Tim's Favorite Blogs
Media Matters
Blog Directories
Tuesday, October 31. 2006
Happy Halloween
Robin Williams in Man of the Year
First the one calls. My mobile phone with the call alert I created rings … well, “rings” isn’t the right word anymore. Does anyone still have a phone that actually “rings”? My phone alerts me (you have to imagine a ghostly voice here): “ohhhh-oh-oh-oh-oh! Pick up the phone!” So, I grab the phone out of my vest pocket (it’s a hunting vest, although I don’t hunt) just in time for the alert to sound again — loudly — so everyone else in the produce section can hear it and look.
You know, maybe some of them thought they were being told to pick up the phone because a number of them either looked at or grabbed for their own mobile phones.
Anyway, the friend mentioned the e-mail he sent yesterday and the business card he gave me on Friday. First off, I hadn’t read all my e-mails, so I couldn’t comment on his. Second, I couldn’t remember where I put his business card to comment on the web site he had scrawled on the back. How embarrassing, but before I could manufacture some excuse as to why I hadn’t paid any attention to either commitment — I view requested information, via e-mail or website-on-business card as commitments — the other friend calls and the beep is disturbing enough that the first caller graciously ended his call and I spoke with the second caller.
The second friend is coming down to Sandy Eggo from the L.A. area on business and wants to get together.
The point I’m extrapolating on here is that without decent handlers, like those who shadow politicians, I can’t keep everything going in my head because my head is always filled with thoughts, ideas, daydreams and fantasies, some of which shouldn’t approach the light of audible recitation. Quite frankly, I scare me sometimes. Which is one reason I would never consider running for public office. I would say something like “I like football and I like girls” and the next thing you know I’m in someone’s attack ad getting blasted for attending Playboy-sponsored Super Bowl parties.
Never attended a Playboy party, but I’d like to. I’ll be the first to admit there is a prurient dimension to my personality. Hobnobbing with Hef and the Playmates, I’ve been dreaming of that since I was 15 … err … 12 … whatever, and there are a lot of men — and women — who harbor that very same fantasy. Harold Ford, Jr., what a lucky dog.
Maybe today I’ll wear, as my costume, a silk robe and silk pajamas and trick or treat as Hef. That’s probably as close as I’ll get to touching that dream. I wonder if Kara Monaco, Playmate of the Year, would come along as part of my costume, or maybe Miss August 2003, Colleen Marie ...At any rate, one day I’d like to have an entourage handling the business cards and phone calls, checking the various web sites –
You know, I have over 200 websites bookmarked. That’s insane! If I had Tom Cruise’s salary, someone else would be perusing www.huffingtonpost.com right now making little notations on pertinent talking points so that the next installment of this blog could almost effortlessly spill forth from this Mighty Macintosh in a timely manner –
By-the-by, Tom and Katie are getting married in Italy. Just saw it on MSNBC, CNN and … E! Yes, the confession continues: I watch E! from time-to-time.
Armani is creating all of Tom and Katie’s costumes .. err … fashions for the wedding and rumor has it the ceremony will take place at Armani’s Italian villa and getting an invite is the hottest ticket in Hollywood.
This post has gone way off the reservation here, as the document title is “Man-of-Year.” Just saw the Robin Williams movie on Monday and it is by far one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in some time. Written and directed by Barry Levinson, it’s about a “fake news” talk show host who runs for president and wins!
The film touches on a multitude of issues relevant in today’s political climate and spares neither Democrat nor Republican. Greatest among the failings of Washington is its disconnection from the voters and its allegiance to special interests and lobbyists.
Welcome to the Author’s Fantasy
Friday, on Real Time with Bill Maher, the issue of unreliable voting machines came up and the fact that the powers that be still haven’t corrected all the problems with the computerized system.
Has Diebold secretly promised another Republican victory? If the Democrats don’t at least take control of the House of Representatives, the outcome will be suspect. We need a complete investigation of the computerized system, which won’t occur if the entire Congress stays under the control of the Republican Party.
in the 2000 election, over 16,000 votes for Vice President Al Gore were “lost” and still no explanation of what happened to them. While we were listening to the pundits and politicians talk about hanging chads, Diebold was sending internal technical support memos back and forth about what happened to the Volusia County, Florida votes. To date, we still don’t know what happened.
On election Night 2000 (November 7), at 10 p.m. Florida time, Gore was leading Bush in Volusia County 83,000 to 62,000 — a 21 thousand-vote difference. When Democrat Deborah Tannenbaum checked the numbers 30 minutes later, Gore’s vote count had dropped by 16,000 votes. That’s not hanging chads, the problem was traced to “memory cards,” the plural being an operative notation. There should have been only one memory card in the county’s election system, but mysteriously a second was introduced into the system and just as mysteriously disappeared.
This isn’t just some nut-job conspiracy theory circulating on the “Internets,” it was reported in the Washington Post by Dana Milbank on November 12, 2000.
There is a lot we need to be concerned with come November 7. When we should be discussing issues like Iraq, the number one issue with a vast majority of America’s voters, we are dealing with the possibility that once again an election will be stolen through the manipulation of electronic voting machines.
In 2004 when exit polls had Senator John Kerry beating President Bush by a large margin, the results of the Ohio count delivered the state to Bush-Cheney. Besides the lack of adequate voting facilities for inner city voters (some waited eight hours and more to vote), computer “glitches” were the most prominent of voting irregularities reported, not only in Ohio, but across the Nation.
Regardless of what all the national polls indicate, I’m skeptical until the results are in. I’ve never believed Bush won in 2000 or 2004. In 2000 the Supreme Court delivered the election to Bush-Cheney and in 2004, election fraud and mismanagement handed that election to the Republicans.
This administration, which has now suspended Habeas Corpus and promotes torture as a way to interrogate prisoners, is an illegitimate government. Someone needs to be held accountable, for this and a multitude of other crimes. But, if the Democrats don’t wrest control of Congress from the Republicans, the perpetrators will go unchallenged, vindicated even, assured that Democracy, once our truest of values, no longer stands in the way of keeping power.
Calendar
Quicksearch
Archives
Categories
AD Links
Referrals
Syndicate This Blog
Blog Administration
Powered by
TheForkesReport