Step one tonight, at my regular five thirty meeting. After drifting round the cycle into the etherial clouds of the back half of step twelve, it is nice to get back to something simple, concrete. Like stepping out of the overwarm diningroom after thanksgiving dinner, all that food and family and talk, onto the back porch for a bit of fresh air, to look at the day. Cool and refreshing, the air is, and as those first flakes of snow drift down, the first of the winter, it is real, clear and sharp.

Election night i watched the big red stain spread across the map. This can’t be real, I thought. Such large chunks of the country, huge swaths full of people that believe what Bush is selling? Can the country really be so strongly divided along geographic lines?

Something didn’t ring true. There are plenty of ‘Support our Troops’ ribbons riding around on bumpers here in Vermont, a ‘Blue’ state. In Vermont we went for a democratic president, a republican governor and lieutenant governor, while sending a mix of democrats and progressives to the state legislature

Now, this week, we hear over and over about the ‘Mandate’. But, the vote was close, real close. Where are these areas that are providing Bush with the mandate? Not here. Thinking about how chunking up the vote by state, some of which cover large amounts of territory with no people (even compared to Vermont), I went looking for a finer grained analysis.

Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman of the University of Michigan provide a easy to follow cartographic analysis. Starting with maps scaled to show populaton, rather than area, moving to the county level, and finally using shades of purple to indicating percentage voting for either party, rather than winner take-all.

The picture that emerges is very different

(more…)

Interesting reading, the transcript of Osama bin Ladin’s recent video. Speaking directly to the amreican people, he declares al-Qaida’s goals, and the reasons behind them, quite clearly. Listen: “So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy, Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.”

It won’t take that much help from Allah, and maybe only a little nudge from Osama to reach this goal. We have just kept an incumbent in office who is doing a fine job on his own.

While it is true that we must protect our citizens from random acts of violence, it would appear that the Bush administration is playing into al-Qaida’s hand. Bush said during the debates that he would ’spend whatever it takes’ to defeat al-Qaida, and made no mention as to how he intends raise these funds - other than to increase the national debt. And the debt is crippling us.

Osama puts it nicely, pointing out how White House policy makes it appear as if al-Qaida and the Bush administration are working on the same team. And how easy it has been for them to “provoke and bait” this administration. “all we have to do is to send two mujahidin tothe furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses …” I think here of the stories I see daily in the paper about the families of the Vermont National Guard stationed in Iraq, real human costs in this community. Of the political capital squandered on the internal conflict this war is causing us, when the real, pressing issues of health care, education, jobs are going untended.

Osama is being quite clear with us about his motivations, aims, and methods. We would do well to listen, learn something, and respond with well informed, considered action.