Voting 2006

For once, I'm not going to rant about Fanatican malfeasanse. :-) Several friends have asked me about the voting guides I used for tomorrow's vote, so here they are:

1. Speak Out California - http://speakoutca.org/now/2006general.php - Jenny sent me this one and it's a quick overview of all the major issues. However, it's lacking details at the city and county level.
2. San Francisco Bicycle Coalition - http://www.sfbike.org/?vote - there are three recommendations that affected me as a daily bicycle commuter. So I went with them there.
3. San Francisco Bay Guardian - http://tinyurl.com/steoh - very comprehensive endorsement pages. They include a non-legalese explanation of each candidate and proposition. The downside is that you have to read through a lot of things. We voted via Absentee ballots so we took our time wading through all of it.

This is the first time we voted absentee (though we didn't leave town) and I'm now a big fan. I have the ballots in front of me and can take my time reading through all the cruft. It's leisurely and I feel that I'm voting responsibly and in a well-informed manner. Moreover, I don't have to change my schedule on voting day to go to a polling place. Just note two things:

1. Your absentee ballot has to arrive by 8:00 PM on voting day. If you haven't mailed it ahead of time, you can hand deliver it to your polling place.
2. If you're hand delivering for someone else (e.g., spouse, parents, children), they have to sign an extra spot in the back of the envelope that authorizes someone else to deliver for them.

Lastly, PLEASE VOTE. Not only is it your civic responsibility - e.g., driving sober, paying taxes, etc - it's your personal responsibility to yours, your children's, and your community's future.

Caesar and Bush

A blog commenter compares Julius Caesar and George W. Bush in a comment to this main blog entry: Blame for Iraq Extends Far Beyond the GOP (good read, by the way). In short, the commenter writes:

Julius Caesar was an ambitious, vainglorious, would-be tyrant. George W Bush is a modest and self-deprecating one.

Hee hee.

Gonorrhea Lectim

This came through the mail recently...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a warning about a new virulent strain of Sexually Transmitted Disease. The disease is contracted through dangerous and high-risk behavior.

The disease is called Gonorrhea Lectim and pronounced "gonna re-elect him." Many victims contracted it in 2004, after having been screwed for the past four years. Cognitive characteristics of individuals infected include: anti-social personality disorders, delusions of grandeur with messianic overtones, extreme cognitive dissonance, inability to incorporate new information, pronounced xenophobia and paranoia, inability to accept responsibility for own actions, cowardice masked by misplaced bravado, uncontrolled facial smirking, ignorance of geography and history, tendencies towards evangelical theocracy, categorical all-or-nothing behavior. Naturalists and epidemiologists are amazed at how this destructive disease originated only a few years ago from a single bush found in Texas.

Republicans Steal Another $22 Billion

According to this International Herald Tribune article, the Fanaticans have stolen another $22 Billion from the U.S. public.

To be fair, $22 Billion divided over 220 million taxpayers* comes to only $100 a person - which is chump change when compared to the $2 Trillion [!!!] that the Iraq Debacle (or is that Bush Quagmire) will end up costing the U.S. public.

I know what you're gonna say: the $2 Trillion is worth it. The reasons are summarized in this video from the 2004 Republican National Convention in NYC.

[*] The U.S. probably does not have 220 million taxpayers, but this over-estimate makes it easy to do the math in your head.

An Equation for Our Times

Being passed around via email...