Word: chads
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...Florida hanging-chad, butterfly-ballot, television-network-confusing fiasco. The presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Bush was eventually decided by the Supreme Court, which voted 5-4 to suspend recount activity, a decision that ultimately awarded the state and its Electoral College votes to our 43rd President. There were machine counting, hand counting, ballot inspections, dispute over absentee votes, a powerful Florida secretary of state named Katherine Harris and enough hand-wringing that the transition between Bill Clinton and Bush was delayed by six weeks...
...flew to Chad and drove east to the 21st century's first war over water. Darfur, a barren, mountainous land just below the Sahara in western Sudan, is one of the world's worst man-made disasters. Four years of fighting has killed 200,000 people and made refugees of 2.5 million more. The immediate cause is well known: the Arab supremacist janjaweed and their backers in the Sudanese government are waging a campaign to exterminate African and Arab settler farmers in Darfur by slaughter, rape and pillage, burning thousands of villages to the ground...
Perhaps a visit to northeastern Chad would change their minds. As I drove out to the area in spring 2007, the first sign we were entering a dead zone was the carcass of a camel. Camels can go three weeks without water in the Sahara, so the heap of fur, hair and bleached bones was an ominous sight. We entered a mud-walled, straw-roofed village. Instead of giving the usual smiles and waves, the children ducked away. A few minutes later, we crested a rise in the road and were confronted by nine janjaweed horsemen, rifles over their shoulders...
...camps had concentrated populations beyond what the meager land could support. At one camp, staff were increasingly finding themselves mediating conflicts between refugees and local farmers, who complained the influx from Darfur had ruined their land. At another camp, Haroon Ibra Diar described how, when his people fled to Chad, the janjaweed were already employing their own macabre energy-saving measures. "They beheaded people and used their heads for firewood," he said. I asked him what the future held. "We are farmers," he replied. "But how can we farm here? There's not even enough water to drink...
...Canvassing Board chooses not to consider the ballots, Franken may have to urge uncounted voters take the issue to the courts - further delaying a recount that is already expected to take three more weeks to conclude. The process may make everyone nostalgic for the simple days of hanging chad...