Wow, this election has turned weird. True, it has been pretty damn weird for a while, but I would never have guessed that instead of debating policy issues or experience that the campaigns are fighting over who has sexually assaulted/molested the most women 4 weeks before the election.

 

This isn't really the sort of fight that Mr. Trump can win. He has spent years cultivating his womanizer image and now it is biting him in the arse. Ms. Clinton, on the other hand, is pretty much keeping quiet and using Ms. Obama as the attack surrogate.

 

So on the Right we have a man who has bragged over the years of various sexually-related exploits, sometimes in pretty vulgar terms, who is on his third wife and has the lowest favorability rating (35.6%) of any modern candidate.

 

On the Left is a very popular First Lady with a high favorability rating (65%) that is pretty much scandal-free. Whatever the US public might think of her husband's policies and politics, there is pretty much no denying that they are the model of the "atomic" family. It is difficult to call Ms. Obama a hypocrite when she attacks Mr. Trump's behavior.

 

Yeah, it isn't going to end well for Mr. Trump.

 

At this point, about the only way to make things even stranger would be for Mr. Trump to throw a punch at Ms. Clinton at the next debate.

 

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Why are Americans so scared about Middle East refugees?

 

Where is the country that stormed the beaches of Normandy, broke the sound barrier, landed a man on the moon, and developed the atom bomb?

 

Where are the people whose ancestors came here with nothing more than a suitcase of clothes and a few coins in their pockets, leaving behind everything and everyone that they knew to start a life in a new land?

 

Why are we acting like a school boy who is afraid of getting "cooties" if he talks to a girl?

 

Is is because our heroes and icons are no longer the rugged explorer, the war-weary solider, or the astronaut but instead the football player, the actor, and the singer?

 

We stared down a nuclear-powered superpower for half a century where a single mistake could have destroyed the world. After that, why are we scared of anything?

 

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So, WorldCon was last week and once again politics rears its ugly head.

 

As always, these arguements resolve around labels. Stupid, stupid labels.

 

This group that self-identifies with one set of labels is feeling oppress by a group that self-identifies with a different set of label who in turn feels threatened by the first group.

 

And now I see a long debate going on Facebook over which of these stupid labels should be applied to dead authors.

 

And of course, the Right calls the Left ignorant, the Left calls the Right intolerant, etc....

 

WHY THE FRAK DO WE CARE ABOUT LABELS?

 

Is it easier to debate whether a dead author was a Pre-Stalin Libritarian or a Post-Castro Democrat or a My Little Pony Socialist than it is to debate the ideas that the author wrote about?

 

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Do you hate the two party system and yearn for an effective 3rd party?

Do you want your vote to have an actual impact on your daily life?

Then Vote Local.

Every two years, there are dozens of offices up for election on every ballot. Who you elect for Mayor, City Council, or School Board will have a far greater impact on your daily life than who is sitting in the Oval Office.

Want a third party? We will never get one unless they start winning elections at the State-Level. Look at the candidates running for the State House and Senate. Those offices require an extreme low number of votes to win and should be the prime target of every "3rd party" political organization. For example, in my district, there are an average of 20,000 voters each election cycle. A 3rd party candidate would only need 10,000 votes to win a clear majority.

So, this November 8th, remember to Vote Local!

 

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Back in 1170, King Henry II was having a feud with his former good friend Thomas Becket.

 

The king reportedly stated something along the lines of "What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?"

 

Four of his knights overheard him and decided that it was a Royal Command to kill Becket.

 

This is the little bit of history that flashed through my mind when Mr. Trump spoke yesterday about "Second Amendment people". While we will never truly know his real meaning, the danger of his words being interpreted as an assassination request is well-founded in history.

 

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New term that I hate: Politically Correct.

 

It has become a dismissive phrase, much like the term "Common Sense". While it use can add to a debate, often its usage is to dismiss arguments and positions as if the declaration of something to be "politically correct" is sufficient to dismiss it from the debate.

 

The main reason that I hate the term is that it is only half an argument. People are quick to decry something as "Politically Correct" but rarely do they consider what should be simply "correct".

 

For example, I was recently looking at the game Saloon Tycoon. I noted that the game was gender-balanced. There were an equal number of men and women characters in the game and each panel of art on the outside of the box also featured an equal number of men and women.

 

A person I was with then commented that the game company only did that to be "Politically Correct".

 

So, if the game company only did it to be "Politically Correct", what should they have done to simply be "Correct"?

 

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Saw Suicide Squad today....

 

What a glorious mess of a movie. It really, really needs another pass through the hands of an editor.

 

Overall, I liked it as it wasn't boring and I was entertained for a solid two hours. (in contrast to Star Trek Beyond, where I was yawning and looking at my watch waiting for the big fight scenes to end so we could get back to the story)

 

The DC movies this year are exhausting. It is like they pack 3 movies worth of plot and background into a single movie.

 

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