Things that make you go "Hmmmm........."

Last night, I mentioned to friends having had a dream recently in which I was tallying election votes by precinct, and noticed that in almost every precinct nationwide, Bush had a vote margin ranging from +3% to -5%, except where Diebold voting machines had been used, where he consistently had a margin ranging from +10% to +15%.

This morning, it is asserted that in every state that used E-voting with no paper trail, Bush has an unexplained 5% advantage in actual results as compared to exit polls, while in every state that used E-voting with a paper audit trail, exit polls and actual results match within the margin of error.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it.......?

Update:

dirtynumbangel tells me that the raw data for this can be found at electoral-vote.com.  Look down near the bottom of the front page.  Full results are available in both .xls and .csv format.

Election congratulations are due

...to Barack Obama (D-IL), who becomes the first black Democrat in the Senate since Reconstruction (and only the third black Senator of either party), David Vitter (R-LA), the first Republican ever popularly elected to the Senate from Louisiana, and Ken Salazar (D-CO), who becomes the first latino Senator ever.

Gay marriage

So I understand when all the votes are tallied, initiatives banning gay marriage (and in some cases even civil unions) passed in every single one of the 11 states in which they were on the ballot, even Oregon (where it was expected to fail).

I guess what this says is that to Middle America, hatred, prejudice and homophobia ARE family values.  I don't think I'm the only one who does not find that a cheering thought.

"They first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up -- because I wasn't a Communist.
  Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up -- because I wasn't a Jew.
  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up -- because I wasn't a trade unionist.
  Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up -- because I was a Protestant.
  Then they came for me -- and by that time no one was left to speak up."

-- Pastor Martin Niemoeller, speaking at Nuremberg

Speculation from 2peculiar

bbwoof just found and posted about this article from 2peculiar, speculating about the realities of the Bush administration and the social changes in the US that have made it possible for Bush to get re-elected after his miserable performance over the past four years.

I think 2peculiar may have nailed a good part of it.  Again, I do not find this a cheerful concept: the victory of the small-minded, the self-centered, the fearful, the xenophobic.