Political Rantings
How about a little politics?
Saturday, March 17th, 2007It’s been a while, so what the heck…
First up, Global Warming:
Global warming is the hottest story of our time, and it will get even bigger . . . [said] a panel of journalists said last weekend during the American Bar Association’s environmental law conference. The discussion was focused on how the media has covered the story and whether or not public perception of global warming has changed in recent months and years.
“The public debate is lagging way behind scientific consensus, which is as strong as the consensus on the link between smoking and cancer,” said author Eugene Linden. According to Linden and [ABC News correspondent Bill Blakemore], the global warming issue has been the subject of a massive, industry-sponsored disinformation and propaganda campaign aimed at creating the perception that there is still a scientific debate on the basic facts of global warming.
No argument here. But this is the guy that interests me. I think he has it exactly right:
Colorado Springs Gazette editorial page editor Sean Paige, took a contrarian view. Paige, the only panelist who wasn’t prepared to jump wholeheartedly on the global warming bandwagon, said a decade of sensationalistic coverage of environmental issues has resulted in a cry-wolf syndrome. “Maybe the wolf is at the door now,” Paige said, referring to global warming. “But the public has tuned out. We (journalists) haven’t been skeptical enough of the environmental anxiety industry,” he said.
Paige, describing himself as a layered skeptic, said there’s still room for a global warming debate. “What can be done and what will it cost?” Paige asked. Journalists should be asking whether it’s really wise at this point to pour massive resources into prevention when the money might be better spent on adaptive measures. Paige said it’s not clear that capping greenhouse gas emissions, for example, will make a meaningful difference in curbing the warming trend.
Paige also said he sees a form of eco-McCarthyism on the rise, with the fixation on “consensus” leading to a muzzling of dissenting voices. “Let’s silence everybody who doesn’t agree,” Paige said, characterizing the mood as he perceives it and claiming that there are legitimate scientists out there who have valid questions about the state of global warming science. But those voices are not being heard. . .
“Prevention vs. Adaptive Measures.” That’s the phrase I’ve been looking for for over a year now.
Having just gone through DSTY2K7 testing at work, I’ve been reminiscing about the whole Y2K story. Remember what people were saying about Y2K? The power grid was going to fail, the financial markets were going to fail to open, heating & water systems were going to shut down, nuclear missiles would malfunction in their silos, and basically our entire society would be plunged into chaos? Here’s the thing: if no one did anything to fix the Y2K bugs, many of these things, crazy as they seem, probably would have happened. But people didn’t do nothing. They waited until it was an emergency (remember – everyone knew about the Y2K problem as far back as the late ’70s), and then they took steps to avoid those catastrophic results. The whole thing cost billions of dollars, but it got done.
I think the paradigm around global warming is very similar. I’m willing to believe that if nothing is done, highly populated areas will wind up underwater, hunger and disease will spread rapidly, and many people will suffer and die. I’m just not willing to believe that people will do nothing. Even the most dire of predictions talks about how bad life will be in 2050 or 2080. If Y2K is our guide, I think we’ll see a massive campaign to deal with the impact of this problem when the water starts lapping at our shores. And by then, it won’t be about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It will be about building levees that work, reinforcing shorelines, finding new ways to prevent beach erosion, etc.
Next, the War in Iraq:
Apparently, U.S. military deaths in Iraq have declined by about 20% since the “surge” began. Regardless of whether you’re pro-surge, anti-surge, pro-Bush, or anti-Bush, I assume we can all agree that this is good news, no? Check out what the New York Times wrote:
The heightened American street presence may already have contributed to an increase in the percentage of American deaths that occur in Baghdad.
Over all, the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq from hostilities since Feb. 14, the start of the new Baghdad security plan, fell to 66, from 87 in the previous four weeks. But with more soldiers in the capital on patrol and in the neighborhood garrisons, a higher proportion of the American deaths have occurred in Baghdad – 36 percent after Feb. 14 compared with 24 percent in the previous four weeks. Also over the past four weeks, a higher proportion of military deaths from roadside bombs have occurred in Baghdad – 45 percent compared with 39 percent.
So let me get this straight: we put more troops in Baghdad, and the percentage of the troops killed or injured in Baghdad went up. That just seems like basic math, no? Why is the Times pointing to it as a mitigating factor against the drop in overall casualties? If only one soldier is killed in the next four weeks, and he/she happens to be in Baghdad, will the Times report a near tripling of the Baghdad U.S. Death Percentage (from 36% to 100%)?
I know there are people who rip on the Times all the time for being a liberal rag. I try to stay away from that because I think one can find their opponent’s political spin in just about any article if they look hard enough for it. But in this case, it feels very much like the Times is just reaching for bad news, lest it need to report something positive about the much-maligned (in its own pages) “Surge” strategy.
Finally, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s stunning confession of his involvement in the 9/11 plot:
WASHINGTON – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed portrayed himself as Al Qaeda’s most ambitious operational planner in a confession to a U.S. military tribunal that said he planned and supported 31 terrorist attacks, topped by Sept. 11, that killed thousands of innocent victims since the early 1990s.
Many plots, including a previously undisclosed plan to kill several former U.S. presidents, were never carried out or were foiled by international counter-terror authorities.
I honestly don’t understand how this suddenly appeared as “big news” yesterday in every major paper in the country. Here’s what the 9/11 Commission Report had to say about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (a.k.a., “KSM”):
No one exemplifies the model of the terrorist entrepreneur more clearly than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks.
In 1994, KSM accompanied [Ramzi Yousef, architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing] to the Philippines, and the two of them began planning what is now known as the Manila air or “Bojinka” plot – the intended bombing of 12 U.S. commercial jumbo jets over the Pacific during a two-day span. During this same period, KSM and Yousef also developed plans to assassinate President Clinton during his November 1994 trip to Manila, and to bomb U.S.-bound cargo carriers by smuggling jackets containing nitrocellulose on board.
[In mid-1996,] KSM arranged a meeting with Bin Ladin in Tora Bora, a mountainous redoubt from the Afghan war days. At the meeting, KSM presented the al Qaeda leader with a menu of ideas for terrorist operations [including] a proposal for an operation that would involve training pilots who would crash planes into buildings in the United States. This proposal eventually would become the 9/11 operation.
Bin Ladin . . . finally decided to give KSM the green light for the 9/11 operation sometime in late 1998 or early 1999. KSM then accepted Bin Ladin’s standing invitation to move to Kandahar and work directly with al Qaeda. In addition to supervising the planning and preparations for the 9/11 operation, KSM worked with and eventually led al Qaeda’s media committee.
While the 9/11 project occupied the bulk of KSM’s attention, he continued to consider other possibilities for terrorist attacks. For example, he sent al Qaeda operative Issa al Britani to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to learn about the jihad in Southeast Asia from Hambali. Thereafter, KSM claims, at Bin Ladin’s direction in early 2001, he sent Britani to the United States to case potential economic and “Jewish” targets in New York City. Furthermore, during the summer of 2001, KSM approached Bin Ladin with the idea of recruiting a Saudi Arabian air force pilot to commandeer a Saudi fighter jet and attack the Israeli city of Eilat. Bin Ladin reportedly liked this proposal, but he instructed KSM to concentrate on the 9/11 operation first. Similarly, KSM’s proposals to Atef around this same time for attacks in Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Maldives were never executed, although Hambali’s Jemaah Islamiah operatives did some casing of possible targets.
(pages 145-150)
Nice guy, huh? The Commission report explains at the beginning of the chapter that much of this information comes from the confessions of KSM himself, and while the authors weren’t present at the interrogation, they did their best to reconcile information with other documents, interview sources, etc. In cases where they could not corroborate KSM’s stories, they said, they indicated as much in the text of the report (“KSM claims…”)
So what’s the new news here? The 9/11 Commission Report was published back in 2004. Is this just the administration seeking a pat on the back? If so, why now? There’s no election coming up, and none of them are running again anyway. Or maybe someone in the media mistook the release of the transcripts as an indication that their contents were previously unknown, and then everyone else followed suit? It all strikes me as very, very strange…
Anyway, I think that scratched my political itch for now. Back to more interesting topics in the coming days…
Categories: Political Rantings | 6 Comments »
Here We Go Again – EU vs. Apple
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007I’m beginning to believe that as Apple enters the mainstream, it will slowly but surely turn into Microsoft.
Case in point: the EU is accusing them of anti-competitive practices because of how they bundle their software
Pressure on Apple has been building, with consumer rights organizations from Germany, France, Finland and Norway recently agreeing a joint position in their battles against iTunes.
They argue that Apple uses digital rights technology to limit consumers’ free use of songs bought on iTunes, including the ability to copy and transfer songs to other users and other MP3 devices besides the Apple iPod.
It’s not that bad right now – these are just consumer groups, not the DOJ-equivalent government agencies that went after Microsoft for putting Windows Media Player into Windows. The head of that agency, though, had this to say:
Do you think it’s fine that a CD plays in all CD players but that an iTunes song only plays in an iPod? I don’t. Something has to change
A spokeswoman said these were her personal views, not those of the Commission. Still, ITMS and the iPod have certainly been noticed over in the EU…
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The 2008 Election – Rules of Engagement
Friday, February 2nd, 2007With just 643 days left before the 2008 Presidential election, media coverage is understandably heating up. Much of the focus right now centers around Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, widely considered to be the first woman and African American, respectively, with the best chance at the presidency in our nation’s history.
Before all of this gets out of hand, I propose we all agree on the following rules for rationally discussing the election.
All in favor?
The Rules of Engagement – 2008 Presidential Election
- There is absolutely nothing about the job, President of the United States, that requires one to have a particular type of reproductive organs or a particular skin color.
- Any statement refuting Rule #1, including those of the form, “America is not ready for…” is hereby declared incorrect.
- An unwillingness to support Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama for president shall not be considered sufficient proof of a person’s sexism/racism.
- Given Rule #3, people who do not support Clinton/Obama for president shall not be required to provide a list of powerful women/African Americans that they do support, in order to disprove their sexist/racist tendencies.
- The election of Clinton/Obama to the presidency shall not, on its own, represent the opening of doors or the removal of barriers. Instead, it shall indicate that sometime in the recent past, such barriers/doors were removed/opened, and that a viable candidate has now emerged to take advantage of our newly enlightened society. Sexism/Racism does not vanish on the first Tuesday of a particular November. It degrades over time. It’s degrading as we speak, and we should recognize and encourage it’s demise now, rather than ignore it until it generates a “media moment.”
- The election of Clinton/Obama to the presidency DOES make it easier for the next female/African American candidate who seeks the office, but only in the sense that they will not have to answer as many questions about their gender/skin color during the campaign. In this sense, Clinton/Obama’s election will also help future white, male candidates who run against female/African American opponents.
- Comments made about Clinton’s gender/Obama’s race shall not be automatically interpreted as implied criticisms of Geraldine Ferraro, Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton.
- Among supporters and/or aspiring politicians, young males are equally justified in admiring Hillary Clinton as young females. Similarly, whites are free to admire Barack Obama, just as African Americans are. There is no rule requiring one’s role model to match one’s gender or skin color.
- Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with them, Clinton’s position on racism and Obama’s position on sexism shall both be considered valid, well-informed positions until proven otherwise. A candidate need not personally experience a particular hardship in order to meaningfully contribute to a discussion about mitigating it.
- Women who do not support Clinton and African Americans who do not support Obama shall not be considered “traitors” to their gender/race. Supporting someone solely because of his/her gender or race is just as sexist/racist as opposing him/her for the same reason. It assumes unrelated facts about a person based on their membership in a particular group, which is the very definition of prejudice.
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Polling Rudy
Friday, February 2nd, 2007I can tell already that Rudy Giuliani‘s presidential candidacy is going to be very confusing for the nations pollsters and pundits. To wit:
One in five Republicans said his views [on abortion and civil unions for same-sex couples] would “rule him out as a candidate” they could support. That included one-third of those who attend church every week, an important base of the GOP that makes up a third of party loyalists. Another 25% of Republicans said his views made them less likely to support him, nearly double the proportion who said they made them more likely to support him.
These numbers aren’t surprising, but the fatal flaw in the survey is that it only polls Republicans. I think Rudy’s strength as a candidate comes from the fact that he’d draw a broad base of support from both parties, since he’d give many Democrats a viable alternative to a candidate they don’t like (like Hillary Clinton, for instance). And since so many of these polls are self-fulfilling (people’s opinions are driven by the polls they read about every day), I think that more publicity around Rudy’s popularity among Democrats will actually increase his popularity among Republicans.
And that’s his biggest challenge: winning the Republican nomination. As far as I can recall, Rudy Giuliani is the first candidate in a long time that is going to have more trouble winning his party’s nomination than he will have winning the election itself.
Categories: Political Rantings | 2 Comments »
Talking about Global Warming until Los Angeles Freezes Over
Friday, January 19th, 2007Here’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr. discussing global warming on The Huffington Post:
Last week I saw robins and bluebirds in upstate New York where they don’t usually arrive before April. Crocuses and daffodils were in bloom everywhere. A friend ate asparagus he harvested in the normally frozen Catskills in the first week of January. Turtles in downstate New York, like bears in Scandinavia, forgot to hibernate for the first time in human history.
For those last stubborn holdouts still skeptical about the existence of global warming–e.g., CNN’s chief corporate fascism advocate Glenn Beck, who broadcast another of his denial tirades last week–and to those who exalt the warmer weather as preferable to a snowy winter, consider the impacts on our fellow creatures. Last April an early spring in Wyoming’s Teton Range caused horseflies to arrive early. The young Redtail hawks, who were still unfeathered, were devoured in their nests by the voracious bloodsuckers. Not a single baby Redtail survived to fledge in the Jackson Hole valley.
The recent disruptions to animal and plant behavior are evident to anyone except for ideologically blinded right-wing flat-earthers and Exxon/Mobil’s political and media toadies like Michael Crichton, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
This was published on January 16, 2007. Ten days earlier, the temperature in the New York area reached 70 degrees (average temperatures for this time of year are in the low 40’s). Everybody was talking about the incredibly warm weather. Many people, like RFK Jr., took the opportunity to link it to global warming.
I blogged about it here:
A single warm winter in a single city proves absolutely nothing about global warming. And to suggest it does is to go down the slippery slope of having to explain why a particularly cold winter in a different year or different city . . . isn’t equal evidence to suggest that the problem has magically disappeared.
Events of the last few days illustrate my point brilliantly. Two days before RFK Jr.’s rant was published, the temperature in Los Angeles dropped to 20 degrees. Soon after that, LAX reported its first snowfall since 1962. Here’s today’s weather map from USA Today (just 3 days after RFK’s rant):
Note that except for Southern Florida, the entire nation is near or below freezing, including single digits in typically-temperate places like Nevada, Utah, and Colorado.
The awful thing about this is that RFK Jr. is right about global warming and its potential to affect our society and our way of life. But because he went off on such a hate-filled diatribe based on evidence that has nothing whatsoever to do with global warming, he opens the door for his opponents to call him an idiot, and further cloud the issue.
Apparently, in today’s politics, it’s not enough to be right about something. You have to seek out and take advantage of any perceived opportunity to bash your opponents into the ground, even if it means bending a few facts to make your point. Some folks will never learn…
Categories: Political Rantings | 4 Comments »
I’m baaaacck….
Sunday, December 31st, 2006Sorry for the hiatus, folks – I’ve been on a whirlwind Disney vacation with the wife & kids for the past two weeks (web-photos & review to be posted soon, as soon as I find some time – the home video was the first priority, since the kids enjoy watching that).
Anyway, I came home to roughly 3,500 emails (1,600 of them in the “not spam” category), of which a few contained blog worthy posts. If I’d been home, these would likely have been separate entries, but I’ll just list them here for your amusement/enjoyment:
— First, for those who live in or near Garwood, NJ, the band I play in, Midlife Crisis, will be playing at Crossroads on January 13th. The setlist is mostly 70’s rock. The volume is mostly loud. Come on down & check us out.
— Someone sent me a link to an online archive of TV shows. All I can say is, “Oh, my!” Some of the shows (e.g., “24”) have been taken down for copyright reasons, but many, many others are up there. I’d say I’m surprised this site isn’t more popular, but then if it was, I’m guessing it would cease to exist. Consult your ethics manual, and then click at your own risk…
— For folks who enjoy such things, the History of Pop Music in 4 Chords. Warning: Contains Journey.
— Regarding Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, 2006 (“You”), a really awesome quote from Zach Klitzman, a student at the University of Pennsylvania (reprinted here without his permission):
This is awesome; now I can write on my resume that I was selected as Time Man of the Year.
Good point, Zach. Maybe I’ll do the same…
— This from a guy named Rob McKay on the Huffington Post:
It is 60 degrees on December 18th in New York City. I’m hardly relieved I didn’t have to bundle up my daughter and trudge with her through ice and now to go see “The Nutcracker” today. The temperature is terrifying. I want to crack some sense into the nuts who tell us there’s nothing to worry about.
Ozone, schmozone. Just enjoy the balmy weather.
Bush won’t even use the term “global warming.” He occasionally makes reference to the world’s “climate change.” Conservative politicians and pundits chalk up global warming to the next liberal bully pulpit, a rehash of “political correctness” or outcries from the “feminazis.”
He goes on to give the standard schpiel about how global warming is real, the consequences dire, and how anyone who says anything differently is a neo-conservative, radical, religious Christian.
Guys like this really, really get under my skin. Not because I don’t believe that global warming exists, or that humans are causing it. But because a single warm winter in a single city proves absolutely nothing about global warming. And to suggest it does is to go down the slippery slope of having to explain why a particularly cold winter in a different year or different city (anyone out there from Denver?!?) isn’t equal evidence to suggest that the problem has magically disappeared.
No big deal when we’re talking about warm winters, but it’s guys like this who were standing in the flood waters of New Orleans 16 months ago, telling us how Katrina was nothing compared to what’s coming, and how each successive hurricane season is going to get worse and worse because of global warming. So now that 2006’s season has gone down as one of the calmest on record, the folks who should still be screaming about levee repair have no argument to make, and the folks who want to divert that money to other priorities are probably singing like songbirds on Capitol Hill.
Making the right argument with the wrong data is dangerous. It inevitably damages your credibility, especially in the long term. And global warming is a long term problem.
— For those who haven’t seen it yet, the full video of Saddam Hussein’s execution by hanging is now floating all around the web. To be honest, it’s not nearly as graphic as I feared it would be, but it does show the actual moment of death, so if that kind of thing makes you squeamish, click away…
— On a somewhat related note, I found this cool site that allows you to download local copies of flash video from sites like YouTube and Google. It’s pretty simple – you type in the URL from YouTube/Google, it gives you a download link from which you can do “Save Target As…” or whatever your browser calls it. The resulting file is an FLV file, which I was then able to play on my hard drive using this free, FLV player.
(For those who are wondering, I keep a folder on my hard drive of historically significant documents, pictures, videos, etc. I thought Hussein’s execution ranked as one of those, so I wanted a local copy. This seemed the easiest way).
Anyway, that catches me up. How was everyone else’s holiday?
Categories: Political Rantings, Random Acts of Blogging, Tech Talk | 3 Comments »
Conclusive Proof that God is a Republican?
Thursday, December 14th, 2006Well, it’s been a while since I blogged about politics. Gotta say, it felt good. But this? Wow…
The Democrats’ hope of controlling both houses of Congress suddenly got thrown into question this morning when South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson sufferred an intracerebral bleed caused by a congenital arteriovenous malformation and required emergency brain surgery.
For some reason, when these things happen, politicians feel the need to say obvious and/or stupid things:
For the “stupid” side, we turn to Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, who rushed to Johnson’s bedside upon hearing the news. Senator Reid told the press that “There isn’t a thing that’s changed. He looked great.” Except for the fact that he’s unconscious, has his head wrapped in bandages, and is listed in critical condition, I guess. Remind me not to call Senator Reid for my next physical.
On the “obvious” side, we have soon-to-be Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who responded to a question about the political ramifications of Johnson’s illness with “That is a hypothetical that I really don’t want to address.” I would think not, Madame Speaker.
Also, there was Laura Bush, who gave the perfunctory “our hopes and prayers are with him” speech on CBS’s “The Early Show.” I have not read of a quote directly from the President, but I assume he has said almost (if not exactly) the same thing.
Allow me to extend Mrs. Bush’s “hopes and prayers” message, if I may:
— I hope and pray that the senator has a full recovery. Full stop.
— If he doesn’t fully recover, I hope and pray he’s able to continue in the Senate. The backlash against Dick Cheney (who would have the tie-breaking vote in a 50-50 Senate should South Dakota’s Republican governor nominate a Republican to replace Johnson), would be akin to the cries of “election stealing” that came after the 2000 election. If the mess back then contributed to us taking our eye off the Al Qaeda ball, even for a second, you’d think it would’ve taught us about the downside of distracting our leaders with this kind of nonsense. I’m not optimistic, though…
— If he’s not able to serve, I hope he resigns. Back in 1969, another South Dakota senator, Karl Mundit (a Republican), sufferred a stroke while in office. He offered to resign on the condition that South Dakota’s governor appoint Mundt’s wife to fill the vacancy, but the governor refused. So he served the rest of his term (four more years), even though he was unable to cast a vote. Keeping a vegetable in office just to maintain control of the Senate would create a similar kind of backlash to the one described above, and we’re better off without it.
— Finally, I hope that no one accuses Karl Rove of secretly poisoning, or otherwise harming, Senator Johnson. I know this sounds crazy, but remember – there are still people walking around on the planet today who think that Bill Clinton personally shot Vince Foster in the head. I’d just as soon not have to listen to it…
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I Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself
Friday, November 17th, 2006Famously liberal celebrity and blogger extraordinaire, Arianna Huffington, has apparently radically changed her view of President Bush and the war in Iraq:
And don’t shed any tears for [President Bush]. Even though [he] lost, this was still a big win for [him]. A victory for taking a stand — and for [his] leadership. Because that’s what real leaders do, they take stands. They listen to their hearts and follow their gut. If you only jump into the fights you’re sure you can win — notches in the W column that will look good on your political resume — you’re a hack, not someone who can move the party and the country forward. It’s not about trying to have a spotless record; it’s about knowing which battles are worth fighting, whatever the outcome.
Well, she makes a convincing argument, and it’s certainly more logical than the things she’s said in the past about the war, so I think that . . . Oh, wait a second! My bad! She wasn’t talking about President Bush and Iraq at all. This was about Nancy Pelosi and her failed attempt at getting Jack Murtha elected House Majority Leader. Please accept my apologies – I’ll try to be more careful in the future. ;-)
Ya see, that’s what I love about hypocrisy. It’s so consistently inconsistent…
Categories: Political Rantings | 3 Comments »
The Plots Thicken…
Friday, November 10th, 2006Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of the British intelligence agency MI5, says her agency is tracking plans for roughly 30 terrorist attacks originating from Britain, including a plan to blow up the New York Stock Exchange, and other plans involving chemical and nuclear weapons.
Does anyone have any doubt that if this were reported a week ago, the Republicans would have been accused of fear-mongering?
Categories: Political Rantings | 3 Comments »
One more Election Post: Voting Problems…
Wednesday, November 8th, 2006A quick note on my voting experience which, for the first time in my life, actually included a couple of glitches. Fraud! Conspiracy! Those Democrats stole the election! Nah…I can’t pull it off – my heart’s not in it…
Anyway, the local ABC affiliate ran this article, detailing problems with the voting machines in my hometown of Scotch Plains. Our machines weren’t the Diebold, touch-screen variety, but they were electronic (as they have been for several years, now, btw…). You push on a box next to the candidate of your choice, and a green “X” appears in the box. When you’re done, you push a “CONFIRM VOTE” button in the lower right corner of the ballot, the machine beeps, and the vote is counted.
While voting, I accidentally pushed the wrong box for one of the races. I tried to change my mind by pushing the other box, but the machine didn’t respond. After two or three tries, I realized that you have to push the first box again (to make the “X” go away), and then push your preferred box to make the “X” appear. I agree that this is a glitch, but it hardly seems like something that would cause “depressed voter turnout” as the Republican lawyer in the article says. People will complain about anything, especially when they’re paid to do so…
The other interesting twist was speaking to my mother after getting home from voting. When she went to vote, she noticed that my sister and I are both still on the rolls in Marlboro, NJ, where we grew up (and where my parents still live). I haven’t lived there since the early 90’s. My sister moved out of the town years ago, but has susbequently moved back. Still, they had her maiden name on the list (she got married in 1998). So theoretically, I guess I could have voted twice last night if I wanted to drive the 45 minutes from Scotch Plains to Marlboro…
Categories: Political Rantings | 2 Comments »