With all this snow, instead of complaining, one team of students decided to do something constructive — literally. They built a loudspeaker primarily out of snow (although the drivers were obviously more than just frozen water). It was part of a snow statue contest at Michigan Tech, and while they lost on a technicality, it’s still damned impressive.

So y’all quitchyerbitchin’ about class not being canceled and go build a snowman or something. :)

And now a bit of news from the “oh yeah, something exists outside of football in LA” file: a typhoon has totally beat the crap out of the Philippines — the fourth in as many months. Over 300 people have been killed in the past few days, and the toll keeps rising. From CNN:

MANILA, Philippines (CNN) — The deadly typhoon that slammed into the Philippines has killed at least 303 people and injured 163 others, officials said Saturday.

The National Disaster Coordinating Council said another 293 people were missing in the wake of Typhoon Durian, which triggered massive flooding and volcanic mudslides.

Officials said 38,473 were being housed in evacuation shelters.

You can now return to chatting about how the USC ‘powerhouse’ lost to a team with a barely better-than-50% win record.

From CNN:

SULLIVAN’S ISLAND, South Carolina (CNN) — A sheepish Gov. Mark Sanford was turned away from a South Carolina polling place Tuesday because he forgot his voter registration card.

The casting of ballots in front of the news media is a well-worn tradition for politicians, but it was no Kodak moment when Sanford discovered he had left his card behind.

Off camera, South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford could be heard telling her husband that she had reminded him to bring it.

Eventually, the poll manager at Sullivan’s Island Elementary School politely told the governor that he couldn’t vote unless he had a registration card.

The first lady’s identification was in order, and she was allowed to vote, said poll manager Bob Crawford, according to The Associated Press.

Oops.

(He obtained a replacement card and did eventually vote. For himself, we can presume.)

Maryland, home of Briandot headquarters, may also be the place for one interesting contest to watch tonight: the race for Maryland’s seat in the U.S. Senate. And ‘race’ will be the key word here, as traditionally Democratic black voters may decide instead to cast their vote for the African-American Republican candidate, Michael Steele.

Last week on the local NPR station, several black Maryland voters were interviewed as to what their views were on the upcoming race. A surprising number expressed the opinion that black voters “shouldn’t be taken for granted” and that the Democratic Party needs to work for its votes rather than rest on its 1960s laurels. Indeed, several prominent local black politicians from the DC area’s majority black Prince George’s County say they endorsed Republican to wake Democrats. (Fair enough, but personally, I think this demonstrates that they’re voting based on race rather than politics, and voting based on race is less worthy of a reason to vote for a candidate than following the party that has supported most of the civil rights legislation of the past four decades.)

I can’t say I noticed anything particularly exciting at my local polling place. In liberal Montgomery County, victory for Democrats is all but a forgone conclusion, but perhaps we’re in for a surprise. While the county has a larger black population by percentage than some surrounding counties (or even the nation), it is dwarfed by Prince George’s County and by the city of Baltimore, where 64% of its population is African-American — yet where the current mayor is also the Democratic gubernatorial candidate. With this in mind, it could go either way.

Brendan has already linked to Jeff Greenfield’s page, where 8 PM will be the hour to watch for the ‘race issue’; I (and apparently others) have to call this a toss-up.

According to CNN, Vice President Dick Cheney will be spending this Election Day hunting. No word to as what small caged creatures he’ll be going after this time, but I can’t help think that perhaps it’s a last ditch effort to keep fellow Republicans from distancing themselves from the White House and its Iraq policy — which according to multiple polls, is an extremely unpopular issue with voters on both sides of the aisle this election season. It is reported that Cheney spent Election Day four years ago at the same lodge. Incidentally, South Dakota elected Bill Janklow that year, who was later convicted of manslaughter. So maybe that’s just how they do things up there.

As more and more Republicans run screaming from the administration and the war in Iraq, I suppose some way had to be found to keep them in line. With the Hammer gone, maybe then new tool is the Shotgun?

“Cheney’s got a gun….RINOs on the run….”

The Washington Post reported today that the campaign office for the [anti-immigrant] Republican candidate in California’s 47th District sent out thousands of letters to voters with Hispanic surnames stating that it was illegal for them to vote. All the more ironic because the candidate, Tan Nguyen, is an immigrant himself, it makes a number of false claims designed to scare recipients:

Written in Spanish, the letters advise recently registered voters that it is a crime for those in the country illegally to vote in a federal election, which is true. They also say, falsely, that immigrants may not vote and could be jailed or deported for doing so, that the federal government has a new computer system to verify voter names, and that anti-immigration organizations can access the records.

Nguyen claims that the letters were sent by an aide who has since been fired. However, Nguyen has praised the Minutemen, supports the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, and has come out against Bush’s guest worker proposal; he is not exactly a champion of California’s immigrant community.

The district is approximately one third Hispanic and is currently represented by Loretta Sanchez (D).

Personally, I’m willing to believe that it was sent out by an aide without permission — but I’m also inclined to believe that Nguyen wouldn’t mind if Hispanic voters stayed home on election day. This sort of lends credence to the idea that Republicans would rather limit the voting pool and use dirty tactics to keep them away (whereas Democrats try to be so inclusive as to even get dead people to vote!).

From the “How obscure is your sport?” department, I bring you this tidbit from the Washington Post:

The posting on Craigslist went like this:

Join the DC Elephant Polo Team as we go to Thailand for the 2006 Kings Cup Elephant Polo Championships! . . . No previous polo experience is necessary.

With an intro like that, who isn’t intrigued? Yes, the DC Elephant Polo team is precisely what it sounds like. Instead of playing on horses, they play on big gray pachyderms. Of course there’s one big problem (”big” being the operative word): They don’t have elephants. So they practice on swingsets and electrical boxes, with makeshift polo mallets.

No elephants, substandard equipment, and very little polo experience. Expectations of winning? Not high. But they do have goals. And even an early rival:

“We’d like to do well, but I’d also like to just get our name out,” Zenz said. “We like attention, and sponsorship is very important to keep us going until we’re the dominant force in the elephant polo world. The Scottish duke has to go.”

Heh. Go USA!

I was reading Wednesday’s Washington Post, and something caught my eye: apparently the Iranian president has a blog, http://www.ahmadinejad.ir. (Sorry, no catchy title like “The Iranian Roman” or something.) The Post comments on how Mahmood’s foray into the blogosphere stands up:

[It starts] with a long-winded rambling about his upbringing, the 1979 revolution and then on to the usual bitter attack on Saddam Hussein and the United States.

Still, the blog, in Persian and translated into Arabic and — badly — into English, shows some promise. Ahmadinejad pledged “from now onwards, I will try to make it shorter and simpler. With hope in God, I intend to wholeheartedly complete my talk in future with allotted fifteen minutes.” We can only hope.

There were some interesting passages. Our favorite: “The last year of my high school,” he writes, “I prepared myself for university admission test-conquer. And later on that year, I took the test. Although I had nose bleeding during the test, but I became 132nd student among over 400 thousand participants.”

The nose bleed probably came as he tried to answer that question about the Holocaust.

Heh.

According to a Time article: “This September, Senator John McCain’s youngest son, Jimmy, 18, will report to a U.S. Marine Corps depot near Camp Pendleton in San Diego.”

This is admirable, in that at least most of those in Congress are of a background that is statistically less likely to have enlisted family, let alone enlisted children. Given the danger in Iraq, it is even less likely — a fact which has (fairly or not) given birth to the label ‘chickenhawk’ to describe those who strongly advocate war but have not served and are not willing to let their children serve. Indeed, Time.com notes that:

While others have signed up for duty — the sons of both Senator Kit Bond of Missouri and Tim Johnson of South Dakota have served combat missions in Iraq — it is nonetheless unusual for children of that background to enlist. By comparison, a recent study by Public Citizen’s Congress Watch found at least 32 examples of congressional family members who were lobbyists.

(Like perhaps Republican congressman Tom Davis’ wife.) So, while I believe that the Iraq war was a misguided adventure by the Bush administration, I at least have to hand it to McCain and his family for supporting what they believe in with more than just rhetoric.

A man fishing off the coast of Bermuda was wounded in a very bizarre incident: the fish jumped out of the water and hooked him instead.

[Ian] Card and his father, Alan, both operators of a charter fishing boat and experienced marlin fishermen, had just hooked the fish Saturday when it suddenly leapt out of the water, impaled Ian Card just below his collar bone and knocked him into the ocean.

…

The fishermen estimated the marlin at about 800 pounds (363 kilograms) and about 14 feet (4.3 meters) in length.

Remarkably, he (the fisherman) made it back to shore and is recovering.

I can see the made-for-TV movie title now: “The Old Man and the Sea: Nature Fights Back”.

A building blew up in NYC this morning.

Don’t worry — this does not seem to be a terrorist act; you probably won’t hear ‘7/10′ repeated as a battle cry. While at least 15 people have been injured by this morning’s blast, only one person was believed to be in the building at the time. In fact, there seems to be some suspicion that this was a bizarre suicide attempt by a man named Dr. Nicholas Bartha, who happened to be the building’s owner. From the CNN article:

[New York Fire Commissioner Nicholas] Scoppetta said before the explosion, someone in the building sent an e-mail to a neighbor that “leads us to believe this may have been a suicide attempt.”

A police official told The Associated Press that the attorney for Bartha’s wife contacted police recently and said that she had received an e-mail from the doctor in which he indicated he was contemplating suicide.

Bartha was going through a difficult divorce and was being forced to sell the building, and authorities believe the explosion may be related to a suicide attempt, the police official told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said there is no suspicion of terrorism in the explosion — although this being NYC, I bet passers-by were pretty freaking terrified to see a building blow up.

You might think I’m referring to the Azores — but in fact I’m talking about the DC Metro area. The rain that is currently soaking the East Coast of the United States is causing major problems for the nation’s capital, including flooding of major thoroughfares. The buildings housing the Justice Department, the IRS, and the National Archives are all experiencing problems; the basement of the IRS is partially flooded, although the National Archives is (thankfully) merely surrounded by a muddy moat. The 12th Street tunnel is flooded, as is part of US29 in Silver Spring, and part of the Beltway near Alexandria is covered in five feet of mud. Or so says the rumors on the Internets.

More from the Washington Post.

Thankfully I’m in Denver for a conference, and am looking out my hotel window at gorgeous blue skies at 5,000 feet above sea level. :) (…although the power at my house has gone out, taking down Briandot headquarters.)

UPDATE BY BRENDAN: Capital Weather has complete coverage.

And, as if the current flooding wasn’t enough, Dr. Jeff Masters writes that a tropical depression could form tomorrow off the Carolina coast, and head north. “Depending on the low’s track, the mid-Atlantic coast may also get a good soaking on Wednesday.” Like they need it! The Storm Track has more.

Legal news? Or offbeat? CNN is reporting about a particularly hard case to settle: a man had a penile implant inserted a decade ago, but it turns out it didn’t perform as advertised — or too well, depending on how you look at it:

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) — A former handyman has won more than $400,000 in a lawsuit over a penile implant that gave him a 10-year erection.

Charles “Chick” Lennon, 68, received the steel and plastic implant in 1996, about two years before Viagra went on the market. The Dura-II is designed to allow impotent men to position the penis upward for sex, then lower it.

But Lennon could not position his penis downward. He said he could no longer hug people, ride a bike, swim or wear bathing trunks because of the pain and embarrassment. He has become a recluse and is uncomfortable being around his grandchildren, his lawyer said.

Originally he had been awarded $750,000, but the judge deemed that too stiff of a penalty and reduced it.

Should we feel sorry for him? I filed this under “Misc. Funny Stuff”, but I guess it’s only funny until someone gets their eye poked out.

(Shamelessly stolen from engadget)

Damn hilarious. :)

So says CNN.

And you thought lesbian cheerleaders were exciting.