Randy, if fifty-one people live in fifty square miles and forty-eight people live in ten square miles, the ten people don't massively outnumber the hundred people just cause they take up more space.

Dave,

I think I see what you mean but part of the problem is that American liberals show those same signs of cultural isolationism. It's just that their isolation is within a different group. This is why the reaction to the Swift vets' charges had taken them by surprise when they should have seen it coming. And they've got morals too; it's just a different set.

One interesting tidbit is that the gay marriage issue wasn't started by the Republicans. While it may have been part of the Bush campaign's strategy, it only came up after being pushed by Massachussetts Democrats (the gift that keeps on giving). It was carried along on the campaign like a side dish for those who were concerned about it. Bush never had a chance of getting an amendment passed nationally, and I doubt that he'll pursue it now. Several states had this on their ballots, and that drove voter turnout for Republicans, but you should really blame Massachusetts Democrats.

I've speculated elsewhere that one possible reason we've had close elections may be due to the improved use of computers to model groups of voters. The gay marriage issue is a perfect example of that but I'm sure it was applied by both sides to every factor in the race to modulate their entire campaigns.

Edited by author 11-03-2004 07:39 PM
The thing that gets me is that 22% of people polled said they voted the way they did for moral\value related reasons. This is the largest group of voters, and they voted overwhelmingly for Bush.

Don't they realize as a politician that morals and values are those things you espouse only when you're unable to truly and effectively deal with the real world?

What happened to the general image of a polititican being a crooked, immoral, bastard? I'll tell you what happened: evangelical christians. After too many years of Pat Robertson and the Reverend Ivan T Yermuny, I believe their brains have atrophied. I like to call that: "faith".

Randy, I know rural England isn't the same as rural America, but I see some of the same apparent difference between rural and urban culture. I look back over my own life, and I know how little I knew of ethnic minorities and such things as gay culture.

Part of it's simply changine times, and a part is seeing the world, not just the pre-packaged tourist world. Paertly though SF fandom, partly through the Internet, I was able to escape the cultural wilderness.

America sent a mass Army out into the world in the forties of the last century, and now those soldiers are fading away. They're the people who saw Paree, and who couldn't be kept down on the farm. And they're fading away.

But it's that Army (and Navy) which came home and made America what it was.

Free beers at my place tonight for anyone who's crying at the crazyness of the world.

I always find the exploding whale video a great comfort:

http://perp.com/whale/

(redneck park rangers use TNT to dispose of a rotting whale with hilarious consequences)

My condolences to those of you who wanted the opportunist gigalo to win.

Here's a map that's sort-of irrelevent politically, but may be fascinating for a view of our society:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselect...e2004/countymap.htm

They have a tab to see the 2000 election too.

As evenly divided as we are, you can see that Bush counties have a lot more land area, and that was true in 2000 as well. The difference is staggering.

There are singularity-related implications in this but you can mull them over after you've cried in your beer or laughed in your champaign.

I want to move here.

http://spontoon.rootoon.com/SPwHome1.html

I was thinking that maybe we should start our own party. These guys have the right idea, but I was thinking perhaps we could go a little more left than the 'man' himself...

http://www.cthulhu.org/

The general tone of the news that it appears that Bush the Younger has won combined with general computery stuff to lead to this:

http://www.boingboing.net/2004/07/28/cthulhoid_casemod.html

which seemed somewhat appropriate.

Of course if the majority of the provisional votes are counted and they tend to Kerry, then sanity may still prevail.

Edited by author 11-03-2004 03:04 AM
Have to agree that Bush appears to have won.

There is some good news tho, as it means that the leader of the Sucker boom will have to suffer its consequences.

Downside is that the next 4 years are going to be very interesting times to live in.

My projection: Bush has won.

The US, it seems, is either masochistic, or retarded.

Probably both.

In the words of a great great fictional man:
"I hate it here."

Seasonal sysadmin tales?

shwi also provided The Once And Future Prime Minister

On the plus side, it looks like tending towards celebratory beer at the moment. But we shall see.

Edited by author 11-02-2004 07:08 PM
Some webcomics that might be a suitable distraction, all available from the beginning:

Something Positive
Partially Clips
Sluggy Freelance

Wow, this site is unforgiving of a typo! Do not mistype a single quote for a double quote when inserting HTML!

Edited by author 01-03-2003 03:05 PM
Looks to me like a poisonous snake too - the sort that normally finds a nice warm place under some corrugated iron in sunny Queensland (the website is University of Qld). My mother lives in North Queensland and when her printer died, she was told that it was due to Gecko poo. Crunchy bits from bugs fell into the paper tray often enough that the works got jammed.

I always wondered what a binary adder looked like...