Never let it be said that the BLOGATHON isn't fair and balanced. We have some very distinguished contributors this weekend but we haven't gone overboard in the direction of fine journalism. Not by any means. As evidence, please consider the latest "effort" from the lowly and nearly frozen Winter Patriot:

Did anyone else happen to notice that the timing of the explosions in London on Thursday morning was Just A Shade Too Convenient? Or was I the only one who thought "Gladio Smites Britannia" as soon as I heard the news?

No, it turns out that I wasn't the only one at all. Far from it, in fact. Psst! Keep this quiet, will you? We've been whispering about it all day.

Guest blogged by Larisa Alexandrovna.

Here are a few of the pieces Larisa has worked on recently:

U.S. changed Iraq policy to begin airstrikes months before war

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

I'm re-posting the following information which would otherwise be buried under the blogathon. And that wouldn't be right. This radio show is going to be central to the blogathon. And here's what Brad has lined up:

Guests include:
Rep. SHEILA JACKSON LEE (D-TX),
London Times' MICHAEL SMITH,
RAW STORY's LARISA ALEXANDROVNA,
Karl Rove's friend BILL ISRAEL,
JOHN BRAKEY & DAVID GRISCOMB.

Features include:
a tribute to Andy, Blogathon updates and more!

See the BRAD SHOW page for more details.

Guest Blogged by David Cobb.

Mr. Cobb's first subject:

The growing "New Voting Rights Movement" demands that we fully "democratize" US elections by implementing the Voter Bill of Rights. (This will necessarily include a discussion of the need for multi-party democracy and why the progressive movement actually *needs* the Green Party).

Guest blogged by Josh Mitteldorf.

INTRODUCTION {by Winter Patriot}: Josh Mitteldorf came to our attention when his piece about the 2004 'election' was published in Philadelphia, as reported here. Since then, we have learned that Josh Mitteldorf is a renaissance man. What a remarkable set of links on his home page! We are indeed fortunate to have Josh with us for the Blogathon and I'm very happy to present a column he has written for the occasion:

Making The Most Of What You've Got
by Guest Blogger Josh Mitteldorf

This is a story of my own brand of do-it-yourself political activism.

I'm a numbers geek, not a politician. Usually, I'm comfortable with that. I've got my role, they've got theirs. But when I first understood the statistical evidence that the 2004 presidential vote was stolen, I couldn't help but think: What this calls for is not a rigorous academic paper about standard deviations and p values. What we need is some coverage.

So what I did was that I wrote a rigorous academic paper about standard deviations and p values.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

A Very Special, Blogathon-inspired, One-Time-Only thread --- where friends of the proprietor can stop by and say "Hi!"

They might even want to say "Happy Birthday"!!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

I have a couple of questions for everyone: When did you start reading the Brad Blog? and Why did you keep coming back?

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

SPECIAL RULES will be in effect for the duration of the Blogathon. We will start a new open thread for each day of the event. PLEASE stay on-topic on the other blogathon threads; but POST FREELY on whatever subjects you like on the open threads. OFF-TOPIC comments on other threads will be subject to relocation or removal.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Please Visit The BRAD STORE and/or Donate via Credit Card or PayPal and/or Donate via Snail Mail.

The BradBlog's First Annual BLOGATHON is underway! A handful of faithful readers have liberated the Brad Blog and are now in control. As far as we know, nothing like this has ever been done before. So if we look like we don't know what we're doing, that's the basic idea! But we're not the only ones. Nobody knows what we're doing!!

Look What We Have At The BRAD STORE!! but We Still Need More Donations and You Can Donate By Mail.

We'll leave this stay-on-top item up-on-top for the whole BLOGATHON, and we'll update it frequently throughout the event. So please check in here often to see what's new, what's coming up soon, and how to catch up on anything you've missed!!

A BLOGATHON-INSPIRED GRAND OPENING:
Please visit The BRAD STORE during its Grand Opening! If you don't feel like buying anything, then please make a donation via PayPal or else please make a donation via snail mail.

If it seems like we're trying to separate you from some of your money, yes! you're catching on! Why? Here's just one reason: Studio time for The BRAD SHOW costs $500 per week. Brad sells some ads but they never cover his studio time. So he pays the difference out of his own pocket. Anyone wondering whether it's worth it should visit The BRAD SHOW and listen to some interviews. Where else can you hear radio like that? And how else can he pay for it? Yes? Right! Now you're catching on!

WE'RE FUNDRAISING --- PLEASE HELP!

• Some Great Gift Ideas
• Let The Silent Auctions Begin!
• Fractal Art from Peg C.
• The BRAD STORE Is Now Open!!
• Go There And Buy Something --- Or Else!!
• Make A Donation via Credit Card or PayPal
• Make A Donation via Snail Mail
• Visit The BRAD STORE!!

Yes, we're begging --- a bit! --- but on the other hand, look at what we've been up to...

BREAKING NEWS

• Scottie Takes a Break from Lying about Rove to Lie about Terrorism...
• Thomas Noe Taint Spreading: Look Out Washington!
• White House Backs Away From Rove!!
• FITRAKIS: Hocking County Activists Go To Sheriff's Dept!!

BLOGATHON-RELATED THREADS

• Ladies And Gentlemen, Mr. Brad Friedman
• Conyers to Friedman: 'Great Appreciation And Many Thanks'
• Clint Curtis Puppy-Naming Contest Results
• The Blogathon Continues...
• Has The BRAD BLOG Been Hijacked?
• Clint Curtis Puppy Naming Contest
• The Blogathon Guest Book
• When Did You Start Reading BRAD BLOG? And Why Did You Continue?

SUNDAY'S LIVE GUEST BLOGGERS

• Bob Koehler: America, America
• Bob Fitrakis: 'Open Letter To John Tanner' and 'Indictment Of Incompetence'
• Winter Patriot: Double Whammy
• Clint Curtis: The Whistleblower Blogs!

SATURDAY'S LIVE GUEST BLOGGERS

• David Cobb: 'The New Voting Rights Movement' and 'Fighting The Corporate Takeover'
• Larisa Alexandrovna: Some Recent Raw Stories
• Winter Patriot: It's Just Too Convenient
• John Amato: Justice Sunday: The After Party

FREE-RANGE GUEST BLOGGERS

• Gandhi: Does Reality Even Matter?
• Chris Floyd: The Dream of Unlimited Swag: The Klepto-Plutocracy at War
• Bernie Ellis: To The Merry Blogsters At This BradBlogathon
• Josh Mitteldorf: Making The Most Of What You've Got

The BRAD SHOW

• MICHAEL SMITH of the London Sunday Times
• Karl Rove's friend BILL ISRAEL
• election auditors JOHN BRAKEY and DAVID GRISCOMB
• A Tribute to Andy Stephenson
• Interviews with BRAD BLOGGERS Kira and Steve
• and much much more!
• NOW AVAILABLE VIA The BRAD SHOW Archives
  in case you didn't catch the live show on Saturday or the ReBRADcast on Sunday!

ALL BLOGGED OUT??

• Important Message
• Sunday BRAD SHOW Open Thread
• Saturday BRAD SHOW Open Thread
• Blogathon Tuesday Open Thread
• Blogathon Monday Open Thread
• Blogathon Sunday Open Thread
• Blogathon Saturday Open Thread
• Blogathon Friday Open Thread

MANY THANKS and BEST WISHES

• to Mike Malloy of Air America for this very generous endorsement [mp3]
• to Family and Friends of our late friend Andy Stephenson

Andy Stephenson lost his fight with cancer last night. He was a great fighter but, apparently, this was one he couldn't win.

I only recently got to know Andy over the past year, but he instantly became a friend. As if I'd known him my whole life. I know there are thousands out there who feel the same about him.

He was a great supporter of this blog, of The BRAD SHOW (he helped us get our first show on the air, and appeared as a guest that night) and was one of the original advisors at Velvet Revolution.

His loss is a tremendous blow to the Election Reform movement, and to America.

He will be missed...but he will never forgotten.

Godspeed, Andy...

UPDATE 7/11/05:

(A guest post in honor and support of BradBlog from American journalist Chris Floyd, columnist for The Moscow Times and perpetrator of the blog "Empire Burlesque".)

Between October 2003 and July 2004, almost $9 billion went missing from the accounts of the Iraqi "interim government." Despite investigations by Congress, the Pentagon, the General Accountability Office, the International Advisory and Monitoring Board and the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, no one knows exactly where the money went.

Received this moments ago from our friend Tony Trupiano of The Tony Show who received it himself via Email just moments after going off the air and thus was not able to run it. He tells The BRAD BLOG that he considers his source for this to be "golden"...

This report seems to sync up with a report just out at RAW STORY which independently confirms the "tomorrow between 10 and 11 am" timeline, as well as with Bob Novak's column this morning which reported that "Rehnquist also will announce his retirement before the week is over."

UPDATE 7/8/05: No retirement announced as of 11am ET today. RAW STORY has more...

As London erupts, and Bush tells us "the war on terror goes on", Eric Brewer, BTCNews.com's man in the White House has a timely posting today on the Administration's continued fudging of numbers in their Terrorism Reports.

The number of terror incidents continue to rise, even as the Administration attempts to downplay, fudge, obfuscate the numbers in various statements and annual reports wherever possible.

According to Brewer...

Brewer's fine analysis goes on to point out that virtually all of the numbers reported by the Government, completely leave out incidents from Iraq and Afghanistan despite Bush's continued assertion that these countries are now the "central front in the War on Terror"...

Need more evidence that you are being lied to and manipulated in this "War on Terror"?

Brewer reports on a new analytical tool available from the "Terrorism Knowledge Base" run by Oklahoma City-based non-profit National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism which is, as Brewer points out, funded by the Department of Homeland Security.

Brewer used the tool to create a graph of Terror Incidents from 1995 to 2004. Compare the years when those pesky "Liberals" who, according to Rove, were fighting terrorism by "prepar[ing] indictments and offer[ing] therapy and understanding for our attackers," versus the great success of those "Conservatives" and their new "catastrophically successful" approach...

"The war on terror goes on..."

(Brewer, BTCNews.com's blogger/White House correspondent, was interviewed several weeks ago on The BRAD SHOW along with BTC's blogmaster Weldon Berger. The archive of that interview is available here in MP3 format.)

Hocking County, Ohio's recount whistleblower, Sherole Eaton --- who was recently fired without explanation in the wake of having reported on a voting company employee tampering with the hard-drive of a central tabulating computer and offering "cheat-sheets" prior to the recount of the November 2004 Presidential Election --- received some support yesterday from both a Court Order and several dozen backers at a dramatic Board of Elections meeting.

Attorney Cliff Arnebeck, one of the attorneys who filed a case in Ohio to have the November Election results set aside due to evidence of fraud, served County Board of Elections officials with a court order mandating Eaton not be replaced until further court orders are issued.

"Yesterday was the first of what I hope are many victories for Sherole," Karla VanBibber told us via Email earlier today. VanBibber, who is Sherole's niece attended the meeting, and described the moment when Arnebeck arrived with the court order: "The expressions on the board members faces when given the court injunction was priceless."

VanBibber also gave us her take on the reactions from the Board Members in the face of questions from supporters about Eaton's dismissal, which she says is illegal under Ohio law. "Their sputtering and faultering and lying was unbelievable," she said. "It's amazing how the arrogance we see in the Bush administrations has filtered down to the local level as it has."

Apparently, they won't be giving up the fight for Eaton, who is recovering from recent brain surgery, but attended the hearing "in apparently good spirits and seemingly good health - full of energy and zeal and very appreciative of the support," according to Evan Davis's detailed account of the meeting at Ray Beckerman's blog.

Said VanBibber, "We knocked them down a few notches yesterday, we won't give up until they're on their knees and Sherole has her job back."

Eaton's firing, and her dramatic appearance at another recent Board of Election hearing, just two days surgery, was covered in this previous BRAD BLOG report.

Hocking County's Logan Daily News also had a report today on yesterday's meeting. "[Sherole] was so happy this morning when she received her paper," VanBibber said, "she came over and was so excited and for the first time in awhile was optomistic."

Logan Daily News described Arnebeck's dramatic appearance at the meeting...

We've said it before...and say it almost everytime we speak anywhere publicly in fact...but if you need any more proof that the actions of one person can make a difference, allow us to offer just a few more recent examples of the actions taken by just a few of the good BRAD BLOGGERS out there.

We're sure we could offer loads of similar examples from several score more of you, but these two folks have jumped out of late and we're happy to add to the noise they've already made.

Last week, a frequent BRAD BLOG commenter (whose name we'll leave out, since we didn't get express permission to mention it --- they can take credit for here in comments if they are so inclined) made a bit of news after sending a letter of complaint to the Tennessee Department of Health complaining about Sen. Bill Frist's videotaped (and incorrect) "diagnosis" of Terri Schiavo a few months back.

The letter, apparently, has triggered a review of Frist's actions, according to the return letter received from the Director of Investigations for Health Related Boards.

All we can say is: Well done!

And another BRAD BLOG commenter, Sheila Leavitt, has been bravely making noise for quite a while. She seems to have little fear when it comes to speaking out rather publicly and for that alone (sadly enough) she deserves a round of applause in this chilling day and age.

That's her on the right as photographed by AFP on the day Conyers was delivering the Downing Street letter to the White House.

Today, Sheila made the news again as she was featured in a great Boston Herald column.

We're not certain, but it may be her car that caught the attention of the Herald reporter

In an email exchange we had today, Sheila told us, "My medium is cardboard, just as yours is words in the computer. Each of us only needs to do what we do best, and do it with love and persistence, don't you think? Eventually, maybe things will get better."

Yes, we think maybe eventually it will.

Since the Herald site is subscription only, here's a few more grafs than usual from today's article on Sheila, some of the thugs she's faced down in the course of bravely speaking out, and, of course...a must-see EXCLUSIVE BRAD BLOG photograph of...Sheila's car...