Would someone grow a pair?

From NBC's Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Chris DonovanMaybe it's the historic nature of the candidates running, but it seems that a month hasn't gone by without one of them -- or their supporters -- having to apologize. Or clarify something they said. Or distance themselves from a remark.
Off the top of our heads, we've seen this presidential cycle:
-- Biden's "clean" and "articulate" remark about Obama
-- Richardson clarifying an earlier comment that being gay was a choice
-- McCain apologizing for Bill Cunningham calling Obama "Barack Hussein Obama"
-- Bob Johnson's apology for referring to Obama's past drug use
-- Bill Shaheen's for the same thing
-- Bob Kerrey's apology for referring to Obama attending a secular madrassa
-- Samantha Power calling Hillary Clinton a "monster"
-- Obama criticizing his campaign for referring to Clinton as "D-Punjab"
-- Clinton, in Louisiana, regretting for how some were offended by her MLK/LBJ comments, as well as Bill Clinton's "fairytale" remark.
-- Romney apologizing for equating his sons serving on his campaign to military service
-- Huckabee's apology to Romney on Mormon/devil quote to the New York Times magazine
-- Michelle Obama clarifying her remark on being "proud" of her country for the first time

These are the people we are sending out to the world... proclaiming them as our leaders...

Gabby

This is my beautiful tiger, Gabby.

I miss her a lot and I want to be able to keep her. I had to leave her with my brother who was so great to take her in when I came to Ireland. But now he is moving and he can't keep her.

I'm feeling very helpless as I try to find her a home from 4000 miles away. I don't want to give her up, I just have to find somewhere for her to live for a few months.

Stolen Thoughts

'If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed,
if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed'
-Mark Twain

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity
is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul
can always depend on the support of Paul.
- George Bernard Shaw

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man,
which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
-G Gordon Liddy

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep
voting on what to have for dinner.
-James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people
in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
-Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors
to live at the expense of everybody else.
-Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

If you think health care is expensive now,
wait until you see what it costs when it's free!
-P.J. O'Rourke

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money
as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
-Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean
politics won't take an interest in you!
-Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
-Mark Twain (1866 )

Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it.
-Unknown

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite
at one end and no responsibility at the other.
-Ronald Reagan

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings.
The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
-Winston Churchill

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly
is to fill the world with fools.
-Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

A government big enough to give you everything you want,
is strong enough to take everything you have.
-Thomas Jefferson

Voting v. Voting

I was inspired (in more ways than this) by Skippy's rousing appeal for civic participation and I want it understood that I consider what follows as an addition to, not a response to that author's essay. I am in complete agreement with the views expressed in "Vote or Die". I only wish to emphasize the need for informed participation, which I'm sure is the intention of my co-conspirator.

It is completely understandable that people do not bother with voting. For the most part people don't understand what they are voting about anyway and vote based on some emotive impression of one or two issues if they vote at all. To further my discusion, I am including an explanation/description of ignorant voting behaviors below:

A person purchasing a new car usually spends time learning about various makes of cars and shopping for prices. The more effort spent in these activities, the more one's knowledge about cars and their prices increases. Because time is limited, and spending time searching for information means that one cannot use that time for other purposes, there is a limit on how much knowledge is worthwhile to gain. After some amount of reading, talking to friends and acquaintances, and visiting automobile dealers, a person finds that the extra benefit of another hour spent on these activities is less than the value of that hour spent in other pursuits. When one judges that this point has been reached, one stops searching and makes a decision.

The amount of time people spend obtaining information differs from product to product. They will spend less time learning about the bicycle they give their child than they will learning about a new car, less time deciding which brand of soup to buy than in deciding which house to purchase, and less time deciding which brand of dog food is best for Rover than in finding a college for their first-born. The larger the purchase, the larger the potential benefit of a few hours spent learning about the purchase.

The government has many policies that involve major sums of money. For example, a major weapons system in the defense department can cost $50 billion. This amounts to about $200 for every person in the United States, or $1000 for a family of five. Yet few people spend much time studying these policies. A reason is that to understand them requires many hours of study, and the probability that an understanding of them will change them in any way is very small. Thus, for most citizens the benefit of learning about a program that does not directly affect them is small, the cost is large, and they end up not knowing much about the program. Economists say that these poorly informed citizens are rationally ignorant.

A look at costs and benefits not only explains why few citizens understand the subtleties of most government policies, but it also explains why about one half of the eligible voters in the United States do not vote. The probability that one's vote will be the crucial vote that decides an important election is small. Even if one's vote is the crucial vote that breaks the tie, one may not like the outcome--many people regret the way they voted when they compare actual performance with campaign promises. Given these small benefits compared to the costs of time and transportation that voting entails, it is not surprising that many people who are eligible to vote do not. What is surprising is that the percentage of people voting is not even smaller. It seems likely that there are other benefits to voting that have not yet been mentioned.

Politics is in many ways a spectator sport, with all the excitement and drama of football or baseball. Voting may be enjoyable in the same way as watching and cheering on a favorite ball team. Indeed, voting against a politician one does not like is enjoyable, even if it does not result in his defeat. Another explanation for voting is that people have a sense of public duty. They want to be good citizens, and voting may seem important regardless of its effect--the act of voting itself can be important as a symbolic act. One other possibility is that people may overestimate the importance of their vote and the probability that theirs will be the ballot that decides an election.

In contrast to elections in the United States, elections in the old Communist-bloc nations were predictable. There was no doubt about who would win. Yet, these countries reported impressive percentages--sometimes more than 99%, of their citizens voted. Anyone who understands how to reason in terms of costs and benefits should be able to explain the implications of very high participation rates in meaningless elections.

My personal appeal to voters everywhere is not to dispare at the vast complexities of a myriad of issues the consequences of which are beyond the capabilities of all the analysts and statisticians you could lock in an olympic arena for a hundred years. For every person, there is one issue/subject (at least) that is not only meaningful enough, but interesting enough to gain sufficient knowledge to have an informed opinion and basis for choosing a candidate. Please find your issue!

Just to help get you started - race, gender, and whether an R, D, or I follow the candidate's name are NOT issues.

I bring these thoughts together because I personally find it horrifying that there has been so much involvement in these primaries in particular. As a nation, we usually let the primaries crawl along with very little notice. Why so much attention now? I'd like to think that it was because of War, National Security, the Economy, the resurgence of the Russians, Terrorism, Illegal Immigration, or even plain old Taxes.....but is it? Are we hearing anything about these things? I don't know, but we're certainly hearing a lot about exit polls and "Women Back Clinton" and "Obama Gets Black Vote". We're hearing statements from exit polls like " It's time for a woman to be president". This is not American Idol, people!

And don't just vote for the initial you always chose, folks. Look around at the candidates these days. They're all so centrist, you might be surprised what you're getting.

In conclusion, nothing is gained from ignorant voting. Mearly voting for the sake of voting is worse than useless. It is not the expression of the will of the people. It is a waste of your time. And you may just be undoing the vote of someone who did bother to become informed. If you can't be arsed to become informed, don't bother voting!

Stuff

Things to share:

Wake up with a cat!

Puppy mills - Please think about adopting animals from shelters before going to breeders

Pearl Productions
- Good Cop, Baby Cop
- The Landlord

Fat Cat Tuesday 2008

It's Super Tuesday and I don't care
It's Super Tuesday and I don't care
It's Super Tuesday And I Don'T CARE
The massa's gone away....

Basically, my semi-informed political opinion is: We're all screwed/gonna die/giant ants are eating my head!

I'll ask my left brain what it thinks when it get's back from school.
(class list: Oral Penmanship 301, Underwater Basket Weaving, and Vegan Biology

On to other matters.

We've pretty much decided on the date we are picking up and hauling a** back to good ole Virginie: March 26! We aren't going to set that in stone just yet, but we're pretty sure. Now I have to do some quick planning and see if we can't spend Easter weekend having a last bit of fun in the EU instead of just scrambling around with packing and and other papercut inducing activities. I think Spain is standing out as a possibility. My only solid requirement is that it be something I haven't done before. Of course, it's dangerous to write it down in case it doesn't work out.

I need to get on to some companies about shipping. Course it's hard to get a good quote when you're not sure how much you're trying to send yet. I'll chase the man around with a hurley tonight, get him to make some decisions.

My mom retired this weekend. I feel wierd about it, so imagine how she must feel. The woman has been a workaholic my whole life. Something of an identity crisis lurking there - can you have an identity crisis for another person? Must be something like when people go on those makeover shows and come back to their stunned (and weeping) friends and family. Don't get me wrong, I'm very pleased she's retiring and will hopefully get to do all the things she wants to. It's just hard to grasp the reality of it.

K, I'm gonna go find some shippers and itineraries.

GAA

It's the weekend and we've got an international move to get on with. There are bits of paper all about, and a large number of black plastic trash bags in one corner. Going through a mass of papers lovingly shoved to one end of the dining table, Paddy found all our unsent Christmas cards (all filled out and everything). He's still sleeping at the moment, but today's sporadic activity may turn up and toss out more intertesting bits. I suspect there will be rugby games on the tv that could disrupt progress.

I actually enjoy rugby once I'm watching it, but I think I forgot over the break in the season. The Six Nations kicked off yesterday, but I wasnt in the mood for it. Paddy was surprised and his reaction reminded me that I am an enthusiatic rugby watcher - known to jump out of my seat, curse players out, and plan my day around when a game will be on. I almost understand the rules too.

There is another game that I've really taken to while I've been in Ireland - their national sport: Hurling. Not an easy game to describe, but it's very fast and something like field hockey and lacrosse. Nobody plays it but the Irish, so they fight out the championships by counties. It is the fastest field game in the world, and one of the oldest known games. I'll miss it when we move, but there are a few little local teams in the US, including the DC Gaels.

The Irish also have their own football, although, like American football, the hands are used a lot. I'd describe this game as a cross between soccer and the afore mentioned hurling.

I think I'll make cookies today... warm, chocolaty cookies......oh, I'm gonna be so popular!!