Why the Democrats did badly tonight

There’s little discernable difference between the parties. Given Republicans and timid little mice pretending to be Republicans, voters have chosen Republicans.

Harsh words? Hey in the 60’s, Democratic Senators actually made loud angry speeches against the war. And if Taft-Hartley looked like it would be invoked in a strike, Democratic Senators would loudly oppose it. Where are they now?

I didn’t hear a peep out of Democrats when Bush threatened to invoke Taft-Hartley on the longshoremans strike. Did you?

The Iraq War? A few Dem Senators opposed it, the rest cravenly went along with Emperor Shrub because golly shucks we can’t appear like we aren’t patriots and besides by voting for war we make the issue go away so we can concentrate on the economy and crooked CEO’s.  How clever of you. Except you forgot to say anything about the economy and Enron, why is this? However be aware, the Iraq innocents who will die because of your vote may not appreciate the deviousness of your (failed) logic.

Exposing the crooked CEO’s and Enron-like thievery? Well that would lead into campaign financing and a whole lot of stuff you, like the Republicans, would prefer never see the light of day.

And now Eric Alterman is wheezing about how Greens are worse than commies and how dare we run candidates.  Eric Eric Eric. Your beloved Democrats care little for your progressive ideals. Were Democrats to run candidates who actually act like Democrats, they might start winning big time.  Don’t blame Greens for the ineptness and corruption in your own party. Besides, Al Gore won, Bush stole it. Focus on that.

The Green Party is the only party that is growing nationwide, all other parties are losing voters. Why do you suppose that is?

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Poll working

Whew, I was a poll inspector today, heading of a team of four pollworkers in a precinct in Encino, California.  A loooong day. 6:30 AM to 9 PM.  And what a convoluted process Calfornia has for processing the votes. Punch card ballots. Arcane procedures for walk-in absentee ballots when they, gasp, forgot the all important outer envelope, as well as numerous procedures for provisional balloting.

Most of which goes away in 2004 or 2005 when L.A. goes to touchscreen voting. Not a moment too soon. The current system involves huge amounts of time-consuming paper shuffling, most of which can be easily computerized.

And it’s true. Old people vote a lot. Most the voters were over 60. Even with that, our precinct had a pathetic turnout of 40%.

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Update

It’ll be a long night. No one is putting much faith in exit polls or Voter News Service. So that means, wait for the votes to be counted.

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Vote!

Posting may be spotty here today until late. I’ll be a pollworker at my local precinct from 7 AM - 8 PM, then on to at a party at Donna Warren’s (Green Party candidate for Lt. Gov) office.

LA County voting locations

For those in LA - vote Yes on Measure B, which will prevent, at least temporarily, several major hospitals from closing. We have a real live health crisis happening here, no joke.

Green Party results nationwide

My predictions:
The Dems pick up a seat or two in the Senate, and maybe the same in the House.

The California Green Party slate polls somewhere between 4-8%.

My thoughts:
What a dismal campaign season. The Republocrats are awash in sleazy money, dirty tricks, and deceptive ads. Nothing of substance was debated. Instead, lots of manufactured personas and devious ad campaigns promising much and saying nothing. All sizzle, no steak.

But you already knew that…

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Yemen missle strike

When a Hellfire laser-guided missile screamed out of an unmanned Predator drone and straight into a car carrying Qaed Sinan Harithi on Sunday, the United States may have violated international law, or it may not have. The answer depends on whether the Yemeni government acceded to the strike, international law experts said Monday.

If Yemen had acceded, wouldn’t the White House have quickly told us?

The United Nations Charter forbids a nation to intervene in the internal affairs of a country with which it is not at war. So unless Yemen agreed to the strike by the CIA drone, the United States acted in violation of the U.N. Charter.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday that Yemen has been acting in close cooperation with the U.S. in the war on terrorism, but he did not say whether the Yemeni government was aware of and had permitted Sunday’s strike.

Ah, there’s the answer, they didn’t agree to it. However, the imperial US under the administration of Emperer Shrub apparently now believes it can bomb whoever they want wherever they want and the law and the rest of the world be damned.

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Israel guilty of war crimes, Amnesty International

Amnesty International said today that there is clear evidence that some of the acts committed by the IDF during Operation Defensive Shield were war crimes.

The report, Israel and the Occupied Territories: Shielded from Scrutiny - IDF violations in Jenin and Nablus, documents serious human rights violations by Israeli forces — unlawful killings; torture and ill-treatment of prisoners; wanton destruction of hundreds of homes sometimes with the residents still inside; the blocking of ambulances and denial of humanitarian assistance; and the use of Palestinian civilians as “human shields”.

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Sharon government going even further right

Ariel Sharon’s minority government survived a series of no-confidence votes in the knesset last night, only to be confronted by a fresh challenge that left the hardline administration looking highly unstable.

It clung to office only because a minority party opposed to a Palestinian state abstained from voting while it seeks a pledge from Israel’s prime minister to take his administration further to the right. <further?>

And just to make sure there’s no possibility of a peaceful Middle East -
Sharon says Iran should be next target after Iraqi War ends.

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Some news to perk up your day

Only technology revolution can save the Earth

Diplomacy has failed – meaning that only a revolutionary advanced technology will save the Earth from relentless global warming driven by greenhouse gas emissions, scientists warned yesterday.

Avoiding a catastrophic effect on climate from the burning of fossil fuels would require political will, international cooperation and huge resources, said the team from a group of American universities. But “no amount of regulation” could solve the problem, they said.

Instead it would need dramatic leaps in technology, such as working fusion reactors, solar panels the size of Manhattan floating in space, and a “global grid” of superconducting power transmission lines to distribute electricity without loss around the world.

Even short-term “defensive” measures – such as removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and burying it in underground reservoirs, or filling the upper atmosphere with reflective molecules, or building a 1,250-mile-wide mirror in space to divert some of the sun’s rays – remain far beyond our capability, said Dr Martin Hoffert, professor of physics at New York University.

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