Democrats And College Football

I try not to bring up politics on here, but this is pretty light.

I had a bit of an epiphany last night while driving around looking for a parking space:

The Democrats have turned their nomination into college football: objectivity is out, subjectivity heavily influenced by persuasion, pundit argument, and narrative is in!

Hearing the Hillary camp's arguments reminds me totally and completely of the teams sitting just outside the BCS title game spots rationalizing why they are more deserving than the team to be selected by the process, while the Obama camp's argument reminds of the team in one of the BCS title game spots justifying why they are there.

There's a million more comparisons to be made {superdelegates:poll voters vs. will of the people, ESPN pundits:cable news pundits vs making sense, not sensationalizing, creating the narrative, and on and on}, but I'll leave it at my initial lightbulb over my head thought above.

By the time the nominee is actually picked we will likely have descended to this:

Where we're probably headed...

Joe-Mentum: Prettiest Girl ln The Room

Wow, what a wacky night - it's 1 a.m. PST and it looks like Tester is going to do it in Montana, and pending a possible recount in 10 days in Virginia, where Webb won by less than 1%, the Dems did it, getting control of the Senate 50-49-1. Except that Joe Lieberman is technically an independent, making it 49-49-2.

So for all the talk about Nancy Pelosi and a possible recount in VA, the biggest winner tonight was Joe Lieberman. He went from an outcast who couldn't even win his primary to suddenly the prettiest girl in the room. Which is quite a statement, because he is not pretty.


Joe-mentum, bitches. He told you so, just 2 years early.

He is like the #1 high school football recruit, and 2 schools are trying to woo him. Except imagine that there are absolutely no recruting rules or regulations whatsoever. Money, hookers, coke, you name it is on offer. No matter what happens dude is getting some serious power and CT is getting some serious pork. A remarkable change of events for Ol' Joe.

Berkeley beat SF in the battle to see who could vote to impeach Bush & Cheney by the biggest margin: in SF the impeachment proposition passed 60-40 but Bezerkeley came even stronger at 68-32. Righties can take pleasure and relief that these measures are only cosmetic, because if they were real then that would theoretically make Nancy Pelosi Speaker Of The House President.


Could be worse, Red America: if Berkeley had their way, she would be POTUS

I'm tired and can't make it another 2 hours to confirm the MT result, so I'm off to bed, where unlike Karl Rove I will sleep like a baby tonight.

Voting In California

In most states, people elect legislators who then formulate and pass legislation. In California, we elect legislators who then throw it back on our ass by creating an vast myriad of propositions that we voters then vote on. Hell we even had a special election last year with a bunch of propositions to vote on in a non-election year. Like everything else out here, it's kind of wacky.

On the one hand it's pretty cool, as it makes you feel like you are much more of a participant in the process and that your vote matters even more. On the other hand it's a hell of a lot of work: in addition to learning about the candidates, trying to figure out what either side of all of these propositions means and how you should vote. And as misleading, confusing, and irritating as commercials, mailers, and phone calls are for candidates, they are even more so for propositions. Yes on 1B! No on 83! Yes on 90! No on 1E! Yes on 87! No on 87! Yes on 87 damnit! No on 87 is full of shit! Yes on 87 favors special interests! No on 87 favors special interests!

It's honestly a lot of work; in Georgia there were some elections with a few preps here and there - no big deal. Today we had no less than THIRTEEN statewide propositions: 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 and 90. In addition, we residents of San Francisco had an additional ELEVEN propositions, A-K. That in addition to all of the normal candidate races. This afternoon at work I was cramming like a 10th grader in homeroom before a big 1st period test.

Another funny thing about voting in a big city: my polling place is one block from my house, but it is not a school or church. No, like last year, I voted in a 1 car garage below an apartment building. I wish I had my camera, it was kind of nutty.

Almost as nutty as this senate race is turning out.

The Immigration Brouhaha: Missing The Obvious

Although I would prefer not to get into politics on here, I do want to throw this out there because it is an angle that is not being discussed as the immigration debate rages on.

It seems to me that all the ideas on the table are treating the symptom not the problem. If the goal is to stop illegal immigrants from coming here and working, it seems fairly simple. Step up and penalize the shit out of any corporations/entities that employ such people. The millions of jobs don't exist because illegals have come to the US; millions of illegals have come to the US because millions of jobs/opportunities exist. And who allows/encourages/exploits this? American businesses of course.

People come here because there are lots of jobs & lots of opportunities vis a vis their situation at home, and corporate america (and hell, mom & pop shops as well) loves paying shit wages + no benefits for their labor. If you want this to end then crack down from the employer end, fine the hell out of them, or make it a felony to employ them, whatever, but treat it on this end. Of course, in reality, businesses don't want this, and it would never happen considering politics in general and the current administration in particular. But everyone seems to be approaching this from the wrong end. It's like the bathtub faucet is running, the tub is overflowing with water, and everyone is trying to come up with the best way to either bail the water out of the tub or build a bigger tub. Hey, anyone ever consider turning off the faucet instead?

As an aside, the "they are costing the US billions of dollars by using hospitals/schools/etc" only tells one half of the equation. They also save US businesses & consumers billions of dollars in labor cost and savings on cheap consumer goods & food, respectively. Additionally, many also use fake SSNs to get jobs which means that they pay into the system (payroll deduction) but do not file a tax return to get that money back. Taking all of these things into consideration makes it much more difficult to definitively say what their cumulative net economic effect is.

Lastly, I have yet to hear a single real-world example of a job currently being performed by an illegal alien that an American would willingly work for the same wages, so the "stealing jobs" rhetoric rings a bit hollow for me. It is amusing that America as a whole wants all jobs to be worked by Americans at good wages, yet at the same time America wants to be able to buy Polo shirts at Wal-Mart for $5.99. You can't have both.

My guess is that some completely useless comproise bill will come out of this whose main purpose will be that it allows politicans to go back to their districts in the fall and tell the voters "I did something about this issue, so vote for me, blah blah blah", with the actual result of the bill having little to no effect on the original problem while costing the US taxpayers a boatload of money. Kind of like the Medicare bill. Check that, exactly like the Medicare bill.