TODAY'S TOP FIVE: Strategery.
More of That Hilarious Brooklyn Hipster Humor That We've All Come to Know and Barely Tolerate MC No Shame, this one's for you: You will no doubt be shocked to see that this story takes place in Park Slope.
Disenfranchised Thousands of people in Ohio who registered to vote this year have had their registrations rejected - because they weren't on the right kind of paper. Just before the deadline to register new voters, the Republican Secretary of State in Ohio announced that thousands of registrations were invalid and that the voters had to be notified by mail that they would have to re-register. Many of these notifications won't get out until after the deadline to register has passed; meanwhile, local voter registration boards are unable to deal with the volume of re-registration requests. Well, that's one way to make sure the Democrats don't win.
Good News, for a Change Tom Finneran has resigned as speaker of the House of Representatives in Massachusetts in the midst of a perjury investigation, following an 8-year reign of terror. Finneran was the speaker when I lived in Mass., and he deliberately kept my district without a representative for more than a year because he knew that whoever was elected from Northampton would be too liberal for his liking. I'm delighted to see this thug chased from office in disgrace.
Next, We Destroy Betamax The Senate is debating whether or not to launch the next losing battle in the lost war against file-sharing, by passing a law that would enable the Recording Industry Association of America to sue Kazaa and Limewire. Currently, the RIAA has been forced to sue children and grandmothers because the networks in question technically have no control over users' behavior. The Senate bill would change the law, and would also become a footnote in the yet-to-be-written history of how file-sharing triumphed over the music industry. As a bonus, under the current language of the law, the makers of iPods (and iPod ripoffs for PC) and photocopiers would also be liable to lawsuits. Awesome legislation, dudes!
What a Beautiful New Suit the Emperor is Wearing! Psyched for the debate on Thursday? Me neither! That's because, even if Bush staggers onstage 10 minutes late, vomits on his own shoes, and collapses in a twitching heap, he'll be proclaimed the winner by straight-faced TV commentators. Paul Krugman calls it right down the middle, like usual, in this excellent column.
-Consider Arms
