Post-Palin Depression
[ 5 Comments ]Posted on November 27, 2008 by admin in Politics
Thursday, November 27th, 2008Election afterbirth and turkicide
Like a lot of pseudo-intellectuals, I’ve been submerged in a deep depression since the election. How are we going to talk about fixing the world’s problems if one of us is actually working on them? How could life be worth living without Sarah Palin to make fun of, and nut-jobs (okay, let’s show a little sensitivity, she has a disorder,after all) like Ann Coulter to whine about? And although some suggest only science fiction could save us from our economic woes, this Obama guy might surprise us. Fortunately, just when I thought my liberal intellectual angst had been rendered a relic, Ann Coulter did something we’ve all prayed for for ages, and got her mouth wired shut. And just in time for the holidays, the grizzly, Thanksgiving-themed Sarah Palin clip featured here showed up. Watch the guy in the background while she calmly rambles on in her repetitious, sound-bitey, youbetcha way.
Life In 2015, If Obama Wins
[ Comments Off ]Posted on November 3, 2008 by admin in Politics
Monday, November 3rd, 2008
Presidential Race 2008: The Final Lap
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 30, 2008 by admin in Politics
Thursday, October 30th, 2008Forget nation-building, we’ve got a BRAND to build
As we head into the last few days before the election, I’m consumed with bittersweet feelings. An Obama White House won’t offer much fodder for my political comic, but it would be nice having someone sane and intelligent in the White House. And all the fun of videos like Cindy McCain Claims She’s Just Like Any Other Female Human or info-graphics like Political Nascar (pictured left) will suddenly be rendered irrelevant. It’s all about charts, maps and polls now. So first up: If The World Could Vote, McCain would be pummeled into oblivion, with Obama taking around 90% of the vote in every country except Macedonia and Albania. And frankly, those few hundred votes out of half a million are probably coming from the only people with Internet in those countries: Republican-appointed diplomats living in U.S. embassies. For solid figures on votes that will actually count, RealClearPolitics.com has a mind-numbing collection of data, but a good place to start is their electoral map. Since the final results are heavily dependent on swing states (or vote rigging) you might want to bookmark Politico.com’s Swing State Map or Electoral-Vote.com. And don’t forget the power of opportunistic marketing-as-polling. The Dems have already won the Baskin Robbins race, but don’t forget we still have the Busken Bakery Cookie Poll and 7-Eleven’s 7-Election.com
Rob The Vote! It’s Much Easier Than Rocking It
[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 12, 2008 by admin in Politics
Friday, September 12th, 2008Sure your vote counts…if it gets counted.
 Attorney General and “Most Worshipful Grand Master” J.B. Van Hollen of Wisconsin |
I often joke that the reason we have so many election problems in America is that we’ve been so busy bringing democracy to places like Iraq that we just plain ran out of it. But I really think that if people would shut up about what kind of sunglasses the running mate of that plane-crashing, doddering, grumpy guy from Arizona is wearing for a minute, they might notice another election is on its way to being hijacked. Let’s start with the guy in the picture at left (whose outfit would be set off nicely with the addition of a fez, in my opinion). That’s Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen of Wisconsin, known affectionately by his peers as Most Worshipful Grand Master. He’s suing the state of Wisconsin’s election accountability board, a move that some suggest could lead to a “…ballot-counting frenzy similar to Florida’s after the 2000 presidential race”. This is the same guy who went a little bit chicken little in 2006, claiming that terrorists were training in Wisconsin. It’s pretty easy to find stories like these, although you’ll hear little in the corporate media. For instance, Michigan Republicans are zeroing in on African American voters by disallowing votes from addresses that are on record as being in foreclosure. In Mississippi, they’re hiding things at the bottom of the ballot . This kind of stuff will be going on quietly all over the place; that’s just democracy at work. The kind of thing that drives me crazy is how Diebold brazenly got away with manipulating the vote in 2004, is finally admitting their machines were faulty, and still no-one seems to care. If you DO care, check out resources like BlackBoxVoting.org. They have tools like the Black Box Voting Tool Kit, which outlines the Top 5 Things You Can Do To Protect Election 2008. Happy chadding!