Don't ask me why, but...

One of the thoughts that kept crossing my mind at work on Thursday (before I got to take off for my six days off) was if Japanese (or Chinese or Albanian or Ethiopian) monsters universally say, "Rawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwrrrrrrrrr!" As I said, don't ask me why that thought crossed my mind. I have no clue.

The Badnarik.org site has a new section. It's all about ballot access. Michael currently has more ballot access than any of the other third party candidates. Do you hear much about him? Nope! Can you do an article search at a major newspaper website like USA Today and have 0 results returned? Yep! Why is that? Will you see Badnarik in the debates between Bush and Kerry? I would personally love to see him there, but it's a slim chance. Nader has significantly less ballot access than Michael Badnarik, Michael Peroutka, or David Cobb. However, if a third party is included on a major media outlet website, that candidate is likely to be Nader (sites like usatoday.com's Campaign 2004 candidate guide and msn.com's 2004 Election Guide are examples). That seems very strange...

One last issue, Bush wants to get rid of 527s. I guess free speech in a campaign only applies to certain people. Perhaps Orwell was a prophet...

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

My initial gut feeling (complemented by a little research) was right...

I guess that some normative psychological evaluations assume that if you answer that your life is too good, that could be a bad thing. I don't completely understand how it's possible to be feeling too good. I suppose that I don't understand a lot of things...

So there I am last night...One of the first annoying things (other than the usual spam announcing the same useless crap) I got in my email was a completely unoriginal virus hoax. Within five minutes, I received the following (cut for some measure of brevity) from the same individual:

"Dear Friends:

Pray for the President as he is peparing his acceptance speech. And pray for him as he gives his speech.
Prayer makes a difference.

--cut to protect privacy--
ATTACHMENT part 2 message/rfc822
From: President George W. Bush
To: --cut to protect privacy--
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 03:05:00 -0400
Subject: Will you help me?

President George W. Bush
www.GeorgeWBush.com

Dear --cut to protect privacy--,

In two weeks, I will proudly accept our Party's nomination for the Presidency of the United States. I will then travel the country to ask for the vote, telling Americans about my agenda to make a safer world and a more hopeful America in my next term.

I will win if you continue to stand with us in the weeks ahead. There's a lot to do and our convention is a wonderful opportunity to energize our fellow Republicans and draw to our banner discerning Democrats and Independents. Will you help me do that?

www.GeorgeWBush.com/Party

Will you open your home during the convention and reach out to your friends, family and neighbors by hosting a convention watch party on September 2nd, the night I make my acceptance speech?

This would help spread our positive message in a very important way. There is no better messenger for me than you. There is no better way to help us communicate our ideals than by sharing our convention with neighbors.

Will you help me?

www.GeorgeWBush.com/Party

Victory depends on all of us making every effort to persuade people to join us and then getting them to the polls. I hope you will share our celebration and host a party in your home.

Thanks again for all you do.

Sincerely,
George W. Bush"

Needless to say, I will not be praying for Dubya. I hope like hell that Barney eats his speech and that Dubya will have to improvise. That would undoubtedly make this individual's quest much easier. I don't hate Bush, I just want him back in Crawford. I almost wish that I could run the streets of NYC during the Republicon convention. I suppose that I could, but I have better things to do.

In no way am I going to say, "Go vote for Kerry!"...

However, the latest "Swift Boat Vets for Truth" ad is just more proof that political activist commercials don't necessarily have to tell the complete truth. This is true whether the creator of the ad is the Swift Vets or Michael Moore. I don't even think that I've seen the ad on television (other than in news analysis). However, it gives little snippets of John Kerry's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1971. The ad doesn't come anywhere close to providing context. I fear that in our "instant gratification", "give me a snippet and it'll be good enough" society, the full picture of what Kerry said in 1971 might be hard to visualize unless you read the whole thing. Yes, it's long.

The Annenberg Political Fact Check Center has a decent write-up on why half-truths are allowed to continue. The hard thing to accept is that I know there are people who won't do their own research. Believe it or not, there are some people who will take Fox News (O'Reilly and Fox are still too chicken-hearted to have Michael Badnarik make an appearance) or Democratic Underground at face value.

So, there we are about a week and a half ago, taking a 567 question psychological test. For some reason, mine was flagged as requiring follow-up. My curiosity has been piqued. Some of my co-workers say that I should wear the kilt to the interview on Wednesday. I don't think I will. When I mentioned this to Suzanne, she seemed a little worried. I'm not so worried.