The user-elected advisory board is a joke, but I'm glad it's a joke. I'm glad it will have no real decision-making ability. I might support direct voting on some key issues, but LiveJournal is not and should not be made into a republic. I wouldn't want any user-elected anyone having real power on LiveJournal for the simple reason that I don't believe any large scale election on LiveJournal would ever be anything more than a popularity contest. I have a permanent account and therefore have a continued interest in the future of LiveJournal. I do not believe that interest would be best served if LiveJournal's future course was set by winners of popularity contests.

The economic stimulus deal has convinced me that there is no hope for United States politics. Let's collectively borrow $146,000,000,000 and have ourselves a great little shopping spree! That'll fix everything! It's like looting the safe while the ship is sinking: you're going to miss the lifeboats.

I don't think I'm going to vote in the upcoming election. I just don't see the point. It doesn't matter who wins, the Democrats and Republicans pull the same crap and the only difference is the spin they put on it. The system in the United States is broken, it's only a matter of time until it implodes.

Poll #1069391
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Who would you be more likely to vote for?

Poll #1053714 third party candidates
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Is there a currently a third party or independent candidate that could realistically become President of the United States in the 2008 election?

If you answered yes to the last question, which third party candidate do you think has a chance at winning?

While I definitely agree that something should be done about the race for the earliest primary (or rather second earliest), the Democratic National Committee directly taking on Florida about it's early primary date doesn't seem like a prudent political move and isn't likely to generate good will in the state. I can see that taking bold action despite potential political costs is sometimes a good thing, but I'd rather the Democrats take bold action to end the Iraq War instead.

I'd like to see a system where all primaries fall on the same date (including New Hampshire's). In modern American politics, early primaries hold far too much sway and so states naturally want to have an early primary – and what constitutes early is getting earlier and earlier. There will be no end to the primary creep until a more equatable system is put in place. The problem won't be solved by taking action against individual states.

Just for fun, I decided to look at the edits made from the United States Department of state using wikiscanner. I only looked at a fraction of the over 2,500 edits, but here are the ones I thought were interesting:

Laura Bush thinks Condi would be a great president

We're being invaded by Mexicans!!

"...the World Bank is one of the most highly-regarded financial institutions in the world..."

Tiawan is a pseudostate

"The statements about events in 2007 are clearly written by a Russian."

State Department predicts what issues will be contentious at the next Intergovernmental Conference of the European Union

The Department of State knows a lot about science and technology in China.

Somewhere in the world, humans can marry non-human animals

Delete – Who said the 2003 invasion of Iraq was illegal? No one said that

Delete – You can't say that the U.S. officials should have know that Bin Laden would turn his attention to the west after the Soviets were out of the way

Delete – Text on the United States Interests Section in Havana

Delete – A large chunk of the Missouri United States Senate election, 2006 article

Delete – Part of the discussion on the Agent Orange talk page

For each of the following, indicate which person you like more (or dislike less) by selecting a number on their side of the scale. The closer to -5 or 5 indicates the degree to which you prefer that option.

Poll #1003784
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Hillary Clinton (-5) vs. Rudy Giuliani (5)

Ronald Reagan (-5) vs. George W. Bush (5)

Vladimir Putin (-5) vs. Mikhail Gorbachev (5)

Jimmy Carter (-5) vs. Kofi Annan (5)

Queen Elizabeth II (-5) vs. Princess Diana (5)

Audrey Hepburn (-5) vs. Katharine Hepburn (5)

River Phoenix (-5) vs. Joaquin Phoenix (5)

If the presidential race comes down to Clinton vs. Giuliani, I'm voting for a third party. There simply isn't a significant enough difference between the two of them for me to really care which of them wins, therefore voting for either of them would be throwing away a vote that could be used as to protest the duopoly on power the Democrats and Republicans strangle this country with.

found through recoiling:

When radio host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly. The first caller to the station in Washington said that Klein must be "off his rocker." The second congratulated him and added: "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country ... they are here to kill us." Another said that tattoos, armbands and other identifying markers such as crescent marks on driver's licenses, passports and birth certificates did not go far enough. "What good is identifying them?" he asked. "You have to set up encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans." At the end of the one-hour show, rich with arguments on why visual identification of "the threat in our midst" would alleviate the public's fears, Klein revealed that he had staged a hoax. It drew out reactions that are not uncommon in post-9/11 America. "I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said," he told his audience on the AM station 630 WMAL, which covers Washington, Northern Virginia and Maryland ... "Because basically what you just did was show me how the German people allowed what happened to the Jews to happen ... We need to separate them, we need to tattoo their arms, we need to make them wear the yellow Star of David, we need to put them in concentration camps, we basically just need to kill them all because they are dangerous." ... Those in agreement are not a fringe minority: A Gallup poll this summer of more than 1,000 Americans showed that 39 percent were in favor of requiring Muslims in the United States, including American citizens, to carry special identification. full article

39% percent is a scary number. The Nazi Party never got 39% of the German vote before Hitler became Chancellor. In fact, in the election just prior to his becoming Chancellor, the Nazi Party received only 31% of the vote. The 39% of the American public supporting the marking and separation of Muslims does not necessarily mean we will have a repeat of the Nazi atrocities, but it does mean that we are closer to the edge of that precipice than we'd like to believe.

For each of the following, indicate which one you option you like more (or dislike less) by selecting a number on that side of the scale. The closer to -5 or 5 indicates the degree to which you prefer that option.

Poll #867616
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

beer (-5) vs. wine (5)

benevolent monarchy (-5) vs. corrupt democracy (5)

boston red sox (-5) vs. new york yankees (5)

cats (-5) vs. dogs (5)

chocolate (-5) vs. sex (5)