Of all days for the servers to go down, it had to be election day. There goes the site traffic. It wasn’t just me: Talking Points Memo and Gweilo Diaries and a whole lot of sites seemed to get hit at the same time, earlier this afternoon. Must be Karl Rove up to some desperate dirty tricks….

Update: It was a Hosting Matters downage. Even my friends at Little Green Cesspools were down.

According to this article, Hu’s style is markedly different than Jiang’s, and holds the promise of more toleration and a willingness to listen and learn.

Simply put, the biggest difference between Jiang’s old and Hu’s new leadership is that Jiang vowed to rule with an iron fist, while Hu enshrines the more common touch and urges leaders to listen to and learn from the people. Jiang’s mindset and approach to social control were similar to those of old bureaucrats in the former Soviet Union where government/party control prevailed in every aspect of life – politics, economy, culture and daily life at the grassroots level. As in the Soviet Union, the Jiang government even tried to determine and regulate what the normal and acceptable lifestyle should be.

Hu’s governance style is characterized by the government’s looser control of the state and greater leeway to trusted, reform-minded colleagues. The government retains firm control of political affairs but not of all aspects of life. In addition, diversity of lifestyle is tolerated by the Hu’s Communist Party regime.

I sure hope so. I always, in my heart, thought Hu and Wen were a different breed than their predecessors. Of course, Hu’s unwillingness to loosen control of political issues is depressing, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt — that won’t happen overnight. But don’t get any ideas; I’m still going to criticize them whenever i think they’re fucking up, just as I will John Kerry after he’s sworn in.

Actually, it’s a November surprise: Just this morning, thanks to the determination of some true Republicans, Ohio’s court of appeals voted two to one (2 Repubs, 1 Dem) to allow “challengers” to challenge whether voters in Ohio are truly registered voters. Sounds like good news for the goons, no?

No. In fact, it was the stupidest thing they’ve ever done and a final gift to Kerry. Since the challengers were targetting polling places in Ohio’s black neighborhoods, this news hit the local population like lightning. It was a return to Jim Crow, it was legislated intimidation and supression, and they weren’t going to let it silence them. Nothing could possibly have made them more excited and determined to vote, and nothing could have turned them more strongly against the Grand Old Party.

Jesse Taylor, working at the polls in Ohio, gets it just right.

The Republican voter challenger debacle, alongside the Milwaukee and South Carolina flyers, may be the worst conservative strategic blunder of any election in recent memory. From my precinct (an admittedly small sample), a lot of people feel like they’re back in the 60s, fighting against a tyrannical and prejudiced power trying to keep them from exercising their constitutional rights. I’ll be surprised if Bush matches his eight percent of the black vote from 2000.

Read his description of what it’s like there. It’s clear that minorities and lower-income voters have never before been so determined to vote, thanks to the Republicans attempt to discourage them. Talk about a strategy backfiring….

Just in case you didn’t know… Now go and make me very happy tomorrow. We need a big victory, a huge victory to give Kerry-Edwards a broad mandate. That means we all have to vote, even my friends in New York who say they don’t need to vote since Kerry will win anyway. That kind of selfish and presumptive thinking can be dangerous. Every single vote counts more than ever before. Please, even if you have to wait and be bored. The last thing you want to do is regret not having voted on Tuesday. It’s you, it’s me, it’s all of us, no exceptions. Republicans like Conrad and Sam, et.al. it’s not too late — you can redeem your souls and win back your humanity. Swallow your pride and do it. Don’t you deserve a president who can complete a sentence? Who can admit his mistakes? Who is accountable and responsibe? Who understands the world and how it works? Can’t you see the depths to which we’ve fallen since 911, the day when “everyone was an American”? Now’s your chance to change that, to restore what is beautiful and great about America. It’s all up to you. Vote for Kerry, and vote straight Democratic to help win back the Congress. Enough of Tom DeLay and his cronies, enough of government of bullies and liars. Please — just this once, despite the inconvenience, despite the weather and the traffic and the lines, take a few minutes and help bring America back from the dead. We were so great, so strong, so respected just a few years ago. How could we have let this happen? And how can we not do all we can to get our country back on course? Thank you for stopping by, and be sure to vote tomorrow. It’s our one magnificent chance; don’t let it slip by.

Stylistically, Wolcott’s the best blogger out there and way, way smarter than most. He’s worked out a good plan for saving your sanity after the election, no matter which way it goes.

[P]ractically everyone I know is a neurotic basket case over this election, ready to call their mothers to see if they can have their old womb back should Bush win. My plan is, If Bush wins, I’m going to allot myself 48 hours to mope and dread–okay, 72–okay, maybe 96–but 96 tops–but after that it’ll be time to get on mental war footing. If Kerry wins, do you think conservative Republicans are going to take to their beds for soul-searching? They have no souls to search, most of them. No, they’ll be scheming to ratfuck a Kerry presidency, and if history is a reliable guide they’ll have allies in the elite media who can’t wait to start snarking over Teresa as First Lady and the timidity of Kerry’s cabinet picks, whatever. Reporters and pundits who’ve paid scant attention to the casualties and carnage in Iraq will suddenly find their consciences tucked away in a file drawer, and start wondering when Kerry will show the strength and resolve we expect from our leaders. They will hound him about Bin Laden in ways they never did Bush.

….the war in Iraq has made moral cowards of us all. To focus on whether or not the Bin Laden tape would give Bush a boost while thousands upon thousands of Iraqis die and Fallujah is about to pulverized without the slightest debate in this country is an indictment of our media, our political class, and the phony Christianity that so many of our dumpling patriots profess.

But as Randi Rhodes said today on Air America, voters don’t show up early and stand in line for hours in the sun, as they’ve been doing in Florida, to support the status quo. So make way for tomorrow.

Right on all counts. Electing Kerry tomorrow is just the start of the battle; life will have a purpose after the election, and there will be more to blog about, not less. I just wish the election would end so we could stop the nail biting. I’m actually dreaming about the election, and that’s never a healthy sign.

Reports Andrew Sullivan:

October 30 – Fox poll shows Bush up by 2. Headline: “Fox Poll: Bush Up By Two Points Over Kerry”

November 1 – Fox poll shows Kerry up by 2. Headline: “Fox National Poll: Voters Split.” You really can’t make this up.

Meanwhile, early voting is showing a strong Kerry surge and what was just days ago an 8-pont lead for shrub in the Gallup poll of likely voters is now a dead heat. I don’t want to jinx things, but this looks very good for the good guys.

You can find the complete transcript of Osama’s nasty speech here, and it’s certainly worth reading. Scary as hell, and he makes some astute points — for a psychotic mass murderer — about how 911 was indeed a victory for Al Qaeda. That’s one topic where I have to agree with the monster.

He should be hung by his heels in the public square. His absolute favorite tactic, every time, is to pull on people’s emotional attitude toward gays. Today’s example is so sickening that I want to believe people will immediately recognize it for the evil it is.

And of course, he’s using the same tactics in Florida:

Republican agitators disguise themselves as “Kerry supporters from San Francisco.” Will anyone fall for this crap?

This was reassuring to see.

In a hard-hitting commentary on the eve of U.S. elections, China has slammed the Bush administration, saying it is trying to rule the world by force.

Writing in the state newspaper China Daily, Vice Premier Qian Qichen said “the philosophy of the ‘Bush Doctrine’ is in essence force. It advocates the United States should rule over the whole world with overwhelming force, military force in particular.

Now, don’t all you Republicans get all excited and tell me this is further proof of murderous thugs all lining up behind Kerry. Everyone’s lining up behind Kerry, brutal dictators and puppy dogs. Except Iran, which has come out for shrub, and of course Osama Bin Laden, who put out a free ad for bush last Friday, which Republicans referred to on the record as “a gift.”

Link is via Conrad who, as usual, gets it all wrong. (And why doesn’t Conrad get it through his head that if John Ascroft had his way, the first thing he’d do would be to close down Gweilo Diaries?)

I rarely use the “F” word, but Florda deserves it for passing a law prohibiting journalists from speaking with or photographing people as they wait in line to vote. The new law was apparently passed in secret and was not announced. When an unwitting reporter went to interview people on line for early voting, he was punched and arrested. Incredible. Could this be a reaction to Michael Moore’s promise to videotape Florida polling places? It’s a grotesque story, and doesn’t bode well for tomorrow.