Whichever one of you came here through a search for “why michael j. fox pleasures his fans,” you need to talk to me, baby.
What did you hear, when did you hear it, who has he pleasured, and, most importantly, how is he?
< tastelessness > some of us have been looking for a way to combine the perfect man and the perfect vibrator for a very long time < / endtastelessness >
They really don’t, you know. More Iraqis vote than Americans, as a percentage of the population. Iran has a higher rate of participation in the democratic process. So do 128 other countries. So WTF is up with Americans?
Compare U.S. voting with foreign voting and it’s not a pretty sight. Americans are less apt to vote than are people in other old democracies, in new ones, in dangerous places, dirt poor ones, freezing cold ones, stinking hot ones and highly dysfunctional ones.
Even that theocratic “axis of evil,” Iran, has bragging rights over the United States in this regard. So does chaotic Iraq, where an estimated 70 percent of voters cast ballots in December parliamentary elections.
They invented this process. Have they moved on to something else, discarding representative democracy like an outdated (but still superior to the alternatives) Betamax player? If so, what can it be? Looking at the current model, I’d have to invent a new term; as the British have a Constitutional Monarchy, I’d have to say the Americans have a Constitutional Dictatorship. They also, apparently, have very little faith in the transparency and accuracy of the voting processes, although still more than the facts seem to justify.
They vote but not always. Compared with Americans who regularly cast ballots, they are less engaged in politics. They are more likely to be bored with the political process and admit they often do not know enough about candidates to cast ballots. But they are crucial to Republican and Democratic fortunes in the Nov. 7 midterm elections.
They are the intermittent voters: Americans who are registered to vote but do not always make it to the polls. They differ significantly from those who vote regularly. For one thing, they’re less likely to be married than are regular voters. Intermittent voters also are more mistrustful of people compared with those who vote regularly. They also are less angry with government, though no less dissatisfied with President Bush than are regular voters, according to a survey conducted Sept. 21-Oct. 4 among 1,804 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in collaboration with the Associated Press.
The survey also finds large differences between Americans who are not registered to vote or vote only rarely, and intermittent or regular voters. The two groups at the bottom of the voting participation scale are much less likely than regular or intermittent voters to believe that voting will make much of a difference. They also are less likely to agree with the statement: “I feel guilty when I don’t get a chance to vote.”
Americans won’t vote if they don’t think it will get counted, and they won’t vote if they don’t like the options, and they won’t vote if the election process itself is typified by negative advertising.
So what will get them out to vote?
Golly gee, that’s a toughie. Probably this rather motivational video from South Park will work. It’s a spiffy initiative to encourage those kiddies to get out, engage proactively with the democratic process and the society in which they thrive, and cast their votes for the candidate they feel best represents their interests in Washington. And it speaks directly to the things that concern kids most nowadays.
It’s called Vote or Die.
In a nod to the most glorious traditions of musical theatre, producers in Australia have commissioned a tour de farce guaranteed to land on front pages around the world on opening night.
The draw?
Crikey.
My cousin sent me this, and I probably shouldn’t post it here, as I’ll get in trouble, but what the heck, it’s for a good cause.
Here’s your nekkid fireman poster! You know you want it bad, and that’s good!
Yes, it’s in Texas. The Lone Star State, often called (behind its back) the Lone Brain Cell State, has a new, cybersavvy, distributed, astroturfy initiative designed to protect ‘Merkins from the dreaded Brown Plague.
As part of the Virtual Neighborhood Border Watch Program, the State of Texas has been testing video surveillance cameras in different environments along the 1240 miles of Texas/Mexico border using the internet to transmit the images. The last stage of the test is to stress the system by providing public access to numerous surveillance cameras.
Thank you for helping test this important capability.
To be part of the program you will need to have a user account. To get a user account click in the blue box on the right side of the screen.
NOTICE: You must turn off any pop-up blockers for this site. You may be asked to update your computer with software that allows you to view the video.
Microsoft Internet Explorer is required to utilize this web site. Firefox is not supported.
You could sorta see that last bit coming, couldn’t you?
They certainly try to give the site a down-home feel with the lingo: “Frequenty-asked questions” just for one example. Is this the proper place to mention that I’ve been trying for two days to view a video off Webcameron, and that none of my free players (or, for that matter, the Windows Media Player) will play the damn thing? The only options are all commercial ones: iTunes, Quicktime, and Realplayer (no, I’m not joking, godforsaken Realplayer!). No, I don’t know why my computer won’t play Quicktime, but I’ve re-installed it seven times and it simply will not work on this box. None of my four working video players will touch this file with a ten foot pole. So it looks like I was right: while Cameron may wish to hug hoodies, he has no wish to empower them. Unless, that is, he’s working on a Right to iPod platform: that would definitely get him elected!
raincoaster 