Do you remember The Ad? The ad that made everyone in Minnesota who kinda didn’t like Norm Coleman go over the line and realize that Norm Coleman is the scum of the earth? You can read about that here but I’ll summarize it for you briefly and tell you why I even bring it up.

When Al Franken was running for the Senate, he would often tell a particular story about Paul Wellstone. In this story, Senator Wellstone is running along side his son, who is, in turn, running second or third in a cross country race as part of his high school track team. Paul, known for his energy, is running along side his son for the entire race. And near the end, he moves in close, running sideways along side Junior and encouraging him. Franken, at this point in the story, imitates Wellstone running sideways, flapping his arms and yelling “You can do it! You can take him! You can do it! You can take him!”

This is a funny, engaging, and indeed poignant story. For those of you who don’t know, Senator Paul Wellsone was widely loved by Minnesotans, he died an untimely and violent death while Senator, we ran a good Democrat to take over his seat but stupidity prevailed and Norm Coleman took Wellstone’s seat. In essence, Franken is taking back Wellstone’s seat from Coleman. When I’ve seen Franken tell this story it brought tears to my eyes, and that was true of everyone in the room.

Then, the fuck-head Republicans did the worst thing they could do. They took video of Franken telling this wonderful and engaging story … the part where he is imitating a father encouraging his son at a race … and cut that into an ad that made Franken look like a raving maniac, telling voters that if Franken won the election he’d soon get busy yelling at them and being a violent freak of some kind.

They were caught. They were embarrassed, I think, but they never did apologize. And they will never live it down.

But that did not stop them from using the same footage again. For reasons that are beyond me, the swearing in of Al Franken to his justly earned Senate Seat prompted the Republican Fuckwads to make an anti-Al Franken ad for Youtube, and it uses that same footage.

Hey, Republicans. In case you didn’t notice. We can see you. In fact, the whole world is watching.

The most amazing bit of news we’ve heard since the Party of Racism cynically and quite temporarily appointed a black man to lead them, is that Minnesota’s Norm Coleman could be appointed to replace Steele. The reaction of one Democratic Party official when asked what the Dems are going to do about this: “When the Republicans are forming a circular firing squad, the last thing we’re going to do is step into the middle.”

The rumor was first posted on Politico, and is discussed in more detail here.

What I think actually happened was this. Top Republican Party officials were talking about the future of the party while riding the subway into the city from their posh Virginia neighborhood. Nearby, a crafty reporter was listening in, trying to get some news to report on Politico.

One of the party officials said to the other: “Let’s convince Norm Coleman to leave the Republican Party” but the reporter heard this as “Let’s convene Norm Coleman to lead the Republican Party” because just then the subway, which is normally quite quite in DC (seriously … those trains whisper compared to NY and Boston), went rattling over a bad piece of track.

That is the only possible explanation.

We had a computer security seminar yesterday at which our unit-local IT boss discussed security issues with various unit heads, staff, and so on. He’s a great guy and really know his stuff, even if he does think Windows is OK. (Or maybe it’s just the chip making him think that, I dunno.) Anyway, the idea that nefarious operatives with radios could listen in on your wife, or even your wireless keyboard, was brought up and discussed. That may seem a little extreme to worry about (but it is not, actually) however it turns out that it is WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT!!!

That PC keyboard you’re using may be giving away your passwords. Researchers say they’ve discovered new ways to read what you’re typing by aiming special wireless or laser equipment at the keyboard or by simply plugging into a nearby electrical socket.

And no, we are not talking about wireless keyboards here. Details here.

The judges indicated to Coleman that additional fines would be charged if his shenanigans continue. They also indicated that “In the event this sanction fails to deter future conduct on the part of [Coleman’s] counsel, the court will not hesitate to impose harsher sanctions, up to and including dismissal [of the case].”

The essence of the unethical behavior by Coleman: Republican election judge Pam Howell had been on the sand a couple of times last week, but was pulled off the stand as the result of documents she secretly passed to the Coleman lawyers. The crux of her testimony seemed to be unverified hearsay about a Souh Minneapolis (= Democratic) election judge stuffing a ballot box. But the Coleman camp and Republican Howell also seem to have bee in cahoots, and worked out the exposure of evidence that seemed to (ineffectively) support Coleman’s claim, but the suppression of evidence having the contrary effect.

The Franken side begins its arguments today, and is expected to call hundreds of voters (quickly, they claim) to the stand to state that their absentee votes were not counted, and to have testamony from some election officials as well.

The court contest so far, while Coleman’s team had the helm, has resulted in several changes to the actual election count, but wiht a shift in favor of Franken instead of Coleman. It seems that part of the Franken strategy is to demonstrate how relatively easy it would be to increase the Franken lead even more … by a couple of hundred votes, perhpas. The other outcome of the Coleman effort has been to throw the entire election into doubt suggesting that it be thrown out. However, this claim seems to be without merit, and the Franken team now has the chance (and responsibility) to demonstrate this.

Soucres:

MinnPost
Star Tribune