I wish I could stop checking, but I can't. Florida looks BAD now, with 25% of precincts in, Bush is ahead by 200k. Guess it depends on what counties have been counted as to whether or not K can come back down there. Fla/Pa/Oh are fucking with me bad right now.
Bunning going down? Cool. Tannenbaum hanging in. Keyes done. But Senate picture making me nervous.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Shit
Early numbers in Senate races look pretty awful, with Daschle losing (I can't really route for his wet noodle ass anyhow), Bunning winning, and a Rep pickup in NC. Could be 53 (R) 46 (D) 1 (I) when all said in done. That SUCKS, even if Kerry wins. Of course, this is way too early to call.
We'll have to wait until '06...
We'll have to wait until '06...
Sick. Actually SICK of this.
It'll be over soon--please, God. It may be over by 8pm this evening, if Fla and Pa go Bush I think it's done (unless WVA and VA go Kerry). I can't stand it. I don't want to hear any numbers or know anything, and yet I surf all the 'blogs and flip the cable channels for any indication of how things are going.
I'm hyper-agitated by this; I saw someone from Westminster MD had emailed CNN this morning saying it didn't matter who won, because we could put a potato(e) in the White House and we'd be OK. Wish I could be so cavalier, and say "fuck it all." Instead I feel like punching things and rolling around on the floor.
Voted at 9:40am at Towson High (home of Michael Phelps, the Golden General). For the first time since I've been voting there (1994, I believe) I was in a line. I waited about 40 minutes to get up to the Diebold machine, and I didn't trust it at all. I saw a former co-worker/employee from Borders standing in line with her daughter. I got an email that another former borders employee had a baby--with photos of said baby in an anti-W. shirt. Go Minnessota!
It's going to be a long night. I think I'm cancelling my class tomorrow and drinking lots of wine after work.
I actually have stuff to do today, but screw it. I've got a meeting in 20 minutes and that eats a big chunk out of the productive part of my day--my student tonight is incapable of running the desk alone, so I'll be anchored there anyhow.
Anchored there, surfing the exit polls and blogs and media sites. Ugh.
I'm hyper-agitated by this; I saw someone from Westminster MD had emailed CNN this morning saying it didn't matter who won, because we could put a potato(e) in the White House and we'd be OK. Wish I could be so cavalier, and say "fuck it all." Instead I feel like punching things and rolling around on the floor.
Voted at 9:40am at Towson High (home of Michael Phelps, the Golden General). For the first time since I've been voting there (1994, I believe) I was in a line. I waited about 40 minutes to get up to the Diebold machine, and I didn't trust it at all. I saw a former co-worker/employee from Borders standing in line with her daughter. I got an email that another former borders employee had a baby--with photos of said baby in an anti-W. shirt. Go Minnessota!
It's going to be a long night. I think I'm cancelling my class tomorrow and drinking lots of wine after work.
I actually have stuff to do today, but screw it. I've got a meeting in 20 minutes and that eats a big chunk out of the productive part of my day--my student tonight is incapable of running the desk alone, so I'll be anchored there anyhow.
Anchored there, surfing the exit polls and blogs and media sites. Ugh.
Monday, November 01, 2004
Mais, non!
I certainly wouldn't put much past the Bush Administration, but this stretches credulity. If the French special forces really had OBL in sight, why would they ask the US for permission to capture him? Why wouldn't NATO have used this as leverage earlier against the Iraq campaign? Sounds bogus to me. Of course, I wasn't there.
Les Français auraient pû arrêter Ben Laden
Emphases mine.
Les Français auraient pû arrêter Ben Laden
Les français auraient pu capturer Oussama Ben Laden en Afghanistan, mais les Américains préfèrent qu'il reste en liberté : c'est en tout cas ce que croit savoir les spécialistes du renseignement. A l'instar d'Eric Denécé. Le directeur du Centre français de recherches sur le renseignement était l'invité de Jean-Michel Aphatie, lundi matin sur RTL. Selon lui, les forces spéciales françaises ont approché le leader d'Al-Qaïda suffisamment près pour l'observer à la jumelle, autrement dit, à 1.000 ou 1.500 mètres avec un matériel très perfectionné. Mais ils n'ont rien fait sur ordre des Américains.
Ce sont des informations tout à fait fiables. Au printemps dernier, les forces spéciales françaises ont en effet approché Ben Laden. A deux reprises, à deux endroits différents dans un périmètre de 50 kilomètres carrés, dans la région de Kandahar. Les Français l'ont suivi à la trace, alors qu'il faisait des haltes dans certains villages de cette zone désertique, manifestement pour se reposer ou se ravitailler. On a encore pu établir à cette occasion, et c'est assez précis, que le chef d'Al-Qaïda dispose d'une garde rapprochée assez légère et très mobile, toujours les mêmes hommes, des talibans. Ou encore que l'Egyptien Ayman al-Zawihiri, qui est son adjoint, le théoricien d'Al-Qaïda, ne se déplace jamais à ses côtés. Tout ces renseignements avaient bien sûr été transmis au commandement américain qui, il ne faut pas l'oublier, supervise l'action des militaires français.
Alors, pourquoi les Américains ne capturent-ils pas ou n'éliminent-ils pas Oussama Ben Laden ? Eux-mêmes ne répondent pas à cette question... Et quand on leur dit : "Mais vous l'aviez, vous pouviez le capturer !", c'est toujours le silence qui l'emporte. Au printemps dernier, si les Américains n'ont pas bougé, c'est très probablement parce qu'ils ne souhaitaient pas que les Français tirent le bénéfice d'une telle opération. Ils ont donc gelé toute action. Mais il y a d'autres hypothèses : celle que Ben Laden localisé, suivi, est devenu une précieuse source d'informations, plus utile vivant que mort. Un "objectif sous contrôle", comme disent les militaires. On sent bien toutefois que tout cela ne peut pas s'éterniser, et que cette traque va sans doute connaître un nouveau tournant, une fois passées les élections américaines.
Emphases mine.
Prediction
Kerry in an electoral vote landslide--and we'll know by 11pm tomorrow night. The Senate will be tied 50-50 after Barney Frank wins Kerry's vacated MASS Senate seat in a special election this winter, making VP Edwards the deciding vote, but his vote will rarely be necessary because McCain/Snowe/Collins/Chafee will caucus with the Democrats, and Hagel will occasionally jump in as well. The House will stay Red but the Blues will pick up 7 or 8 seats. I'm basing this on nothing other than hope, and my own biased reading of certain indicators, and readings of others' spinning of said indicators.
I gleefully look forward to having a new President. I'll start trashing his ass as soon as he takes office.
If I'm wrong, and W. is again The Guy, I'll buy a shack in Alaska and get a gig on a fishing boat for 5k a month--they're about to legalize weed up there and I'm ready to drop the fuck out for the next four years. I can read Gibbon and Plutarch and think about how little things have changed. When they start digging in ANWAR I'll go detonate myself in protest, or at least I'll quote de Beauvoir at the fuckers:
I gleefully look forward to having a new President. I'll start trashing his ass as soon as he takes office.
If I'm wrong, and W. is again The Guy, I'll buy a shack in Alaska and get a gig on a fishing boat for 5k a month--they're about to legalize weed up there and I'm ready to drop the fuck out for the next four years. I can read Gibbon and Plutarch and think about how little things have changed. When they start digging in ANWAR I'll go detonate myself in protest, or at least I'll quote de Beauvoir at the fuckers:
Il y avait un mot qui revenait souvent dans la bouche des adultes: c’est inconvenant. Le contenu en était quelque peu incertain. Je lui avais d’abord attribué un sens plus ou moins scatalogique.
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