On The Third Hand

Just remember: “No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.”

The next 2 years should be interesting.

P.S. You might want to read Bill Whittle’s take on the subject.

I believe Scott Ott (Scrappleface) pretty much says it all. Go read.

In my opinion, it was pretty much due.

This guest post by Kat (another Kat) at Winds of Change has a good background and overview.

Pajamas Media wants a name for those who don’t fit the ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ tags. We already have a name. Several, in fact. ‘Independents’ is the one I prefer.

This is the first post in a series on the war against tyranny. In the series I’ll be taking a look at just who’s war this is. I’ll give you one hint, it’s not Bush’s. We’ll start by taking a look at why Gore lost in 2000.

First things first, Gore lost. The U. S. Supreme Court did not make George W. Bush President of the United States. The U. S. Supreme Court put a stop to useless round after useless round of ballot recounting in the State of Florida. Vote recounts allowed by the Florida Supreme Court because the Florida Supreme Court wouldn’t muster the courage to say, “No more.”

The whole mess started off by crappy ballot design in (as I recall) two Florida counties. People voted for the wrong candidate. People couldn’t punch out the damn holes. It was a mess. So it became round after round of trying to figure out who meant to vote for whom. Thing is, after every re-count the winner continued to be George W. Bush.

To any reasonable person it became abundantly clear, there were those people who just couldn’t stand the idea of Bush becoming President of the United States. People who would use any excuse, or manufacture any excuse, they could to avoid having to admit their candidate lost. Who, as it turns out, use the SCOTUS decision to halt the endless Florida recounts as proof of a conspiracy to rob Al Gore of his rightful prize.

All the ballot recounts came down to determining who people meant to vote for. This done by careful study of thousands of ballots where the vote was not clear. Because the damn ballots had die cut “chads” that were a bitch to punch through.

So mistakes were made. Sometimes the chad hung on. Those votes weren’t the problem really. Who the voter meant to vote for was readily obvious. The problem lay with those chads that weren’t really punched out at all. Chads that bulged, or where the die cutting was torn. Ballots where, as far as any body could tell, the voter went to vote for one candidate, then changed his mind; so you ended up with a ballot where two chads were partially punched out.

In short, people made mistakes. They either voted twice (or more) for the office of President of the United States, or they did not vote clearly. Simple mistakes really. Mistakes easily corrected by asking for a new ballot. A request Florida poll workers could and would fulfill. But people didn’t feel like correcting.

So they put their errant ballots in the ballot box, and we got the Great Meaningless Recounts of 2000.

All because people couldn’t be bothered to correct their errors, other people couldn’t stand the idea their votes wouldn’t count because of those errors, and still others couldn’t stand the idea of Albert Gore losing.

Round after meaningless round of trying to eke out enough “well, he just might have meant to vote for Gore, so we’ll give him a pass and add another to Albert’s column” votes was a result. To the point even some of Gore’s supporters started to say, “Enough!” With the SCOF (Supreme Court of Florida) aiding and abetting the petulent snit.

Until the SCOTUS said, “Enough” and shut it down.

So, how did it get to that point? How did Gore lose? That’s for the next post in the series.

Beltway Traffic Jam

Undo the bankruptcy bill enacted by this administration
Strongly agree - except to note that it was not enacted just by this administration - both sides deserve blame.

Repeal the estate tax repeal
Disagree.

Increase the minimum wage and index it to the CPI
Strongly disagree.

Universal health care (obviously the devil is in the details on this one)
Probably would disgree with the details.

Increase CAFE standards. Some other environment-related regulation
Disagree in general - might agree on a few specifics.

Pro-reproductive rights, getting rid of abstinence-only education, improving education about and access to contraception including the morning after pill, and supporting choice. On the last one there’s probably some disagreement around the edges (parental notification, for example), but otherwise.
Strongly agree. Abstinence-only education doesn’t work. I have no objection to explaining the benefits of abstinence - only to abstinence-only eductation.

Simplify and increase the progressivity of the tax code
Agree with simplify, disagree with increase the progressivity (though I wouldn’t scream over Jane Galt’s tax plan too loudly). Would prefer a national sales tax with refund to lower tax groups.

Kill faith-based funding. Certainly kill federal funding of anything that engages in religious discrimination.
Strongly agree. The first amendment being what it is, we are required to fund cults like $cientology, as well as radical Islam. Thanks, but no thanks.

Reduce corporate giveaways.
Depends. Dump most subsidies. My view of what ‘corporate giveaways’ are will otherwise probaby differ.

Have Medicare run the Medicare drug plan.
Disagree. Government-run anything is always a disaster.

Force companies to stop underfunding their pensions. Change corporate bankruptcy law to put workers and retirees at the head of the line with respect to their pensions.
Some laws already on the books need changing. (See Assymetrical Information on this one - I agree with Jane.)

Leave the states alone on issues like medical marijuana. Generally move towards “more decriminalization” of drugs, though the details complicated there too.
Strongly agree.

Paper ballots
Agree. I’m tired of conspiracy theories about electronic machines.

Improve access to daycare and other pro-family policies. Obiously details matter.
Probably would disgree with their details.

Raise the cap on wages covered by FICA taxes.
Agree, also raise retirement age. (I like Jane’s tax plan - see above - on this too. I just don’t think it would get passed.)

Marriage rights for all, which includes “gay marriage” and quicker transition to citizenship for the foreign spouses of citizens.
Agree with first. Agree with second, if and only if, we enact something to be sure those spouses were freely chosen from someone who is NOT related to the American spouse. There should also be something in place to be sure it’s not a fee-based marriage (marrying someone for a fee, just to get them citizenship).

[Update] Oops - as Tim pointed out in the comments, I forgot to link the original “test” at Atrios, or the one edited by Kevin Drum. Omission now corrected.

Text of the 2006 State of the Union speech (there are also links to video from that page).

History News Network has a good list of Danish imports you can find while grocery shopping. (Didn’t realize those Danish butter cookies were actually from Denmark - I’ll have to look into that one!)

[Update] Lego is a Danish company… (via MikkelA at LGF, who has another list).

Kinky Friedman for Governor

Heh - I think we’ve finally got an American Monster Raving Loony Party - even if it’s a one-man show at the moment. Official motto seems to be:
“Kinky Friedman
Why the Hell Not?”

Hat tip to pandora.com, which played a song by the gent referenced above, prompting me to remember a few of years ago when he was doing some very amusing guest-blogging for someone (Brian Linse, IIRC), which led to me doing some googling… which led to me chuckling some more and posting this.

Could have wished for more but, as Mark Steyn says, “…given that the party was reduced to two seats in the 1993 debacle, after 12 years in the wilderness most Canadian conservatives will take a strong minority government as a spectacular landslide. ” Indeed. And go read that - he’s in prime form!

Today is election day in Canada. Good luck to them, eh?

Bush Appoints Bolton to U.N. Job