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   Henry Waxmans climate change bill wont make it into law this year. Thats why hes the right guy for the job.
 Conspiracy theories are all fun and games until you become the subject of one.
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July 3, 2006
By: 50-50 WORLD?....What's up with elections these days? In 2004, George Bush beat John Kerry by 120,000 votes in one state. In 2005, Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats won Germany's federal elections by three seats. A few months ago, the Italian left beat Silvio Berlusconi by 0.1% and it took over a week for Berlusconi to concede defeat. Today, we learn that Mexico's elections are so close that we won't learn the results until Wednesday. Preliminary results have the two main candidates within one percentage point of each other. Have we gone from a 50-50 nation to a 50-50 world? What's going on? —Kevin Drum 1:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (97)Comments
Polling and marketing. It's easier to make a case to your backers that you have to tack back to the center with the polling data to back it up. Posted by: jhe on July 3, 2006 at 1:02 PM | PERMALINKWe have a joke about the raising of children: A child in kindergarden asks her caretaker: "What time is it?" The caretaker answers: "What time do you want it to be?" If we're taught that anything has value, and that any opinion is as good as another - regardless of how (un)informed it is - then every election has to be 50/50 in the end. Posted by: LarzJG on July 3, 2006 at 1:06 PM | PERMALINKI had thought it was modern computer and database power applied to the Median Voter Theorem. But Germany has multiple parties, and Mexico I'm sure doesn't even have the databases. I don't know what kind of cheating would take you only up to 50% but not farther. Posted by: Noumenon on July 3, 2006 at 1:06 PM | PERMALINKLuckily, Diebold will keep The Good Guys in power here. Posted by: Freedom Phukher on July 3, 2006 at 1:14 PM | PERMALINKElections have always been crooked, but the world is more sophisticated now and won't accept obvious theft. Making sure everything stays close makes it easier to get away with it. Posted by: Jim J on July 3, 2006 at 1:14 PM | PERMALINKIf the 50-50 situation is too confusing, we could always change to a dictatorship. Oh, wait... Posted by: Hedley Lamarr on July 3, 2006 at 1:15 PM | PERMALINKCapitalistt manipulation of the population through mainstream media creates a much larger voting bloc for the rich than a normal distribution would and stifles the democratic process. The big news is that even this huge propaganda machine can only influence 50% of the electorate. To tip the balance, capitalists usually use voter pay outs, physical intimidation, and/or death squads. Posted by: Hostile on July 3, 2006 at 1:16 PM | PERMALINKI don't think the article says either of those things at all. Correct me if I'm wrong. Be gentle. Posted by: Killer on July 3, 2006 at 1:24 PM | PERMALINKPoliticians don't run on clear losing issues: if a poll shows 70-30, both sides will take the 70. That leaves elections to be decided on 50-50 issues. That's why many people think that it doesn't matter which side gets your vote; they're basically the same. Sadly, while the parties battle it out over the 50-50 issues (that generally don't mean too much), you get stuck with the "other" stuff that iis truly harmful to the Republic (I'm thinking of our country here). Remember "lockbox" vs. "stock market" Posted by: rusrus on July 3, 2006 at 1:28 PM | PERMALINKPart of the answer is that maxico is importing American political consultants, and American-style elections. See http://www.premierespeakers.com/3045/index.cfm for Dick Morris boasting about his work in Mexico. But part of the answer is that as polling and testing gets better, it becomes easier to figure out how to get exactly those N votes, and not bother with more. Why get a sweeping victory? That's just an indicator of money wasted. Posted by: Dan on July 3, 2006 at 1:29 PM | PERMALINKHostile's right, this one time I went to the local polling station, and there were a bunch of guys in black with guns, and I was like, Hey, who are you guys? And they were all, We're a death squad; who are you voting for? And I was all, I'm voting for the capitalist oligarchy. And they were like, Cool, go on in. Posted by: Rip Tatermen on July 3, 2006 at 1:32 PM | PERMALINKI disagree that the USA is 50/50. Here is why: GOP has clear majority in the Senate, the House, and the governorships. Senate: 55 Republicans, 44 Democrats, 1 Ind And can I remind you Doofus Dems that Bush won in 2004 by over 3 million votes?!?!?! Takes "fuzzy math" to conclude the USA is 50/50! Posted by: Frequency Kenneth on July 3, 2006 at 1:41 PM | PERMALINK The presidential election in Mexico is currently 38% for the rightist candidate, 37% for the leftist, and 22% for the candidate of the corrupt, discredited PRI party, which held the presidency continuously from the 30s to 2000. The Senate and House elections are similar, but with PRI getting about 27%. ...can't steal it plausibly unless it's reasonably close. Greg Palast has been claiming this one will be stolen for some time now. Posted by: Triskele on July 3, 2006 at 1:43 PM | PERMALINKHere is another depressing stat for you Libs: No Democrat candidate for president has gotten over 50% of the vote since Jimmy Carter in 1976. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Pelosi/Reid/Kennedy/Dean. Posted by: Down goes Frazier on July 3, 2006 at 1:47 PM | PERMALINKKiller took the words out of my mouth. 40% of the total vote will likely be enough to win this multi candidate race. Posted by: pgl on July 3, 2006 at 1:49 PM | PERMALINK"No Democrat candidate for president has gotten over 50% of the vote since Jimmy Carter in 1976." Yes, and Jimmy Carter was way more popular/successful than Bill Clinton. Idiot. Posted by: jay on July 3, 2006 at 1:54 PM | PERMALINKWhile we're on the topic of Bad News for Libs.... I just Googled "Air America ratings spring 2006" - what a hoot - Air America's ratings are in free fall. Posted by: Down goes Frazier on July 3, 2006 at 1:55 PM | PERMALINKRip was voting in El Salvador or Oaxaca. Or Ohio. Posted by: Hostile on July 3, 2006 at 1:57 PM | PERMALINKThe overriding theme of politics worldwide is the division of urban and rural voters... with suburban voters being divided between the two. Inner suburbs are becoming more urban while the outer suburbs... the fast-growing exurbs... are more rural in nature. That adds up to 50/50. Kevin, your German example isn't quite right. Germany had a five-way race (counting the CDU/CSU as one party as is usually done), and no one won. The CDU/CSU wound up with four (not three) more seats than the SDP, but that's not what matters. The CDU/CSU hoped to govern with their partners, the Free Democrats. The SDP previously governed with their partners, the Greens. But neither of those two traditional groupings won (though the former got 14 more seats) because the Left party (a merger of the former East German communists and West German leftists who used to be in the SDP) got 54 seats (8.8% of the total). In the German system you have to put together a 50%+ coalition or you've got nothing, so the end result was a "grand coalition" of the CDU/CSU and the SDP. A coalition of the FDP, the Greens, and either of the two big parties would also have been mathematically possible, but the FDP (basically a pro-business quasi-libertarian but socially liberal party) and the Greens would never be able to agree on anything.
The Principle of Indifference in action. If you have no information to bias your view one way or the other, then the chance of it being true is 50%. Say, you speculate on the chance of life on Mars. When you learn Mars is cold and has a thinner atmosphere then Earth, that information might bias you away from life. On the other hand, finding water on Mars and bacteria here on earth that live in what we might consider fairly harsh conditions would be information that pushes up the odds of life on Mars. It may be that the 50-50 split is a manifestation of the information vacuum we live in. Posted by: kostya on July 3, 2006 at 2:14 PM | PERMALINKThe Shiites in Iraq have been pretty close to 50% the last two elections (although constitutional changes ensured it dropped below that mark in December). Norway's Red-Green coalition won by three seats last September. I can't believe you forgot Norway. Posted by: B on July 3, 2006 at 2:14 PM | PERMALINKBigger wins don't make headlines. Michele Bachelet won the Chilean Presidency with 53.4%, Evo Morales won in a multiparty landslide, Alivaro Uribe won big in Colombia, etc. The orange-banana constitutional referendum in Kenya was defeated by almost a 20-point margin. Representation in India's parliament is 215-182 for the Congress Party and allies, with 136 others. There's a fourth close election, Costa Rica's, which generated exactly zero American press. Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot on July 3, 2006 at 2:15 PM | PERMALINKThe decrepit and stupid are making themselves known. Damn this cable and high-speed internet connected world! Where once the troglodytes stayed in their caves, now they have their own cable channels. Posted by: The Tim on July 3, 2006 at 2:38 PM | PERMALINKthere is nothing written in the laws of nature that says democracy is the be-all & end-all of political arrangments. what we are witnessing is nothing less than the system of democracy reaching a point where its own internal contradictions play themselves out in eternal stasis. So, lets say farewell to the approx. 200 year-long era when nation states built on democratic systems ruled the globe. the bigger question is... what comes next? Posted by: ptb on July 3, 2006 at 2:40 PM | PERMALINKoh yeah, kenny boy, frazier! quite a landslide ole george got in 04. if kerry had gotten 120,000 more votes in one state, he'd be prez. that was a margin so close that the race wasn't called until the day after the election. even and don't forget ole george won in 2000 by 520 vote in florida, a huge margin! (i know. i know had the election been entirely fair gore would have won that year.) if you twits looked inside the numbers, you'd see in many of these elections a tilt of a percentage point or 2 tips the balance of power. that's the point kevin was making. even if you look at the popular vote for the entire nation in 04, 3 million votes represents an extremely close race. and as i recall, the number of governors elected by either party decides nothing. but hey guys you can be proud to say you back one of the worst presidents in u.s. history and the worst by far since harding. nice work!!!! Posted by: mudwall jackson on July 3, 2006 at 2:41 PM | PERMALINKIf there's a lot of sentiment against your candidate, you might want to keep the other side at least feeling that they came close. Keep them thinking, "We're making progress, we almost won! Next time! Next time!" Posted by: gar on July 3, 2006 at 2:41 PM | PERMALINKDon't Senate Democrats represent more people than do Senate Republicans? I also seem to recall that when you count up the number of votes Democratic Senators/candidates got, it's more than the GOP. To think that the 55 GOP seats in the Senate actually means that the GOP way is the will of the people is absurd. Heck, my state Senate district (846.8k) has more constituents than does the entire state of Wyoming (493.8k). Posted by: gq on July 3, 2006 at 2:46 PM | PERMALINKIt is easier to steal elections if you think that it was a close race. If you thought the race was running 70-30 and the race was stolen, why that might even get an AMERICAN off their asses to go protest. Posted by: Eric Paulsen on July 3, 2006 at 3:03 PM | PERMALINKgq on July 3, 2006 at 2:46 PM - (And Frequency, Kenneth) Don't Senate Democrats represent more people than do Senate Republicans? I also seem to recall that when you count up the number of votes Democratic Senators/candidates got, it's more than the GOP. Yup. I did a blog post on this during the "nuclear option" debate, so I still have those numbers handy... Senate Representation html There are three different ways to look at it - and Democratic Senators represent the majority in each one: Voting: In the 2004 Senate races (for 33 Senate seats), 41.6 million Americans cast votes for Democratic candidates, while just 38.1 million voted for Republicans. And, in the last three elections that determined the current Senate, 98.9 million Americans voted for Democrats, and 97.1 million voted for Republicans. Gadflyer Constituents: Democratic Senators, in toto, represent a constituency of 293,698,914 people, or 50.59% of the population of constituents (the population of the U.S. times 2 - once for each Senator). Republican Senators, in toto, represent a constituency of 286,174,765 people, or 49.30% of the population of constituents. My blog State Population: If you just look at the total population of states (counted once) that are represented by only one party, the score is 116 million constituents of Republicans vs 120 million constituents represented by Democrats - that is, 4 million *more* people than the Republican-represented states. Gadflyer again (I made a table with all the constituent/representation numbers, which can be found here. For those who want to make their own database to play with, a comma-delimited text file is here. The table with the states broken out by representation is here, and the comma-delimited text file of that information is here Gadflyer has a table with all the voting numbers here) Posted by: KarenJG on July 3, 2006 at 3:04 PM | PERMALINKPolitics is the science of mass influence. Mass mind control, if you will, although it's weaker than that. In the old days, politics was an artform, and a candidate's personal charisma and talent for manipulation mattered. But now politics is a science -- well-understood, documented, charted, and monitored. And when you have two opposing parties and two equal candidates (their inequalities being ignorable compared to the machines behind them), using the exact same tactics to sway the public, the resulting election is going to be very close to 50/50. Just a pet theory of mine. Posted by: Remus Shepherd on July 3, 2006 at 3:25 PM | PERMALINK'Twas ever thus. All Western governments follow the same ebb and flow, at least since the global industrial economy was born: Ineffective figureheads in the 1920s. Populist authoritarian regimes in the 1930s and 1940s (lucky for us that Huey Long was assassinated, preventing a true American dictator from taking over). Socialist 1960s. Conservative landslides in the 1980s. The Third Way 1990s. 50/50 elections are just the latest example. Posted by: Ship Erect on July 3, 2006 at 3:41 PM | PERMALINKa 50 50 world -- ELECTION FRAUD Its not just for 3rd world governors anymore!! Posted by: carol on July 3, 2006 at 3:50 PM | PERMALINKKevin Drum - Bill Clinton never got more than 50% of the popular vote. I don't remember you losers hand-wringing about a 50-50 country from 1992 through 2000. Posted by: Frequency Kenneth on July 3, 2006 at 3:53 PM | PERMALINKI can see how you could easily rig the paperless voting computers. But, how do you cheat on the pre-election polling? Get a phone company to help you direct Zogby's calls to your own campaign operatives, or something? Make the pre-election polls look close, then claim the exit polls went wrong? Posted by: gar on July 3, 2006 at 3:54 PM | PERMALINKKevin, Kevin, Kevin- Millions of spoiled balots in 2000 and 2004, and no one on this thread has mentioned a word about ChoicePoint. Diablobold is not the only way to steal an election. Y'all learn yourselves something, if it ain't too late: http://www.gregpalast.com/stealing-it-in-front-of-your-eyes Posted by: We got your cup on July 3, 2006 at 3:59 PM | PERMALINKI don't remember you losers hand-wringing about a 50-50 country from 1992 through 2000. Since those were the elections in which the Republican candidate got 37% (1992) and 40% (1996), I don't know why anyone would. Posted by: DonBoy on July 3, 2006 at 4:06 PM | PERMALINKIt's definitely the art, science, and application of polling, focus groups, and soundbite marketing. If both sides are good enough, then you'll end up with this result, and descent into banality, since what this really indicates is a mastery of demogoguery. Posted by: Jimm on July 3, 2006 at 4:11 PM | PERMALINKAfter all, my understanding is that Calderon's main appeal was fear, in that if the 'populist' won then there would be capital flight out of Mexico, and the economy would suffer. Kinda sounds like blackmail, if only a phantom. Posted by: Jimm on July 3, 2006 at 4:14 PM | PERMALINKthe jewish mafia has taken over the united state and is now moving to take over a larger and larger part of the world by using the united states resorces,mney and army. they have moved their organization from a ileagal enterprizes to leagal by taking over the inner workings of our justus system and politics.if you do not think this is so look at las vegas ,it is leagal to gamble there when there is a federal law against gambling,not only when it was created but even now,you try to start a gambling cosino and see what happens. but you have just as many rights to do so as the jewish that own and opperate las vegas but you don't run the law system thats why you can't get away with it. remeber ale copone and other gangsters in the erly 1900's .notice the ones that where arrested and ran out of the country where all cathlic mafia not jewish.you're thinking oh nevada past a law to allow gambling . but think ,no state can pass a law that is a federal law, like californa and smoking seed ,the feds. came in on people for just that reason.the bay of pigs was another example ,they used your goverment troops to go in and try to take back the cosino and hotels in cuba ,they where all owned and ran by the jewish mafia.rember lucky was ran back to cisili by our controlled goverment,and there was no misstake by lanski being made second in comand it was planned,its painfully obvious,it should have been noticed by the news and oters a long time ago but certain people make sure these things are not brought to publics attention,you notice smeone has been getting ridd of news people that dare say anything to the contrary.religion dose have a lot to do with politics ,look around you,notice who is your bosses now.there is no more equial oppertunity any more,they have been moving their people in top jobs now for decades.the more they move their people in control positions the strong the core is.who runs our T V ,movies,news,conpanies,stock market,burocratsy in washington and else where.it amazinng only 5% or less of the population but are in all the key positions of our goverment ,schools,companies and ect...and we,re worried that somebodies gonning to take over our country well suprise they allready have. Posted by: g.knowitall on July 3, 2006 at 4:19 PM | PERMALINKPerhaps society is changing so fast (technology/globalization) that no political force has really been able to keep up. At some deep level, most people understand that neither (or any) side in the election really has a handle on things, so it becomes a coin toss. You've gotta keep the electorate -- including the honest fraction of your own base -- thinking, "Why would the vote have been so close if it were rigged?" Posted by: gar on July 3, 2006 at 4:29 PM | PERMALINKIt's a 50-50 media...globally. We've managed to export crap journalism. Posted by: hilder on July 3, 2006 at 5:42 PM | PERMALINKTHE OBJECTIVE HISTORIAN: 50-50? 2004? Er, uh, dudes, sorry to point out another case of Bush Derangement Syndrome, but George W. Bush in 2004 ran as a unabashed pro-Iraq War conservative (worth capitalization, CONSERVATIVE) and won an outright majority (something Democrats have only barely done once since 1964 - Carter '76, 50.1%) and won the election comfortably by 3%; and the Republicans GAINED seats in both houses. This despite the Iraq War's basis suffering discredit and the War itself being more difficult than expected. 2004 was not a particularly close election; and Democrats were beaten by an inarticulate conservative. Imagine if you run against a relative moderate Republican? Be afraid Regressive-Democrats, be very afraid. But the point is, you are deluded; 2004 was not particularly close. Your desperate grasp of the closeness in Ohio ignores that had 10,000s of votes swung toward Bush in 10+ other close states Bush would have been an electoral landslide. DUDES (trans. Regressive-Democrats): REALITY CHECK - BUSH THE CONSERVATIVE'S VICTORY MEANS THAT THE MAIN POINT TO TAKE AWAY FROM THE 2004 ELECTION IS THAT YOUR REGRESSIVE-DEMOCRAT PHILOSOPHY, DOMESTICALLY AND IN TERMS OF FOREIGN POLICY, WAS ANIHILATED. TOH Posted by: The Objective Historian on July 3, 2006 at 5:44 PM | PERMALINKGreg Palast has already documented how Team Bush was hired by the conservative Mexican candidate, and how they were planning to steal the election in Mexico, just like they will steal the election in 2006, 2008 and every other election down the pike. Americans are too stupid, and too frightened to actively engage in participatory democracy. We need Dick Cheney to tell us all what is permissible after he terrifys us first. Posted by: c4logic on July 3, 2006 at 5:56 PM | PERMALINKwhats going on? The Borg. I had the same reaction - what is it about 50-50 elections now? My best guess is that we are in a real world-level societal discontinuity. Something like what the west went through in the mid-1800's as industrialization went international and then in the early 20th century as the implications of industrialization run amok became clear. It may sound glib to say that this is globalization but in fact it probably is - and it is not unique to this century. The other cited instances were the same globalization. It is the complete disruption of the social contract on an international scale usually caused by technological progress that sends half of the population in country after in country in one direction and half in the other because in fact no one really knows what the fuck to do and in the end we are all betting our beliefs against the future. Posted by: paul on July 3, 2006 at 6:45 PM | PERMALINKwhats going on? Why let me fire up the truth detector and tell you [takes 3 oxycontin] okay the truth detector is fueled with nuklear fissibles folks..and the truth detector comes to life. [ahhhh...oooo, ok ok think think, wrinkle newspaper that will fool em] Folks..what we have here is a False Ark...Yes folks the vast left wing conspiracy..I Rush have found it folks..and and we, that's all of us, We must put an end to this Telemos gang of Hellenistic greeks! they haven't finishe djuggering the election results yet...stay tuned...
Sheesh...Amuurrikkans are the dumbest people alive....and the most gullible Posted by: marblex on July 3, 2006 at 6:57 PM | PERMALINKHave we gone from a 50-50 nation to a 50-50 world? What's going on? Two words...Rupert Murdoch... Posted by: justmy2 on July 3, 2006 at 6:58 PM | PERMALINKWhy the election results won't be ready until Wednesday? When you don't have diebold, it takes you that long to fix them. Or, on the other hand, when you use paper ballots, it takes that long to count them. Maybe Mexico's patience will teach the U.S. a thing or two. Paper ballots hand counted are the only way to run an election. But the down side is it can take up to three days to count all of the votes. Posted by: Bubbles on July 3, 2006 at 7:13 PM | PERMALINKIf the RightWinger Caldern is declared the winner, you will see the citizenry of Mexico in the streets, which is what we should have done in 2000. What amazes me is that in this country, the Republicans only have a 1.5% majority, on a good day. Yet, they dominate every branch and house of government. And nobody smells anything fishy in all this but Palast. On top of that - nearly every major collamity in history resulted from Republican type policies: wealth and power become concentrated and the wealthy and powerful use their position in society to avoid paying taxes undermining the very state society that allows for there to even be a wealthy or a powerful. Some examples of the resulting collamity: The fall of Ancient Egypt's New Kingdom, The Roman Empire, Pagan Mecca, Medieval Japan, Byzantine Empire (before the battle of Manzikurt), decline of Hapsburg Spain, Bourbon France, Romanov Russia, Nationalist China, oh and it also fostered the Great Depression which lead directly to the emergence of Adolph Hitler, Nazi Germany, World War II and the Holocaust. Given that track record, its hard to believe that the conservatives get 1.5% of the vote, let alone have a 1.5% majority. As Warren Buffet once said, "If there is a class war going on, my class is winning." But as history demonstrates, that victory is temporary.
Kevin - You left out Taiwan.. the Chen Sui Bian beat his KMT opponent by a razor thin margin of 50.11 to 49.89 as well.
I'd like to add some trivia to your point about an evenly divided world: Last year's parliamentary elections in Norway produced a 50-50 divide also, with the centre-left winning a very narrow majority, and this fall's parliamentary election in Sweden is also a nail-biter where the two blocs are within a percentage-point of each other. We're really living in a cut-down-the-middle world even in old traditionally centre-left countries like the Scandinavian countries. Posted by: Hustveit on July 3, 2006 at 7:35 PM | PERMALINKIt is interesting to link the people and movements that span these results. For example in Mexico the Fox candidate has very strong ties to people who worked the Bush campaign. Do some background research on the figures behind the recent elections particularly on the right and you will find some very interesting overlaps. "Have we gone from a 50-50 nation to a 50-50 world? What's going on?" Toffler predicted this in "Future Shock". The compression of past, present and future into the Now has people terrified. They react from the gut (where most of the nerves are, per Colbert). About half the population wants to progress. Half wants to regress. Binomial distribution-- there is no peak at the center, just two mountains. Which is why progressives will not win using "issues". The Regressors (led by the Decider) do not respond to reality or common sense, let alone their self-interest. You forgot Poland! (Psst...need some wood?) Posted by: George W. Bush on July 3, 2006 at 8:05 PM | PERMALINKbubbles, Florida did have paper ballots and there were how many recounts? Four, five? Remember the hanging chads? And guess who still won the state? What do the republican policies of low taxes, small government, free marktplace and strong national defense have to do with Medieval Japan, Pagan Mecca, etc. I am very curious how you will spin this. Posted by: Jay on July 3, 2006 at 8:17 PM | PERMALINKOne other thing bubbles, the City of New Orleans has been democratically controlled for most of this past century as has the State of Louisiana, so would the condition of New Orleans; ie: rampant poverty, poor living conditions, high crime and corruption, be a clamity? And could that be attributed to Democrat policies? Posted by: Jay on July 3, 2006 at 8:20 PM | PERMALINKGeorge Bush is a nice guy. 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Posted by: cld on July 3, 2006 at 8:56 PM | PERMALINKAnd you know Louisiana is Democratic only because it's so backward it failed to get Republicanized when the rest of the south went under, and they enjoy their reputation for hedonism, so, in the daft southern mind, whatever is hedonistic must be Democratic. They're Republicans who don't have to go to Dominica to get laid. Posted by: cld on July 3, 2006 at 8:58 PM | PERMALINKWhat do the republican policies of low taxes, small government, free marktplace and strong national defense ,,,blah blah blah small government? red ink as far as the eye can see. free marketplace, like no bid contracts free to your buddies. strong national defense? getting our asses kicked by a bunch of goat herders. Posted by: allen kayda on July 3, 2006 at 9:30 PM | PERMALINKI don't think it's the whole world quite yet - I seem to remember Saddam got like 100% of the votes in his last re-election bid? Posted by: HungChad on July 3, 2006 at 9:40 PM | PERMALINKIts not spin. Its fact. But like all facts you have to be ready to consider them. If you are not, you'll just deny them. We see what we want to see, we deny what we don't want to see. (yes I was once a republican, and I still consider myself conservative, but now only in a personal sense.) Okay, here goes.... In his book, "Structure and Change in Economic History" (pgs 100-115) Nobel lauriete and Professor of Economic History (Wash U, in St. Louis) states that the concentration of wealth and power in Rome lead directly to its collapse. As few as six senators owned half of North Africa. The wealthy and powerful used their influence to avoid paying taxes. This at a time where the tactical advantage of the Roman Legion over the barbarians had thinned. Rome needed more revenue to fund more legions and a larger army. The tax burden shifted down market to the weaker elements of society. It seems that nearly every major calamity in history resulted from wealth and power becoming too concentrated and the wealthy and powerful then using their power and influence in society to avoid paying taxes.* This undermines the very state society that allows for there to even be a class of powerful and wealthy people. Some examples of this calamity in history are: The collapse of at least one of Ancient Egypt's Kingdoms, The (western) Roman Empire, Pre-Islamic Pagan Mecca, Medieval Japan, Byzantine Empire (before the battle of Manzikurt), Hapsburg Spain, Bourbon France, Romanoff Russia, Nationalist China, oh and many economist believe that concentration of wealth helped foster the Great Depression which lead directly to the emergence of Adolph Hitler, Nazi Germany, World War II and the Holocaust. In most of these cases the society didnt fall to superior foes, they simply collapse in the face of inferior ones, if any at all (in the case of Japan, there was none, being and Island nation). Often the collapse leads to a muti-century dark age (Rome and Japan) and in some cases the elimination of a state, language, religion, culture or even a people from history. Never mind that these policies also lead to squalor and suffering for huge portions of society - whats amazing is that the people who have the most to lose by the collapse of the state society, the wealthy and the powerful, consistently are also the ones least willing to fund it. Given that history, its hard to believe that the current crop of conservatives, advancing policies that concentrate wealth and power, get 1.5% of the vote, let alone a 1.5% majority. Its also hard to believe that their 1.5% majority has allowed them to dominate every branch of government - but such is the nature and use of concentrated wealth and power in projecting its influence. To help pull this off they seem to rely on enthralling the public with fear mongering and culture wars never mind that morality and values are largely a middle class characteristic. To pick some ones pocket, its important that they be distracted. Given historys lessons, their arguments seem specious in the least and fundamentally catastrophic in the extent. Its hard to believe that this calamitous history repeats itself over and over and over again. Its frustrating watching this repetition emerge here and now in the United States. Doing so, we are playing with fire. How is it that history repeats itself? By not learning from it. The following cliches help: "We see what we want to see; Where you stand on an issue depends upon where you sit; We like to think we see things as they are, but really we see things as we are." Warren Buffet said, "If there is a class war, my class is winning." But history demonstrates that that victory is always temporary. And at that point, things like abortion, gay marriage and making America safe for Christianity will no longer matter. Of course the way to avoid this is not necessarily involves socialism - it involves making sure that bargaining for rights and wages in society takes place on a level playing field. In the history of the United States the heavy concentration of wealth did not occur until after the Civil War. What occurred during that era was the invention of the modern, limited liability corporation. The corporation, being a large ownership collective, created a disparity in bargaining power between employers and wage earners. The post civil war era, often called the age of the Robber Barons or the Gilded Age or La Belle Epoque created enormous concentrations in wealth and people living in squalor. The solution to the problem created by collective ownership was collective bargaining. However, because of the politics behind it, in America that meant industrial trade unions (ie. in a given industry, many companies but only one union), which created disparity in bargaining power in the other direction. This, undermined competitiveness and dynamis in the economy. The real solution, a balance between collective ownership and bargaining units, was discovered over in Japan: The company union (i.e. in a given industry many companies, many unions - one union per company creating relatively balanced bargaining power). As a result Japan, has the broadest distribution of wealth, on the one hand, and on the other, the most competitive industrial corporations in the world. The success of this model single handedly has driven America into a post-industrial age, overtaking the U.S. in consumer electronics and bringing the once mighty steel and automotive industries to their knees. The party on the right would have you think that this calamity was the result of unions undermining national competitiveness. But to do that they ignore the fact that these highly competitive foreign companies have unions on the one hand and on the other hand, pay their executives a pittance compared to ours. One can easily imagine that if every large publicly held corporation had its own company union to bargain with, the employees would be better off on the one hand, but on the other hand more competitive. Take Wal-Mart: if they had a company union, its employees wouldnt be rich, but they might have a more livable wage, health benefits and more time off to be with family. Such persons are able to exercise middle class values and morality. They would also have more reason to compete vigorously against Target to provide you with better service and prices, as their long term welfare was tied to doing so. Obviously Wal-Mart executives dont see it this way. But executives over at GM and Ford might - if you caught them in a moment of candor. We see what we want to see. The party on the right wants to ignore the epic history and calamity of concentrated wealth, and the solution for avoiding it. The party on the left doesnt want to acknowledge that Unions might be too powerful. Executives in large public corporations dont want to acknowledge a role for unions, even as they stoke their own pay. Powerful heads of industry unions dont want to acknowledge the superiority of company unions, even as the industries they represent decline. Meanwhile more and more Americans are underemployed and executives are overpaid. In regard to economics and political philosophy - both sides are right in the right context. There are two survival strategies in nature: Collective and individualistic. Most species specialize in one strategy and in one climate. Only man is multistrategied and multiclimated: Where a heavy winter coat is a good idea in the artic, but makes no sense in the equator. Thus all strategies, all tactics, all ideas and all philosophy are sound in core circumstances that give birth to them, but as you move away from the core, to what philosophy calls the periphery, and business and economics calls the margin, the idea and philosophy have to give way to something more appropriate. In the United States and in almost all Anglo-saxon nations this has been accomplished through the mechanisms of the common law which gave birth to what is considered American Pragmatism, best explained by Oliver Wendall Holmes as selecting narrowly and appropriately from the market place of ideas. Thus the Supreme Court functions best when it decides narrolly, narrowed questions with narrowed answers encompasing any, perferablly the best, answer, pragmatically for a given situation. In short pragmatism, not ideology is the best way to run a state, and is also the ancient heritage for all English speaking countries, including, especially the United States. The problem with republicans appears to be they are shoe horning an ideology into their administration, and that ideology is reliant largely on the idea that wealth and power should be concentrated. Which in civics, as history has shown, is fundementally flawed. In the next election, the party on the right while simultaneously chipping away at the American middle class will point out the vulnerability to American values and morality; ignoring that fact that values are a middle class characteristic (see the movie Its a Wonderful Life or the forces that brought abolition to head prior to the Civil War). The party on the right will suggest that the best way to maintain American values is to legislate morality. Again: You cannot pick someones pocket unless they are distracted and moral issues are the perfect distraction. But the continued collapse of the middle class will only make it harder manifest values and morality in American society. Meanwhile one has to wonder if the United States is stumbling towards its own Manzikurt. We will soon have spent over $500 billion in Iraq for a nations whose GNP was only $52 billion in 2002 - seems that we could have cajoled and bribed are way in for a fraction of the price without damaging the infrastructure. The regimes we have planted in Iraq and Afghanistan are struggling to say the least. And worst of all lack credibility with the vast majority of the local population. A half trillion dollars ought to buy better results than that. If one is literate on the basics and fundementalis of civics, One has to shut ones eyes and ears and swallow hard to advocate for the current crop of republicans (largely neocon-ish). It is fundementally flawed. It seems they are trying to force square pegs in round holes. They won't lead us to the first collapse in history. Just the next collapse in history if they stay in power long enough. * For Romes collapse see Nobel Laureate and Wash U Prof of Economic History, Douglas Norths book Structure and Change in Economic history (pgs 100-115), For Japan see A History of Japan (really any, I can't remember the author of my copy) for Byzantium before Manzikurt see Sea of Faith, For Pre-Islamic Mecca see Cambridge History of Islam, or most any history of the founding of Islam or Muhammed talking about the social economic conditions at the time. For Spain, France and Russia see The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Paul Kennedy. The others are from various sources lodged in memory - in the case of Ancient Egypt I think it was the History Channel and it was the Middle Kingdom that collapsed. Kevin, de Nile is not just a river in Egypt. A 50-50 world? Bush won an absolute majority of the popular vote in 2004 -- beating Kerry by nearly 3% and three million votes (and more than thirty votes in the Electoral College). And you wonder why I think you're a moron? Posted by: Norman Rogers on July 3, 2006 at 10:05 PM | PERMALINKBubbles, I will tell you that that was the longest post I have ever seen. It was well written and well thought out, unfortunately it was mostly hot air. First of all I don't buy for a second that you are a conservative. Nice try though. Your basic premise on the collapse of societies and how they relate to America is wrong. The top 1% of wage earners in the US pay 38% of the taxes. The top 50% pay 96% of taxes. That means the bottom 50% of wage earners pay only 4% of the tax base. Hardly comparable to any of your examples, which was the concentration of wealth and the lack of government receipts to pay for the ever growing society. Secondly, it's funny you mentioned GM and Ford, two companies that have been reduced to becoming a healthcare/pension provider company due to the enormous debt that many of their past and present pension programs have incurred. Now I am not saying that there shouldn't be employee protection, but the past unions failed for a reason; corruption and incompetence. Unions work for some industries and in some others they don't work so well. "...the Supreme Court functions best when it decides......the best answer pragmatically for a given situation" "...republican ideology is reliant largely on the idea that wealth and power should be concentrated" Iraq results in less than four years: Current US economy: I guess we agree to disagree.
Jay, That's a pretty pricey 38%.
And what's the percentage left over for the rest of us? Posted by: cld on July 3, 2006 at 10:43 PM | PERMALINKyou forgot new zealand's recent coin toss election. it was the same weekend as the german one, stunningly. Posted by: snuh on July 3, 2006 at 10:56 PM | PERMALINKThis piece on Chinese domestic credit markets is of interest. The most salient point for investors is that, despite what the author says he wants, his description makes it seem quite unlikely that China will be able to shift from an export-centered economy to one centered on domestic demand. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HF28Ad01.html "As well, the conference heard, insurance companies as well as banks must put their funds to better work financing prudent and worthy projects. Such projects so far are mostly state-owned enterprises, producing about 20% of total gross domestic product, but sucking in about 70% of all outstanding bank credit. The SOEs are responsible from almost all non-performing bank loans. But pension money has to be put to good use, neither wasted on risky businesses that could lose the fund, nor invested with undue caution, thereby providing returns that are too low. Non-state companies, if possible, try to avoid taking money from the banks, even if interest is relatively low. They do not want to be exposed to possible financial and tax controls, and are willing to pay 30% interest or more to moneylenders, loan sharks and pawnshops, to whom they can reveal their wealth without fear that the information will be passed on to some state officials. Banks are also unwilling to lend to private firms: if an SOE doesn't pay up, the bank official will not be held responsible - the bank will extend the credit terms. But if a private company doesn't pay up, then the official could be go under review to establish if he had any dealings under the table with the failed company." Posted by: Kevin on July 3, 2006 at 11:41 PM | PERMALINKSorry about immediately preceding off-topic post. Was meant for a different blog. Jay: We see what we want to see. By the way, only 1 in three Americans can bring themselves to see things the way you do. In Britain, only 1 in 6 people agree with your sentiments, and Britian is our closest ally. The distribution of income in the U.S. resembles that of a banana republic. See the cia's factbook (online almanac) the top 10% and the bottom 10% in distribution of income is nearly the same in the U.S as it is in Mexico. Because of that distribution the amount of tax paid by the bottom 50% is low, it has too be. The tax follows the distribution of income, not the reverse. It's called income tax for a reason. It's like a toll way, if you drive more miles you, you received more benefit, you paid more toll - likewise, if you made more money, you received more benefit so you pay more tax. The altnerative is the state no longer exist. People with money have to pay taxes, people without money can't pay taxes. And remember, what you make is a function of your bargaining power - so you can't take bargaining power from one the working and middle classes and then blast them for not paying more in tax. Give them more bargaining power, they will make more money and guess what, they'll pay more taxes, and then maybe the top 10% won't have to pay as much. In regard to healthcare perhaps we are in agreement. Companies should not be providing healthcare. Healthcare should not be socialized - healthcare is not a utility. However Health insurance is, and like all utilities, the logic works that the more consumers paying in, the lower the cost - it makes sense allow monopolies to distribute it but heavily regulate that monopoly. A combination of the power and phone monopoly and their regulatory regimes would work. In that way it would be private (thus republicans like it) and single payer (democrats would like it). And furthermore, because private companies can be sued, they are still held accountable. The supreme court: Again, the Supreme Court does more than just decide on constitutional review, it also does legal review, and much of that has nothing to do with the constitution. Where there is no law or a gap in the law, they simply form an opinion, normally based upon pragmatism. If congress doesn't like it, it passes a statute over riding the opinion. If congress likes the opinion, it leaves it alone. The system works reasonably well, and Europeans and other Civil Code countries have tried to work in some of these features into their systems. Iraq results in less than four years: The photographs of torture, cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, many of them innocent has destroyed our credibility in the Middle East and Muslim world, the very societies we are trying to attract to our way of life. That alone has made the war too costly. Historically, we have always treated our prisoners in war well, this policy was created by George Washington during the revolutionary war. As a result, during WWII Germans and Italians were quick to surrender to us (as compared to the Russians or even the British). Maybe that has no application in Iraq, but in the future, adversaries will remember Iraq, and so American's will have to fight harder and more will get killed because of our poor handling of them in Iraq. The presence of Al Quaida in Iraq, a function of our inability to protect Iraqs boarders (something that Saddam had no problem doing - but then he had an army of 400,000, not 150,00) and civil war (a function of our failure to guard the weapons caches) again a result of failure to use the correct numbers of troops and plan for the occupation. Iraq could hardly have gone more wrong. US Economy: The dow slipped down below 10400 within the last couple of weeks, In essence it hasn't moved since Bush came to office. Any movement is less than the devaluation of the dollar (40%) (a Euro cost .85$ in 2000, now cost $1.25 roughly) so that all assets denominated in dollars are worth less than before Bush unless they grew at a rate greater than 40%. Any and all economic growth is a function of borrowing from China's bank. By the way you can't have a tax break when you have a deficit. There is no money to give back, so then what you really have is a loan - provided by China's central bank, brokered and guranteed by the federal government. However the payers of the debt won't be the beneficiearies of the debt, but their children, and morelikely the children of the working class. Capitalism always has a problem with demand shrinkiing. Rich people make money with money. That is they use money to accumulate money out of the commercial side of the economy. Its a gravity affect where mass attracts greater mass. But all that money leaves the demand side and goes to the supply side. The problem is supply doesn't manifest in jobs unless there is demand. So over the long term, government doesn't need to subsidize the supply side, they need to underwrite the demand side. Which almost forces the goverment to implement entitlements as a way to generate demand. In the face of declining union movement, contracting demand and deflationary recessions become an ever increasing problem. (the greatest economic growth in history occurred under conditions of broad distribution of wealth (the 30 years following World War II saw a doubling of the globes productivity an era of the acceptance of unions in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Europe and Japan, and overall liberal economic policies - in other words, in 30 years the economy grew more than it had in the past 10,000 years under a largely liberal ecnomic regime. Why? because of growth in demand. Of course, we see what we want to see)) The inertia of Iraq, has caused pentagon studies to peg the eventual cost at north of $500 billion. That's half a trillion dollars. Iraqs GNP was $52 billion in 2002. We could have bribered our way in and got the country, complete with infrastructure in tact, for a fraction of what it is costing us, and no lives would have been lost. We used a hammer where we should have used a tweezers. You said that last year we spent $360 billion in entitlements. What percent of that is Social Security? That's not an entitlement, that an insurance program, paid for by the beneficiaries. Also, studies have shown that the US government total spending per capita on health care exceeds that almost all other first world countries, all of which have some form of universal payer or socialized medicine. That means the money we all spend on private health insurance is nothing more than an entitlement program for private health care companies. It is superfolous and a tax on our society. Indeed the real death tax is the health care system Most people will spend their entire remaining estate in the last few months of their earthly existence on healthcare. And even in England, the most parcimonious of the national health care systems the average person has better health than the average American. The $360 billion entitlement program isn't the problem, after all what's wrong in investing in Americans. The innefficiency is the real problem and the entire amount of money we spend on private healthcare is an inefficient waste. Just like about a third of that money going to Iraq is wasted. We see what we want to see. What I see in the republicans is a fundementally unsustainable set of policies on a strategic and tactical level in nearly every area. The whole script isn't to advance the public's interest, but just that of a very small percentage of the public, at the expense of the rest. Thats it. We see what we want to see. 1 in 3 see it your way. If the Republicans stay in power long enough - we will have a catastrophic/epic collapse. Creating Posted by: Bubbles on July 3, 2006 at 11:52 PM | PERMALINK the top 1% do not pay 38% of taxes. they pay 38% of income taxes. jay - i won't forget poland if you won't forget payroll taxes. Posted by: hey on July 3, 2006 at 11:58 PM | PERMALINKA little off-topic, but I heard a right-wing radio host (didn't catch who he was) talking this morning about Osama bin Laden's latest pronunciamento. According to the host Osama insists to his followers that it is "essential" or even imperative that al Qaeda win in Iraq. Now why would that be? According to everything I've heard on NPR (National Palestinian Radio) this week, the War on Terror is a mistake and a farce and Iraq is not the place to find or fight terrorists anyhow. They also harp an awful lot on the idea that Iraq really would be better off if Saddam were still in power. They claim that about everybody who proudly waved their purple fingers in the air now regrets even trying democracy and they just wish the Americans would leave so that the Ba'ath Party or al Qaeda or somebody who knows how to run the country could take over. That NPR, so fair, so balanced, so moral, if you think Bill Moyers and Jimmy Carter really have profound insights into matters of international right and wrong. And on this thread someone is snivveling about Rupert Murdoch influencing the English-speaking world's political thought, as if Rupert is not more than offset by George Soros, who apparently will not give up on his schemes to sell the dollar short and to make it so by bad-mouthing President Bush at every turn. There does seem to be a counterpart for every quirky point of view in the world. I would like to become the anti-Bill Clinton. I don't have to be anti-everything in the Clinton play book (and probably won't be) but if the grain of sand has to be placed on one arm of the balance and not the other, thus dividing all humanity permanently into two camps that will be divorced from each other and never thereafter able to communicate, I don't want to be in the measuring pan with Bill and Hillary and thereby spending eternity in their realm. I just know that would be a big mistake. . . Posted by: Mike Cook on July 4, 2006 at 12:05 AM | PERMALINKI could not possibly , at the core of my being, disagree with you more. Goodnight. Posted by: Jay on July 4, 2006 at 12:14 AM | PERMALINKJFKs dad told him, buy enough to win, but I'm not paying for a landslide. Posted by: Walter E. Wallis on July 4, 2006 at 12:33 AM | PERMALINKNow why would that be? According to everything I've heard on NPR (National Palestinian Radio) ... you say that like it's a bad thing ... have some respect for the rightful settlers instead of the current squatters. but then, most right wingnuts are racist enough to approve of the native american genocide, too. Posted by: Nads on July 4, 2006 at 1:24 AM | PERMALINK"Bill Clinton never got more than 50% of the popular vote. I don't remember you losers hand-wringing about a 50-50 country from 1992 through 2000." That's because it actually wasn't a 50-50 country, as the GOP candidates GHWB and Dole didn't get close to 50%. Some 20% in 1992 went to a third party, and about 10% in 1996. It turned 50-50 when the GOP figured they just had to polarize the electorate enough to sneak away with 50%+1 to win.
The point being, that Bush won 50.7, whilst 49.3 wanted some other guy, including 48.3% support for Kerry. The wartime-incumbent only managed a slim majority against a lacklustre candidate, and that's on top of scarying them half to death about the dangers in choosing his opponent. That's pretty embarrising. Also there's the irregularites and whatnot, meaning that your "impressive" margin of victory would most likely be even less if everything had been above board. Posted by: Hustveit on July 4, 2006 at 5:36 AM | PERMALINKI was a uniter, before I was a divider. - George W. Bush Posted by: Bubbles on July 4, 2006 at 9:27 AM | PERMALINKWell Kevin, what is it that it is - this theory of mine. Well, this is what it is - my theory that I have, that is to say, which is mine, is mine . . . All praise to Bubbles- two of the best rants I have seen in all my years of blogsurfing. The constant diminuition of the American median wage since the 1970s is a direct consquence of the Reagan Revolution, which aside from being a revolution in the amount of propaganda, spin, and bullshit someone could lay on, was a revolution in that tax brackets for the upper income earners were slashed dramatically, concomitant with a reduction in the social safety nets provided by governments. Ever since then its been all downhill, with Poppy and Georgie boy doing all they can to accelerate the process of serfdom. Paris Hilton, not Osama Bin Laden, will be the downfall of our country. Posted by: Observer on July 4, 2006 at 11:42 AM | PERMALINKThe only person who wins by landslides anymore is Hugo Chavez. Think about that. Posted by: buzzrd on July 4, 2006 at 2:42 PM | PERMALINKRead about the election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800 ... or most other elections. Only ignorance makes today a special day. The 50-50 split is due to the rules. Larger majorities than 50% are irrelevant. 51% is sufficient to run the show. If a two thirds majority is needed, results will cluster around that (see the recent flag burning amendment). Exceptions such as the Swiss concordance government or formerly the Japanese LDP hold on government just confirm it. Posted by: jaywalker on July 4, 2006 at 3:05 PM | PERMALINKMaybe it really isn't so close: Greg Palast | Stealing Mexico http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/063006R.shtml FOCUS | Pascarella and Palast: Stealing It in Front of Your Eyes Actually, the main culprits in the declining median wage (I'll take your word that it is) are the theorists and administrative practitioners of the American education system. If I could have got a gig teaching real American history to a class of Japanese and Jewish students who would sit still for the lecture system and actually think about the information being presented, I would have been happy as a clam. Instead I got Welcome Back Kotter wannabees and worse yet, my football team had a losing season. In Montana, a male can not teach history without coaching something. But the real problem with American public education is that the school day and the school year are much too short, too much of that scant time is taken up with social engineering experiments and outright brainwashing of boys into becoming something like girls. I had to get out of public education when some idiot came in my classroom and said that it was vitally important to change the bulletin board every week and the teacher should never lecture, but let the students watch a public television documentary on a particular era and then encourage the students to talk about it amongst each other to see how it made them feel. This type of pedagogical style is called the "interest driven" method. It has made a whole generation of American teachers into a type of performer hell-bent on making each hour of class experience just cram full of high interest, interactive, hands on activities all planned to perfection to be so inclusive that no child in the room will be left behind. Plus, the teacher has to pull all of this off while keeping detailed behavior management notes on the five or six kids in each typical class who have never been socially disciplined in the slightest and whose disruptive, outright rude behavior never stops. In between documenting new bad behavior the teacher is supposed to be implementing individual complex classroom behavior control strategies for each of the problem child. These strategies are often devised by experts and discussed by committees who are laughing up their sleaves because they have escaped from the classroom and can any damn fool P.C. thing they want. Their eye is on learning to play politics big time so they can rise to one of the high six figure positions that school superintendents now get. We need to re-learn how to teach children both work habits and social discipline. It isn't that hard. Send someone to South Korea. They don't even have to learn the language, all they have to do is watch and they will learn how a car as good as the KIA can be so inexpensive, so full of luxuries and innovations, and have a 100,000 mile warranty. Koreans don't send their kids to school to be baby-sat for 12 years, if they don't drop out first. Posted by: Mike Cook on July 5, 2006 at 12:18 AM | PERMALINKSome really interesting comments here. The comments about the electoral system that rewards 50% +1, and about modern polling and targeting methods have some validity, but what seems to really drive the polarization (note that most of those who call themselves independents really tend to vote for one party most of the time) is our isolation in our self-created media world. How many Democrats every watch O'Reilly? How many Republicans watch Olbermann? We tend to see and hear that which conforms to our own views, and ignore the rest. Seeking objective information and subjecting our beliefs to testing and introspection is just too time-consuming for most of us. And, yes, perhaps thanks to talk radio and now blogs, we have come to believe that all opinions are equally good. Never mind the justifications for them. Posted by: demophoenix on July 5, 2006 at 4:40 AM | PERMALINKKevin, Really, how many blowout elections actually make the news? Posted by: Yancey Ward on July 5, 2006 at 10:20 AM | PERMALINKKen Lay dead of heart attack at 64. OBF, Yes he did, and I hear Aruba is nice.:~) Posted by: Yancey Ward on July 5, 2006 at 2:10 PM | PERMALINKIn the immortal words of C-plus Augustus: "Don't forget Poland!" Posted by: aretino on July 5, 2006 at 3:25 PM | PERMALINKKen Lay dead of heart attack at 64. Really does make you want to see the body, doesn't it? Well, cheer up; perhaps he offed himself to avoid becoming a prison slut. Posted by: shortstop on July 5, 2006 at 3:53 PM | PERMALINKThere's a small, still part of me that's thinking that Diebold and ES&S have gone global with their election systems... 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