Like a lot of pseudo-intellectuals, I’ve been submerged in a deep depression since the election. How are we going to talk about fixing the world’s problems if one of us is actually working on them? How could life be worth living without Sarah Palin to make fun of, and nut-jobs (okay, let’s show a little sensitivity, she has a disorder,after all) like Ann Coulter to whine about? And although some suggest only science fiction could save us from our economic woes, this Obama guy might surprise us. Fortunately, just when I thought my liberal intellectual angst had been rendered a relic, Ann Coulter did something we’ve all prayed for for ages, and got her mouth wired shut. And just in time for the holidays, the grizzly, Thanksgiving-themed Sarah Palin clip featured here showed up. Watch the guy in the background while she calmly rambles on in her repetitious, sound-bitey, youbetcha way.

Attorney General and “Most
Worshipful Grand Master”
J.B. Van Hollen of Wisconsin

I often joke that the reason we have so many election problems in America is that we’ve been so busy bringing democracy to places like Iraq that we just plain ran out of it. But I really think that if people would shut up about what kind of sunglasses the running mate of that plane-crashing, doddering, grumpy guy from Arizona is wearing for a minute, they might notice another election is on its way to being hijacked. Let’s start with the guy in the picture at left (whose outfit would be set off nicely with the addition of a fez, in my opinion). That’s Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen of Wisconsin, known affectionately by his peers as Most Worshipful Grand Master. He’s suing the state of Wisconsin’s election accountability board, a move that some suggest could lead to a “…ballot-counting frenzy similar to Florida’s after the 2000 presidential race”. This is the same guy who went a little bit chicken little in 2006, claiming that terrorists were training in Wisconsin. It’s pretty easy to find stories like these, although you’ll hear little in the corporate media. For instance, Michigan Republicans are zeroing in on African American voters by disallowing votes from addresses that are on record as being in foreclosure. In Mississippi, they’re hiding things at the bottom of the ballot . This kind of stuff will be going on quietly all over the place; that’s just democracy at work. The kind of thing that drives me crazy is how Diebold brazenly got away with manipulating the vote in 2004, is finally admitting their machines were faulty, and still no-one seems to care. If you DO care, check out resources like BlackBoxVoting.org. They have tools like the Black Box Voting Tool Kit, which outlines the Top 5 Things You Can Do To Protect Election 2008. Happy chadding!