Friday, December 3, 2004
disenfranchisement flipped
Since the election of 2000 (intensified after this most recent election), we have been subjected to a constant sniveling from those who feel they are "disenfranchised" because they are blue voters stuck in red states. (I cannot recall ever hearing the same from conservatives in blue states, although they certainly exist). As a little exercise, I looked at the voting records of the congressmen and senators representing my last four homes; it is interesting, to say the least.
Now, a word about the numbers I used to come up with the "composite conservative" number. I went to the website for the American Conservative Union and pulled the lifetime rating for each legislator (as delineated by the ACU). I then went to the website for Americans for Democratic Action, and pulled their numbers (it's only for the last session; I did not feel like crunching numbers for the career records, and ADA hasn't updated their lifetime list since 1999). I took the second number and inverted it as a proportion of 100% (80% became 20%, for example), since I was looking for a "conservative number". I then took the inverted ADA number, added it to the ACU number, and divided by two. This gives a fairly equal weight to records, since the ACU is undeniably conservative, and ADA is undeniably liberal.
WASHINGTON (2nd District):
Murray (D) 6.5
Cantwell (D) 11.5
Larsen (D) 15.0
California (53rd and 51st districts):
Boxer (D) 3.5
Feinstein (D) 10.5
Davis (D) 7.0
Filner(D) 2.0
Florida (19th District):
Graham (D) 22.0
Nelson (D) 18.5
Wexler (D) 7.5
I'd say that most of those "blue in a sea of red" types have nothing to complain about. FWIW, at the presidential level, Washington and California have voted Dem since 1988, and while Florida is a reliably Republican state, Broward County (a part of which is in Wexler's district) is the bluest county in the state.
posted at 02:10 PM | permalink | Comments (3)
Thursday, December 2, 2004
Right wing idiocy
When I read things like this, I understand why the left has problems with some religious conservatives:
- An Alabama lawmaker who sought to ban gay marriages now wants to ban novels with gay characters from public libraries, including university libraries.
Oh, spare me.
A bill by Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, would prohibit the use of public funds for "the purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." Allen said he filed the bill to protect children from the "homosexual agenda."
As the article notes later on, however, this is far more than just a simple little bill to prevent "Heather Has Two Mommies" from being assigned as required reading for the first grade. This would require EVERY book that mentions homesexuality (except to condemn it) to be removed from the shelves of all schools, libraries and universities in Alabama. This includes classics such as "The Color Purple" and "The Portrait of Dorian Gray", as well as plays such as "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". It would also ban any mention of homosexuality in school and college textbooks. The bill doesn't just ban the depiction of homosexual sex, it bans the depiction of homosexuality altogether.
I have little patience for most of the gay-rights groups who lump in their support of equal treatment with a boatload of socialist hooey (environmentalism, wealth redistribution, the anti-war movement), but it is crass stupidity such as this that really frosts my balls. If this jackass were representing me in the state house, I'd vote for almost anyone running against him, regardless of their views, because what he proposes is detestable and quintessentially un-American. We don't ban books in this country, especially because we don't care for the sexual orientation of one of the characters.
(Link courtesy of Captain's Quarters.)
posted at 04:30 PM | permalink | Comments (1)
Assault and (moon)battery
As a result of the ugly brawl in Detroit two weeks ago, two individuals have been banned from The Palace, home of the NBA's Detroit Pistons. One of the two was alleged to have thrown the cup at Ron Artest, which started the brawl between the players and the fans, and the other was one of the idiots who ran onto the court.
The lawyer for moonbat number one is terribly upset about the unfairness of the whole affair:
"That's ridiculous. Are they going to ban Artest and the other Pacers who ran into the stands and beat up on our fans and the people that live in this community?" Shawn Smith, Green's attorney, said. "They're completely picking on the little guy. ... It's not fair."
No, it's eminently fair. Your client was the catalyst of the brawl; if he had not thrown the cup, the fight would not have entered the stands. He ought to be lucky that Artest hasn't filed an assault charge against him. As it stands, one of the other fans might be facing felony assault charges for throwing a chair that hit several people, including a police officer.
As to banning Artest and the rest of his teammates, I am all for it, as I argued two weeks ago. But the blame for what happened cannot and should not be laid entirely at the feet of the athletes, as the fans' behavior was totally unacceptable as well.
posted at 02:01 PM | permalink | Comments (1)
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
on Spam and Macs
Sometime later today (when I get back home and can use my own computer again), I will be installing scode, a nifty little plug-in that requires commenters to copy the code that appears in the box before they can comment. I know it's a hassle for you, my 15 loyal readers, but since my previous fix no longer works (I am receiving comment spam on my new posts now), I have to do something before I get overwhelmed by junk comments for pron, drugs, teen s*x, and gambling sites. Also, comments now close after five days (previously, it was seven days), as I know for a fact that scode is not a panacea. Look at the comments at Thief's Den if you have any doubt. He's been gone for two weeks, and his site is absolutely buried in spam.
BTW, for those of you with Macs, how do you do accomplish ANYTHING with only one mouse button? I've been using my friend's Mac for a week now, and I am going NUTS, because I do so much with the right mouse button that I haven't figured out how to do with a Mac. The lack of separate backspace and delete keys is also a problem (as well as the mislabeling of the backspace key as the delete key), and the nifty little feature in Windows browsers of deleting the entire URL (instead of laboriously deleting a long URL character by character). I am *so* looking forward to using Mozilla again.
posted at 09:21 AM | permalink | Comments (2)
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