Blue States Remain True Blue. The Nation's liberals have much to rejoice about in the results of yesterday's election. In my state, the dirtiest campaign I have ever seen (and remember, I'm almost 61) resulted in a comfortable win by Democrats against the nastiest slimeball in memory, Doug Forrester. New Jerseyans in all the big counties except one went decisively to Corzine, the Democrat. Mine, Essex, voted 72% for Corzine! I knew when I voted around 5:30 last evening that the turnout had been heavier than usual, which suggested a big Democratic win, since I live in a predominantly black neighborhood that traditionally votes heavily Democratic.
+
The counties with no major city but only suburbs and rural areas went Republican. All the others went Democratic, and New Jersey is very urban. We have the Nation's highest population density, because more people per square mile want to live here than anywhere else in the country. I was sad to see that the county I grew up in, prosperous, suburban, and populous Monmouth, went for Forrester. It disgraced itself, but I don't share that disgrace. Essex pummeled Forrester, and I helped.
+
Schwarzenegger Rebuked. California's confused Republican, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was solidly rebuffed by the voters yesterday. Unfortunately, it wasn't in a recall election nor re-election campaign for governor, but only on four ballot propositions he backed. All went down in flames, leading observers to wonder if Schwarzenegger's star is falling.
+
Schwarzenegger (whom I like to call "Scheissfurbrains", Germanglish for "Sh*tforbrains") had proposed, among other things, that the power to draw legislative districts be taken away from the legislature and turned over to a panel of retired judges. While we do need to do something about de-politicizing the drawing of legislative districts at both the state and national level (see this blog's entry of September 30, 2005), it is insulting to legislators to remove that power from their hands and put it into the hands of any unelected body. Worse, the particular plan Schwarzenegger offered, Proposition 77, would have made the redistricting plan that panel came up with binding for at least one election cycle even if voters were to reject the plan! Not well thought out. Voters were right to reject it.
+
(I thought, after I formulated the term "Germanglish" above, to see if others had also done so. Naturally, "Germanglish" is an established term. Great minds... It's hard to come up with anything someone else hasn't thought of, especially now that there are so many people on Earth. I heard on some documentary that Alexander Graham Bell applied for his patent for the telephone only six hours before someone else brought in a similar device! I don't know if the other mechanism would have worked as well. Certainly I never heard of any competing technology making a play for the market, so maybe it was pretty much identical to Bell's device and thus precluded from the market by the patent laws.)
+
57 States. Craig Ferguson, Scottish host of CBS Television's Late Late Show, last nite mentioned that people are still talking about amending the Federal Constitution to permit naturalized citizens to become President. The movement is tailor-made for Schwarzenegger, so might no longer be pursued aggressively. Such an amendment has, in any case, about as much chance of becoming "the supreme law of the land" as has a proposal to allow illegal aliens to vote.
+
Ferguson, who was born in Glasgow, comedically not only came out in favor of such a constitutional amendment but also declared last nite his candidacy for President. He said he would seek the approval of 'all 57 states — Iraq, Puerto Rico, Canada'. When, apparently, some protesting groans came from the audience, presumably from Canadians, he added 'You know I'm right', or something to that effect. Well, I sure wish he were right.
+
But the number of states is a little off. I figure Canada should be 7 states itself, Iraq and Puerto Rico 1 each, so that would be 59 states, not 57.
+
He'll have to become a citizen before he can run for President. The Calgary Sun on January 22nd of this year said:

"A single dad, Ferguson has been working in the U.S. for 10 years and plans to go through his citizenship process on air."

As of October 2nd, however, according to Britain's Sunday Mail, he had still not become a citizen, tho he had started the process:

He also said he feels American and added: "I love this country and what it has done for me. I have applied for citizenship. I want to take the oath of allegiance on TV."

I'd like to see that.
+
Under Fire but Not Under Oath. The CEOs of major oil companies testified before a U.S. Senate committee about the extraordinary profits they have reaped in recent months. Mysteriously, the vile Alaskan Ted Stevens, chairman of the committee, refused to require the executives to take an oath to tell the truth! One female Senator asked for a vote as to whether to require an oath, and the nasty little dictator Stevens wouldn't even permit a vote. Somehow that one person was permitted to evade even a vote! What kind of crappy rules does the United States Senate run under?
+
(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 2,058.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 9:47 PM