❮❮prevnext❯❯

Wow, I can't believe that today is election day. Between all the sports history being made around here and the way I haven't been watching TV, I've been exposed to very little campaigning...Howard Stern rooting for Kerry, Sports Talk Radio guys rooting for Bush, and a smattering of annoying radio spots. (The Kerry one was kind of stupid, how "The Saudi Royal Family appreciates your support when you're at the pump, and also the support of the Administration"--it kind of implies everyone is GUILTY for filling up...and then there's John McCain saying he knows Kerry and Bush and he's with Bush on this one, for all the tough decisions he's made, even though I think he's made some of the wrongest damn decisions this side of El Paso.)

I'll spare you the "so get out there and vote people!" rhetoric. Hell, barring surprise upsets, I think everyone not in a swing state is half-disenfranchised anyway thanks to the Electoral College. The main reason for a Kerry backer to vote in Massachusetts is so the Republicans don't pull any fast ones, and also so that the overall popular vote gets tabulated, not that it matters.

---

Cultural Insensitivity of the Moment
At the risk of sounding antisemitic and generally insensitive to the religous beliefs of other cultures, I still want to say that Sabbath mode on fridges and stoves for Orthodox Jews still strike me as a rather worldview.

---

Alarming Story of the Moment
A boingboingn story on a Santa Clara voting machine saying

Vote Save Error #9
Use The Backup Voting Procedure

Awesome. Faulty technology is screwing with our democracy. Not as badly as the whole electoral college crap, but still. BoingBoing has another story on how hard it is to do a paper ballot there.

---

Quote of the Moment

I don't think Osama bin Laden sent those planes to attack us because he hated our freedom. I think he did it because of our support for Israel, our ties with the Saudi family and our military bases in Saudi Arabia.
You know why I think that? Because that's what he fucking said!
Are we a nation of 6-year-olds?

I gotta say, that "hates freedom" line was always the lamest kind of thinking. Jihadists might resent our social freedoms, but then again our own religious fundies aren't crazy about them anyway.

---

Article of the Moment
Too late to make a difference in the electin, the Nation presents 100 Facts and 1 Opinion about the Bush administration.