This disturbing news is in Friday's New York Times:

Mr. Nader will be on the ballots in more than 30 states. Polls show that he could influence the outcomes in nine by drawing support from Mr. Kerry. They are Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Wisconsin.

Moreover, six - Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Wisconsin - were among the top 20 where Mr. Nader drew his strongest support in 2000. If the vote for Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry is as evenly divided as the polls suggest, the electoral votes in any one of those states could determine who becomes president.

Hey, Mr. Nader, please, get off of our cloud. Don't let your ego cost the rest of us a sane four years of governance.

In a 430 page opinion, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court kicked Ralph Nader off the ballot. Here's why:

"In conclusion the President Judge must state that he has served longer on the Commonwealth Court than any other Judge in the Court's history and as a result thereof has reviewed more nomination petitions than any other Judge in the Court's history. I am compelled to emphasize that this signature gathering process was the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever perpetrated upon this Court. The conduct of the Candidates, through their representatives (not their attorneys), shocks the conscience of the Court. In reviewing signatures, it became apparent that in addition to signing names such as "Mickey Mouse", "Fred Flintstone", "John Kerry", and the ubiquitous "Ralph Nader", there were thousands of names that were created at random and then randomly assigned either existent or non-existent addresses by the circulators.

A detailed line-by-line breakdown of the pages and lines reviewed and the reasons for disqualification has been prepared by each judge and follows [on the remaining 430 pages of the opinion] ....The secretary of the Commonweath is directed not to certify the names of Ralph Nader and Peter Miguel Camejo as candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States in the November 2, 2004 general election."

[hat tip to Peter G.]

Update: Dave's Salon article on the Lynne/Mary Cheney issue just went live here. He's right on the money. He begins:

First, let's dispense with the comic aspects of the parental indignation:

Mary Cheney has been happily out of the closet for at least a decade, so John Kerry was hardly dragging her out against her will. She spent the late '90s working as a veritable professional lesbian, as gay and lesbian corporate relations manager for Coors Brewing Co. Dick Cheney himself has been using her sexuality on the campaign trail. Click here to watch a Human Rights Campaign ad with him on the stump on Aug. 24, 2004: "Lynne and I have a gay daughter ... " The Bush-Cheney administration has shamelessly used homosexuality as a wedge issue, never hesitating to play the sodomite card when it serves their political ends. John Edwards brought up Mary Cheney in response to a similar gay-rights question just eight days earlier in the veep debate. Dick Cheney responded by thanking him for his kind remarks.

Go read the rest.

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Dave Cullen of Conclusive Evidence, who live-blogged the debate with us Wednesday night, speaks out on his blog about Lynne Cheney's and the mainstream media's castigation of John Kerry for mentioning Mary Cheney's sexual orientation during the debate.

The AP reports:

The Federal Communications Commission won't intervene to stop a broadcast company's plans to air a critical documentary about John Kerry's anti-Vietnam War activities on dozens of TV stations, the agency's chairman said Thursday.

"Don't look to us to block the airing of a program," Michael Powell told reporters. "I don't know of any precedent in which the commission could do that."

Now what?

by TChris

Threatening a bank teller with a gun is a traditional bank robbery tactic. When the teller is behind bulletproof glass, however, the threat is less effective.

He put a mask on his face, pulled out a gun and demanded money. But when the bank clerk laughed in his face, the would-be robber was so humiliated he just ran away.

The lesson to be learned: look around inside the bank a bit before deciding whether to rob it.

by TChris

Charges ranging from manslaughter to conspiracy may be brought against 28 soldiers implicated in the deaths of two detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Both prisoners died from blunt force injuries. Military medical examiners ruled each death a homicide.

"Many of the 28 soldiers may have lesser culpability," the Army said, adding that "Commanders, with the advice of their lawyers, will consider the full range of appropriate administrative and disciplinary measures from taking no action to recommending trial by court-martial."

One soldier, Sgt. James Boland, has already been charged.

by TChris

The good news for those accused of crimes in Boston is that they are less likely to be victimized by bad science: the Boston Police Department is shutting down its inept fingerprint unit.

[Stephen] Cowans spent six years in prison after the unit wrongly matched his print with a fingerprint from a glass mug found at the Egleston Square crime scene where Officer Gregory Gallagher was shot and wounded in 1997.

The two fingerprint examiners responsible for Cowans' wrongful conviction were placed on administrative leave. The error was blamed on a lack of training and standards, although a contributing factor appears to be the unit's institutional desire to make the facts fit the theories conconcted by investigating officers.

"I have never seen anything but problems with the Boston fingerprint lab," said [fingerprinting analyst James] Starrs, who worked for Cowans' defense team. "I've never seen quality work from them. ... They're police sergeants, not scientists, doing the work. That's a serious problem, because they don't have the scientific standards to abide by."

The state police will do the unit's work until it hires and trains competent individuals who are willing to place science ahead of preferred outcomes.

Natasha of Pacific Views shares her reaction to Bush's debate statements. She's right about his clearly stated intent not to provide financial protection for our youth:

The president was smiling like it hurt, taking it out on the podium, and it appeared at the beginning, foaming at the mouth. Selected Bush quotes from tonight's debate:

"We'll honor our commitments to senior citizens. But for [younger people] we need to have a different strategy."

Ha ha. Now that I've stopped laughing, I realize that Bush thinks commitments to seniors should be honored, but not commitments to people who aren't. Not being a senior, I resent that.

Natasha has a response for Bush.

In his closing statement, Bush said to the country that "We've been through a lot together over the last three, three and a half years." An ex of mine said virtually the same thing, also after some years of being through a lot of fiscal irresponsibility, dictatorial behavior, and grand, glorious promises that were never kept. To the president, I'd say about the same thing I said then:

We sure have been through a lot. And I've had enough.

by TChris

The Transportation Security Agency can't find the money to screen air cargo (pdf) for explosives, but it managed to spend almost a half million dollars on a party to celebrate ... itself.

Awards were presented to 543 Transportation Security Administration employees and 30 organizations, including a "lifetime achievement award" for one worker with the 2-year-old agency. ... The investigation by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general, Clark Kent Ervin, also found the TSA gave its senior executives bonuses averaging $16,000, higher than at any other federal government agency, and failed to provide adequate justification in more than a third of the 88 cases examined.

Party on, Tom Ridge.

Update: John Kerry just made this statement in Las Vegas (received from his campaign):

I love my daughters. They love their daughter. I was trying to say something positive about the way strong families deal with this issue.

************
There's lots of discussion over Kerry's bringing up Mary Cheney during last night's debate on whether gays are born gay or become gay by choice or socialization. While Bush answered he wasn't sure, Kerry immediately responded it's a biological matter, i.e,. that's how someone is born. Elizabeth Edwards this morning said:

ELIZABETH EDWARDS ON ABC RADIO: "She's overreacted to this and treated it as if it's shameful to have this discussion. I think that's a very sad state of affairs-- I think that it indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter's sexual preferences-- It makes me really sad that that's Lynne's response."

I think "Sexual preferences" is a politically incorrect term. Homosexuality is not a choice. It's how one is. That was the point of the debate question. The better term is "sexual orientation."

CNN reports that a new poll shows Kerry taking the lead over Bush.

Sen. John Kerry appeared to gain more momentum heading toward November 2, easily beating President Bush in the third and final debate, a poll taken late Wednesday night suggests. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup snap poll taken immediately after the presidential debate found that respondents gave a significant edge to Kerry over Bush, 52 percent to 39 percent. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Former Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi made an interesting comment on MSNBC last night. He said that Kerry is pivoting again, like he did in Iowa, to come up from behind and take the lead. By the time he does it, it's too late to stop him. (I'm sure I'm mangling the comment, but I remember the word "pivot" and the gist of what he said.)

Kerry has slowly been building trust and credibility with the American people. They have had a chance to see him now, three times. He stands erect,, he's calm--almost Zen-like as Markos of Daily Kos would say--he's become Presidential. Bush, on the other hand, has turned into a petulant child, banging on the podium, raising his voice, grinning that false grin.

Kerry needs to keep the momentum going. if he can do that, I think we will have a new President. Which means we get a new Attorney General. What a relief that will be.

It's been three months since the Supreme Court ruled that the detainees at Guantanamo have a right to a hearing to determine their enemy combatant status. Lawyers for the detainees say the Government is dragging its feet:

Of the 68 alleged al Qaeda and Taliban fighters who have so far petitioned for access to federal court in Washington, only a handful have even spoken to their lawyers. With some held for nearly three years on the U.S. Navy base, the detainees remain largely precluded from receiving legal help because of protracted negotiations with the Justice Department over lawyers' security clearances, the government's insistence on monitoring attorney-client conversations and the number of visits lawyers will be allowed, defense attorneys told a U.S. District Court judge yesterday.