A Funny Situation

Let's think of a hypothetical situation for the 2nd of November election. Let's say the states that are leaning towards a candidate vote for that candidate. Let's say, of the six swing states, Kerry picks up Florida and Michigan, and Bush picks up the rest. In that scenario, both candidates will have 269 votes in the electoral college.

You'd think that in such a case the presidency would be decided by who won the popular vote - alas, no... that's too close to genuine democracy. Instead, the House of Representatives would pick the president by the virtue of a majority vote. But here's the funny thing - the senate picks the vice president on the basis of its own majority vote.

That means, once the dust settles, there could end up being a Kerry-Cheney administration! Or, and this is just hilarious, a Bush-Edwards administration! The laughs just keep on coming!

Not Long Now

So, we're coming up to it now. The battle is still pitched - Kerry has to keep all his existing leads in the electoral college, and pick up Ohio and Florida - and then he wins. It's very doable, let's hope he doesn't screw it up.

I've been thinking quite a bit about two party politics in America, and how fucked up it is that good guys get forced into the margins to make way for the corporate whores who bend over for campaign contributions. It's sad that Bush has managed to make even the push for a more genuinely representative set of choices into a black versus white, 'if you're not for us you're for the terrorists' kind of mindset.

I have a lot of time for Ralph Nader - I think he's a genuinely decent guy and I'd love to see him get a shot at the presidency. I also have a lot of respect for the fact he's fought so hard for a three party system for so long.

But for this election, even if it does mean simply voting for the least objectionable head of the Corporate Oligopoly Party, Bush needs to go. He is deeply dangerous, and a threat to what little stability there is in the world. He is a divisive character who revels in the fact he doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about issues. He's a 'leader' who believes that it's impossible to change course during a war, because that means the terrorists win. He's the kind of guy who will drive America off of a cliff, just because stopping the car and reading a map makes it look as if he isn't sure where he's going. That's fine if he's the only one in the car, but he has 300ish million passengers in his vehicle, and the resulting explosion will brutalise five billion others.

Ralph Nader took a lot of heat in the 2000 election... apparently he's the reason the Democrats lost. Let's forget of course that people voted for the person they thought offered the best direction for the country. It's pretty sad that the primary complaint is that 'people weren't willing to settle for us'. I'd love to see Ralph doing the altruistic thing and stepping aside for Kerry, but if he doesn't (which he won't), I hope to God we don't see a repeat of the demonisation that was so prevalent last election. Give the man a break for having scruples, and at least respect the fact he's fighting the Good Fight for a more representative system.

Iraq Reparations

Naomi Klein, who wrote the most Excellent No Logo, and also pens a number of columns for the equally excellent (but expensive to obtain outside of the US) The Nation magazine, has this to say about the arse-backwards state of Iraq war reparations. Considering how much has been paid in reparations, and how little of the allocated financial aid has actually been spent on Iraq, this is a scandal of breath-taking proportions.

100 Facts and 1 Opinion

This article is a very clear indictment of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq conflict. Pass it around.

The election will soon be upon us... check this out to see the current leanings of the states.

Penny Arcade!

Two things about Penny Arcade. First, is a quote that had me in hysterics: These are the people who labored over something that I compared to crucifying my penis. They had the equanimity to have us come out and, for all they knew, shit on their new thing. I just don't have that gene. I would invite me out, and then decapitate me so I could fuck my neckhole. We went out there and came back and they didn't even fuck our necks once. I'm going to call that class.

The second is that they've relaunched their Child's Play campaign, which seeks to provide sick kids with the hardware and software that can make their stay in hospital a little more bearable. If I didn't hate kids so much, I'd be all over this... but I do, and I'm not... but I suspect people with more genuine human emotions than I'm capable of mustering may be interested, and if you do get a tingle from helping children then this is an excellent way to do it. Last year they raised a quarter of a million dollars worth of kit for the Seattle Children Hospital - that's incredible. The Penny Arcade guys are genuinely decent human beings trying to make a difference, so pass the world along.

Polling Data

I read two comforting articles today - especially comforting after looking at a recent White-house poll from Newsweek that puts Bush five points ahead of Kerry (this is outside the margin of error). The first relates to youth demographics in telephone polling samples. Considering how many new voters have been registered to combat the shocking range of Republican controlled structures, this is encouraging information.

The second relates to the polling actually used... John Zogby, an internationally respected pollster, has this to say on the subject - Newsweek is the polling organisation that he explicitly points out as one that has a noticeably larger sample of republicans than democrats. It is telling that the corresponding Time results for the current polling window have the two candidates at neck and neck.

It's not a clear win for Kerry (and Jesus, how badly do you have to screw up for it *not* to be??), but we shouldn't be discouraged... this is going to be a tight election, but I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.

NO MORE YEARS. NO MORE YEARS.

Bill O'Reilly

This is a fascinating article, not because of the O'Reilly allegations (I mean, the guy is clearly a sleaze and allegations like this don't surprise me). It's this quote from the article that does it for me:

On other occasions he allegedly told Ms Mackris of trysts with a pair of "really wild" Scandinavian airline stewardesses and a "girl" at a Thai sex show.

A "girl"? Why the quotes there? Is this article secretly telling us that Bill O'Reilly had sweaty androgysex with a Taiwanese ladyboy? That just raises the story to a whole new level of disturbing!

Jon Stewart on Crossfire

I'm a big fan of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and the host of that very show went on Crossfire last night and took the show's hosts to task for the appalling effect that 'partisan hackery' (as he put it) has on political debate in the country.

One of the show's hosts was particularly offended by this, and raised the issue of the 'softly-softly' questions that Jon Stewart put to John Kerry when he appeared on the show. 'Yeah, but this is CNN', he replies. 'The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls'.

He raises an excellent point - it seems somewhat bizarre to me that a self-labeled 'fake news show' is held to the same standards of investigative journalism as those shows that purport to be hard-hitting debate. And yet, the hosts miss the point Stewart was making. - 'you're much funnier on your own show', says the Puppet On The Right. Of course he is - as he just pointed out, his show is on Comedy Central, and Crossfire is on CNN... people expect jokes from the Daily Show, but apparently all the Crossfire hosts wanted was someone to say a few funny things and not actually take advantage of the format or the audience.

'I thought you were going to be funny. Go on, be funny'.

'No... I'm not going to be your monkey'.

Kudos to Jon Stewart for going onto a show known for its hostile, pugilistic approach to debate... and then standing there, and dishing out a much-needed reality check to the two men responsible for much of that approach.

Kerry Cheats!

This story sums up, quite neatly, what a lot of the right-wing blogs at the moment are getting their collective panties in a knot about... Kerry appears to have removed, against debate rules, some sort of 'mysterious item' from his jacket pocket. It's now believed by anyone except the psycho-right that he removed a pen... but it's likely that even that was in violation of the rules of the debate that both parties signed.

Now...

I'm a fairly cynical guy, but I can't help thinking that after Bush's inept performance at the first debate (I haven't seen the second one yet), that this is just the kind of thing Kerry wants to become an issue. I can't think of anything more likely to solidify the impression of Bush as a whiny child than bitching about how Kerry cheated because he brought a pen into the debate. Sure, it's a violation of the rules, which state that all papers and pens must be submitted to the moderators before they are placed on the podium in advance of the debate. But come on... can you really see it swaying people against Kerry when the president's campaign comes out swinging, complaining about how Kerry cheated because he brought a pen into the auditorium.

There seem to be two likely scenarios:

1) Kerry didn't violate the rules, and the object brought into the debate was fine.
2) Kerry willing violated a tiny, anal rule in the hope it would provoke the psycho-right into exploding in a fit of apoplectic rage, thus reducing their credibility and causing people to shy away.

What doesn't seem likely is that Kerry had a 'cheat sheet', as is being claimed... Kerry has demonstrated many times in the past that he has a very fine intellect and an ability to marshall the facts in a logical, coherent way. As I've said before, I don't think Kerry is the Real Deal, but let's not invent vices... the man is intelligent, and understands the issues well. He hardly needs a cheat sheet to trump a babbling lunatic like Bush.

Bush's Mystery Bulge

It seems that Bush exhibited a mystery bulge during his first presidential debate with Kerry... a bulge that some are saying may be an indicator that he was being fed his lines from an external source. Beyond this single interesting story, there's no evidence either way... but how embarrasing would that be - not just that he lost the debate to Kerry, but that he cheated and lost the debate?

I suspect this is going to come under fire a lot in the next few days - stay tuned!

God Versus Bush

Thanks to Melbourne Lefty for this example of God's wrath against Bush Voters.

OSCE Supervisors

Best quote from this article comes from Thomas Kilgannon:

The United States practices democracy better than anyone else...

You have to wonder how long before they're ready to try it for real...

Poland

Poor Dubya - after featuring Poland so prominently in his answers to John Kerry in their debate, it turns out that Poland plans to withdraw its troops in 2005. That's gotta sting... they were part of a BROAD, MULTINATIONAL COALITION! Who would have thought that an alliance of such powerful nations would find it so difficult to gain popular support in Iraq... 80% of the populace in Poland want their troops to be brought home.

Kerry understated the contributions of numerous countries in the debate - but he was 100% right in pointing out how much of the burden falls on America. When 90% of the cost and casualties fall on the shoulders of one aspect of a coalition, it's pretty obvious that it's not the most broad of agreements. America is one aspect, there are currently thirty-ish members of the coalition. Just look at the disparity in troop contribution:

1. United States: 112,000


2. United Kingdom: 8,300


3. Italy: 2,800


4. Poland: 2,350

It just gets worse from there. And yet the US administration would have it that it is a powerful coalition - a posse of brave cowboys ready to take on the evils in Iraq. Really, it's more like one out-of-control psychotic supervillan supported by a handful of stupid but well-meaning henchmen. Claiming there are only three countries involved in Iraq (as Kerry did in the debates) is disrespectful of the fact that individuals from many other countries have given their life for The Lie. He has also referred to the coalition as one of the 'bribed, bullied, and coerced'. That also fails to correctly identify the motivations of a number of participants. But Jesus, surely with everything else about the case for war in Iraq being shown as smoke and mirrors, we can finally acknowledge that this isn't World War II, and the coalition are not the noble Allies engaged with the brutal, warmongering Axis.

The Sims 2

There's a great editorial about The Sims 2 over at Something Awful. It's Full of Funny!

Ron English

Oh, some of the art in Supersize Me was just astounding... hugely evocative of the continually growing influence of corporate advertising on our perception of the world. The artist who painted them is called Ron English, and he's worth checking out.

Supersize Me

Supersize Me finally opened in Dundee, and my GF and I went to see it. Morgan Spurlock is no Michael Moore, as far as film-making talent is concerned, but it's hard to deny that it's full of compelling evidence as to the long-term health risks posed by fast-food. The problem is that the premise is essentially flawed... almost anything, if done to excess, is going to be dangerous. There are few 'anti-stair' activists, but I could, given the desire to push myself beyond what is physically healthy, do serious damage to myself with nothing more than a set of steps.

Of course fast-food is unhealthy - this isn't a secret. Of course eating nothing but MacDonalds for a month is going to have health implications - really, nothing new is being said here. However, the actual extend of the health effects, in this one particular case, are pretty stunning. Therein lies the other problem - sure, there are a lot of obese people features in the film, but the only direct link we get to Maccy D is the film-maker himself. The evidence is interesting, the presentation is compelling, but ultimately it is statistically irrelevant.

But aside from that, it's worth seeing - just don't fall into the trap of thinking that it's showing you more than it's actually showing you.

The Strangerhood

Those of you familiar with the excellent Red Versus Blue would do well to check out The Strangerhood. If their track record with their previous show is an indicator, the chances are it's going to be hilarious,