Jobber of the Week

Great quote from Newsweek: The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

Zogby defines "bad poll."

For every one of her, there's five McCain voters who think a Muslim who sympathizes with terrorists is running to take over America.

Illegal immigration is something that I'm somewhat righty on, but this guy isn't too subtle about his racism. He calls earned residence programmes amnesty, points out in his PowerPoint presentation the high levels of hispanic origins we have in our illegal immigrants, and so on. Even makes a crack about lawn maintenance. I wasn't totally convinced yet, really, because everything is either a fact or a common stereotype regarding illegal immigration. But, then he also says he'll loosen legal immigration "to better accommodate those residents of European nations who wish to emigrate legally to America." In other words, he wants less latinos, more white people. Pretty freakin obvious. I have Australian and UK relatives who wish to move here but can't, and I feel immigration reform is sorely needed, but to play favourites on regions is pretty fucking racist. Everything else about him seems okay but damn does that rub me the wrong way.

Dems, Dems, Dems. As someone who would vote for moderate Republicans in California if they impressed me, I felt kind of sad about that. Problem is, Nevada is a very libertarian, individualist, "fuck you, I got mine" kind of state with a heavy military presence. So there aren't any Republicans I can vote for without really voting against my issues and for some kind of non-existent Ron Paul government that believes taxes are the devil's work, and doesn't care what anyone does so long as it's not gay. Also, Shelley Berkley is a lot like my hometown Representative, Lynn Woolsey, in that she's so established that only amateurs who aren't going to win dare run against her. The real entertainment here was all the judicial races. The corruption is simply breathtaking, and the number of Judges who don't know what Judges do or are taking bribes or are running for bench to piss off a personal enemy is incredible. I tried my best to clean it up, but part of "cleaning it up" means voting for total incompetents who will hopefully help shine a light on how awful the justice system in this area is. Everything underneath the level of state Supreme Court is fucked up.

Drudge is in "I can't believe aaaaah *head explodes" mode, and tracking every little movement he makes just gives him page views the kind of which he was boasting of just a few days ago. Ignore him, and hopefully this election will ruin any credibility he ever had. Kerrrang! Wrong. Kerrrang! Wrong. First of all, both candidates support tax credits, but McCain's credits are refundable. Most of Obama's big tax credits are non-refundable, so people won't be "making money" from the tax system for them. Kerrrang! Wrong. Biden sorta gaffed by saying $200K the other day. Up to $200K see a cut, between $200K and $250K is no cahnge, and from $250K and up it goes up.

Heh:

USA Today had a story about CNN's election coverage today. Pundits and guests over satellite will appear in hologram. Seriously. Like Vader talking to the generals and Palpatine.

http://thisfuckingelection.com/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7700387.stm

Take it from someone who is trying to move up there. Unless you get married to someone who is willing to support you with a certain amount of money for a period of time, during which they could leave you and you'd still be forced to support them, it's really hard to move up there. Canada basically wants nothing but managers and executives along with the usual fields like Doctors and scientists. A few people will move by marriage, and a few will move by opportunity, but until we can make some kind of work union thing like the EU where we can freely move around and work in each other's countries, it ain't gonna be easy. In other news, another McCain spokesperson gets owned:

It really depends on your state's priorities. Voting is easy in California because they go through great expense in the effort to make as many people vote as possible. In Nevada, the concern is to spend as little money as possible on elections, and voting can be inconvenient at times. I don't want to be that guy, but I think serving the greater democratic good is a little more important than trying your patience in line. Watch porn on your iBerry. It's more than just waiting in line. We have a law saying primaries must use a caucus system, as a state money saving measure introduced sometime around the start of the decade. Thing is, caucuses are 30 minute meetings held all over the state in specific locations near where you live, and this is a "24 hour city" of sprawling suburbs and a lot of people can't get time off or don't work near where they live. The casino employees are legion enough to have landed polling locations in the various hotels around the Strip, but everyone else wasn't that lucky.

Local/State issues and elections have more of an impact on the average citizen than the President does. You dont fix a flooded basement by replacing the roof. No, not really. Take it from the guy with the mafia associate for his Mayor.

It really depends on your state's priorities. Voting is easy in California because they go through great expense in the effort to make as many people vote as possible. In Nevada, the concern is to spend as little money as possible on elections, and voting can be inconvenient at times.

Drudge is a joke. His site is like HuffPo on the other side, but HuffPo is much easier to read. FiveThirthyEight is much more worth your time than Drudge.

If you do that, vote Nader or Brian Moore (Socialist.) Do not vote for McKinney, the crazy lady who assaulted a House security guard for not recognizing her ass. Do not vote for the candidate who gave shoutouts to hip-hop artists in her acceptance speech. Do not vote for the kind of loudmouth third parties as a movement do not need. I would vote for Reverend Wright waaaaay before McKinney.

Unless you're in South Carolina, where one of those things is simply called "the state flag."

She's going to be the Huckabee of 2012. She's going to get ripped up in the crossfire between Newt and Romney. And Newt and Romney is the biggest bout of Evil Genius VS Complete Idiot in ages.

"Want some wood?" "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter!" "Airplanes and ticket counters will be flying out of Ronald Reagan International Airport." "I've stood up to big trial lawyers, big Hollywood. I'm sorry, the question... It was about emergencies?" "We need more OB/GYNs to practise their love all across this country."

Newt Gingrich.

Johnny-Mac has moved his goalposts around terribly.First it was all about PA, then it was all about FL, then OH, then MO, now it's about PA again. It's like Hillary, fading away while shouting "I can still win!"

Could be worse.

On the other hand, PR turns things into national issues. As it is, you're PRESUMABLY voting for someone from your neck of the woods to represent your area's situation in Ottawa. But people vote for parachutes and generally put the national agenda over their own local issues. You're SUPPOSED to be electing your MP on things like "I'll bring more money for projects like highways to our riding" and not on things like "our party supports a national decriminalization of marijuana" but unfortunately nobody ever does.

McCain lost and almost lost huge. He had a boring example for every single thing and totally abandoned the conservatives when he was forced to bring up his moderate stances that he USED to be proud of during primary season: standing up on torture, stem cells, big pharm, etc. Then he totally blew a leg off with his statement that he's only interested in qualifications of justices. Will the last evangelical to flee the room please turn out the light? I mean, any time the Christian fundamentalists are pressed into feeling like they have no proper place in this country's policies, I'm a happy guy, and I'm sure pretty happy with how this went down.