American Warmonger

A vote for Nader is a vote for Kerry?

An e-mail sent to me and a few other right-minded bloggers from Shawn Paul in Kentucky warned us about something called vote swapping. His tone sounded urgent so I decided to do a little checking into an organization called VotePair. The sole purpose of this site is to take people in swing states that would normally vote for Ralph Nader (or David Cobb) and have them vote for John Kerry. The Paired Kerry voter would then vote for Nader or Cobb in their "secured" state.

Growing more curious about this I decided to to a smidgeon of fact checking. It turns out that a few groups tried this in 2000 with Nader and it was believed that about 36,000 Nader/Gore supporters traded votes before the state of California shut the sites down. Since there is no actual selling of votes the legality of doing this is still a legal hotbed.

Surprisingly, I was not able to find much online about VotePair in the news. CNN made a quick reference to it and NBC11 has an online article (San Francisco Bay area) but the people who had the most about this was actually Wired. Has big media missed the boat on this again? Is it up to us, the blogger, to turn on the sirens again? Since this is a fairly new concept I'm not quite sure, but it was important enough for someone I've never even heard of before to send be urgent e-mail. ( I wish this meant I was turning into a "big name blogger" but I know that just isn't true.)

Now that I've had the opportunity to write down what this site's about and think about the ethics and legality behind it I can say I don't like it one bit. Do I believe it is legal? Yes, it appears to be but I'm not a lawyer and can't say for sure. Is it ethical? HELL NO! Of course some of the left swinging individuals will quickly dismiss this as right wing fear of losing the election. It is anything but.

The purpose of the electoral college serves two masters.

The first purpose was to be a tool of government that would allow all states to have a voice in elections even though the presidential candidates could not voice their political platforms to the people. In some cases people did not even know who the candidates were. Even worse were the rumors that spread about candidates in early elections. One popular rumor had one of the earliest candidates working for the devil and even had a tail! We still get rumors about presidential candidates but most of us are intelligent enough to see through them by using the enhanced tools at our disposal today. The internet is a fine example. Thus, the first purpose for the electoral college is now moot.

The second purpose for the electoral college is for different states to have better weighting in elections. What I mean is that if we were just going to push the popular vote every election we would have an imbalance of election power. People of rural areas have different concerns for government than people in urban areas. For example, how many people from New Jersey really care about the well being of farmers in Nebraska? Maybe 10-20 people? The point is that these areas are demographically different and deserve their voices to be weighted on a fairly equal playing field. If ther were no electoral college or if it were distribuded differently, Nebraska would have a much smaller voice than New Jersey due to population.

Hypothetically, lets try to show a president for these two states stricly on the price of corn. The people of New Jersey don't see the labor involved or the costs of growing and distributing the corn. They only see the supermarket costs. They will obviously elect the candidate promising to lower the price of corn. The people of Nebraska will of course want to push for an increased price of corn because it is a big part of their livelyhood. If there were no electoral college the price of corn would go down because of the larger New Jersey population. This will in turn bankrupt the people of Nebraska because they will have a negative ROI (return on investment).

The destruction of population challenged demographics is what the continuation of the electoral college needs to preserve. This is what Vote Swapping works to destroy. It is taking one demographic of people and forcing it on another through mass of population. It is wrong on concept and morality and should be stopped.

...you might be a Geek

Jeff Foxworthy eat your heart out. It's time for us Geeks to be heard:

If you ever played the original Mechwarior....you might be a geek. (just repeat this line as required)

If you know who bought out TSR's D&D...(Wizards of The Coast)

If you've ever been involved with a "con" that didn't involve stealing money...(gencon, comicon, etc)

If you know what a MUSH, MOG, or MMOG are...

If you've ever dated someone you met online outside of a dating service...

If you've ever read a piece paper by monitor-light...

If you laughed at redneck-jedi jokes...

If you see a sign that says no to crack and it reminds you to stop that port scan...

If you prefer WWMD to WWJD...(What Would Mitnick Do)

If you think the tee-shirts on Jinx are cool...

1F j00 C@n r3@d +#!$...

(more to come...)

Why doesn't Kerry concede?

Perusing the web one day I noticed this pile of crap on the Kerry for dictator site. It's a bit old but for some reason it has not come down. It is still being hosted by his party and he is ultimately responsible for the content therein. So, the question looms: In all good fairness, with everything that has transpired, from the SBVFT adds being condemned by Bush, to the fraudulent CBS memos, to the real documents that show Bush's guard records, why does Kerry stand behind this fruitless attack? Is his website run in such a crappy manner that it's still there because they forgot it was up there? I doubt it.

I thought we were past this episode. Are the missing answers in Bush's record any more important than the missing answers in Kerry's record? No, they are not. Mr. Bush has entered into a gentleman's agreement to not attack Kerry on frivolous crap that happened over 30 years ago.

Kerry has failed to enter this agreement. As a matter of fact, he is running the other way on the issue. Long after the majority of the U.S. realized that Bush had disassociated himself from the SBVFT and condemned all of the 527's Kerry was still trying to hammer home a nail that was no longer there. To this he lost a few cool points as well as a few poll points. Bush had entered into a gentleman's agreement at this point. Kerry finally realized that these attacks were not coming from Bush but from a "rogue" 527. Kerry would not join Bush in condemning these 527's. He wanted selectivity in who can attack whom. Not only did he refuse to condemn these 527's, he started singing the same tune as them and began to attack both Bush and Cheney for their lack of Vietnam experience.

The loosely paraphrased quote goes something like this: "I will not join in condemning all of the 527's like Bush has. I still have questions about why he (Cheney) receive five deferments. And we still haven't sorted out Bush's cowardice during Vietnam either. Why doesn't Bush answer to these accusations?"

Why doesn't Kerry just SHUT UP!

Kerry has proven to me that he is out of touch with the English language. (hence not being able to comprehend the meaning of the word: condemn)

Kerry has proven to me that he will not enter into a gentleman's agreement. (which would be rebuked by pulling the above noted article from his site.)

In fact, by not entering into this gentleman's agreement he has proven to me that John F. Kerry is not a gentleman at all. He means to mislead the American people into believing that frivolous attacks on a person's character are acceptable forms of debate. They are not. They are childish floundering done by a desparate man.

I hate Some Republicans Too

In a shining example how "not-brilliant" the political people of West Virginia are I posted some pictures of a guy and his daughter being accosted by some Democrats. One thing I'd like to state is that any idiot that brings his kids to a Democratic event with the forewarned knowledge that he will most likely be accosted needs to be castrated chemically or by other means. In the least, I would like to suggest that the state of West Virginia require him to attend some counselling due to child endangerment issues. This is the third time he's been roughly impeded by Democrats. This is the second time (that I know of) that he has brought small children. That's not what the entire point of this article is. It's just the lead up.

Charles (AKA Pusillanimus Wanker) was told that if he had photos or other evidence of Democrats getting roughed up that I would be willing to be the first to blog about them, as a Republican. He gave me three links. The first two were about Bush's policy of not letting Kerry supporters attend his rallies. I believe he used it as a comparison of how the nut-job noted above was actually allowed to attend the rally as a Republican and no Democrats are allowed the other way. The only problems with this is that the event the idiot above was at was only a drive-by at the airport. This doesn't mean I agree with that policy. I think Bush should have the wherewithall to allow Democrats at these rally's...provided they have the ability to control themselves better than they did at the RNC. (your first point answered Charles)

The second thing he sent me was this:

(Courtesy: Decatur Daily by Clyde Stancil)

This is Lynne Gobbell from Moulton, AL. According to The Decatur Daily, she was fired because she would not remove the Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker from her rear window. Phil Geddes, the owner of Enviromate, the cellulose insulation company Lynne worked for, gave her notice that she could either remove the sticker of be fired. She chose to keep the sticker and was summarily fired.

This is not the first time Mr. Geddes has impressed his political opinions upon his employees. Earlier in the year all of his employees recieved a flyer in their pay envelopes that said this:

"Just so you will know, because of the Bush tax (cut):
I was able to buy the new Hammer Mill
I was able to finance our receivables
I was able to get the new CAT skid steer
I was able to get the wire cutter
I was able to give you a job"

"You got the benefit of the Bush tax cut. Everyone did."

If this story is 100% true (which it appears to me it is), Phil Geddes is one example of a Republican I hate. There is no excuse for this crap from anybody. I don't care what your political leanings.

Part 3: (This one wasn't on Charles' list but by no fault of his own. I haven't been able to find online varification of it myself.) In the news we've all seen the apology that CBS and Dan Rather have had to put forward. It is a great example of what can happen when someone believes they are more powerful than they really are. What's that famous line? Oh yeah: "absolute power corrupts absolutely". Dan Rather is corrupt. But this isn't the point either. This morning, on the Republican News Nework (FOXNews), I heard a small snippet about a radio personality that was fired for voicing his opinion about Rathergate. He said "Dan Rather should be fired". The Radio company reprimanded him for "voicing opinions that were not within standards of this network". Shortly after the reprimand (the same day) there was suddenly no available time slot for him to work and was summarily fired, just like Lynn Gobbel. The only differences I see are that the individual being fired was:
A: a Republican
B: A Radio Personality and
C: Talking poorly of a Domocratic leaning newscaster on 710 Kiro Radio in Seattle, WA (a CBS affiliate...thanks doug)

KIRO is a COX owned, CBS affiliate broadcasting station whose demographic is greatly swayed towards the Democratic. Washington has always been a liberal leaning state for the most part. There are pockets of Republicans but for the most part very liberal, particularly enviro-liberal(I think I just made a new word). Is this an excuse to fire someone for voicing the nations popular opinion? No. Does it make it any better? No.

One last piece covered on RadioCyborg's site was the hair pulling incident at a Bush-Cheney rally in Colmar PA. Although she wasn't quite protesting quietly, the actions of the twit behind her make the entire scene worthy of only two shows on earth: Geraldo (now cancelled) or Jerry Springer. What was he thinking? You don't pull hair to keep someone quiet. It provides a wonderful photo op. Next time use a tazer. The X26c is my choice for counter protest actions. They're compact, lightweight and provide instant results! (I do not condone that, just making a joke.)

The BS that's flying from both sides this election season is ridiculous. The point of this whole endeavor being that anyone who uses their power to try to stifle, mislead or oppress ones political beliefs by unlawful means needs to be put down like a mad dog. That's sort of what it is, madness, political madness. Since no one else will start the cry, we need to be the ones to wave the BS flag an call people on it. (Just like Powerline and Ratherbiased have done.)

If you'd like to voice your opinions on the type of tactics used by either Enviromate or 710 KIRO TV here are the links:
Alabama Enviromate
710 KIRO