Anyone who has known me for any length of time has probably heard me rant about how unfair the Electoral College is, and how any system that allows for a President to be elected when they lose the popular vote is a system not worth using. Well… today is your day to gloat …. or to pass out from shock.
I still believe it is wrong for someone to “win” an election when they have lost the popular vote. I believe that is a flaw in the system, but one that could be fixed if congress would just take the time to do it. I suppose since it has only happened 4 times (as of today.. I’ll be watching this year’s election *quite* closely) they must not think it a problem worthy of their attention. In my opinion, it should never have happened at all. But I digress…
Yes, there are problems with the system, but I have come to make peace with it, as flawed as it is. It is NOT because I have switched to a Jeffersonian mindset; i do not think people are too stupid or uninformed to be able to vote for the president directly. However, I do now see that the Electoral College system ensures an even distribution of power between the states. In the same way the House of Representatives strives to ensure equal voice for the citizenry of the country, so too does the Electoral College strive to ensure equal weight for the votes of that citizenry.
It is quite possible that this equalization has been a strong factor in how our country has survived for so long without imploding. A representative democracy is not an easy thing to maintain, yet we;ve managed to keep it running. I’m beginning to think that some of these things, which I have been so verbally against for so many years, have actually been part of the glue that has held this country together.
That said… I still have one issue: The Electors themselves. Quite honestly, they seem superfluous to me. Many (but not all) states have created laws that say the Electors are required to cast their votes in line with the popular votes of the state. Those state lacking such laws have Electors who are mealy “pledged” to vote a certain way; they are legally free to vote however they wish. With more and more states passing laws to remove the “pledged” part of the Electoral College, and even some states moving from an all-or-nothing division of Electoral Votes to a congressional district division of Electoral Votes, it seems odd to me that we still have physical Electors… people who simply go to a meeting and hand in the states votes. It seems to me that we should be able to cut out the middle man. Thy have already been stripped of independant thought in many states, so why not get rid of them completely?
The states collect popular votes and divide up the Electoral Votes however they wish, and then simply report to the Federal Government on how their Electoral Votes have been cast. Simple. Done, and Done. Why do we even bother with the physical Elector anymore?
Anyway… there you go: I’m okay with the Electoral College now. I see the underlying benefit it has on our government and in how it helps ensure political stability across so many different states. All we have to do is get rid of the superfluous physical Elector, and fix the holes that allow someone to lose the popular vote yet still win the election, and you’ll never hear me complain about it again
Looking at this list of 2008 Presidential Candidates it really surprises me that people actually still support a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. I mean… really? A constitutional amendment? Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Fair and Speedy Trial, and No Marriage for Fags. A bit of a non sequitur, don’t you think?
Didn’t we learn anything from that dark time in our history when it was illegal for whites and blacks to marry? Oh, but that’s different I suppose… at least they were still opposite genders, right? I mean, the fact that they tried to use the Bible to support their argument then doesn’t mean anything, right? Not like today. Today it’s totally different, and the use of the Bible to try and support the argument is completely valid.
Meh.. at this point I’m already blue in the face. What makes scares me more is how States are starting to pick and choose which legal contracts from other states they will honor and which they wont. Same-sex marriage issues aside, I feel this is a dangerous precedent for States to be setting. I wonder if Texas will begin to not recognize marriages between a Republican and a Democrat. Talk about an abomination!
Okay.. so.. John and I went to the movies this afternoon. We saw Beowulf. It was a good film, but took great liberties with the story. Afterwards we had dinner at Outback.
We had just walked up to our building when we heard some screams for help. We had the front door open, as we looked around for the source of the calls. It was the screams of a woman, “Help!” A man on the sidewalk on our side of the street was yelling back, “Where are you?!” as we could not see any signs around the street as to who could have been calling for help. “Help! I’m in the building!” Was the reply. At this point a very broad-shouldered man bolted from the building across the street from us and ran at top speed across the street… right for us. People on the other side of the street called to us, “Look out!” and we promptly shut the door to our building. Though… we were now stuck on the OUTside of the building, with this crazed man trying to get IN. It was at this point that I noticed the blood on his hands.
It came as quite a shock to both John and me that the man was able to break into our “secured entrance” building simply by pulling hard on the door. At this point John calls 911. I check through the windows to see if I can see where the guy went, and observe him rolling on his back under the lobby counter by our mailboxes. A few moments pass, with John repeating our address over and over again to the rather inept DC emergency call service, and then the guy runs out of our building. John screams into the phone that the man was fleeing the scene. That’s when the man grabbed John and started pulling him. Another resident of our building and I jumped on the man and pulled him off of John. We attempted to calm him down, and to keep him from reaching into his pockets. As soon as he heard the sirens he tried to run back into our building again. I managed to pin him against the wall at one point, but he was desperate. He pushed back, and tried one last time to get past the three of us. The other resident who was there tackled the man, at which point the police rushed up and handcuffed the man.
He ended up getting blood all over my jacket, and ripped my shirt to pieces (I really liked that shirt too). There were 5 or 6 police cars, an ambulance and a fire truck, all in a chorus of disarray in front of our building. It didn’t appear to me as though there was anyone “in charge” of the situation, which was kind of frustrating because no one seemed particularly interested in the woman we heard screaming for help from the other building. They just seemed confused as to why neither John nor I wished to be taken to the hospital.
After the cop cars had left, and John and I were walking the dogs, we noticed a single car over at the building across the street, with an officer speaking to people in the lobby. That made me feel better; I was glad they had actually heard that part of our story. Wanting to make sure that the man was charged with as much as possible, we went across the street to speak with the officer. Now that things had calmed down he was in a better position to take down our information properly. We were relieved to learn that the woman was not hurt. The blood was apparently his own from trying to beat the woman’s door in… unsuccessfully.
Whatever her doors are made of, I want for our building’s doors.
John and I usually throw a Halloween party. In fact, I believe that we’ve had a Halloween party every year for the past 5 years… except this year. I’m not sure why we didn’t have one, exactly, but it just didn’t seem to come together this year. No big deal.
At the last minute we thought we would invite a few local friends over to watch scary movies - if they didn’t have other plans, or course. Roy was the only one that made it over, and we had a nice time playing Guitar Hero II&III, watching Rosemary’s Baby, and catching a few episodes of the Totally Rad Show (I’m very behind [blush]).
So anyway… the night ran pretty late. I offered to drive Roy home, so he wouldn’t have to deal with the metro (and walking to the metro). As we were walking out to the car, we got pelted with eggs. Yes, that’s right: pelted with eggs.
In our case, we were on foot and the egg-ers were in a car. A white van, to be exact. They slowed down a little, the passenger opened his door (there ya go buddy.. open your door while the car is moving, yeah, that’s real smart. I guess he didn’t realize that magic viewing portal embedded in the door could be opened instead) and chucked a few eggs at us.. then they sped away.
Fun times.
I could make some comments on the socio-economic make up of the city, and how it generally appears that persons of certain strata seem to be the common link in cases such as these… but I wont. That would be horribly insensitive and narrow minded of me. So instead, I’ll go wash the egg off my clothes.
I tried to find a clever picture for this post… but I decided against it. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of clever pictures out there, I just figured it wasn’t really all that important to the post. I guess. Not that my post is really going to be all that awe inspiring.
I now work in a mostly male, mostly young-ish, mostly techie (niched as it may be), mostly geekie (by any definition) office. This is a first for me. So, in this environment I am experiencing some rather … interesting … bathroom behavior from which, up until now, I have been sheltered.
The “double flush” and “prezip flush” are two such … interesting … behaviors. I really don’t understand this. So there I am, standing at the urinal, minding my own business and someone comes up next to me. In the middle of “facilitating the utilities” he flushes. And stands there. Still “going.” When done, he flushes again. Then zips up, and walks away.
?? ??
I don’t understand. It’s not as though you’re going to overflow the urinal and need to flush it away before it spills over on your shoes. It’s not really the same situation as a “courtesy flush” (unless asparagus was a part of lunch)… so what’s with the mid-stream flush?
And why are you flushing before you zip up? Eww! Get your gear in order, then flush and walk away. Why get all that splash-back all over you?? Eww!
So yeah.. there are go. Two things that just plain freak me out. Just two more things to add to the list, right Roy?
