very telling, I think...

2 things.  One cool, one troublesome...

Cool: Our polling place had 1 paperless touch-screen machine and 3 paper-ballot "stations".  Only 1 person used the touch-screen while I was there.  The rest, like me, were perfectly content to wait in line with our paper ballots and be sure that our vote will be counted right.

Troublesome: I've held no restraint on my contempt for current Republican party policy, but at the same time I prefer (as most do) not to vote for one because I'm voting against the other.  The current situation has made that inevitable, of course, but that wasn't really what bothered me.  What bothered me was the fact that the thought running through my head was "Do I really want to vote for her 'cause she's probably not going to win?"

not "Do I really want to vote for her 'cause she really doesn't have any experience?".

not "Do I really want to vote for her 'cause I really don't know how she stands on science education (though I can reasonably guess) or other issues?".

not even "Do I really want to vote for her 'cause not everything the other guy has done has sucked, just a few things?".

it was "Do I really want to vote for her 'cause I don't think she'll win?".

And that bothered me greatly.

A typical American thought to be sure, but I had kinda hoped that my education, my intellect, my reason would have kept me from thinking that most basic and primitive of "join the bandwagon" thoughts.  It's thinking like that, primitive and base "only the winning matters", which created the two parties and has kept us in a two party system since 1783.

David Broder on a collegue

David S. Broder - Beyond Election Day - washingtonpost.com:

I mourn the death of a great reporter and a good friend and colleague, Helen Dewar, who gave Post readers definitive coverage of Virginia politics and the Senate over the past decades. She dominated those beats without ever raising her voice or flaunting her knowledge, and she managed to do everything -- including fight the breast cancer that killed her -- with immense dignity and good humor.

the curse of sharing everything...

Must We Talk? - New York Times:

Of course, these ideological divides are small compared with the ones in the blogosphere, which is one giant version of the Colorado experiment. You can always find a group online to affirm your brilliant opinions. It’s immensely satisfying, but it can also make Election Day a miserable experience. Tonight, you can’t help noticing how many ignorant people out there disagree with you.

The "Colorado experiment" he describes is where the cities of slightly "left" "Boulder and slightly "right" Colorado Springs each had independent roundtable/town hall meetings on some of today's issues and the result was that Boulder moved more to the left and Colorado Springs moved more to the right - each driven in the direction they were going as a result of their isolation from dissent or their unification against the minority view expressed in the meeting.

I just can't laugh loud enough at the irony of this...

Thomas M. Davis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Davis won election to the House in 1994, the year of the Republican Contract with America, which called for citizen-legislators, who would retire after 12 years, instead of career politicans. Davis voted in favor of the Citizens Legisature Act; however, the bill did not achieve support from the 2/3 majority needed for the amendment to pass.

Davis is seeking re-election in 2006.

Bookmark: How to do a Good PowerPoint Lecture

might be useful for you teacher-types out there...

Uncertain Principles: How to Do a Good PowerPoint Lecture:

Having strongly stated my opinion that PowerPoint is not actively evil, but can be used to give good scientific presentations as well as soul-crushingly dull bullet-point talks, I feel like I ought to say something to back it up. Here, then, are some of the rules of thumb I use when putting together a good PowerPoint talk...

Federal government continues to break its own laws

There is, I'm pretty sure, a law tucked away that says that the federal government MUST give all employees adequate time to vote.

Well, a listener of WTOP wrote an email in to the question of the day, "why didn't you vote?" saying that her division was NOT given any time off or leeway for late arrival / early departure to vote, in violation of that law.

On top of that, the letter asked that the name and address not be read on the air because whistle-blowing is not tolerated in her department and she would likely get fired.

It's not just corruption at the top, here...this is rampant all through the system now...

take the votes, no matter how they got there? old "Bobby Smooth" is at it again...

Sample Ballots in Pr. George's Misidentify Candidates - washingtonpost.com:

Inaccurate sample ballots describing Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and Senate candidate Michael S. Steele as Democrats were handed out to voters in at least four polling sites in Prince George's County this morning.

The ballots were distributed by people who said they arrived by buses this morning from Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Erik Markle, one of the people handing out literature for Ehrlich, who is seeking reelection, and Steele, the current lieutenant governor who is campaigning to replace retiring Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D), said he was recruited at a homeless shelter in Philadelphia.

After a two-hour bus ride to Maryland, Markle said the workers were greeted early this morning by first lady Kendel Ehrlich, who thanked them as they were outfitted in T-shirts and hats with the logo for Ehrlich's reelection campaign. Nearly all of those recruited, Markle said, are poor and black. Workers traveled to Maryland in at least seven large buses.

Ehrlich said he wasn't aware of the hiring of workers from out-of-town.

"If folks are here from out of town that's fine with me. That's what the Democrats have always done. It's legal and it's what the Democrats have done forever. This is a story?

"If we've finally caught up with the Democrats that's fine," he added. "People asked me about ballots and other stuff. That's not my job. I've got other things to do."

In other words, rather than actually say you're BETTER than your opponents and the alledged actions of the past, take some moral high ground, and condemn the immoral (if not necessarilly illegal) actions of members of your own party, you'll just take the votes as they come no matter how they got there.

Says a lot about you, I think.

At this point, I certainly see that you perceive the MD voting process as that giant slot machine you'd been trying to legalize and you're the house.

I still say they've got it backwards

Listening to the 5.1 mix from the new Two Towers Complete Recordings cd set (Best Buy isn't carrying it, unlike Fellowship, so I had to go to B&N instead).

The main problem I have with it?  Just like Fellowship, they've got the liner notes backwards.  The booklet in the CD has the heavy music-analysis stuff on themes and variations and all that technical lot and (assuming they publish it online, as it's not there yet) the pdf @ the website has the track-by-track rundown of what you're actually hearing.

This is backwards.  Only the really die-hard nutball (like ME!) is interested in actually seeing sheet-music score and is willing to go download it.  If I've bought the thing, I'm likely more interested right away in the track-by-track descriptions as I'm listening to it for the first time, and I'll go look at the score and thematic analysis later.

It's like giving me color commentary before the play-by-play has said anything - it just doesn't work.

The music, on the other hand, is fantastic.  Lots of little details and blending of themes that were left out of the original 1-disc CD from 2002.

Shame we gotta wait another year for Return of the King...

Also, amazon still doesn't have a listing for Doug Adams book on the music which was supposed to be out this year.  They may be delaying it until all three scores are out which would really be annoying...

Update: The soundtrack website is updated with the new release and the link to the pdf file.