So where are the strong? And who are the trusted?

Thursday was the first full day that I had a counter installed on this website. Close to 10,000 hits in one day, close to 6,000 unique visitors. Not bad for a weblog begun less than 14 days ago. Thank you for coming to this site; more importantly, thank you for leaving this site and taking with you information to share, pass on, and spread to others.

Spreading the word is essential -- I ran into a friend tonight at the Wilco concert who was following politics like a crazy man these last few months. Yet he had absolutely no idea that a recount was going on in Ohio, and hadn't heard about the Berkeley report. Looking through the most prominent blogs and newspapers, I don't blame him. How would he have known?

There's no piece yet in the New York Times about the Hout report. Google News shows that the report has received coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, while Newsday, Boston Herald (which both ran the AP story), the News and Observer of NC, and the San Francisco Examiner carried the AP story. This is a start. This is not enough.

The leading survey center of the country's top public university just released a report saying that the President probably received at least 130,000 excess votes in Florida. Let me put it this way: 130,000 is 3% of 3,500,000, the approximate entire popular vote margin by which Bush beat Kerry. And that's what this report says is the minimum number of excess votes.

Meanwhile, there is still no explanation for the irregularities in Ohio. But there will be a recount.

In the meantime, if you want a good laugh, then please, read this. "How Ohio pulled it off," indeed. We are fans here, of course, of Mr. Shakespeare, and we think that Mr. Blackwell's op-ed piece smacks of "me think the lady doth protest too much."

Posting will be spotty this weekend, all depending on my wi-fi access in New York. I'll be back from NYC by early Monday. We will hopefully have more news about New Hampshire and Ohio -- and more coverage about the Berkeley/Hout report.

Have a great weekend, everyone. Continue to spread the word.

Tonight, at the Wilco show at the Wiltern Theater here in Los Angeles, a highlight was when the band played "California Stars," a favorite song of mine, one that would make a fine wedding song. The music was written by Wilco and Billy Bragg, but the lyrics were written by Woody Guthrie, and never put to music until the Mermaid Avenue album of a few years back.

As the band played the song, I remembered how Woody Guthrie, of course, used to play an acoustic guitar which had, painted on the side, This Machine Kills Fascists.

And so, I like to think, can this machine, too.