Know new taxes!
 

Name it penske clone.

ETA: Done!

Re: Know new taxes!
 

LOL! Wooehooah!

Re: Know new taxes!
 

Someone asked about Props 1A and 11. I wound up voting yes on 1A and no on 11. I generally vote straight noes on props but something I read before I mailed my ballot caused me to switch, then something I read later caused me to reconsider. I don't think I feel strongly enough about it to be confident I could convince another.

As for 11, the best argument for is that the system is broken. Yeah, no shit. But taking it out of the hands of elected officials is exactly the kind of "wise" decision that will be regretted upon much later reflection when it is too late.

I'm told that in the 1970s some crazy burned out ecologist suggested that all states, counties and cities be abolished and that political boundaries run along major and minor watersheds. Doesn't seems so crazy now.

Re: Know new taxes!
 

I completely agree with this. Also and/or in the interim, federal agencies that deal with land use and water use (Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Land Management, National Parks, National Forests, Bureau of Reclamation, EPA, Fish & Wildlife (though this may be a subsidiary of one of the others listed)) should not have wildly inconsistent boundaries. They don't follow state lines and they don't necessarily follow watershed lines. So there's all this interagency crap that is tremendously inefficient. I mean, I can see having an entire Fish & Wildlife administrative area (district? jurisdiction?)that is completely inside a BLM area, but the Fish & Wildlife administrative areas shouldn't straddle two or more BLM areas and vice versa. The parks and forests are more difficult because of not wanting to give up parkland or forest land, but the other ones? Get a map of major and minor watersheds and redraw the boundaries.


Uh, this is something I'm interested in.

Thanks re: 1A and 11.

Re: Know new taxes!
 

Just think, in four years you'll have the chance for voting to get it back!

Re: Know new taxes!
 

wouldn't it make sense if the relevant ecosystems are different? Forests don't necessarily align with watersheds, but fish do. So why couldn't some districts be larger than others or not have the same boundaries?

Re: Know new taxes!
 

mmmmm BLM (mayo)

Re: Know new taxes!
 

OK, maybe I explained it badly? The sizes can be different. Like, think of counties and states. Different states have different numbers of counties, and counties are all different sizes, but no county spans two states. If the county did, the county would have to figure out a way to coordinate its rules with the laws of both of the states that its in. And that would make the states have to think about the effect of their rules on these counties that are only partially in their state, but on a larger scale because, in the hypo, the state might have five counties that are partially in three different states (like, two OK counties are partially TX counties, one is partially KS and one is partially AR).

And, since there are more layers than that, think of how it would be if states/provinces could exist across the US/Canadian/Mexican borders, and counties could be both in another state and in another country.

Inevitably it's not going to match up perfectly, but at this point no one's even trying to make it rational at all. I don't think it works to do ecosystems because of definitional issues -- like, it seems like ecosystems blend one into the other more subtly than watersheds do. Plus, at least the three major watershed areas aren't going to be changed by global warming or cooling -- they're a fixture of the relatively fixed underlying geography, not of the constantly changing interdependencies of plants and animals and rainfall.

Re: Know new taxes!
 

oh dearest! remember, with all of these posts, that the only way they have any value is as postulates for what one should do if starting a new country. of course, if starting a new country, you could change state lines.

Re: Know new taxes!
 

I don't know about YOUR city, but I wouldn't call the poor in any city I'm familiar with RO.

RT's protestations notwithstanding, it is hardly a generalization that the Republican party has become a rural and suburban party. Precinct-by-precinct red-blue voting maps illustrate this quite clearly.

So some people in Houston support the Sierra Club? Uh... ok. I guess all those voting maps are full of shit.

Whatever. They hyper-sensitivity about what the perceptions of Texas (or whatever geographical region) are say more about the percieved than the perceiver, methinks.

I'm pretty sure the bible-thumpers (wherever they may be located) think that people in my area of the country are a bunch of Sodom&Gomorrah-ites.

Ask me if I care.

Re: Know new taxes!
 

Yeah, I know. SIIIIIGGGGGHHHHH.

OK, in the interests of doability, the feds should align their areas WITH EACH OTHER and then also with state lines.


Or, I'm waiting for the Apocalypse. I'm not going to go up in the Rapture, so I'll be around to help out after all the SSROs are gone.

Re: Know new taxes!
 

look at how many cities votes for a gay rights thing.

or maybe the dems have become an urban party? Chicken/egg

and here's the thing, you did a "whatever" at ME. NWTF?

Re: Know new taxes!
 

FWIW, as much as I poke fun at circle jerks and the like, I hate to see folks on the same side bickering. I think tomorrow is going to be a really incredible day that should inspire most of this country.

Re: Know new taxes!
 

I didn't say anything about people that I talked to supporting the Sierra Club or Barack Obama. I said that people throughout the area that I was canvassing did not seem to be simpleminded, shortsighted or religiously overzealous.

Vote tomorrow!!
 

And head to your local sex shop afterwards.

Especially Babeland

Re: Know new taxes!
 

2, on all points.

Except, I oppose 11 for reasons other than my knee-jerk "all props are usually really bad ideas" response. I will only support a change to redistricting rules in California if the effective date is "as soon as similar rules are made effective in Texas."

Re: Know new taxes!
 

Have you ever been to a black church? Or a mosque?

Re: Know new taxes!
 

Assuming things go the way the polls predict, it is really amazing, when you stop and think about how far the country has come in the last 40+ years. It has a very long way to go still, but nonetheless, it enough to give one hope. Or maybe change. Or something.

Re: Vote tomorrow!!
 

How does the mav'rick compare and cotnrast with the blossomm?

New York Really Isn't Reality
 

Today I got up at 7:00 to vote. On the short walk there, I stopped to pick up a ham and cheese Cwahsaunt at the local patisserie. I waited on line for 7 long minutes.

I then bought a paper so I had something to read while I waited to vote. I got to my polling place, walked in, was told my booth was #23 and headed over to it. There were three people ahead of me. One was Ethan Hawke, one was one of the Daily Show regular guests* and the other was a middle-aged white woman.

I waited longer at the bakery than I did to vote. And I've heard people here in the city talk about having to wait for an hour. How hard can it be to add up the number of people who vote in any particular location, divide it by the number of booths at that location and then move extra booths to locations in need of them to maximize efficiency?

These aren't difficult problems to deal with.

TM

eta: I think it was Sarah Vowel

http://collegerelations.vassar.edu/i...215.vowell.jpg

Re: Know new taxes!
 

2. And with the kind of enthusiasm Obama has inspired, I would be really concerned if he doesn't win big tonight. Morale will be low. I keep thinking Dark Ages. But I'm dreary like that. (Though I sense I'm not the only one with election day tension).

PS - I am a little sad for McCain but only because I've had a crush on pictures of the 30-40 year old version of him for a long time. But that was a while ago; back when people would get high and admit "that dude is the only Republican I could vote for".

Shiny happy people laughing.
 

Indeed. I had a long wait in line before I voted in Podunkville this morning. Haven't seen this much excitement at the polls in a while -- both sides had signs up right to the edge of the "no campaigning" line and seemed to be relatively good-natured. Even Big Earl (who isn't on the ballot this year) was there for a bit, glad-handing and passing out crullers and Sanka (his wife and doctor got him off real coffee) to voters before he headed off to the Road Commission building.

In the reddest of red states, and bluest of blue states, there are significant numbers of people who vote the other way. In liberal New York, for example, one third of those voting picked Barry Goldwater for president in 1964 (arguably the most conservative presidential candidate in the last 50 years), while in conservative Utah in 1972, about one quarter of those voting picked George McGovern (arguably the most liberal). I think that it's all just shades of purple.

Re: Know new taxes!
 

Relief.

If this endless campaign were music it would be a triple-header of Wagner's Ring Trilogy.

If I had one I had a dozen robo-calls yesterday. Causing people to run downstairs in a towel just to see "800 Call Center" on the fucking caller ID is not a way to bring voters back, Mr. McCain.

Re: New York Really Isn't Reality
 

It might be that some neighborhoods have dramatic variation in turnout?

I had next to no wait at 8:30, but someone walked in who had gone to the wrongprecinct first. she said there was a twenty minute wait there.

ahead of me in line was the father of the girl on cyber Playboy- the subject didn't come up.

Re: New York Really Isn't Reality
 

I think the problem is that it ebbs and flows depending on the neighborhood, and that it's not predictable. There may be no line in the morning in your precinct, but a huge line tonight. Or vice versa.

And if you move booths around during the day, it means they're out of service while being moved.

That said, I'd like places to figure out a way so you can vote close to where you work, not where you live, so you could vote any time during the day rather than just on your way to work or way home.

Re: Know new taxes!
 

The lines in this state are exceedingly long. These are not McCain voters. I would bet this will be a four point win - a landslide.

Re: New York Really Isn't Reality
 

I went by my polling place and there was a line two blocks long. Hopefully it will be more manageable mid-afternoon when I intend to try again.

Re: New York Really Isn't Reality
 

When I have seen lines, it wasn't a lack of booths. It was a lack of poll workers to check people in.

Re: Know new taxes!
 

He deserves every bit of the embarrassment he's going to get. He had a chance to lead this country down the middle - a tack which would have been morally, ethically and politically valid - and he decided to go with Rovian politics.

Lay down with Goebbels, die in the bunker.

Fuck him. He pissed on the decent conservatives in this country and deserves to look like a fool tonight.

Re: New York Really Isn't Reality
 

This may be true, but at that location, there were just no people. I don't believe for a second that there will be long lines tonight. But I'll stop by there on my way home to take a look.

TM

Re: New York Really Isn't Reality
 

Same here, at least at my polling place, although I made the mistake of going electronic, for which there was only one booth, instead of paper, where there were at least a dozen tables and, of course, a quiet corner if you wanted that.

Re: New York Really Isn't Reality
 

I'm having as hard a time as you figuring out why the greatest city in the world can't do basic math to ensure that the ratio of voters to booths in each precinct/voting location should be approximately equal.

Re: New York Really Isn't Reality
 

They had arranged to have eight machines at our polling place. One of the computers broke, though, this morning, and they couldn't use four of the machines because of that. It took us about an hour to get through the line, and we got there about ten minutes after the polling place opened. The election judge told us that another computer was on its way from downtown, but it was going to take awhile. No one really seemed to mind, though the line was longer when we left than it had been when we started standing in it.

ETA: Most of the early voting places are scattered around town, and you can vote at any one of them. The voting patterns suggest that people early vote closer to work than home. They're also open on the weekends, so people who just can't get off work can find some time to get to the polls. 42 percent of the registered voters in the largest 15 counties in Texas had already voted by Sunday.

Re: New York Really Isn't Reality
 

From allocating resources in campaigns past - urban locations tend to vote late, and tend to spread their vote throughout the day (since people can walk there pretty easily). They're the easiest place to pull more voters at night, too, because of the concentration, so campaigns can really build the end of the day rush. Rural locations vote early. Really early. Suburbs, before and after work.

We had a mammoth line in my (suburban) voting precinct - down the hall and out the door of the school - but I know it will be dead from 9:30 to 5:00.

Re: New York Really Isn't Reality
 

I hopped into line at the voting station a few blocks from my house in a MD suburb of DC at about 8:50 AM -- much busier than in the past even though I avoided the big pre-work crush. Line out halfway to the street (about 150 foot line), but it was moving quickly -- took me about 35 minutes to vote.

Line was shorter when I left, but my wife just called and said she was showing up to vote and the line was all the way out to the street. I'd say we have three waves in our neighborhood -- pre-work; stay at home parents showing up to vote after getting the kids to school; and after work. No troubles here -- but you wouldn't expect any in our state in our neighborhood.

S_A_M

Re: New York Really Isn't Reality
 

Hell, we had 24 machines at our polling place. Y'all need to start spending some cash on equipment. (One thing our nanny state government does pretty well.) Although -- funny enough -- they're going back to paper ballots after this election thereby pissing away tens of millions spent on machines that we'll be paying for several more years.

S_A_M

Re: Know new taxes!
 

The Economist has had an interesting run of stories. At the beginning of the general election (once the nominees were clear), their cover was titled something like "America At Its Best" -- plainly referring to both candidates as examples of the best America has to offer. By last week, when they endorsed Obama, they were mourning the passing of the guy John McCain used to be.

Re: New York Really Isn't Reality
 

Are the problems more significant in precincts where turnout is unusually high? If you were assigning booths by "people," you might well define "people" as "likely voters" (rather than "registered voters" or "residents").

This year, that calculus is likely to be way off, especially in heavily African-American areas. I read the other day that in Cleveland (or whatever county it's in -- Cuyahoga?), African-American turnout was about 25% in 2004 -- and it was already higher than that by October 13, 2008.

Re: Know new taxes!
 

I've been to a mosque, but not for a religious service. I have been to black churches for religious services on a few occasions.

The "O" stands for Overzealous.

In the black church example anyway, I would never say that the religiosity of the members is zealotry. People for whom worship and faith is an important part of their lives? Absolutely. But people who believe that unless one agrees with their religious views, they're going straight to hell, and are basically a scourge on our nation? Not so much.

Re: Know new taxes!
 

I still don't see the logic of his deal with the devil, but I'm not sure who gets the Rs out of the box they are in. Mayor 9-11 embarrassed himself, Colin Powell is plainly disgusted, Ahnold can't run, Romney is clearly on board with the ROs, Ridge is unemployed, and you don't have anyone I can think of training in AAA. The only state with whig republicans left is Maine.

Where you guys going to go?