This is just remarkable, if true:

Obama’s campaign says it has deployed 500 paid staff members and boasts 160,000 volunteers in Florida, an unprecedented network that is hunting for votes via telephone, e-mail, and old-fashioned, door-to-door personal contact.

[snip]

The McCain campaign and Republican National Committee do not disclose staffing figures, but one RNC staff member said the Obama campaign “probably has more [staff] people on the ground in Florida than the RNC has in the whole country.”

A rough sketch based on Census estimates shows that there are about 14.5m voting-age people in Florida right now. Suppose a 65% turnout — that makes 9.425m voters. That means there is one Black Eagle volunteer for every 58 voters in Florida. In truth, about a quarter of these may be written off from the jump, based on research. Another quarter is counted on. So the bottom line is that there is probably one volunteer for every thirty people in the lean-Geezer / toss-up / lean Barry universe.

Yes: Diebold, black box, [scare quotes] “voter fraud” [/scare quotes], etc. Granted. But it may not matter. I’ve never seen something where a state the size of Florida is just saturated with political volunteers. And they are all on Barry’s side. Retail politics FTMFW.

Our Beloved Mortals,

We apologize for inadvertently dropping a jet engine into one of your suburbs August 29. We’ve scheduled an additional flight the evening of November 4 that should straighten things out. John M. is being sent further instructions under separate cover.

Eternally Yrs.,
God

P.S. Buddha is a pussy.

NHL presser: Palin to drop puck at Oct. 24 Blues game. Worked so well the last time, so why not try it again?

The comedic possibilites of this are inherent, of course.

A: “No worries about shelling out long green for a Blues jersey. The RNC’s got it under control.”

B: “If Piper’s waving an Alaskan flag, does it qualify as state business?”

C: “Do you think that, after the indignity of seeing the Cubs and the Brewers make the playoffs, Blues Fan is going to get upstaged by Philly Fan?”

D: “Jenny MacDonald, a third grader at Polk Elementary School in Clayton asks this question: ‘What does a linesman do?'” [Answer, obviously: the linesman runs the game.]

E: [PA, intoning] “Penalty on Sarah Palin — two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct, at 5:29. Palin, two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct, at five minutes, twenty-nine seconds.”

Where should I go with this? I put it to you, Stinquers.

I truly don’t know what to make of this.  It’s a stunner:

Al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency.

The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, “impetuous” Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Net effect? [Presume that U.S. Americans forget that a Republican Administration has failed to catch Public Enemy No. 1 in seven years. Big leap, I know.] Anyway, these goons are basically saying that they want U.S. America to elect the Geezer. So, naturally, patriotic Americans will thus vote for Black Eagle, because who wants to vote the way terrorists want? But Barry’s a [insert all absolute falsehoods here], as EVERYBODY KNOWS. So you can’t vote for him.

Bob Barr? Your time to shine.

In today’s episode of NCHP, we once again find the Bush administration hard at work hiding shit that we’re supposed to know about:

The Treasury Department has hired three outside firms this week to help administer its $700 billion, taxpayer-funded bailout of troubled banks. But some key details of those contracts remain a mystery.

The agreements with Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP that the Treasury Department posted on its web site each had blacked-out paragraphs in the sections dealing with compensation.

Keep in mind, fellow Stinquers, that the costs of the accountants, law firms, and bankers that will be cleaning up after the Bush administration’s administration of our economy will be over and above what cash we’re injecting into the banks and insurance companies we now own.

More on this latest outrage after the jump.

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O Lord of Sublime Mirth and Infinite Jest, I offer Ye this Rubber Chicken in humble sacrifice that Ye shall smite my Opponent with a can of snakes, or any combination of the following:

• Cause my Opponent to select as his Second an utter imbecile.
• Cast my Opponent’s Second in the image of a bewitching Sorceress, that the two may be indistinguishable on Sabbath’s eve.
• Becloud my Opponent’s perception, that he may be blind to economic chaos.

Read more »

Item: AP reports thusly:

Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business.

The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.

In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters’ 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls.

What was the kids’ official business? Looking adorable.

NEXT!