For a total of $3.92 trillion dollars. The Bailout total, adding in the latest CitiBank handout, comes to more than $4.6 trillion dollars. And again, that's so far. The Bush Crime Family is paying off their cronies with the biggest theft in world history -- and Teghan and her kids and grandkids will be footing the bill.

P.S.: My math may be off here, as my calculator can't handle so many zeroes, but it appears that if the bailout money was given not to the failed banks and failed car companies but instead was given directly to the people, each one of us -- man, woman, and child -- would get around $15,000. Merry Christmas!

Well, I don't make new pages on the weekends any more, so today's page has been up since Friday. The earliest I could add new crawls would be tomorrow's page. Also, I can only remember one right now.... (For those who weren't there: Lots of funny things were said at Grandma's last night when Ryan and Amanda, Tristen and Tegha, Livy, Sean, and Donna came over, and we played games after supper.) Anyhow, check back tomorrow for the one I remembered! --Gary

Glad you're back online. That means you missed a couple of nice pictures (if I do say so myself) on yesterday's front page. I can make yesterday's page available here for a while, for those who might have missed it. --Gary

Grandma, got your energy back? Feel like a Teghan day? She has next Wednesday off of school, elementary only, so Tristen will be at school. Teghan can go to Deedee's, but I think she'd like to go to your house, if you're up to it!

I had a nice birthday. I didn't have to work and I got to sleep in extra late. And when I got up I got an ipod adapter for my car, so now I can listen to my ipod everywhere I go. And, Erika gave me a big crayon tower that I love :) We also got to have my favorite nachos and special birthday "cake." Then I had a fun night with some of my friends.

But, today I am back at school. I have 6am dance practices Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and this term I also get to have an 8 o'clock class. But, on the plus side I am finshed with classes by noon everyday. This term I am taking Child Psychology, Philosophy of Religion, Old Testament, and Careers in Psychology. So, I'm not so sure how fun they will be, but I will be getting them done with.

We have also been busy in dance getting ready for our first basketball performance on Wednesday. If Mom and Dad are able to come watch us, I might be able to get some pictures of it. We have been working hard on getting it ready :)

Donna, facebook is kind of like an open email. You have a page called your "wall" that is a lot like the newsletter page. Any of your friends can write to you and anyone can read it. But, you can also send private messages to their inbox. You can also change and customize your privacy settings to control who can see your profile and who can search for, you can pretty much make it as private as you want. You also have to confirm someone as your friend after they request you, or vice versa, before they can see your page.

I've been a little behind on eveything lately! Grandma, I just noticed your number was on my cell yesterday afternoon. Was that you, or Donna before groceries? Hope you didn't need anything!

Amanda, are you doing anything special with your day off?

It's also looking better for Al Franken after some voting machines were shown to be not counting votes for Franken. (Story here on the Mpls Star-Trib site.)

Karen, those poor kids. Even if it were true, or they believe it to be true, why would they tell their kids?

I just got back from the dentist. At my check up, they said I would either need a root canal or a crown. I lucked out and only needed a crown. This has been a pretty good week for me. ;-)

Mom are you feeling better? Did you get back to the doctor? Just three weeks from yesterday is Thanksgiving! Does anyone have plans yet? Guess we will stay home -- although anyone is welcome to join us if you are up for a drive. I hope to get most of my christmas shopping done this week-end. Been doing pretty well and just need to finish a few more things. I have already seen several christmas ads on tv.

Ha! Good one. You should send that to Keith Olbermann! --Gary

The other good news is that Joe Lieberman will be stripped of his committees, effectively kicking him out of the Democratic party and vastly reducing his influence in the Senate. Now he's just one lonely independent Senator. Good!

The count is still out on Al Franken; we may not know how that recount turns out til next month sometime.

Great cool site! I just tried to email that site but there's no sound. Any suggestions?

Great pictures from around the world too. I love those.

Hmmm. Don't know why there's no sound for you -- works fine for me. --Gary

Here's an interesting page, everybody -- 595 front pages from 61 countries.

I heard on MSNBC that the President of Kenya declared tomorrow/today a national holiday. Rachel Maddow then asked, "Does that apply here too? Because I could really use the sleep."

I heard the lawyers stepped in on this -- someone suggested that "paying people to vote" was against the law. So Starbucks now (for the rest of the day) will give a free coffee to "anyone who asks for one." :-) --Gary

Obama voted in his Chicago precinct this morning, then went off to play a game of basketball, which I understand is kind of a superstitious tradition with him: He has won every election where he played basketball after voting.

For the record, here's my predictions: Obama gets 370+ electoral votes (270 needed to win); I expect the Democrats will have 60 Senate seats when all the dust settles; I expect (make that hope) that Ted Stevens (AK) and Elizabeth Dole (NC) and Michele Bachman (MN) all lose, and Al Franken (MN) wins. Locally, I'm rooting for Scott Kleeb to win a Senate seat over Johanns, and for Jeff Fortenberry to lose his House seat, but I'm not counting on either of those....

At this early hour, the first results are already in. The little town of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire (pop. 75) prides itself every election on voting one minute after midnight on election day so they can be the first to release the results. Also, since as far back as 1960 (which is as far back as I could find records for) they have accurately picked the next President. They had 100% voter turnout today and the winner is: Barack Obama.

Man, I wish I had some Republicans sending this kind of crap to me... I would love to tangle with 'em. :-) At the moment, I am not too concerned with calming the fears of our nervous Republican friends. They stood by and smirked for eight years while their President lied us into a war, dismantled the Constitution piece by piece, did nothing while an American city drowned, and set in motion what may become a worldwide depression. And now they're worried that an Obama presidency might cost them a few extra pennies on their income tax, to repair the damage they have caused. When they start flapping their wrists and crying "Oh, no...!" I don't really feel like smoothing their feathers and saying, "Don't worry, it'll be all right." For their own mental health, they've got to acknowledge that their system catastrophically failed. But I don't really care if they make that acknowledgement or not. If they suffer even a little bit as much as the country has suffered for the past eight years, it will do 'em good. The closest I got to tangling with them was just today. In today's mail was a letter from the McCain campaign asking me for a donation. (Man, are they barking up the wrong tree!) I wrote "OBAMA 2008" on the pledge slip and mailed it back in the postage-paid envelope. So I have cost the Republicans at least 39 cents.

Here's something you can cut-and-paste if you respond to their email. It was written by a woman on one of the Democratic groups I read. She titled it "Yes, Right-wingers, You Have Reason to Be Afraid."

Wouldn't it be just awful if President Obama started ignoring the Constitution, and declared himself unaccountable to anyone? And what if he started cranking out "signing statements," began pardoning people who were instrumental in outing a covert CIA agent, or allowed White House emails to be deleted in complete defiance of the law? Worse yet, what if he started wiretapping American citizens' phone calls, and started snooping into their internet activities?

Wouldn't it be truly dreadful if President Obama lied our country into war, and then started handing out no-bid contracts to war-profiteers who didn't give a *bleep* about the safety of our troops if it cut into their obscene profits?

Wouldn't it be downright disillusioning if President Obama poured billions into an unwinnable war while our infrastructure, our schools, our hospitals and our entire economy were left in complete ruin?

Wouldn't it be devastating if President Obama encouraged the deregulation of everything from banking practices to the inspection of food coming into the country?

Wouldn't it be profoundly disturbing if President Obama continued on one of his many vacations while a major US city was wiped-out by a natural disaster? And what if he completely ignored the victims of said disaster in the aftermath, and just allowed them to die?

Wouldn't it be absolutely disastrous if President Obama appointed incompetent cronies to important positions, like Attorney General? And what if his appointee started purging the department of experienced, competent people based solely on their political affiliation?

Wouldn't it be morally reprehensible if President Obama condoned the use of torture, or the unlimited detention of people without charge or trial?

Wouldn't it be an incredible outrage if President Obama insisted on tax subsidies for corporations making record profits, or tax incentives for companies that outsourced American jobs?

Wouldn't it be unbelievably humiliating if President Obama consistently made a fool of himself in public settings, and became the punchline of every late-night monologue due to his ignorance, his inability to speak coherently, and his drunken displays at international meetings of import?

Wouldn't it be overwhelmingly embarrassing if the stature of the United States was irreparably harmed every time President Obama opened his mouth and proved how God damned stupid he was in front of the entire world?

Wouldn't it be fantastically detrimental if President Obama was deliberately divisive at a time when the country most needed to come together? And what if he started saying things like "You're either with us or against us" and you knew he meant YOU were against your own country if you didn't just toe-the-line and accept his way of thinking?

Wouldn't YOU find it totally unacceptable if President Obama did any of the above?

Well, I'm sure YOU would -- and I have no doubt that if President Obama even thinks about doing any of the aforementioned, we will be hearing from ALL OF YOU immediately.

That's because real Americans don't bow their heads and accept such behavior without speaking up, despite being called anti-American, terrorist-loving appeasers, non-patriots and socialist freaks.

Despite your abject silence over the last eight years, I am sure you will suddenly find your voices again, at-the-ready to decry even a perceived affront to your rights, your freedoms, and your liberty as citizens.

What a pity it will be eight years too late.

I got some Christmas shopping done this weekend. I'm about a third done.

I didn't even try to vote this weekend, I wish I had now. I figured there'd be a long line. I plan to work from home Tuesday and Wednesday so it shouldn't be hard to vote at some off time during the day Tuesday. I'm nervous about Wednesday, regardless of who wins. There were four houses in Lincoln that had their Obama yard signs burned this weekend.

That's a great ad, great song.

So Gar, anything new regarding Oprah and her vote getting switched from Obama to McCain? I haven't seen anything in the news about it.

Here's an article, plus video from her show where she talks about it. Her vote didn't actually switch, but rather it just didn't record her Obama vote. Sounds now like it might have been "user error," but if nothing else it points up the dangers of an electronic voting machine. --Gary

Most of its power is the brilliant song choice, Paul Simon's "American Tune" -- here in full:

An Open Letter to Senator Obama and the Democratic Leadership:

On Election Night, DO NOT CONCEDE!

“Eight years is too much” is how Barack Obama explained why we must win the coming election and begin to restore America. But, even if we receive the most votes, will we win the election?

DO NOT CONCEDE!
Both of the last two elections were conceded by the Democratic presidential candidate. The 2004 election was handed to George Bush while votes were still being counted in closely-fought Ohio. While the 2000 election was contested to the Supreme Court, it too was ultimately conceded to Bush “for the good of the country.”

Some good.

Numerous politicians, investigators and authors, including Robert Kennedy, Jr., agree the 2004 election was stolen, not only in Ohio but in several other battleground states. Tactics included purging of legitimate voters and the use of nefarious voting software--but when even these actions did not yield the required numbers, Republican election officials simply changed the vote tallies in several states, all without a peep from the Democratic Party.

DO NOT CONCEDE!
In the time since the last general election the public has learned much about these scandals, which have led some states to reject electronic touchscreen voting (and which caused the infamous Diebold voting machines corporation to hide behind a new corporate name,) yet the Democratic Party seems to have learned nothing.

THREE STRIKES AND WE'RE OUT!
If we cannot afford another Republican administration, we cannot afford a third concession in the face of election fraud. Already there is evidence of massive fraud such as voter purging and caging of Democratic voters, and “flipping” of votes in early voting on electronic touchscreen machines. It is reasonable to once again expect further manipulation on election night by some Republican operatives and election officials, as was seen in 2004; should we also expect our Democratic Party leaders and candidates to repeat history, by once again conceding in the face of such blatant fraud? Senator Obama, we need you, our Party and all candidates to stand firm, come what may on election night. You ask us to work for you, contribute to you--and to have your back; we ask that you promise to have our back: We ask that you PLEDGE TO STAND FIRM, AND NOT CONCEDE THE COMING ELECTION in the face of election irregularities, no matter how long it takes to contest such fraud, while there remains any doubt as to any part of the process. Be assured, Democratic voters will be more--not less--energized if we see you promise to stand firm.

Senator Obama, if there is any reason to contest the election,
DO NOT CONCEDE!

Signed:
Gore Vidal
and dozens of other big names which I deleted