Hey everyone! To get us off on the funny path, if you have AIM put irishtc35 on your buddy list. Click on his name, click on get file and check out his movies. If you’re a fan of The State, you’ll love his stuff. This is humor and quality you don’t expect from a college student.
I’m pretty sure there’s news ah yes.
Nader’s Of The Lost Cause
Ralph Nader announced that he is once again going to run for President, striking terror into the hearts of Democrats around the country. “IT WAS RALPH NADER WHO COST US THE ELECTION IN 2000!†“HE’S DOOMING US TO ANOTHER 4 YEARS OF BUSH!†“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS PATHETIC LITTLE MAN? DOESN’T HE KNOW THAT KERRY IS A FORMER VIETNAM PROTESTOR? I THOUGHT LIBERALS LOVED THOSE STINKING HIPPIES?†The voices in my head said other things, but they’re too dirty to print here.
Anyway, with all the panicking going on I thought now would be a good time to take a look at what Ralph Nader really did to destroy Gore in the 2000 election. The results are courtesy of cnn.com.
Tennessee: Bush received 1,056,480 votes. Gore received 977,789 votes. Ralph Nader received 19,694 votes. Had Gore received every vote that Nader got, Gore still would have lost his home state.
Colorado: Bush received 884,047 votes to Gore’s 736,470 votes. Nader received 91,482 votes. Together, Nader and Gore lost by over 50,000 votes to Bush.
Arizona: Bush beat Gore and Nader combined by over 35,000 votes.
Arkansas: Bush beat Gore and Nader combined by over 38,000 votes.
Missouri: Bush beat Gore and Nader combined by a little over 40,000 votes.
Nevada: Bush beat Gore and Nader combined by a little over 6,000 votes.
Ohio: Bush received 2,294,167 votes. Gore received 2,117,741 votes and Nader receives 114,483 votes. Bush beat them combined by over 70,000 votes.
West Virginia: Bush beat Gore and Nader combined by a little over 28,000 votes.
Iowa, Oregon, New Mexico, Washington, Wisconsin and Minnesota: Although Gore won in these six states, he only barely beats Bush thanks to strong showings by Ralph Nader. In fact, in states like Massachusetts, Maryland and Michigan and New York that Gore won handily, Ralph Nader had his strongest showings.
New Hampshire: Gore received 265,853 votes, Nader received 22,156 votes and Bush received 273,135 votes. Had Gore received one third of Nader’s votes, Gore would have won New Hampshire. According to the exit polls, a slight majority of people who voted for Ralph Nader would have voted for Gore.
Florida: Bush defeated Gore by 930 votes. Ralph Nader received 97,419 votes. Pat Buchanan pretty much openly admitted that he received about 1,000 votes meant for Al Gore. According to exit polls, when asked who they’d vote for if the race was only between Gore and Bush, 1% of the people who said Bush voted for Nader and 1% of the people who picked Gore voted for Nader. While I find these numbers to be misleading as they are in contrast to almost all political theory, they are the numbers.
In all of the other states, Bush won easily or Gore won easily. That means that the only negative impact that Nader had on Gore was in New Hampshire and Florida. This year is going to be different. In 2000, Ralph Nader painted himself as the voice of the college student, the person who the democrat candidate should have been. Whether fairly or unfairly, he now holds the title of the man who cost Al Gore the election. He is seen as an enemy by Democrats.
Mr. Nader, I’m glad you’re running but I have some advice for you. This election should not be about getting enough votes so that you get equal funds in 2008. That is not going to happen. If that is what you pursue the Democrats are going run campaign ads against you. If the Democrats have to battle against you and Bush, a Kerry presidency bid is in deep trouble. This election should be about cleaning up your image.
How do you do that? You start in Florida doing what Michael Moore did in the waning days of the 2000 election, going to your supporters and telling them that you don’t want to see a single vote cast in your name down there. Tell them that you are grateful for their support but you want to see the Democrats win in Florida by a big enough margin that there won’t be a need for a recount. Then remove your name from the ballot in New Hampshire. With those two moves you’ll immediately be a friend to the Democratic party again and you can begin to use your presence to influence the issues. Campaign in states like New York and Michigan and even the states where Gore barely won to get your points across. The sad fact is that with your label as a spoiler you won’t do nearly as well in any of these states this year, so it would be best to make sure you still make some kind of showing without costing anyone the election.
Ralph, we all know that the system is corrupt and awful and it sucks. It’s great to see that there’s still someone out there fighting for the little guy. If you want any of your issues taken seriously, the first thing you need to do is guarantee the Democrats that you won’t be a problem in Florida. After that, you can fight wherever you want as much as you want. You’re seen as the man responsible for the Bush administration. Become the man responsible for the Kerry administration. It’ll do wonders for you in 2008 when you run Kucinich.
And here’s my favorite writer on the Internet, much more than Chris Hyatte, Gloomchen with
Nihilism and Cupcakes
I’m in debt. I’m more than in debt, in fact. I’ve created an entirely useless quantity of negative dollar amounts attributed solely to my inability to control myself. I know I’m not the only one, but I don’t have a complete college education or a job that pays well enough to repay all of this. Much worse, half the time I don’t repay it at all. This leads to lawsuits against me and my eternal joys of sending checks off to lawyers rather than credit card companies, and years after the worst of the accrued amount, I’ve still got more than half outstanding.
I’ve read online before about crazy people who build websites begging for money — in many cases, they’ve worked. I’m internet-savvy, you know, eleven years toying in and around the web have made me primely set to start my own version of that type of venture. Hell, at one point, my bank account was truly sad and I literally begged my online friends for just a small donation to prevent things from bouncing. I was both elated and humiliated to receive $55 — elated that it was enough to prevent tragedy, but humiliated for having to beg… for lowering myself… and most of all, because all I needed to have in my pocketbook to keep away from NSF fees was that $55. Nothing huge, just what many folks consider to be meager. But I needed it desperately to live.
While it’s always tempting to just ask for free money, that’s never been my intention, nor has it been my style. My new way of bailing myself out of trouble is through everyone’s favorite moneymaker, eBay. As one can tell, I’m not selling things to make a huge profit. I’m selling just to get this stuff out of my house and to bring in enough of a trickle to keep myself able to make necessary bill payments. That is, you know, when I actually pay them. I just want the bill collectors to go away, so I just block them out of my mind, my answering machine, and my mailbox. I know I need to call a debt consolidation company, whether or not they can even help me at this point. The more likely scenario where I’m heading is bankruptcy, because everywhere that takes my money now are law offices and collection bureaus, not nice little card companies that are willing to negotiate your interest rate.
I don’t mean to sound like I’m looking for the pity train here. I’m the one who bought everything in sight which got myself into this mess. Not only that, I’m the one who bought shoddy products with this line of credit, so nothing that I bought is even useful to me at this point. I have nothing but my new computer which I bought on money I saved up for an entire year, no credit involved. My car is 14 years old. I buy most of my clothes on eBay, at Goodwill, or on clearance racks. I grew up poor so it’s not like I’m suddenly feeling thrust into the ghetto, but at the same time, this also means I have no relatives that could help me out. These days, most of my money goes to groceries, bills, and whatnot, with the occasional fun stuff like every person in the USA tends to splurge upon. But I’m earning it back, slowly.
I’m 26 years old and I live at home because I can’t afford not to. I’ve lived elsewhere — that’s where my problems began, nothing says “live on credit” like two roommates who ditch your lease — but I’m not so concerned about that right now. I’m doing okay, even though it’s miles below the poverty line. For the most part, even when things are pretty bleak, I’m still generally happy. Things won’t be better for a long time, but they’re well enough.
I helped my best friend apply for her first credit card. So far, she’s managed to be pretty smart with it. It also helps that she was raised to be a complete tightwad, and she panics if she has less than $5,000 in her savings account. She has a newer car with payments she can easily afford, which honestly she wouldn’t have even thought to buy without me talking her into it. My boyfriend, his credit is far better than mine, but he’s had his share of problems as well, and neither one of us are going to be financially secure anytime soon. My mother essentially uses one of her two monthly paychecks to pay a lawyer for a settlement she had with one of her cards. In other words, there’s no end to the empty wallets in sight. I feel like a walking financial disaster who poisons all within her reach. But, hey, we all serve some kind of purpose in this world. I guess this is mine.
Take a look at your checkbook, your wallet, your online bank statement, your credit card bills. Read this again if you have to. No CD, no electronic trinket, no sale ad, no new toy is worth getting yourself into my situation. Sure, you might have a better background than I do and someone might be able to save your butt if you screw up royally. Then again, maybe they won’t. Never mind that at any time, something could happen that could stick you far beneath the red: a motor vehicle accident, a surprise health problem, natural disasters, the mafia. Whatever… cover your ass.
For that, kiddies, is the moral to this story. And maybe it’s the answer to my own problems. See, although I probably have about $15k to go before I’m free and clear, I’m making a dent by selling all my stuff. I’d sell a lung if I could, since I assume someone out there with emphysema would pay a good chunk of cash for it. If only I didn’t once weigh as much as a small cow, I’d have a body decent enough to flaunt online for even more bucks. Believe me, I’ve been considering every way legally to give myself an extra boost up and out of harm’s way. Maybe you have better ideas; I’d sure love to hear them. In the meantime: bid high. If you don’t like this chunk, wait a week. There will be more.
Definitely let me know if you need a lung.
You May Now Kiss The Bride. Oh Yeah. That’s Hot. Rub Each Other’s Titties. Oh Yeah.
In case you couldn’t tell by my delightfully funny and not at all offensive headline and the fact that it has been in the news non-stop for the past week, San Francisco is allowing gay people to get married. I’m honestly torn on this.
It’s not that I don’t think gay people shouldn’t be allowed to get married. Far from that. I don’t think that anyone should be told that their love is wrong. A big deal was made about the treatment of women in both Iraq and Afganistan, but I had to do a hell of a lot of research to discover that homosexuality is not only illegal in those countries, it is punishable by death. How about that, huh? Turn out that we have something in common with the enemy. We don’t kill our fags, but we hate them so much that we’re willing to protest to deny them rights. We’re trying to amend our constitution to deny them rights. Is this what the fathers of our country imagined, the men who signed a letter to the King of England that said: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. I’m reasonably sure the founding fathers didn’t like the gays, but I don’t think they’d want their constitution to be used to deny anyone the right to the pursuit of Happiness.
So yes, I’m for the right of a gay man to marry another gay man or a gay woman to marry another gay woman. When we hold wedding ceremonies for our dogs (type in dog wedding on google) it’s kind of ridiculous that we hold onto the argument of the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman as a way to deprive gay people the right to celebrate their union. I just don’t know if San Francisco has gone about it the right way.
To justify San Francisco’s decision, I think about December 1st, 1955. There was a tired black woman on a crowded bus in Alabama who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. One year later, on December 21st, 1956, Rosa Parks celebrated as the Supreme Court banned segregation on public buses. With one act of defiance a revolution had begun, and soon segregation was no more. Unjust laws had been defeated through civil disobedience.
But is that what is going on in San Francisco? Is Mayor Gavin Henson the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the hundreds of now married gay couples Rosa Parks? I don’t know. With Vermont and Massachusetts having already legalized gay marriage, I do not think such a drastic measure needed to be taken. We were baby stepping along, and if a democrat were to win the presidency next year there was a very good chance gay marriage would have been legalized. Instead, the opponents of gay marriage are coming out in full force to fight this. Where there was once talk of civil unions there is now talk of constitutional amendments. Segregation was nowhere near over when Rosa Parks took a stand by taking a sit. Gay marriage was on its way and San Francisco shoved it down everyone’s throat. So I really don’t know how to feel about this issue. I only know that the enemies of this issue are funny.
In what must be a popular move with his Hollywood friends, Governor Conan is fighting San Francisco’s decision. I love this quote from the AP Media. “In San Francisco it is license for marriage of same sex. Maybe the next thing is another city that hands out licenses for assault weapons and someone else hands out licenses for selling drugs, I mean you can’t do that,” Schwarzenegger said on Meet The Press. Hey, um, Republicans, maybe you’d do well to find another spokesman on this issue. We wouldn’t want the Democrats showing this picture to anyone. It would seem to me that the governor is very much into defying God’s will. Disgusting.
And here we are. A C student who drank and did cocaine a lot who was just barely sort of elected President and a sexually abusive former Mr. Universe who was not born in America and has trouble expressing a coherent sentence are fighting to deny homosexuals the right to marry one another. Meanwhile, a Vietnam Veteran who protested the war in Vietnam and now exploits that he served in Vietnam has been accused of sleeping with an intern after he defeated a screaming former governor from Vermont who never had a black person in his cabinet who was the first front runner because he made a lot of money thanks to a picture of him eating a turkey sandwich. America is the greatest country on Earth.
And here with sports is my own little me, Stephen Randle, with
The Short Sports Report with Stephen Randle
Good morning, how are you doing, I’m fine. Enough small talk, on to the sports.
The world is still talking about the Alex Rodriguez trade, and well, okay, really, only all the sports analysts in North America, but they like to think they represent the world. Grut suggested I complain that A-Rod was traded to the Yankees instead of the Maple Leafs, but after much consideration, I realized that the Leafs actually want decent players. Plus it’s the wrong sport, but I think that was part of the joke. I do have a penchant for missing stuff like that.
In more good news, Mike Weird won the Nissan Open this weekend. While considering golf, I discussed with some friends why it is that golfers still get reasonable, single-digit under par scores at the major golf tournaments, but on some of the throwaway tourneys, you see scores of like –20. How easy must most golf courses be to pros? Maybe I should ask Eric S, he seems to actually know something about pro golf.
The NBA is all aflutter about whether or not Kobe Bryant will return to the Lakers after his contract expires in the offseason. Personally, I’d be more interested in whether or not Kobe is playing for any team next year. Though I find it more likely that, since she doesn’t score 20 points a game, his accuser’s case will be dismissed and Kobe will go free. Trust me, I’m just waiting until I’m rich and famous, so I can ignore the law, morality, and all those other pesky things.
You know what TSN is showing every day now? Curling. You know what’s worse? I enjoy watching it. Well, when nothing else is on, anyway. Still not entirely sure how the game is played, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the intricacies of the game. Actually, I guess it does.
And the NHL trade deadline is approaching, with Ottawa and Philadelphia getting started early by picking up such excess baggage as Peter Bondra and Alex Zhamnov. Of course, the Leafs have done nothing, but that doesn’t mean they won’t. But probably it does. Be a Leafs fan, expect less. Then you occasionally get pleasantly surprised.
Jeremy Roenick has said that he’s actually feeling worse now than when he originally got his ninth concussion, but still intends to return for the playoffs. Eric Lindros has said the same (though the Rangers making the playoffs, as usual, is a laughable concept). Good plan, it’s just your brain, it’s not like you need that for every human function.
Oh, and because I threatened that I would, here’s some CFL news. The league is planning to institute drug testing for the first time in its history. Of course, then you look at the average size of a CFL player compared to an NFL player, and you wonder exactly what they’ll be testing for.
And that’s it. Go find your reason for being somewhere else. Until next week, anyway.
On behalf of Gloomchen and Randle, this is Joshua Grutman wishing you a good week.
