The Paranoia and Psychosis of Meth

Medical Experts Say the Supposed Admissions of an Obama Assassination Plot Fits Behavior Pattern of Users

 

By ANNA SCHECTER

One of the men investigated for allegedly threatening presidential candidate Barack Obama's life while on a methamphetamine binge, is scheduled to appear in federal court this afternoon on a charge of possessing the narcotic.

 

The three men involved in a supposed assassination plot against Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama were allegedly on a methamphetamine binge.

(ABC News Photo Illustration)
More Photos

Tharin Robert Gartrell is currently in custody, along with two other men who face meth-related and illegal possession of firearms charges.

The arrest of the three men has focused renewed attention on the paranoia and psychosis that go along with abuse of the drug which is widely used across the country.

Medical experts say their supposed admissions about an assassination plot fit into the expected pattern of erratic behavior from meth users.

Gartrell, Shawn Robert Adolf, and Nathan Johnson expressed strongly racist views and spoke about killing the Democratic presidential nominee while using meth, according to U.S. Atty. Troy Eid. The talk, Eid said, does not meet the legal standard for filing charges for threatening a presidential candidate.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Conventions/story?id=5668322&page=1

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Fox host berates 'Joe the Plumber' after McCain surrogate says Obama vote means 'death to Israel'

by David Edwards and Nick Juliano

The all-out effort from John McCain's presidential campaign to scare voters into backing the Republican candidate continued apace on Tuesday as McCain surrogate Joe the Plumber agreed that a Barack Obama presidency would mean the "death of Israel" and end democracy in America.

The Ohio plumber, who has no license and is actually named Samuel Wurzelbacher, spoke at a McCain campaign event in Columbus Monday. A McCain supporter asked if "a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel." JTP hardly batted an eye.

"I'll go ahead and agree with you on that," Wurzelbacher said.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Joe_The_Plumber_attacks_Obama_would_1028.html

 

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It's all your fault!

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Weekly Reader Poll Has Predicted 12 of Last 13 Elections and This Year Obama Wins in Electoral Landslide

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

PLEASANTVILLE, N.Y., Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Just days before Americans choose our next president, voting has concluded in the Weekly Reader Student Presidential Election Poll. And the nation's students resoundingly say that Barack Obama will be the country's next leader. In the 14th Weekly Reader election survey, with more than 125,000 votes cast from kindergarten through 12th grade, the result was Obama 54.7% and John McCain 42.9% (with "other" candidates receiving 2.5% of the student vote). The Obama victory in the classroom electoral vote was even more resounding: The Democrat won 33 states and the District of Columbia, garnering 420 electoral votes, while McCain took 17 states and 118 electoral votes.

For the past 52 years, the results of the Weekly Reader poll have been consistently on target, with the student vote correctly predicting the next president in 12 out of 13 elections. (The only time the kids were wrong was 1992, when they chose George H.W. Bush over Bill Clinton.) This year, as in 2000 and 2004, the student election was conducted in conjunction with noted polling organization Zogby International.

"Historically, our poll has been an amazing indicator of the presidential race's outcome, so we're all waiting with great anticipation to see what happens on Election Day," said Neal Goff, President of Weekly Reader. "Throughout the past few months, we've delivered cutting-edge multimedia election materials directly to schools so that students could cast an informed vote. We're excited to have given kids this important forum to express their opinions about who should be the next president."

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alert/499

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Credit Cards: The Plastic Trap

by: Dominique Nora, Le Nouvel Observateur

Some Americans have no choice, Dominique Nora recounts, but to pay $35.50 for a two-week $200 payday loan, an annualized rate of over 468 percent. (Photo: Kevin Steele / Flickr)

    "It was too easy."

    After houses, consumer credit? While bankers plug up the breaches created by the mortgage earthquake as best they can, another bubble threatens them: Americans have been living their dreams on credit. And, having overheated up their cards, millions of households will have problems making their payments ...

    Maria, a housekeeper in a San Francisco clinic, came to the Polk Street Money Mart to borrow $150 (110 Euros) on her October month-end salary. Yet the usurious rate practiced by this boutique is posted in big letters on the wall: $35.50 for $200! But Maria has no choice: "I don't have anything to buy diapers with for the baby; the fridge is empty ..." This young woman who is raising her son alone has already gone through the ceiling of two credit cards: "I've got close to a 6,400 Euro balance, while I earn barely 1,400 Euros a month." In the beginning, Maria used her Bank of America card for exceptional expenses only, such as the pediatrician's bill. Then she got into the habit of paying the grocery with it ... "It was too easy." Today, she is suffocating. Because in the United States, credit cards are commonly used to borrow. And everything pushes you to repay no more than a minimum amount every month.

    Thus do millions of Americans find themselves caught in the "plastic trap." And experts are predicting a new deflagration. "In fact, there's a double financial bubble. The real estate credit bubble has exploded ... The next will be about consumer credit," warns Robert Manning, finance professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and author of the best-seller, "Credit Card Nation." The two problems are linked: "Because of the tax advantage, Americans repaid 250 billion Euros of credit card balances with money drawn from real estate between 2001 and 2006," he explains. "During that period, in defiance of the laws of economic gravity, people's real income declined ... but the price of real estate doubled, which completely distorted their perception of their debt capacity." The global balance on American credit cards is up to 700 billion Euros. Now that their houses can no longer be used as "cash machines," and economic activity is slowing down and unemployment rising, what proportion of this debt will turn out to be toxic? In the second quarter of 2008, the national default rate jumped to 7.3 percent. But it seems that that's only the beginning: according to the firm Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, credit card issuers will have to write off 29 billion Euros of losses this year and 69 billion more in 2009.

http://www.truthout.org/102808E

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Come visit wild Alaska

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Broken Securities Industry Still Has $20 Billion to Pay Bonuses

By Christine Harper and Serena Saitto

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Five straight quarters of losses and a 70 percent slide in its stock this year haven't stopped Merrill Lynch & Co. from allocating about $6.7 billion to pay bonuses.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, both still on track for profitable years, have set aside about $13 billion for bonuses after three quarters, down 28 percent from a year ago. Even some employees at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which declared the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history last month, will get the same bonus they received a year ago.

The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, a $700 billion taxpayer bailout, public outcry over excessive pay and the demise of three of the biggest securities firms won't deter Wall Street from offering year-end rewards to employees on top of their salaries, compensation experts say.

``Critical producers and critical managers will be retained with the same bonus they had last year,'' said Robert Sloan, head of U.S. financial-services recruiting at Egon Zehnder International, a New York-based executive-search firm. ``The others will see sharp cuts.''

Goldman, the biggest and most profitable Wall Street firm until it opted to become a bank holding company last month, has set aside about $6.85 billion for bonuses, or an average of $210,300 for each employee, down 32 percent from $339,400 a year ago. Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest securities firm until it also converted to a bank, has $6.44 billion for bonuses, or $138,700 per person, down 20 percent from last year. Both firms accrue a fixed percentage of their revenue for compensation, so the decline in bonus pools matches the drop in revenue.

Merrill's Compensation

The money Merrill has set aside for bonuses equates to an average $110,000 for each of its 60,900 people, up from $108,000 a year ago because more than 3,000 jobs have been cut.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aVann0.cv9Tw

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The 10 Dirtiest Election Tricks the Republicans Have Tried So Far

As Arianna Huffington warns Democrats, an increasingly desperate John McCain and the GOP are throwing the kitchen sink at Barack Obama. No wonder they called Joe the Plumber. So this week brought racist mailers, a tidal wave of robo-calls, more Bill Ayers, Sarah Palin's love of the "pro-American areas of this great nation" and McCain's outlandish claim that ACORN is "destroying the fabric of democracy."

Reed Hundt from Talking Points Memo writes, "The McCain plan will be to give up on the national popular vote and re-run the Bush campaign of 2000. By voter intimidation and robo-calls and litigation and outrageous allegations, it will aim for victory in the states that can provide an Electoral College victory. In this case, that means McCain will focus his diminished but vigorous efforts on Florida, Ohio, Colorado and Virginia. In each state we need hardly ask what images, stereotypes and fears the McCain campaign will hope to evoke."

The attacks by McCain and his surrogates are already at fever pitch -- and there is clearly a tidal wave on its way:

1. Rush Limbaugh's Racist Tactics: Bringing this toxic collection together in one despicable no-goodie bag was Rush Limbaugh, who charged that Obama -- aided and abetted by Ayers and ACORN -- is "smack dab in the middle" of a 30-year plot to teach black children to "hate, hate, hate" America.

2. Racist Attacks on Immigration: Sarah Posner for the American Prospect's blog writes: "A newly formed political action committee, the National Republican Trust PAC, is buying up e-mail blasts to the readers of conservative outlets like Newsmax and Townhall to raise money for what it calls a 'shock and awe' advertising blitz against Barack Obama in key states in the last weeks of the campaign. One of the e-mails uses the screamer headline, 'Obama's Plan: Mohamed Atta Gets His Drivers License,' while another says Republicans should 'employ Hillary Clinton's strategy' to 'expose Obama for the dangerous radical he is.'" The PAC was founded by Scott Wheeler, a former correspondent for the Moonie-owned Insight magazine, and Peter Leitner, a former Pentagon adviser and president of the Higgins Counterterrorism Research Center, which trains law enforcement personnel on counterterrorism.

http://www.alternet.org/story/103670/

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People against each other

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Slacker Uprising

 

Trailer

Official Site

Director: Michael Moore

Cast: Michael Moore, Tom Morello, Eddie Vedder, Steve Earle, Viggo Mortensen, Rosanne Barr, R.E.M., Joan Baez

(Brave New Films, 2008) Rated: Unrated

US DVD release date: 7 October 2008 (Brave New Films)

UK release date: Available as import

by Anthony Henriques

 

All the negative hype surrounding Michael Moore post-Fahrenheit 911 has made me skeptical when it comes to approaching his work. Each time however, I have been struck by how funny, compassionate, informative, and simply reasonable he appears in contrast to how a lot of the media portrays him. To me, the man who, in the eye of mainstream America, carries the label of some sort of anti-American, raging, left-wing extremist, instead comes across as a patriotic, outspoken moderate who only leans left in these times.

The most enlightening section of Moore's new film Slacker Uprising – first released for free over the Internet, and now on DVD – is the portion which examines his detractors. The movie itself is a simple travelogue of his 62-city, get-out-the-vote, speaking tour of battleground states leading up to the 2004 US Presidential Election. About halfway through, the film addresses the pro-Bush protesters who showed up to most of his rallies. Several amusing, ignorance-exposing interviews with protesters are followed by some interesting statistics, providing insight into the origins of the extreme Michael Moore hatred that reached a fever pitch in 2004.

The statistics state that 44 percent of polled Republicans viewed Fahrenheit 911 positively and that 30 percent of those thought that the film was fair to George W. Bush. The film follows the stats with a few sound bites of George Bush, Sr. referring to Moore as a "despicable character", a "total asshole", and a "slime ball" among other insults. Suddenly the Fahrenheit 911 controversy comes into perspective and the anti-Moore campaign feels much larger than the product of a few angry right-wingers. It becomes apparent that certain individuals within the controlling party of the United States government felt threatened enough by a film to warrant launching a smear campaign against its maker. It is a historic testament to the power of art to see some of the most powerful people in the world fearful that the work of an ordinary civilian was convincing enough to derail their reign.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/64638/slacker-uprising/

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McCain's October Surprise Memo Leaked to Press

Okay team, don't forget to dispose of this memo when you're done reading it. Anyway, clearly we need a late-October surprise. Here are the possibilities I've come up with. Some may sound outlandish, but I'm willing to do anything and spend any amount to win this bullshit election.

1) Get Hillary Clinton to endorse me. I'm pretty sure I could get her to do it, but it would involve a trade-off which makes me gag every time I think about it. Anyway, let's just say this option is a last last resort.

2) Announce that I would launch a surge on the economy. It would be like the surge in Iraq that I so brilliantly invented except it would be on CEOs and investment bankers. Just imagine 100,000 of America's finest warriors storming the stock exchange and "neutralizing" those rich cocksuckers! (note: this is my favorite idea)

3) Reveal that Obama isn't black. I haven't worked out the details on this one.

4) Announce that despite being married, I've never actually slept with Cindy. I know you're probably wondering why that matters to voters. Well, I have a sneaking suspicion that a third of voters don't like me because they're horrified at the prospect of me doing the ol' inverted barrel role with that plastic ring-tailed lemur of a woman. Hell, the thought horrifies me too. If I announce I've never been in that snake pit, a lot of people would be more comfortable with me as a leader. What do you guys think? (We did try it once and let's just say it ended with a skin graft and me soaking my Johnson in Luvox.)

5) Hire someone to shoot me. You know, just a flesh wound - maybe the meaty part of the thigh. I think it would really up my star power, kind of like a rapper. Voters would think, "McCain took a shot and he's still ticking. He's hard boiled, man!" Right?

6) What if I were to strangle Palin to death? It might not help with the voters, but it would definitely help me let off some steam.

7) I personally fly a mission into Iran, take out a couple of their elite guard, and bring back their thumbs to prove I did it.

8) Hold a huge press conference where I present to America - Chandra Levy AND Natalee Hollaway alive and well!! They wave and say they're completely supporting the McCain-Palin ticket. (I haven't worked out the details of this one. Does anyone have a lead on those ladies?)

9) I come out against the Jews. I say I've never trusted those slimy loan sharks! I know, this is a risky move. But I think there's a simmering hatred I can tap into. When was the last time someone tried an anti-Jew platform? Not for at least fifty years. (Hey Joe, if you get this memo, I'm sorry. You know politics. Alls fair!)

http://www.236.com/blog/w/lee_camp/mccains_october_surprise_memo_9867.php

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Guilty!

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Hopeless

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Red Sex, Blue Sex

Annals of Sociology

Why do so many evangelical teen-agers become pregnant?

by Margaret Talbot

The "sexual début" of an evangelical girl typically occurs just after she turns sixteen. Photograph by Mary Ellen Mark.

In early September, when Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for Vice-President, announced that her unwed seventeen-year-old daughter, Bristol, was pregnant, many liberals were shocked, not by the revelation but by the reaction to it. They expected the news to dismay the evangelical voters that John McCain was courting with his choice of Palin. Yet reports from the floor of the Republican Convention, in St. Paul, quoted dozens of delegates who seemed unfazed, or even buoyed, by the news. A delegate from Louisiana told CBS News, "Like so many other American families who are in the same situation, I think it's great that she instilled in her daughter the values to have the child and not to sneak off someplace and have an abortion." A Mississippi delegate claimed that "even though young children are making that decision to become pregnant, they've also decided to take responsibility for their actions and decided to follow up with that and get married and raise this child." Palin's family drama, delegates said, was similar to the experience of many socially conservative Christian families. As Marlys Popma, the head of evangelical outreach for the McCain campaign, told National Review, "There hasn't been one evangelical family that hasn't gone through some sort of situation." In fact, it was Popma's own "crisis pregnancy" that had brought her into the movement in the first place.

During the campaign, the media has largely respected calls to treat Bristol Palin's pregnancy as a private matter. But the reactions to it have exposed a cultural rift that mirrors America's dominant political divide. Social liberals in the country's "blue states" tend to support sex education and are not particularly troubled by the idea that many teen-agers have sex before marriage, but would regard a teen-age daughter's pregnancy as devastating news. And the social conservatives in "red states" generally advocate abstinence-only education and denounce sex before marriage, but are relatively unruffled if a teen-ager becomes pregnant, as long as she doesn't choose to have an abortion.

A handful of social scientists and family-law scholars have recently begun looking closely at this split. Last year, Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin, published a startling book called "Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers," and he is working on a follow-up that includes a section titled "Red Sex, Blue Sex." His findings are drawn from a national survey that Regnerus and his colleagues conducted of some thirty-four hundred thirteen-to-seventeen-year-olds, and from a comprehensive government study of adolescent health known as Add Health. Regnerus argues that religion is a good indicator of attitudes toward sex, but a poor one of sexual behavior, and that this gap is especially wide among teen-agers who identify themselves as evangelical.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/03/081103fa_fact_talbot

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Apocalypstick

 

"[Sarah Palin] was never a hockey mom, she was always the prom queen sitting in the back of the convertible waving to the hockey moms"
- Simon Doonan, high-end clothing store Barney's in NYC

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Sexual trauma afflicts 15 percent of U.S. veterans: study

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

 

Nearly 15 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans seeking medical care from the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department have suffered sexual trauma, from harassment to rape, researchers reported on Tuesday.

And these veterans were 1.5 times as likely as other veterans to need mental health services, the report from the VA found.

"We are, in fact, detecting men and women who seem to have a significant need for mental health services," said Rachel Kimerling of the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in California.

The study, presented at a meeting of the American Public Health Association in San Diego, raises many questions.

Kimerling said in a telephone interview the term "military sexual trauma" covers a range of events from coerced sex to outright rape or threatening and unwelcome sexual advances.

Kimerling said for her purposes it is not necessary to find out what kind of sexual trauma occurred. Her study also did not determine when it happened.

"If you think about military service where you are living and working so closely with the same people, that even if it is not sexual assault ... it is possible that severe sexual harassment is just as traumatic," she said.

The study does not cover active-duty servicemen and women, as VA services are only available to discharged veterans.

A spokeswoman for the VA said about 40 percent of all discharged veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have sought medical care of some sort from the VA, which has a universal screening program for military sexual trauma.

Kimerling said that may mean many veterans are unaware they can be helped and she said she hoped more would come forward to seek treatment.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_veterans_trauma;_ylt=ArdI186IRwkWfaq6Ra89EoEDW7oF

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How these gibbering numbskulls came to dominate Washington

The degradation of intelligence and learning in American politics results from a series of interlocking tragedies

by George Monbiot

How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the US come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind's closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle and other such gibbering numbskulls get to where they are? How could Republican rallies in 2008 be drowned out by screaming ignoramuses insisting that Barack Obama was a Muslim and a terrorist?

Like most people on my side of the Atlantic, I have for many years been mystified by American politics. The US has the world's best universities and attracts the world's finest minds. It dominates discoveries in science and medicine. Its wealth and power depend on the application of knowledge. Yet, uniquely among the developed nations (with the possible exception of Australia), learning is a grave political disadvantage.

There have been exceptions over the past century - Franklin Roosevelt, JF Kennedy and Bill Clinton tempered their intellectualism with the common touch and survived - but Adlai Stevenson, Al Gore and John Kerry were successfully tarred by their opponents as members of a cerebral elite (as if this were not a qualification for the presidency). Perhaps the defining moment in the collapse of intelligent politics was Ronald Reagan's response to Jimmy Carter during the 1980 presidential debate. Carter - stumbling a little, using long words - carefully enumerated the benefits of national health insurance. Reagan smiled and said: "There you go again." His own health programme would have appalled most Americans, had he explained it as carefully as Carter had done, but he had found a formula for avoiding tough political issues and making his opponents look like wonks.

It wasn't always like this. The founding fathers of the republic - Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and others - were among the greatest thinkers of their age. They felt no need to make a secret of it. How did the project they launched degenerate into George W Bush and Sarah Palin?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/28/us-education-election-obama-bush-mccain

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A terrorist too

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CNN: Thousands purged from voter rolls in Georgia

Update: Federal panel tells state to let those flagged vote anyway, ballots can later be challenged; GA sec. of state says screening to continue

With reports of voting problems rife in the media, and instances of vote flipping seen in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Texas, elections watchdogs are on their toes for any more foul play.

In spite of their activism, thousands of voters have been lopped off Georgia's rolls.

CNN's Abbie Boudreau and Scott Bronstein reported:

College senior Kyla Berry was looking forward to voting in her first presidential election, even carrying her voter registration card in her wallet.

But about two weeks ago, Berry got disturbing news from local election officials.

"This office has received notification from the state of Georgia indicating that you are not a citizen of the United States and therefore, not eligible to vote," a letter from the Fulton County Department of Registration and Elections said.

But Berry is a U.S. citizen, born in Boston, Massachusetts. She has a passport and a birth certificate to prove it.

Berry is one of thousands of registered Georgia voters who have been "flagged" because of a computer mismatch in their personal identification information. At least 4,500 of those people are having their citizenship questioned and the burden is on them to prove eligibility to vote.

 

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/CNN_50000_purged_from_voter_rolls_1027.html

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Respondele a Obama

Latin music video to get out the vote for Obama. Music written and performed by Jose Conde. Video by Nicole Betancourt.

 

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Early e-voting results in vote flipping in three states so far

I noted in passing last week that West Virginia has had the distinct honor of being the first state in the union to report problems (surprise! surprise!) with its electronic voting systems. There are now also reports that similar problems have been happening in Tennessee and Texas as well. No doubt these won't be the last.

So what exactly has happened? Largely, the problem has been what's been dubbed "vote flipping" or "vote switching" -- which is exactly what it sounds like. According to a report by my buddy Scott Finn over at West Virginia Public Broadcasting from late last week:

Voters in at least two West Virginia counties -- Jackson and Putnam -- say electronic voting machines are switching their votes from Democrats to Republicans.

The two county clerks, both Republicans, say they don't think there's a problem. But these voting problems have gotten the attention of everyone from CNN to liberal website The Huffington Post.

So far, eight voters from Jackson and Putnam counties have come forward to say their electronic voting machines kept changing their votes from Democrats to Republicans -- usually, from Obama to McCain.

Wired News also reports that Ohio and Berkeley counties have been having similar problems.

It appears that some of the problems have to do with the fact that the software is simply faulty, and requires "recalibration" by voting officials.

But in Tennessee, there's a different, albeit opposite problem, where votes intended for McCain are actually going to Obama. (One blog has raised questions as to the veracity of this report.) Further, apparently it's not always obvious to tell exactly what part of the screen you're touching.

According to an account in the Decatur County Chronicle:

"The way the machine is set up, when you are standing in front of it and seeing it at a certain angle, it looks like you are touching the middle (of the button) when you are actually touching the line above it," Box said.

[Election Commissioner Rick Box] and fellow Election Commissioner Grafton Dodd tested the machines on Monday. Dodd could not be reached for comment but Box said he found the area of the screen where the buttons for President are located are extremely close together. He blames the problem in part on poor design by software programmers, and adds that there may be sensitivity issues with the screen itself.

In other words, it's the voter's fault.

http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/10/27/early_voting/index.html?source=newsletter

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Election revelations: 666 reasons not to vote for Barack Obama

Election road trip, day 15: While the Guardian's Ed Pilkington was researching a story on biofuels in Missouri, the general manager of an ethanol plant told him why he could never vote for Obama

Roger Hill reveals his fear of Barack Obama

Sometimes the most revealing insights strike at the most unexpected moments, jolting you out of the reality you thought you were in and transporting you somewhere else entirely. For instance, when reporting a story on the political differences between Barack Obama and John McCain over ethanol as an alternative fuel, you don't expect to be confronted with details of a plot by the devil to take over the White House.

I had hopped on to the GuardianFilms bus as it made its way across the US. We were joining forces to make a film about the ethanol issue, which has earned Obama the criticism of environmentalists because of his support for the controversial corn-based variety of the fuel that has helped to drive up world food prices.

We stopped at an ethanol plant in Craig, Missouri, where we were greeted by the general manager, Roger Hill, and shown around the plant. He said something odd early on in our tour, responding to the news that I was British by commenting on how Muslims had become dominant in my country. I only half heard his remark, and let it go; we were here to talk about ethanol.

Later though, he brought up the subject again, when I suggested to him that as an ethanol manufacturer he must logically back Obama over McCain, who has openly criticised federal subsidies of the fuel. That's when he invoked Revelations, chapter 13. If you lack instant recall of the contents of Revelations 13, as I have to admit I did, it's the bit in the Bible where the beast rears his ugly head, or rather many heads, and reveals the mark on his right hand or forehead: 666.

Yes, Hill was likening Obama to the devil, with Revelations 13 as the proof. Which gave me pause. I've heard many, many people tell me that Obama is a Muslim, but I'd never quite heard him compared to Satan.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/uselectionroadtrip/2008/oct/27/barack-obama-muslim-antichrist

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Palin’s Nightmare

By Scott Horton

In a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin told the crowd that an Obama presidency would present the specter of a socialist state in which fundamental American freedoms are undermined. Let's go to the video:

Does Sarah mean a state:

• That snatches its victims off the street, denies them all form of legal process and whisks them away to secret "blacksites" where they can be tortured using all the techniques described in Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon?
• That arrests and prosecutes its political adversaries for imaginary crimes so as to eliminate them from the running in election cycles in which they could do some damage?
• That destroys the careers of professional military men because they got promotions under a prior regime and therefore considers them disloyal?
• That believes it can detain and hold its enemies forever without any charges or any evidence against them, denying them access to courts to prove their innocence?
• That constantly manipulates the population's fear whenever its public popularity slips and elections begin to approach?
• That believes that it can make no errors, and that those who point to its errors are traitors?
• That systematically spies on millions of its citizens in direct violation of a criminal statute which forbids such surveillance?
• That signs new laws with its fingers crossed in the form of signing statements, so that no one knows whether the laws—or any part of them—will actually be enforced?
• That lies to its people about threats from abroad in an effort to build popular support for a series of wars and then cites the existence of those wars as a reason to suppress dissent?
• That nationalizes the debt of predatory capitalists so they suffer no punishment for their misconduct and then nationalizes major financial institutions, converting the nation's free market system into a socialism in which crony capitalists are a privileged elite?

Sarah, you have no need to fear the future.

http://harpers.org/archive/2008/10/hbc-90003761

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Buttons

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Nazi memorabilia secures auction best sale in five years

A rare collection of Nazi memorabilia, including a death head ring owned by Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler, has helped an auction house to secure its best sale in five years.

By Charlotte Bailey

Jonathan Humbert, of Northamptonshire-based J.P.Humbert Auctioneers, said his three-day sale which included the controversial items, raised a total of £90,000.

The death head ring itself sold for £2,200 and a selection of Nazi daggers and swords fetched hammer prices of £200 to £800. A Nazi pin badge made as much as £180.

Mr Humbert said they also sold an original 8ft by 4ft Nazi war ensign from Second World War German pocket battleship The Admiral Graf Spee, for £550.

He said that Nazi items had poured into the auction house following a recent sale which included a range of Nazi goods recovered from a council house clearance.

He said that the popularity of the collection had surprised him.

"I was quite surprised, especially as some items sold to within the room. That's very rare, usually people bid over the phone for these kind of things.

"Some people say it's disgusting to sell this stuff, but my view is that they are all a part of our recent social history and they belong in museums.

"A lot of the people at our sales are private collectors interested in preserving the history and I don't see any harm in that."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3270465/Nazi-memorabilia-secures-auction-best-sale-in-five-years.html

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ATF: Disrupted skinhead plot in Tenn., Ark. to kill Obama, 102 blacks

By LARA JAKES JORDAN

This undated photo obtained from a MySpace webpage shows Daniel Cowart, 20 of Bells, Tenn. holding a weapon. Federal agents have broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree, the ATF said Monday Oct. 27, 2008. In court records unsealed Monday, federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads. The men, Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, Tenn., and Paul Schlesselman 18, of West Helena, Ark., are being held without bond.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two white supremacists allegedly plotted to go on a national killing spree, shooting and decapitating black people and ultimately targeting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, federal authorities said Monday.

In all, the two men whom officials describe as neo-Nazi skinheads planned to kill 88 people -- 14 by beheading, according to documents unsealed in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

The spree, which initially targeted an unidentified predominantly African-American school, was to end with the two men driving toward Obama, "shooting at him from the windows," the court documents show.

"Both individuals stated they would dress in all white tuxedos and wear top hats during the assassination attempt," the court complaint states. "Both individuals further stated they knew they would and were willing to die during this attempt."

An Obama spokeswoman traveling with the senator in Pennsylvania had no immediate comment.

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081027/NEWS08/81027063

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Green Acres

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Martial law

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Police fear riots if Barack Obama loses US election

US police fear riots could break out if John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, wins the election next month.

 

By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles

Law enforcement officials say the intense public interest and historic nature of the vote could lead to violent outbreaks if people are unhappy with the results, encounter problems casting their ballots or suspect voting irregularities.

Police departments say they cannot rule out disorder and are mobilising extra forces and putting SWAT teams on standby.

In Oakland, near San Francisco, police will have tactical squads, SWAT teams and officers trained in riot control on standby.

"We always try to prepare for the worst," said Oakland police department spokesman Jeff Thomason.

"This election is going to mark in history a change in the presidency: you're going to have a woman in the presidency or an African American as president. I think everybody around here is voting for Obama, so if he gets in the White House everybody's going to be happy.

"But we'll have our SWAT teams on standby and traffic teams here, so if something goes off we'll organise and take care of the problem."

There have also been internet rumours about plans for protests or civil disobedience by supporters of Democratic candidate Barack Obama if he is beaten by Republican rival John McCain on November 4.

He said Oakland was prepared to deal with unrest as Oakland Raiders fans rioted in 2003 following their Super Bowl loss.

Other cities that have experienced unrest include Detroit, Chicago and Philadelphia and are also planning to deploy extra officers on election day.

James Carville, a strategist for former President Bill Clinton and advisor to his wife Hillary's 2008 presidential campaign, hinted Democrat supporters could be angry if Mr Obama lost, given his lead in the polls.

"If Obama goes in and he has a consistent five-point lead and loses the election, it would be very, very, very dramatic out there," he told CNN.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/johnmccain/3248961/Police-fear-riots-if-Barack-Obama-loses-US-election.html

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Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler

Easthampton Burning?

     In the typhoon of commentary that's blown around the world a step behind the financial tsunami that's wrecking everything, two little words have been curiously absent: "fraud" and "swindle." But aren't they really at the core of what has happened? Wall Street took the whole world "for a ride" and now a handful of Wall Street's erstwhile princelings have shifted ceremoniously into US Government service to "fix" the problem with a "toolbox" containing a notional two trillion dollars. This strange exercise in financial kabuki theater will shut down sometime between the election and inauguration day, when the inaugurate finds himself president of the Economic Smoking Wreckage of the United States. What will happen?
      I have thought for some time that things could get dangerously out of hand in America, despite our exceptionalist notion that we are immune to the common plot-lines of history. For starters, inauguration night will seem more like Halloween, as those two little words fly in to haunt the new president. So, a large and looming question is: who will be appointed the next attorney general of the US (to replace the human sash-weight currently occupying the office), and how soon will the federal marshals be scouring the wainscoted hallways of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, not to mention a thousand Greenwich, Connecticut, hedge fund boiler rooms, with man-sized nets?
     A story-line is already emerging to the effect that these birds really didn't quite know what they were doing in grinding out that multi-trillion dollar basket of alphabet securities sausage (a theme on Sunday's "60-Minutes" broadcast). Nobody will buy that line of bullshit, though -- and certainly not in the courtroom where, for instance, Mr. Hank Paulson will have to answer why his own firm of Goldman Sachs set up a special unit to short its own issues. It will be edifying to see how they answer.
     In the meantime, however, millions of Joe-the-Plumber types will have gotten their pink slips, slipped helplessly into foreclosure, watched the repo men hot-wire their Ford pickups, and eaten down the kitchen cupboard to a single box of Kellogg's All-Bran (which had been sitting there for eleven years infested with weevils). They will be watching the official proceedings in the federal courtrooms with jaundiced eyes as they hunch in their tent cities, in the rain, sipping amateur-brand raisin wine bartered for a few snared rock doves. How long before the hardier ones among them venture out to Easthampton with long knives and matches?
    It will bring little satisfaction though, and the disappointment could lead to a more inchoate outbreak of civil disorder that would be more like a free-for-all of vengeance and grievance. There will be a great outcry for the new government to "do something!" Perhaps that will finally bring the troops home from Iraq -- only for them to find that the Homeland has become Iraq....
     If the financial system completes its self-destruction -- and that's looking more and more like a real possibility -- there will be several pretty awful consequences. One is that the United States will be forced to declare bankruptcy by repudiating its own debt. All those who took refuge in US Treasury bonds and bills will be like folks who sought shelter from a tornado in their out-house. That would go hand-in-hand with a massive currency inflation that is likely to follow the current phase of compressive liquidating deflation -- in which every possible asset is being sold off for less than its face value. That process is self-limiting due to the finite supply of real salable assets. The trillions of dollars injected into system while this is happening must eventually snap-back as people shed the last fungible article and compete for necessary commodities like food and fuel with dollars that are suddenly plentiful but worthless. At some point, the government may have to summon up a new currency. I don't think it will be anything like the "Amero" which the paranoid fringe incessantly mutters about as part of their fantasy in which the US, Mexico, and Canada all join up to become one country. But any "new dollar" would probably have to be backed by gold.
     As we discover ourselves to be a much poorer nation, one of my correspondents put it: "the bogus risk-swapping economy must be replaced by a net value-added economy." That means actually making things, growing things, and rebuilding things, and that can only begin to happen if we do not stupidly sucker ourselves into a war with other nations who are liable to be extremely ticked off at us for destroying the global economy, but also competing with us for a dwindling supply of resources that are not equitably distributed around the world.
      This means especially oil. I hope you're enjoying the temporarily cheap prices at the gas pumps, because this is purely a function of the compressive deleveraging that is going on right now, as contracts and positions held in energy markets are being dumped by everybody and his uncle to raise cash to meet margin calls. My guess is that oil and its byproducts will become much more difficult to get in the months ahead -- not just more expensive, but literally not available.

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2008/10/easthampton-burning.html

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Al Franken hopes to have the last laugh in Minnesota

The comedian has proved to be a serious contender for GOP Sen. Norm Coleman's seat.

By P.J. Huffstutter

Reporting from Minneapolis -- The comedian's opening act warmed up the crowd, whose laughter echoed inside the cavernous lobby of the University of Minnesota's McNamara Alumni Center. Then the headliner stepped onto the stage, took the microphone in hand . . . and didn't tell a joke.

Lately, Minnesotans have been seeing a more serious side of comedian Al Franken, one of the original writers for "Saturday Night Live" and author of the book "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot." Nearly two years ago, Franken moved back here to his childhood home and launched his Democratic campaign to unseat Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.

 

At first many were unsure whether to take him seriously, and few gave him much of a chance. Indeed, polls last spring showed Coleman leading by as much as 22 points.

But now, Franken has pulled slightly ahead of Coleman, and the two are embroiled in one of the most prominent and expensive Senate races of this election season.

The candidates themselves have spent more than $30 million combined on their runs for the seat -- paying for ads that paint Coleman as a flip-flopper on issues and a strong fan of President Bush and that portray Franken as an inexperienced candidate with questionable tax problems and a penchant for vulgar satire.

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-minnesota26-2008oct26,0,232390.story

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Obama Ties McCain to Republican Philosophy

 

By JEFF ZELENY

DENVER — With the final week of campaigning ahead, Senator Barack Obama redoubled his efforts to tie Senator John McCain to the Bush administration by seizing on Mr. McCain's remark Sunday that he shared a "common philosophy" with the president.

"I guess that was John McCain finally giving us a little straight talk, and owning up to the fact that he and George Bush actually have a whole lot in common," Mr. Obama said at a rally here. "Here's the thing, we know what the Bush-McCain philosophy looks like. It's a philosophy that says we should give more and more to millionaires and billionaires and hope that it trickles down on everyone else."

As Mr. Obama returned to the city where he accepted the Democratic nomination two months ago, he drew tens of thousands of people to an outdoor plaza as he sought to solidify his support in a critical western battleground. He is set to present a new closing argument to voters on Monday in Ohio.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/us/politics/26cnd-campaign.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

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Comedy or tragedy

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This column will change your life

by Oliver Burkeman

There are numerous books that promise to help you "think like a genius", or like Einstein, or even - if Einstein isn't good enough - How To Think Like History's 10 Most Revolutionary Minds. But they're beset with problems. Some try to teach a "secret formula", even though following someone else's five-step system is surely antithetical to genius. Some confuse correlation with causation: Thomas Jefferson was an early riser, and he basically invented the US, so you should get up early, too! Others are plain odd. In How To Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci, Michael Gelb recommends doing an "ambiguity dance" to express feelings about uncertainty. I can't imagine Leonardo doing an ambiguity dance. Though if he had done, maybe he'd have come up with a flying machine that actually worked, the loser.

"Genius" is a slippery word, anyway. The American neuroscientist Gregory Berns uses a different term as the title of his new book on thinking differently: Iconoclast. Looking at original thinking as "iconoclastic" - as disruptive of the usual ways we're conditioned to see the world - turns out to be much more useful. It may even help you think a bit more like Leonardo.

Berns' starting point is that the brain "is fundamentally a lazy piece of meat": it needs energy to operate, and has evolved to use it as efficiently as possible. So when it perceives the outside world, or imagines things, the average brain uses as many short cuts as it can - past experience, other people's opinions - to avoid the taxing effort of perceiving or imagining afresh. It's literally harder work to perceive what you're not expecting to perceive, which is why airport security screeners who watch thousands of harmless bags roll by will at times fail to notice even a very prominent gun.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/oct/25/healthandwellbeing-original-thought

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Michael Moore: No More Socialism for the Rich!

The following is an excerpted transcript from Michael Moore's appearance on CNN's Larry King Live

Larry King: He is many things, but dull isn't one of them. Michael Moore, the academy winning documentary filmmaker. The latest film is "Slacker Uprising: A Look at the Youth Vote." His latest book is "Mike's Election Guide '08". He is a supporter, as you might imagine, of Barack Obama.

He comes to us from Traverse City, Michigan. And I understand you have some friends with you tonight calling themselves Plumbers for Obama.

You want to explain this? Where are you?

Michael Moore: I'm in a senior citizens house here in Northern Michigan. These guys behind me, they don't just call themselves Plumbers for Obama, they actually are Plumbers for Obama. And they they're licensed plumbers and they're going around helping out people who are in need of plumbing help, who maybe are of modest income, modest means. And so they want to show that real plumbers are for Obama. The average, you know, plumber makes maybe $40,000 to $60,000 a year, if he's lucky. And they're all going to benefit greatly from the Obama tax break that they're going to get if Obama is elected.

King: What do you make of the "Joe the Plumber" thing with McCain?

Moore: Well, I think it's part of the same illusion that the Republicans have been presenting for the last eight years. They say one thing, but the reality is, you know, something else, whether it's weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or whether it's now playing up "Joe the Plumber."

The Republicans, their whole tax plan is to punish the plumbers and everybody else who has a job like this in this country. And yet they somehow have taken this guy -- I feel kind of sorry for this guy, too. He probably didn't expect to be in the limelight like this. And but it's not really about him as an individual. And I don't think people should be getting down on him just because he isn't a licensed plumber or his name isn't Joe or anything else that's come out. I just think that that's kind of irrelevant.

The only relevant thing is that McCain is going to make sure that the wealthy get another incredible tax break while everybody else suffers. And Obama is going to make sure that the guys like this who are working behind me tonight here in Northern Michigan, they're going to get a tax break. They're going to get relief. They're going to get help.

King: What do you make of this, Michael?

Moore: It's one of the tenets of John McCainism and George Bushism. I mean that's exactly what they've done in the last month. I mean the complete irony of this, that they have spread the wealth around to more wealthy people. They have bailed out wealthy people who were playing a high stakes game of risk and failed. They were using money that didn't exist, that wasn't theirs, to try to make more money.

Actually, when these guys behind me here if they were to ever write a check for money that they didn't have in the bank and actually use that check to buy something with it, they'd be arrested. It's called check kiting.

But that isn't what happens to Wall Street. That's not what happens to the CEOs and the hedge fund people. They get away with this. It's these people, McCain, his campaign, they stand for socialism for the rich. Obama and the Democrats stand for giving these guys and other people like them a break.

http://www.alternet.org/election08/104721/

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Ron Howard's Call To Action

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

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Every USA Church, Synagogue Gets Militant Islam DVD

Received by over 325,000 rabbis and pastors

Over 325,000 rabbis, priests and pastors in every Jewish and Christian congregation in America just received the award-winning documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West on DVD, according to the publisher of a new periodical for clerical leaders, The Judeo-Christian View, which included the film inside the first issue.

 

The publication -- signed by dozens of rabbis and pastors who concur that U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's policies on same-sex unions and partial birth abortion tend to inflame U.S. tensions with Islamists and are at odds with their ancient Biblical faiths -- went out by U.S. mail and is heading online ( www.thejudeo-christianview.com) to another 10 million congregational leaders and laity as part of an ambitious subscription strategy. The new "multimedia opinion journal" also includes an "interfaith video sermon" on DVD and online that discusses Obama's support for repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, which shields states from forced recognition of same-sex marriages originating in Massachusetts, California and now, Connecticut pursuant to a state Supreme Court ruling on October 10.

 

Clerical signers include: Rabbi Herzel Kranz from The Jewish Center of Silver Spring, Maryland; Rev. Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, Jr.; Father Frank Pavone, Roman Catholic head of Priests for Life; Rev. Rosemary Schindler, San Francisco Board of the Anti-Defamation League and member of the Oscar Schindler family (of Schindler's List); Dr. James M. Hutchens, Brigadier General and Deputy Chief of US Army Chaplains (Ret.); Rev. Ben Kinchlow, former co-host of The 700 Club; Dr. Bruce Fong, president, Michigan Theological Seminary; Dr. Kenneth L. Hutcherson, Antioch Bible Church, Kirkland, Washington; Dr. Erwin Lutzer, senior pastor of Moody Memorial Church, Chicago; and Rabbi Yehuda Levin of the Rabbinical Alliance of America of Torah Loyal Jews and The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada.

 

The publication links Jewish Scriptures (e.g., Leviticus 18:21) on child sacrifice to graphic video descriptions of partial birth abortion -- a late-term procedure that involves piercing the skull and vacuuming the brain of the fetus, something Sen. John McCain would ban, but Obama would expand via taxpayer funding and the proposed "Freedom of Choice Act," which eliminates all current U.S. restrictions on late-term abortion. The document's signatories contend Obama's policy to liberalize abortion, "combined with his effort to kill a bill that would protect babies who survive abortions, tends to gut the USA's moral standing to condemn jihadic use of Muslim children as suicide bombers; both are horrific cases of child sacrifice that support a Culture of Death and demonstrate utter contempt for the Judeo-Christian Culture of Life."

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/every-usa-church-synagogue-gets/story.aspx?guid={1A4EE358-1ACF-454F-838B-EB6BCEC260F9}&dist=hppr

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The Exit from Fascism Is Open

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

When you lose your illusions you see yourself and your own actions clearly. We need to see our present circumstances as they are and not as we want them to be. We have an opportunity to take back our country but that window of opportunity will close rapidly. We need to return to the form of government experienced by our Founders. We need to stop talking about freedom and set tasks that return control of government to the people at the most local level and change our economy from one that has us hemorrhaging jobs and money to one that keeps money local.

Each of these goals takes us to freedom; not just words but the reality. And despite appearances to the contrary, the establishment of a real freedom has never been more possible.

To accomplish that we need to build coalition from all ideological viewpoints. Without coalition we will not be able to come together as a people who govern themselves at that most local, community level. It is possible; we need to lose our illusions. The government we see today does not work and it cannot be fixed. All hierarchal systems are subject to the same problems.

When people are remote from you they seem alien and therefore less human. This was true with all people. Those they do not know they are willing to abuse and manipulate.

All movements experience the same problems, left to right, Patriot, Progressive, Libertarian, Liberal, Ron Paul, Environmental, Conservative, Free Market, Election Reform, Peace, have been created from frustrations with the present systemic conversion and corruption. All of us have spent to much time spinning our wheels, engaging in action that did not advance the agenda for freedom or justice. We need to change that, starting now.

A people who govern themselves must first free themselves, starting with their prejudices, misconceptions and illusions. We cannot free America; each of us must do that for ourselves, but we can give Americans the tools to do so.

Only by coming together and seeing the truth can we bring America back from the precipice. The community is our exit from fascism.

 

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/78911

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The next captain

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Republicans fear long exile in the wilderness

 

In America's conservative heartland the talk now is not just of a win for Obama. With the Democrats poised for gains in the Senate and the House, moderate Republicans fear a wipeout that would leave their party in the grip of evangelicals increasingly out of touch with the public. Could the country be on the brink of change as deep as that ushered in by Reagan?

by Paul Harris

 

Some Republicans believe John McCain should adopt a more positive approach to campaigning. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty

Voting for a Republican president runs in the blood of places like Gainesville. The pretty little town of 15,000 sits in north Texas ranch country and it is safe to say that Barack Obama has few fans here. Certainly Jim Farquhar, who works in the justice system, has taken to heart warnings that Obama has links with dangerous radicals, such as former 1960s militant Bill Ayers.

'Obama scares me. He has all these friendships. You just don't know how that might effect him once he gets into office,' Farquhar said as he stood outside Gainsville's sturdy old courthouse. 'I'm voting for John McCain.'

Such worries are increasingly not shared by many other Americans. Weeks of relentless attacks on Obama by McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin have not succeeded in denting Obama's lead. Instead it has strengthened. Across America, battleground states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania are falling into Obama's column and southern states such as Virginia and North Carolina are going from red to blue. Some Democratic insiders are even whispering about the prospect of a landslide.

The flipside of that is a potentially devastating Republican loss. If current polling holds true, the party may be reduced to its core support in the solid red heartland that runs through Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia and other southern and western states. That would trigger a profound crisis for a party that just three years ago was basking in the afterglow of a convincing presidential win and dreaming of creating a 'permanent majority'.

Now that same Republican party could face a prolonged period in the political wilderness, working out how to appeal to an American public that seems prepared to send a pro-life, black senator from Chicago to the White House and reject a conservative Republican war hero.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/26/uselections2008-republicans

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My Own Private Sarah Palin Love Doll

By Susannah Breslin

Today, I received my Sarah Palin inflatable love doll in the mail. I'd heard about the "This Is Not Sarah Palin Inflatable Love Doll" a few weeks ago, and when Topco Sales marketing director Desiree Duffie offered to send me one, who was I to say no? This morning, I missed the FedEx delivery; thankfully, he left the box behind a potted plant. In my apartment, I removed the product from the packaging. From the cover, a busty brunette with an updo, wearing glasses and a blue business suit with the front falling open, stared back at me. "Cross party lines with your own inflatable running mate!" the copy read. On the back, a list of key points informed: "She makes sexism sexy." When I removed the deflated doll, I found the inflatable Palin doesn't look much like the real one. And it takes forever to inflate. But one question remained: Why is America so sexually obsessed with Sarah Palin?

From male fanatics to Alec Baldwin's come-on, an adult video spoof to Palin-inspired erotica, the ways in which the public sexualizes the Republican vice presidential candidate are never-ending. Some blame her for sexualizing herself -- her look is nothing if not sexy librarian goes to Washington -- while others blame misogyny; Feministing is conducting a "Palin Sexism Watch" and has declared the Palin love doll: "So disgusting." But is it? These days, this blog and its sister sites in the blogosphere are as obsessed with Palin as a man would have to be to order an inflatable version of her. Because of the complicated message the so-called VIPILF sends out, politics and sex -- and sexual politics -- are at the fore like never before, and for the first time in a long time, the debate isn't about male sexuality (Spitzer, Clinton, Vitter), it's about female sexuality. 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2008/10/21/my-own-private-sarah-palin-love-doll.aspx

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Pro-America

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