Congratulations are in order...

...for Master Johnny, who got married on Saturday. I was not able to attend, sadly. But I wish him and his wife a happy marriage!

Debate Deshamte... Where's the Juke Box in This Dump?

Lousy town hall, really. That's all I have to say.

I want Bob and Chuck to come so we can hear something relevant, Cynthia to come make a fool of herself, and Ralph to come lobby for fewer airbags in the debates.

On an unrelated note, I've been thinking about the Queen song "Flick of the Wrist" every time I hear Obama's name today. Worse could happen, I guess. I could have "The March of the Black Queen" stuck in my head. Or "Radio Ga-Ga."

SNAFU of the Decade?

Do we have any Republicans or Democrats around here? I'm just a bit curious to know what those parties are doing or saying about this minor matter.

A Few Bits

I think that anyone with more than a third of a brain and who has paid any attention to the presidential campaigns will appreciate this wonderful little piece titled Wake me in October.

In other news, Ron Paul received something like 30 percent of the Republican votes in Juniata County, Pennsylvania. When I was up there the Friday before the election, there were radio ads brought to us by [name of citizen] and people on the street who really thought that Paul would win the Republican nomination and go on the be the next President. Barak Obama should get his head of of Hyde Park and carefully consider whether people like this can even be bitter. I, for one, know that I trust them with guns.

The New York Times (Late Edition) last Wednesday had a one page photo spread of Pennsylvania polling places. The largest picture? Danielsville, PA. I liked the dead animal heads on the walls.

Election Methods

How should we choose our Commander-in-Chief, known to those of us outside the military as our President? I know a lot of people with a lot of ideas, so here we go.

Some people want to get rid of the electoral college in favor of a popular vote. That's lunacy, in my opinion. It is rare when the electoral votes do not favor the popular vote-- the numbers are meant to work that way. (Remember, the founders of this nation actually believed in integrity and knew some math, unlike our current crop of rich pricks and blood sucking lawyers.) The only times a problem can happen are when electoral districts have their populations out of whack. We don't need to replace the system, we need to re-work it for a society that moves faster than our census plus congress. Doing the census on a year right after a presidential election, rather than the year of one, would put the redistricting time in a better spot for preventing problems.

Some people I know have completely different voting schemes.

One friend of mine wants to let everyone vote in all parties' primaries. In other words, anyone can vote in the spring, and when they vote they select their choice for Democrat, for Republican, and for any other party that wants to be in the game. Top choice in all gets the convention delegates.

Another few people, including ProLPconserve here, have suggested versions where individual parties run more than one candidate, maybe their top two. That's a neat idea. My favorite way to go with it would be that the electors choose from among the top three, which in a two-party system would cause more imbalance between the congress and the administration. Hey, maybe we could make this a Republic after all!

I know at least one person who approves of a certain weighted voting scheme. In this method, the person chooses their first and second choice. The first gets two points, the second gets one point. The candidate with the most points wins. Who can guess what this person's worst subject in school was?

Johnny has an idea for a vote of no confidence. He explained it in an earlier comment--

Add a vote of "no confidence." This way people could make it clear that they actually want to vote for one candidate as opposed to against another. Also, we know if people actually like the third party candidate or just hate the other two. Additionally, if the vote of no confidence is greater than the other two candidates, then we have a new election without either candidate.

In a similar vein comes my personal favorite. I know one person who, to better reflect the way people actually make their choice, strongly supports that everyone gets to give their vote a sign, plus to vote for someone or minus to vote against someone. People could then vote either for a candidate or against a candidate, but not both. The only caveat is that the winner needs to get a positive number in the end. What if there is no positive number? For one thing, it would show how sad and sorry our ruling class is. Just to keep things moving, we could let the highest scorer into office with more limited powers for a half term (doing things like having congress select their cabinet and removing certain rights of the office). Other ideas bandied about at the bar have included rock-paper-scissors, light saber duels, skeet shootin', and Beirut.

So, what did I miss? Do you have any other ideas?

Why Is James Dobson...

my poster boy for American Christian political stupidity? Let me count the ways! Oh, wait, time is finite. Let me give you just a few, then.

Background information-- what Dobson says about politics, most evangelical Christians take seriously. He, along with the late Jerry Falwell, are two of the major reasons why Christian kids my age think that good Christians are Republicans. That's all you need to know.

My current issues? This article has one or two. (And this might be a good reference.)

Dobson released a statement Tuesday that criticized McCain for his support of embryonic stem cell research, his opposition to a federal anti-gay marriage amendment and for his temper and use of foul language.

Okay, Mr. Dobson. Which current US president got caught using the s-word? Or had his little pal saying nasty things? Are you going to come around to me saying "That's unfair! He didn't do that before I wanted him to be President"? Or maybe your only trouble is that McCain dropped an f-bomb? He's not the first Republican to do such a thing, you know? Of course none of that matters. Why? Because if we can get the people who don't like the word "crap" for its filth to know that McCain says dirtier things, we can add shock factor to an otherwise decent (even though I don't agree with it) list. They aren't going to question the sensibility of making this assessment, but they will be distracted from what could be (even though I don't agree with them) genuine arguments about other things on the list. This is common among conservative evangelicals. Cue the global warming denial explanations that end with "It's all New Age anyway" and watch how they fall back on that last bit when you question any of their scientific points.

Tally 1--- Dobson is hypocritical, inconsistent, or both.
Tally 2--- Dobson puts the petty with the important.

Can we get another quote from that Yahoo article?

He said if McCain were the nominee, he would not cast a ballot for president for the first time in his life.

Dobson had left open the possibility that he would vote for either Romney or Huckabee, but endorsed neither.

Um, yeah.... Okay, I have some problems. First, what about this? And didn't the man himself write this (complete with its false dilemma)? Dobson told a whole lot of people that he'd go third party, but now he's backing out. What? He can't do what he said? Don't make promises you can't keep, brother. You didn't promise? Don't imply things you don't mean, brother. Second, what about Huckabee saying "Some people need to switch to decaf and realize, folks, we may not get all of our battles just like we want, but there's a larger context in which this has to be fought." Why would you even consider voting for someone who says something so... thoughtful? Because he says he respects gays or something? Dobson's zeal blinds him from reality. This time he's missing "Something is better than nothing." Next time it could be "America has changed in the past 200 years." People follow him anyway.

Tally 3--- Dobson pushes the bounds of honesty in Jesus' name.
Tally 4--- Dobson is willing to lead real sheeples into real shambles over unreal ideals.



Okay, I think I'll shut up now. Fat chance I'll ever see the day when Christian leaders in America can talk politics and not make me and their religion (or relationship, as some without dictionaries would prefer) look stupid by association. Jesus, please save us all.

New Blogger

An evil company forced a move to the dark side. Regulars, you might need to switch over your blogger accounts, or something, if you haven't already. I note that you guys (yes, I cleaned up the members list to reflect people who actually post) both have gmail addresses listed here, so it should be painless or less. One of these days I'll edit up the list on the blog itself. We don't use the regular contributors container, we have a hand-coded one.

Johnny, holler at Tom again for us sometime.