Haven't seen this anywhere else:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama is expected to nominate New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to head the Commerce Department, a senior Democratic source said on Tuesday.

Obama is expected to announce the appointment during a news conference scheduled for 1140 EST/1640 GMT on Wednesday in Chicago, his fifth since he began naming nominees for his Cabinet.

The appointment of Richardson, a former U.N. ambassador and energy secretary who became an Obama supporter earlier this year after dropping his own presidential bid, would make him the first Hispanic named to Obama's rapidly filling Cabinet.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4B177C20081202

Having just caught Obama's daily press conference, I'm still amazed that we have a leader who actually wants to be in daily communication with the American people. While Bush lies curled up in a fetal ball somewhere (no doubt counting down the days until his body can leave Washington to rejoin his mind in whatever secret location it has been residing in since, well, August 2001?), Obama has hit the ground running and is doing everything he can to get his cool, calm, and collected intellect wrapped around this huge mess we all face.

The critics may have complained about Obama having no executive experience, but all evidence from the past two years points to the contrary, and not only have the world's leaders taken notice, but the world's executives seem to be pricking up their ears as well. There is an excellent piece up on Reuters today that is a good read:

Business could learn from Obama style, experts say

excerpt:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - If Barack Obama were a corporate chief executive, the incoming U.S. president already would be winning high marks for his management style, experts say.

The president-elect's steady hand and calm demeanor that have earned him the moniker "No Drama Obama" are traits business leaders could well learn from, according to management experts.

"What he's doing is masterful," said Paul Reagan, a management consultant and senior lecturer at Wayne State University in Detroit. "His value system is clear, and he spends a tremendous amount of time reinforcing that he does what he says he will do.

"His credibility right now is so high most people already see him as the corporate head," Reagan said.

It's a lengthy article and well worth checking out. How nice is it that we have someone who is able to inspire confidence in these uncertain times?

Seriously. Has anyone else noticed the George W. Bush has completely abdicated the throne? Aside from having his buddies loot what remains of the treasury, and passing a number of last-minute pieces of legislation to give away to his gas and oil buddies the opportunity to do whatever they want to whatever is left of our natural resources, what is Dubya up to, in that Peruvian poncho of his?

At least Obama has learned from the mistakes of Bill Clinton and is rapidly assmebling his administration, and is already putting the plans together to have congress prepare legislation that will (hopefully) be ready for him to sign on Day One. At least Obama is up in front of the cameras every day, talking to the press or announcing his cabinet choices, and daily calling for immediate action of the dire straits we find ourselves in.

And where is Bush? Hamming it up in front of the cameras in his poncho, seemingly without a care in the world. Which is probably true. After all, he succeeded in doing everything he set out to do. Succeeded, that is, if bankrupting the country to benefit his puppetmasters was a goal. Succeeded in destroying half a century's worth of environmental protections. Succeeded in crippling our military, so that we really can't participate in any real nation building for a long time to come. Succeeded in decimating what was left of the New Deal and the Great Society.

Well, if it were me, I guess I'd be off in Peru, dancing around in a poncho, too. Heckuva job there, Bushie. And now for your well-deserved retirement.

Lame duck, indeed. 

Update: How about the Golden Fleece? Nice classical ring to it, play on the original meaning. More TV friendly than....

Golden Ejection? In the spirit of bailing out before the plane crashes, and pulling the eject lever, how about Golden Ejection? OK, so it sounds vaguely sexual, but not overtly. In the end, I guess we are seeing that the captains of industry don't go down with the ship.

Original post:

Platinum Escape Pod? That's my entry, as per Josh's front page challenge. I like the notion that as the spaceship is about to explode, a lucky few jump into the pod and escape, Star Wars style.

Need a Catchphrase

In our new economic era, I think we need a new catchphrase for CEOs like Mack Whittle of the South Financial Group, who pushed up his retirement ahead of schedule so he could bag his mega-Golden parachute a few weeks before he sent his company hat in hand to the government for bailout funds.

Total bailout for Whittle's company: $347 million. Total parachute for Whittle: $18 million.

Seriously, what's the catchphrase? Because I think we're going to see a lot of this.

Anyone else have an idea?

Courtest Jed Lewison of the Jed Report.com, and Daily Kos:

...and John McCain under 46%. Here's where the numbers stand right now:

Obama: 67,065,042 (52.7%, 365 EVs)

McCain: 58,420,587 (45.9%, 162 EVs)

Remember how things looked on election night at around midnight ET?

The numbers are stil growing, but are already at historic proportions. Can we call it a mandate yet?

I'm guessing that heads are exploding all across Deep-Red America today, following the release of the latest al-Qaida video rant in which Ayman al-Zawahri refers to Barack Obama, Colin Powell, and Condeleeza Rice as "house negroes." From the article in today's Huffington Post:

CAIRO, Egypt -- Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader used a racial epithet to insult Barack Obama in a message posted Wednesday, describing the president-elect in demeaning terms that imply he does the bidding of whites.

The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies. Ayman al-Zawahri said in the message, which appeared on militant Web sites, that Obama is "the direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X, the 1960s African-American rights leader.

It strikes me as being somewhat ironic that an extremist fundamentalist Muslim terrorist takes delight in using the same kind of hate-filled language as some of our own well-known right-wing fundamentalist extremists. After all, hasn't Rush Limbaugh been refering to now President-elect Barack Obama as "Barack the Magic Negro" for over a year now?

What must it be like, to be such a proud, chest-thumping American, and to find that those who you proclaim as your most hated enemies, share the same, hate-filled thoughts and speech as you do, and hate the same people as you do? I wonder what it is like for these people to look at themselves in the mirror, and see the face of Ayman al-Zawahri staring back at them. 

 

 

I love lists, and history. Especially lists of tech history. Maybe you do too:

The path to modern-day computing is longer than many suspect, and strewn with interesting nuggets of information. These include:

- the inventor of e-mail can't remember when he got it working
- Pac-Man was modelled on a pizza and called Puck-Man until vandals forced a name change
- the first hard drive had a 5MB capacity and could only be moved by a fork-lift truck
- in 1980, The Times reported with wonder that a word processor could be bought for £3,500
- Deep Blue's chess victory over Garry Kasparov was described as a 'psychological triumph'.

For full details of these milestones, and other gems from the Times Archive, read on...

http://timesonline.typepad.com/technology/2008/11/top-25-days-in.html

Alaska voting update: Begich increases lead to 1022 votes!

Begich, Mark	DEM	138959	47.37%
Bird, Bob	AI	12144	4.14%
Gianoutsos, Ted	NA	1249	0.43%
Haase, Fredrick D.	LIB	2270	0.77%
Stevens, Ted	REP	137937	47.02%
Write-in Votes		786	0.27%

http://www.elect.alaska.net/data/results.htm

The Anchorage Daily News reports:

Mark Begich has extended his lead over Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens to 1,022 votes with the latest count of absentee and questioned ballots. The Elections Division counted 14,508 ballots today. The count of absentee and questioned ballots will pick up Tuesday. The state has an estimated 24,000 more ballots left to count in the race.

*****

The fact that the Democratic Begich's lead over the Republican Stevens is increasing even as ballots are counted from the Stevens stronghold of the Mat-Su is not a good sign for the 40-year incumbent's chances to retain his seat.

The Elections Division on Tuesday will count absentee ballots from Anchorage, which has generally been split between Begich and Stevens, as well as Southeast Alaska, which is heavily pro-Begich.

Update from Kos:

That's another 10,000 counted, leaving roughly 28,000 or so ballots left, most from Begich-friendly districts.

So we're at .35 percent. If Begich gets over 0.5 percent, any recount would have to be paid by the GOP. Under that, and the state pays for it.

http://www.dailykos.com/

I can't remember when I first started coming to Talking Points Memo, but it was a few years ago. It has only been more recent that I started blogging here, and it has been a great experience. For me, TPM is my home on the tubes. Thanks to Josh and the TPM staff for creating this place where we can come together and debate, discuss, and dissect the issues of the day. Anyone else care to join me in making this a big "Thank You" thread?

The totals were last updated at 3:30pm local time, and haven't been updated since, so maybe this is the last update we'll get today. Looks like it will be at least Monday before a final number comes in, as the reports say they will be counting the question (provisional) ballots on Saturday. Current totals:

Begich   125019

Stevens 125016

*****

Update from the Alaska Board of Elections:

 

Nate Silver reports:

Prior to today, Stevens' lead over Begich had been 3,257 votes, with the state of Alaska having reported that about 90,000 votes remained to be counted. Although some of those votes will be thrown out (such as duplicate votes when the voter both sent in an absentee ballot and came to the polling place), there are still plenty of votes remaining to be counted, and Begich is making up ground at a sufficient pace that he appears more likely than not to surpass Stevens.

A significant number of additional votes will be counted before close of business today, although approximately 8 of Alaska's 40 house districts won't finalize their counting process until Friday at the earliest. The areas that will report late consist mostly of rural, Begich-friendly districts (contrary to our earlier reporting, Begich performed quite well in rural Alaska; his weaknesses were in the Anchorage Suburbs and the Mat-Su Valley).

There has been so much speculation in the media, and there have been so many lies, about Barack Obama's religious beliefs, that it is amazing to me that this interview hasn't been printed in full before now. In 2004, Chicago Sun Times columnist Cathleen Falsani interviewed Obama during his run in Illinois for the US Senate. The full transcript of the interview has just been published for the first time. It's an excellent, lengthy interview and well worth reading in full, as there are a great variety of subjects covered, but one section that jumps out is in regards to the separation of church and state:

Alongside my own deep personal faith, I am a follower, as well, of our civic religion. I am a big believer in the separation of church and state. I am a big believer in our constitutional structure. I mean, I'm a law professor at the University of Chicago teaching constitutional law. I am a great admirer of our founding charter, and its resolve to prevent theocracies from forming, and its resolve to prevent disruptive strains of fundamentalism from taking root ion this country.

As I said before, in my own public policy, I'm very suspicious of religious certainty expressing itself in politics.

Now, that's different form a belief that values have to inform our public policy. I think it's perfectly consistent to say that I want my government to be operating for all faiths and all peoples, including atheists and agnostics, while also insisting that there are values tha tinform my politics that are appropriate to talk about.

A standard line in my stump speech during this campaign is that my politics are informed by a belief that we're all connected. That if there's a child on the South Side of Chicago that can't read, that makes a difference in my life even if it's not my own child. If there's a senior citizen in downstate Illinois that's struggling to pay for their medicine and having to chose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer even if it's not my grandparent. And if there's an Arab American family that's being rounded up by John Ashcroft without the benefit of due process, that threatens my civil liberties.

I can give religious expression to that. I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper, we are all children of God. Or I can express it in secular terms. But the basic premise remains the same. I think sometimes Democrats have made the mistake of shying away from a conversation about values for fear that they sacrifice the important value of tolerance. And I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive.

All I can say is, wow. Another great quote:

I'm a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at it's best comes with a big dose of doubt. I'm suspicious of too much certainty in the pursuit of understanding just because I think people are limited in their understanding.

I think that, particularly as somebody who's now in the public realm and is a student of what brings people together and what drives them apart, there's an enormous amount of damage done around the world in the name of religion and certainty.

And one last morsel:

It's interesting particularly now after this election, comes with it a lot of celebrity. And I always think of politics as having two sides. There's a vanity aspect to politics, and then there's a substantive part of politics. Now you need some sizzle with the steak to be effective, but I think it's easy to get swept up in the vanity side of it, the desire to be liked and recognized and important. It's important for me throughout the day to measure and to take stock and to say, now, am I doing this because I think it's advantageous to me politically, or because I think it's the right thing to do? Am I doing this to get my name in the papers or am I doing this because it's necessary to accomplish my motives.

There is much more to ponder, so please go take a look at:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/11/obamas-interview-with-cathleen.html

The section on community organizing is also of deep insight, but so are many other passages. How lucky are we to have someone this thoughtful and intelligent about to step into the driver's seat?

Even though there are still a few days left for absentee votes to arrive, the bulk of the 90,000 that remain should be tallied by the end of today. From the Anchorage Daily News:

A week after Election Day, about 30 percent of the votes that will decide the fate of embattled U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens still haven't been counted.

The Alaska Division of Elections expects to count most of the roughly 90,000 early, absentee ballots or questioned ballots remaining today.

Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in U.S. Senate history, leads Democrat Mark Begich, the mayor of Anchorage, by 3,257 votes.

Along with finally letting the rest of the country know whether Alaska decided to send a convicted felon back to Congress, is the lingering mystery of just how the numerous polls managed to be so spot-on with every other state in the country, but got it so wrong in the Alaska race, prompting a number of journalists to question the integrity of the Alaska voting process. From Propublica.org "The Mystery of the Missing Alaska Voters" :

On his number-crunching blog FiveThirtyEight.com, Nate Silver noted that three polls conducted after the conviction of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) on corruption charges placed him at a considerable disadvantage to his Democratic challenger Mark Begich. But by at least the counts so far, Stevens was ahead by nearly 3,300 votes. Likewise, Ethan Berkowitz had a sizable lead over incumbent Rep. Don Young (R-AK), who is under investigation for ties to the same oil company at the heart of the Stevens conviction. But Young won.

The numbers have left some deeply suspicious. "I'm wondering if someone stole the body and blood of this election," one writer put it on a widely linked Huffington Post piece (with plenty of exclamation points). "Where are the votes? Something stinks at the Alaska Division of Elections." 

Not everyone finds the low turnout suspicious, with some sources pointing to colder than normal temperatures in Alaska on election day, news reports predicting long lines at the voting booths, the early calling of the election for Obama and McCain's concession speech before Alaska's polls closed.

Hopefully, by the end of the day, the final 30% of Alaska's vote will answer a lot of these lingering questions.

The latest update from the ethically-challenged State of Alaska, from the Brad Blog:

This just in from Alaska, where thousands of new ballots continue to be found each day, since it was first reported that turnout in 2008 was 11% lower than in 2004. Thousands of ballots, nearly a third of them, remain uncounted nearly a week after the election. Their numbers could explain the strange results so far in races --- such as those of the felonious Sen. Ted Stevens (R) and the under-investigation Rep. Don Young (R) --- for which pollsters had predicted decisive losses for the Republicans.

*****

The following updated numbers come from the DNC's Alaska Communications Director, Kay Brown late this afternoon [emphasis in the original]...

New totals for ballots were posted today at:
http://www.elections.ala...rly_question_numbers.pdf

The Division of Elections reports there are now 90,635 ballots remaining to be counted. This means nearly 29 percent (28.8%) of the total vote has not been counted yet.

With these new numbers the total vote is at 314,268, with turnout at 63.3% (registered voters = 495,731).

The new ballots posted today include about 4,000 additional Questioned ballots about 5,600 additional Absentees.

The Division of Elections (DOE) plans to count the majority of early vote and absentee ballots that were verified by Election Day on Wednesday. The DOE Plans to count the remaining ballots on Friday (but this is all obviously subject to change). However, there could be enough ballots left after Wednesdays count for the race to still go either way.

All overseas ballots have to be received by Wednesday, November 19th and the DOE plans to certify the election on Tuesday, November 25. A recount, should one be necessary, would occur after that. An automatic recount is only implemented if the final votes are within 0.5 percent.

Total turnout in 2004 was 314,502 with these new ballots posted today we are still slightly under the number who voted in 2004. Turnout in the 2004 General was 66.6%, with 314,502 voting and 472,160 registered voters statewide. 

The company has changed its name from Diebold Election Systems to Premier Election Solutions, but the problems with these paperless, completely unverifiable machines continue. A judge in Colorado impounded one of the machines after reports of vote flipping, and a judge in Northumberland County in Pennsylvania impounded 185 of the machines after complaints from both Democratic and Republican officials there. These are the same machines that were used throughout the state of Georgia. There are also reports that Diebold's central tabulating system is dropping thousands of votes. The full story is reported by Brad Friedman at BradBlog.com.

Excerpts:

All 185 of the completely unverifiable Diebold touch-screen voting machines used in Northumberland County, PA's election were ordered impounded by a judge Tuesday night after complaints from both the Republican and Democratic parties. Officials from both parties had filed requested action following reports from voters that straight-party ticket votes were not showing voters the names of their selection for President on the summary screen near the end of the 100% faith-based touch-screen voting process.

*****

While one Diebold AccuVote touch-screen machine was impounded by an official in Colorado following reports of votes flipping on the screen from Democratic to Republican candidates in early voting --- and even with hundreds of similar startling problems reported directly to the Obama campaign as The BRAD BLOG reported exclusively on Monday --- no other action was taken on or before Election Day to remove these wholly unverifiable systems from use until Tuesday night's court-ordered quarantine of the Northumberland County machines.

The same unverifiable machines made by Diebold were used in a number of states, including the entirety of Georgia where a run-off has been scheduled following a tight race for the U.S. Senate there. The same models were also found, by a landmark Princeton study in 2006, to be easily susceptible to malicious viruses that could result in a flipped election which would be difficult, if not impossible, to discover...

*****

To make matters worse this year, Diebold admitted in late August of this year that their GEMS central tabulator system routinely drops thousands of votes from uploaded totals without notifying the system administrator that there was an error.

That failure, first discovered by election officials in Ohio, and originally denied by the voting machine company, exists on Diebold tabulators used in 34 states on Tuesday. The problem affects all votes cast on both optical-scan paper ballot systems (such as those used in several counties in the razor-thin Franken/Coleman U.S. Senate race, now set for a manual recount in Minnesota) and touch-screen systems manufactured by the company.

The critical programming flaw which causes the problem has been in the GEMS systems for some 10 years before they finally admitted to the problem just over two months ago while being sued by Ohio's Sec. of State Jennifer Brunner, after the failure was confirmed by election officials in Hamilton County, Ohio.

Is it too much to ask for an election that can be verified with paper receipts? Whatever the Obama administration has on its to-do list, I hope that this is one of the priorities that is right at the top. 

Have we ever had a state to equal the corruption in Alaska? Where the governor was found guilty of breaking ethics laws, a senator was convicted of felony corruption charges, and the state's sole congressman was currently under investigation, also for ethics and corruption issues? Does anyone trust the Alaska state government to run a clean election? There are so many irregularities that it is hard to keep track, but Shannyn Moore has a done a pretty good job of creating a summary:

ANCHORAGE - Something stinks. Not just an ordinary low tide smell. Not like something you'd blame on the dog. It smells like an infection. For me to plug my nose, I'd have to overlook some curious facts.

In Alaska, more people voted for George W. Bush in 2004 than for Sarah Palin on Tuesday despite an identical 61-36 margin of victory. Yes. Only four years ago 54,304 Alaskans got off their sofas and voted for Bush, but decided to sit home and not vote for Palin in 2008.

In turn, I have to ignore the 30,520 Alaskans who felt progressive enough in 2004 to vote for John Kerry, but weren't inspired enough to get out and vote for Barack Obama.

I would have to glance past the 1,700% increase in the Democratic caucus in February, the 20,991 newly registered voters, and the three largest political rallies in Alaska's history.

I would also have to forget the people I stood in a long line with to early vote. It would be helpful not to know every other presidential election since Alaska began keeping records has had a larger turn out than the one we just had with our own Governor on the ticket. Try not to remember 12.4% more Alaskans showed up for the August primary as compared to four years ago, before the Palin nomination. Don't think about the Lower 49's record voter turn out this year either. Try to delete the memory file, though difficult, that 80% of us approved of Sarah Palin just two months ago.

There is so much more, and I highly recommend reading her entire report here:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6644

And yes, Alaska is a Diebold Touch-Screen "Faith-Based Voting" state.

*****

Original post:

ABC News is reporting that there are still a lot of ballots to be counted in Alaska:

Shelly Growden, Alaska's elections systems manager, tells ABC News that the current vote totals don't tell the full story. At least 70,000 absentee and provisional ballots have yet to be counted, she said.

The state won't know for several days even how many absentee and provisional ballots were issued, or many of those will be received in time to counted. In Alaska, absentee ballots must be postmarked by Election Day but can arrive as many as 10 days after the election if mailed domestically, and 15 days if sent from overseas, Growden said.

She said she expects final 2008 turnout to have exceeded the 60.1 percent recorded in the 2000 election, though it still probably won't approach the numbers reached in 2004.

"We were preparing for it to be higher," Growden said.

Pollster.com indicates that 96% of Alaska's precints have reported, leaving 4% to go. While there is no chance that the 62/36% split is likely to change in Obama's favor, there is still the issue of the Begich/Stevens race to be decided. According to Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com

Although Ted Stevens holds a small lead in Alaska and is the favorite to retain his seat, the outcome is not as inevitable as it might appear to be. Stevens currently holds a lead of 3,353 votes, or about 1.5 percent of the votes tallied so far. But, there are quite a large number of ballots yet to count.

This of course means that it is still possible for Begich to catch up and turn one more Senate seat blue. Hope!

As far as concerns about voting irregularities, there is an excellent, detailed diary up at Daily Kos that addresses a number of issues:

Stolen election in Alaska? 5 reasons why that accusation is premature.