A Sad Day for America

The Captain cannot begin to convey how deeply disappointed and disillusioned this story makes him. Two years ago, out of the Alaskan wilderness (aka America's Heartland), an amazing family rose to national prominence. This family proved to ordinary Americans once and for all that America's true leaders aren't pointy headed elitists, they are instead people just like them -- people who shoot wolves from helicopters, eat moose chili in Governor's mansions and earn boatloads of cash and the admiration of millions of God-fearing Christian abstinence promoters as a result of getting knocked up as teenagers by Playgirl models.

It is certain that the Palins were just as shocked and saddened as the Captain when they learned that Bristol's astonishing success on "Dancing With The Stars" was due to any factor other than her swan-like grace on the dance floor:

It's been alleged that the Tea Party's "Operation Bristol" is keeping the teen mom in the competition. However, the real conspiracy is that her conservative supporters have figured out a way to exploit ABC.com's email-voting feature, allowing infinite votes.

While Bristol Palin denies any Tea Party conspiracy theories, there's no denying that conservatives have been pushing for votes for Bristol, using blogs and Twitter to start a movement. But what isn't widely known is the evidence—via message board comments on some conservative sites—that this mobilization involves fixing this (albeit meaningless) election through a technical snafu on ABC's website, which allows Palin's supporters to cast an infinite number of email votes:

• "Here's a hint: They don't have to be VALID email addresses to register them with ABC.com, there is apparently no validation process. The just have to be formatted like a valid email address, and you must use a valid zip code and a birthdate that makes you old enough to vote. I'm voting like a democrat, all night long…"
  
• "No, it doesn't have to be a valid email address – I had one of my anonymous ones XXX@yahoo.com that I used, and then just did the sign-up process all over again with XXX1@yahoo.com and it worked."
  
• "Got my 80 votes in online…took 2 hours. I am beat"
  
• "I only got 42 in, I have some catching up to do!"
  
• "Lord have mercy, I voted for 3 hours online! I got 300 in."
  

UPDATE: Look at the kind of tragedy this kind of behavior inevitably leads to:

MADISON — Prosecutors say a rural Wisconsin man blasted his TV with a shotgun after watching Bristol Palin’s “Dancing with the Stars” routine, sparking an all-night standoff with a SWAT team.

According to court documents, 67-year-old Steven Cowan became enraged while watching Palin dance on Monday evening. He felt Palin was not a good dancer.

He went to his bedroom and returned to the living room with a shotgun and blasted the TV, then pointed the gun at his wife, who managed to escape and call police.

[Jezebel] [Wausau Daily Herald]