It has been fun. BTW, I regret saying "the commies at Berkeley" - I should have said "the commies at every public university".

Big Will, Harold Bloom once said academia is "an island of repression in a sea of liberty". I can't explain it any better.

good morning big will!!

well, todays the day!! i will vote this afternoon when i get off work, but man, can you just feel the tension in the air.. its kinda scary.. everyone up here at work is just jabber-talkin and criss-crossing from desk to desk. most around here are bush supporters(go figure), but they all look very concerned. i fear that the two parties have put such a division in the country, that regardless of who wins, it will be hard to unify the concept of one america. these are hard battle lines, and they have dug the trench deep..

i hope you win some money on your 'bet'.. have a good day, and have some beers tonight.. it will help ease the pain..

bigjohn

Anyone here read Foucault at all? This thread made me think of his idea that as you tear down a power structure a new one is created because we cannot exist in a vaccume where there is no power structure and that this leads to a "hyper- and pessimistic-activisim " where even if you realise that you will never acheive the perfect power structure you still try to change it because it is worse to do nothing. (I use the word you to mean society in general, not a specific person)

So, some people like Bush, some people don't. Eventually he will no longer be in power and someone who is just as liked/hated will be in power, but we still have to have threads like this or we would all rot away in stagnation...

(note: this is a very basic interpertaion of Foucault so don't take my word for it -- read him yourself. Although, he is terribly borring...)

Also, I prefer a demoractic system where there are many parties -- I think that two (or even the 4 or 5 that we have in Canada) is not enough "sides" to represent everyone in a country. India, for example, has around 100 parties and it takes something like 6 weeks to count all the votes, but that way a larger percentage of the population is represented even if only through alliances in parliment... (I mean they could even have a party that represents the goatherder's union who probalby has different concerns than the sheepherders union...)

anyways, my two cents

Nice try, bigjohn. The map will be all red late tonight.
I'm afraid I wasted my money betting on Kerry, but I'll still be toasting the Bush victory with some of that Jubleale from the Descheutes Brewery that Tom raves about (I haven't tried the Jubleale yet, hopefully it won't suck as badly as Kerry does).

Lexxen, those multi-party systems make people feel better represented, but I don't know if it creates a more affective gov't. Lots of politicking within the legislative body, no?

BTW- has anyone been able to get any sort of update as to how the polls are looking? i thought they might be giving some 'early' results, but i havent found any.. i guess the networks are scared to do so after the fiasco with last election.

please give any updates if you get them. mainly the swing states. ohio, florida, pennsylvania, wisconsin..

bigjohn

They don't release early results anymore - don't want to hurt turnout.

makes sense..

OK then i will just wait and find out this evening with a cold beer and a plate full of BBQ..

beer, food, and politics.. could it get any better? does anyone know any strippers?

bigjohn

I'm gonna watch the election results on the Daly Show tonight. He has a two hour special starting at 9:00 on the comedy channel. I'll get the results and laugh my a$$ off at the same time.

Daily Show is awesome. I loved what he said on last night's show. He was speaking to the president elect -- whoever that's going to be. I'm paraphrasing:

"I'm a comedian who makes a living off making fun of tha absurdities of the government. Please, make my job really hard for the next 4 years."