Sad day for America

Today, Americans appear to be choosing fear and hate over reason.  It's easier to blame others who are different from ourselves than to take responsibility for one's own situation.

2016 Presidential Election

This year's presidential election really shows many problems with America.  Trump stands for all that is bad about America.  Hillary stands for sanity and reason.

Trump's strategy, thus far, is to keep the campaign from being about real meaningful discussion of issues.  Instead, he keeps distracting everyone with his antics.  If there's one thing he's good at, it's making the news.

If the election were to come down to actual political issues, Hillary would destroy him with her real knowledge and experience.  So in response, Trump's supporters attempt to slander her as being a liar and whatever else they can come up with.

Would you really want to live in Trump's America?  One in which the rich can defraud the poor like he's done with Trump University?  One in which racism and fear rule our daily lives?  Sure, corporations and the rich have way too much say in government, so is the solution to put a rich businessman into the top elected position?

In every single way that Trump and his supporters criticize Hillary, Trump is far worse.  I mean Hillary isn't perfect, but she's done a very reasonable job in her long political career.

SNL Still Does A Good Job Sometimes

Since everyone talks about the presidential race all the time these days, someone has to keep a sense of humor.

Barack Obama Wins the Democratic Nomination

I was pretty sure it was coming, but Obama has finally won the Democratic nomination. I'm looking forward to real general election campaigning now against McCain. Obama is seriously, the most interesting presidential candidate we've had within my lifetime. Hopefully he can bring about the change that he often talks about. That glimmer of hope he brings is exactly why he's so popular with us younger voters.

Sexism And Hillary Clinton

Are people in this country really so backward that they would go to a Hillary Clinton speech with a sign saying "Iron My Shirt" and heckle her for being a woman? The answer, sadly, is yes. Americans disappoint me from time to time and this is yet another situation. First of all, if you don't support her, don't vote for her. That's how your opinion will be heard. Heckling her is immature and honestly, it makes me sympathize with her more. If America is really that backward of a country, then perhaps there is even more need for us to have a woman as our president.

It's idiots like these that make me think the world is doomed. I bet this dude doesn't believe in global warming either.

Political Compass

I remember stumbling across http://www.politicalcompass.org/ a while back and finding it to be a very interesting site. They attempt to add one more axis to the usual "right" and left" labels that are used in politics. They achieve fairly interesting results. I recommend taking their test to figure out where your political leanings are just to get a good idea.

This is a graph of their results for the current crop of presidential candidates.
http://www.politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2008

Who Should You Vote For In 2008

This is a nice little flash app that lets you answer some questions and then matches you to which political candidate answered the most closely to how you answered. My one beef with it is that it only goes for 100% matches. There are some questions where there were several appealing choices, so really I could go for a candidate that chose any of them.

Anyways, surprisingly, Barack Obama came out as third closest for me (due to the lack of gray support). Instead, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich were closer matches.

However, the best part about this app is not their matching system. It's that if you hover your mouse over each of the questions, it will show you a quote expressing each candidate's stand on that issue. Thus this thing provides a very convenient way to do some quick research on the candidates you're considering.