Today, we remember, the 2,979 killed in both the terror attacks of 9/11 and in the oft-overlooked anthrax bio-terror attacks on American soil which occurred in the following weeks, along with all of those who have given their lives in defense of this nation and its Constitution, including the 5,679 U.S. troops who have been sacrificed so far in George W. Bush's (and now Barack Obama's) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan --- a number which does not include the countless U.S. contractors who have also perished in those conflicts.

As a veteran of Vietnam, my friend and colleague John Gideon, whom we tragically lost late last month, was a champion not just of voters' rights, but of all the causes of his fellow veterans and active-duty brothers and sisters.

Today, The BRAD BLOG's first Memorial Day without his valued presence, we dedicate this day to his memory, his undying fight, and his soaring spirit.

I thought it would be appropriate today, then, to offer the recent Part 2 of Talk Nation Radio's moving audio tribute to the legacy of our friend John. As in Part 1 of Dori Smith's radio special, I appear once again, along with VotersUnite.org's Ellen Theisen and John himself, in both voice and memory. Also, good friend and longtime election integrity advocate Pokey Anderson, of Houston Pacifica's KPFT, speaks about John and his legacy in this part as well. All four of us are seen in the photo below, taken by Desi Doyen, last summer during a few hours of wonderful retreat up in Washington state. It would be the last time all five of us would be together in person.

Download MP3 or listen online [appx. 30 mins]...

Post-Script: I just noticed that this article's permalink happens to be BRAD BLOG item number '7176' --- an oddly appropriate 'anagramatical' coincidence for you numerologists out there. Make of that as you will...

Via RAW STORY...

So far, it's been almost a full month since Fox "News"/ABC Radio propagandist Sean Hannity volunteered to be waterboarded for charity, claiming it was not torture. Despite MSNBC's Keith Olbermann offering $1000 for the troops, for every second Hannity lasts, the cowardly wingnut torture apologists has failed to revisit the topic since his original act of phony bravado.

See "Mancow" being waterboarded, and then commenting on it, in the two very short videos below. And remember, unlike the detainees that we tortured, he was not being waterboarded by hostile folks, and was able to call it off at any time, on his own...

On a related topic... I was on San Francisco's usually very rightwing radio station KGO last night, with the progressive Christine Craft sitting in as late-night host. Lots of similarly cowardly wingnuts called in to inform us that waterboarding isn't torture at all. Here's the audio. Enjoy.

MP3 Download, or listen online (appx 35 mins)...

Update: My VelvetRevolution.us colleague Kevin Zeese writes in to note that his coverage of the same news item at Voters For Peace, also includes a video of Vanity Fair's Christopher Hitchens being waterboard in February of 2008, to similar result as "Mancow's." He also lasts about 5 seconds under waterboarding by friendly torturers.

UPDATE 5/23/09: And this just in via ThinkProgress...

UPDATE 5/29/09: Olbermann interviews Mancow after his waterboarding. Video follows below. Here's a bit of the transcript...

Update 4/27, 11:54pm PT...

It was a very lonely time for advocates of democracy in the U.S. when John Gideon posted his first guest blog here in the dark days of October 2005, and when we began to carry his vital "Daily Voting News" on Election Day, one month later, in November of that same year.

While the fight for democracy in this country has become somewhat less lonely as the Election Integrity movement has grown since then, thanks in no small part to the tireless, daily contributions of John, it feels very lonely again today. My good friend passed away this evening in a Seattle hospital, having succumbed to a surprise and sudden bout with bacterial meningitis.

John held on as long as he could, but tonight he'll rest with his beloved wife who passed some years ago.

He was 62, and a Vietnam veteran who never stopped fighting for his fellow veterans and in service of our country. He is survived by his son Rick and grandson, and a life-long legacy of fighting in defense of his nation, and for all that it stands for. He has left that legacy behind as a gift --- and challenge --- for us all.

John's always-understated "Daily Voting News" --- which he filed, often seven days a week, for well over five years --- provided simple links to news of election reform, failure and success from around the nation, as culled from papers, blogs, press releases and official and academic reports around the country, and even the world. In so doing, he connected the seemingly disparate dots of local stories, and apparently anecdotal woes, into a cohesive tale of a nation struggling to regain footing on the pedestal on which it had once, and still hoped to stand.

The compelling narrative the DVN slyly wove together daily --- almost, as if in slow-motion, with each passing day --- was clear: We were, and are, a country whose promise of public, transparent democracy threatens to slip away forever beneath a cynical and foolish crush of ill-considered corporatism and greed, self-imposed expediency and often well-meaning, yet destructive naivete. In short: Unless we take care --- every single day --- what's left of our democracy will further wither to the whims of cold, disinterested privatization no longer resembling the self-governance our founders envisioned, and that we have convinced ourselves still remains.

If there is anything we can give back to the man, in thanks for his selfless service, over so many decades, on so many fronts, it is to continue to carry the torch of the man who fought for democracy until he had nothing more he could give...

I was scheduled to be on CNN's new online "Live" format last Thursday, before they knew what the "topic of the day would be". Turned out to be the FDA's approval to allow Plan B, a.k.a "the morning-after pill", to be sold to 17 year-olds after they were ordered by a U.S. District Court to do so. The judge also ordered the FDA to re-evaluate whether all age restrictions should be removed, following a determination that the Bush Administration's FDA had used politics, for years, instead of science, in determining whether Plan B was safe and effective enough to be sold over the counter.

Here's the video from my appearance along with a coupla other bloggers, Rachel Campos Duffy of AOL's parentdish and Gina Cooper from GinaCooper.com (she blogged about her appearance here). No comment on the use of the cutesy "Blogger Bunch" name for the segment, or for the allegation that Brad "leans to the Left" during the intro, even though Rachel, who doesn't "lean", but rather seems to live "on the Right" isn't described as such. But, as I say, no comment on any of that. I look forward to being invited back again soon...

Spent a lot of long-overdue, late late-night hours over the past week or so, stretching my PHP, CSS and HTML skills well beyond their limits in service of some fairly substantial code optimization --- with more still to come --- in hopes of trying to make things run a bit faster here. Did I succeed?

(Note: You may need to hit SHIFT-REFRESH once or twice to get all the updated files into your cache. Other than that, if you come across any unexpected glitches or odd behavior, please let me know!)

Over the last few months, it looks like the wingnuts have undertaken a specific and systematic effort to try and downrate items that don't reflect well on them at places like REDDIT and DIGG.

Of course, lots of recommendations on those two sites result in thousands --- if not hundreds of thousands --- of more eyeballs to the various stories we run here at The BRAD BLOG --- stories which are often not seen anywhere else in the media, even in the Progressive Blogosphere for that matter!

So your REDDITs and DIGGs actually do matter quite a bit, particular now since the wingnuts seem to have begun their downrating campaign. Click here to see the amazing number of DOWN votes at REDDIT, for example, for last night's "Franken Isn't 'Leading'; He Won and Coleman Lost" story. Without all that downrating, the story would easily have made it to the front page of REDDIT for a long while, and therefore been propagated across dozens of other key sites on the net as well.

It takes about 30 seconds to sign up for REDDIT and/or DIGG the first time, and then you can remain logged on forever. It then takes less than 2 seconds to vote for and/or uprate our stories here at The BRAD BLOG without even leaving this page by hitting the REDDIT and DIGG vote icons for stories that you believe are important to get out there.

Your 2 seconds of a mouse clicking matters. Really. And, as ever, your help is much appreciated! (And thanks to those regular DIGGers and REDDITers who already help out!)

For you whipper-snappers out there, The BRAD BLOG is now Twittering via this link, if you'd like to keep up with the latest on your mobile phone, or however, you enjoy being tweeted.

We are also now available via Amazon's cool new wireless Kindle reader. A Kindle subscription to The BRAD BLOG is $1.99, and allows you to keep up with things here from anywhere (presuming you can afford the Kindle 2's still-high $359 initial price tag, in any case, which we can't.) You can watch a quick 2-minute Kindle demo video here, if you're curious.

See ya from...out there...Oh, and P.S.: Big thanks to the great Ray Beckerman for setting us up at Twitter!

UPDATE 3/31/09: Josh Marshall has some interesting thoughts on the Kindle and on the future of carbon-based books in general...

On several deadlines and fighting some server probs. So...please talk amongst yourselves (if you can, one of the probs is in the comments routines!), and I'll otherwise be back shortly. Thanks for your patience, as ever...

Today (Saturday 1/24/09) is The BRAD BLOG's 5th anniversary! Five years?! Until last Tuesday, I might have said, "feels more like 50!" But with a certain lead-like weight beginning to lift, for some strange reason, as the past week wore on, I'll just say: "Wow! Has it been five years already?!"

My thanks to so many of you who have supported this site and the work we've done, in so many different ways, over these many years. I'd say it's been "my pleasure," but that may be overstating just how grueling these last many years have been.

So I'll leave it to you old timers (and new timers, alike) to let us know in comments either a) what brought you here originally, b) why you kept coming back for more, c) what your favorite/least favorite story/article was/is (feel free to share links if you like) or d) all of the above as you see fit.

Seeing as how the appropriate fifth anniversary gift is supposed to be wood, and how cash money is made from paper, which is made from wood, we would be more than delighted if you felt like leaving an anniversary gift after a particularly difficult year here. If you're really in the mood to be generous, we still have signed DVD copies of the award-winning documentaries Murder, Spies & Voting Lies and Uncounted (both featuring yours truly), which will be happy to send ya in return for donations of $50 or above (details here).

But don't let the lack of a wooden gift in these troubled times keep you from commenting and sharing your thoughts, as that is always (well, mostly) gift enough. Thank you all for everything. Here's to 5 more! (If I can make it!)

Just a quick update...I've been on the road for the last month or two, and now finally nearing home. Not there yet, but hope to be soon. If any from our fine list of Guest Bloggers are available to jump in here, hopefully they will while I still have more hours of on-the-road, off-the-grid time ahead in the next several days. Otherwise, I should be back "full time" pretty soon. Frankly, the sooner the better, as there are a number of reports I've been working on, but haven't had time to complete for ya. They'll be coming soon. Even if not as soon as I'd like, while still on the roll.

Obviously, we could use more guest reporter/contributors around here, but they are very hard to come by, particularly given the type of blogging we tend to do here (more reporting than opinion) and particularly at the "price" I'm able to pay (approximately nothing, unfortunately). However, if you, or someone you know, might be interested in doing some BRAD BLOGGING, and think you have the investigative and writing and editing skills and/or the sense-of-humor (as appropriate) for this joint, please feel free to drop me a private note, along with a few links to a few short sample items that you feel may be appropriate BRAD BLOG-type stories which may give me an idea of your work. Use subject line: "GUEST BLOGGING!"

Would love to hear from you! And thanks, otherwise, for your continuing patience for our otherwise road-weary and still wrist-hobbled, nearly-one-man blogging band. We'll try to make it back to our home, before Obama gets to his...

While these things are usually decided by numbers of readers for any particular website --- and as we noted when originally nominated as a Finalist for the 2008 Weblog Awards, that would likely be as far as we'd go, given the huge readership of many of our fellow (excellent) nominees --- we're happy to remind you that you can vote for us anyway.

And you can even do it once every 24 hours! So do it! And do it again! (Yes, in this election, stuffing the ballot box is perfectly legal!)

Who knows, but a good turnout may put a few important BRAD BLOG stories, such as those on election integrity issues found nowhere else, in front of that many more eyeballs.

With all of that said, we're delighted and grateful to Jill C., of the always-sharp Brilliant at Breakfast (Disclosure: Jill has guest blogged here a bit of late) for her endorsement of The BRAD BLOG in a category with a particularly impressive club of fellow nominees. Here's her kind endorsement...

Thanks, Jill! And be sure to read her full item for other endorsements, and marvel at her ability to keep up with so many blogs! Yes, we're jealous of that!

As The BRAD BLOG hobbles wrist-wrecked and flu-fallen towards the finish line of a particularly harrowing and exhausting year, we're heartened by a very nice distinction, being named as Finalist in the 2008 Weblog Awards.

We hadn't even realized we were in the running, until the list of nominees was announced last night. So we're pleased to find ourselves in very distinguished company for the "Best Liberal Blog" nod:

• Hullabaloo
• Think Progress
• Sadly, No!
• The BRAD BLOG
• Blue Gal
• Orcinus
• Truthdig
• Wonkette
• Taylor Marsh
• Shakesville
• Crooks & Liars
• The Confluence
• Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory
• Talking Points Memo

We don't much care for the "Liberal Blog" label, but as neither "Best Independent Blog" nor "Best Non-Rightwingnut Blog" were available categories, and given the company we're honored to share, we'll take whatever we can get and note --- as it is said, and we mean it --- the honor of simply being nominated.

Online voting for the title begins right here at the Weblog Awards site on Jan 5th. Though given the sizes of the (mostly) group blogs we're nominated alongside, as mentioned, we're honored to have simply been nominated, without even campaigning, as Finalist.

UPDATE 1/5/09: Voting is now open through Jan 12th. And guess what? You can vote once in every 24 hour period! So go stuff the ballot box! It's legal!

Guess what I got for Xmas? Yup, got slammed by the flu on XMas weekend, just to make sure I had extra fun this year. Well, I've taken the hint, and have been standing down, way down, lying down, in fact, for several days, and may continue to do so, unless the world stops revolving without me.

Guest bloggers, as usual, will save the day...until I feel up to doing so myself again...Please pardon my absence until then...Much to catch up on, but it'll have to wait for now. You --- and I, both --- will thank me later.

At this year's Christmas, I'm happy to associate myself with my colleague, the good John Gideon of VotersUnite.org who offered these well-writ holiday thoughts at the top of last night's DVN:

As well, I share the following from a moving note sent to me by another colleague today, one who happens to be a great, longtime civil rights champion. I believe his thoughts, and thanks, are due to all of those who have helped to support our work here at The BRAD BLOG and have made us a regular stop on an increasingly busy super highway, over the past year and more...

Please take his kind words sent to me, as my sincere thoughts sent to you, in hopes we can all celebrate someday --- and perhaps even for a few hours this Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever holiday you enjoy --- what we all continue to strive for, in our long, strange journey together...