Webb, Allen Too Close to Call - "Democratic challenger James Webb held a slim lead over Republican Sen. George Allen this morning in Virginia's U.S. Senate race, a dramatic and nasty battle that almost certainly will be decided by a recount next month."
South Dakotans Reject Tough Abortion Ban - "The outcome was a blow to conservatives, although they prevailed in five other states where voters approved constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage." -- Can't have gay people get married, that might irritate a god.
Gay Marriage Ban Rejected in Arizona - " In a triple setback for conservatives, South Dakotans rejected a law that would have banned virtually all abortions, Arizona became the first state to defeat an amendment to ban gay marriage and Missouri approved a measure backing stem cell research." -- I guess there is hope for humanity.
A Voter Rebuke For Bush, the War And the Right - "The political pendulum in American politics swung away from the right yesterday, putting an end to the 12-year Republican Revolution on Capitol Hill and delivering a sharp rebuke of President Bush and the Iraq war."
Blame for Iraq Extends Far Beyond the GOP - "It doesn't take much courage to book the Dixie Chicks when George Bush is sitting at 39% in the polls and carrying 3000 American bodies on his back every time he goes outside. It doesn't take much courage for MSNBC's Countdown to do a segment ripping the "Swiftboating of Al Gore" in May of 2006, or much gumption from Newsweek's Eleanor Clift to say that many people in the media "regret" the way Gore was attacked and ridiculed in 2000. We needed those people to act in the moment, not years later, when it's politically expedient. We needed TV news to reject "swift-boating" during the actual Swift Boat controversy, not two years later; we needed ABC and NBC to stand up to Clear Channel when that whole idiotic Dixie Chicks thing was happening, not years later; we needed the networks and the major dailies to actually cover the half-million-strong protests in Washington and New York before the war, instead of burying them in inside pages or describing the numbers as "thousands" or "at least 30,000," as many news outlets did at the time; and we needed David Letterman to have his war epiphany back when taking on Bill O'Reilly might actually have cost him real market share."
Across U.S., voters' loud message: It's time for change - "Americans finally got to vote on the war. They want change. They got to vote on one-party rule. They rejected it. They got a chance to vote local. They voted national. No matter what name was on the ballot, to many voters it read "George W. Bush." ... Indeed, the Democrats essentially beat something with nothing. They offered no clear agenda, no Contract with America, not even a memorable bumper sticker. This was an election driven by feelings of rejection far more than embrace."
E-voting glitches disrupt election day - "From Colorado to Florida, glitches blamed on human error or computer malfunctions yielded long lines and led some precincts to resort temporarily to paper ballots."
Corruption named as key issue by voters in exit polls - "By a wide margin, Americans who voted Tuesday in the midterm election say they disapprove of the war in Iraq. But when asked which issue was extremely important to their vote, more voters said corruption and ethics in government than any other issue, including the war, according to national exit polls."
Let Post-Election Debugging Begin - "E-voting gaffes prove plentiful on Election Day, and both political parties find some reason to complain. Maybe now we can start reforming the system."
Iraqis skeptical Democrat gains will bring change - ""The Democrats have been saying they will withdraw but I'm sure they will disappoint us. The Americans have ruined everything and the only solution is to let Iraqis deal with this mess," he said."
World sees Dems' win as Bush rejection - "The shift in power also was seen as a signal in some capitals that the United States would put a greater emphasis on trade policy and human rights."
War Criminals, Beware - "On November 14 a group of lawyers and other experts will come before the German federal prosecutor and ask him to open a criminal investigation targeting Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and other key Bush Administration figures for war crimes. The recent passage of the Military Commissions Act provides a central argument for the legal action, under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction: It demonstrates the intent of the Bush Administration to immunize itself legally from prosecution in the United States, even for the most serious crimes."
Why Hussein ultimately wins, and dies a martyr - "Hussein still wins because in the eyes of most Sunni Arabs in Iraq, and of many elsewhere, he dies a martyr to the cause of Arab nationalism. His sons are dead, his country is in ruins, and he will die at the end of a rope - but he defied the West, and he kept his dignity, so he dies a hero. ... Hussein has not had a fair trial, although that, too, would certainly have found him guilty. He is the victim of a state-sponsored lynching, and so, for many people, he will die a martyr. That will make little difference in Iraq, where people have more immediate things to worry about, but it certainly does not help the cause of international law."
Britain is determined to protect its right to kill civilians at random - "The British and US governments will today join forces in Geneva to block an international ban on cluster bombs."
Pentagon 9/11 Video Being Held Back by FBI - "The FBI has further delayed the release of a video that many bloggers have speculated may show the impact of flight 77 into the Pentagon on September 11th 2001."
China reaching $1 trillion in global clout - "China is growing so fast that it could, less than two decades from now, rival the United States as a key driver of the world economy, economists say."
Stem cell cure for heart attacks - "Emergency heart attack patients will be injected with their own stem cells in a dramatic new treatment."
Patch may one day let you skip the needle - "Dreaded vaccinations one day could be as simple as sticking on a Band-Aid -- ouchless and do-it-yourself."
Sleep around for healthier babies - "Sleeping around can improve a female's chances of having healthier offspring, research shows. Promiscuity in some mammals results in greater competition between sperm, with the winner having the best genes."
Bill Gates says West not supplying enough IT talent - "Many Western firms have also outsourced data management, software development and other high tech operations to lower cost operators in Asia, where education standards are high in some countries but wages are still comparatively low. "There is a shortage of IT skills on a worldwide basis. Anybody who can get those skills here now will have a lot of opportunity," Gates said."
Home-Delivered Pot All The Buzz - "In a city where you can get just about anything delivered to your door - groceries, dry cleaning, Chinese food - pot smokers are increasingly ordering takeout marijuana from drug rings that operate with remarkable corporate-style attention to customer satisfaction. An untold number of otherwise law-abiding professionals in New York are having their pot delivered to their homes instead of visiting drug dens or hanging out on street corners."
Quote of the Day
"The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands . . . may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
~ James Madison
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