If you were a bookie... Polls and bets on the 2004 elections

Also got a hilarious .wmv "funny" on voting machines in Florida. Anyone who'd like to see it (guaranteed to make you laugh out loud no matter whose side you're on) email me at [email protected].

I'm still wondering how my cheese thread got dragged into this. It's just innocent cheese, and cheese has no place in politics...oh wait, I may have to rethink that statement.

Funny indeed! Looks like Andy Borowitz gets the credit tho...

http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=978

FIRST SHIPMENT OF NEGATIVE ADS ARRIVES IN AFGHANISTAN
Important Step Forward for Fledgling Democracy

As the days tick down until Afghanistan's historic democratic election this Saturday, the fledgling democracy took an important step forward today, receiving its first shipment of negative political ads from the U.S.

The commercials, full of lacerating personal attacks and half-truths about Afghan president Hamid Karzai and his opponents, will begin airing across the country as early as tonight.

In one of the ads, approved by a group calling themselves Brutal Afghan Warlords for Truth, a narrator accuses Mr. Karzai of flip-flopping on the issues, a point vividly dramatized by showing his trademark hat switching from one side of his head to the other.

Hailing the arrival of negative ads in Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, "If these ads succeed in turning off half the Afghan population from the idea of voting altogether, Afghanistan will be well on its way to becoming a full-fledged democracy."

Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry kept President Bush on the defensive today, telling a Pittsburgh audience that Mr. Bush had allowed the long-dormant volcano Mount St. Helens to erupt on his watch, adding that he would "fix Mount St. Helens once and for all" if elected in November.

"When George Bush was elected president, Mount St. Helens was nothing but a trivia question," Mr. Kerry said. "Well, guess what, folks - it's spewing volcanic gases right now and it's only a matter of time before she blows."

Mr. Kerry said that Mr. Bush had refused to keep an eye on the troubling increase in volcanic activity at Mount St. Helens because he was "totally obsessed with Iraq." [..]

In other campaign news, Mr. Bush ridiculed Mr. Kerry's statement that the U.S. must pass "a global test" before using military force, adding, "I have never passed a test in my life and I'm not going to start now."

POLL: AMERICANS EVENLY DIVIDED OVER WHICH POLL THEY BELIEVE
Gallup, Zogby in Statistical Dead Heat

Americans are evenly divided over which presidential election poll they believe, with the Gallup poll and the Zogby poll drawing roughly the same number of likely voters, a new poll of likely voters reveals.

In the poll, taken by the University of Minnesota's Institute for Public Opinion, 48% said they believed the Gallup poll and 47% trusted Zogby, a statistical dead heat, says Dr. Davis Bevins, who supervised the survey for the Institute.

"With just two weeks to go until the election, neither Gallup nor Zogby has broken out," Dr. Bevins says. "It is really too close to call." [..]

Elsewhere, election officials in Florida said that they have encountered a new problem with their electronic voting machines and that the time-code "12:00" will not stop blinking on and off.

KERRY LOSING SUPPORT AMONG AL-QAEDA OPERATIVES
New Poll Contradicts Hastert's Claims

One day after House Speaker Dennis Hastert told an audience that al-Qaeda terror operatives would rather see John Kerry in the White House than President George W. Bush, a new poll of al-Qaeda terrorists shows the international terror group evenly split between the two candidates.

In a poll of likely al-Qaeda madmen, 48% supported Mr. Kerry, 48% supported Mr. Bush, and 2% favored independent candidate Ralph Nader.

The remaining 2% said they were undecided as to which infidel would most benefit a global jihad.

Rockwell Pritchard, who conducted the survey for the University of Minnesota's Opinion Research Institute, said that contrary to Mr. Hastert's claims, the race for the support of Osama bin Laden's terror network is now "too close to call."

BUSH WINS SECRET FOURTH DEBATE
Kerry Not Notified of Time, Place

President George W. Bush notched his first debate victory early Sunday morning, winning handily in a fourth presidential debate that was kept secret from his Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass).

The debate, which was held at 2 AM Sunday morning in the basement of the White House and moderated by Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly, was a must-win affair in the eyes of the Bush campaign strategists who planned it.

"We knew that we needed to win at least one debate going into November," said Bush strategist Karl Rove. "Mission accomplished."

While aides to Sen. Kerry complained that the debate did not count since Mr. Kerry was kept totally in the dark about its time and place, Mr. Rove said, "They can spin this any way they want, but a win is a win."

The White House today released a videotape of the president's triumphal fourth debate, showing Mr. Bush gesturing towards an empty podium with Mr. Kerry nowhere in sight.

"Looks like my opponent didn't make it today," a smirking Mr. Bush says on the tape. "I guess he must be back in Massachusetts, busy being a liberal and such."

In a phenomenon that occurs every year in the week before Labor Day, national columnists across America file pointless, content-free "filler" columns, enabling the lazy scribes to hit the beach earlier, according to observers who have been following this trend.

The "filler" columns are churned out in a matter of minutes with no loftier goal than meeting a deadline and filling up space -- meaning that columnists will often resort to using the same words or phrase again and again and again and again and again.

And rather than doing any original writing, the slothful columnists will rely on so-called "experts" to supply them with quotes to fill up space, experts say.

"They'll often quote people you've never heard of," says Harold Crimmins, an expert in the field of filler columns. "It's pretty shameless."

The typical "filler" column is often a reprint of a previously published column, but the writer will later plug in one cursory reference to current events, such as the swift boat controversy, to disguise this fact.

And in order to fill up space even faster, Crimmins says, the lazy beach-bound columnist will compose his summer "filler" columns with short paragraphs.

Many of these paragraphs will be as short as one sentence, he says.

"Or shorter," he adds.

There are other telltale signs a reader can look for in order to determine whether a writer has, in fact, filed a so-called "filler" column, according to Crimmins.

One of these is a tendency to repeat information that the reader has already read earlier in the article, with columnists even stooping to using the same quote twice.

"They'll often quote people you've never heard of," Crimmins says.

Another tip-off is if the column ends abruptly.