...and I don't answer questions. She really was that honest about it Thursday night, wasn't she? The really amazing thing to me is that so many people in this great nation of ours seem to think that's good. You betcha!

"I'm not gonna answer yer questions there, dontcha know, I'm just gonna talk straight to the American people."

Uh, 'scuse me? Over here. Hi. I'm one of the American people and I would actually like to hear your answer to these questions (softballs though they are). How 'bout it? Straight answers to straight questions. Is that really too much to ask? You'll still have chances to give your stump speech, I promise.

Thanks.

"You betcha"

Another good reason to do away with the Electoral College:


The US election nightmare scenario

By Professor Larry Sabato
University of Virginia

The odds are that the victor of the American presidential election on 4 November will secure a clean-cut victory in the electoral college - an absolute majority of 270 votes or more.

But that isn't a guaranteed result.

The closer the election gets - and right now the polls have it very tight indeed - the greater the chance that a tie of 269 to 269 will occur.

There are dozens of ways for the College to tie, given the 51 moving parts: the 50 states (each state assigned a number of electoral votes equal to the total of its House and Senate delegation) and the District of Columbia, assigned three electoral votes by constitutional amendment.
However, most of the ties are nonsensical, since most states have an established tilt to one party or the other. California will not go Republican, and Texas will not vote for the Democrat.

Yet take a look at the current electoral college map, which is based both on historical trends and this month's polls:

The totally safe and likely states for Obama have 200 electoral votes. For McCain, the similar total is 174.

Leaning to Obama at present are Iowa, New Mexico, and Wisconsin, bringing the Democrat to 222. McCain has a slight edge for now in Florida, Missouri, and North Carolina, which would push him up to 227.

That leaves in the toss-up category seven states with a total of 89 votes: Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

How it might happen

Given the results in 2000 and 2004, when Michigan and Pennsylvania voted Democratic, it is not unreasonable to assign them to Obama, bringing him to 260, just 10 votes short of the White House. While Obama has a real chance to win in Colorado, Ohio, and Virginia, all three states have tended to vote Republican in many or most election years.

So what happens if a tie occurs? In two words, a mess


If McCain wins them, while Obama carries two small toss-up states, where recent surveys have given him a tiny edge, Nevada and New Hampshire, the 269-269 tie results.
Alternatively, let's suppose McCain manages to carry New Hampshire - a Kerry state in 2004, but one that has given McCain key primary victories in 2000 and 2008. In this case, if McCain also wins Nevada, and Obama wins Colorado (while our other assumptions remain the same) we again end up with the 269-269 result.

If you mix and match states on the map, in fact, you will quickly see that it relatively easy to produce a tie in the electoral college. So what happens if one occurs? In two words: a mess.

Under the constitution, the election for president is thrown into the US House of Representatives, while the Senate picks the next vice-president (the Senate's presiding officer).

The 'unit rule'

But while the Senate simply requires a majority of its 100 members to select the vice- president, the House must vote by states, with each state delegation having a single vote, and a majority of the states (at least 26 of 50) required to agree on the winner.

This is called "the unit rule". The founding fathers centred the idea on the fact that the nation was a confederation of states rather than a pure democracy of individual voters. Just as the electoral college is state-based, the House selection of the president in the case of deadlock revolves around the states.
The unit rule has been employed twice in US history, in the long-ago elections of 1800, when Thomas Jefferson emerged as president, and 1824, when John Quincy Adams was elected.

Both elections were controversial, but not mainly because of the unit rule. Two centuries ago, the unit rule was less undemocratic since population disparities among the handful of states were smaller, and Americans were much more accepting of elite control and a lack of popular sovereignty.

The United States of 2008 has very different values.

Think about what House selection of a president would mean today. Gargantuan California would have the same single House vote in choosing the new president as sparsely populated Wyoming, even though California has about 70 times its population. The votes of the mega-states of Florida, New York, and Texas could be cancelled out by the tiny populations of Montana, Rhode Island, and South Dakota.

Furthermore, large state delegations could internally deadlock via tie votes. Some large states might be deprived even of their single vote for the presidency. Tens of millions of people could be disenfranchised in this fashion.

Equal pigs

Meanwhile, all the small states with single House members will certainly be counted. The smaller the House delegation, the more likely the state's House members will be able to reach agreement or at least finish their tally. All pigs would be equal, but in this odd Orwellian case, the tiny pigs would be more equal than the huge ones.

How could a president elected in this fashion govern effectively?

The turmoil would be an international embarrassment, at the very least


If the public reaction to the Supreme Court's Bush v Gore decision in 2000 was bitter, one can scarcely imagine the outrage that would greet a modern application of the unit rule. By the way, well over 90% of the American people are unaware of this constitutional provision.
So if a 269-to-269 tie occurs, what is the likely outcome?

On the surface, one would think Barack Obama would be likely to capture the Presidency - and that would be my early bet. Already, Democrats control a majority of 27 states' House delegations, and the party is expected to pick up additional seats this November - perhaps pushing a couple of other state delegations their way.

But it may not be so straightforward.

The new Congress would take up the matter quickly in early January, but would have to produce a result by Inauguration Day (20 January).

Suppose some large state delegations reach an impasse? Suppose some of the more conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats decide to break with their party and vote the way their districts or states did, presumably for John McCain?

The turmoil would be an international embarrassment, at the very least. If a stalemate results, the constitution provides that the vice-president-elect would become acting president until the gridlock is broken. Presumably, that would be Joe Biden since Democrats are expected to have a comfortable majority in the new Senate.

However, what if the Senate gets tied up in parliamentary knots? It's been known to happen.

Then America is likely to get its first female President, at least until the deadlock is broken. No, she won't be named Hillary Clinton, nor will the acting chief be Sarah Palin. Next-in-line will be the Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi.

Professor Larry J Sabato is director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics and the author of A More Perfect Constitution.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7626471.stm

Published: 2008/09/22 11:35:58 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

All right, here we go. I'm surprised nobody thought of this before. Let's test the "near death experience" idea. At least the out of body component of it. Read on:

Study into near-death experiences

By Jane Dreaper
Health correspondent, BBC News
A large study is to examine near-death experiences in cardiac arrest patients.
Doctors at 25 UK and US hospitals will study 1,500 survivors to see if people with no heartbeat or brain activity can have "out of body" experiences.
Some people report seeing a tunnel or bright light, others recall looking down from the ceiling at medical staff.
The study, due to take three years and co-ordinated by Southampton University, will include placing on shelves images that could only be seen from above.

This is a mystery that we can now subject to scientific study
Dr Sam Parnia
University of Southampton

To test this, the researchers have set up special shelving in resuscitation areas. The shelves hold pictures - but they're visible only from the ceiling.
Dr Sam Parnia, who is heading the study, said: "If you can demonstrate that consciousness continues after the brain switches off, it allows for the possibility that the consciousness is a separate entity.
"It is unlikely that we will find many cases where this happens, but we have to be open-minded.
"And if no one sees the pictures, it shows these experiences are illusions or false memories.
"This is a mystery that we can now subject to scientific study."
Dr Parnia works as an intensive care doctor, and felt from his daily duties that science had not properly explored the issue of near-death experiences.
Process of death
He said: "Contrary to popular perception, death is not a specific moment.
"It is a process that begins when the heart stops beating, the lungs stop working and the brain ceases functioning - a medical condition termed cardiac arrest.
"During a cardiac arrest, all three criteria of death are present. There then follows a period of time, which may last from a few seconds to an hour or more, in which emergency medical efforts may succeed in restarting the heart and reversing the dying process.
"What people experience during this period of cardiac arrest provides a unique window of understanding into what we are all likely to experience during the dying process."
Dr Parnia and medical colleagues will analyse the brain activity of 1,500 cardiac arrest survivors, and see whether they can recall the images in the pictures.
Hospitals involved include Addenbrookes in Cambridge, University Hospital in Birmingham and the Morriston in Swansea, as well as nine hospitals in the US.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/7621608.stm

Published: 2008/09/18 05:00:51 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

My money is on no one will ever be able to identify the pictures. But what if I'm wrong? What would that mean? That the soul is separate from the physical body? And it can "see"? Cool. What else can it do, I wonder.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey

Ah, finally, we have one that I did not read first in high school (college freshman). They movie came out, (and swept the Oscars), when I was in high school but I didn't see it then. I'm glad cuz when I read it I basically devoured it, read it in two short bursts and one long one, and enjoyed it as much as anything I've read. (There's about five books on that list, don't know if they'll all qualify for this list, believe it or not).

This is an interesting piece of work in several ways. First, I love the way he tells the story in the first person, through the Chief, who is, of course, an inmate in an institution for the mentally unwell.

I don't recall what it was that led to the Chief's coming to the place, but once he was there he "regressed", basically withdrew into himself, was so silent for so long that eventually everybody just assumed that he couldn't speak. But he was calm and quiet and consequently got to do a lot of observing, and thinking.

Then there's the protagonist, Randle Patrick McMurphy, an Irish-American tough guy roustabout who decides to finesse his way into a softer last six months or so of a prison hitch by "going crazy", and the antagonist "Big Nurse" Ratched, and the interplay between them, and the effect that it has on the other "loonies" (McMurphy sets himself up as the "Bull Goose Loony" the first day, remember?).

The story turns into a struggle for the hearts and minds of the other patients, with McMurphy having to make pretty much the "ultimate sacrifice" to deliver the men to salvation (very Christ-like, there are allusions to twelve followers and there's a "crucifixion" in the shock shop).

It's final, lasting, message? Fight the power? You're not crazy, you just think you are? Women are mean?

How about if you tell me.

1984, by George Orwell

This is one that I also read in High School, sophomore year. It made an impression on me then but I thought I should read it again, as an adult.

The biggest difference that I remember from then 'til now was my impression of Winston as "old". (He has an affair with Julia, remember; she is young, like 25). Yeah, Winston is old all right. 39. Really old.

Otherwise the big difference for me was the politics of it. As a high schooler I read it more as Winston's story; not a happy one. As an adult I read it as more a story about Government. I see it as Orwell's vision of what happens when "the government" gains too much power. Many things happen but principally the people suffer. Individual rights are few, the abuses of power are many. A constant state of war. Constant shortages of everything from rubber boots to butter. And worst, no right to privacy. The government not only looked into the home but they had "thought police" on the lookout for "thoughtcrime".

People have commented that 1984, like Animal Farm, is an indictment of communism but I see it as more than that. Any form of government can be corrupted, they all are subject to the one great flaw of government: no matter how noble the ideas and ideals of one -ism or another, each is administered by humans. Fallible, corruptible, self-interested humans.

Some people see the U.S. government headed in an Orwellian direction now. An executive branch that wants to rise above the other two branches and "rule" without interference, complete with the right to spy on the citizenry without any restrictions. A "war on terror" that can never be won, any more than a war on crime could be. Possibly even a turning back of some previously won rights to privacy with respect to abortion (excuse me, I mean a woman's right to make decisions about reproductive "health" free of government interference) and sexual practices between consenting adults.

The final message of 1984 is a bleak one. Winston fell into a trap set by the evil government forces (Big Brother) and was made to undergo "reconditioning". In the end he sold out Julia, had his will broken and underwent a conversion as complete as that undergone by the hero of our next novel, who was lobotomized.

I leave you with a quote from 1984 which gets to the heart of it:

"But how can you stop people remembering things?" cried Winston, again momentarily forgetting the dial. "It is involuntary. It is outside oneself. How can you control memory? You have not controlled mine!"

O'Brien's manner grew stern again. He laid his hand on the dial.

"On the contrary" he said, "you have not controlled it. That is what has brought you here."

Read it if you haven't, or read it again if you read it in high school. Go on!