Paraphrased from the Georgia Secretary of State website:

Q: How do I cast a write-in vote?

A: Just as with older systems, the new electronic voting units allow voters to cast votes for write in candidates. Voters should note, however, that, under Georgia law, write in votes are only counted and compiled for those candidates who have filed an official notice of their write in candidacy. 

Up until a little over a half-century ago, it was considered bad form to campaign for yourself as a political candidate, especially for the Presidency. Funny how times change; even "write-in" candidates have to declare that they want to be candidates now.

If you're not voting Democrat, Republican, or Libertarian, your options are pretty limited. The complete list of approved write-in candidates in Georgia includes Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, former Constitution Party candidate-who-is-not-seeking-office-but-is-on-the-ballot-anyway Michael A. Peroutka, Socialist Workers candidate James Harris, Green Party candidate (and ex-Representative bitch) Cynthia McKinney, former Green Party candidate and former consumer activist-turned-perrenial also-ran independent candidate Ralph Nader, Independent "People's President" Jonathan Allen, performance artist Frank Moore, and two other guys who just wanted to be on the ballot (Brian Russell Brown and David C. Byrne). But no superheroes.

See, all nine of those people I just listed above have notified the Secretary of State in writing that they wanted to be a write-in candidate and published their intention in their local newspaper. Not really so hard, is it? However, it's certainly more than any superhero can be expected to do between catching purse-snatchers and exposing crooked cops.

Sure, despite the fact that Superman is technically ineligible for the office (he was born on foreign soil, you know), he's still way over-qualified for the position (fighting the "never ending battle for truth, justice, and the American Way" nonstop for 80 years!) but can't accept your protest write-in vote without publicly begging for it.

Way to go, America. Once you start to eliminate the candidates of value, you end up with a turd sandwich or a giant douche in the White House. Or worse.

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Someone somewhere is going to have to explain to me why people have been standing in lines for hours in order to vote early. I've asked everyone I know, and no one can plausibly explain it. Some people must have too much time on their hands. The line here in Coweta County has been around the block downtown all day. For over two weeks! How can there be more people voting in my county than can even read?

Though Georgia state law mandates businesses to allow a 2-hour window for their employees to vote on election day, I've never heard of anyone exceeding that time. But now I'm frequently hearing news reports quote a waiting time in some counties exceeding 4 hours for early voting lines! So by choosing to go early, these voters are wasting their free time to do something that they law shelters them to take off from work to do. If I was to wait in any line for more than even 15 minutes, there'd have to be a pretty kick-ass roller coaster at the end of that line.

Clearly, this Presidential election will have record-breaking voter turnout. And to think: our next President will likely be chosen by people who are willing to stand in long lines in order to do something that they could just as easily have done via mail-in ballot from the comfort of their living rooms.

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Through complete happenstance while searching modern history for a cartoon as stupid as Marvel's truly wretched animated Iron Man series from 1994, today I discovered a cartoon from 1967 about a super-powered President of the United States straight-forwardly titled Super President. The premise of this cartoon was that President James Norcross was bombarded by cosmic radiation and granted the fantastic ability to modify his body chemistry. Like all good public servants granted amazing powers, President Norcross donned a costume and fought super-villains as Super President. (Calling himself "Super President" may seem like a really bad way to maintain his secret identity, but what would you expect from someone whose job prerequisite depended on name recognition?)

You can't tell it from the clip above, but Super President was voiced by Paul Frees. You may recognize his voice as the narrator of the animated Disney educational film Donald in Mathmagic Land. Or maybe as the voice of the immoral K.A.R.R. on television's Knight Rider. Or maybe as the voice of the sentient supercomputer in the sci-fi feature film Colossus, the Forbin Project. (I think those pretty much sum up my personal stages of development via popular entertainment.) For those of you who prefer your entertainment less math/science oriented, maybe you know Mr. Frees' voice as that of Boris Badenov, the nemesis of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Anyway, what got me most about Super President is that an acting, elected head-of-state is acting as costumed crime-fighter. Presumably, he can authorize himself to do this, but who's running the country while he's battling space aliens? I would think his term would suffer from a lot of pocket vetoes. And fund-raising would be especially difficult, as, in true comic book fashion, villains would always be stealing from the donated funds, requiring an embarrassing unexplained absence while the candidate looks for an empty bathroom stall to don his tights.

I always figured that despite his moral perfection and unerring ability to make the right choice, Superman could do more good as a freelance policeman rather than a politician because of his unique abilities. Surely, I figured, all that bureaucratic red tape could keep Superman's hands tied. Being a politician means negotiations and diplomacy, two things that I had previously seen as obstacles to getting a job done the Kryptonian way: with super speed. Just being elected requires the super ability to compromise your own beliefs to appease the electorate and the political machines. How can Superman, who is always right and honest, make the necessary campaign promises that will enable his own election? (I don't think the phrase, "never mind that now, Jimmy," is going to work in those confrontational televised debates.)

But maybe I'm wrong; maybe he could do both. If Super President Norcross can pull it off, it should be a walk in the park for Clark "doesn't he look a lot like Superman with glasses" Kent.

(And just in case you're wondering, while Super President may be a bad cartoon, it's still better than Iron Man.)

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I don't comment on politics often, mainly because I figure it's a mug's game: anyone running for President probably isn't worth electing President. However, yesterday the Hon. Hillary Clinton defended her refusal to withdraw from the all-but-over race for the Democratic Party nomination by explaining that she was still in the running just in case something should happen to her opponent:

"We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California."

Now, just for a second, let's assume that she wasn't hinting that her opponent, the Hon. Barrack Obama, will be assassinated on the way to the nomination. What is the chance that if Obama is removed from the race she wouldn't be the party nominee even if she willingly stepped aside? Hmm? (Historical note: RFK was in second place in his party's delegate counts when he was slain, and it is unlikely that he would have received the party nomination should he have survived.)

While it is too much to hope that the Clintons will be learning a lesson from this (depending on what your definition of the word "is" is), it's not too late for you, the reader of this blog, to take away a little something. As Aesop might say, the stubborn donkey that stays late in the field is likely to contract hoof-in-mouth disease.

(On a tangentially related aside, what's the chance that Ted Kennedy's recently revealed malignant brain tumor is the result of a conspiracy? I'd hate to see Teddy left out of the family legacy, after all. Poor guy might actually die from >shudder< natural causes.)

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The world is a fascinating place. Earlier this week, it was reported that an 11-year old boy from Kentucky sold off his worldly possessions (which at his age amounts to what? A skateboard and some video games?) to raise $400 for the Clinton campaign. The story here is not that the child was willing to raise money, but that he was willing to raise money for the Clintons.

Think about it. A child (too young even to see Iron Man without adult supervision) has pledged all of his assets to invest in the political campaign of a candidate that has already passed the point of mathematical elimination from the race (unless the Democratic party loses its senses and ignores the popular vote). He's pledging towards a campaign that has simultaneously decried excessive government spending and unbalanced budgets while running up more than $20 million in campaign debt in the past year (does anyone remember Brewster's Millions?). And, here's the kicker, he's pledging the efforts of his closet-clearing fundraising, all $400, to the campaign for a multi-millionaire.

Who are the parents that would let their child do this? When I was 11, I worked odd jobs to earn enough to buy Optimus Prime. I wasn't concerned with helping Michael Dukakis overcome stupid tank photo-ops.

The boy was quoted by the Associated Press: "I think she can do just like Bill Clinton did in the '90s and we can have a good economy,'' he says. "I think the majority of people around here are struggling due to the economy. And she can get us out of the war.'' When the 1990s ended, this boy was no more than 4 years old. The only war he's familiar with is a card game.

I've long feared that American politics was a play put on for the naive. What's more naive than an 11-year old boy who thinks that Hillary Clinton can end a war? I sure hope that this story is fiction. I'd hate to "think of the children" and be faced with such distressing facts.

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So it would seem that after a pretty good start, I've fallen to one posting a week. That's horrible. I'll really have to try to do better. I've just been a little preoccupied with finding a way to make some money recently, is all. Once I don't care about that anymore, I'm sure that you'll hear more from me.

In the meantime, since I've already brought up the subject of money, let me mention something here: people who do good deeds do them for selfish reasons. (Doing good deeds releases dopamine and endorphins and other feel good chemicals in the brain. It's evolution's way of encouraging people to get along for mutual benefit.) I certainly have no problem with people who do good deeds, but I do have a problem with people who won't admit that they do good deeds for selfish reasons. Those people are trouble.

And that's all I'm going to say about the Presidential election. Until I say something else.

(If you're wondering what good deeds and a Presidential election have to do money, I'm afraid that I can't help you. Ever. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll go ahead and mention that I did just donate to a charity, but I assure you that it was for all the wrong reasons.)

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As you may have heard, Georgia is in the midst of a drought. Yesterday, our Governor, Sonny Perdue, led a public prayer for rain on the grounds of the state capital. Amusingly enough, the prayer was protested.

Sure, I might have problems with state sponsored prayer. But I've really got better things to do than to protest against people praying for rain. I mean, where's the up side in that protest? If you're right, and faith shouldn't be invoked to solve the drought, how do you propose that we force the atmosphere to deliver us precipitation? If you're wrong, and appeasing a higher power is what is required to make it rain, you've doomed us all. In either case, by raining on this parade, you're not helping to make it any more wet around here.

Now that it's raining a day later, clearly proving that prayer works (sorry all you people who lost loved ones to disease, God doesn't love you as much as he loves Sonny Perdue), those same protesters are no doubt worried that solutions to other local problems will be sought with prayer instead of legislation. Maybe God can prevent a recurrence of the perfect storm that led to Genarlow Wilson becoming national news at Georgia's expense. Or maybe God can decide what to do about the pesky problems with Atlanta traffic jams. Or potential construction costs and controversial plans for the Hartsfield-Jackson airport expansion. Or what to do about putting too much salt on a police officer's complementary hamburger. (Or even police officers who arrest people for putting too much salt on their complementary hamburgers.)

Hell, why don't we just go ahead and put God to the ultimate test: see if he can make the Atlanta Falcons football team have two consecutive winning seasons for the first time in franchise history. (That's asking for just 18 wins over two seasons.) Or what if we pray that the Atlanta Thrashers hockey team wins a game in the playoffs? (They were the best team in the regular season last year. How hard can it be to win one post season game?) Or, if we're looking for a real challenge, how about giving the Atlanta Hawks basketball team a .500 or better season. (Not only hasn't this happened this century, the Hawks' playoff record makes the Thrashers appear to be over-achievers.)

I'm not asking for miracles here. I'm just looking for Atlanta professional sports to not suck. That doesn't seem nearly as hard as making it rain, does it?

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Who is more dangerous: Michael Moore or Al Gore? Both are politically-minded liberals who use technology, one-sided propaganda, and scare tactics to much remarkable success, convincing a large number of people that the status-quo is dangerous to their future. Is Moore's masterful manipulation of the mass media any less deceiving than Gore's ingenious beguiling of the genuinely guileless?

I have friends who are completely in the camps of one or both, and, although even a jaded fellow such as myself has to admit that they do have their points, I am sincerely wary of their means and motives. Is it acceptable to follow a idealistic fool (Moore) or an compulsive liar (Gore), even if they're right? Is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons acceptable?

Once upon a time, Optimus Prime would have told me, "No, it isn't." But my Optimus Prime is dead, replaced by some Michael Bay zombie of CGI scrap metal. And I can't turn to Yoda for answers, because he was recently revealed to be a procrastinating quitter. Even Superman, as of late, has begun to waffle like an anguished X-Man after fathering a child then leaving the woman that he supposedly loves to raise their child on her own so that he can selfishly sow his own wild Kryptonian-oats. I'm rapidly running out of role models here, people.

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Now that the White House has weighed in, I can speak up, too. Just what the hell is all this furor over Don Imus' insult of the Rutgers women's basketball team? So he called them "nappy-headed hos." And now everyone is up in arms that he made a racial slur.

Excuse me, people, but perhaps, just perhaps, calling someone "nappy-headed" is not as significant as calling a bunch of women "hos." The first describes kinky hair, which is usually undesirable. The second labels a woman as a whore. What Imus suggested in his statement was that the winning basketball team was made up of prostitutes with unflattering hairstyles. And this is to some degree a true statement given the nature of NCAA exploitation of athletes in profitable venues and the fact that the Rutgers women's basketball team members have unflattering hairstyles.

Now Al Sharpton is screaming about the slight and Don Imus has a two-week vacation. What amuses me about this is wondering if he had just called the team "hos" without mentioning their hairstyles, would he be in this much trouble? (Last time I checked, Al Sharpton doesn't rush to your aid unless you are a member of a minority or a Thanksgiving turkey.)

And I'd advise the Rutgers women's basketball team to stop blaming Don Imus for raining on their moment in the sun. Ladies, no one watches women's basketball. (For example, at the University of Georgia, women's season tickets for our competitive SEC program sell for $25. The horrible, horrible men's team sells season tickets for over 10 times that. Apparently in sports, dicks cost more than tits, which is oddly very contrary to the dating scene.)

May I suggest to you, Rutgers, that while you may have provided the sun, Imus and Sharpton provided the moment.

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Bill Clinton recently lamented the country's fixation on Britney Spears as "wrong." To whom did Bill make this candid assessment? TV Land advertisers and executives. TV Land is owned by MTV Networks/Viacom, and is a sister network to VH1, the all-celebrities-all-the-time channel. Careful, Bill. "Integrity" and "Family Values" have never exactly been in your personal platform, don't start changing sides now. Stick with "feeling her pain," and it will all work out okay: Hillary will head back to the white house and you'll get a second shot at interns.

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