Early Voting In Oklahoma, Jeez!

So wife and I eat breakfast and and go over the Oklahoma County Election offices to vote early.
There about 40 acres of parking at the election office, because it used to be some kind of super box store location. The cops were out directing traffic and half of the lots was already full of cars.
We parked and sat there kind of stunned. Dang the line is a mile long my wife said. OK it wasn't a mile, but it was LLLOOONNNGGG.



This is a picture of the line at 12:30.

Next picture.

Next Picture.

Next picture.

Now all you are seeing is the front of the building. The line stretches across the building front, around the corner down the side through a door and well into the building.

So I got out of the car and took pictures and counted people in line. It figured out to between 400 and 500 in line. So I watched the speed of the line and figured that it was a one and a half hour line. Trouble is I've got 45 minute knees. The weather was nice though.

Now if I were truly handicapped instead of old and dysfunctional I could simply do a drive up voting at the side of the building. But there is no provision for just being a woos. So we decide to wait and vote at our local polling place(and take a chair just in case).

Early voting started at the 77 County Election Boards in Oklahoma on Halloween. Voting will be allowed Friday from 8 to 6pm. On Saturday the polls will open at 8 and close at 1, and on Monday they'll be open from 8 to 6.

Burroitos Are America's Hope

In honor of the Democrats Donkey I'm publishing some of my wild burro pics from Nevada this August. Yes, it was hot about 106 degrees. Yes, it was dry. All good democratic weather.

Enlarge this picture and take a look at this old leader of the herd. He is cut and scared and scraped, the result of many old wounds. Look at those jaws. Vegetarian though he be, I'll bet his bite would be very bad. Those muscled withers probably have delivered many a lethal kick.





It is so hot that the herd about a half mile away is almost obscured by the heat's waves.






Getting close to them takes time and a slow pace.

But in their center is the burro-itos. The little burros.

In a herd of 16, there are just two burro-itos. It's a tough life.

Even these two may not make it through the winter. It is all about the burro-itos.

Sometimes we forget that.

Elizabeth Dole Uncovers Lesbian Witch Trying to Infiltrate The U.S. Senate

North Carolina?


I thought Oklahoma was the end of the earth.


But North Carolina may win the prize.





Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lf2vDk-4Ag








Hagan Incensed By Dole’s 'Godless’ Ad


Wednesday, October 29
By Mark Binker Staff Writer

GREENSBORO — A new television ad by Republican U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s re-election campaign that ties her rival, state Sen. Kay Hagan, to an atheist group has provoked a threat of legal action from the Greensboro Democrat.
“I can’t tell you how upset I am that Elizabeth Dole is attacking my strong Christian faith,” Hagan said late Tuesday.
Hagan, who is an elder at First Presbyterian Church, said she is incensed by the ad because at the end it shows her picture with a female voice saying, “There is no God.”





Dole says she won't take down 'Godless' ad (4:08 pm)

Listen to Kay Hagan's news conference (audio)








Now this is from of of Dole's supporters:





I am call (sic) on ALL CHRISTIANS out there to pray like the dickens that Liddy Dole WIN (sic) so that we done(sic) get no more God-hating bull daggers in the Senate. This country is all ready in way to much trouble as it(sic). We need a GODLY WHITE CHRISTIAN to stand up to the ungodly Negro Muslim we (sic) probably gonna(sic) wind up with as President! Mrs. Dole need(sic) you(sic) help. Even with all her pineapple money she still needs MORE cash to run the ad you see above. The Lord is calling on you — YES YOU!!!! — to help His annointed(sick).





(Maybe this is satire? Maybe not.)





Source:http://baptistsforbrown2008.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/prayer-warrior-alert-pray-for-elizabeth-dole/

UPDATE:

CNN has gone over to the half truths.
Welcome to FOX-World Tony Harris....
Joe Johns in a report at 10:00 CST on Friday October 31, by omission, gave a biased report on the Dole/Hagan controversy by leaving out the "killer" element of the ad." What did Kay Hagan promise in return?""The ad ends with a picture of Hagan and a voice that sounds like hers declaring, "There is no God."
Shame on you guys. That's the horrible part of the ad. You put it on your own web site but didn't use it on air. Then you had a NC republican spokesman talking about how normal this is .
If this is "normal" then we are truly not worthy of our ancestors sacrifices.
Balanced, Bull , You are full of Bull . The French have a word for what you did. CANARD!

OKLAHOMA EARLY VOTING STARTS FRIDAY HALLOWEEN

OKLAHOMA EARLY VOTING STARTS ON HALLOWEEN!

McCain says I'm giving illegal money to Obama because he doesn't know who I am and how much I gave. John, I gave a total of $250. Every time you got weird I sent another $50, except after I saw Palin's introduction I sent $100. It was worse for Senator Inhofe he almost broke me. Every frigging time he mouthed off, Rice got more money from me. This is the new reality old man, you frack with my head and I go immediately to the web and send money to your opponent. Friday I can vote against you old farts. John as a fellow Vietnam Vet I want you to know, you've shit on all of us with the type of campaign you ran. Jim, as for you, even if you win, the dementia will retire you soon anyway(what you thought no-0ne knew).

Early voting starts on Friday October 31st in Oklahoma.

Whoopee!

Pick your pumpkin!

I tried to find a Palin Pumpkin. This was as close as I could come to one.

Does the Palin/Predator mouth actually look like what I think it does? With teeth?

Should ought have not gone there, but I can't help it, I'm weak.

Addendum: see comments

Yoda On The Stress Of The Last Week Of The Election

Teddy Roosevelt Comments on the 2008 Presidential Campaign

John McCain seems to believe that he is channeling Teddy Roosevelt these days.
Edmund Morris writing in the NYT has taken actual historical utterance of TR and applied them freely but with some wit to questions of today's Presidential campaign. These are excerpts below.


Theodore Roosevelt, Pundit

By EDMUND MORRIS
Published: October 27, 2008

Q. Mr. McCain has always prided himself on his independence. At least, until he began to take direction from chief executives and retired generals —
A. But the signs now are that these advisers have themselves awakened to the fact that they have almost ruined him.

-----
Q. Does his vow to give Joe the Plumber a tax break remind you of Reaganomics?
A. This is merely the plan, already tested and found wanting, of giving prosperity to the big men on top, and trusting to their mercy to let something leak through to the mass of their countrymen below — which, in effect, means that there shall be no attempt to regulate the ferocious scramble in which greed and cunning reap the largest rewards.
------
Q. Should we condone the huge severance packages paid to executives of rescued corporations?
A. There is need in business, as in most other forms of human activity, of the great guiding intelligences. Their places cannot be supplied by any number of lesser intelligences. It is a good thing that they should have ample recognition, ample reward. But we must not transfer our admiration to the reward instead of to the deed rewarded; and if what should be the reward exists without the service having been rendered, then admiration will come only from those who are mean of soul.
-------
Q. (re-Obama) There’ll be Joe Biden to counsel him, of course. Assuming Mr. Obama can keep track of what he’s saying.
A. (laughing) You can’t nail marmalade against a wall.
------
Q. Talking of foreign policy, what do you think of Mr. McCain’s choice of a female running mate?
A. Times have changed (sigh). It is entirely inexcusable, however, to try to combine the unready hand with the unbridled tongue.
Q. How will you feel if Sarah Palin is elected?
A. I shall feel exactly the way a very small frog looks when it swallows a beetle the size of itself, with extremely stiff legs.
--------
Q. What’s your impression of President Bush these days?
A. (suddenly serious) He looks like Judas, but unlike that gentleman has no capacity for remorse.

Read the whole thing at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/opinion/27morris.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics of Wealth Condensation

In the last Blog's comments BB-Idaho asked what "Redistribution Upwards" would be called.
"It has been said (rather ignorantly) that wealth redistribution downward is socialism. What are we going to call the last 30 years of redistribution upwards?"

Perhaps Applied Physics may have some observations of use.




Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics of Wealth Condensation

"We analyze wealth condensation for a wide class of stochastic economy models on the basis of the economic analog of thermodynamic potentials, termed transfer potentials. The economy model is based on three common transfers modes of wealth: random transfer, profit proportional to wealth and motivation of poor agents to work harder. The economies never reach steady state. Wealth condensation is the result of stochastic tunneling through a metastable transfer potential. In accordance with reality, both wealth and income distribution transiently show Pareto tails for high-income subjects. For metastable transfer potentials, exponential wealth condensation is a robust feature. For example with 10% annual profit 1% of the population owns 50% of the wealth after 50 years. The time to reach such a strong wealth condensation is a hyperbolic function of the annual profit rate."
---Dieter Braun
Ludwig Maximilians University München, Germany
http://www.sciencedirect.com
(by the way it won't let me copy any part of the actual article)

My Okie Abstract goes something like this:
The rich get richer until there is nothing to be had and then it all collapses.


Parable:
Once a month the U.S. Army paid its troops in cash.
Before they handed out the cash they deducted anything you owed the army for lost equipments, fines, etc., then they deducted what you had set aside to send home to the wife, then they deducted what you owed the NCO or EM or Officers club from last month, and then they gave you what was left. Crap games, poker, whores, bars, paying of loans and basic entertainment ate up the rest generally within days or weeks. From that point on you lived on credit at the EM, NCO, etc. clubs or borrowed from the barracks loan shark. At the end of the month the cycle was repeated thus the equilibrium was restored.


"First, the skewed distribution of wealth has persisted, and it has become more concentrated at the top of the distribution over time. In the early 1960s, the average level of wealth held by the wealthiest fifth of all households was 15 times that of the overall median; by 2004 it was over
23 times. As would be expected, the distribution in the shares of wealth held by wealth
class is very unequal. The share of all wealth held by the bottom 80% was just 15.3% in
2004—down from 19.1% in the early 1960s—and, that 3.8% share of wealth shifted to
the top 5% of households."
http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/swa06-ch05-wealth.pdf

Trouble is in the real world the redistribution gets out of whack and goes on too long, most generally historically upwards. Redistributions downward have been due to catastrophe or revolution. Equilibrium is obtained only in passing and is seldom notice. Wealth accumulation is not an evil, until it becomes wealth hording. That is a recipe for catastrophe for all sides.

No thank You CNN

Mr. Cooper, please keep your guilt I don’t care for it. In that government has refused to keep the base wages (minimum wage) at the same level as production or inflation for the last 40 years (1968 was the highest year so far) why should we feel guilty? First we have to send our wives to work to keep up. Then we take two jobs. Then student loans for our kids, thus mortgaging their future. Then we take easy credit to pay off the bills. All so that the “employers” can make more profit. Our own government has been waging a protracted class war for four decades. Keep your guilt, I don’t want it.

Culprits of the Collapse - #1 You

Anderson Cooper 360°

If You Are A Low Life How Do You Know When You Reach Bottom!

If You Are A Low Life How Do You Know When You Reach Bottom!

This is it:

Republican strategist Brad Blakeman, responding to a question about how John McCain could square his opposition to wasteful spending with the Palin's wardrobe spree, said that the real outrage is Barack Obama "taking a 767 campaign plane to go visit Grandma."
"Forget about the energy that is wasted, what about the hundreds of thousands of dollars to take a private trip when this guy should be humping his bags on a commercial plane or taking a smaller plane," he told MSNBC. "Taking a 767 of campaign money from people who could least afford it is more of an outrage in my opinion."

Brad Blakeman : Freedom Watch funder

Obama Will Say Anything: McCain

McCain says Obama will 'say anything' to win

By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer Glen Johnson, Associated Press Writer

Play Video

AP – McCain: Obama 'will say anything to get elected'


AP – Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. addresses supporters during a campaign rally …
ORLANDO, Fla. – Republican John McCain, taking a cross-state bus tour aimed at keeping vote-rich Florida from swinging to the Democrats, on Thursday accused rival Barack Obama of saying "anything to get elected."



Remember a couple of weeks ago:
McCain, "I play to win. I do whatever it takes to win. If I have to fuck my opponent to win I'll do it. If I have to destroy my opponent I won't give it a second thought."

Source: Doug Thompson who wrote about hearing it himself, in the blog report on; http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/10086

Psychologist might call this "projecting".

Business As Usual? Not With My Money!

They haven't felt the Pain yet! We need to cause Pain!

"Redacted! Treasury Refuses To Disclose Millions Paid To Bailout Fund Managers

Jay Yarow

Oct 21, 2008 2:03 PM
The Treasury Department has posted the contracts it has with private companies advising on the bailout, perhaps in an effort to increase transparency during this dense and difficult period which is leaving many taxpayers feeling screwed. Too bad the Treasury Department decided to black out the compensation for these firms, so taxpayers have no idea what they're paying for."

More:http://www.businesssheet.com/2008/10/redacted-the-blacked-out-bailout


They just don't get it.
They just don't get it.
Nope, they sure as Shit Don't Get It!

They are redacting the contracts for this trillion dollars or so we are paying out to fix stuff.
Redact the damn people doing it. Black them out!
What the hell!
Business as usual?
If that is the case then screw it. No, screw them!
If we have to burn down the house to get rid of the rats and roaches then......OK, so maybe not.
But dang, it is way past time to roach bomb the place and trap the rats. By the way we don't need Have-A-Heart traps to get them either.

Let's start by Impeaching both the current President and Vice President, before they do their great skedaddle and pardon all these S.O.B.'s that they have sponsored. If that happens then they win, and we drown.

They must feel the pain. It seems to be the only message that they will get.
No secrecy, no blacking out information, no redaction of data!
If we don't take down the head guys, then the little rats won't learn, and we will be chasing them around for years.





Addendum:





Fury at $2.5bn bonus for Lehman's New York staff



By David ProsserMonday, 22 September 2008



"Up to 10,000 staff at the New York office of the bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers will share a bonus pool set aside for them that is worth $2.5bn (£1.4bn), Barclays Bank, which is buying the business, confirmed last night.





A spokesman for Barclays said the $2.5bn bonus pool in New York had been set aside before Lehman Brothers filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States a week ago.





Barclays is paying $1.75bn for the US operation of Lehman and is keen to retain its best staff. It said it had made no promises to individual staff members about how much they will receive but that the bonus fund would be paid out. In addition to the $2.5bn cash pool, Barclays is also in negotiations with about 30 executives it considers to be Lehman's best assets and plans to offer them contracts worth tens of millions of dollars. "





More:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/fury-at-25bn-bonus-for-lehmans-new-york-staff-937560.html





And this:



Demonstrators protesting in New York before the $700bn Wall Street bail-out earlier this month. Photograph: Nicholas Roberts/AFP/Getty images

Wall Street banks in $70bn staff payout
Pay and bonus deals equivalent to 10% of of US government bail-out package


Simon Bowers
The Guardian,
Saturday October 18 2008





Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/17/executivesalaries-banking





Can you believe this?


They want to give $70 billion of the $700,000,000,000 bailout to executives in the banks taken over because it was "already promised to them".


Can you say Class Warfare?


Can you say Frickin Stupid?


Can you say NO!

An Eagle rejects the Turkey

Collin Powell is an Eagle among Turkeys.

His studied and eloquent endorsement of Barack Obama for President must have been hard for him to do. But listening to his critics, all former supporters, you would think he was a craven race monger.

A Sample of such:

"Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama is about race. R-A-C-E. You can quote me."

---Rush Limbaugh

"One last note: I see in comments that many believe Powell supports Obama because he is black. Powell has said electing a black president would be “electrifying.” He is a staunch supporter of government racial preferences.
It’s a mistake, though, to attribute Powell’s endorsement primarily to some kind of race loyalty.
It’s Obama’s social liberalism, not his skin color, that attracts Powell most."

---Michelle Malkin

"Colin Powell's choosing Obama is a gutless endorsement."

---Ed Rollins CNN

"Not long after Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama, folks on the right suddenly remembered something they'd forgotten for two long decades. Colin Powell is black!"

---Rush Limbaugh

""It's my understanding Colin Powell gave his word to John McCain that he would not make an endorsement in this election. Powell stabbed McCain in the back. This is the same Powell who kept silent for two years."

---Radio Equalizer, syndicated host Mark Levin

" Buchanan: Alright, we gotta ask a question, look would Colin Powell be endorsing Obama if he were a white liberal democrat...

Walsh: Oh, Pat, I'm really sorry you went there.

Buchanan: Look, General Powell Started off by saying it would be electrifying an African American and it is naive Joan to suggest it had nothing to do with his decision. "

---Pat Buchanan talking with Joan Walsh on Hard Ball MSNBC

And there are many many more......

But then there is this whether real or apocryphal it is telling:

"So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."In this economy, racism is officially a luxury. How is John McCain going to win if he can't win those voters?"

-- Sean Quinn http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

Powell sees Obama as a "a transformational figure". Things are definitely transforming. Definitely transforming.

Reminds Me Of The Lincoln Cartoons

The Acorn Puzzle

Ever try to put a puzzle together without looking at the picture on the box? Better yet have you ever tried to put a puzzle together with the picture on the puzzle pieces face down? Doesn't sound like too much fun does it. Especially if the puzzle has a lot of parts.
















So here is a box labeled, Acorn Puzzle, 1000 pieces. Unfortunately it doesn't have a photo on the box top, indeed, there isn't any clues on how the puzzle pieces should fit together. They are blank on both sides. No wait, some have words.




Let's see what do they say?
Acorn
fraud
Republican
Rove
Ohio
6 fired attorney generals
Special Prosecutor
Fox News
Rove Fox Commentator
gutter
Justice Department
Supreme Court
Gonzales
New Mexico
Bush
Voter Fraud
Voter suppression
Karl Rove
Subpoena
White house
Fox News
collusion
FBI
Bank loans
Mortgages
voter registration
community organizer
minorities
fraud
greed
criminal
defrauded
Atwater
Schimdt
Rove
Karl
RNC
NSA
Josh Marshall (why is this one blue?)
facade
Republican
Mc
U.S. Attorney Scandal
bogus
Bush
Karl Rove
Fox
rouge
Mickey
Donald Duck
registration
playbook
scam
Atwater
Sarah
script
White House
NYT
AP
freedom
toxic
indictment
crime
prison
contempt
That seems to be all of the ones I can read. Others are erased or smeared. Some are covered in brown stuff that I don't want to touch. Most are just blank, sort of like they haven't been made yet. What could all of these random things assemble into? Anybody out there got a clue? Help!

I Led Six Lives!

When we had our TV just barely a year a new TV show came on that blew my mind away as an eight year old. It was "I Led Three Lives". Wow, what an insight to the world. This common ordinary guy had not only his life with his wife and kids in the sub-burbs but was a spy and a counter-spy too. OK, it was a lousy show by today's standards and Herb Philbrick wasn't such a big hero in real life. I really dug his secret room however.

But the concept it instilled in my undeveloped temperament is that someone could be more than one thing. People in that era gave you one thing to be, and that was it. One of my later mentors, a child of the 40's, was very fond to saying "You can only have one thing." By eight years old I had decided that wasn't true.

Life has proven me correct. I have had five distinct lives up till now. Some by choice most by serendipity. Right now I'm working on number six. In many ways this is one I like the best. Now when I say different lives I mean DIFFERENT! One did not blend into the other. There was no flow of events. Only abrupt ends, chasms crossed, 90 degree turns.

My wife of 41 years has stood by me for three of the six, although she wasn't to sure about it sometimes.

It was about ten years ago that I discovered I was only surfing the waves of history not making them, not plowing through them. So many of those who were with me in each of my lives are dead and gone now. Many died while we were together in that particular life.

Sometimes I hark back to the lines by Robert Frost:

"Lord if you will forgive my little jokes on thee,
I will forgive thy great big one on me."

What were the lives you say?
1. Farm Boy See-er
2. Small Town-er
3. Religious Advocate and Missionary-Visionary
4. Warrior Killer
5. Social Justice Advocate-Architect
6. Retired-Disenfranchised-Disconnected-Wanderer

Of course a core of me transcended each life, but it was altered strongly by them.
When I read the "Forth Turning" I began to see my times and my lives in another context. It was enlightening.

So tell me about your"lives" has there be a logical sequence, chaos, serendipity?
What's next do you think?

Obama's Tax Plan: Wealth Redistribution , Welfare. or continuation of Republican Policy

Obama's Tax Plan Is:

1. Wealth redistribution: You betcha Seymour, just like the failure to keep the minimum wage value current over the past 40 years was wealth re-distribution. It was good for the Corporations then, now it will be good for their workers.
(Calculated in real 2007 dollars it was $5.85 , the 1968 minimum wage was the highest at $9.47. Today in 2008 it is $6.55 ) In 1968 the lowest paid worker was making 48% more than they do today. Who did that? Government! Government redistributed wealth from the wage earner to the employer.
source:http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth484/minwage.html


2. Welfare: Absolutely, a single mother under age 24 with one child and making $30,000 a year will receive an extra $500 rebate from Uncle Sam and she won't be paying income taxes. (She will be paying payroll taxes and sales taxes however and in Oklahoma that would be about 15% of her income) Again, let the tax payer try to level the needs of the single mother not her employer.
Source: the two sites below

3. A continuation of current Republican Tax Policy: Damn straight it is. The policy and laws that already give back money to those who do not actually make enough to pay Federal Income Tax were often originated and could not have been passed without Republican collusion (leadership).
This is a prime example of the Republicans privatizing the profits and socializing the cost. If the workers don't make enough because they aren't paid enough, don't have the employer raise their wages. rather give them a tax refund/rebate paid for for by the other tax payers.
Source: The Tax Foundation

So read about this in a different way at: http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/23512.html

What to know what you tax reduction/increase will be under Obama's Plan:
http://taxcut.barackobama.com/

All the time I have been typing this I have been humming a song by Leonard Cohen; Everybody Knows.

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor,
the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father
or their dog just died
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Want To Buy A Bison?

Come Thursday there will be Bison for sale at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.
It happens once a year.


Go early and bring your cattle trailer, best bring a heavy duty one.



Register with the sales office and you can then go up ontop of the catwalks and take a look at the buffs for sale.



There are calves, and spikers, and cows and them big ole buffalo bulls for sale.



Be sure to take your camera.



If you have kids bring them along. Otherwise try not to step on any of the million school kids that come by bus.



Now this is a serious sale, but before it starts you can buy buffalo burgers and chow down.



Indians show up too and sometimes even the cavalry, Ft. Sill is nearby after all.



About noon, everybody sits down and the sale proceeds.



First they sell the calves, then the yearling spikers and then the cows and then...



The bulls. Everybody wants to see the bulls. Look down the lane . See the little "Bobcat" tractor with the enclosed cage? That's used to "herd" the biggest bulls.



Sometimes they do not respond well to the nudges.



Sometimes they are down right hostile. Sometimes the "bobcat" has trouble getting them out of sales area.



If you watch from the stands, then sit on your hands, Don't touch your hat, or scratch your nose, or wave to a friend. If you do you may be the owner of a 3,000 lb pet.



I may not make to the sale this year. It would be a shame to miss it.
Heck, sure I'll be there.