Jim Norton has a blog

I added a link to the right-hand side, but in case you didn’t notice Jim Norton has a blog here. He just started it this week.

For those of you who aren’t familliar with lil’ Jimmy, he was a regular comic on the Opie and Anthony show back in the day. So far, his 3 blog posts have been hilarious.

Libertarians may have an impact

This article from CBS News is pretty interesting.

With conservatives upset over the ballooning size of the federal government under a Republican White House and Congress – and a portion of the political right having opposed the war in Iraq from the start or else dismayed at how it’s being handled – the Libertarian nominee, who will be on the ballot in 49 states, may do for Democrats in 2004 what Nader did for Republicans in 2000.

Stern Letter-Writers

After Stern’s attacks from the FCC, he played some controversial clips from the Oprah Winfrey show where she talks about some rather inapproprate things on network television. He has encouraged his listeners to write to the FCC so the organization will go after her, causing one of two things to happen:
1) They’ll fine her and outrage her legions of fans, or
2) They won’t fine her and will reveal that they do not dispense “justice” evenly.

The smoking gun has some sample letters written by, most likely, Stern fans. They are hilarious. This is one of my favorites.

Nader and 2 for 1 voting

This article presents a pretty interesting possibility for what Nader might do this year (New York Times – free registration required). When we vote, we aren’t actually voting for candidates directly – we are voting for the electors our candidate has selected. Since Nader is a 3rd party, and has a (generally negative) reputation as a spoiler, he might select his electors to be a mix of both people who support him exclusively AND people who support Kerry. That way, when the voters go to the voting booth, they could pick Nader and know that they’re still, in a way giving some of their votes to Kerry.

This plan is consistent with the original understanding of the founders. When they created the Electoral College, they did not anticipate the rise of the party system; they expected voters to select community leaders who would make their own judgments when casting their ballots for the presidency. In designating Kerry electors rather than insisting on his own slate, Mr. Nader would be giving new meaning to this tradition that refused to view electors as simply vehicles of a candidate’s will. In effect, he would be enabling his supporters to rank their choices: Mr. Nader first, Mr. Kerry second.

Pretty cool stuff. I still think something like Instant Runoff Voting would be a better option (it’s definitely more easy to explain, and therefore more easy for voters to understand). However, this tactic did give me a better appreciation for the electoral college.