I voted!

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Yeah, you're saying, so did I. Whooptie-freakin'-do.
I spent about an hour and a half yesterday morning trying to decide who to vote for....I really didn't want to vote based on personality or "gut feeling" or whatever, because that's a really stupid, cop-out way to participate in Democracy. I finally had to sit down with a check list. Each canditate got a point if I liked his or her stance better on a particular issue. I was using stated positions as well as voting record.
The trouble with that is that senators are elected to represent a particular body of people, and to look out for their specific needs. So, a person could decide that what's best for their state might not be best for the whole country......That got too complicated to think about, so I let it slide.
In the end it was very close. My winning candidate only had 2 more points than the losing one.

On the California side of things, I became convinced that the state has it's head up it's butt with regards to what things should get funding and what shouldn't. Also, how to fund is an issue. The gambling propositions bothered me most significantly. There were 4 on the ballot, asking us whether 4 of the "gaming tribes" of CA native Americans could expand their casinos with the a higher proportion of the revenue going to the state.
The issue of whether native tribes should be allowed to have casinos in a state that otherwise bans gambling has already been decided. That means that my stance against gambling at all is rather a moot point. Still, I don't see the logic behind the idea of basing part of the state budget on people (many of whom will come from the sector of society than can least afford to lose money) getting screwed out of their earnings. "Let's get all this money for the state! There are no downsides! Oh, wait, what? People are losing all their money? Who cares, the state gets more!"

Argh!!!

Anyway......

It was interesting for about 5 minutes to see which states were going to which candidates, but I'm hoping for a little rest from all the election stuff. I'm particularly bored and pissed off about how mainstream media insists on saying that Clinton's victories are because of "women and white people" while Obama's are because of "blacks." Stupid news-media with their insistence on over simplifying and making it seem like the entire democratic electorate is stupid. Thanks guys.

That's about all for today, folks.
Hope all is well.