Taking Names (or, more importantly, deleting them)

In an effort to do my civic duty and help cut down on waste and inefficiency at the Town Clerk's Office of Brattleboro, VT, where I used to live, I called this morning to inform the office of my recent voter registration in Denver and to make sure that my name was off the voter checklist up there in the great northern wildlands.

I've just hung up the phone, and I'm completely sketched out by how easy it was to remove my name from the list. I was not asked for a social security number or any corroborating form of identification. I wasn't even asked my old mailing address, just to help support my story. I could have been anyone, pretending to be Matthew Plavnick.

Is it really this easy to remove names from lists of registered voters?! Is this what George Bush and Karl Rove have known for years?

Wanted Men

It's official: Bush and Cheney are wanted men in Brattleboro, VT. Get 'em, boys!

Thanks to Ralph H. for the link.

Brattleboro, USA

Last year Brattleboro, VT made news for all that nudity in the aptly named Harmony parking lot. Today it's the would-be arrest warrant aimed at the highest levels of government.

A group in Brattleboro is petitioning to put an item on a town meeting agenda in March that would make Bush and Vice President Cheney subject to arrest and indictment if they visit the southeastern Vermont community. "This petition is as radical as the Declaration of Independence, and it draws on that tradition in claiming a universal jurisdiction when governments fail to do what they're supposed to do," said Kurt Daims, 54, a retired machinist leading the drive. As president, Bush has visited every state except Vermont.

Ah, Brattleboro. Last year I described Vermont as "the greenest state with the most gun racks," and I stand by that observation yet.