Who Is IOZ?: They're Gonna Kill that Poor Woman, Part Whatever

Thursday, September 15, 2011

They're Gonna Kill that Poor Woman, Part Whatever

Oh God Oh God someone at Digbysplace says they're going overturn democracy in Pennsylvania. Oh noes that's where I live! That's where MR. FUNDAMENTAL LIVES! No wait it's worse! It's a 2nd America CIVIL WAR! Hide your women! Sacrifice your babies! Eat your dogs! If you find us clinging to the bloated human flotsam in a Susquehanna swollen to an inland sea by the influx of human tears, I pray thee, do not rescue us, for it is better to drown than give the Rethuglicans the satisfaction of living in their world.

You know, now, look, um, here, listen: I am all for overheated political rhetoric, obviously, but jiggling around with the electoral college is not going to set of any fucking riots; lord god, it'll be lucky if it sets off a decent comments thread on a half-read blog somewhere. The world is on fire; Europe is going to self-cannibalize in an orgy of financial recriminations; America's robot armies are ever and everywhere on the march, and these people think we're going to fight a civil war over the disposition of Aliquippa.

36 comments:

¯\(°_0)/¯ said...: My memory is hazy, but wasn't there some liberal uproar about how un-democratic the Electoral College was at some point in our nation's distant past?; 11:43 AM
Professor Coldheart said...: The decisions of farmers three hundred years ago are sacred, except when they're not. Consult your decoder ring for clues. Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.; 12:14 PM
Weldon Berger said...: First they came for some portion of the electoral college delegates ...; 12:20 PM
Happy Jack said...: Don't worry, as an Ohioan I've got your back. I stand at the ready to fight side-by-side with you, slaying evil.

So comrade, shouldn't we be preparing a barrage of online petitions or something?; 12:25 PM
IOZ said...: The 300 . . . calls to the statehouse switchboard.; 1:25 PM
mp said...: more and better democrats, that's what we need.; 1:27 PM
Jack Crow said...: Does he actually believe this shit? -

"...If the GOP-controlled "blue states" do this, and if President Obama wins the popular vote by a few million votes and would have won the election under the current rules but "loses" to Rick Perry under the GOP rules, I can practically guarantee mass civil disobedience..."

Seriously?

Americans aren't dividing up into martial factions and killing each other over the world's largest prison population, the drug war, the quadrupling of food prices, ten years of imperial warfare or boldfaced banking pirate raids - but there's going to be mass "civil disobedience" over a dude who is less detested by his official opposition than his ostensible base?; 1:35 PM
Christopher M. said...: MASS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE! There will be blood, I tell you! BLOOD!; 1:46 PM
¯\(°_0)/¯ said...: How can you forget the bloodshed after Bush v. Gore? Yglesias came to prominence after his daring raid on a Pat Robertson stronghold.; 1:46 PM
¯\(°_0)/¯ said...: Jesse Jackson took Arianna Hiffington hostage; James Carville leapt on a live grenade, saving a bus load of MoveOn volunteers.; 1:48 PM
¯\(°_0)/¯ said...: And let us never forget how Timothy McVeigh retaliated against the possibly corrupt special election in Oklahoma's 3rd district.; 1:51 PM
Jimbo said...: Wait, so you're saying there's a slight chance some political maneuvering in PA state politics may help warmongering corporate tool #2 being elected instead of warmongering corporate tool #1? OH MY GOD THIS WILL NOT STAND 1!!!; 2:40 PM
Joe said...: Shit, I'm a Pennsylvanianite, too. I'd better move to New Jersey before the Democrats march on Harrisburg.; 2:44 PM
LP Steve said...: Marching, marching to Omaha,
With the Buckram and the Cord!; 2:53 PM
Picador said...: How can you forget the bloodshed after Bush v. Gore?

That was my thought as well. To believe any of this prior to 2001 would have been merely naive and hysterical. To believe any of it after 2001 is psychotic.; 3:29 PM
Leonard said...: "never before in my 30-year lifetime, not even during the Bush years, have I felt this country was more keenly teetering on the precipice of totalitarianism than it is today." -- David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")

Hahahahaha! From the T party no less!

But don't worry -- "There is little in the way of a fascist youth movement that often accompanies such national descents into tyranny." Maybe we need one?

Fortunately, the progressive project of replacing the original productive but wrongthinking population of America with those more stupid and tractable continues. "In 25 years, most of the people clamoring for the blood of the innocent in that audience will already have shed this mortal coil, replaced with the much browner and much more progressive population they desperately fear." See? Good news. In 25 years, whitey will be dead, and progs will rule unchallenged.; 3:37 PM
LA Confidential Pantload said...: Rather amusing that for all the heavy breathing and apocalyptic rhetoric, it's admitted that this process is perfectly legal.

Don't know about the rest of the Commonwealth, but here in Philly if I tried to stir up the mob with "Harrisburg's fucking with the electoral college," the response I'd get would be "those fucks are raising the tuition again?"; 3:57 PM
mistah charley, ph.d. said...: my mother, and her mother before her, was born in pennsylvania. a number of my relatives live there. i have visited punxsatawnie to admire the groundhogness of it, even though the bill murray movie was made in illinois.

what would ben franklin do?; 4:30 PM
Sorry said...: There's a new Jeff Wells essay up. Also, your hotmail is spamming me. Not sure what can be done about it short of killing Skynet & voting Dem, just saying.; 4:50 PM
Peter Ward said...: I think they are just getting excuses ready for when Obie looses the most important election of all time.; 5:35 PM
Enron said...: First they come for your electoral votes, then for your excise taxes.; 8:30 PM
gamefaced said...: who the fuck attends electoral college and what do they have to do with how our kings are bar mitzvahed?; 10:30 PM
Christopher said...: My memory is hazy, but wasn't there some liberal uproar about how un-democratic the Electoral College was at some point in our nation's distant past?

To be fair, Atkins is hoping people will cut the Pennsylvania thing off at the knees by implementing a national popular vote.

Although this is kind of the Democratic version of Republican health care hysteria. On the one hand, Obama's health care plan will put our health decisions in the hands of heartless bureaucrats who only care about money, and on the other, district representation will cause some states to be unervalued by candidates for no compelling reason, while at the same time making sure that big chunks of a state's voters can't possibly effect the Presidential election.

I thank god every day that I don't live under those conditions.; 11:16 PM
Paul Alexander said...: These Republicans need to be killed! I just read a month's worth of Digby posts and I have no idea what we're doing wasting military resources on the Middle East when these fucking conservatives (har dee har, Digby set me straight on their deathly version of activist 'conservatism') are here in our country trying to play themselves off as not being devil spawn. Unfortunately, they use really good disguises and shit loads of money that they make from spraying birds with oil to take advantage of those unaware of their tricks. Unless they vote Republican, which means they're evil. WHAT? I'M FUCKING CONFUSED!; 2:10 AM
NutellaonToast said...: I was gonna revolt but then I realized I'd forgot to set my TiVo, sooo....

Wait,is TiVo still a thing?; 2:14 AM
oolong tea said...: Wow,today i come here,and find everything is so wonderful,really like your blog,and also hope you could like oolong green tea,and if possible,hope everyone could come my website and visit the Chinese tea culture!; 4:27 AM
Anonymous said...: oolong tea's punctuation is reminiscent of anne's. Where's anne these days youze guys?; 4:36 AM
Anonymous said...: Anne was of a thousand days, but the poor thing couldn't count very well, I guess.; 12:53 PM
toto said...: Republican legislators seem quite “confused” about the merits of the congressional district method. In Nebraska, Republican legislators are now saying they must change from the congressional district method to go back to state winner-take-all, while in Pennsylvania, Republican legislators are just as strongly arguing that they must change from the winner-take-all method to the congressional district method.
Dividing Pennsylvania’s electoral votes by congressional district would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system and not reflect the diversity of Pennsylvania.
The district approach would provide less incentive for presidential candidates to campaign in all Pennsylvania districts and would not focus the candidates’ attention to issues of concern to the state as a whole. Candidates would have no reason to campaign in districts where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind.
Due to gerrymandering, in 2008, only 4 Pennsylvania congressional districts were competitive.
In Maine, where they award electoral votes by congressional district, the closely divided 2nd congressional district received campaign events in 2008 (whereas Maine’s 1st reliably Democratic district was ignored).
In Nebraska, which also uses the district method, the 2008 presidential campaigns did not pay the slightest attention to the people of Nebraska’s reliably Republican 1st and 3rd congressional districts because it was a foregone conclusion that McCain would win the most popular votes in both of those districts. The issues relevant to voters of the 2nd district (the Omaha area) mattered, while the (very different) issues relevant to the remaining (mostly rural) two-thirds of the state were irrelevant.
When votes matter, presidential candidates vigorously solicit those voters. When votes don’t matter, they ignore those areas.
Nationwide, there are only 55 “battleground” districts that are competitive in presidential elections. Seven-eighths of the nation’s congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally.
If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country’s congressional districts.
Because there are generally more close votes on district levels than states as whole, district elections increase the opportunity for error. The larger the voting base, the less opportunity there is for an especially close vote.
Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.; 12:57 PM
toto said...: Republican legislators seem quite “confused” about the merits of the congressional district method. In Nebraska, Republican legislators are now saying they must change from the congressional district method to go back to state winner-take-all, while in Pennsylvania, Republican legislators are just as strongly arguing that they must change from the winner-take-all method to the congressional district method.
Dividing Pennsylvania’s electoral votes by congressional district would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system and not reflect the diversity of Pennsylvania.
The district approach would provide less incentive for presidential candidates to campaign in all Pennsylvania districts and would not focus the candidates’ attention to issues of concern to the state as a whole. Candidates would have no reason to campaign in districts where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind.
Due to gerrymandering, in 2008, only 4 Pennsylvania congressional districts were competitive.
In Maine, where they award electoral votes by congressional district, the closely divided 2nd congressional district received campaign events in 2008 (whereas Maine’s 1st reliably Democratic district was ignored).
In Nebraska, which also uses the district method, the 2008 presidential campaigns did not pay the slightest attention to the people of Nebraska’s reliably Republican 1st and 3rd congressional districts because it was a foregone conclusion that McCain would win the most popular votes in both of those districts. The issues relevant to voters of the 2nd district (the Omaha area) mattered, while the (very different) issues relevant to the remaining (mostly rural) two-thirds of the state were irrelevant.
When votes matter, presidential candidates vigorously solicit those voters. When votes don’t matter, they ignore those areas.
Nationwide, there are only 55 “battleground” districts that are competitive in presidential elections. Seven-eighths of the nation’s congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally.
If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country’s congressional districts.
Because there are generally more close votes on district levels than states as whole, district elections increase the opportunity for error. The larger the voting base, the less opportunity there is for an especially close vote.
Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.; 12:57 PM
demize! said...: "Democracy" LOOL!; 2:02 PM
demize! said...: @toto I dont think I should have to not read your boring drivel twice.; 2:07 PM
Anonymous said...: @demizel
So don't.

By the beard of the prophet, if one paragraph is inane, who in this world forces you to continue? Are we that bad that "toto" is now responsible for your reading decisions?

Capt'n Obvious; 2:32 PM
demize! said...: "we"? Are you an aggregation? The reading part was rhetorical. Captain Obvious! ughh; 4:29 PM
Anonymous said...: What profiteth an Ioz to be erudite if readers who spell lose loose are allowed to roam like buffaloes across the comment landscape?; 3:26 AM
Anonymous said...: Whereas Digbyville is incensed by the madness of these proposed changes and
Whereas grievances should be protested via "mass civil disobedience"
Be it resolved that several enraged bloggers drive the speed limit next Saturday afternoon on the major thoroughfares of Altoona; 1:23 AM

Thursday, September 15, 2011

They're Gonna Kill that Poor Woman, Part Whatever

36 comments:

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