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Last week’s contest was won by wes.in.wa, just barely within the first hour (at 7:57). It was Titusville, Florida. Here’s this week’s contest, good luck!

Is five years in a prisoner of war camp really a qualification for president?  Hmm…

As much as we’re all appalled and disgusted by what McCain campaign worker Ashley Todd did this week in Pittsburgh, she’s not a criminal. She’s a person who likely has some mental health problems. We really need to get over this notion that everyone who offends us or does something that we find morally reprehensible needs to go to jail. No one was victimized here. No one had any money or property stolen from them. At worst, write her a fine to cover the administrative costs of having the police pursue the case and suggest a good mental health facility for her to check herself into. We’ve got too many goddamn people in jail already in this country.

UPDATE: Richard Pope in the comments provides some excellent perspective:

Isn’t $50,000 bail a little bit excessive for a misdemeanor? If Ashley Todd had really been attacked in the manner that she falsely claimed, I wonder whether the hypothetical attacker would have received anywhere near that amount of bail.

For example, a man “charged with robbery, burglary, giving false identification to law enforcement, loitering and prowling at night, simple assault, making terroristic threats, theft, receiving stolen property and false imprisonment” in Pittsburgh (Allegheny County, Pennsylvania) was only held on $10,000 bail.

Sen. John McCain gets a theme song:

(There are some sixty more media clips from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)

Obama	McCain
100.0% probability of winning	0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 372 electoral votes	Mean of 166 electoral votes

Yesterday’s analysis showed Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by 376 to 162 electoral votes. There were 21 new polls in 15 states released today. The polls slightly favor McCain, so that he gains a handful of electoral votes today.

Now, after 100,000 simulated elections, Obama wins 100,000 times. Obama receives (on average) 372 to McCain’s 166 electoral votes. Obama would still have a 100.0% probability of winning an election held now.

Detailed results for this analysis are available at Hominid Views.

Methods are described in the FAQ. The most recent version of this analysis can be found on this page.

So, it looks like it’ll be a crisp autumn weekend coming up in Bellevue. Good to get some exercise before it gets too cold. It won’t be rainy. Hint hint.

Markos pegged it:

Look, here’s the deal: The local media and the local political establishment see themselves as kingmakers. They get to decide who sinks or swims in their areas of influence. Then along comes Darcy Burner, thinking she can crash the gates and get elected for office in the district, and the local elites are pissed. So they conspire with Reichert, a supposed local hero, to dish all sorts of crap about Darcy and bury Reichert’s dirt.

Yesterday’s bullshit resume story was the Seattle Times playing kingmaker. Reichert needed a major newspaper to validate his bogus charge, and the Times went out of its way to give him exactly what he wanted. They knew exactly what they were doing, and they wrote a headline to perfectly fit the needs of Reichert’s ad.

Make no mistake, this is potentially a devastating ad that could have a real impact, especially on low information voters, regardless of the fact that it is based on lies and exaggerations. After all, a newspaper said it, and for some voters, that’s all the credibility they need.

Don’t let Frank Blethen use the power of his inherited press to change the outcome of this race. To win, Darcy needs to fight back hard, but do so she also needs our help. Yesterday Markos set a target of $50,000, but after passing that mark in under 12 hours, he’s doubled it to $100,000. I myself contributed another $200, a big chunk of change for a dirty hippie like me. Won’t you please reach deep into your pockets and do the same?

This is not only a chance for us to put a smart, accomplished, creative woman in Congress who clearly understands and represents the values and economy of the 8th CD… it is also our chance to kick Frank Blethen’s ass, and prove once and for all that owning a printing press no longer gives one ownership over public opinion. Please give to Darcy today.

As long as we’re obsessing on personal resumes, I thought I’d share a little biographical tidbit of my own.  I graduated college intending to pursue a career on Broadway, and while I guess most people might write off my dreams as a failure, I still managed to get further than most, having co-written the book and lyrics for a musical that opened Off-Broadway at the well respected Vineyard Theatre in December of 2001.

It was in many ways a personal disaster, four years of hard work dissipating in a three-week run and a series of scathing reviews, but I’ve always lived by the philosophy that I’d rather fail big than succeed small, and so I’ve often proudly (if self-deprecatingly) described myself as the co-author of an Off-Broadway musical flop.

Problem is, the program, and thus the subsequent nasty review in our nation’s paper of record, the New York Times, doesn’t give me credit for co-writing the book, so I guess, given recent precedent, our local media would accuse me of lying, or at the very least exaggerating my failure.

But I did co-write the book.  For four years I collaborated on that script, writing and rewriting and re-rewriting the book and lyrics, but after a falling out with the artistic director over a series of last minute cuts that I vehemently opposed, he retaliated by removing my name from the book credit… and that’s how the NY Times and other papers credited the show in their reviews.

So while I’ve got no documentation to back up my claim, the truth remains:  I co-wrote the lyrics and book of an Off-Broadway musical flop.

The point is, in reporting, “the facts” don’t always equate to the “the truth.”  At most other universities, Darcy Burner’s degree might have been recorded as a B.A. in computer science with a minor in economics, but that’s just not the terminology used at Harvard.  Still, the truth remains that Darcy did at least enough work for a minor, having completed five economics courses at one of the top business schools in the nation, along with two related mathematics courses, earning what her Harvard dean agrees is accurately described as a degree in computer science and economics, even if that is not exactly what is written on the diploma.

To parse a conjunction in an effort cast Darcy as a liar is thus absurd, especially in light of the very real and pressing issue in which this bogus charge was raised:  our nation’s unprecedented economic crisis.  The question voters should care about is, given Darcy’s extensive economics education at one of the finest schools in the nation versus Reichert’s two-year social work degree from a small Christian college, whose education leaves them better prepared to understand and address this crisis?

Darcy earned a degree in computer science and economics, as Dean Lewis attests, but whatever the so-called facts, I think the truth is obvious.

King County Superior Court Judge Paris Kallas ruled today that the lawsuit alleging illegal coordination between Dino Rossi and the BIAW’s fundraising efforts can go forward. 

Kallas will decide on Monday if Dino Rossi will be deposed. Rossi’s deposition could be scheduled next Wednesday.

From an April 2008 Congressional hearing in which Rep. Robert Scott introduces Rep. Dave Reichert:

“Our second witness will be the gentleman from Washington, Congressman David Reichert, who currently is in his second term in Congress. In addition to his notable work on the Green River task force, he has over 35 years of public service to the people of Washington. He has a bachelor’s degree from Concordia Lutheran College.”

Of course, Reichert only has a two-year Associate’s degree, and fitting his pattern, he never corrects this mistake, thus enshrining it in the Congressional Record.

[Hat-tip Dan Kirkdorffer.]

Turns out the highest paid member of Sarah Palin’s campaign staff, at over $11,000 a week, is Amy Strozzi, Palin’s traveling makeup artist.  Which kinda makes sense, as it’s the one party of Palin’s campaign that consistently looks good.