I listen to the local ABC AM radio affiliate, KGO, fairly often, but I missed Ronn Owens’ show today. Unfortunately. Howard Stern called in to rant at Michael Powell this morning on the air.
KGO has a link to an audio archive of the show on their home page. I’m about to listen to it.
I’ve shied away from making election predictions mostly out of superstition, and party out of a fear of looking like an idiot if I guess wrong. But I am cautiously optimistic about next Tuesday.
That said, here goes:
On the local level, I need to make time to review all the various propositions and figure out how I am going to vote on them all.
Hope it was good for Clinton’s too.
I just wish I could have been there.
UPDATE: Atrios was there, lucky guy. So was Richard Cranium. This is one of those days I wish I still lived on the east coast.
This was probably not the kind of October Surprise the Bushies wanted to see.
Call it poor planning, call it arrogance, call it stupidity — all or the above of none of the above. The long and the short of it is, there was a particularly large cache of very high-end explosives in Iraq that the US government left unguarded after the invasion. 370+ TONS of explosives have vanished.
The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives – used to demolish buildings, produce missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons – are missing from one of Iraq’s most sensitive former military installations.
The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no-man’s land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished after the American invasion last year.
How much damage can that much explosive do?
The bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 used less than a pound of the material of the type stolen from Al Qaqaa
There’s much more. Go read it.
This is so good that I am also going to email it out to all my friends and family. How to make sure your vote counts:
1. If you are newly registered or if you have moved recently, call ahead of Nov. 2 and make sure that you are on the list of registered voters and make sure that you know where you are to vote.
2. Get a sample ballot. Call your county or state election official to request it. Or, check your state’s election website to print one out – especially if your ballot is going to be complex (many referenda) or if you will be using a new voting technology/machine. Study the sample ballot beforehand. Complete the sample ballot with your choices – slowly, quietly and carefully in the privacy of your home or office.
3. Take your sample ballot with you to the polling place. You may bring it with you. This will help you assure that you are voting for whom/what you think you want to vote.
4. Do not vote early morning or evening hours at your polling place. Avoid long lines and crowds — especially in battleground states. Vote mid-day: 10 AM – 4 PM.
5. Know your rights. Every state is required to provide a list of voter’s rights on the sample ballot and at the polling place. If you need help with your voting machine or ballot at your polling place, ask for it You must be given help if you request it. If you have a paper ballot and you make a mistake, call for help immediately from a poll official. You have the right to receive another ballot and to destroy the ballot with the mistake.
6. If your name is not found on the registered voters list at your poll on Election Day or if anything else comes up that prevents you from being able to step into the voting booth, demand a Provisional Ballot. Demand it! You have this right! Your Provisional Ballot may be counted after your registration problem/voter challenge has been cleared up.
7. Take the time to check your ballot before completing your vote. Give a second reading to your ballot before you cast the ballot. If you spot a mistake, call for a poll official.
8. Carry this telephone number with you to the polls: (866) OUR-VOTE [(866) 687-8683]. If you have any problems at the polling place, call the Election Protection hotline at (866) 687-8683. Election Protection is a nationwide program to safeguard your right to cast a ballot on Election Day.
9. Mail or deliver your ballot personally. If you are voting by mail or using an absentee ballot, mail it yourself or hand it in yourself. Don’t, under any circumstances, give it to someone else.
10. Bring valid photo ID with you.
UPDATE: added #10, which was suggested by a respondant after I e-mailed this list out to all and sundry.
My passport recently expired. I should have renewed it sooner:
Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, the Bush administration–specifically, the Department of Homeland Security–has wanted the world to agree on a standard for machine-readable passports. Countries whose citizens currently do not have visa requirements to enter the United States will have to issue passports that conform to the standard or risk losing their nonvisa status.
These future passports, currently being tested, will include an embedded computer chip. This chip will allow the passport to contain much more information than a simple machine-readable character font, and will allow passport officials to quickly and easily read that information. That is a reasonable requirement and a good idea for bringing passport technology into the 21st century.
But the Bush administration is advocating radio frequency identification (RFID) chips for both U.S. and foreign passports, and that’s a very bad thing.
These chips are like smart cards, but they can be read from a distance. A receiving device can “talk” to the chip remotely, without any need for physical contact, and get whatever information is on it. Passport officials envision being able to download the information on the chip simply by bringing it within a few centimeters of an electronic reader.
Unfortunately, RFID chips can be read by any reader, not just the ones at passport control. The upshot of this is that travelers carrying around RFID passports are broadcasting their identity.
Think about what that means for a minute. It means that passport holders are continuously broadcasting their name, nationality, age, address and whatever else is on the RFID chip. It means that anyone with a reader can learn that information, without the passport holder’s knowledge or consent. It means that pickpockets, kidnappers and terrorists can easily–and surreptitiously–pick Americans or nationals of other participating countries out of a crowd.
Since the program is currently in test only I suppose I should renew ASAP so I don’t get stuck with the chip. You might want to check your own passport’s expiration date and see if you’re in a similar boat.