WMD or no WMD.

This article is a grisly reminder of why the war in Iraq was justified on more than simply grounds of whether Saddam Hussein had a ready stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Now, however, what are we to do with Sudan?

There’s a reason the hat is red.

As much as I love Red Hat and Fedora, there are many reasons why I don’t look for a job there. Admittedly, most of these people are Fedora community folks, but most of the Red Hatters I’ve met are proud lefties. Hey, to each his own.

Addendum to 2008.

Well, maybe Edwards might be the more realistic candidate. He would be a departure from the Democratic Party’s norm:

<p><li>He&#8217;s a Southerner.</li><br />

On the other hand, he doesn’t have much of a public record other than not showing up much at the Senate. One no-show term and then a fizzled out Presidential campaign, and picked up by the Party as a VP nominee to shore up all the weak spots at the top of the ticket. Plus he’s a trial lawyer, which will likely make middle America bristle, and he’s not really that popular in his home state, either.

<p>Who is a likely candidate for the Republicans for 2008? Could Jeb continue the Bush dynasty into the 2010&#8217;s? What about his son George P.? If he can stay <a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/georgep1.html">out of trouble</a> and on target with mainstream conservatives, and he kisses his bachelor life goodbye and marries well, he would be an interesting nominee in 2012 or 2016. In between, how about a House or Senate candidacy?</p>

…And Kerry agrees as well.

According to an AP report, John Kerry has conceded defeat to President Bush in a telephone call to the White House this morning. He ran a tough campaign, and I personally am very grateful that Kerry has taken the high road in not turning the election into a court battle, which he easily could have dragged out for weeks. In the end, this will help him maintain a great deal of public stature, and might make him a realistic candidate for 2008.

It’s in the bag.

As I hit the hay last night at around 1:30 a.m., Mary Beth Cahill was making an asinine statement vastly overestimating the number of provisional, overseas, and military ballots still to count in Ohio. This morning, with 100% of the precincts reporting, President Bush is ahead in Ohio by about 136,000 votes. The Ohio office of the Secretary of State reports that approximately 143,000 ballots are outstanding (the aforementioned provisional, etc.). This would mean that the remaining ballots would have to come in at a rate of about 95% for John Kerry, and as has been shown before, the military ballots alone favor President Bush by about 3 to 1.

None of this takes into account the validation of these ballots. In 2000, approximately 10% of these late ballots in Ohio were not validated—meaning that they were either not filed correctly, or people voted twice, or so on. If that proportion holds true, or even if the invalid ballots drop to about 6%, John Kerry cannot win Ohio.

Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico have created a bit of touch and go through the late night hours. Despite Andrew Card predicting a clear Bush victory this morning, the provisional ballots outstanding in these states outnumber the margins in those states, and therefore these states are still up for grabs.

Ohio, however, will ultimately fall into Bush’s column; anyone who casts doubt on that outcome is, to be frank, delusional. That brings the President’s total electoral votes to 269 for now, meaning a tie is possible, but highly unlikely. Provisional ballots do not tend to run highly counter to the rest of the state’s voting proportions, and a 5% or 10% difference is not enough to swing those states into Kerry’s column. I predict President Bush will maintain comfortable margins in all those states, of several tens of thousands of votes.

The popular vote has also been very revealing, with a close to four million vote margin in favor of the President. Although not technically a mandate in the strictest sense, the numbers state clearly that the President has at least received enough support to continue his agenda for a second term. What remains to be seen is whether, having judiciously reserved his camera time until this morning, John Kerry will affirm the strength of our electoral system by conceding graciously.

Exit poll hysteria.

Zogby has data updated as of lunchtime today, but their map, confusingly enough, shows Virginia (!) up for grabs, despite the fact that Virginia has gone solidly Republican in every election in my lifetime, and Ohio and Florida firmly in Bush territory, despite word that both of those states have experienced highly elevated levels of voter turnout, which generally boosts Democrats. Where is this guy getting his numbers?

Given the push to turn out new voters this year, I suspect that much of the forecasting for Ohio and Florida is incorrect, since the sampling might not hit many of the new voters. In other news, Missouri, which is the only state to have gone with the election winner in every Presidential election since 1900, is forecast by just about everyone to re-elect President Bush.

Seriously.

Get out and vote today, but remember to GET INFORMED first. Don’t let Michael Moore, FOX News, Dan Rather, or Ann Coulter shoulder your responsibility to think seriously about what you believe, and to get the facts about the candidates’ platforms.

Impending chaos and doom.

There’s something big in the air, and it apparently has something to do with erections. Could this be next-generation Viagra? An announcement is scheduled for tomorrow, from what I hear. Everyone’s talking about it at the office. It was really difficult for me to work with all the pottymouths! Please, people, can’t we leave that kind of nasty language for the Internet chat rooms?