Final Update: Zero was announced as the Official unofficial winner of the Florida election by the Secretary of State. The official results can’t be announced until after the 16^th, the deadline for foreign absentee ballots.

Still checking in with the Florida results because turning the ballot into a novella was a really bad idea that slows everything up.

As of the close of business on Friday Zero is 64K ahead of Money Boo Hoo, and that difference is growing the more votes that get counted.

Allen West has filed suit to get two counties, St Lucie and Palm Beach, recounted. Palm Beach will definitely get a recount because there is only an 11 vote difference between West and Murphy with nearly 124K votes cast, but St Lucie isn’t even close with a 13K Murphy advantage. The other thing is that West won a higher percentage of votes than Connie Mack, the Republican Senate candidate, and almost the same percentage as Rmoney. The numbers look normal. Unless something is found, Allen West is going to get the bill for the St Lucie recount.

Saturday Update: the current count, which is probably close to the final, shows that Zero actually polled a majority of votes cast, not simply the most, but a real majority of 50.01%. He leads Money Boo Hoo by almost 74K votes. There are provisional ballots to be judged and the foreign absentee ballots can keep coming until the 16^th, but the provisionals are probably Democrats and there can’t be that many more absentee ballots to arrive.

CNN reports that CIA Director, David Petraeus has resigned. Petraeus said he is resigning because he had an extra-marital affair. Were that the real reason, I wouldn’t bother commenting, but the real reason is that he doesn’t know what he is doing.

First off, everyone is reporting that the FBI was investigating Petraeus, which isn’t exactly true. Because of the War on Terror™ the government is scanning e-mails from all over looking for certain patterns that someone thinks is sort of the kind of e-mails that ‘terrorists’ would send to each other. We now know that the search criteria also fit people having extra-marital affairs.

The head of America’s lead espionage agency doesn’t know how to establish a private communication system with his girlfriend that doesn’t attract attention. Think about that.

It is no surprise that when the FBI finds suspicious e-mails being exchanged between the Director of the CIA and another person, they are going to want to know what is going on. They are responsible for counter-espionage within the US.

Update: It has been suggested that the timing of the FBI investigation makes the Congressional insistence on an investigation into government leaking as the possible root cause. The assumed ‘other woman’ is tied to journalism, and her communications with government officials may have been targeted.

Wow, the Republicans really don’t want to admit that the majority of voters don’t like what they are selling.

The pundits are saying that the Rmoney GOTV effort wasn’t good enough. Just over 70% of registered voters in my county voted. With 75K registered Republicans in the county, Money Boo Boo received 70K votes – more that 90% of the total registered Republicans. They voted, but there just aren’t enough of them.

Then they say they didn’t get their message out. Hey, I have a decently-sized mailbox, and it was constantly filled with ‘their message’. They filled the answering machine on my land line with their robo-calls. I listened to a stream of complaints from my Mother over all of the ads being run on TV for months. The problem was that their message did get out, and a majority of voters didn’t like it. It turns out that the normally reliably Republican Cubans, are no longer reliable, because of those who voted on election day, a majority voted for Zero.

The majority of voters in the US are women, and have been for some time. Latinos are the fastest growing demographic in the US. When your “message” specifically attacks women and Latinos you are going to lose a national election. You can’t attack the majority of voters and expect them to support you.

Mustang Bobby found this piece of Republican ‘brain power’ on Tumblr:

Kristen Neel – “I’m moving to Australia, because their president is a Christian and actually supports what he says.”

The Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, is an atheist who does back most of the goals of the left-wing Labor Party that she leads. She also ‘lives in sin’, and can get worked up over misogyny.

If Ms Neel wishes to go to Australia, she should feel free, but I would warn her that the animal life of the Land Down Under is not very forgiving of people who refuse to accept reality and live in a cloud of ignorance.

Dampener of Doom

Is it loaded?

[Editor: The blue and white kitten isn’t happy about the Super Soaker as it was used to remove her from under the car.]

Friday Ark