Remember George H. W. Bush's evil twin Skippy ?

You know from Doonesburry. Basically H.W. sure seems to be a decent man and, as president, was much to statesmanlike for his own good. However, when campaigning he turned viscious.

Now his son sure seems not to be a good person and wouldn't recognise a statesman if he grew up with him. However, W. managed to get elected largely because he seemed to be a nice guy.

I think George W Bush's non-evil twin chippy handled the Clinton portrait unveiling. If he keeps W in an undisclosed location for the whole campaign we might be in worse trouble than we are already.

The Random Pledge Generator

Ah I wish I could program in JAVA. What we need now, as Kevin Drum explains is a Random Pledge Generator which will enable our kids to pledge allegiance to the flag without violating the first amendment. Excomunicated ex Mormon
Teresa Nielson Hayden creator of the wonderful Random Plot Generator should get on the job.

Here is my feeble low tech effort

I Pledge (affirm) [respect and tolerate the people who pledge] allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and the republic for which it stands (pledge allegiance to the United States of America and recognise its flag) One nation under God (Allah)[Jehovah]
{Buddha}((Brahman))[[Uhura Mazda]]{{the supreme Being}}}(((only sky))) indivisible with (which should be with) liberty and justice for all.

That should just about do it. Once I met a beatlephobe who I assume was also an atheist. He might object to the quote of John Lennon, but he's English and doesn't have standing.

I personally would require the first bit in square brackets. A pledge that is compelled is, to me, in itself offensive.

Mine would be

I respect and tolerate the people who pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and the republic for which it stands, one nation under only sky indivisible which should be with liberty and justice for all.

I got no problem with that.

Update: I realise that there are still not enough options. Under sky is for atheist Lennon fans, but what about agnostics ? Also, well, I personally suspect that it is a game not a religion, but, constitutionally, have no authority to refuse to take satanism seriously so the options should be

One nation under God (Allah)[Jehovah]
{Buddha}((Brahman))[[Uhura Mazda]]{{the supreme Being}}}(((only sky)))[[who knows what]]{{{over Satan}}}.

The Iconoclast

I have been trying to find a historical antecedant to George W. Bush. During the recount fiasco, I hoped that, although he was way to the right of his dad, blood would tell. Then I thought he was Reagan without naps ... plus Nixon without the tape recorder. As my post below shows, in my mind he is well past that.

How about Alexander the 1st who left the Army in the grips of the dread Ackhromeyev while in mystical communion with the absolute ? (quoting from memory from "In The Shadow of the Winter Palace")

How about Phillip IV the fair of France ?

Now that the Pope is scared that Bush will create "factions" in the American Catholic Church, my mind turns to Leo the Isaurian.

I will not, will not, compare him to that Austrian guy.

"Bush [told Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state], 'Not all the American bishops are with me' on the cultural issues."

That's an excerpt from the National Catholic Reporter, picked up in a full-length article in The New York Times and by Atrios and Josh Marshall.

I agree with the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State who said
"It is just unprecedented for a president to ask for help from the Vatican to get re-elected, and that is exactly what this is," and with Linda Pieczynski, " crosses the line in this country." and with the Pope who "has warned of "the formation of factions within the church" in the United States."

I wonder if the uniter who is not a divider can manage a schism within the Catholic Church.

I even wonder what to make of the Lorenzo Albacete quote the NYT included for balance "If it is done in a very rude way, then the Vatican will remember and you won't get invited again. But if it is done in a diplomatic way, that is why they go to the Vatican anyway. It is not an act of devotion. It is a political thing." Hmmm.

'Not all the American bishops are with me'.

Is Msg Albacete suggesting that Bush had better rethink exactly Who is the truth and the light, if he wants another invite to the Vatican ? He has shown a bit of confusion on the subject before but nothing like this.

The strangest thing is that this is aweful politics. How many Catholics are there who would accept Kerry's pro abortion rights views so long as Bishops let him take communion and not otherwise ? How many nutcases fear domination by the scarlet lady in Rome ? I'd say Bush stands to lose 3 votes to get 2 (total).

Who would you prefer Reagan or Nixon ?

asked conservatives to tease liberals back in the good old 80's. Right now
I'd take 8 years of Nixon followed by 8 years of Reagan rather than 4 more years of Bush. I'm amazed to appreciate Reagan's intellectual vision and Nixon's integrity.

A uniter not a divider indeed.

Nexus and the Olive Tree

I would have thought that spin stops while votes are being counted (except in Florida in 2000). Given the vague powers of the European parliament, I assume that spinmeisters (masters maitres maestri) will work overtime interpreting the results, but I would have guessed that exit polls and projections were done honestly. It is not clear how one would want to distort them since the final numbers will arrive by tomorrow.

I continued to think this even when Rai (Italian public television) hired prime minister Berlusconi’s favourite polling firm (datamedia) slightly disguised as part of a consortium called Nexus. Representatives of l’Ulivo (the olive tree) the main opposition alliance, objected at the time.

Now I see the outer limits of spin. Yesterday Berlusconi was hammered at the polls. This is no surprise first because he has made clear to Italians what he is and second because he has linked himself to Bush and the invasion of Iraq. However, he and other leaders of Forza Italia (yaay Italy) did not manage to lower expectations far enough and fast enough. The line going in was that anything over 25% would be OK even though the party got almost 30% in the last parliamentary election.

The results from Nexus quickly showed that this wasn’t low enough. They also showed a very clear downward trend so far tonight. I present % vote for Forza Italia, the whole center right coalition and the whole center left coalition in successive predictions.

Forza Italia Center Right Total Center Left Total
Exit Poll 22 % +/ 1.5 % 45.5 +/- 5.5 % 46.5 +/- 5.5 %
First Projection 22.3 % 46.5 % 44.6 %
Second Projection 21.8 % 46.6 % 44.4 %
Third Projection 21.5 % 46.1 % 44.6 %
Fourth Projection 20.7 % 45.4 % 45 %
Fifth Projection 20.5 % 45.3 % 45.6 %
Sixth Projection 20.7 % 44.9 % 45.9 %
Actual vote 20.5 % 44 % 47.4 %
33388 of 65878 precincts reporting

The really weird projections concern two tiny parties representing linguistic minorities, the UV which represents French Speakers in Val d’Aosta and the SVP which represents German speakers in Sud Tirole/Alto Adige. These projections can only be described as Merde/Sheitz, since each party was consistently projected to get 0.0 % of the vote. Clearly the allegedly representative sample of precincts did not include any precincts in Val d’Aosta or the Sud Tirole.
With 33388 of 65878 precincts reporting the SVP had 0.7% of the vote so they can not (even with rounding) fall below 0.3 %. Earlier totals were closer to 1% (they count relatively fast in the Sud Tirole).

Now it seems to me that, in this day and age, there is no need to choose a sample of precincts to make projections. It should be possible to have a data base of vote by precinct from past elections and calculate total votes now divided by votes then for reporting precincts, then to use this factor to project national totals as a multiple of last elections national totals. This won’t work if precinct boundaries change (some might have changed boundaries but I think most don’t). It has the advantage that, since it is automatic, no cheating is possible. It would also avoid offending the Sud Tirolishers

Needless to say center left politicians are irritated (in spite of being pleased about the results). I am irritated too, since a thunder storm interrupted my power supply 9 times while I was posting this and I know that Berlusconi is behind it sometimes (can't wear my tinfoil hat in a thunderstorm you know).

What are we to make of This ?

It is hard to believe Florida would offer Mr. Hardy $4.5 million for his 160 scrubby acres here in the state's southwestern corner, and perhaps harder to believe that Mr. Hardy, a 68-year-old with prostate cancer and little income, would turn the money down. But both happened recently, and now a showdown is brewing.

The state wants Mr. Hardy's land for a huge replumbing of the Everglades, meant to restore the natural flow of rainwater from Lake Okeechobee south toward the ocean.

I could say this shows devotion to property rights gone mad and the need for emminent domain. This guy is interfeering with what appears to be (in large part) an honest effort to restore a disrupted natural environment. Libertarians obviously should name this guy their vice presidential candidate (hey why libertarians he's way more appealing than Cheney). Idiot populists must side with him against the State which is BIG. Sensible people say ... who cares what sensible people say.

I think that a poor guy who turns down 4.5 million is

AWESOME

This means that I have inverted money worship. For me, the guy can make trouble and hurt the everglades provided that he disrespects money. I hate money worship.

Heeyyyyy why don't we put Him on the $10 bill with his shack on the back replacing the engraving of, among other things, Bandar Bin Sultan's personal money laundry.

Right wing joke googlebombers have edged out the true link for the
Democratic National Convention. Markos tells me to counter google and I will (hey Markos you better not have done this to show off).

Prof. Roger Myerson of the University of Chicago department of economics(via Juan Cole)
argues that local elections in Iraq might have, at least, made the situation less disasterous. He wonders why Bremer (pronounced Bush from now on B.) blocked them.
I had some thoughts on the topic posted when the Sadrist uprising began. The point is that local elections were held in Nassiriya and secular candidates won.
I'm sure that this result which is highly embarrassing to B. means that, if Bush is re-elected, Tobin Bradley's career is over.

I agree with Myerson that it is important to understand why local elections were blocked. I am not as willing as he is to eliminate some possible explanations, in particular

1: Jay Garner's theory that all the reason was to impose pure free market economic policies which would have been opposed by any elected Iraqi official. Juan Cole agrees with Garner. Myerson argues

the suggestion of a free-market motivation seems implausible to me (and I am professor of economics at the University of Chicago, where advocating free markets is a local specialty). Even those who hoped to buy Iraqi public assets for bargain-basement prices should have recognized that, for long-term enforcement of their property rights, these transactions would need more legitimacy than occupation officials alone could provide.

I note that the assumption that people are rational is also a local specialty over there. To be very polit, it seems hard to reconcile CPA policy with the rational utility maximisation model. In particular Bush administration policy seems to me to be consistently based on the logic "get our way by any means necessary, we are so right that if we get our way the outcome will be so wonderful so soon that people who we couldn't convince in rational debate ex ante will see that we were right". B. might have thought that free market economics would lead to an economic miracle by January 2005 which would retroactively legitimate the policy and resulting property claims. Such otpimisim requires complete ignorance of the short term effects of the most successful shock therapies. Hmm "complete ignorance," if the shoe fits wear it.

2. Myerson's view that the aim was to help exile politicians (that is Chalabi). Very plausible. Probably at least part of the explanation.

3. General distrust of democracy and control freaking out. This is a very simple expalanation, and to me, very plausible. B. semi follows Augustine praying "Oh Lord give me democracy in Iraq but not just now".

4. No criticism before the US election. Any democratic process would give a legitimate platform to at least some critics of Bush. Thus it must be delayed until after November 2004. I think this is a very strong complement to 3 and an important factor.

3 and 4 have long convinced me, here with reference to the mercifully short lived pseudo caucus proposal.
In general, I think Myerson's approach "cui bono" relies to much an the assumption of rationality, or, as I wrote in April "is the Bush-Bermer team even dumber than I thought ?"

Michael Bérubé totally destroys all credibility Dinesh D'Souza might ever have had. No one who reads this can pretend to believe that D'Souza has anything to contribute to national debate. He should be in some other line of work.

It seems unrealistic, bordering on the surreal, to imagine such an arrogant, obnoxious jerk succeeding in, say, customer service at Procter and Gamble, but I blame society not him and believe that, in the event he proves to be unemployable, he should get welfare given that I advocate a radical expansion of welfare.

However, I do think that Snoop can help D'Souza with his prose style as in

"[The Civil Rights Movement] sought to undermine white racism through a protest strategy that emphasized the recognition of basic rights for blacks, without considering that racism might be fortified if blacks were unable to exercise their rights effectively and responsibly."

"Most African American scholars simply refuse to acknowledge the pathology of violence in the black underclass, apparently convinced that black criminals as well as their targets are both victims: the real culprit is societal racism. Activists recommend federal jobs programs and recruitment into the private sector. Yet it seems unrealistic, bordering on the surreal, to imagine underclass blacks with their gold chains, limping walk, obscene language, and arsenal of weapons doing nine-to-five jobs at Procter and Gamble or the State Department."

"Most African American scholars simply refuse acknowledge da pathology of violence in da black underclass, apparently convinced that black criminals as well as they targets are both victims: da real culprit is societal racism n' shit. Activists recommend federal jobs programs 'n recruitment into da private sector." Yet that shiznit seems unrealistic, bordering on da surreal, imagine underclass blacks wit they gold chains, limping walk, obscene language, 'n arsenal of weapons doing nine--five jobs at Procter 'n Gamble or da State Department n' shit. "

"Increasingly it appears that it is liberal antiracism that is based on ignorance and fear: ignorance of the true nature of racism, and fear that the racist point of view better explains the world than its liberal counterpart."

"Increasingly that shiznit appears that that shiznit is liberal antiracism that is based on ignorance 'n fear: ignorance of da true nature of racism, 'n fear that da racist point of view better explains da world than its liberal counterpart."

"The American slave was treated like property, which is to say, pretty well."

"The American slave wuz treated like property, which is be like, pretty well, know what I'm sayin'? "

Well no Snoop D'Souza I don't, but that is a big improvement over the Dinesh quote above, which I undertand much too well.

From reader Cthulhu via General J.C. Christian I learned about the Snoop Dogg shizzolator. I must say that I find Snoops version of the Kurd's letter to Bush (see below) much more convincing than the original, but I thought, that's good that's very good but what about shizzolating Fafblog ? Like I mean cool squared.

the result of this passing through (unfortunate figure of speech there) askSnoop is

Ready fight da Germans Giblets," I says Giblets n' shit.
"Oh yo' ass better believe that shiznit," says Giblets, know what I'm sayin'?
"Oh those Germans better get ready fo' Fafnir 'n Giblets," I says, know what I'm sayin'?
"For ol Faf 'n Gibs of da 171st armored balloon division," says Giblets, know what I'm sayin'?
"And a proud balloon brizzle is," I says."
"The Germans won't know brizzle is coming," says Giblets, know what I'm sayin'?
"Unless they look up above da horizon," I says, know what I'm sayin'?
"Which seems unlikely because how often do Germans do that," says Giblets n' shit.
"Once a month coincide wit da full moon, or during matin rituals, I read," I says."
"A strange muthas those Germans," says Giblets n' shit.
"Wait do those Germans has guns?" I says, know what I'm sayin'?
"Holy crap nobody be like anythin 'bout guns!" says Giblets, know what I'm sayin'?
"What are they doing wit guns! They could hurt muthas or even pop izzle balloon!" I says n' shit.
"Run away!" says Giblets 'n we did, know what I'm sayin'? *
Anyway n' shit. Thank yo' ass D-Day 'n everyone in that shiznit, know what I'm sayin'? Especially da Canadians."

*We spent da rest of da war posin as cabaret singers in a French production of "No No Nanette n' shit. " It ran fo' three years terrific reviews!
&pimpa; posted by Snoop Fafnir at 10:17 AM

Kurds

Via Juan Cole

Letter from Barzani and Talabani to President Bush

04 June 2004
KurdishMedia.com
June 1, 2004

His Excellency President George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
The White House
Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. President:

[snip]


Iraq is a country of two main nationalities, Arabs and Kurds. It seems reasonable that the Arabs might get one of the top jobs (of their choice) but then the other should go to a Kurd.

We also believe the decision to use sectarian quotas for the top two jobs directly contradicts the Coalition’s repeatedly stated position that democratic Iraq’s government should not be based on ethnic or religious criteria, a position the US wrote into the Transitional Administrative Law.

So ethnic quotas are good and religious quotas are bad ? Aren't you supposed to put a paragraph or two in between two contradictory assertions ?

Sneering aside, I have to say that I agree with Barzani and Talibani and disagree with Sistani on this one. The key issue is that the TAL (interim constitution) says the final constitution will take force after a referendum in which 2/3 no votes in 3 governates constitute a veto (by coincidence there are 3 predominantly Kurdish governates). I think this is perfectly reasonable.

I don't know why Sistani objects. He wrote, in his successful effort to convince the UN security council to not endorce the TAL "This matter contravenes the laws, and most children of the Iraqi people reject it." What laws are above the constitution ? The "laws" must be Sharia, which seems to have aquired equal status with the will of the people. Uh oh.

The Kurds threaten to seceed "If the TAL is abrogated, the Kurdistan Regional Government will have no choice but to refrain from participating in the central government and its institutions, not to take part in the national elections, and to bar representatives of the central Government from Kurdistan." The last clause seems to me to justify a stronger word than Cole's "boycott".

All in all, normal high stakes politics I guess. I'd say that things are going relatively OK in Iraq so far this week.

More on the DOD torture memo

From the New York Times

The report also advised that if an interrogator "has a good faith belief his actions will not result in prolonged mental harm, he lacks the mental state necessary for his actions to constitute torture."

The report also said that interrogators could justify breaching laws or treaties by invoking the doctrine of necessity. An interrogator using harmful techniques that cause harm might be inoculated from liability if he "believed at the moment that his act is necessary and designed to avoid greater harm."

This is bizarre the argument is that the mental state of the alleged torturer must be assessed in order to arrive at a verdict. The alleged torturer is the only person who can know this, so, short of a guilty plea, proof beyond reasonable doubt is impossible. Did the defence department lawyers really mean to say that "gee I didn't know that people minded having limbs cut off" should be an decisive legal defence. Just try to prove I knew (without torturing me of course). Or how aobut "I believed at the moment that I had to torture him or the Martians would invade"

To me this is related to the argument made by Ashcroft "Ashcroft refused to provide several of the memorandums, saying they amounted to confidential legal advice given the president". It seems to me that the defence department lawyers lacked the proper state of mind to give legal advice, being either insane or completely contemptuous of the concept of law at the time. Does that mean that their memos are not protected ? By their own logic it should.

The DOD Torture memo in the WSJ

The memo is now available for non WSJ subscribers on the web.

Also non anarchists have probably excerpted all of it in one place or another.

I haven't seen a specific discussion of this passage yet.

Foremost, the lawyers rely on the "commander-in-chief authority," concluding that "without a clear statement otherwise, criminal statutes are not read as infringing on the president's ultimate authority" to wage war. Moreover, "any effort by Congress to regulate the interrogation of unlawful combatants would violate the Constitution's sole vesting of the commander-in-chief authority in the president," the lawyers advised.

Here the DOD lawyers argue that the president is unlimited by any law or statute whatsoever, when dealing with "unlawful combatants". I find this terrifying because, the Bush administration has clearly stated that Bush can declare anyone an unlawful combatant and no one can overturn such a decision.

Bush claims to have the authority to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants whenever he wants.

Most commentators have focused on the briefer quote "authority to set aside the laws is 'inherent in the president.'" I had hoped that its meaning might have been distorted by the removal of context. I now understand that the context was "following a declaration that the chosen victim is an unlawful combatant."

Billmon agrees with Perle !!

That the story about why the US knows that Iran knows that we broke their code is crazy. The story "the Iranian official apparently did not immediately believe Mr. Chalabi, because he sent a cable back to Tehran detailing his conversation with Mr. Chalabi"

Perle said "The whole thing hinges on the idea that the Baghdad station chief of the MOIS commits one of the most amazing trade craft errors I've ever heard of,"

I agree with both of them, it does sound very very odd. However, as Josh Marshall (among others) notes, no one who has access to the facts is willing to defend Chalabi.

There are a number of possible explanations

The Baghdad station chief of the MOIS has a Bush administration level of competence (and hey might be looking for a new job).

The Iranians decided to discredit Chalabi (not clear why they would bother given how friendly he was trying to be and how fast his star was setting already).

The CIA has finally managed some semi competent wickedness agaist the not yet incarcerated (about time).

George Bush's gut suddenly told him that Chalabi was no good (the ungratefulness might have ticked him off) and the case against Chalabi is being investigated with the same open mindedness and care as the WMD intelligence.

My favorite tinfoil hat theory is that the "story" is pure patriotic misinformation and that the US knows for some other reason. It goes like this.
MOIS has more than one code. We broke one code and Chalabi told them. The US learned this from a human source in MOIS. The Baghdad MOIS station chief used another code. To protect the source, the officially leaked US line is that we decoded that message. This also causes them to be worried about unbroken codes gumming up their operation some.

An important aspect of the case is that the leak that Chalabi is suspected would appear to damage US national security as noted by Kleiman, Walter Pincus and Dana Priest and me. Going to at least five news sources with this appears to be carrying bureaucratic infighting to Plame outing like levels.

It would be less extreme if the US had reason to suspect that the Iranians knew we knew they knew we had the code. It is leaked that they checked by talking about Iraqi WMD with the broken code. This is clumsy but makes the broken-ness a pretty open secret.

The second leak would be much less extreme if the leaked explanation for how we found out is a lie.

I don't really believe this last hypothesis but it does answer two questions.

I don't beDrudge them their fun

but I am amazed at the sudden spike of Capital Hill Blue quotes on the left blogosphere. Atrios and Kevin Drum link to the "Bush has become Nixon" story and Mark Kleiman the "Bush shares the Plame blame" story, all carefully pointing out that Capital Hill Blue is as fun and almost as reliable as The Onion.

I'm appalled. I'm trembling with rage so hard that I can barely add Capital Hill Blue to my bookmarks (right under the Onion)

Mysterious ways:

I may have been a bit too dismissive of christianity. General JC Christian explains to me why I should be grateful to Jesus Christ (hint not for Viagra).

But if God is so proProzac why did He have Eliot Spitzer drive a story about how Prozac works great for teenagers off the front page. ?
Then add another story which writes this
"Most drug trials are sponsored by pharmaceutical companies. And that, some critics say, can lead to a conflict of interest."
to make even more balance for the proprozac story which notes this
"A government-financed study has found that Prozac helps teenagers overcome depression far better than talk therapy"

Gimme some talk (or type therapy) but I warn you, I might kid about Jesus but I don't want to hear any disrespect either for Prozac or for Eliot Spitzer (who is suing the makers of Paxil not Prozac)

Hey wait the current headline on the front page of www.nytimes.com is
"Two Studies, Two Results, and a Debate Over a Drug"

Recall Journal of Record Paxil is not Prozac, Prozac is not Paxil. Jeez.

Correction: The above post incorrectly described the number of drugs considered in two studies with two results as reported in the New York Times. The number of such drugs was one, that is, Paxil (which works great according to one study) and Paxil which is a sugar pill (according to the other). RJWaldmann regrets the error.

Mole hunting.

Silly me, I focused on the smallest of small fry Michael Ledeen.
While Joshua Marshall has a coded list of suspects. I'm not afraid of getting sued so I will try to decode it
" known for comparing Chalabi to Mohammed" I should remember that. Wolfowitz or Feith.
"folks at OSD involved in B-teaming the regular intelligence community" OK that's Feith so above should be Wolfowitz.
"very high-level administration figures, particularly if they turn out to hang their hats in the White House complex" good god he's accusing the Vice President.

But some people are not willing to settle for medium fry either.
Matt Yglesias makes a very convincing case that the mole is George W. Bush.

Got to admit it explains a whole lot of puzzling policy choices.

Atrios and Traffic

Sitemeter says total visits 11,653 visits this week 5,879 (almost all referred by atrios). It's official more people have visited this site because Atrios linked than had visited in its previous history.

Weird. My big hit as a blogger was pointing out an error so obvious that no one else bothered to mention it which I found in the obscure New York Times in an article on the obscure topic of US torture. Weird.

Update: off like a light. My name has scrolled down atrios.blogspot.com so one would have to get to the archives to see it. Instantly my traffic is down to normal again.

Herseth Will Win

5:18 Rome time, 10:18 Central. 579 precincts reporting Herseth leads 89386 to
84787. Roughly (assuming total votes per precinct constant) Diedrich must win
53.5 % of remaining votes. The last 1941 votes went more than 54% for Herseth so this is very unlikely. I call the race for Herseth.


update: 5:25 Rome time only 11 more precincts reporting now Diedrich must win by 6.68 % of remaining votes and he won 6.67 % of votes in those 11 precincts. I'm not scared. I stand by my call.

update 5:28 Rome time. 604 precincts reporting in last 16 precincts Herseth beats Dietrich by 5.8% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 8% (whew).

update 5:32 Rome time. 618 precincts reporting in last 14 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 21% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 7.2% I'm not scared. I stand by my call.



update 5:37 Rome time. 633 precincts reporting in last 15 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 13.1% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 6.9% I'm getting antsy, but I stand by my call.

update 656 precincts reporting in last 23 precincts Herseth beats Dietrich by 13.7% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 9.8% (whew).

update 671 precincts reporting in last 15 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 15.6% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 9.3% I'm not scared. I stand by my call.

update 688 precincts reporting in last 70 precincts Herseth beats Dietrich by 1.6% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 11.1%. That really really looks unlikely.

update 6:08 Rome time. Now 700 preincts reporting. in the last 12 precincts Herseth wins by 3.2% Diedrich must win remaining votes by 12.85 %. That looks really unlikely.

update 6:22 Rome time 712 precincts reporting in last 12 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 12.2% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 12.6%. That looks very unlikely.

update 6:43 Rome time 725 precincts reporting in last 13 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 14.9% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 13.5%. That looks very unlikely. Recall approximation same number of votes in each precinct.

update 6:51 Rome time 753 precincts reporting in last 28 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 7.9% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 19.3%. That looks very very unlikely.

update 6:54 Rome time 758 precincts reporting in last 5 precincts Dietrich beats Herseth by 6.6% Diedrich needs to win remaining votes by 16.3%. That looks very very unlikely.

Update 7:05 Rome time 765 precincts reporting in the last 7 precincts Herseth beat Dietrich by 46.9 percent. Dietrich must win the remaining votes by 27.9 % That looks impossible, but the proof that precincts are totally different makes me no more certain than I was 11 minutes ago.

update 7:35 AM Rome time. in the past half hour 1 precinct has reported. Give me a break (a long break). I just spent a whole sleepless night following congressional election returns in South Dakota. How the hell am I going to survive November? Anyway I am off to sleep.

Final Update 1:29 PM Rome time 5:29 AM in South Dakota. 796 of 798 precincts reporting. Diedrich has won 4 more of the 16448 votes counted since I went to sleep. Assuming that the number of votes per precinct is constant and ignoring late counted absentee ballots, Diedrich would have to win 274 % of the uncounted votes (that means negative votes for Herseth). To be less surreal , there are two unreportgin precincts. My guess is they will report 657 votes Herseth's lead (which was roughly constant all night) is 2944 votes. congratulations congresswoman Herseth.