purple haze

Nov. 5th, 2004 11:40 am
kirkcudbright: (Default)
In case you haven't seen it yet...

Also county-by-county maps.

This is a lot more heartening and calming than the by-county win-loss map over at USA Today, which seems designed to put us in our place.

He says more people voted for him than for any other president in history. He ignores that more people voted against him than against any other president in history. More people voted. This is a participatory democracy. Keep pariticipating. Don't give in, don't let them call this a mandate. If all else fails, obstruct.

acting

Nov. 4th, 2004 10:58 pm
kirkcudbright: (Default)
So I didn't read LJ yesterday. I figure I've got enough bile and vitriol all on my own, I don't need yours. Sorry.

The image to the right is from the UK, where they have a free press...

For the last 4 years, I've been referring to Dubya as the "acting president". Here in the People's Republic of Massachusetts, the constitution does not have a provision for the succession of the governor. The lieutenant governor assumes the office, authority, and responsibilities of the governor, but since s/he has not actually been elected governor, s/he is referred to as "acting governor". Which brings me to the "acting president"... But I guess I'm going to have to shut up about that now.

For the last couple months, I've had a copy of the
Bill of Rights
posted outside my office. Yesterday, Phil started editing out the ones that he felt were already dead. That left us with II, which he feel is under attack but not actually dead, and III (quartering soldiers in private houses). And I, the flaming liberal, find myself more and more in agreement with the flaming libertarian.

Dubya has convinced me that it's finally time for me to learn to shoot. I've previously only shot .22 single-shot rifles at Boy Scout camp, and that was a while ago. I've actually been thinking about this for a couple years, esp. since the skating rink we go to every week is right next to the local gun club. I'm at peace with the gun thing, but I really don't have time for yet another hobby.



WRT the cute vermin, I've also been googling about Hantavirus. The CDC maps show 1 case reported in Masschusetts, but no exposures in Massachusetts. In other words, this one case in MA appears to have been contracted elsewhere. That, and the fact that we've already been exposed to the droppings etc, means that I'm not really worried about hantavirus. So the question returns to: will this individual mouse make a reasonable pet? Time will tell, but it looks promising. She really enjoys running on the wheel, and will periodically stop, get flung off by the momentum of the wheel, and climb right back on. She seems not at all intimidated by the cats hanging around outside the aquarium, or at least no more so than by the people.
kirkcudbright: (Default)
So I did my little lame civic duty today in New Hampshire. I thought I might work a "pull team", going door-to-door to identified Kerry voters who hadn't voted yet, chivvying them along to the polls. Instead, I found myself doing "visibility", i.e. holding a sign for 5 hours outside an elementary school. I'd hope there aren't voters who are so undecided that the presence of a few signs actually sways their vote. But it's "showing the flag", demonstrating the energy and enthusiasm of our side, and it at least shows Kerry supporters and Kerry leaners that they're in good company. And we were showing the flag a whole lot more than the Bush side.

I wasn't inside the polling place, so I can't say what the lines were like, but I saw heavy traffic into the parking lot all day, even in the middle of the afternoon. At 7:30, a fellow coming out told us that there was still a line of people (mostly young people) registering to vote. People don't do that in order to vote for the status quo.

Most of the Kerry volunteers I ran into were from Massachusetts, with a smattering from Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and even New Hampshire. I actually work in NH, so I had slightly more standing to be there... We all had the same thought, which was that Mass is a complete lock for Kerry (or the Democratic hamster of the year), but NH is a toss-up, so the effort is better spent getting the vote out in NH. I worked a couple hours with a fellow who grew up in Andover (next town over from where I live), and who lives in Northampton (where I grew up). He's working on a graduate degree in History of Science at UMass (I took a minor in History at Umass), and working at new comic store called Modern Myths. Big shout-out to Mike. (And kudos for Desert Peach and Bitchy Bitch on the home page picture. If I'd been reading comics in the last 7 years, I might recognize more of the other characters.)

Yipe. In the time I've been typing this, NH has gone from Kerry by 4% to Bush by 0.2% to Kerry by 1%.

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Paul Selkirk

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