“A survey of deaths in Iraqi households estimates that as many as 100,000 more people may have died throughout the country in the 18 months since the U.S.-led invasion than would be expected based on the death rate before the war. ”

Read the whole story here.

The election season is almost over, and I share Jay’s sentiment from last week that regardless of who wins, the fight’s not over, and all of the energy and enthusiasm people in this country have shown over the election needs to be harnessed and grown. It would be a terrible shame if all of this sense of civic duty and desire to fix things just crumbles on November 2.

So, in that spirit, I’d like to share a list of statistics I came across today, as a little reminder that no matter what happens on Tuesday, there’s a lot of work to be done, right in our own backyard:

• The average age of a homeless person in King County today is 9 years old
• Over 50% of shelter requests by homeless families went unmet in 2003
• More than 1.2 million people, a fifth of Washington residents, used food banks between July 2001 and June 2002. Washington is #2 in the nation
• In King County, 1 out of 3 students who start high school don’t graduate
• Kids who take part in early childhood development programs are 40% less likely to become teen parents
• Two-thirds of students who cannot read by the fourth grade will end up in jail or on welfare
• 484,000 people under the age of 65 were uninsured in 2000 in Washington State
• 37% of people requesting emergency food assistance in American cities are employed
• In King County, on any given night 8000 people are homeless. This represents a 39% increase from 2001.

I hope everyone who’s been energized by the desire to make the leadership of the country better will decide to channel that energy into making better the lives of the people in our little corner of it.

So I came across this survey from Comptia asking the candidates several questions regarding technology issues and knowing this audience thought you might be interested. It is all a lot of political rhetoric but what the hell?

From the wise and moderate Steve Clemons, confirmation of much of what I’ve heard about the military and Bush:

I JUST SAT NEXT TO A VERY TOUGH SOLDIER FROM THE 82ND AIRBORNE on a flight back from Europe. I have been thinking for two days about how to share some of the things he told me without compromising him.

This guy I met is not one prone to talk; he was very serious, very mellow — and comes from a family of enlisted military men. His dad was in Vietnam.

He has had one rotation in Afghanistan, one in Iraq. He is now in Germany but will soon be transferred back to Iraq. He was at Tora Bora and has seen a lot of Iraqi, Afghan, and American dead.

According to him, 75% of all soldiers want Bush defeated in the election and don’t care who defeats him; anger and resentment are high. He says that 90% of the officers remain far out of harm’s way. From lietenants all the way up, there is general understanding that the officers are hiding in holes, or holding back in well-defended buildings and quite cavalier about sending troops out for assignments and errands that are frequently stupid, poorly planned, and dangerous.

From there, it gets more graphic, more depressing, and even weirder:

He shared quite a bit more, including that his military commanders are planning for at minimum an eight year deployment in Iraq, maybe longer. He also shared an interesting anecdote that about a year ago, certain commanders in the 82nd Airborne had been told to prepare for a quick incursion into Cuba. I was stunned.

He said, “Yep, we couldn’t believe that on top of everything else, Bush thought he could go take out Castro.” The Navy Seals were going to go in and do the dirty work, he said, and the “82nd was going to go in for clean-up.” He said that he never heard more about it but that the orders clearly didn’t go forward — but they were prepared for that possibility and told that “Bush just wanted to take out Castro.”

A great post from Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

John Kerry says George W. Bush made a mistake by failing to secure 380 tons of high explosives in Iraq.

George W. Bush does not make mistakes. The US Army was responsible for guarding the explosives. The US Army failed. Therefore, John Kerry is attacking the US Army.

John Kerry hates America.

Is that about right?

Bush gives the camera the finger. Apparently, he cares less what Jesus would do and more about “What Would Dick Cheney Do?”.

“It’s amazing what you can capture when your camera is turned on. This video shows what George Bush thinks of democracy. He was caught on video while governor of Texas.

On November 2nd please join the army of volunteers who will keep an eye on our democracy. Volunteer here to submit video of disturbances outside polling locations. Enter your contact info and we will send you an email with more information.”

Brilliant article in Slate today: “The Case Against John Ashcroft“. Despite granting himself sweeping powers of detention and the virtual dismantling of due process, there have been zero — ZERO! — terrorist-related convictions since 9/11. A failure by any standards, as the article does well to explain.

The always astounding get your war on comic is blindlingly sharp this week. Check out barbs like this:

“You know what I don’t like about Kerry? He doesn’t have a real strategy for winning the War on Terrorism.”

“I know! I heard he’d only allow, like, one-hundred-and-ninety tons of explosive to fall into the hands of the terrorists! What kind of half-assed plan is that?”

“Speaking of half-assed, did you hear the one about the soldier whose Humvee rolled over and IED made of looted explosives from Saddam Hussein’s ammunition stockpiles?”

Ouch. The rest of it is that good.

This is a great little blog: 5ives: Merlin’s Lists of Five Things. My favorites:

Five bands I don’t think I’m enjoying as much as I’m supposed to
1. Radiohead
2. PJ Harvey
3. Sleater Kinney
4. Liz Phair
5. Scissor Sisters

Five things I suppose you could do to “the vote” if you ever tire of “rocking” it
1. Broast the Vote!
2. Pummel the Vote!
3. Gently Strum the Vote!
4. Benchpress the Vote!
5. Botox the Vote!

Five companies I suspect I may be the bitch of
1. Gillette
2. Apple
3. Sprint
4. Costco
5. Trader Joe’s

Five things it’s probably better not to do when you’re kind of drunk
1. buy domain names
2. hire an attorney
3. do lots of file management from the command line
4. sort out your finances
5. telephone people you remember fondly from elementary school

Five ass-related words I think I use a lot
1. metric assload (n.) – a lot
2. asshat (n.) – willfully ignorant person
3. assy (adj.) – unacceptably low-quality
4. big-ass (adj.) – large
5. asstacular (adj.) – really bad

For an amazing insight into the internals of Bush/Cheney reelection campaign check out this Dead Letter Office at georgewbush.org. Note — that’s the parody site at .ORG, not the official campaign site at .COM. But the dead letter office is no parody — these are apparently real emails intended for campaign staffers, that were sent to email addresses at the .org domain (instead of name@georgewbush.com) by mistake.

There could be some real gems in here. In browsing through, I’ve already spotten a memo intended for Karl Rove, and a weekly report from “Pennsylvania Evangelical Outreach”. Kos is already tracking what could be a big story about evidence of voter suppression found here.