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The Peanut Farmer vs. the Cokehead

Looks like it takes a former president to point out the flaws in the efforts to get Florida back in the game with equitable and fair elections:

“The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely,” Carter wrote in The Washington Post. He called Florida election officials “highly partisan” in favor of Republican President Bush and charged them with “brazenly violating” basic tenets of fair, unbiased and trustworthy elections.

Florida officials said they were stunned by the tone and sweep of Carter’s criticism and that Carter had erred in his characterization of the state’s election process. Others said that Carter’s staunchly partisan work on behalf of John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, called his criticism into question.

Of course Florida election officials would be stunned. It’s not like they’ve done anything to disenfranchise minority voters who are likely to vote Democrat. Oh no, not at all.

Of course, our fine Congress was too busy pursuing other important, pressing business of the day rather than look at these issues.

…and maybe we’ll never have to hear from her again!

Now that Britney Spears is married (again) and the snickering over how long this one will last has died down, she claims the next step is to become a mom:

Although rumor doubted her wedding license, Britney Spears, 22, has already hoped to have a baby in her second marriage.

Spears told People magazine today that she wanted to be “a young mom”.

Spears, who would become stepmother to her husband’s two children from a previous relationship, said she wanted to have baby next year. “I can see us as parents. I can see myself as a mom. Next year, at 23, I am so there,” she said.

Good! maybe then we’ll so not have to hear her overproduced, post-processed voice again.

Now That’s a Lens!

fisheye

Name: “Fisheye”
Subject: Still object
Medium: Sanyo PM8200
Description: This, believe it or not, is a fisheye lens made by Nikkor mounted on an F5. It is on display at the George Eastman House Museum. Definitely a great place to look at oddities and historical items relating to photography, I highly recommend visiting there if you find yourself in Rochester, NY.

Bush: Oil for Votes

A friend of mine predicted a couple weeks back that Bush would intervene to try and make gas prices drop just ahead of the election, in the hopes that low oil prices will buy his ticket back into the White House. Looks like he was right:

Oil prices inched closer to $50 a barrel Thursday even as the Bush administration offered to tap the nation’s emergency stockpile of crude on behalf of refiners whose supply was disrupted by Hurricane Ivan.

It would be the first time the government loaned oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in almost two years.

Bush has been very sparing in operating the oil reserve. The idea behind it is to speculate… Sell parts of the reserve when oil prices climb to cool off prices and keep gas pump tabs low, and then buy back to restore the amount in the reserve when prices go down. This way the government buys oil cheap, sells it at a profit, and at the same time keeps everyone happy by keeping gas prices from rising too much. But Bush hasn’t been doing this, until the prices started to hurt his re-election chances.