Kate Klonick's Blog

Election Day Blogging

2008-11-04T16:32:15Z

We got this email in from TPM Reader TA. I found it poignant, beautiful and it gave me chills.

Happy voting, America:

I have been working a precinct in Prince George County, Virginia, since 5:30 this morning.

When I showed up at 5:30, there were people waiting to vote. I have seen soldiers in uniform, people in business suits, people in wheelchairs and with walkers, old people, young people (lots of young people), black people, white people, crazy people, guys in hunters caps and women with applique sweaters, confused people, smoking people, Mormons, priests, teachers, doctors, SUV owners (tons) and Prius drivers (few), tall, short, well off and poor.

All of whom--all of whom--waited for more than hour. Outside, and mostly without umbrellas, in the rain, which has come down in sheets all morning.

Waiting until they voted.

It takes your breath away, it really does.

God, I love this country.

Trial & Error

2008-10-24T21:01:39Z

Last night, as the story of Ashley Todd was first breaking, a picture of the supposedly assaulted McCain volunteer -- in her post-mugging glory -- appeared on the internet.

Immediately I was struck by the backwards "B" on the girl's cheek, as were others. But then I heard that Todd had taken the picture herself and my mind turned to Photo Booth.

Photo Booth is an application for Macs that takes pictures using your laptops built in camera. In messing around with the app on my own Mac I remembered that it would mirror images -- which would explain Todd's backwards lettering.

So I ran a little test:

As you can see, it appears that Photo Booth would have in fact flipped the image. But then the AP reported that the "B" was on the Todd's right cheek, making my scenario impossible. Even in the mirrored Photo Booth, the right cheek couldn't become the left cheek.

And then of course all of my sleuthing became irrelevant when she admitted her whole story was a hoax to begin with.

But I thought it was important for TPM readers to see the real, hard-hitting journalism we're doing everyday here at Talking Points Memo.

The Coffee Chronicles

2008-10-16T22:41:46Z

So a couple of weeks ago, in the middle of a hectic afternoon, I saw an email from a reader in our collective TPM inbox that seemed a little out of place from all the "McSame!" and "PrObama!" things we get all day.

"I sent you guys coffee," the subject line read. "Should get it by today or tomorrow."

Now we get thousands of emails a day, but depending on the time of day they're sent, or what the subject line is etc, it's a little up in the air who read them and when. Don't get me wrong, we read almost everything, but things slip through the cracks.

Anyway, I read this coffee email and shrugged my shoulders. I didn't know why this particular reader was sending us free coffee, but I'd believe it when I saw it.

About 4 days later we did our normal PO Box check and to our surprise, found four pounds of fragrant beans waiting for us. A post-it was attached that said "Keep up the good work! You guys are awesome!" I put it on our microwave in the kitchen as a little reminder and set about doing a gmail search to find our coffee angel.

His "name" was TPM Reader KC and he was the CEO of a well-known (and AMAZING!) coffee company.

I thanked KC then, and then again when he generously offered to send us a regular shipment of beans, but I don't know if it was completely understood the significant upgrade this took us to in the office.

We at TPM, would have weekly -- nay, daily -- breakdowns arguing over making coffee; running out of coffee; making someone go buy more coffee; getting people reimbursed for coffee; our coffee machine breaking; sending an intern to get a new coffee machine; someone accidentally buying the really shitty, but cheap, deli coffee that no one likes and not being able to buy new coffee until it was all used up . . . you get the idea.

So thanks to TPM Reader KC, we will now function, fully [overly] caffeinated, into Election Day.

Fourth Time's the Charm

2008-10-15T23:11:10Z

Between Muckraker, twitter and my lapsed personal blog, I'm wondering how active my myTPM page will be. But thanks to Al's peer pressure, I'm giving it a shot.

So let's start this out on the right note -- the right music VIDEO note!