Archive for 10/5/2009 - 17 Tishrei, 5770

According to RealClearPolitics there are only six states that are so close in the polls they are unwilling to say they are leaning in one direction or the other.

That’s right, the average of the recent polls for Missouri show a 2/10 of a point lead for Obama.

Everyone should vote. Everyone’s vote matters. However, I think most of my blog readership lives in Missouri. If the polls are any indication, we are the state this year that has the greatest chance of a 1-vote difference. (Still miniscule, yes. But we have the greatest chance.) And if the person you wouldn’t have voted for won by 1 vote in the state you live in, and you didn’t vote, and you could have actually tied the vote, something that may have caused some television pundits to go batshit crazy…would you ever forgive yourself?)

So. Do I need to say it?

Tuesday. Vote.

Forward to any fan of Anime who is currently undecided…

Ron Howard, Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler speak on the election

Natalie Portman and Rashida Jones speak on the economic crisis

[I added one of the responses below. I will let everyone try to guess which one.]

BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a change! The chicken wanted change!

JOHN McCAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

SARAH PALIN: BECAUSE, I WAS GONNA SHOOT HIS SORRY LIBERAL ASS OFF FOR BLOCKING MY VIEW.

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure right from Day One that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn’t about me.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don’t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

DICK CHENEY: Where’s my gun?

NANCY PELOSI: Under this administration there have been an alarming number of chickens displaced and I intend to stop it. We must pass a chicken crossing bill before all the chickens become displaced and this IS a crisis!

COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that chicken. What is your definition of crossing?

AL GORE: I invented the chicken.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken’s intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he’s guilty! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain, alone.

VICTOR HUGO: No chicken can resist a road whose time has come.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

Missourians can check to see if they are registered to vote by following the link. You will be asked for first name, last name, jurisdiction (county), and your address.

You will be provided with whether or not you are registered, where your polling location will be on November 4, and a link to a sample ballot.

If you’re not registered, it’s too late to do so in Missouri. But if you think you have been removed from the registry incorrectly, they do provide contact info if you believe your voting rights have been violated, and you may be able to vote provisionally. It would be good to know beforehand so you could call their 800 number before November 4 and see what your options are.

I learned that for the first time in six years, I will be asked to vote in a church. I still feel the same way about it. I know the ACLU recommends that I don’t wear any political attire, but there might be other fashion choices that could be fun.

Part One (6:21)

Part Two

You Should Be Allowed to Vote

You got 15/15 questions correct. Generally speaking, you’re very well informed. If you vote this election, you’ll know exactly who (and what) you’ll be voting for. You’re likely to have strong opinions, and you have the facts to back them up.

(but luckily, there isn’t an offline test…as being able to push the backpage button and change answers helped. I was SURE Condoleeza Rice was Vice President.)

Everythings gonna be all right!
Everythings gonna be all right!
Everythings gonna be all right!
Everythings gonna be all right!

Sorry - Thought I was Bob Marley for a second. Had some issues with the blog for the past couple days. I think they’re fixed. Let me know if you don’t think so.

My various Google PageRanks

My page on Twitter: 3
Genealogy Blog: 3
*Transylvaniandutch dot com: 3
*Gavroche dot org4
Victor Hugo Central: 5

This Blog - Not Available (or, in other words, 0)

That’s depressing and weird, as my personal blog has scored a 3 in the past - though that was before I moved it to this address. But I am very happy about VHC, as that’s an increase of 1 since the last time I checked. I recently received an email from someone who wanted to advertise on the site.

* If you follow the links you’ll see it’s the same page, though they get different pageranks depending upon the URL you use.

You preferred Obama’s statements 100% of the time Voting purely on the issues you should vote Obama Who would you vote for if you voted on the issues? Find out now!

There are probably questions that could be asked that could bring the percentage down to double digits, but they weren’t asked.

Hat Tip to the Blog on the Edge of Forever

I disagree with Louise:this is the Second Best YouTube Video Ever

Right behind this one:

(Though it’s basically just a personal preference of one song choice over the other.)

(It seems the Obama Campaign likes the musical Les Miserables. As if I needed another reason.)

Some other Political/Les Mis Videos

And to be fair, one pro-McCain one.

V. Lance Tarrance, Jr. the pollster for George Deukmejian in 1982 when Deukmejian
faced Bradley insists the so-called Bradley Effect never happened.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com analyzed the results of the Democratic Primaries and showed that in some states there was a bump in favor of Clinton from polls to results. However, in other states there was a bump in favor of Obama. Suggesting what some have termed a “Reverse Bradley Effect”

Since the split seemed to be geographically almost predictable, if the effect exists, I argue for a redefinition to cover both cases.

____ Effect: When voters perceive the candidate they support is not the “socially acceptable” candidate for their community, they lie to the pollster.

There is no reason to base the definition on race. Race is one factor that might lead to this result, but there are other factors that could as well. Since race is removed from the definition, and since there is some argument over whether or not the effect happened in 1982 in California, let’s come up with a new name for it.

Suggestions?

(Poem written tonight - and then revised - feedback welcomed - changes indicated to illustrate revision process)

Fellow Prisoners

If we assigned
one dollar to every star
we would need two or three
milky way galaxies
to foot the 700 billion bailout
and while I can buy
one milky way for fifty centsone dollar
from the snack machine at work
that’s not the same thing.
Those are made out of chocolate
and not the hot air
of our nation’s politicians.
it isn’t composed
of hydrogen, helium,
or a whole lot of hot air
like our nation’s politicians.

I know my solution is likely unworkable, but as Connecticut has now become their third state to allow same sex marriages, and the religious groups against same are likely to become more and more vocal as they see their position weakening, here’s a compromise which I think *could* make everyone happy over the long term, though it is a somewhat radical change from current nomenclature.

I say the term “Marriage” should be limited only to religious marriages. Heterosexual, Homosexual, Omnisexual, or Asexual — it would be up to any individual religion what they would allow. The First Amendment protections would guarantee no government interference in what a specific religion allowed.

All civil unions would be civil unions. The term ‘marriage’ wouldn’t apply. (All current “civil unions” that had been called ‘marriages’ would either be renamed, or grandfathered, there would likely be argument over which, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter.) Homosexual, Heterosexual, Omnisexual or Asexual - there would be no discrimination with respect to who could have a “civil union.” (I’d throw in polygamy, but I suspect that could be hotly contested, so maybe it would be best to leave that out for now.)

Legally, civil unions and marriages would have the same benefits. (That’s why in the end, it wouldn’t really matter whether current ‘marriages’ get renamed as ‘civil unions’. It’s just nomenclature.)

More often than not, I hear the argument from the Religious Right that the issue is one of nomenclature. That they feel the word ‘marriage’ should not apply to homosexual marriages. Their argument is religious in nature. And I agree that the government shouldn’t meddle in religious affairs. So let’s accept their argument at face value, and make the word “marriage” really be *just* a religious term.

There would be religious marriages of homosexual couples. The religious right have to be prepared for that. With the Universal Life Church (ulc.org) willing to make anyone a Reverend in exchange for their email address - and sufficient numbers of Liberal churches and synagogues in America - it won’t be difficult for a homosexual couple to find someone to marry them. But one church shouldn’t care what another church does.

This solution, I think, adequately makes all couples equal under the law despite sexual preference, and provides religious groups the protections they require to act in the way they see fit.

Couples who want to get “married”, but don’t want to get married under the auspices of a religion aren’t going to be thrilled with this solution, at first, but once they realize it’s just words without meaning, they ought to be satisfied. And if not, it’ll be easy enough for them to find a friend/relative willing to become a Reverend-by-email.

Does anyone see a problem with this solution?

In 1998, when I was working at AG Edwards, in their operations division doing a combination of clerical and customer service work, I was offered a chance to be taught COBOL by the company’s IT Department, and have an IT job within 6 months. [I had taken a few computer language courses in college, and passed an aptitude test, it wasn’t like they offered it to everybody.] I took the offer. There was this thing called a Y2K project that probably inspired this drive for new employees. Another project I worked on in the following four years was something I’ll call the 10,000 project. It was a markedly easier project because expanding the number of digits for a field from 4 to 5 isn’t difficult, it just had to be done, because the market was on the rise.

Well, in 2002 I was laid off. And I’ve been begging for money for the past 5 years (Friends insist I’m not a schnorrer. I’m a grant writer. They assure me there’s a difference, because I’m begging for money to benefit other people, not myself. But I do benefit. I get paid to do this. Arguably, not a lot, but I do get paid. So I guess I’m a *professional* schnorrer.) And now, the market’s back below 10,000. And AG Edwards no longer exists, as it was bought out by Wachovia…which no longer exists. Wheeeee.

Oh yeah…and it seems that the programmers for the National Debt Clock have had some problems I’m familiar with.

I don’t follow my website stats religiously. I can go months without looking at them. And when I do, sometimes world-changing things can occur without my noticing.

You wouldn’t think world-changing events would occur in the stats section of my website. But one did in May of 2008.

In May of 2008, the #1 search term that brought people to my website was “Drew Barrymore”. It has been this way since I posted an entry back in 2003 on Drew Barrymore Having Sex

Five Years. That’s a long time. I’ve made a lot of hay over the years about Drew’s popularity among my blog visitors. I didn’t think the stats would ever change.

In June of 2008, the #1 search term that brought people to my website was “Victor Hugo”. July: “Gwynplaine”. August: “Esmeralda”. Drew hasn’t made the Top 20 list since May.

Ever since June, almost all of the search terms that have led to my site have been related to Victor Hugo. Sometime in late May of 2008, the world lost interest in Drew Barrymore. The world also lost interest in my blog, but I consider the former more disturbing.

You see, Transylvaniandutch.com is just another name for gavroche.org. Both domains are hosted in the same metaphysical location, one on top of the other, so when I view the stats I get the stats for both. And only Victor Hugo Central is drawing visitors to my site.

Theoretically, this is how the world Should Be. People SHOULD care more about Victor Hugo than they care about me. And I am very proud of the research based website I have created dedicated to the great author.

And I think Google must have changed something in their search formula that lowers the importance of long-archived blog posts. However, since #20 on my Top 20 Search Terms list has, for most recent months, had such high numbers as 5 or 6, my blog has a chance of making a comeback. I guess I need to write about something that other people are interested in.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the past weekend I spent at Archon 32 in Collinsville, IL. I had a lot of fun, and may write about some of that fun, but right now I am going to link to a few other blog posts. The great thing about SF conventions is that four blind fen can feel up the same furry and describe that furry to you in four different fashions. (And the furry enjoys being felt up, trust me.)

Databob, winner of the Hallway Costume Contest, writes about beer, costume contests, and more beer (with pictures)
Elizabeth Donald (one of the writer pros at the con) discusses her experiences
Bafadam (a representative of BackSeat Producers) discusses his experiences
Gary Hanak writes about the filking track, which he led
And because there is always a mundane/muggle reporter who must feel superior, here’s ToastedRav’s Dawn of the Nerds