You see, for the entire second half of Election Day, from almost noon until after midnight, Eastern time, I was aboard a Continental flight to Tokyo. We had video-on-demand systems but not live satellite television, so as we arced over Canada, Alaska, and the northern reaches of the Pacific Ocean, we flew in ignorance. As Jeremy Keith put it regarding his own flight to Japan, we were aboard Schrödinger‘s Airplane.

For me, the wave collapsed as we began the initial descent toward Narita. One of the flight attendants, having announced that they were starting the initial-descent procedures and would like us to check around our seats for any personal items we might like to start stowing, added: “And for those of you interested in the results of the election, we have a new President: Barack Obama.”

There was a burst of applause from the economy section of the plane. In business class, there was silence.

Well, not quite. I was myself sitting in business class, thanks to a great big pile of reward miles and some lucky timing in calling the airline. As I heard her say Obama’s name, I let out an involuntary “Wow“. Because until that moment, deep down I had believed, truly believed, that Mr. Obama would not win the Presidency. That was not the outcome I desired, but it was the outcome I expected.

I am in many ways ashamed of my doubts and fears, because I had thought less of my fellow Americans than they deserved.

Since then, from here in Tokyo, I’ve felt weirdly disconnected from what’s happened. In time zone terms, I’m fourteen hours in my home’s future, half a day ahead of everyone back home. But because I received word after it was all over and soon after slept through America’s Wednesday daylight hours, I feel like I’m a day behind. Time and distance combine to create a feeling of disconnectedness from the end result, as though I’m getting word of election results in Germany or India or Australia: interesting, but something seen at a remove.

It’s odd. I’m used to being an observer, but this is something else entirely. I think it’s pure astonishment.

First, I want to address a couple of objections that were raised. The first was: “It’s just a family photograph”. No, it’s not. It’s a magazine cover shoot. Those things are planned, directed, and executed down to the tiniest detail. If you think it’s just a family portrait, you’re either being willfully obdurate or else completely ignoring the context. That’s a mistake, because context is everything. I’ve been involved in a few portrait sessions of no public reach whatsoever, and the photographer is always telling people where to stand or sit, adjusting the angle of people’s arms, getting them to fractionally tilt heads one way or the other, shifting people an inch or two, and so on. “Just a family photo” is when the magazine gets a real family photo, taken by an amateur using a consumer-grade camera during a vacation, and puts it on the cover in a white Polaroid-esque frame at a 15-degree angle.

The second was that the image is a Photoshop job, created either by assembling individual shots or altering a group photo. Maybe, maybe not; either way, Photoshopping or a lack thereof is completely irrelevant to my point. If it wasn’t Photoshopped, then the photographer is responsible for the arrangement of the shot; if it was, then it’s the Photoshopper who bears responsibility. Either way, someone arranged the shot, and did so very badly.

So here’s what I saw: “large group” and “outsider”. That was the immediate message. Look at the cover again, paying attention to where the faces are. There’s a blob of faces above the headline text, which is the group. Then there’s a face to the left of the headline text, which is the outsider.

This is completely independent of the race, color, gender, creed, etc. of the people in the photo. The visual message is “here’s a bunch of people, plus a hanger-on”. Not because of color, which is what most people assumed I was talking about (and more on that in a minute). Because of placement.

Though I think this unlikely, you may not quite be seeing it. In that case, imagine a cover image with nine faces in the same places, only they’re of religious deities. Or pop stars. Or CEOs. Or heads of state. Or conference speakers. Or browser-team leads; heck, even browser logos. Whichever it is, imagine your favorite of each group is in the lower-left position, with all the others up above. Feel good about that? Even neutral? Still think there’s no message being conveyed by that placement?

(And if you still aren’t seeing it, maybe a comparative example, courtesy George Butler, will provide some insight.)

Now, given that one of the people has been placed as an outsider, the natural next step is to wonder why they’ve been so placed. And here, there are obvious visual differences that jump right out: like being female, having darker skin, and being younger. Already primed to ask “Why is this person an outsider?” we can find apparent reasons, and in this case they’re touchy ones. If you know the background story of the family, then there’s a non-visual one as well: that she’s adopted.

But remember, I’m not saying Bridget (the young lady in that position) has been excluded for any of those reasons. I’m saying that having been given a visual cue that she is excluded, we look for reasons to explain that exclusion. That’s exactly what most of the people who responded to my post about the cover did. All those people saw it, consciously or otherwise, and responded to the message… and then took that next step, trying to find reasons to explain the message. Then, as per each individual’s feelings and experiences, they reacted, either accepting or rejecting what they thought I was saying. Interesting, though, that so many people came to the same conclusion about what they thought I was saying. That’s evidence of a strong message, whether or not said message was intended.

And that is the failure that occurred, one which I lay squarely at the doorstep of the magazine. I might also toss in a head-slap to the campaign, if they saw the image and gave approval to use it—such pre-approval is sometimes, but not always, an option. The problem with that composition should have been obvious from the outset, and avoided. That it wasn’t makes me wonder a number of things about the magazine. Taking a teenaged girl and putting her in the outsider spot? Seriously? How callous do you have to be to do that?

Oh, and special postscript to all the people who took the time to share their pitying sorrow over how “you Americans” are so race-aware: I know it’s a tragedy, but remember, we’re still a young country and have not had the same lengthy maturation time you’ve enjoyed. So please, try to remain patient with us while segregation, anti-immigrant violence, race riots, tribal warfare, and ethnic cleansing uniquely wrack our poor, blighted country, and continue to hope that one day we’ll join the rest of the world in the tranquil harmony that so characterizes your enlightened societies.

There’s a metaphor there, but I’m having trouble deciding exactly what it is, or perhaps more accurately to whom it applies.

Seriously, I’m not generally one to read messages into things—in fact, I probably lean too far the other direction—but on this? Somebody needs to be fired for gross negligence, because there’s a message being sent here, intentionally or otherwise. In fact, it’s worse if it’s unintentional. The question is who was negligent. The photographer for not seeing what the placement communicated? The editor for approving use of the image on their cover? The McCain campaign for approving the image in the first place?

Maybe all of the above.

I’ll be very interested in people’s responses on this one… and even more in People‘s response, should anyone ask them about it.

Leave your caption(s) in the comments. Who knows? There might even be a prize or two involved.

(Update: comments are now enabled. Oopsie.)

Well, with North Korea setting off something that might have been a nuclear device, it’s starting to show up in the darndest places. Everyone’s favorite millenial talk show host, Glenn Beck, not only mentioned it on his radio program this past Monday, but also put a link on the main page of his site for a couple of days. Then it got Farked. I suppose it’s only a matter of time now before it gets Slashdotted as well.

With the increased attention, some old criticisms have arisen, as well as some misunderstandings. For example, on Fark, someone said:

I thought it was funny how people are playing with this and think they were “safe” if they weren’t in the circle.

Here’s a mockup I did of the kind of blast damage you could expect from a single 1980′s era Russian ICBM carrying 10 MIRV warheads, each capable of 750KT yield.

Oh my yes. That’s something that the HYDEsim code can theoretically support, since every detonation point is an object and there’s no limit on the number of objects you can have, but I never managed to add this capability. That’s because trying to figure out the UI for placing the MIRV impact points broke my head, and when I considered how to set all that in the URI parameters (for direct linking), a tiny wisp of smoke curled out of my left ear. Still, one of these days I should probably at least add a “MIRV ring impact” option so the young’n's can get an idea of what had us all scared back in the old days.

The interesting challenge is that a strategic nuclear strike of that variety is going to involve a whole bunch of optimum-altitude air bursts. HYDEsim takes the simpler—and also, in this darkened day and age, more realistic—approach of calculating the effects of a ground burst. The difference is in no sense trivial: a ground burst has a lot of energy, both thermal and radiological, absorbed by the ground (oddly enough!). On the other hand, its highest overpressure distances are actually greater.

This is because shock energy drops with distance, of course. An optimum-altitude air burst would be a mile or two above the ground, so the highest pressures would be directly beneath the explosion, and would be smaller than if the same weapon exploded on the ground. With an air burst there’s less ground and man-made clutter to attenuate the shock waves as they spread out, so the total area taking some degree of damage due to overpressure is actually greater. (There are also very complex interactions between the shock waves in the air and those reflected off the ground, but those are way beyond my ability to simulate in JavaScript.)

Also, direct thermal radiation is spread over a much greater area with an air burst than with a ground burst—again, there’s less stuff in the way. The amount of fallout depends on the “cleanliness” of the warhead, but for an air burst it can actually be expected to be less than a groundburst.

People also claim that radiological energy (X-rays, neutron radiation, gamma radiation, etc.) will be the deadliest factor of all. Actually, it’s just the opposite, unless you’re discussing something like a neutron bomb. The amount of harmful direct-effect radiation that comes directly from the explosion is far, far smaller than the thermal energy. And yes, I know thermal radiation is direct-effect, but there’s a large practical difference between heat and other forms of radiation.

Put another way, if you’re close enough to an exploding nuclear warhead that the amount of radiation emitted by the explosion would ordinarily kill you, the odds are overwhelmingly high that the amount of shock wave and thermal energy arriving at your position will ensure that there won’t be time for you to worry about the radiation effects. Or anything else, really.

Remember: I’m talking there about direct radiation, not the EMP or fallout. That’s a whole separate problem, and one HYDEsim doesn’t address, to the apparent disgust of another Farker:

The site is useless without fallout and thermal damage.

Well, I don’t know about useless, but it’s admittedly not as representative of the totality of nuclear-weapons damage as it might otherwise be. Of course, HYDEsim is not specifically about nuclear detonations, as I showed when I mapped the Hertfordshire oil refinery explosion and djsunkid mapped the Halifax explosion of 1917. But I certainly admit that the vast majority of explosions in the range the tool covers are going to be from nuclear weapons.

The problem with mapping fallout is that it’s kind of weather dependent, just for starters; just a few miles-per-hour difference in wind speed can drastically alter the fallout pattern, and the position of the jet stream plays a role too. Also, the amount of fallout is dependent on the kind of detonation—anyone who was paying attention during the Cold War will remember the difference between “dirty” and “clean” nuclear warheads. (For those of you who came late: to get a “dirty” warhead, you configure a device to reduce the explosive power but generate a lot more fallout.)

Thermal effects are something I should add, but it’s trickier than you might expect. There’s actually an area around the explosion where there are no fires, because the shock effects snuff them out. Beyond that, there’s a ring of fire (cue Johnny Cash). So it’s not nearly as simple as charting overpressure, which is itself not totally simple.

And then there’s there whole “how to combine thermal-effect and overpressure rings in a way that doesn’t become totally confusing” problem. Get ambitious, and then you have the “plus the show fallout plume without making everything a total muddle” follow-on problem. Ah well, life’s empty without a challenge, right?

Okay, so I went through all that and didn’t actually get to my point, which is this: I’ve been rather fascinated to see how the tool gets used. When it was first published, there was a very high percentage of the audience who just went, “Cooool!”. That’s still the case. It’s the same thing that draws eyes to a traffic accident; it’s horrible, but we still want to see.

However, I also got some pushback from conservative types: how dare I publish such a thing, when it could only be useful to terrorists?!?!? Rather than play to the audience and inform them that I simply hate freedom, I mentioned that it was desirable to have people like you and me better understand the threats we face. It’s not like the terrorists can’t figure this stuff out anyway.

Now I’ve seen a bunch of people from the same ideological camp use HYDEsim to mock the North Koreans’ test, which apparently misfired and only achieved a yield of about 0.5KT. Others have taken that figure and plotted it in American cities, giving some scale to the dimension of this particular threat. Still others have done that, but with the yield the North Koreans had attempted to reach (thought to be 4KT), or even with yields up to 50KT. In most cases, these last are shown in conjunction with commentary to the effect of “now do you understand why this is a problem?”.

This is why I do what I do, whether it’s write books or publish articles or speak at conferences or build tools or just post entries here: to help people learn more about their world, and to help them share what they know and think and believe with others. Sometimes that’s worth saying again, if only to remind myself.

I have a few suggestions on how you might improve your relationship with centrists who would like to support you. Well, all right, it’s really all about how to improve your relationship with me.

The primary rule is this: stop annoying me.

You might wonder which of your policies, pronouncements, or other points of politicking have triggered this reaction. In all honesty, none of them; from what little attention I’ve paid to political debate in America, you’re batting about even with the Republicans, though I tend to give you a slight edge due to my internal biases. No, what’s raised my ire is the one-two punch of clueless marketing you served me today.

The first one was a fund-raising letter sent to me by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. It’s nice to know that Mrs. Clinton is interested in involving her constituents in the political process, at least as far as their wallets go. Slight problem: Mrs. Clinton is not my senator. She doesn’t even represent a single person in my state, as I live in Ohio, not New York.

Of course I realize this was a national campaign, not a matter of local politics. That being the case, though, the name on the envelope should have been that of your national party chairman, Dr. Howard Dean. If he’s not popular enough to be attached to such an effort, then you need a new chair.

The follow-up fumble was a telephone call I got early this evening which also exhorted me to donate to the cause. Now, part of the reason I get these calls is that, as a political entity, you’re free to ignore the Do Not Call list. Both parties took shameless advantage of this oh-so-convenient exception last fall, as I observed at the time, but since the election you’d both pretty much shut up, thankfully. The other part of the reason is that I gave a small donation to a chilly, rain-soaked young woman who rang our doorbell one evening. At the time, I did it because I was marginally less opposed to your Presidential candidate than I was to his opponent, and because I can be a sucker for young idealists caught in the rain. What I didn’t reckon, though I should have, was that it would put me on the “contact this guy a lot” list.

Where “a lot” isn’t usually more than twice a month, I admit, but still.

Anyway, your telemarketing temp launched into her spiel, which was nicely written, but I decided to inform her that I wasn’t interested since the last time I’d made a donation, it had gotten me onto a bunch of mailing lists. Her response was that what actually happens is when you go out on the Internet and use search engines, they hang onto that information.

So here’s my last tip, which comes in two parts. It goes like this. If you’re going to give your marketdroids some kind of response for complaints like mine, try to make sure that it’s:

1. Not a lame attempt to shift blame to some other quarter; and
2. Not complete bull[censored].

If you haven’t written a response for that kind of complaint, then you should at least instruct your temps that ad-libbing their own bogus responses isn’t kosher. Tell them to try a little sympathy and understanding—and, even better, have them tell prospects that their name won’t be put on every liberal-leaning mailing list in the universe!

Although please only have them tell people that if it’s actually true. Leave the lying to the politicians.

Anyway, that’s it in a nutshell. Remember that I’m only saying all this because I care. Good luck.

Sincerely,
Eric

P.S. to the Republicans: stop looking so smug, because you know damned well you’d be doing the same stuff if I’d given you any money. In fact, last year you sent me two surveys soliciting my opinions as a representative of “a select group of Republicans” in my area. Leaving aside the pathetically transparent lie it represented (that you were only contacting a few select people in every area, as opposed to sending one to everyone you could find), it was at best insultingly biased to anyone who possesses more than an milligram of functioning brain cells.

You’re no better than the Democrats; in many ways, you’re a lot worse, and I occasionally toy with the idea of donating some small amount just to see how awful your subsequent mailings and phone calls would get. You know, do a comparison with what the Democrats are sending me. But honestly? I’d really rather not hear from either of you until you learn to behave like adults.

I could use some cheering up, so if you’d like to help out, write funny captions for one or both pictures. Extra credit for captions that don’t make sex jokes. (Anything really foul will be deleted. You have been warned.)

For those who wish to contribute two captions, I think we’ll be daringly original and refer to the first picture (of Bush and Rice) as #1, and the second (of Bush and Spellings) as #2. Got it? Great. Knock yourselves out.

The flood of political calls has been, not to put too fine a point on it, infuriating. I signed up with the Do Not Call list for a reason, geniuses. I’m doubly glad to be on it now that we have Carolyn. I’m not especially concerned that the phone will wake her, bless her heart; once she goes to deep sleep, you could practically send a marching band through her room to play “Columbia, The Gem Of The Ocean” at full volume and she’d continue snoring. (Such cute little snores they are, too.) But some nights, especially when the teething is particularly bad, she never really gets to a deep sleep. The last thing I want is for her to be woken up by a ringing phone and experience more pain because some politician or political activist thinks I really need to hear from him (or her). I don’t. Stop bothering me.

Now, I’ll admit that my vote for President was never in serious doubt. It was easier to justify, though, on the grounds that Kerry and his allies had invaded my family’s privacy to a lesser extent than did his opponents. It’s a classic “lesser of two evils” rationalization, but hey, any port in an electoral storm. It’s also a metaphor for the Bush administration’s stance on social and privacy issues, now that I think about it.

And why was my vote never in serious doubt? I can explain that in ten words (16 words and three letters if you count the names).

That’s it in a nutshell. I’ve had a number problems with the Bush administration’s policies and actions, and most of them stem from the differences in philosophy that table summarizes.

There’s another reason I voted for Kerry, though: the Congress is almost certainly not going to be controlled by the Democrats. Thus, the only things that will get through the legislative process are those with broad support. Most observers feel that should Kerry win, he’ll have to set aside some of his grander (read: more expensive) plans for at least the first two years of his administration. That’s just fine with me. Since a Republican-dominated government apparently can’t show a sense of fiscal restraint, I’d be happy to have it arise as a side effect of an opposite-party government.

Well, not exactly happy, really, but hopefully you know what I mean.

It’ll certainly be interesting to watch how all this plays out. Now, if you haven’t yet, get out there and vote!

How are things going? I hear you’ve been very busy, doing a lot of traveling, that sort of thing. In a way, it’s too bad you don’t fly on commercial airlines, because you would have a whole pile of frequent flyer miles. You could probably earn three or four round-the-world trips. Though now that I think about it, you probably don’t really need that kind help getting around, do you?

I’ve long been an undecided voter, thanks in no small part to the choice of candidates this time around. I’m sure you’re a very honorable man, at least to the extent your office will permit. Nonetheless, about half your policies have been deeply dismaying to me. On the other hand, about half your opponent’s positions are no more appealing to me. On the whole, as I’ve complained from time to time, I’ve had a very difficult time making up my mind how to vote. It’s true that I’m traditionally a liberal type, but that’s mostly in the social arena. That, incidentally, should provide a good indication of which half of your policies have dismayed me.

As a resident of a “battleground” state, or “swing” state, or whatever it is we’re calling them these days, I’ve been getting a lot of phone calls these days. I imagine you know a thing or two about that; after all, your mother and your wife both called. So did Arnold Schwarzenegger. Also Gwyneth Paltrow and Sarah Jessica Parker, although they of course weren’t calling on your behalf. In addition, I’ve heard from a number of dire-voiced men warning me about the terrible dangers inherent in electing you, or your opponent, to the White House. Over the past month, I’d estimate that I’ve received at least fifty calls from campaigns, political parties, 527 groups, and so forth. In one recent night, three such calls came in the space of twenty minutes. I’d most certainly have gotten more calls, but I was out of town for a week.

Anyway, I thought I’d let you know that from what I can tell, the organization of your campaign, and of those efforts aligned with you, has been more effective at reaching voters in my area. At a rough estimate, calls from your campaign, the Republican Party, and various 527 groups close to your side of the ideological spectrum have outnumbered those from the other side of the spectrum by about a third.

Accordingly, I’ll be casting my vote for John Kerry.

Even before noon, the Lyndon LaRouche folks had set up right next to one of the access points to the “public discussion area” (otherwise known as the “free speech zone”). From what I could tell the table was manned by college students. I had no idea there were college students that wacked out. So far as we could tell, they were obeying all of the posted rules, but the day was still early yet.

A little bit later on, we came across the Freedom Frankenstein, lumbering across the landscape like a big, scary, primary-color boogeyman. Or something. Okay, it was one of the decorations for the MTV concert area. At least we think that’s what area it was in. The people setting it up didn’t actually know, and crowd members seemed to be confused about which event was being held where. Actually, the crowd members seemed to be confused about a great many things.

The football field just outside Emerson Gymnasium, the site of the debate, was covered with transmission trucks. As we approached the field perimeter, we got the once-over from some grim-looking gentlemen in suits and shades. A more normal-looking guy near the barrier line looked up at us and said, “You can’t take pictures here. The Secret Service guys won’t allow it.” So we retreated a bit, gained higher ground, and took the picture anyway. Which drew the attention of a couple of Secret Service guys; as they started walking in our general direction, we decided it was time to check out the other side of campus. It’s great to know that the media uplink trucks of the world are so well protected, you know?

The two books pictured were just sitting next to a crosswalk on Euclid Avenue. There was nobody within thirty feet of them besides us. We couldn’t quite work out if they were freebies (despite having cover prices) or if picking one up would activate some sort of hidden box trap. We decided to leave them alone and go check out the Hardball rehearsal at the MSNBC stage. Demonstrators for various causes and candidates had already staked out space, despite it being four or five hours before the show itself would air. Chris Matthews came down and talked with the people along the fence line, and some volunteers practied handing out Krispy Kreme donuts. Apparently that’s something they do during the show. Or else did. I didn’t watch it.

I’ll say this much: Chris Matthews looks a lot less healthy in person than he does on television. I didn’t get a chance to ask him if Zell was still demanding that they duel.

In all, it was a fun time. All it needed was some monkeys and maybe a juggling act, and the day would have been perfect.

Especially since the prediction about Ivan turning west is actually coming true. Having dissipated over the continental United States, the low-pressure remnants of Ivan have managed to get all the way back to the Gulf of Mexico and are re-forming into a tropical storm. Ivan is currently projected to bring flooding to Louisiana and Texas. Seriously.

Hmmm…..

(All right, all right, if we must be serious about this, here’s the Snopes rebuttal. But please note the categories for this post.)

• Whom Do You Believe? Bush?
• Whom Do You Believe? Kerry?

I’d have linked to the printer-friendly versions, except they contained a window.print call, and I wasn’t sure if they’d force a print in some browsers or not. At the least, they’d call up a print dialog, which is kind of annoying.

The views I expressed in Partied Out are just deepened by this sort of thing. I know, it’s nothing new. That doesn’t make it any less depressing.

Recent favorites:

• CBO report spun by both sides (8/24)
• The myth of Kerry knowingly volunteering for dangerous duty lives on (8/24)
• From technically true to blatantly false (8/24)

Heck, they’re all good. Right now, the site’s authors are pushing their new book “All The President’s Spin” pretty hard, which probably lends to the perception that they’re a left-wing group. I haven’t seen any leftward shift in their posts, though; they’re still taking on both sides and the media itself.

So like I say, if you’ve any interest in these sorts of things, go sign up for the feed or add them to your bookmarks. The lessons in spin, deception, and media distortion you’ll receive are well worth the investment of your time.

If the Republican Party actually carried through on the core principles it espouses, I’d pretty much have to register that way. I’m all for a decrease in government’s interference in the personal lives of its citizens, and that goes for silent intrusion as well as active meddling. I’m all for the government being as small as it needs to be, and no smaller. I believe that the government provides a number of critical services, and those should be funded, but that there should be intelligent restrictions on its growth. I also believe in fiscal responsibility, in eliminating deficits, and in returning any surplus to the taxpayers (once all debts are paid off and services are funded).

So what do we have instead? A party that proposes amending the Constitution to prohibit some kinds of marriage, that keeps increasing the size of the government, and that runs up massive debts while cutting off income. Their leaders and highest-profile supporters tend to be the most annoying brand of hypocrite: preaching morality and decency while not acting in accordance with those ideals, publicly or privately.

As for debates about national security and terrorism, the more often I hear right-wingers respond to questions and criticism with accusations America-hating, the more I start to think that they have no rational policy, and their lame rhetorical attacks are meant to obscure this weakness. It’s probably an unfair perception, but it’s hard to avoid.

Then, of course, we have the Democrats. They’ve traditionally been in favor of increasing spending in order to provide expanded social services, which in any sane fiscal environment requires an increase in taxes. Thus the old cliché of “tax-and-spend liberal”. (To which I usually reply, “Well, duh, if taxes are levied then the money should be spent”.) But the last Democratic president, faced with a surplus, used it to get government debt under control. He didn’t try to blow it all on entitlements, at least not after the universal health care proposal died, or try to fund some massive boondoggle. He actually used it to reduce the fiscal burden on future generations.

The usual argument is that he didn’t do this of his own volition, but was forced into it by a Republican Congress. I no longer accept that claim, because I’ve been watching the current Republican Congress. No real signs of fiscal discipline there, I’m sorry to say. So it would seem that the party of smaller government and fiscal responsibility is, in reality… the Democrats. Say what?

As for national security, the left has been great about asking tough questions, but not all that good at formulating a decent policy—or, if they have one, then they’ve done a terrible job of promoting it. It’s one thing to criticize what’s being done, and quite another to propose a workable alternative.

And that leads us up to the 2004 Presidential election. I’m reminded of the 1988 election, when I seriously considered flipping a coin to determine my vote. Neither choice really made me happy. Same thing here. I’m no fan of President Bush or his policies, but I’ve yet to see that Kerry is a worthwhile alternative. I know some people who say “Anyone but Bush,” but I categorically refuse to pick the leader of the country that way. I know some people claim nobody could be worse than Bush, and I’m glad they do, because it makes their reality-distortion tendencies more obvious. There’s plenty of people who could be worse than Bush. The question in my mind is whether or not John Kerry would make a better leader than George W. Bush.

It would be nice if I could get a clear picture along those lines. So far, any hope of finding out has been obscured by the fountains of venomous bile the two sides keep spewing at each other. Back in late 2000, I wrote:

…I’m finding that every time a campaign spokesman from either side opens his mouth, my opinion of him drops. Every time. That’s just, you know, depressing.

It’s no less true, or for that matter less depressing, at present. And pundits wonder why voter apathy runs so high. I honestly think it’s because most of us just don’t want to waste any more time listening to the shrill schoolyard taunts that pass for political debate.

It doesn’t help that most taunts are equally applicable to both sides, thus deepening the sense of futility. To take just one example, the Republicans keep painting John Kerry as a “flip-flopper”. How droll. He has been a senator long enough to have voted in myriad ways, it’s true. In some cases, it’s because one bill is worth supporting, and another is not, even though they’re ostensibly about the same thing. In others, it might be that he’d changed his mind. Most humans do, at some point.

Thing is, Bush is no less a flip-flopper. He’s been against trade barriers like steel tariffs, and then for them. He’s been against education reform, and for it. He’s been against nation-building, and for nation-building. He’s been against independent inquiries into the 9/11 attacks, and for them. He’s been against negotiating with the North Koreans over their nuclear program, and in favor of negotiating with them. Those are some pretty major changes of position. And I’m generally okay with that; a pragmatist must sometimes change stance to get things done, and any intelligent person will change their mind if new and compelling information comes to light. I will gladly accept a leader who changes his mind when it makes sense to do so, or even when they have become convinced of the need to do so. Still, doesn’t it seems rather hypocritical of Bush and Cheney to excoriate Kerry for changing positions when W and company have been doing the same thing in fairly big ways?

It’s hard to take either party seriously any more. I sometimes wonder if there will be a serious political party in my lifetime—either because one of the existing parties grows up, or due to a serious-minded third party actually gaining traction and becoming a force in national politics. Both seem about equally unlikely.

And so I face the prospect of forcing myself to the polls, participating in the election process only because abstention is unacceptable to me. Thus a right and a duty becomes a frustration and a chore.

That’s probably the worst part of all.

Still, I think the way the Liberal Media has totally ignored his death is just a travesty, don’t you?