Some of you may already have seen the YouTube video documenting American intellectual prowess, but in case not, it’s worth a view. Watch it and decide if it’s depressing or hilarious….

It’s called Americans Are Not Stupid, with Subtitles. It’s a few minutes long.

This reminds me of a funny story. Or a depressing story. Definitely a related story. Yesterday a member of my family sent a petition to other members of my family (not me). The petition was one of those bogus right-wing scare tactic petitions talking about how the bad “illegals” are trying to steal good, patriotic Americans’ jobs and social security and so on. The petition also claimed Congress recently passed a bill allowing “illegals” to have social security benefits. A false rumor that’s well-worn. The e-mail’s even in Snopes.

Anyway, the petition demands that only U.S. CITIZENS be allowed social security benefits, or any social services. My relative who sent it was born in the United States. Her husband (my brother) and parents-in-law (my parents) were not. They’re all legal residents (who’ve long paid social security taxes), but not citizens. So my relative SIGNED MY BROTHER’S NAME to a petition that demands he lose his social security benefits. Brilliant. Then she forwarded it to his non-citizen parents, suggesting they sign it too. Double brilliant.

I asked her about this later and she told me she forgot that we (including her husband) are all “aliens.” She then pointed out that either way, the petition is how a lot of people feel. Then she said not to worry because no one is referring to us. Apparently, she doesn’t understand what the word “citizen” means.

The upside to this…. Well, ok, there isn’t an upside to this. But in my fantasy resolution, my relative is disqualified from voting. That’s because to become a citizen and voter, you have to take a basic citizenship test and have half a brain. And I figure if you’re an English speaker with half a brain, you know what the word “citizen” means. That’s what you’re taking a test for! So in my fantasy, she fails the test, I make an uncitizen’s arrest, and the feds consider Guantanamo.

Ok, silly fantasy and bad to make jokes about Guantanamo, one of the more depraved entities in modern U.S. history. And of course, if I believe in equal rights for all, I have to allow room for dumb people. This does, however, bring me back to the above video. My relative belongs in it.

Do some of you have relatives who belong in it?

I hope everyone who can vote is voting today. And I hope you vote for the good guys. I’m swinging wildly between optimism and pessimism from minute to minute, to the point that I may soon need a hamburger / some drugs to calm me down. Time to go to Burger King.

• U.S. Cops Sue Over Drug-Spiked Burgers

Meanwhile, here’s a good news / bad news round-up for election day:

• Republicans closing gap as U.S. votes.” 
• Democrats concerned about races they thought they had in the bag.”
• In better news from Virginia, Jim Webb supposedly surged ahead of thuggy George Allen in the final polls. 
• In the sad-to-admit-it department, Joe Lieberman continued to have a solid lead over Democrat candidate Lamont. Can someone tell me what’s wrong with Connecticut?
• A conservative news site says the Dems will take it all and win both houses. That said, the same site has a lot of headlines talking about a Republican surge in the final hours of polling yesterday. But how do you define a surge? And who gets to define it?
• The Hill, a Congressional journal, published a variety of predictions from the political establishment. Overall it still looks good for Dems.

And finally, I liked this take from Toronto Star, detailing what a possible Dem win would look like, and how it might impact Canada. One thing I liked about this article is that the writer acknowledged what so few in the U.S. establishment see, but what’s been clear for a long time to much of the rest of the world: the current roster of U.S. Dems are so moderate that they’re right of center. In Canada, they’d be in the Conservative party. When I reflect on that, I’m reminded how far right the U.S. has gone in recent years.

Which brings me back to wildly jumping between optimism and pessimism today. Here’s to the political pendulum swinging—ever so slightly—in a better direction. Pretty please?

Campaigns are getting dirtier and dirtier — I thought some of the Minnesota races’ ads were bad, but Senator Allen’s staff here literally stoops pretty low, wrestling a constituent to the floor. With a headlock.

As you may have heard in video above, CNN reports that Mike Stark, the guy with the backpack who was roughed up, was a “protester.” Mr. Stark, in a letter to a local news station here, identifies himself as a “law student at the University of Virginia, a marine, and a citizen journalist.” You might know him better as one of the bloggers at Daily KOS.

Senator George Allen from Virginia is the macaca guy. You know: the guy who called the Indian guy “Macaca.” At a stump speech, Allen referred to S. R. Sidarth, a volunteer for his opponent’s camp in the audience, as “Macaca, or whatever his name is.” Then, later, “let’s give a welcome to Macaca here.”

A macaca is a kind of monkey. Which seemed a very idiosyncratic type of racism. Who calls somebody a monkey, and if you call them a monkey, who specifies the genus/species? But, as an article in the New Yorker recently pointed out, “macaca” is a very common racial slur in Tunisia. Where the cosmopolitan Senator Allen grew up. Ah. Well, then.

But, after macaca and a spate of blogger-beating, Democratic challenger James Webb has pulled a slight 4% lead in the polls. So if constituents have to be beaten and insulted, at least there could be a bright side. Track all you favorite Senate races at the fine, fine site, www.electoral-vote.com (thanks, LeftPedal!).

My voter-registration card arrived yesterday.  So, looks like I’m legal for Election Day.

First off, “commerations” to Pulao on a prelim turn-in!

Secondly, in the upcoming elections, all the winds seem to be blowing in the right correct direction. And I must say, I’m hoping to have a big celebration on election night, but three things caught my eye today. None of these stories suggest that opinion in this country is changing, but it does remind me that it takes more than opinion to win in electoral politics.

It first takes a transparent and clear system for voting. And with the NY Times analysis of voting maching troubles that don’t even have anything to do with the potential ease of tampering, I’m mighty nervous about where we’re headed.

It is also important to remember that in the midst of all this good pre-election news, the GOP is a well-oiled machine. It works on many levels, from the big-moneyed pioneers, the lock-stock messaging of the conservative media members, the massive get out the vote campaigns, and the less-than-level Swift Boat type organizations. Nothing reminded me of that more than this story out of California. US citizens who immigrated to the US long ago have been warned in a series of mailings that if they vote they will be deported. These have been traced back to a GOP operative in California.

So while an increasingly unpopular war drags down the popularity of the GOP and scandal seems to pop up every day: bribery, extortion, sexual misconduct, voter suppression, abuse of power etc. we should all still be worried about machines: GOP, voting and otherwise.

Last point from the news today. Studies that tell you things you already knew to be obvious are in my estimation a recent phenomenon. So, for instance, the idea that, yes indeed, an antiaging hormone, marketed as being able to cease and even reverse the results of aging is a bunch of bunk.

Studies also show the pills claiming to make you fly, breathe underwater, and leap tall buildings don’t seem to work as advertised either. But in some way, we as a society do seem to need studies to prove things we already know to be a little suspect. And even with such studies, people will dismiss them and go on buying this hormone. The power to believe just about anything is one of humanity’s greatest achievements. Seriously.

And speaking of believing just about anything, with things going so well right now in the polls for the Dems, I’ll have a hard time believing it if things don’t go well for the Dems on election day, but I doubt most people will. There will be a convenient narrative for whatever happens on election day. There has to be so that the system can retain legitimacy.

And unfortunately, if things go poorly, there will never be a headline some time later that reads: “Study shows that election results in ‘06 didn’t reflect public’s voting intent.” And even if there was, we’ll all go on believing what we want to believe.

On my way to work Thursday morning, I was greeted with a light dust of snow on my car. That’s Thursday morning like Thursday, October 12. I realize that I live in Minnesota now, but come on.

A few fast-melting flakes in Minneapolis were a little out of place for October, but nothing compared to the record-busting blizzard in Buffalo, NY on Thursday and Friday — over 22 and a half inches. The NYT headline: Snowstorm Blankets Buffalo, Killing at Least 3. Now that’s some serious snow.

Trying to read all about it, my quick google search led me down a dark path of anger and hate: right-wing Web journals and blogs.

The Wide Awakes Web site (tagline: “Your Right Wing Back-Up”) reports:

10.9 inches in Buffalo the next day.

Earliest snowfall in recorded history there.

Depew, NY: 24 inches of snow.

But we’re supposed to spend billions of dollars to “stop” global warming.

And then, over on The Right Angle blog, the Buffalo snowstorm was reported with this grain of salt:

Maybe it’s time for the liberal hysterical media to change their tune again on climate change.

This stuff is strewn about the Web; lots of jokes about Al Gore and a lot of, “Hey, snow in October? Global warming’s a joke!”

Ha ha. As counterintuitive as it might seem, a study from Colgate University in 2003 directly links heavier snowfalls around the Great Lakes (like Buffalo) to global warming:

Records of air temperature, water temperature, and lake ice suggest that the observed lake-effect snow increase during the twentieth century may be the result of warmer Great Lakes surface waters and decreased ice cover, both of which are consistent with the historic upward trend in Northern Hemispheric temperature due to global warming.

Climate and weather patterns are not as simple as the hot and cold faucets on your sink; Buffalo’s blizzard on Friday was caused by “lake-effect” or “lake-enhanced” snow; when cold air passes over warm water, picking up a bunch of moisture and dumping it off-shore. The hotter the lake, the more the snow piles up in your driveway.

The lake wasn’t particularly warm or anything, was it? From weather.com:

THE INSTABILITY PARAMETERS ARE ALMOST HISTORIC WITH SUCH A SITUATION WITH A 62 DEGREE LAKE INVOLVED MAKE THIS ALMOST UNPRECEDENTED.

Oh, right. But where did all the cold air come from this early in Autumn? Apparently, global warming fueled disasterous weather in Alsaka last week pushed it down through Canada. From Sto Ostro, Senior Meteorologist at the Weather Channel:

I have written on the impacts of climate change upon day-to-day weather patterns in these pages during the past year . . . For now, suffice it to say that I think the occurrence of this event in Alaska was not an “accident.” . . . By the way, there’s a connection betwen that system and the chilly blast about to enter the lower 48 from Canada.

When you get over 20 inches of snow in mid-October — thundersnow, with frequent lightning — don’t be so quick to discount patterns of global, catastrophic climate change when they rear their ugly heads, just because they didn’t manifest in a heat wave like you thought they might.

A couple weeks ago, Duodecad posted a link to a study by researchers at Princeton that demonstrated how easy it is to rig an electronic voting machine, and get away with it.

Here’s an update with some old news, via BoingBoing.net this week: former Yang Enterprises computer programmer Clint Curtis says that, in 2000, Rep. Tom Feeney (R) asked him to do just that — fix voting machines to spit out 51-49 splits in your favor.

Watch video of Curtis’ testimony, under oath, on YouTube.

Six years ago, Feeney was a member of the Florida legislature, as well as Yang’s corporate attorney and a registered Yang lobbyist. A year later, Curtis quit Yang. In 2002, Feeney was elected to Congress.

Curtis’ story has some holes in it. Yang Enterprises and Mr. Feeney, of course, deny the meeting ever took place. And there were no touch-screen electronic voting machines in West Palm Beach Florida in 2000 to rig at the time.

But Curtis sticks to his story, nevertheless, that Feeney asked him to write some code that could do it. He’s testified to it in court, taken a polygraph, and even staked his own Congressional bid on it, running against Feeney as a Democrat (although Curtis was a lifelong Republican).

Plus, Feeney was named one of the 20 most corrupt Congressmen in the land by a government watchdog group (the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington — good luck, guys). So there’s that.

Add my natural partisan subjectivity, the Princeton report, and I’m a believer; democracy is for sale in Florida!

When Mel Gibson went on his anti-semitic-with-a-dash-of-sexist rant about two months ago, there was really nothing interesting to be said. There was plenty of material there for legitimate indignation and topical humor, neither of which I thought would be particularly blog-worthy at the time.

This morning’s news about Florida Congressman Mark Foley checking himself into rehab for treatment of alchoholism reminded me what about the Mel Gibson incident had been so particularly distasteful. In case you haven’t paid attention to the media recently, (Republican– not that it matters) Mark Foley resigned after being accused of sexual harassment of minors through internet messaging. This is made even more awful when one learns that he was on the House caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. (There’s a running coverage on abcnews.com which credits itself with forcing Foley’s resignation. There’s a lot of sensationalist material there, the character of which is definitely worthy of its own analysis.)

What reminds me of Mel Gibson about Foley’s recent interest in rehab is the way both public figures found a way to attach their despicable acts– some might even characterize them as unforgiveable– to a “forigiveable” disease. In a rhetorical move worthy of almost-awe, Mel Gibson’s apology to the Jewish community not only trumped up the importance of humility, thereby attempting to resituate Gibson as a “true” Christian, but also drew subtle parallels between anti-Semitism to alchoholism.

The rationale, I imagine, was that if we can understand alchoholism as a disease, then surely anti-semitism could be one too? One perhaps even caused by the former? Now Foley is seeking help for his problem with drinking, which suggests to us that his sexual exploitation of his pages is somehow a result of his disease. Moves by both these figures is an expert way to side-step moral culpability (not to mention potentially diminish legal consequence), and I’m horrified by both.

Last week, Bill Clinton went on Fox News for an interview with Chris Wallace. Wallace accused him, basically, of causing 9/11 through his inaction (a la ABC’s mockumentary, “Path to 9/11″). Clinton reacted, to say the least. Watch the pretty sparks fly (via ThinkProgress).

Clinton’s rebuttal reminded me of an essay in the New Yorker from a couple of weeks ago where Clinton suggested the Democratic Party fight back when criticized — he said the Kerry campaign’s mistake in 2004 was that it ended up “like a deer caught in the headlights”. That when the Swift Boat smear campaign started, Kerry should have challenged Bush and Cheney to a town-hall debate on their Vietnam records. Clinton said:

Bush and Cheney were like me—they didn’t go. But Kerry was a genuine war hero!

Hillary, like Bill, doesn’t sit still for criticism. This might not be enough to make her electable, and it certainly doesn’t make her any less moderate, but it’s something, right?

Since Clinton’s eruption on Fox, other Dem mouthpieces, like Paul Begala and James carville, have already given it a try. Yelling back at Bill O’Reilley and what-not. But until November the only clear winner is Fox News, with a ratings-boost last week.

What does more good — criticizing Fox News on Fox News, which (surprisingly) has a 20% Democrat and 17% independent viewership? Or making fun of Bill O’Reilley on the Colbert Report, which has a 110% liberal commie viewership?

Actually, I haven’t yet, but I will. State primary elections are being held in Minnesota today. Luckily, polls are open until 8 PM, just in case you slept in, and were late to work, and have a lot to do so you’ll probably stay until 6 or so . . . Not that I know anyone like that. (Also, in Minnesota, your employer is legally required to allow you time off to vote.

Primaries this side of Connecticut aren’t usually very exciting, but if you live in District 5, like me (which is most of the western half of the Twin Cities), big things could be happening. It’s a heavily Democratic district; which means that whichever Democrat wins the primary will most likely take the District’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. If that ends up being Keith Ellison, then Minnesota will have elected the first Muslim to Congress in history.

The Washington Post did a story on Ellison yesterday; apparently local Republican bloggers have accused him of being anti-semitic because of a college tie to Lewis Farrakahn. Minnesota’s Jewish weekly, American Jewish World, has strongly endorsed Ellison, however. So has the DFL party. But the controversy has made the race close.

If you live in Minnesota, learn where to vote with this search on the Secretary of State’s Web site. And hurry.