In states where Diebold is counting a majority of the votes, Barak Obama has already lost.

Well, it's not quite that simple. True, people can ignore some pretty blatant discrepancies, especially if what little coverage that happens is accompanied by dismissive eye-rolling (ie: 2000, 2004). But they can't just make the numbers up, either.

To be honest, I don't know how much actual vote-count cheating has happened, as opposed to how much affect the various vote-suppression techniques have had. But the thing I find outrageous about Diebold (aka Premier Election solutions [sic]) and other such systems is not so much that they've been used to cheat, but that there's no way of finding out whether they've been used to cheat. There's no meaningful way of checking.

As far as I'm concerned, wherever these systems have ended up in use, it amounts to incompetence, criminality, or both.

In any case, I'm taking polls even less seriously this time around than I usually do. Especially as the "Bradley Effect" can be blamed for polling/voting discrepancies this time.

Careful. One of these days, someone might report you to the SPCS (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Strawmen).

The McCain campaign is now criticizing Obama for planning ahead.

In The Atlantic, Marc Ambinder reports that "Sen. Barack Obama has directed his aides to begin planning for the transition."

A McCain spokesman responded, "Before they’ve even crossed the 50-yard line, the Obama campaign is already dancing in the end zone with a new White House transition team."

First, they criticize Obama for having too many enthusiastic supporters. Now they criticize him for planning ahead. What next? Will they criticize Obama for not dumping his wife for a younger and richer one?

Given the complexity of running a large country and the number of issues we're all facing -- not to mention the mess that Bush et al will likely make of their side of the transition -- planning for a transition can't be started too soon. The implication from the McCain campaign is that McCain hasn't started any planning for the transition, which -- if true -- strikes me as idiotic.

This is the moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons.

Wow. Good news, if he really means it. Who was the last Dem or Repub presidential nominee (presumptive or official) to even mention the possibility of universal nuclear disarmament? It's all very well to get hysterical about Iran's supposed nuclear weapon program, but it's disingenuous to do so without at least acknowledging that the United States has several thousand nuclear weapons.

(And we're still the only ones who've actually used any. Even if you believe it was justified, it's interesting that it so rarely gets brought up. We've used Weapons of Mass Destruction.)

Is it not very bad U.S. flag etiquette to use it as a sign-board?

True.

It's also bad etiquette -- and against the U.S. Flag Code -- to:

- leave the US flag flying at night unless properly illuminated

- use the US flag in advertising

- attach a US flag to a car except "fixed firmly to the chassis or clamped to the right fender" (no flags attached to antennas nor flag stickers allowed)

- use "as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery"

- "be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free"

- embroider the flag "on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard"

In addition, "[t]he flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning."

Feel free to object whenever you see these rules being broken.

The link from my name points to a pdf regarding the federal law.

(Of course, it should be noted that your example was overseas, and as such the people involved are not in U.S. legal jurisdiction ... unlike the millions of people in the U.S. who break this law in various ways. Not that it's ever enforced, for arguably good reasons.)

Believe me, McCain's campaign aren't going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole. They're only too happy that John and Cindy's beginnings get very little scrutiny.

Remember, it was also Republicans who pretended that thinking it was generally a good idea to consult with other countries before going to war was the same as "asking permission".

And it's dumb on so many levels, too. Very impressive, indeed.

Tomorrow, Obama will be in Paris and McCain will be at a McDonald's somewhere eating french ... oops ... freedom fries.

Admit it Joan, even if Bush was getting happy, panty throwing crowds you'd spin it to make it like Bush orchstrated the whole thing.

That's the only way it would've happened.

Well, it's the same kind of guy that was picked to lead the last two times. (Granted, it's arguable that Bush wasn't the guy that America picked to lead ....)

I don't know if it's the way the Obama campaign is playing it or the way it's being covered or both, but to some extent Obama seems to be running as if he's already the President. This resembles their presentation towards the end of the primaries, when Obama was spending less and less time responding to Clinton and more and more time responding to McCain ... more-or-less as if Obama was already the nominee.

It's a neat trick if they can keep pulling it off. Plus, it annoys the hell out of the McCain campaign. Sure, they can bitch and moan about it -- and they do -- but too much bitching and moaning begins to sound like whining.