit Edison says the public was not in danger, and no evacuations were ordered. Plant officials are trying to determine the cause of the leak and fix it.

It is not known when operations at the plant would resume.

Al-Jaaf, top lieutenant of al-Zarqawi's al Qaeda terror group has been arrested by Iraqi security forces. He is the man allegedly behind 75 percent of all car bombings in Baghdad.

Sami Mohammed Ali Said al-Jaaf, also known as Abu Omar al-Kurdi, was arrested during a Jan. 15 raid in Baghdad, a government statement said Monday. Two other militants linked to Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror group also have been arrested, authorities announced Monday.

Al-Jaaf was "the most lethal of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's lieutenants," the statement said.

The announcement Monday came a few hours after a suicide driver detonated a car bomb at a guard post outside the Iraqi prime minister's party headquarters in Baghdad, injuring at least 10 people. Zarqawi's group claimed responsibility for the attack.

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Alameda County California Board of Supervisors has an anti-discrimination proposal before them that would allow men to go into the women's bathrooms.

A group called Campaign for Children and Families (CCF), claims that the resolution says that transsexuals "shall have full and equal enjoyment of....dressing and bathroom facilities, consistent with the person's gender identity."

CCF is urging citizens to attend the Tuesday morning hearing in Oakland, calling the resolution an invasioin of privacy.

While I sympathise with the plight of transsexuals, unless they have had gender reasignment surgery, they do not belong in the women's private facilities. Period. Until then, I agree with CCF.

The group is urging Californians to "oppose this very wrong-headed idea" by calling, faxing, or emailing the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, or by showing up at the Tuesday morning meeting and signing up to speak.

According to CCF, the resolution promotes homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality on government property by defining "gender identity" as a "person's sex or gender-related identity, appearance, and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person's assigned sex at birth."

CCF is also going overboard in saying it "promotes