Month: September 2009

 One has to wonder about the intellectual acuity of societal members who engage in totally over-the-edge Internet discourse for all the world to see.

 I speak of the recent flap over a poll placed by a third party on Facebook that asked if the President of the United States should be killed. That such a horrendous post would be put up by some dips**t for millions of readers is stupid beyond imagination on more than one level. Some 700 responses were received before the offending poll was removed by Facebook. Left out in all the stories I have read were the numbers voting in the affirmative. We thus have little knowledge whether the omission was a gesture of good taste or something to do with the ongoing investigation of the incident by the Secret Service. It would be kind of instructive to know.

 Given that a person or persons are stupid enough to post something so obscene makes me think there are people who are as equally moronic that they would answer online in favor of the question. 

 Now I don’t know if all Facebook polls are created equally but I see quite a few voted on by my Facebook friends that are exhibited in plain view on their sites. But even if the poll allowed for some smidgen of anonymity, do you think that maybe authorities like the Secret Service might just find a way to crack that secrecy via warrants and various legal niceties?

 It doesn’t matter if you were joking — and if you were joking I can’t imagine anyone with the sense of humor to laugh at such barbarity — if you were stupid enough to vote on that poll and answered something other than “no” it seems like you should be due a visit by some scary looking dudes wearing suits and dark glasses. And that is the way it should be.

 Some actions do not rise to the level of felonious stupidity. I say posting this poll on Facebook, and voting at all, but at the very least voting “yes” or “yes if he cuts my health care” is grievously stupid.

 Texans for Public Justice on Tuesday released another of its ever-enlightening reports on campaign finance. This report focuses on the $28 million raised for the battle supreme for the Texas GOP governor’s nomination in 2010 between Gov. Rick “Goodhair” Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay “Give me a ‘G,’ give me an ‘O,’ give me a ‘P'” Bailey Hutchison.

  The most recent state financial disclosure reports indicated Hutchison raised about $14.8 million and Perry, slightly less, at $14.4 million. TPJ says there are caveats to these figures, however.

 Perry has been raising campaign cash since taking office since 2000. That is with the exception of a six-month period surrounding the biennial legislative sessions during which state officials are prohibited by law from taking contributions.

 Hutchison’s monetary figure reflects the period between December 2008 — when she named a state campaign treasurer — and July 2009. But Hutchison also transferred an additional $7.9 million from her federal senate war chest to her state campaign funds.

 A few million dollars here and another few million there and we’re talking a lot of money.

 S.W.T. Lanham, elected Texas governor in 1902 and 1904, oversaw early campaign reform laws including the requirement of filing campaign expenditures. Lanham spent $20 on his last campaign. Then again he didn’t have to deal with the cost of jet planes (or planes for that matter), or television ads playing statewide and in some of the country’s major markets. Of course, there was no TV or commercial radio. And the Inter-what?

 Many of those people who rant about campaign finance at either the state or federal levels often aim their invective at the industry, or organization or even the person. That influence-peddling, legal or not, has become one of the major obstacles to governing raises little doubt.

 But it should be bothersome enough to most people except those who make a profit off expensive elections that such enormous amounts of cash go toward elections. It’s the money, stupid.

 How much money will be raised through both the Democratic and GOP primaries for governor in Texas? Then comes the general election. What will be the final tally for the entire 2010 election for governor? There are widespread predictions of another record-breaking year for raising cash to buy the Texas governor’s seat.

 The mind-numbing amounts of money raised and spent for offices provide commerce for some, but can anyone say with certainty that the cash is spread around to many? Well, one could argue, it pays off in the end for the individual donors who seek time with elected officials to make their case for this or that. Of course, if such influence provides rotten results that help only a few, then we proceed, straight back to square one.

 There is little reason to hope that the laws will eventually bar the ever greater amounts of millions of dollars which infuse campaigns. Americans seem willing to wait for the critical mass. Wait until the waters overflow — like in New Orleans during Katrina — and fix it then.

 But one has to wonder. Will Texans have a better quality governor — who spends millions upon millions of dollars — in office after the 2010 election than it did with S.W.T. Lanham who spent a mere 20 bucks to get elected?

  Isn’t two days of Moammar Gadhafi a little much?

  Well, maybe it is but I didn’t get enough sleep last night — perhaps subconsciously worried I might have nightmares about the Libyan strong man throwing things at me — so I am tired and thus want to make this short.

  But really, who would have thought that Gadhafi would have provided so much comic relief with his 90-some-odd-minute-mind-numbing-speech at the UN General Assembly. I mean, the guy wore out an interpreter.

   One of the funniest comments I heard over the Gadhafi speech: “Where is Kanye West when you need him?”