In the Halfbrick Zone

Even I have never set myself on fire with a tanning lamp. We'll gloss over the time I set myself on fire by headbutting a lightbulb. At least I've never completely burned down my house.

*****

And the Indianapolis Colts have defeated their traditional rivals, the evil New England Patriots. Horse Hat Guy is happy.


Happy Horse Hat Guy

For the Brits reading, the Horse Hat is an Indianapolis Colts hat. You're not allowed to be an American football fan unless you:

A. wear a silly hat.
B. paint your face in team colours.
C. dress up like a football player.

Any one of the three is sufficient, although you get extra football fan karma for doing several at once.

*****

Okay, you can tell the French are getting serious, because now they're going to have curfews, and if the rioting doesn't stop, they might just have to arrest some people. It astonishes me that people think that we should take account of French views in formulating our foreign policies. Their country is being burned down around their ears, and they're still wanting to take half-measures so they don't offend those responsible.

Here's what I predict will happen: de Villepin will continue to do nothing. Eventually it will turn cold and rainy, and the rioting will stop by itself. De Villepin will immediately step in to reward the Moslems with increased social spending, and promises to rebuild their neighborhoods better than they were before. If the weather continues to suppress the rioting (which is likely in November) he will spin this as a great victory of negotiation over confrontation. By the time the weather turns nice again, he'll be able to be pouring enough money into the suburbs to finance distractions (football leagues, etc) to keep them busy until the elections are over.

If he's very lucky, he'll be able to use this to gain victory over Le Pen and Sarkozy in the next elections.

Having been elected, he then has a choice of cutting social services back to a supportable level, or of dragging the French economy even further into the toilet in an effort to keep up the support levels. If he does the first, he's likely to trigger a recurrence of rioting immediately, as the rabble feel themselves betrayed. If he does the second, then the underlying issue of young men unable to find work will only get worse, setting the stage for more and worse rioting in the future.

Time to Vote!

Okay, voting today was a much less time-consuming process than last year. I walked into the building and down the corridor, with my footfalls echoing in the quiet. I was the only voter there, with six election workers to help me :) The whole process including sign-in took about five minutes.

It astonishes me how few people even bother to vote in offyear elections. If the President isn't involved, nobody wants to bother, even thought hre things we're voting on today can affect us much more directly than anything the Federal government does. I asked a few weeks ago on my mai,ing list how many people were planning to vote, and got roughly the paltry answer I expected, mainly from folx my age and educational level. The younger ones weren't bothering, and in some cases didn't even know there was an election.

One fine young political firebrand replied that he wouldn't vote because representative democracy was a sham - both parties were the same, and he was oppressed by not being allowed to vote directly on issues. It was pointed out that's pretty much what we've got here - we're voting directly today to decide whether and how to amend the State Constitution, and whether to levy taxes for certain projects. He then said that because he wasn't a member of the priveleged classes, no-one had ever told him how to register to vote, so he was oppressed.

When I was 18, my friends and I were eager to vote. I distinctly recall going to the fire house to register for my first time, and how deeply impressed I was that I was now to have a voice in running the mighty Republic itself. It breaks my brain that people aren't interested in controlling their own destiny, although on the whole I think it best that the uninterested don't vote. It does concern me that he wasn't instructed on that in school, though. When I was in grade school and junior high both, our auditorium was used for voting, so every year on the Monday before Election Day we'd discuss elections and the duties of a citizen, and we'd all troop up and actually practice using the voting machines, which was instructive for us and allowed the testing of the machines under load as well.

Our family was always political anyway, although none of us ever did campaign work or the like. Voting was taken very seriously, and politics were discussed a lot. Every election night, too, the cable company used to run "The Music Man" on their public access channel, and announce returns during the breaks. That helped suck me into it, since that was (and remains) my favourite musical. We'd stay up late, and eat Fritos with bleu cheese dip, and watch "The Music Man". I wonder still why they always played "The Music Man" every single year. I'm guessing either they thought that representative of the best of America (which I can see) or else they'd bought a copy of it and had unlimited broadcast rights - maybe a combination. I'd watch that tonight if work didn't intervene.