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Erica Jong Tells Italians Obama Loss 'Will Spark the Second American Civil War. Blood Will Run in the Streets'
by Jason Horowitz

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Erica Jong, 1976.It seems that the final days of the presidential campaign have made Erica Jong and her friends more than a little anxious.

A few days ago, Jong, the author and self-described feminist, gave an interview to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the choicest bits of which were brought to my attention by the reliably sharp-eyed Christian Rocca, the U.S. correspondent of Il Foglio, who published excerpts on his Camillo blog. Basically, Jong says her fear that Obama might lose the election has developed into an "obsession. A paralyzing terror. An anxious fever that keeps you awake at night." She also says that her friends Jane Fonda and Naomi Wolf are extremely worried that Obama will be sabotaged by Republican dirty tricks, and that if an Obama loss indeed comes to pass, the result will be a second American Civil War.

Here's a translation of Jong's more spirited quotes to the Milan-based Corriere, as selected by Rocca.

"The record shows that voting machines in America are rigged."

"My friends Ken Follett and Susan Cheever are extremely worried. Naomi Wolf calls me every day. Yesterday, Jane Fonda sent me an email to tell me that she cried all night and can't cure her ailing back for all the stress that has reduces her to a bundle of nerves."

"My back is also suffering from spasms, so much so that I had to see an acupuncturist and get prescriptions for Valium."

"After having stolen the last two elections, the Republican Mafia..."

"If Obama loses it will spark the second American Civil War. Blood will run in the streets, believe me. And it's not a coincidence that President Bush recalled soldiers from Iraq for Dick Cheney to lead against American citizens in the streets."

"Bush has transformed America into a police state, from torture to the imprisonment of reporters, to the Patriot Act."

She also laments that not all of America's men of letters share her devotion to Obama.

"Tom Wolfe and John Updike are men of the right and Philip Roth is at this point a hermit who leads a monastic life in Connecticut, far from everything and everybody."

Luckily, she said there is her and Michael Chabon, who, she says, have "taken the place of Susan Sontag and Norman Mailer respectively."

They have the same political sensibilities, she said, but a better "sense of humor."
Source>>>

Florida will begin the season ranked in both major college basketball polls.

The Gators were selected No. 19 in the preseason AP (writers) poll Friday, one day after being ranked No. 19 in the ESPN/USA Today (coaches) poll.

Florida returns four starters, including SEC co-freshman of the year Nick Calathes, from a team that finished 24-12 and made the NIT semifinals last season. It was the first time the Gators failed to reach the NCAA Tournament since 1998.

"It's hard to come up with a lot of reasons why we're ranked in the top 20, but we'll take it and we'll go from there," Florida coach Billy Donovan said. "It's great to have those type of expectations."

North Carolina was the unanimous No. 1 pick, receiving all 72 first-place votes. The Tar Heels were followed by Connecticut, Louisville, UCLA and Pittsburgh.

Tennessee, the preseason pick to win the Southeastern Conference, was ranked No. 14, The Vols and Gators were the only two teams from the SEC that made the preseason top 25.

Miami, which returns four starters from a team that made the second round of the NCAA Tournament last season, was ranked No. 17. source>>>

NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup can be as much a mental game as it is a competition on the track.

Sleep sometimes comes hard for Jimmie Johnson, despite his big points. And some of Johnson's closest pursuers say they are spending as much time thinking about scenarios to catch the leader as they are getting their race cars prepared for the hunt.

One thing all of them agree on is that NASCAR's 10-race Chase for the championship never strays far from their minds.

"I have to work harder to ignore the Chase and what's going on than anything else in my life right now. I'm sure it's the same way for anyone that has a shot at this thing,'' Johnson said Friday at Texas Motor Speedway, where he will go into Sunday's race with a daunting 183-point lead over runner-up Carl Edwards.

With only three races remaining, lots of people have already conceded Johnson his third straight Cup title. But that doesn't make things any more comfortable for the Hendrick Motorsports driver.

"I have found that trying to manage my own mind, manage my emotions, it's a full-time job,'' Johnson said. "If you ignore it during the week and show up here on Friday, it's going to hit you hard and you're going to be overloaded with it. ... I try to keep myself occupied. I try to keep myself busy during the week and try to ignore as much as possible what's going on.''

Greg Biffle, third in the standings just two points behind Edwards, also finds it hard to put the chase and the possibilities out of his mind.

"You think about it all the time because this is your life, this sport, and it's a lot of fun,'' Biffle said. "I try and do stuff to try and take my mind off of it and do other stuff, but we're thinking about it all the time.

"We'll think about what races are left 'OK, Texas, Phoenix, Homestead how are we gonna run there?' You kind of play those races through your head. We won here in '05 and certainly we feel like we can win here again. We feel like we can win in Phoenix and Homestead.''

That's what keeps Biffle optimistic in the face of his big points deficit.

"You play those scenarios through your head that we know we're so many points behind, but we feel like we're going to be competitive in the next three,'' Biffle said. "So, you think about it a lot.''

Fourth-place Jeff Burton, 218 points behind Johnson, is the longest of the long shots for this year's title. But he, too, can't get his mind off what could be.

"You constantly think about the Chase,'' he said, adding it's a year-around thing. "You constantly think about making sure you're in the Chase (and), if you're not in one of those cars, how to get there. If you are, how to stay there once you get into it. It feels like a whole new year. ... If your goal is to win the championship and be the best team out there, then you're constantly thinking about the Chase.''

If Johnson finishes ninth or better in the remaining races, he will join Cale Yarborough (1976-78) as the only Cup drivers to have won three straight titles. But Johnson has been around long enough to know just how fast things can turn sour in NASCAR.

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If he's elected next week, Barack Obama won't be our first black president: Toni Morrison labeled Bill Clinton our "first black president" in October 1998. (We have seen no reports that she retracted that label as a result of the South Carolina primary campaign).

And never mind all the nonsense floating around the internet. Barack Obama wasn't born in Indonesia, or Kenya or wherever. He was born in Hawaii.

Race isn't an issue for conservatives, but cultural indentity is. And that's a problem because if he's elected, Barack Obama will be our first French president.

The man who would lead the most productive, hard-working, achievement-oriented society in history told on his campaign website to take the day off to vote at our ease and make sure all our relatives and friends do the same. He tells students to ask their professors to let them out of class to canvass neighborhoods and drive people to the polls.

Take the day off to vote? Us? We're the American workaholics: we thrive in the can't-wait-to-dial-push-to-talk society. People in Washington get carpal tunnel syndrome from thumbing their Blackberrys. Stakhanovites all, we dedicate ourselves to our work, identify ourselves by our jobs, and compete with everyone within range. That's how we succeed.

In America's heartland, many families have a mom and a dad who each work two jobs to put the kids through college. Lots of people work Saturdays or Sundays or both. We take Christmas and Thanksgiving and July 4th off and -- if we're lucky -- we save up to take a week's trip somewhere in driving distance.

And this guy wants to stop the world just to make sure he gets elected?

Just think about this: if every American voter took the day off on Tuesday, it would cost our economy a big chunk of cash. How much?

In 2004, there were about 123 million voters. The best estimate says there are about 181 million registered voters today. One economist did a computation for me, using that probable voter base. If they all work for the average wage and all take an unpaid day off, the cost would be about $22.3 billion in lost wages for the first Obamaday.

How much would the stock market fall just because the earth stood so that we could elect Obama?

In France, they care little about such things. That's why they have -- by law -- a 35-hour workweek that's interrupted by strikes and five-week vacations.

Last summer, the French made a half-hearted attempt to repeal the 35-hour work week, but only managed to succeed in reducing the minimum number of vacation days. Unless a President Obama wants to limit our workweek, we'll stay ahead of France in economic power.

All over America, we go to work, we go to school and some time during the day -- before we go to work or after we get home, on a long break from school or when classes are over that day -- we manage to vote. We accomplish our duties, meet our responsibilities, and manage to perform our patriotic duty to vote all on the same day.

Much of this happens in the suburbs and this is the candidate who's not interested in how that works. Remember? He said, "I'm not interested in the suburbs. The suburbs bore me." Of course they do: that's where all those gun-and-bible-clinging people live.

This election is the most important in living memory, and the Democrats' candidate is proving that -- underneath the trim American exterior -- a Frenchman lurks.

We have, as others have noted, been learning more about Obama in the past two weeks than we have in the past two years. As a hyperliberal politician, Obama has been doing his best to conceal his liberalism and the press has been all too eager to leave the "progressive" cloak in place. But we are, in the last weeks of the campaign, getting a better view.

It started with Joe the Plumber asking a better question than all the reporters and debate moderators who preceded him. And the answer Mr. Wurzelberger got -- that Obama wants to spread the wealth around -- revealed Obama's cultural commonality with European socialists.

"I think when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody." Spread the wealth like Robin Hood? No, like robbing you. And if you read the Obama economic plans -- including about $800 billion more in spending on health care, college subsidies and climate controls -- his methods for spreading the wealth are the same ones the European redistributionists use.

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Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell has issued a formal opinion concluding that federal absentee ballots from overseas military voters lacking the printed name and address of a witness must be counted.

In the formal opinion the Attorney General finds, "It is.... my opinion that the applicable provision of Virginia law, § 24.2-702.1(B), interpreted to require an overseas military voter submitting only a Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot to include the printed name and address of the person who signs the witness statement is preempted by the provisions of the (federal) Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. Finally, it is my opinion that general registrars may not reject a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot submitted by overseas military voters for the November 4, 2008 federal election that does not include a printed name and address for the person who signs the witness statement..."

This directive was delivered to all of Virginia's State Boards of Elections on Monday.

The controversy began last week when Fairfax County voter registrar Rokey Suleman set aside hundreds of military ballots for rejection based on his conclusion that the Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot, or FWAB, should have a witness address accompanying the signature. The state of Virginia did not instruct Virginia soldiers to provide this witness address nor does the federal form provide space for it.

Concerns over partisanship were raised as Suleman founded a Young Democrat group in Ohio and unsuccessfully ran for office as a Democrat earlier this year. His insistence on rejecting military ballots on a hyper-technicality -- ballots that trend Republican -- coupled with his voter drive in the county jails this year -- votes that trend toward Democrats -- Suleman recently raised the ire of this Northern Virginia community with his blatant rejection of hundreds of military ballots.

Sam Wright, retired Naval Jag officer and director of the National Defense Committee's efforts to protect our military's votes, got involved in this effort and was very grateful for the decision. "Thank you, Attorney General McDonnell, for going to bat for the brave young men and women who are away from home and willing to lay down their lives for our rights including our right to vote," Wright said.

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Over 70 000 people, including 30 000 children, have been left homeless in quake-hit southwest Pakistan, Unicef said on Friday, as health workers warned that deadly diseases were spreading.

The UN children's agency said they and Pakistani government officials assessed the situation in the worst-hit districts of mountainous Baluchistan province and were "concerned about the urgent needs of children and women".

Up to 300 people are thought to have been killed in the 6.4-magnitude quake, which struck before dawn on Wednesday, flattening mud-brick houses and killing or injuring people as they slept.

"With winter closing in, the most urgent needs of the survivors are shelter, safe drinking water, food, warm clothing and emergency medical assistance," the world body said in a statement.

Clean water was a "priority" and Unicef teams had started providing water and sanitation services, and food supplements for pregnant women and young children, it said.

"Children are especially vulnerable to diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera," it added.

"Most of the water sources in the affected districts have been damaged by the earthquake. Approximately 12 000 people in Ziarat lack safe water and are dependent on supplies from water trucks."

The district health officer of the stricken hill town of Ziarat, Ayub Kakar, told AFP that children were already suffering after two nights in the open in sub-zero temperatures.

"Due to the cold hundreds of children are being treated for pneumonia, abdominal diseases, diarrhoea and chest problems," he said.

"We fear the death toll will rise. Such diseases, if not treated in time, are life-threatening," Kakar said.

Relief kits

Tents, blankets, clothes, medicine and antibiotics were still in short supply, he said. Many people in outlying villages have expressed concern that they have gone without help more than two days after the disaster.

"Our children are dying, help us," cried Mohammad Khan, in the village of Khanozai high in the mountains .

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Video Professor has been running commercials during the trading day on CNBC: I saw one at 9:44 a.m. EDT. The ads offer a program called How to Buy and Sell on eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY).

I'm told that these commercials have been on the air for awhile but they seem especially well-placed and relevant now. A year ago, the average viewer on CNBC (according to CNBC) was worth $2.7 million. Now that number is probably closer to 27 cents and hawking castoffs on eBay probably has a whole new appeal. Perhaps former Lehman Bros. traders are looking for tips on how to sell their vintage Lehman logo caps to pay their mortgage. Or maybe they're looking to unload a Bear Stearns cafeteria card to pay for a couple burritos.

I'm exaggerating a little bit but it does seem noteworthy that a company offering tips on how to sell on eBay is now advertising on a network that targets extremely high net worth individuals.

Does anyone want an Enron bath towel? source>>>

The seller indicated he lived in Dallas, but the background of a photo of the goods he was offering on eBay looked suspiciously familiar to a Detroit lawman.

Sgt. Jeffrey Wenturine's familiarity with the Motor City led to a raid in which the man was arrested and surveying equipment valued at $25,000 was recovered from his home.

Sgt. Jeffrey Wenturine was browsing the eBay online auction site as part of his investigation of the theft. Sgt. Eren Stephens Bell says he spotted the equipment in a photo with a unique white picket fence in the background.

The Detroit Free Press says Wenturine cruised East Outer Drive until he located the fence, setting the stage for the Thursday afternoon raid. Police also seized about eight guns. source>>>

-- An Irrigon teacher and former educator of the year was indicted on theft and 43 counts of official misconduct Monday after having allegedly stolen $1,000 in textbooks and selling them on eBay.

In September, the Morrow County School District placed Forrest Dean McKinnis, 31, on administrative leave after reportedly discovering that textbooks stored in a closet were being sold on the Web site.

Morrow County Sheriff's Office arrested McKinnis later that month. He was released on his own recognizance.

According to the indictment McKinnis "unlawfully and knowingly commit(ted) theft ... The State further alleges that the property stolen had a value of $1,000 or more." The indictment states McKinnis, sold the books between July 27 and Sept. 15, which was an "unauthorized exercise of his official duties."

The 43 counts of official misconduct are for the books that McKinnis allegedly sold.

Mark Burrows, the superintendent of the Morrow County School District, said he could not comment on McKinnis' employment status.

McKinnis was a program director at Morrow Education Center, coached boys' basketball at Heppner High School for five years and was scheduled to coach the Riverside High School girls' basketball team. source>>>

Mizzou Men's Golf Coach Mark Leroux announced on Friday that former Tiger John Utley has joined the MU men's golf staff. Utley, a 1990 graduate of the University of Missouri, will serve as a volunteer assistant for the Tigers.

"We are fortunate to have someone like John involved with our team," Leroux said. "He is a very well-respected instructor and we are looking forward to him sharing his knowledge of the game with our players."

Utley played professionally for 10 years, competing in over a dozen Nationwide Tour events and one PGA tournament. He has been an instructor since 2000, working with noted golf teachers Jim Hardy, E.J. Pfister and his brother, Stan Utley.

"I am excited about the direction the men's golf team is headed," Utley said. "With the players we have here and the facilities that we have at Old Hawthorne, it is an exciting time at MU. I appreciate the invitation to join the program and look forward to being part of the Mizzou team."

Utley was a member of the MU men's golf team from 1986-90 and earned All-America honors in 1990 after finishing 23rd at the NCAA Championships. source>>>

The economic impact of Super Bowl XLV could approach $1 billion, former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach said Friday.

Two-time Super Bowl winner Staubach talked about the tangible and intangible economic benefits of the Super Bowl, which will be played at the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium in 2011, at the 27th annual Stemmons Corridor Business Association luncheon.

The benefits, he said, include not only national attention on the area, but also the 125,000 people that are expected to attend the game, and the 300,000 people expected to be in the area because of the game.

"At the end of the day, the taxpayers will benefit from this," Staubach said.

The $30 million budget for Super Bowl XLV is comprised of sponsorships and other fundraising. Staubach said 15 founding sponsors, or members of the committee's "Million-dollar club" will each pay $1 million over the course of three years. Other sponsors will also contribute to the cause, he said.

The North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee, chaired by Staubach, will team up with the NFL to have 61 events in the year leading up to the game, encouraging even more economic benefit.

The host committee will also team up with the NFL to raise $1 million, which the NFL will match, to construct and endorse a Youth Education Town, expected to be a permanent legacy of the Super Bowl. source>>>

North Carolina will be looking at a season of trying to live up to a pretty big billing. Players and officials will be looking down for a while trying to get used to the new 3-point line. A lot of fans will be looking back at the Hall of Fame career of a coach who left quite a mark in the desert.

The 2008-09 college basketball season starts in less than two weeks with all the usual questions about how good teams are and how powerful conferences can become. But there are a few things that make this season different right from the start.

North Carolina's season ended with a school-record 36 wins, an Atlantic Coast Conference title and a Final Four appearance. The disappointment over the 18-point loss to eventual champion Kansas was quickly soothed when national player of the year Tyler Hansbrough decided to return for his senior year, along with teammates Danny Green, Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson. A stellar recruiting class featuring McDonald's All-Americans Ed Davis, Tyler Zeller and Larry Drew II has lifted the Tar Heels into the conversation of teams so loaded, not only is a national championship on people's minds, but so is a perfect season.

"We have to do the job every single day, and at the end of the year, we'll add it up and see what it is,'' coach Roy Williams said at ACC media day. "But I'm not going to put myself in the boat that says, 'We have to do this.'''

Hansbrough is the only first-team All-America to return to school, and he is the first reigning player of the year to come back since Shaquille O'Neal went back to LSU for the 1991-92 season.

Hansbrough's senior season got off to a tough start when it was announced he would be held out of practice indefinitely after an MRI on Thursday discovered a stress reaction in his right shin. There was no timetable set for his return to practice.

While underclassmen Michael Beasley of Kansas State, D.J. Augustin of Texas, Chris Douglas-Roberts of Memphis and Kevin Love of UCLA moved on to the NBA, Hansbrough and his averages of 23.0 points and 10.4 rebounds returned for a chance at winning North Carolina's fifth national championship.

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This Saturday's challenge is the Pittsburgh Panthers, giving the Irish a chance to beat a team playing better than .500 for the first time this year.

Notre Dame enters the game as 5-point favorites but it should be noted that Pitt is a perfect 3-0 on the road this season. They also have one of the best running backs in the country in LeSean McCoy. McCoy has rushed for 861 yards, 14 touchdowns and is the leading scorer in the nation.

The Irish could catch a break if Pitt quarterback Bill Stull can't play. Stull suffered a concussion in a loss to Rutgers and he spent Saturday evening in the hospital. source>>>

Australians Peter Lonard and Robert Allenby and American Ken Duke charged into the early second round lead in difficult scoring conditions at the Ginn sur Mer Classic on Friday.

Lonard and Duke carded three-under 69s on the Conservatory course in Palm Coast, Florida to top the leaderboard while Allenby battled to a one-under 71 to grab a share of the clubhouse lead at five-under 139.

American Ryan Palmer was also on five-under, after going even par through nine holes, along with Michael Letzig.

First round leaders Letzig and Kent Jones, who began the day with a two-shot cushion, saw their advantage quickly slip away in a barrage of bogeys.

Letzig, a PGA Tour rookie chasing a first win, suffered a bogey, double-bogey, bogey start before hitting back with birdies at his fourth and fifth holes to sit two-over after six.

Playing the back nine first, Jones stumbled after the turn with a double-bogey at the second followed by three consecutive bogeys on his way to a five-over 77 that left him two-under.

Sweden's Daniel Chopra, who opened the defence of his Ginn title with a nine-over 81, continued to struggle by going three-over through eight holes after a bogey and double-bogey. source>>>

Some Led Zeppelin fans who won the ticket lottery for the November 26th reunion show are complaining that anti-scalping measures are preventing them from getting their tickets. Because personal information of the lottery winner must match the credit card info used to buy tix, fans without credit cards (and people who used their mom's card) are in trouble. Promoter Harvey Goldsmith says his company will examine complaints on a case-by-case basis. source>>>