I’ve just chipped in to two more races:
Because when a woman who knows how to use a whip and handcuffs
tells me to,
I must obey.
The idea behind election finance reform is a noble one: elections tend
to go to whichever candidate wields the most money and can buy the
most votes; so let’s even out the playing field, and give less-rich
candidates a chance.
There are a number of problems with actually achieving any change,
though. For one, campaign finance reform has to be enacted by
politicians whose own reelection campaigns are likely to be hampered
by it.
Another is that any reform is unlikely to address the core problem.
John Gilmore is
quoted as
saying that “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around
it.” In other words, let’s say you’re trying to move pr0n from point A
to point B. But some site in the middle doesn’t like pr0n, so it
intercepts your data packets and drops them on the floor. From your
point of view, it looks as if that site has a broken cable or a power
outage or something. But the Internet is failure-resistant, so your
data packets find a different path, avoiding the affected site
altogether.
And so it is with campaign contributions.
Remember the 2004 election, when partisans from both major parties
were arguing that Osama bin Laden wanted the other guy to win? Well,
this time around,
wonder no more:
“Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the “failing march of his predecessor,” President Bush.
The Web commentary was one of several posted by Taliban or al-Qaeda-allied groups in recent days that trumpeted the global financial crisis and predicted further decline for the United States and other Western powers.
One race that I’ll be interested in on election night, even though it
doesn’t affect me directly, is that of
Sean Tevis,
who’s running for State Representative in Kansas’s 15th district
(Olathe, just outside Kansas City). You may have seen his
XKCD-style webcomic asking for donations.
He was recently
endorsed
by the Kansas City Star. Good luck to him. Let’s hope this helps.
Tonight, a few of us got together at an airport hotel bar to socialize, watch the debate, and have some beers. At some point we were joined by a business traveler, with whom we had a nice conversation slash bull session about a wide array of topics.
One thing that struck me was that every so often, he’d say something none of us agreed with, like “Wouldn’t it be better to just stop following the news for six months?
Wouldn’t you be much more relaxed?” We’d argue with that, and he’d put up his hands and say “Look, I’m just throwing it out there.” That struck me as odd, but I was too distracted at the time to offer a proper reply. What I should have told him was:
“Don’t apologize. What you’re doing is forcing me to examine my beliefs, and see whether they’re well supported. If there are sound reasons for believing what I do, I ought to be able to find them. And if you uncover a flaw in my reasoning, then you’re doing me a favor; I can stop believing something that isn’t true.” Read More
Found at Dembski’s House of Evolution Denialism:
Uncommon Descent has been debunking anthropogenic global warming since the website began 3.5 years ago. We have a keen nose for bogus science here, folks.
Good thing there’s now a Micro Center in town, ‘cos I need a new keyboard.
Thanks to Fez for pointing out this
video
of Bill Donohue complaining about eucharist desecration, and YouTube
not pulling videos of people doing same:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLP2fHGHX7c&hl=en&fs=1]
Isn’t he adorable? Don’t you just want to pinch his chubby little
cheeks?
I just got back from an advance screening of Bill Maher’s new film,
Religulous,
(via the
Beltway Atheists, who
get a shout-out for it).
If you’ve seen the trailer, you know what to expect: Bill Maher
travels around the world, interviewing people about religion, and
basically letting them show how ridiculous their beliefs are. And
that’s basically it, plus some film clips thrown in for comic effect,
and some lines that you’d expect to hear on Real Time or
in his stand-up routine, rather than in a serious documentary.
The film does slow down in the last third, but not enough (IMHO) to
drag, and ends on a down note. In the meantime, it does manage to
raise some important questions about religion, though probably not the
ones one might expect.
Spoilers and ranting below the fold.