Election '08 (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Politics on the Internet)

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  • edited October 2008
    obamaeconomist.jpg
  • edited October 2008
    YES! Double standards in America!

    Also double post, sowwies.

    Two arrested after Obama effigy found on campus
    Two men have been arrested in connection with an effigy of Sen. Barack Obama that was hung outside a building at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, police said Thursday.

    Authorities found a life-size effigy of the Democratic presidential candidate hanging from a tree outside the school's Mines and Minerals building on Wednesday morning, police said.

    Police said they arrested Joe Fischer, 22, a senior at the university, and Hunter Bush, 21, a former student at Bluegrass Community and Technical College.

    "This was a serious incident. It caused a lot of wounds to be opened from racial tension," Monroe said.

    After following leads and conducting interviews, investigators determined that Fischer and Bush had asked members of a University of Kentucky fraternity for items to make the effigy but did not tell the fraternity members why they wanted them, Monroe said.

    Fischer and Bush were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, burglary and theft by unlawful taking, police said. The burglary and theft charges involve allegedly removing items from a room in the fraternity house.

    "We had a pre-established dialogue with this fraternity, and they spoke to us very openly and freely," Monroe said.
  • edited October 2008
    Serephel wrote: »
    YES! Double standards in America!

    Also double post, sowwies.

    Thats messed up, admited the circumstances were worse than a simple holloween decoration, and the erected it on school property, but still, they didn't hurt anyone. It's looking like they'll get put away for a long time too.
  • edited October 2008
    The lesson learned here is that it's perfectly okay to have effigies of people hanging by a noose, but you better be goddamn certain they're white.
  • edited October 2008
    What if it's White Obama?
  • edited October 2008
    Well, he is also white. But apparently his black half is the dominant half.
  • edited October 2008
    yeah, everyone knows whiteness is recessive
  • edited October 2008
    for the record, I was one of the "He's not black enough" people.
  • edited November 2008
    Well, at what point does the white gene become dominant?

    Let's think for a moment. Obama is 1/2 white, but his black half is dominant. But, I once knew a guy who had a great great grandfather who was Japanese, but everyone else in his lineage was white. So, he was 1/16 Japanese, 15/16 white. He was definitely white, and this was dominant.

    So, somewhere between 1/2 and 15/16 someone's white race becomes the dominant gene. Any guesses where the line is?
  • edited November 2008
    I think, but I'm not sure, that there isn't a 'white gene'. Whiteness is the combination of a whole bunch of different phenotypes, as is Asianness and blackness. So this person who is 15/16th white has mostly white phenotypes, but probably has SOMETHING generally associated with Asianness. A person who is half black/half white generally has darker skin than white people, but would not likely have pitch black skin, and would have some black phenotypes and some white phenotypes.
  • edited November 2008
    Sorry, my bad. I misused the word gene. I was trying to imply whatever part of genetics, or what combination of lineage, makes you look white enough to the point of being considered white.

    I was woken up after 6 hours of sleep because of jackasses doing construction and slamming doors outside my apartment. Be nice to me :(
  • edited November 2008
    The idea of blackness and whiteness is horrible contrived and complicated, how can you go back, all the way to slavery, and say that because this man is 1/32 black, he's still a slave because of that blood in his veins."

    It's absolutely ridiculous and arbitrary, but it happened.
  • edited November 2008
    I say we just inject every current and future foetus with bright purple dye, so then we're all the same colour, no problem.
  • edited November 2008
    For the record, I am totally more purple than the rest of you.
  • edited November 2008
    You fools! That practically begs one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eaters to invade! They'll consume us all!
  • edited November 2008
    Double Post:

    ObamaBiden.jpg
  • edited November 2008
    THAT
    WAS
    AWESOME
  • edited November 2008
    Pretty awesome, but the painter got Obama's superhero identity wrong:

  • edited November 2008
    Anyone not been keeping up with the election? This website sums it all up beautifully:

    This. Fucking. Election.
  • edited November 2008
    Dixville Notch has spoken: It's Obama in a landslide
    DIXVILLE NOTCH, New Hampshire (CNN) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama emerged victorious in the first election returns of the 2008 presidential race, winning 15 of 21 votes cast in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire.

    People in the isolated village in New Hampshire's northeast corner voted just after midnight Tuesday.

    It was the first time since 1968 that the village leaned Democratic in an election.

    Obama's rival, Republican John McCain, won 6 votes.

    A full 100 percent of registered voters in the village cast ballots. And the votes didn't take long to tally.

    The town, home to around 75 residents, has opened its polls shortly after midnight each election day since 1960, drawing national media attention for being the first place in the country to make its presidential preferences known.

    However, since 1996, another small New Hampshire town -- Hart's Location -- reinstated its practice from the 1940s and also began opening its polls at midnight.

    The result in Dixville Notch is hardly a reliable bellwether for the eventual winner of the White House -- or even the result statewide.

    While New Hampshire is a perennial swing state -- with 4 Electoral College votes at stake -- Dixville Notch consistently leans Republican. The last Democrat it picked was Hubert Humphrey over Richard Nixon in 1968.

    President Bush won the town in a landslide in the last two elections: He captured 73 percent of the vote in 2004 (19 residents picked Bush while six preferred Sen. John Kerry), and secured 80 percent of the vote in 2000 (21 votes for Bush, five votes for Al Gore.)

    But villagers expected the results to be close this year given Democrats now outnumber Republicans there.

    The town picked both John McCain and Barack Obama for the New Hampshire Democratic and Republican primaries in January. McCain ultimately won the state of New Hampshire, while Sen. Hillary Clinton upset Obama there.
  • edited November 2008
    Crap, McCain has no chance now! I mean, 15 votes against him? That's gotta hurt!
  • edited November 2008
    So, question. Is it still a wasted vote when you vote for 3rd party candidates in state and local elections?
  • edited November 2008
    If the person you voted for doesn't win, you've wasted your vote.
  • edited November 2008
    So, question. Is it still a wasted vote when you vote for 3rd party candidates in state and local elections?

    I've been debating that all morning. In my case I have a race for a senator seat to consider. I'm not fond of either candidate. I don't really want to vote for either of them, but one is an encumbant and hasn't fucked things up too bad and is less bothersome to me than the other.

    Ideally I'd vote the third party, but I think the one I favor the least is in the lead in the polls. So should I vote for the guy I want to because I think he's the best option even though I KNOW he'll never win, or do I vote for a distant second choice in the hopes of keeping my least favored candidate out? I feel like I have to do the latter and it grates on me so bad. I really hate elections.

    Still, I think with closer things like school boards and stuff, there is no vote wasting. The influence of political parties kinda falls apart when you get that close to home.
  • edited November 2008
    This is something that really irritates me. What is the purpose of seeing things in such a black/white scope? Why do you need to judge the merit of your vote based on whether your candidate wins?

    Really. There's no fucking point. You don't get anything if your candidate wins. You don't get anything if your candidate loses.

    So what, you vote for the winner just so you can say you voted for the winner? Whoop de doo, way to be a follower, completely void of critical thinking and rational thought. Not that it matters, since all votes are confidential and if someone called you on it there'd be no way to prove it.

    You vote because you get a chance to say who you think would do a better job at leading the country. It's because of people who think "omg I'm gonna vote for Obama cause he's gonna win anyway lol" that we're stuck in a two party system. If more people took the time to determine their own opinion instead of being a fucking sheep we'd have a wider variety of opinions in our government.
  • edited November 2008
    So true. I couldn't have said it better myself. Vote Nader hypothetical person who hasn't voted yet.
  • edited November 2008
    We did a mock election in my junior high, and I was quite surprised when Obama won in a landslide. This is Idaho, land of republicans, yet the democrat won in 3/4 junior highs, and it was a close call in the school that went McCain. I just found that very interesting.
  • edited November 2008
    Democracy at its best

    democracy.jpg

    Edit: Found a better one.

    democracy2.jpg
  • edited November 2008
    Oh, come on. Both of those states polled heavily for Obama. I'd understand being upset if it were any way close.