Pennsylvania Primaries

Everyone gets to vote for the candidate that they want in a primary, but the delegates you elect are the ones who get to actually vote for a presidential candidate in the national conventions. They also get to vote on their parties’ platforms, so even if their candidate isn’t nominated for president, a delegation can still influence the party. On the state and local level, Ron Paul Republicans have made a significant impact already.

In Pennsylvania, you directly elect the delegates you want, so you need to know where they stand. Go here to find out your congressional district and see which delegates are for Paul, and vote for them on April 22. You can also print out sample ballots for each district to bring with to the polling station or to hand out to other people.

WTF?! Wednesday: Delayed due to Anger

I’m posting this installment a few days later than it should be, but for good reason (There will be a few of these today). On Wednesday I had a list of things I was planning on ranting about, but then one specific message crossed my Twitter stream:

QueenofSpain OMG WTF http://www.newsweek.com/id/…

11:11 AM April 16, 2008 from web (Direct link to her Tweet)

I agree with Erin (aka QueenofSpain) on a number of things, and just seeing that was enough to rouse my interest. I wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t ready. I clicked that link and I was outraged. Feel free to go read the Newsweek article “Mommy 2.0“ if you can stomach it.

Here’s the gist: Cosmetic surgeon Dr. Michael Salzhauer has a new children’s book, My Beautiful Mommy aimed at 4-7 year olds being released on Mother’s Day this year. The focus of this picture book is to help 4-7 year olds understand why Mommy would electively choose cosmetic surgery.

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Political Compass Revisited

The primary season inspired me to revisit a couple political compass quizzes. Here are the results.

    Original Political Compass

      old scores

    • Left/Right: -4.75
    • Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.44
      new scores

    • Economic Left/Right: -0.62
    • Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.97
    Chris Lightfoot’s Political Compass

      old scores

    • Left/Right: -2.5683
    • Idealism/Pragmatism: -5.2243
      new scores

    • Left/Right: -0.0344
    • Pragmatism: -0.6670

Holy centrist, Batman!

$600 Million Slot Revenue: Jackpot or Ripoff?

Pennsylvania’s Democratic legislators are very proud of themselves for reducing property taxes by offsetting them with slot machine revenue.

“Pennsylvania’s budget secretary this week certified that the state’s slot machine facilities have now produced enough revenue to begin reducing property taxes – more than $600 million for homeowners statewide.”

I do not understand why this is good news. Sure, it sounds good. After all, who doesn’t want their property taxes lowered? Unfortunately, that which sounds too good to be true, likely is.

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