Policia de Catalunya

Once Brown surged ahead in Massachusetts, his campaign sent out an "all hands on deck" email asking for attorney volunteers to serve as poll-watchers. So I, along with hundreds of other lawyers, agreed to help out. We flew up to Massachusetts on Monday morning.
Tuesday morning, we woke up at 5:00 a.m., hopped on vans at 6:10 a.m., and shipped out to various polling locations throughout the state, where we stayed for 13+ hours. (Massachusetts polls are open from 7AM until 8PM).
The next morning, we caught flights out of Boston to go home, and I've been sleeping ever since.
I'll be back with a full post tomorrow or Saturday, with stories from the ground.
Like the Coakley poll-watcher who thought Brown poll-watchers were there to torture small animals. By the end of the night, though, we were friends.
And then there was the precinct where two ballots were given to a single voter, on three separate occasions . . .
Oh, and the absentee ballot on which the voter had voted for two different candidates (the machine rejected it as being "over-filled") but the warden nonetheless said she was "calling" it a vote for Coakley.
The drama of challenging a vote. Oy vey.
But in the end, it didn't matter. The margin was too wide.
Best of all was shaking hands with Scott Brown -- and that poor man's hand was surely sore.

Oh, and last but not least, the story of when I stumbled blindly, wildly, with toothpicks holding my eyes open, into Norah O'Donnell, at the airport ticket kiosk. She kindly helped me find my gate, as I was blind in my old glasses.
These stories and more, coming up on Blogger Minutes.
In the meantime, I'm off to catch a few more ZZZZZZZs.

Labels: Martha Coakley, Obama, Poll Watching, Scott Brown

Climategate: the plot stickens.
BPA super sucks. But we knew that already. It was the government that needed convincing.
So laugh at me all you want while I protest the naked-body radiation machines at airports. You know, the ones that have no quality control because, purportedly, the machines don't save the images? Jeer away. But one day, I'll be so "I so told you so," and it won't be any fun at all.
Speaking of concealed appendages -- we were, weren't we? Peter Piper got his pecker in a pickle. A guy in the U.K. showed up at the hospital with it stuck inside a pipe. "Medics at Southampton General Hospital could not get the man's penis out of the stainless steel pipe because the restricted blood flow had caused it to become aroused."
Ultimately, fire and rescue used a grinder to "safely cut the pipe off . . . in what a spokesman said was a 'delicate operation.'"
Yowza.
Turning to other news, check out the "Go Islam!" power point presentation Major Nidal Hasan gave during his grand rounds to fellow doctors. How, how, how did we miss this Fort Hood nut? Looks like heads will be rolling.
After seeing his grand rounds presentation, sadly I'm not surprised the Christmas Day underwear bomber fell through the cracks.
On the political front, the Massachusetts race is a dead heat.
Senatorial hopeful Dem Coakley is finally running hard against the heretofore Republican sleeper Scott Brown. But . . . she's falling flat.
Until today, this mock attack ad against him was fairly representative of her "real" ads. And the traction she's been getting with her real ads has been, umm, well . . . not much -- though things could certainly change. In any event, and no matter which side you come down on, the ad is pretty darn funny.

Coakley is running on fumes. Obama, who steadfastly maintained throughout last week that "Massachusetts is not on our schedule," flew into Boston today in a gallant, last-ditch effort to rescue her. But he had trouble filling his venue. Scott Brown, however, did not.
* Breaking news * and it's a real shocker! The White House believes Coakley will lose. Meh. It's probably just a strategy, designed to get the Dems out to vote.

Now then, about that bank tax. Would you believe liberal bloggers oppose it, as well?
If the Dems go through with their plans to favor union members over us regular Joes on their health care tax? And, if Brown wins, they ram the bill down our throats before he can be sworn in? Well, the country just might implode.
Whatever the case, politics certainly make for strange pajamas. And other non sequiturs. Like, "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!"

Labels: Martha Coakley, Massachusetts Race, Obama, Scott Brown