A thought about this year's presidential election

Say what you will about how this election will turn out, but it appears to me at this point that George W. Bush will be re-elected. A lot of this depends on turnout; the higher the turnout, the better Kerry's chances.

Here's an interesting question, though: could Bush's second term be significantly different than his first?

The reason I ask this is because I have this hunch that Bush wants the second term his dad never had. In fact, a lot of the things he's doing seem like his father's unfinished business. His dad was a very successful person, but George W. was always a bit of a failure. Look into his oil company, Arbuto was the name, I think. So it is my basic opinion that a lot of his policy has been run with the sole goal of ensuring his reelection.

If this is true, this could mean big changes for the Bush presidency part 2. Without having to worry about the politics of being the chief exec anymore, Bush can do all of the things he wants. Whether this is good or bad remains to be seen. It is, at the very least, a cause for concern.

Spending under the Bush administration has gone up by over 7 points per year. That's *a lot* of extra spending. His second term could bring even more monolithic amounts of pork.

With Rep. John Linder (R-GA) guaranteed re-election [he is running unopposed, in my district, actually] and looking like a prime candidate as chair of the House Rules committee, we could be seeing some changes to the tax code. Rep. Linder is a staunch proponent of the so-called fair tax, so it is possible that the fair tax will get pushed to the floor of the House. I haven't read the fair tax proposal, so I won't bother to comment on it here. I'm probably going to schedule an appointment with Rep. Linder after the election if possible, as I'd like to discuss a few issues with him in person. If he's on the Rules committee and the Republicans maintain control of the House, there is absolutely no reason why they can't fix the tax system. Oh, wait... they only talk about tax code changes to pander to their base... That's right. They could have fixed it, but they didn't. Bastards.

I'll kick Linder's ass around, though. Purely for personal pleasure.

Georgia Tech and the surreal world

As I was walking around Tech today, I couldn't help but feel that I had been sucked into some surrealist world, that I was no longer in Kansas, but instead in a strange world of witches and wizards, angels and demons, priests and heretics...

The past few days there have been a lot of bake sales for a lot of different campus groups. From afar, I saw a sign of which I could only read two words: "for peace." Well, I thought, I will very certainly buy from this bake sale, as peace is something I truly do believe in. As I got closer, though, I realized that 1) it wasn't a bake sale, and 2) the tables belonged to the "GT Students for Israel." They had with them copies of the book The Case For Israel, but I didn't want one of those. I fail to see how a nation who's military fires indiscriminantly into crowds with riot gear, guns, and even helicopters. [I should note here that in this particular case, with the helicopter, there was a fair target being shot at. However, many innocents were injured. It would seem obvious to me that you can't fire two missiles into a crowd of people, at least not if you want to call yourself peaceful. I should also state, for the record, that I do not support Palestinian militants, or militants of any kind, except when in direct response to violence. I'm going to avoid getting into a long conversation about Israel at this point, though...] An organization devoted to peace in the Middle East shouldn't be so one-sided. But I digress...

Past them on the walk was a table for the College Democrats. Hooray for John Kerry, they say. Well, the table was being staffed by the guy who said to be, "John Kerry is a douchebag." Hmm... He sure was giving away a lot of those Kerry stickers. Come on, everybody, John Kerry has a plan! He's going to make health care even worse for the low cost of only hundreds of billions of dollars! He'll also make sure we help spread democracy to the world and saddle our children with the trillions of dollars of debt. We can help pay that off by freezing the assets of the dramatically increasing numbers of terrorists attacking us, so the plan all works out economically. It's good to know that John Kerry has a plan. Oh, wait, he wants to tax the rich, which somehow got the definition of anybody making more than $200,000 per year. That number is conveniently above the pay for Senators, which is what... about $150,000, right? That's right, folks, John Kerry isn't rich, he's an ordinary, everyday fellow. Please ignore the fact that he married into wealth. Twice. Let's also ignore that his wife was previously married to another prominent government figure. Hell, let's just totally ignore the fact that there are so many family ties within our government nowadays that it's beginning to look like a monarchy. It's not a problem, don't worry about it!

I'm just so fucking frustrated right now. I can't put a thought together, I can't make an argument, I just want to start screaming at people. It is so apparent to me, so ridiculous, and I find it all rather transparent. The people of the United States are no longer in control of their government, the government is in control of us. Do you not see it? Is it not clear to you?

...and now, according to a time poll, 56% of Americans want to abolish the electoral college, effectively moving politics only to large cities. Nobody seems to realize that democracy is bad and we have a representative system to protect us from the tyranny of the majority. No, no, no, let's get rid of the electoral college. That will most certainly help destroy any relevance third parties could have. Then the only thing left to do is start arresting people who speak out against the government and we'll be nice and safe.

Thoughts running together too quickly. I give up. This mess is nearly impossible to fix, so I'm just going to assume that it's unfixable. From now on, I'll just be angry, as my persuasiveness seems to be minimal.

Fuck.

The best possible outcome of this election

Obviously, if you've ever read any of my opinions on politics, you know that what I consider to be the "best" outcome is not a "possible" outcome.

So what's the best possible outcome?

Step one: Turn the two houses of Congress against each other. It looks pretty likely that the GOP will maintain control of the Senate, so a huge victory for the Democrats in the House would be good. If the two houses are turned against each other, less damage will be done.

Step two: Elect the President illegitimately. This seems pretty likely. My guess is, and if this turns out to be the case it will be sufficient, that the winner of the election will change at some point. My guess is that Bush will win the election prior to the counting of provisional ballots (which are required by the, what is it called, Help America Vote Act?), but once those ballots are counted, Kerry will win. Odds are a lawsuit will be involved, and we'll have a huge mess again.

Step three: Make sure the people don't accept whoever wins the election. Polls show that most people won't accept the results if their candidate loses, so this is pretty certain.

I think a Bush victory would be more divisive and therefore better. Many conservatives and just about every liberal disagree with Bush, which works towards the ultimate goal of the government not doing anything to harm us more.

Of course, I'm kind of rooting for a Kerry win, simply because I will then be able to prove to people, four years from now, that Kerry is one fucking awful douchebag.

I'm still voting for Badnarik, in case you wanted to know.

Bush endorsements

On the Charles Goyette show, the host (Charles Goyette) mentioned two endorsements for President Bush that were relatively humorous. At the time, I laughed, but upon further consideration, I'm actually quite concerned. Maybe you'll agree when I tell you where the endorsements came from.

The first, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The second...

...

Iran.

Now, let's start with Putin, since it's slightly less paranoia-inducing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't Russia been at odds with our foreign policy these past few years? We had major differences on the issue of Iraq, and I see no logic behind a Putin-Bush endorsement. (Putin-Bush... hehehehehehe...) Possibly Putin believes that Bush will win the election and he's attempting to win favor for the Russians. I'm not entirely certain.

While I find the Russian endorsement odd, the Iranian endorsement is disconcerting at best, outrageous at worst. I mean... isn't Iran part of the axis of evil? Perhaps I'm mistaken. The point stands that Bush hasn't been particularly friendly towards Iran and Iran seems a state not far out of our sights. So what is this endorsement? Is it an attempt at garnering U.S. favor to avert military actions there? We already have plenty of U.S. troops in the region, so a quick hop to Iran isn't out of order. Perhaps it's sleight-of-hand aimed at confusing the American populace. "Look, we support you and your President, why would you attack us?" Perhaps. One way or the other, I'm pretty sure we'll hear plenty about Iran in the next four years.

I'm just surprised that we never hear about places like Sudan, where there is genocide going on. Why is it that we have to occupy Iraq to free the people, but we totally ignore Sudan. Even more important, why have we done nothing with Saudi Arabia, the country from which 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers are from? Saudi Arabia is a nasty, awful place, but I will spare you the rant and suggest that you simply google up some info about the status of women and prisoners in Saudi Arabia. It should prove enlightening.

A few questions

I want to have some answers to a few questions....

Why do the two major parties insist on keeping us within a two party system in our country while pushing a multi-party system in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, there were a dozen or so candidates on the ballot. In Iraq, there are many parties.

Why can these countries have things like proportional representation when, in our country, talk of electoral reform is limited to discussion of what sort of machines we use to vote?

Do the people in America not deserve more choices so as to be better represented? Is not the point of a representative government to have elected officials which most closely match the views of their people? Do you feel like the candidates running for office within the two major parties actually represent you?

Also, I noticed a Denise Majette ad running here in Georgia accused Johnny Isakson of wanting to create a 23% sales tax. The commercial noted how horrible this was, but completely failed to mention that the income tax would be repealed at the same time. I'm no fan of Johnny Isakson, but that ad was SO INCREDIBLY misleading. Who suffers? The people of the State of Georgia.

God help us.

Yet another mishap...

I get this in my inbox:

Subject: Fall payment
From: Bhadra Soni

Please call me at 404-894-5542.
Thanks.

Bhadra Soni

I'm no fool, so I look up this "Bhadra Soni" on the GATECH directory. She works in the Bursar's office, number is the same as given in the email. I look at my web statement on oscar. I see a few lines stick out at me. I put them here, with the important ones in italics, for your perusal.

Account Balance:				$371.00
Fall 2004
Detail Code	Description	Charge	Payment	Balance
ATH	Athletic	$56.00		$0.00
HEA	Health	$119.00		$0.00
MAT	In-State Tuition	$1,684.00		$0.00
PENL	Returned Check Penalty	$0.00		$0.00
PKFE	Parking Permit Fees	$500.00		$0.00
REC	Recreation/Facility Fee	$54.00		$0.00
RETW	Returned ACH-Student	$371.00		$371.00
SA	Student Activity	$98.00		$0.00
TECH	Technology Fee	$75.00		$0.00
TRAN	Transportation	$53.00		$0.00
HOP1	HOPE Scholarship		$434.00	$0.00
HOPB	HOPE Book Award		$150.00	$0.00
HOPE	HOPE Scholarship		$1,684.00	$0.00
WCHK	Web Check Payment		$371.00	$0.00
Term Charges:		$3,010.00
Term Credits and Payments:			$2,639.00
Term Balance:				$371.00

Something appears to have gone awry with my webcheck payment and I owe Tech $371. I checked my bank statements and, look at that, the charge never went through. I guess this means I have to hit up the Bursar's office ASAP and pay them. I'm very not happy about this, though, because I've been spending money with the impression that I have nearly 400 dollars more than I really do.

Of course, the real nightmare is going to be if they make this more complicated than me just paying them the money I owe.

Incredibly irritating, I do say.

"You've got to be kidding me..."

I was taking Camille home this evening. As we drove along Holly Street, a cop pulled on the road behind me, so I kept it around the speed limit and made a very full stop at the stop sign. I turned right onto Ridge Road and the cop did too... and then he flipped on his lights.

Shock and awe commenced.

Part of the problem is that I am not insured on Camille's car. I was driving her car. It has out of state plates. I have a very large Badnarik bumper sticker on this car. Things are not adding up in my favor at this point.

The cop comes up and asks me to step out of the car. I do. He asks for ID and I give it to him. He takes my license and gives me back my wallet. (Why am I writing in present tense? I just realized that when I tell stories to people, I usually tell them in present tense... It must have something to do with some subconcious understanding of time which I possess... Anyway...) He asks a few questions:

* "Where are you coming from?" (My house in Copper Creek)
* "Where are you going?" (Driving my girlfriend home)
* "Is this your car?" (No, it's my girlfriend's)
* "Is she from Ohio?" (Yes)
* "Were you in the neighborhood you saw me pull out from?" (No)

That's more or less the conversation. He told me to sit down in the car and then got Camille out and basically asked her the same questions. He mentioned something in there about them looking for a car with a similar description seen in the area recently. He gave me back my license and said, "Have a good evening."

So, disaster averted, I drove away. I'm not particularly happy about being stopped, but I can't complain too much. Luckily, this cop was not only doing his job, but actually doing it the right way, not troubling me more than necessary. Hooray! Or something.

I should know better...

I should have figured it out by now, but I guess I'm not quite that smart. I should not talk politics at work.... it is simply a bad, bad idea.

I kinda ticked off one of my superiors on Saturday night. I was rambling about how there is no such thing as a "right to education." My argument was simply, "if I'm not going to college, but I'm a taxpayer, I'm technically paying for somebody else to go to college. That is wrong, plain and simple."

The response to this was pretty harsh, I think. First, a question: "do you get the HOPE scholarship?" Upon answering yes, I was labeled as hypocritical and stupid and my opponent promptly walked away. (I'm taking great care not to reveal any sort of useful information about who I was having this conversation with, so apologies if my resulting sentences are unclear and wordy.)

I never got a chance to offer a refutation of these criticisms, so I will do so here.

First of all, as far as I am aware, the HOPE scholarship is primarly funded by a state lottery system. It is no secret that lottery money goes towards HOPE, and nobody in the state is forced to buy lottery tickets. (I actually did mention this, and the response was: "well nobody is forcing you to live in the United States, so you can just move if you don't like it." More on that later.)

The key to good law and good government is that, in any action, contract, event, whatever, all parties involved should consent to it. So, if I sell you something, and we both consent, it should be legal. If I steal something from you, it's simply a sale without your consent, and therefore illegal. I'm not saying this *is* the basis of our law, just that it *should* be. So, since only those people who give their consent to the whole lottery system buy lottery tickets, there is no reason why I shouldn't accept money from HOPE.

A problem comes into play: is any federal or state tax money from sources other than lottery tickets used to fund HOPE or the HOPE administrative workers? If so, such funding must be immediately cut so that only lottery money is used. I have no evidence that this is the case, so I don't worry about it. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

The next thing I'd like to comment on is the idea that if you have some sort of disagreement with the way that our government operates, you should shut up and deal with it or move out of the country. Why would anybody say this? Did the first (European descended) inhabitants of our country not flee Europe so they could live how they wished to? Were our founding fathers not paranoid that our government would some day rule in a fashion not equitable to all citizens? Is the purpose of our constitution not to protect individuals from being deprived their life, liberty, and property (without just compensation)? The sad fact is that money (the physical federal reserve notes) remains property of the U.S. Treasury, so it is not our property to be deprived of, but the source of money is (at least in my case) labor, and I am being deprived the profits of my labor without my consent. Is this not wrong? I shouldn't have to *leave* America because I want to live the way I choose, I should want to come to America to live the way I choose. It is madness that so many in our country have taken this "live with it or leave it" approach to government.

As a side note, there is a way to measure inequity in wealth - the Gini coefficient. During the Clinton years, the Gini coefficient rose, meaning that the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Don't count on the Democrats to help the poor. I should also note that in the United States, from 1947 until the late 1960s, it stayed pretty much constant. I don't have data from before 1947 at the moment. In the late sixties and early seventies, wealth inequality started to rise and has been rising ever since. It is curious to note that this process started alongside Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society." In the next couple weeks, I will hopefully create a chart showing jumps in wealth inequity every time a new socialist measure passes in Washington.

Basically, I'm going to try to prove that in our country, socialism has the opposite effect that is intended. It doesn't equalize the classes, it makes the class divide worse. I'm not going to attempt to get into whether classes are inherently good or bad... yet.... but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

A real blog...

Okay, so I'm attempting to run a real blog rather than a livejournal. As much as I like livejournal, I find it rather restrictive, not to mention that it's slow and ugh.

I'm hoping to post more often and with a greater depth of thought here than I did on livejournal, and I'd also like to have a bit more discussion going on.

For now, though, I'm mostly going to be working on technical issues, but please start lots of fun discussions about everything here.

Ta ta!