A Step In The Right Direction

We were all worried that Obama might just be another two-faced politician. This is just amazing. Here's hoping they get fair trials, and don't just get shipped off to another hellhole.

Edit: To track Obama's promises: check the Obameter. Should be interesting over the next few years.

Photographing the vote

45 - 60 minutes to vote. A blue drop in a blue sea. But still, completely and utterly worth it.
















The election room where we watched the results come in at my work. FOUR SCREENS!



Finally, I'd just like to add, FUCK YES OBAMA! BOO CALIFORNIA RE: PROP 8!

Peace out, one and all

TB/AC

LOLWUT?

I wish, I wish, I wish that I could take credit for this. But I can't.

Some slight encouragement!

So, Gallup is polling McCain as ahead right now?

I'm not worried. "Why not?", you ask? Because this isn't a direct democracy. It's the overly confusing, utterly bewildering electoral college system, where all votes are not created equal!

http://electoral-vote.com./
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
http://www.pollster.com/
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/?map=10

All of these put Obama significantly ahead in the ways that it matters. I'm sure the Dems could still fuck up in the next 60 days (like by not ripping apart Palin or taking the Republicans to task for flat out lying in their speaches), but I'm not too worried yet. Yet...

Republican Hypocrisy

The ever wonderful Jon Steward did a great bit last night about Republican hypocrisy in the wake of Palin's nomination. I'm not sure if either of these links will work to my readers outside of the USA, but hopefully one of them will...

Link, version 1
Link, version 2

Edit: YouTube Link

Tupenny VP analysis

Well, both Obama and McCain have announced their VPs, and here's my vaguely uninformed opinion of them both!

First, batting for all that is good and right in the world...

JOE BIDEN
Pros:
1) He's an attack dog. It'll be his job to rip the Republicans a new one during debate. And it's something he's done well in the past and seems to enjoy doing.
2) Has a strong labour union background
3) Voted against FISA and for Net Neutrality
4) Old white man.
Cons:
1) He's a major supported of invading Iraq and the Patriot Act.
2) He's wants to watch and control what you do with your computer.
3) Sponsored the RAVE act, which allows for glow sticks to be considered drug paraphernalia.
4) Old white man

Secondly, for evil and damnation...

SARAH PALIN
Pros:
1) Young woman candidate, full of Republican morals
2) Negates Biden's attack dog skills, because if he goes after he, he'll be seen as a bully
3) VPILF
Cons:
1) McCain can't question Obama's experience as the person second in line for the Presidency would actually be LESS experienced than Obama, younger, having served for less time, and over a less populated jurisdiction
2) Rabidly pro-life, anti-gay-marriage, anti-environment, creationist
3) She's under investigation for abusing her power by firing a Public Safety Commissioner who refused to axe a state trooper. A trooper who had just gone through a bitter divorce with her sister...


My thoughts? While Palin will undoubtedly curb some of Biden's advantages, her inexperience puts pause to the Republican's big tactic of questioning Obama's leadership experience. After all, if McCain one, he'd be an aged and ailing president with a history of cancer. And she'd be next in line. She's also being used to try and grab some of H. Clinton's voters who are still bitter about the Obama nomination, but I think Angry Mouse from the Daily Kos responded to that far more eloquently than I.

I'm just terrified of Biden taking over from Obama if something should happen to him. He's Hawkish and want to control the internet.

So, I'll end in a quote of Warren Ellis' masterpiece Transmetropolitan

The fix is in. It remains only to be seen what it's been traded for. To get to this stage, anyone wanting to be candidate has had to learn to enjoy the special flavor of pressure-group dick. The question is: will the Smiler stagger on stage with lungs half full of steaming lobbyist semen? Or will he merely be licking his lips?

AC out

Right wing bashing television

As loathe as I am just to post links to videos from elsewhere, but these two videos gave my heart a warm glow of rage and satisfaction. Thank you Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews


Firstly Keith, long but worth it, especially to see him almost drop the f-bomb at the end. Keith has that wonderful ability to channel rage in such an utterly visceral way that it delights me. Most of the time his show is fairly mediocre, especially when he tries to be funny, but when he's angry, it's magnificent.
Link 1
YouTube mirror in two parts:



Chris Matthews tearing apart a conservative radio host. A bit shouty, but interesting to see the lack of historical perspective here.

A question of appeasement?

The Caucus

Okay, this is a bit late, but I unfortunately came down with a rather nasty sore throat, which has made me lean towards avoiding work rather than writing. But last Tuesday (which was super) I attended a local caucus to watch the democratic process in action.

The process was divided into two sections. Firstly, the casting of your preferred presidential candidate for your party (in this case Democrats), and secondly a caucus which is designed to choose people to represent local issues at a higher level. It was meant to start at 6.30, presidential stuff over by 7, and caucus complete at 8.30.

Rocking up at 6.30, the line was already out the doors of the local school where it was being held, and rapidly expanding around the block. We're talking well below freezing temperatures. So many hipsters! Wearing skinny jeans and tight jackets, huddled together against the cold. Surreal moment of the night? When the cops arrived to herd some hobos out of the basement. I have no idea why there were hobos in the basement, but I hope they had somewhere to go.

The number of people who showed up defied expectations. This was for a relatively small precinct, and well over 1,000 people showed to cast their choice for presidential nominee. And it was entirely Obama dominated. What's really funny isn't that they didn't require any proof of ID, just a letter or bill addressed to you, or the word of a neighbour. Begging for fraud, but the entire thing was out of control.

One of my friends was working the line, selling the people on a senatorial candidate Jack Nelson Pallmeyer. He seems to be a good guy, but I felt sorry for the folks who couldn't escape her as they were stuck in the queue, waiting to cast their ballot.

It wasn't till 8.15 that all the voting was done, and the line no longer stretched across any available space. What was meant to take 30 minutes took 105. An amazing turnout out by all considerations.

Then, we got into caucusing. The whole process bewildered me. It was the worst sort of meeting bureaucracy. Agendas, resolutions, shows of hands, and people gradually losing interest and drifting away. What was meant to happen was delegates were meant to be chosen to advance local issues at the next level up of government, of which a few would go to the senatorial body and push for certain candidates who best represent the grassroots feelings. It's a good idea, but over an hour later, we still hadn't sorted out who would do it. Let alone the passing of resolutions showing that were floating about to push for impeachment or anything else. I left at 9.30, thoroughly sick of the whole business and how it was run.

While it's good to see democracy in action, especially at a local level, it was utterly disheartening to see so many people drift away as the caucus dragged on and on. If one is to really try and get people involved, that sort of thing would have to be streamlined remarkably.

Nonetheless, the huge turnouts leave me with hope for the future of democracy in America. If the youth vote feels like its voice is heard, if Obama is elected, then they will remain interested in Politics for the rest of their lives.

TB/AC

Super Tuesday!

Tonight, for the first time in my life, I'll be attending a caucus to help decide the fate of a nation. Well, not personally deciding, and I'm not enrolled for Minneapolis, but I digress.

See, the American political system is a vast and arcane thing, with complexity possibly on the level of, oh I don't know, discovering a unified field theory.

Before the election even happens, each party must choose a candidate. These candidates campaign against each other prior to the real election, and registered party members get to decide who they want to represent them. However, it's more complicated. Each state is given a certain number of delegates, and a candidate needs the majority of delegates nationally to gain the nomination. The Republican party has a "winner take all" system, where whoever gets the highest percentage of votes gets all the delegates. The Democrats have a proportional system, where the percentage of votes equals the percentage of delegates. And 24 of the states do this deciding today, on Super Tuesday. Which means by the end of today, we'll probably have a Republican candidate. But maybe not a Democrat. The race is so close between Clinton and Obama, that even once everything's been tallied, it could still be very, very close. At which point we'd have to wait for the remaining states, or one of the other, lesser candidates to commit his delegates to one of them.

Of course, some shit is even more complicated than that. Two states (New Hampshire and somewhere else, I don't remember) decided that they wanted to hold their primaries earlier on in the year, to make them seem cool and important. Democratic Party said "No, you can't do that, or else everyone will do it, and it'll just get fucking crazy". The states said "Tough titties" and so the Democratic Party isn't accepting those delegates as being valid.

On top of that, some of the states aren't required to give their delegates to who the citizens vote for. In a couple of places, even if the majority fell with, say, Romney, the state could actually give all the delegates to another candidate, say Huckabee. Kind of a holdover from when they didn't trust the citizens to make intelligent decisions.

And this is only to decide who's going to be that candidate, not even the actual President. That's a whole 'nother level of stuff I don't understand. I'll try to figure it out before voting.

Of course, the whole process of delegates is slightly weird. There's a lot of gerrymandering going on, with large, low population rural states often wielding power on a level with their more populous cousins. Whether this is fair or not is entirely up for debate.

I'll try and write something up after the actual event. Here's hoping it's not a complete cluster-fuck.

Dear Australia...

Thank you. Thank you so much for getting rid of John Howard. The man was not only Undead, but totally evil as well. Finally, after 11 years, he's out of power. I'm practically giddy with happiness!

Fingers crossed that Rudd doesn't end up being a tool as well!

-Tim

Thank God for the fourth estate!

Well, after all that dicking about, and the Police and Maori groups yelling at one another, but refusing to be transparent, it took the media to reveal some of this. Thank GOD! So, the Dominion Herald yesterday (Nov 14) put out a news article leaking some of the police evidence. Apparently there was talk about the assassination of John Keyes (if he got in power (which he unfortunately probably will)) and George W. Bush (if he came to visit). Also the camps in the Ureweras talked about how to blockade themselves against police, how to use Molotov Cocktails, and the ousting of Pakeha farmers.

Well, shit. As much as I dislike the NZ police force, this is some pretty damning evidence. Were they in the right?

However, a couple of things about this bug me.

Firstly, while I applaud Fairfax media for their release of this information, I'm worried about their bias, and the selectiveness of their release. We have no idea of the context of the quotes, and the level of seriousness associated with them. Is it just two jokers on the phone laughing about how they could knock of John Keyes? Or are they seriously plotting it? Were they seriously talking about kicking Pakeha farmers of their land, or was it just pie in the sky discussing? Without a context it's hard to judge. Goodness only knows that when I was in high school, my friends and I discussed how we would barricade the place and protect it if anyone tried to attack. We weren't particularly serious, but it was a fun enough exercise, and completely harmless.

So once more, I end this with a plea for more information. Let us see for ourselves exactly what's going on here.

On the history of the Internet, Interactivity and Democracy

This is taken from an email conversation between myself and the wondrous Alex Franzen about her podcast on Virtual Politics. I thoroughly suggest you download and listen to it, because it's a damn interesting audio-article about the new political equality afforded to the users of the Internet.

In response, my views on the history of the internet and its links to interactivity and democracy.

...
The Internet, in my mind, has gone through three distinct paradigms
over its history.

Originally there were the BBSs and usenet groups. These were, essentially, places were people would post information and talk to large numbers of people. They were precursors to the modern forum software you see so heavily across the internet. They were interactive and democratic to the extreme, as all the content was user generated. However, it only reached a small percentage of the population.

Then, once the Internet started spreading, there was the evolution into passive browsing. Information was presented to you. The Internet was interactive in the same way reading a newspaper isn't interactive. You went to websites and listened to what other people had to say. The people who made those websites. There was no free exchange of ideas. Sure there were little buttons you could click, and little things you could do, but it was essentially a pre-packaged experience.

And now we have the so-called Internet 2.0 phenomenon, where once again it's all about user generated content and everyone being on an equal footing, but now there's a user base large enough that this spreads universally. Like you said, a random YouTuber has just as much chance of getting their views heard as Kucinich. Everything is linked
through spider-ine networks of friends, memes and messages passing throughout the internet, and allowing for something resembling democratic conversations, warts and all.

I think I see parallels between the history of democracy in America to this as well. If you look at the early days of campaigning, where candidates actually had to travel to areas to get there votes, to actually meet the people, when there was no effective wide means of disseminating information. You had a chance for true discussion, but
only on a small and local level.

Then came radio and TV, where the advertising became passive, and you accepted the words without any real chance to debate them, except with those immediately around you.

Finally the two paths converge in the Internet, with something vaguely resembling equality of discussion.
...

-TB/AC