Bush OKs Appalachian Disaster

President Bush took action this week with more than 90 new laws deregulating rules put in place for public safety. He approved measures which will insure dirty drinking water, dirty air and decreased counter-terror operations.

The Washington Post reported on the story Thursday. Removing rules governing the "mountaintop removal" method of coal mining means more coal slurry will end up in drinking water in the Appalachian region. It's a haphazard approach blurred into "energy policy" actions which in reality dumps more waste, increases health problems, and destroys the Appalachian region.

The destruction has been widespread for some time and these new laws will make it worse:

"Almost everything that isn't coal is pushed down into the valleys below. As a result, 6,700 "valley fills" were approved in central Appalachia between 1985 and 2001. The U.S. EPA estimates that over 700 miles of healthy streams have been completely buried by mountaintop removal and thousands more have been damaged. Where there once flowed a highly braided system of headwater streams, now a vast circuitry of haul roads winds through the rubble. From the air, it looks like someone had tried to plot a highway system on the moon."

Why is it OK to punish the Appalachian region?

"Urban affluence and this country's shortsighted energy policy are making Appalachia a poorer place -- poorer in beauty, poorer in health, poorer in resources, and poorer in spirit.

"This wouldn't go on in New England," Jack Spadaro told me last July, up at Larry Gibson's place. It wouldn't go on in California, nor Florida, nor along the East Coast. After the '60s, America and the mainstream media seemed to lose interest in the problems of Appalachia. Though the Martin County slurry pond disaster was 20 times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill, The New York Times ignored it for months. But the seeming invisibility of the people in Appalachia does not make their plight any less real."

The blog Facing South has been following this problem for some time with posts you can read here. Just as residents and other concerned groups have been bringing these issues to light, the new laws provided by President Bush will bury them under tons of debris and changing the law to protect the lives of so many will now take major Congressional and Presidential efforts to repeal. In the meantime, money trumps safety and more of our region will be lost forever in this greedy struggle.

Camera Obscura: Weirdest Halloween Candy; Scariest Halloween Ever

The fear is palpable. Ominous winds blow cold and harsh, and bitter despair and endless melodrama mark the last days of the 2008 presidential election. Change - of any kind - awaits us as we move away from the bleak failures of the past 8 years and it grips voters whose future Fates continue to be just unknown and unknowable. Nov. 4th is the scariest day of this year for some.

Whispered rumors of the Democrats reaching for elected authority turn now to shrieks of sheer horror as The End approaches. The horror, the horror. A prophecy of secret socialism and grim predictions of the end of Boy Scouting and the Rise of Gayness chill the barely beating heart of the Republican party. It's cheesy overacting worthy of the most amateurish B-movies ever made.Yes, Halloween '08 has dire shadows made by voting machines and not by hordes of costumed creatures wandering the streets in search of sweets.

Even the candy one might receive for trick or treats seems odd this year - more than usual.

The list of the Weirdest Halloween Candy includes such items as:

Spider Sacs

Flesh Fries and Chili Fingers

Zit Poppers

A full list and review of these oddities can be found here. And trust me, I did not show images on this page of the really nasty stuff (that might be chocolate in that diaper, but I would not eat it.)
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Here are a few more treats for you this Halloween:

A vast collection of some classic, some new and some just awful horror movies are yours for free viewing at Fancast. From "Night of the Living Dead" to "Blacula" and "The Giant Gila Monster" are here and many more.
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A fine list of more obscure scares to view at Bloody Disgusting.
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The Ultimate Mystery Science Theater 3000 collection is now available.
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And finally, the effects of staking a vampire - remember to put down some newspapers on the floor first:

Horrifying Sounds of Halloween

Looking for hauntingly good music for Halloween?

A good start for classic and brand new tunes can be found at YouLicense, which offers music by category tags. From Bach's Toccata Fugue in D Minor to the spooky lyrics of Green Man's "Tell Mama." Link.

The same site also includes musical selections based on what your weather might be, your momentary mood, by many categories and styles. Check them out.

Many famous horror movies get revisited for Halloween, and the soundtracks which accompany them often make indelible impressions on audiences. While Bernard Herrmann earns high marks for his work on Hitchcock's movies, like "Psycho" and John Carpenter's theme for "Halloween" is as famous as the film, one of my favorites was James Bernard.

Bernard scored just about all the great ones from the Hammer Films - sweeping and epic orchestrations which stab and sting, often rolling with thunderous drums and still able to at times evoke pastoral scenes or mysterious gothic shadows. Here's a brief compilation of some of his work:

Large Early Voting In Hamblen County

Today, for the first time ever, I had to wait in line to cast my ballot. Estimated turnout is going to easily pass the number of votes cast county-wide in the February primary which saw 40.8% of voters going to the polls.

The state has county by county totals here. Hamblen County started this day at just over 11,000 votes cast, and judging by the long line of 50 or so folks around noon today, the county may set a record turnout for the 2008 race. Local ballot issues are driving voters to the polls as well.

First is another attempt by the city to adopt a liquor-by-the-drink ordinance, which failed by around 200 votes a few years back. Hard-line opposition has been quite strong and I suspect the referendum will fail by an even larger margin this time. I would dearly love to be wrong about that.

The other ballot referendum is for county residents on approving or rejecting a .25% sales tax increase. The measure failed in February, and then was passed this summer in the city. I'd say this is going to be close, but since most residents who shop are paying extra when they shop locally anyway, it may just win this time around. However, it doesn't seem fair to me to place a proposed tax increase on the ballot again and again in the same year, putting more and more pressure on those who said No to change their vote to Yes. But it happens often in our area, so my best projection says it will pass this time around.

This county will send a big majority of votes to John McCain, without a doubt. Sen. Clinton took the primary here with over 68% of the vote and Obama earning 22%. Will the Clinton supporters close ranks and support Obama? Most likely, yes. But a large conservative base turnout among church-goers who are fighting the liquor-by-the-drink referendum will all go for McCain, and he'll take the county. McCain will carry the state, too, but outside of Tennessee there's mostly gains for Obama and losses for McCain. (Just my observations on national polls - your view will differ, I'm sure.)

Republicans in the county will also send a good chunk of votes to 1st Congressional District candidate Phil Roe - but I expect Democrat Rob Russell will gain sizable majorities in some larger counties. However, his victory among the smaller counties in the district is unlikely - 130 years of a solid Republican grip on that Congressional seat is nearly impossible to change. However, I think Russell has the best chance of any candidate in many decades in changing that long-running status. My projection is their race is too close to call. Russell has to win Washington and Sullivan counties and at least one other smaller county.

I did notice that all in line with me today were being quite friendly, and many spoke of how good it was to see a large turnout.

Also, I will be live-blogging the returns from Hamblen County and other east TN counties on Tuesday and updating often with results.

Science and Learnin' Be All Evil, Says Palin/McCain

Perhaps one day we could apply some scientific methodology and discover how serious-minded people in 2008 really supported the Palin nomination and whispered dreams of her future presidency. I get the feeling should she ever gain actual authority, Science will be outlawed.

In a recent stump speech, she said more could be done for special needs children, like those suffering from autism, by stopping the funding of what she called "fruit fly research' which does little or nothing for the public good. The research she sneered at (as crowds cheer the sneer) in fact has helped identify specific proteins on nerve-cell connections, and offers possible advances in, among other things, autism. So her plan to promote research to alleviate suffering from autism is to end research which could alleviate suffering from autism.

With that kind of bold policy decision, she must just be double-plus-good Smart in ways Science cannot measure.

Her would-be boss, John McCain, also can't grasp either truth or education or science. He made a catchy campaign blurb to make fun of Sen. Obama's request for financial aid for the planetarium in Chicago, calling it a wasteful cost for an "overhead projector". Wrong.

First, he claims the proposal cost 3 million dollars when it really was for 4.8 million dollars. Second, the measure never passed, and third, the item sought was:

"The one-ton, 10-feet-long instrument is the central component of the Adler, the first planetarium ever built in the Western Hemisphere. It projects the night sky on the dome of the Sky Theater at the planetarium, which has hosted more than 35 million people since it opened, including more than 400,000 schoolchildren every year. In fact, the request -- made by Obama along with others in the Illinois congressional delegation, including three Republicans -- wasn't granted.

If it had been, it wouldn't have been a waste of government money. The National Academy of Sciences has targeted science education as a key goal in preserving the economic competitiveness of our nation. Similar "overhead projectors" in Los Angeles and New York have recently been replaced with the help of federal funds."

Hoo-boy.

At this rate, I'd expect them to start demanding NASA use diet Coke and Mentos as propulsion systems in the space program.

Synchronized Presidential Debating

TN Takes Spotlight in Plot to Assassinate Obama

I'm still learning and reading about the two men who were arrested and charged with federal crimes, including a plot to attack and kill schoolchildren and a plot to attack and kill presidential candidate Obama. While the allegations of the plot might seem too weird and half-crazed to ever succeed, these two gun-toting men wanted to shoot and decapitate fellow Americans, even children, expecting to die in the process of an act that qualifies as terrorism.

Oddly, only a few months ago, a lone gunman, deranged on hate, targeted children and "liberal Democrats" in the heart of Knoxville at the shooting at the Unitarian Universalist Church. Murderous rage fed by the constant barrage of talk radio's hateful accusations against our own countrymen, our neighbors and their children are the actions of the mentally unhinged, of course. Sad to see that Tennessee is the place where such events unfold.

The Tennessee Republican party issued an odd statement yesterday afternoon, saying they are victims of hate too, which prompted Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly blog to write:

"There's an odd tendency in some far-right circles for conservatives to feel like they're victims of some kind of persecution. The problem with this bizarre complex, though, is that a) it's absurd; and b) it leads to ridiculous comparisons like this one from the Tennessee Republican Party. The statement seems to argue, "Sure, white supremacists planned a killing spree, but everyone should feel sorry for us because we've been targeted, too."

The Tennessee GOP really sees a parallel between a crude piece of art, random vandalism, and a plot to kill more than a hundred children and a presidential candidate. In Robin Smith's eyes, there's some kind of equivalency between the three. This is pure madness.

This is, of course, the same Tennessee Republican Party that's been so extreme in its vile attacks against Obama that McCain and GOP lawmakers felt the need to condemn them.

We'll see if there's any pushback against Robin Smith's breathtaking press release."

Other observations I have made in the last year are likewise disturbing. As Senator Obama rose to prominence, I began to encounter many who I have long-considered friends, repeating much of the pure lies and vile hatred circulating in email lists and weird web-sites, which stand as blatant racist attacks. In recent weeks, I have overheard and been part of conversations where this madness seems to have taken deep root. It's sad to see how many have been prone to listen and to believe the nonsense, though it has surely been instructive to me, revealing much fear and loathing for non-white residents of the U.S. It's always been there, it's just more visible these days.

But that's a sad revelation. As Newscoma writes in West TN, just a few miles from Bells, TN, "Hate is a scary thing."

It is of little surprise that the Senator decided not to campaign in Tennessee. I wouldn't be surprised to learn he may have even been warned the risks of attack were to high here and not to visit at all.

Sen. Southerland Talks Taxes, Gets Burned

A local rally for the McCain/Palin ticket in Greeneville last week is getting attention due to comments from GOP State Senator Steve Southerland and his take on the economy. ACK picked up the report of the rally in the Greeneville Sun, and commenters on ACK's post are blistering the senator.

"Three words: What … an … idiot."

What has readers riled up? Comments like these from Sen. Southerland, who works as a mortgage broker:

"If, for example, he said, Obama raises the taxes on Therese Heinz Kerry, wife of U.S. Sen. John Kerry and a major owner of Heinz products, she would be likely to raise the price of Heinz ketchup, which in turn could cause McDonald’s to raise the price of a hamburger that includes ketchup.

In that way, and many other ways, “It will hurt the average person” if the taxes on the upper 5 percent are raised, Southerland said."

Um. What?

Is that somehow supposed to link Kerry with Obama, or Obama with the Ketchup Lobbyists? Since the Senator isn't in an election cycle, he isn't going to get much press these days.

Here's what I take from the Republican Senator's views: it sounds like a threat to me to say if you increase taxes on the top earners, they will punish every other taxpayer. If all tax costs (and any increases) on the top 5% of income-earners are ALWAYS passed on to the other 95% of taxpayers via higher prices paid for goods and services, then the top never, ever carries their weight and expects the poorer folks to do it for them.

Ashley Todd Busted In A UT Vols Sweatshirt

Those poor UT sports fans. Here in the midst of their season of losses, yet another national political scandal arrives to pour salt on their wounds. The apparent liar, one of a long line of Blame A Black Guy Crimes, Ashley Todd, was a campaign 'volunteer' and has the bright orange clothes to prove it.

Ashley was a member of a group called 50 College Republicans campaigning for Sen. John McCain and whipped up a rabid fury in the Conservative base by claiming she was attacked by a big scary black guy who carved a B on her face (um, it's backwards) 'cause scary imaginary guy was a supporter for Sen. Barack Obama. (Why not an "O"?? It won't show up backwards even when self-inflicted.)

And when police arrested her for faking a police report, what is she wearing? A nice bright UT orange shirt (image via AP):



Ouch!!

And on a weekend when the poor ol' vols got slammed by their rival Alabama 29-3.

She and her College Republican pals promo their presidential hopes (and schemes?) on a site called Life in The Field.

More details on that site and more on Todd here.

And who sent this hoax story high on the hit parade of liars charts - why the GOP's nominees, McCain and Palin, who both personally called the woman to console her. Even Fox News reported that if the story was a hoax, then the McCain campaign was officially over.

Still waiting on that report.

Camera Obscura: Friday the Infinite 13th; Gone of the Dead; "Lost" Returns

From "Gone of the Dead"

"No, I don't think I will eat your brain, although you need your brain eaten, badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should have your brain eaten and often, and by someone who knows how."



That's from a blog called Cinema Styles, and I had much appreciation for a short they produced too, for Universal's monsters, with the simple title of "Beautiful Monsters". After more than 70 years, these images and performances remain the most compelling created in horror films. In another 70 years, these images will continue to be among the best ever made.


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A new re-boot to the "Friday The 13th" movie series is on the way and what I saw in the trailer really did not impress. Let's be honest - the campy destruction of destructive campers at Crystal Lake by various incarnations and impersonations of one Jason Vorhees have never offered too much more than a momentary thrill. This ain't yer cinematic art form. This is low-budget cheese, though it is excellent low-budget cheese. (For the record, since Michael Bay is the producer here, I fully expect someone/something to explode and if it doesn't, I will be sorely disappointed as that is what Bay does best.)

While doing much movie-promo work for Carmike Cinemas in the 1980s here in Morristown, I hosted numerous "Friday The 13th" openings with contests and prizes and midnight premieres and by far, the crowds of folks sitting quietly in their seats under the dim lights while wearing blood-soaked clothes, holding onto machetes and wearing hockey masks remain in my brain as some of the scariest things I've ever seen. They were just so quiet and well behaved it was truly frightening.

At Cinematical, they offer up An Obsessive-Compulsive's Guide To The Friday-13th Movies, which includes this nugget of information:

"Finally, and most disturbingly, four of the 10 films feature men wearing Daisy Duke shorts. Was this acceptable in the 1980s?"

For myself, the best moment in the series comes in "Jason X", or as I like to call it, "Jason Goes To Outer Space", when the fleeing space station folks distract (a newly cyberized) Jason by cranking up the space station holo-deck and programming it to run images of his old campground and some 80s-era camper-babes who want to party. And poor Jason can't resist and can't figure out what the heck is happening.

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MOVIE NEWS

A brief run for "Toxic Avenger: The Musical".

The makers of the "Saw" movies get the go-ahead to remake a stack of RKO/Val Lewton classics, like "The Body Snatcher" and "I Walked With A Zombie".

Hugh Jackman and Catherine Zeta-Jones to star in a 3-D Musical version of Cleopatra.

Finally, finally, we approach a new season, the 5th, for "Lost". When last we left our heroes, the entire island vanished. This season ... Spock and Gilligan help the Scooby-Gang return to Witch Mountain thanks to a new Knight Rider Car driven by Batman and Dracula. Well, hey, you don't believe me? Watch the trailer right here!

Politics Past and Present

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
Napoleon I. Bonaparte

Politics, noun. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
Ambrose Bierce

The one thing that would have made this presidential election a bit more sensible would be if the public and the press had paid the current constant critical attention to the last 8 years. Pretty much all that needs fixing now was tattered right before our eyes.

A Zombie Love Song for Halloween

It isn't often a pop music band combines a fondness for 80s horror movies (like "The Evil Dead") with the bliss of a first romance ... is it?

In honor of the upcoming holiday, the ever-growing fame of zombie movies, and a great need of silliness in general, I present the band Codavita, and their first single and first video - "In Love With Fear". It's an infectious tune and by far the best Halloween song of 2008.

The Miley Cyrus-Sarah Palin Tennessee Hacking Conspiracy

Our humble li'l ol' country state makes the headlines for computer hacking again. First, it was the vice presidential candidate who was hacked and now it's pop star Miley Cyrus.

"A 19-year-old hacker who published provocative photos of teen queen Miley Cyrus earlier this year was raided by the FBI Monday morning in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

The hacker, named Josh Holly, repeatedly bragged online about breaking into the Disney star's e-mail account and stealing her photos. He also gave interviews to bloggers and others and boasted that authorities would never find him because he moved so often. [Last month Holly contacted Threat Level seeking to have an article written about him here.]

But this morning the FBI did find him and, after talking with him for more than an hour about his exploits, served him with a search warrant and a list of items to be seized (which was posted at the hacking site digitalgangster.com after Holly showed it to a friend)."

Dang, we is modern.

Are You A "Real American"?

It was most strange watching The Daily Show on Monday night, since Jon Stewart and his staff pretty much copied my post from Sunday. Of course, I think my attempt to write about it was more feeble, and their version was a heck of a lot funnier.

However, this concept of real America vs. fake America, that a smaller town is inherently better than a larger town, that your choice during an election is framed purely by Good America vs. Evil America is an enormous denial of reality and a fervent embrace of the worst of human attributes. It's a tactic of creating an enemy to blame for every ill, a simplistic worldview with dangerous consequences.

Encoding political debate with such ideas has many historical precedences, none of them any good.

"One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves."

Destroying America To Save It

A nation divided into a maze of minor and major annoyances - or worse, along purely angry and arbitrary imaginings - has emerged as the current snake-oil and cure-all the hucksters of the Republican party are selling to us all. (It's an old GOP trick, really. Just refer to the "dirty tricks" of the Nixon campaign led by folks like Donald Segretti ... who was, believe it or not, a campaign co-chair for John McCain in Orange County in the 2000 campaign.)

By no means do I suggest that the Democrat Party somehow stands like a lone stalwart paladin on a sun-drenched hill. But I'm consistently seeing examples that there's something akin to a heinous desire that an America tattered and torn by divisions is the preference of the Republican party should they lose to Senator Obama.

The slow-bubbling poisonous brew has long been cooking. Careers are made by these chefs who endlessly season their pot-stirring with the chant "the other side hates you, hates your families, hates America." The bellow their thunders across radio and television via the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Laura Inghram, G. Gordon Liddy, and on and on. Their anti-two party system philosophy begets simple slogans, such as those of the best-selling books of Ann Coulter - "Slander", "Treason", "Godless" -- all dire warnings (often plagarized and larded with pure fiction) that non-Republicans have distorted the entire history of the nation, eviscerated your belief systems, and secretly plot to educate the nation into some kind of hive of marxist-socialist drones.

She tends these days to temper her hatred with a dismissive comment that she's just "an entertainer, I'm only joking, folks!" Which is yet another lie of course - as she told Human Events in 2007:

"Christianity fuels everything I write. Being a Christian means that I am called upon to do battle against lies, injustice, cruelty, hypocrisy—you know, all the virtues in the church of liberalism.

"Church of Liberalism" is a phrase and a concept which she invented with a dual purpose: to make money and instill the notion of a holy war she wants to take place in America. As with all the other talking heads mentioned above, they are faithful followers in the Church of Consumerism: they're only in it for the money and the power money provides. They are anti-science and pro-superstition.

As this current presidential race has shown, fomenting fear and hatred within America and for elected officials remain the only tools many Republicans can wield.

V.P. candidate Sarah Palin this week told a rally of supporters in North Carolina:

"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation."


Her words reveal a blatant, elitist snobbery. As writer/comedian Sarah Vowell said on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart this week - the East Coast, with cities like Manhattan and Washington, D.C. were seen as properly American cities by the terrorists of Al Queda on Sept. 11th.

Is it any wonder her supporters make death threats against Senator Obama? Her message is clear - good Americans must defeat bad Americans by any and all means necessary.

Other Republicans are pushing this propaganda too, like McCain campaign adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer, who says that “real Virginia” does not include Northern Virginia:

"I certainly agree that Northern Virginia has gone more Democratic. … But the rest of the state — real Virginia if you will — I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain’s message."

MSNBC host Kevin Corke gave Pfotenhauer a chance to revise her answer, telling her: “Nancy, I’m going to give you a chance to climb back off that ledge — Did you say ‘real Virginia’?”

But Pfotenhauer didn’t budge, and instead dug a deeper hole.

"Real Virginia, I take to be, this part of the state that’s more Southern in nature, if you will."

Sen. McCain's brother recently called sections of Virginia "Communist country".

Echoing the paranoid delusions of Senator Joe McCarthy, a Minnesota Congressman Michele Bachmann announced this week that an investigation needs to be held in congress itself to root out the anti-Americans who hold office there right now. I half-expected her to wave a piece of paper at the camera, a la McCarthy, and proclaim "I have a list right here of Communists in the Congress!"

Rep. Bachmann, often echoing talking points she hears via Limbaugh, claimed recently that wildlife and caribou in Alaska find warmth by huddling near oil pipelines, "The pipeline has now become a meeting ground and “coffee klatch” for the caribou."

Again, no science, no fact, nothing but superstition and catchy phrases meant to garner momentary mention on the news, fuel the ravings of lie-filled emails, and insure that many Americans eye each other with violent distrust. Just wink at 'em, youbetcha, but never doubt them Democrats are dangerous.

If a wounded animal can be capable of wanton destruction, the waning Conservative Republican may seek to wreak the same kind of damage on us all.

Camera Obscura: Dance of The Dead Arrives; Palin Lands Sitcom?; Tarantino's WW2

For many months now I have been crowing with delight about my brother, who landed a part as a zombie extra in the horror/comedy "Dance of The Dead", filmed last summer in north Georgia. In addition to gaining fantastic reviews, the best news this week is that you can rent/buy it right now on DVD at yer favorite video/DVD outlet. So here's a preview ... and just kept telling yourself, it's only a high school zombie movie, it's only a high school zombie movie:


Dance of the Dead 2008
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Move over, Tina Fey and Saturday Night Live. Sarah Palin is aiming for her very own TV series, called "Cadillac Ranch". The set-up for the show is revealed here:

" ... it's about a female character who's a mayor in this town with the crazy family and the kids and the stay-at-home dad, and everyone couldn't help but think of Sarah Palin now that they've read it."

With her hilarious catch-phrase ('You Betcha!"), she might just make it. I suggest the producers add-in a Russian neighbor whose house is right next door.

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There is one and only one reason to read the magazine Entertainment Weekly - Stephen King's column. But Star Trek fans must have felt like they were "goin' down to Eden, brother" this week with the release of the full cast photos for the new "Star Trek" movie. My only thought when reading/seeing the tale via Cinematical was "Sylar is Spock"???

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Brad Pitt is taking the lead in the long-rumoured-and-now-finally-in-production of Quentin Trantino's World War II action tale "Inglourious Basterds" (that's Q.T.'s spelling of the title). And what's next for the action star -- would ya believe ... an outer-space version of Homer's "The Odyssey"? Rumor's say that "Road Warrior" director George Miller. Pitt is also slated to be a producer for the movie ... see, it starts out when this gang of apes gets lost on their way home from Troy and hitch a ride on a boat helmed by an insane Cap'n HAL ....

Speaking of Mr. Pitt, the most recent release date for the unusual romantic tale of a child born as an old man who ages backwards into youth "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", directed by the multi-talented David Fincher , is now slated for Jan. 2009. A spectacular preview is here.

At Long Last, Have You No Sense of Decency?

The McCain plan for the presidency seems to hold fiction higher and higher above fact.

As Senator Barack Obama continues to gain support on a national level, American are left to endure the constant barrage of childish - perhaps even dangerous - fearful whining via the talking heads on right-wing radio and television, and even on the GOP (aka FOX network) campaign trail which evoke a witless desperation, akin to the whimpering cries of a bully who runs from a confrontation bellowing "this ain't over yet!"

For example, the surreal rantings of Rush Limbaugh (whose talent he claims was loaned to him by God):

"[African-Americans] have been training young black kids to hate, hate, hate this country, and they trained their parents before that to hate, hate, hate this country. It was a movement."
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" ... it has been part of an entire movement that has been going on for two, maybe three decades, right under our noses."

Then there is more nonsense, designed to evoke panic and fear via Sean Hannity, who cheers the philosophies of Andy Martin:

"But an appearance in a documentary-style program on the Fox News Channel watched by three million people last week thrust the man, Andy Martin, and his past into the foreground. The program allowed Mr. Martin to assert falsely and without challenge that Mr. Obama had once trained to overthrow the government.

An examination of legal documents and election filings, along with interviews with his acquaintances, revealed Mr. Martin, 62, to be a man with a history of scintillating if not always factual claims. He has left a trail of animosity — some of it provoked by anti-Jewish comments — among political leaders, lawyers and judges in three states over more than 30 years.

He is a law school graduate, but his admission to the Illinois bar was blocked in the 1970s after a psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.”

As for his background, he said: “I’m a colorful person. There’s always somebody who has a legitimate cause in their mind to be angry with me.”When questions were raised last week about Mr. Martin’s appearance and claims on “Hannity’s America” on Fox News, the program’s producer said Mr. Martin was clearly expressing his opinion and not necessarily fact."

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And there's this (now removed web site comments) screed from Sacramento Republicans:

"Sacramento County Republican leaders Tuesday took down offensive material on their official party Web site that sought to link Sen. Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden and encouraged people to "Waterboard Barack Obama" – material that offended even state GOP leaders."
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Taking credit for the site (sacramentorepublicans.org) and its content was county party chairman Craig MacGlashan – husband of Sacramento County Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan.

But he defended his Web site. "I'm aware of the content," he said. "Some people find it offensive, others do not. I cannot comment on how people interpret things."

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More on the ludicrous Hannity/Martin madness:

"As noted above, I put excerpts from some of Martin's filings below the fold. I thought it might be a good idea to provide some context that would allow you to assess his credibility. If crazed and ugly anti-Semitic ravings upset you, do not read them.

The Myths of Voter Fraud

It appears very little in the way of actual facts or consistent information is needed to whip up a frantic panic on behalf of talking heads and GOP pundits who wail about voting fraud. (Of course, many of these same fervent faithful are repeating such myths while demanding Sen. Obama is a terrorist and treasonous Destroyer of Worlds.) (NOTE: R. Neal has more on this sad tactic.)

So some facts (sure to be ignored by the anxiety-ridden voter):

Via ProjectVote. org:

• Voter fraud is extremely rare. At the federal level, records show that only 24 people were convicted of or pleaded guilty to illegal voting between 2002 and 2005, an average of eight people a year. The available state-level evidence of voter fraud, culled from interviews, reviews of newspaper coverage and court proceedings, while not definitive, is also negligible.
• The lack of evidence of voter fraud is not because of a failure to codify it. It is not as if the states have failed to detail the ways voters could corrupt elections. There are hundreds of examples drawn from state election codes and constitutions that illustrate the precision with which the states have criminalized voter and election fraud. I f we use the same standards for judging voter fraud crime rates as we do for other crimes, we must conclude that the lack of evidence of arrests, indictments or convictions for any of the practices defined as voter fraud means very little fraud is being committed.
• Most voter fraud allegations turn out to be something other than fraud. A review of news stories over a recent two year period found that reports of voter fraud were most often limited to local races and individual acts and fell into three categories: unsubstantiated or false claims by the loser of a close race, mischief and administrative or voter error.

Via Salon:

"On Sept. 10, the 240,000 Wisconsin voters who had registered by mail since 2006 found their voting status up in the air as the state's attorney general, J.B. Van Hollen -- a McCain campaign co-chair -- sued the state’s Government Accountability Board. In Michigan that same week, Macomb County GOP party chairman James Carabelli told a reporter that he would use publicly available lists of foreclosed home addresses to “make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses.” In early October, the Montana Republican Party challenged the eligibility of 6,000 voters in university towns and heavily Native American counties."

"But Minnite says that the latest Republican uproar over ACORN is part of "a far broader effort to corrode public confidence in the electoral process." Minnite is a co-author of the forthcoming book “Keeping Down the Black Vote: Race and the Demobilization of American Voters" and a research fellow at Demos, a public policy think tank based in New York. She predicts that as Nov. 4 approaches, Republican allegations about voter fraud are certain to continue. Minnite spoke with Salon by phone recently from her office in Manhattan.

Do you believe that voter fraud poses a threat to the validity of American elections?

No. No threat.

The statistics bear me out. From 2002 to 2005 only one person was found guilty of registration fraud. Twenty people were found guilty of voting while ineligible and five people were found guilty of voting more than once. That’s 26 criminal voters -- voters who vote twice, impersonate other people, vote without being a resident -- the voters that Republicans warn about. Meanwhile thousands of people are getting turned away at the polls.

Political parties and corrupt election officials, on the other hand, do seem to present a potential problem. We should be a great deal more worried about who has access to the ballots. In terms of illegal aliens voting and people voting twice -- the popular images of voter fraud -- no I don’t think that there is any risk at all.

How did you come to this conclusion?

It is very difficult to find information on voter fraud. I’m quite fluent with political science data sets, but the more I would look, the less I would find. There was simply no information.

People were also uncooperative. Starting in late 2000 -- under state open-election laws -- I sent letters to all the attorneys general and secretaries of state in the U.S. asking them for statistics on voter fraud and those sorts of election crimes. Pennsylvania said they wouldn’t respond to me because I wasn’t a citizen [of the state]. I got the same from Virginia and Oklahoma. The attorney general of Michigan wanted me to pay $1,400 for the information because "it was going to take this many hours and this outrageous copying fee." I started to realize why there were no studies on the incidence of voter fraud, no criminal justice statistics. I also sent Freedom of Information requests to the Department of Justice. That became a two-year deal of delay and obstruction as well.

Under the “Voting Rights Act of 1965,” the Department of Justice’s Voting Section is legally bound to stop “voting practices and procedures ... that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in a language minority group.” Do you think the Bush administration's Justice Department has fulfilled this mission?

Threatening localities for not taking enough names off voter rolls in reaction to nothing and based on no evidence of fraud -- while increasing the possibility of disenfranchisement -- suggests a department more interested in furthering a political agenda than following that legal outline.

Let’s talk about the Ballot Access and Voting Integrity initiative that was started under Ashcroft in 2002. It was advertised as a program that would combat voter fraud and voter suppression equally. But if you look at the program, it actually was geared almost entirely toward voter fraud. They wanted to see if they could bring cases against individual voters. The [federal] government has spent a lot of money pursuing this over the years and convicted almost no one. Then we hear all this propaganda about how much voter fraud there is.

At the very least the Department of Justice has had its priorities backward. There are thousands of people having trouble casting ballots and the federal government has decided to go after poor people in Milwaukee and Florida to create the impression that there is voter fraud. The U.S. attorney firing scandal made it hard for anyone to claim that the Bush Justice Department wasn’t politicizing voter fraud."

Tennessee Pig Jailed - Again

You never know what type of criminal will earn time in the ol' cross-bar hotel

"Deputies found it in a creek with its mouth duct taped. They’ve even had some jail birds.

“We had some Japanese chickens we found in the wilderness area,” said Harris.

Their latest arrest, a pig.

“The pig actually got out of its pen and was rooting up people’s yards,” said Harris.

This wasn’t the porker’s first offense.

“In fact a few weeks ago, one of my deputies picked it up and drove it around in the back of her cruiser until she could find the owners,” said Harris.

The pig clearly doesn’t like to be penned up or jailed. As soon as deputies put him in this yard the pig was trying to dig out.

“It actually dug down to the footer,” said Sheriff Harris.

Just like any criminal, the sheriff needed to figure out what’s next for the pig, but he couldn’t treat it the same way.

“Of course, there’s no pig court, so we had to deal with it in different ways,” said Sheriff Harris."

I just hope they don't try and serve him bacon for breakfast.

The Youngest Blogger In The USA Celebrates Birthday

Young and vibrant, this blogger is a big fan of playing peek-a-boo and singing songs and watching birds fly. And she has a near-daily chronicle of her many experiences, which are well worth reading for their insight and in inherent adorableness.

She is Tessaroo and her blog is A Day In Her Life.

And please send her a happy birthday wish, as today is her birthday.

I am delighted to be a near-relative and to send her hopes for the very happiest birthday wishes.

BONUS: Here is recent image of Tessaroo in a pumpkin patch as part of the celebration of the season.