down for the recount

the past week's blog entries have dwelt on my own drama (taking my cat to the vet, tracking down my web traffic, & my ailing computer), and even when i've mentioned current events, it's been out of personal interest (namely, some of my favorite musicians passing away). so in the awful event that anyone relies on this blog for current events (please, don't), here's a quick recap of what's been going on.

more white house resignations! the most prominent is colin powell, the token moderate, the most globally popular cabinet member. he's gone, and with him (unless bush has some very surprising appointments in store) goes any chance that the president will hear from advisors who might actually disagree on something... the moderates are gone; only the crazies and sycophants are left. in powell's place, bush has promoted condolezza rice. like alberto gonzalez for attorney general, it's more of a promotion than an appointment: a reward to rice for spectacular ass-kissing. because it seems like i need a link for every news item, here's a quote from a nytimes editorial:

Our concern about Ms. Rice is not that she makes the president feel comfortable. It's that as national security adviser, she seemed to tell him what he wanted to hear about decisions he'd already made, rather than what he needed to know to make sound judgments in the first place.

this trend of rewarding the yes-men and kicking out any actual thinkers is not limited to the white house. it's happening in the cia as well. porter goss, newly appointed partisan head of the cia, is kicking ass and taking names: the names of agents who dared to disagree with bush, that is, & those names are being written on pink slips. many people agree that the cia needed fixing. but how can the fix for politiced, faulty intelligence be... further politicizing the intelligence?

the story of the recounts is going, despite the attempts of some to shut down the discussion and smear those who would mention it (i heard a particularly disgusting piece on npr last week that cherry-picked all the weakest arguments, as though nothing went even remotely wrong... i believe this was on all things considered, proving that in fact not all things are considered on that show). conservatives are all over keith olbermann for daring to cover the story on tv.

ohio has still barely started counting provisional ballots, the bulk of which will almost undoubtedly go to kerry. it might not be enough to flip ohio, but it will narrow the margin considerably. 9th district house race:

Democrats sought the recount, which will begin in Dubois County, because of a voting machine glitch in Franklin County that wrongly tabulated straight-ticket Democratic votes as Libertarian votes. Although that county is not in the 9th District, the same kind of voting machines also were used in three counties in the 9th -- Ripley, Scott and Switzerland.