b.t.w., the issues that affect me the most?

aren't in any way shape or form party-line politics nor have they ever been (or will ever be) mentioned by either candidate:

• The DMCA, an utterly unconstitutional prohibition on free trade and fair use rights
  
• The Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, effectively destroying the entire concept of a public domain that the founding fathers valued very highly.  I love Mickey Mouse as much as the next guy and I don't want to see him out shilling for gas either, but enough is enough.
  
• The current practice of Patents as applied to business processes and software, which directly affects my rights to use the software I want, write the software I need to write, and free myself from the Microsoft monopoly.

Tax cuts are nothing. These issues directly affect my life, my lifestyle, and my livelyhood, and nobody running for any office (except Rich Boucher in southwestern Virginia) gives a shit about them at all.

i really should test this theory...

a way to eliminate the electoral college and yet still keep a degree to which the states as well as the people decide the presidency:

1) each congressional district gets 1 vote, decided upon by majority-popular vote of its constituents
2) each state gets 2 votes, decided upon by majority-popular vote of its constituents.

thus, taking whole states can still make a difference, but can't overwhelm a majority win of the people.  or vice-versa -- the dense cities might take the state votes, but the rural congressional districts could out-count them.

no, its probably not perfect, but it would be relatively easy to test if there was a simple way to get at all the data.  it would certainly require testing it against the last 5 or 6 elections just to see how it compares against the electoral-college-based results.

--

one of the problems with the current system is that it was devised at a time when people from one state were ALWAYS from that one state, and knew they always would be.

that's not the case today.  a large portion of the population moves regularly, and not just because of the military.  People who want their vote to matter are sometimes in a state where it simply doesn't, like California or Mass (overwhelmingly Democrat, but for different reasons), or Kansas (now rediculously Republican), and thus grow increasingly disenfranchised.

To make matters worse they're occasionally told "go move to a state where the rest are like you", which 1) is impractical as there may not be a job for them there (hell, there probably already isn't a job for them where they're at, but that's a different issue entirely), and 2) just further divides the nation into extreme states and extreme politics.

Al Franken's having a blast on his show...

he just got off the phone with a news analyst friend at CBS who has exit poll data...and refused to give it out.

"yes, I have exit poll information"

"and what can you conclude from it so far?"

silence...

"well, can you give us a hint as to how things are going?"

"no."

"oh."

(later...)

"what I can tell you is that this year seems to have record turnout."

"so, this is good for Kerry?"

"no."

"oh.  so its good for Bush?"

"no."

--

basically, it ended up an expanded version of the Python election night line "well, we have just received the results from Louton, but what that is, I'm not going to tell you."

the crowd (a live audience in a Cambridge, MA hotel) loved it.

regarding "i'm sick of the election already" posts

like this..., all I have to say is that I used to be apathetically moderate...or moderately apathetic.

Now, I can't afford that luxury anymore.

Truth be told, NOBODY can.  Its that simple.  There is simply too much going on, too many decisions to be made in the next few years, that will directly affect the rest of your life that you simply can not afford to not care.

for kmusser

interesting election speech, 1968.

Place your trust in the old regime.  The policies are defined.  The future, certain.  The old regime forever!

And the old Number Two forever...

Confession by coersion, is that what you want?  Vote for him and you have it!

OR?

Stand firm upon this electoral platform and speak a word without fear!

The word is "freedom"!

----

...be seeing you...

more election coverage, a-la monty python

http://www.holysmoke.org/wb/wb0198.htm

no, he's probably not going to say it...

but I think Senator Leahy, sitting on 67% of the vote in Vermont so far, can say, "No, Mr. Cheney, YOU Go Fuck Yourself!"

i've added the numbers...

on the assumption (now confirmed by ABC anyways) that Bush would take FL, which I called 2 weeks ago, OHIO will be the deciding factor.

even if Kerry takes everything he's currently leading in (NV (stil close), IA, WI (still close), MI, NH (still close)), he'll still only have 268 without OH.

on the other hand, Bush won't win without OH either (258 if you add CO, NM, AK, HI), unless he gets BOTH WI AND NV (bringing him to 273), so we're going to be going for a while whilst all the lawsuits and late night counting (thanks to the long lines that appearantly are STILL long in columbus, cincinatti, and cleveland, all of which are likely to add votes to kerry) take place.

unless something dramatic changes in Colorado (there's still half of Denver to report in) AND Kerry holds onto Wisconsin, we're down to one state, surrounded in a quagmire of lawsuits, deciding everything.

Now, Kerry having WI AND either CO, HI, or AK, leads to a definite win with between 272 and 277 possible, but CO is going to be tough and I personally wouldn't bet on it (actually just since i typed it, Bush's lead in the counting jumped and MSNBC just called it), nor Alaska given that there are more people who think there will be jobs and money if big oil gets their way against the environmentally conscience. Hawaii is hard to tell in that neither candidate had more than 50% (or actually more than 46%) in the last pre-election polls.

--

updated numbers (12:45am):
Bush -- 246 + 5 (NM) + 3 (AK) = 254 -- Ohio makes his win a given.

Kerry -- 206 + 34 (IA, MN, MI) = 240 -- Ohio brings him to 260, meaning he needs 3 of the 4 states he's leading in but its too close to call:  HI (4), NV (5), NH (4), WI (10) will bring him up to 263

and that's that.  Bush wins with OH, *or* he needs WI and two other small states that kerry's leading in...

HOWEVER, THE TIE IS STILL POSSIBLE: Bush getting WI + only NV only gets him 269, and if OH to Kerry, and it all goes to the House.

at any rate, its still like I quoted a 'Post editorial 5 months ago: sit down, shut up, and watch Ohio pick the president.