Senate and Sesame

First, an update for out-of-state friends who have been asking what's going on with the Senate election here in MN. The national media's been throwing around the word Florida a bit, it seems, which is not accurate. Minnesota has a close election, going into a mandatory, statewide recount. Florida had not only a close election but problems with their ballots in several counties, leading to a large number of people possibly voting for someone they didn't intend to vote for, and then recounts in some counties but not others (team Gore's big mistake, in my view), and so on (yadda yadda yadda). Anyway, that's not happening here. Here are some good sites for more info:

MNPublius is a good start for a lefty take on MN political news. This site is partisan to the point that I find myself rolling my eyes from time to time, but also does a good job of linking to other sites with related information. They in fact pointed me to the following links.

Media Matters takes on the overwrought rhetoric and purple prose of the national commentators, who seem somewhat ill-informed about what's going on here. As I say, this isn't Florida 2000. Also, contra Bill O'Reilly and the Coleman campaign, the state did not certify a winner based on the certified first vote count. 206 vote difference with Coleman in the lead, yes, but less than 0.5% difference, therefore too close to call, therefore no winner, therefore recount.

And KSTP gives a nice (video) overview of the "trunk ballots," a set of thirty-some ballots that were rumored to have been found in the trunk of somebody's car. It's not true:

As Media Matters has noted, Fritz Knaak, Coleman's recount lawyer and apparently the media origin of the story, has been quite up-front that he was misinformed. And yet some of the media has perpetuated the story. Check yo'self, media.

Finally, as an antidote to all this political business, here's a little something we can all enjoy. I'd intended for this song to be on the Beukemix this year, but can no longer find the link to an mp3 of it. So instead, here it is as a Youtube treat instead. I give you the haunting, melancholy "Lower Case n":