I Want a - None of the Above - Voting Option

Two Thumbs Down

When I looked at the voting ballot I was again thinking to myself, "I don't want to vote for you or you." So I left both boxes blank.

On most ballots, in the US, there are only two choices: Republican or Democrat.

Once in a while there may be an "Independent" option, and some places on the ballot may allow for a "write-in".

What I would like is a box in each ballot section with the option "None of the Above".

Your vote is your voice and when you are forced to leave a section blank, your voice has been effectively silenced.

Republicans that won in the 2014 mid-term elections didn't win because most voters love the Republican party; they won because voters wanted to send a message to the Democrat party. The only way voters could do that was to not vote for Democrats or, like me, in some sections of the ballot, not vote for either party.

Now there probably is some political party out there that actually calls themselves "None of the Above". I don't want that either.

What I want is a legally recognized "No" vote of all parties represented in each section of the ballot.

Especially for those sections where the incumbent has no opposition.

Voters may not like the incumbent but since there is no opponent to vote for the voters' voice is silenced.

I didn't vote for you and I didn't vote for you either and just because nobody was running against you doesn't mean I approve of you either. I want a way, on the ballot, to tell all of you that I think you are doing a terrible job.



Comments
Please, keep your comments clean, civil and relevant. Cussing with foul language just for the sake of using foul language only proves the person to be an obnoxious, dull-witted fool.

TLDR - How a Generation Excuses its Ignorance

The TLDR Generation

TLDR - short for "To Long, Didn't Read".

We used to call TLDR a "summary". We also knew that a summary was only a very brief description and not intended to impart full understanding. These days, it seems the younger generations are basing all of their understanding off of summaries or "TLDR"... if they bother to read even that much.

Their attention spans are so short that they can't even spell or write a complete sentence.

"dud y u no txt me"

"wut"

"nvm lol"

Which may, in good part, explain why America is ranking lower and lower in academics among the rest of the world.

The TLDR generation comes across as a bunch of gibbering idiots.



Comments
Please, keep your comments clean, civil and relevant. Cussing with foul language just for the sake of using foul language only proves the person to be an obnoxious, dull-witted fool.

Employers Encourage Welfare

Musings

If employers could, they would pay their employees nothing.

Employers say the employee is not worth paying a livable wage or the job is not worth paying a livable wage,... yet the job still needs to be done.

Since the employee isn't paid a livable wage, they depend on welfare to make up the difference.

Food stamps.

Subsidized housing.

Subsidized utilities.

Subsidized-everything that a living wage would have otherwise paid for.

So by not paying employees a livable wage, employers are encouraging welfare.

Welfare improves the businesses' profits because the cost of wages is spread-out among tax payers.

Since welfare boosts business profits, business taxes should go up to support the many millions of underpaid employees on welfare.




Comments
Please, keep your comments clean, civil and relevant. Cussing with foul language just for the sake of using foul language only proves the person to be an obnoxious, dull-witted fool.

Economic Slow-Motion Train Wreck - Amtrak

This morning I saw an Amtrak train pass by with only three or four cars between 2 engines.

I don't know how Amtrak has been faring these past few years but I get the feeling, by only seeing so few cars sandwiched between two engines, that the cross-country passenger train business isn't doing very well. Considering Amtrak is pretty much the only cross-country passenger train business things must be really bad.



Comments
Please, keep your comments clean, civil and relevant. Cussing with foul language just for the sake of using foul language only proves the person to be an obnoxious, dull-witted fool.

Just Write is Just Right

Ye Olde Quill and Ink

It's always a good idea to listen to experienced, professional advice but sometimes you are better off doing things your own way.

Before starting this blog I read several other blogs and web articles on the subject of creating good blogs.

"Stick to one subject for the blog.", they advised.

Ok, I seem to have a particular interest in reading and talking about politics and the economy. Done.

"Backup what you say with links to supporting articles." - more advice from the experts.

Ok, so I bookmarked every article I read. The list of bookmarks grew monstrous. I had a hard time remembering which bookmarked article related to whichever paragraph of what I was writing about. I tried organizing the bookmarks by date and topic, even tried to organize them in a database, but there was just too much overlap of information.

The result of following the expert advise was only a few blog entries were written, each one taking a lot of time and research to write, and the whole process becoming such a chore that I eventually stopped blogging.

At the time of this writing, my previous blog post is just 3 weeks shy of being a whole year ago.

During the past 12 months there were other things I wanted to blog about but they didn't fit into the "politics and economy" niche. Also the memories of the tedious hours, sometimes days, it took to write and refine a single blog post discouraged me.

My blog, like so many others that I've come across in my Internet travels, had been abandoned without any sort of closure. I remember in the beginning telling myself that I wouldn't let that happen, but that is exactly what happened anyway.

A couple days ago a fleeting thought became rooted in my mind... "To hell with'em, just write."

Then I began to ask myself, "Why not?"

Nobody is reading my blog anyway.

Well... other than the NSA computers downloading every character I've typed and complex algorithms processing the data to determine if I'm either the ultimate, mastermind, terrorist of the universe or just another nobody-crackpot, but even then no living person is reading my drivel.

So who cares whether or not I stay on track with a specific niche?

Who cares if I don't fact check and backup my opinions with links and data? They are my opinions and these opinions of this piss-pot-poor, cranky-old-fart aren't going to alter the course of anything.

I like chocolate ice-cream and, in my opinion, vanilla ice-cream tastes yucky!

Wait for it... wait for it...

Hmm...

The world seems to be continuing about it's business despite my opinion of vanilla ice-cream and despite my not having any hard facts or scientific data to back my opinion. (And I still like chocolate ice-cream and I'm still of the opinion that vanilla ice-cream tastes yucky.)

All the expert advice, suggestions, guidelines, techniques, etc. that I've read about blogging may come in handy someday but for now just writing something,... anything,.... is better than the 12 months of "nothing" I've written so far.

For now, "just write" is just right.



Comments
Please, keep your comments clean, civil and relevant. Cussing with foul language just for the sake of using foul language only proves the person to be an obnoxious, dull-witted fool.