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06/28/2004 Archived Entry: ""

In place of cartoons, here's some random bits of scientific humor.

I remain convinced that the threat Nader poses to the Democrats is highly over-rated...

Consider this news item from the Indianapolis Star, "Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader's name likely will not be on the Indiana ballot in November, his state coordinator said. Dallas Stoner said Nader's Indiana committee has collected only about 9,000 of 30,000 signatures needed to get the candidate's name on general election ballots. The deadline to collect the required number of signatures is noon Wednesday." Nader is not yet on a single state ballot. The fact that his enemies are crusading to place his name on the Oregon ballot is likely to unite the Democrats against voting for him. According to the Boston Globe, "Two conservative groups have been phoning people around Oregon this week, urging them to attend Ralph Nader's convention today in hopes of putting Nader's name on Oregon's presidential ballot. The groups make no bones about their goal -- to draw votes away from Democrat John F. Kerry and help President Bush win this battleground state in November. 'We disagree with Ralph Nader's politics, but we'd love to see him make the ballot,' said Russ Walker of Citizens for a Sound Economy, a group best known for its opposition to tax increases. The Oregon Family Council also has been working the phones to boost attendance at Nader's event -- with the idea that it could help Bush this fall." Perhaps such gambits contributed to the Green Party's rejection of Nader as a candidate for President. ABC News reports, "The Green Party nominated Texas attorney David Cobb as its candidate for president, rejecting Ralph Nader's efforts to secure the party's formal endorsement and likely access to the ballot in key states like Wisconsin and California."

I am still fascinated by "Fahrenheit 9/11" even before seeing it. My unofficial co-blogger has vowed to boycott the documentary while other friends praise it. Justin Raimondo has captured, perhaps, one explanation as to why the movie elicits such passionate and antithetical responses from people I admire. He writes, "Michael Moore's new film embodies all the virtues, and vices, of the American left at the present moment: it is trenchant and wrongheaded, serious and superficial, startlingly original and horribly clichéd. There is humor, sophomoric as well as dark; emotion, spontaneous and staged. Fahrenheit 9/11 is, in short, the best of films, and the worst of films. It is, in effect, two entirely different movies."

Best to all,
mac