name one profound personal conviction bush has demonstrated with any degree of consistency at all. anyone?

Okay, snidely, I accept your challenge. Here it is:

"Wrong and strong is better than right and weak".

Bush has stuck to that philosophy like glue ever since 9/11, and possibly before as well. Although to be fair he may just be following Rove's advice.

-Jeremy

Hey "Try Again Later",

You sound awfully angry and bitter about something. What's wrong?

-Jeremy

... and now I'm creeped out by the thought that wherever I go, one of those corpses is right there with me.

vaporland writes,

I have worked with information technology for thirty-five years and I trust electronic voting about as much as I trust electronic slot machines.

I trust the electronic slot machines a good deal more -- the slot machines in Vegas are heavily regulated and standardized, and what's more, the operators of the slot machines have an economic incentive to make sure their machines operate fairly (otherwise their casino would get a reputation for being stingy and their customers would go elsewhere). Electronic voting machines have none of those qualities.

The role of computers in elections should be limited to helping you fill out your ballot card, or (optionally) checking your ballot card for errors. They should never be used as storage devices, because they aren't transparent.

-Jeremy

Just because something is "naturally occuring" doesn't make it morally right.

That's very true -- rape is also a naturally occurring phenomenon, and nobody argues that rape is morally right.

So how do we decide if something is immoral or not? We can study the effects of the action to see if it causes harm, or we can look to tradition to see what tradition says about it.

In this case, the two methods conflict: several parts of the Bible condemn homosexuality, but all (disinterested) scientific studies of homosexuality say that it is a normal sexual characteristic of a significant portion of the population and isn't harmful (other than the persecution or discrimination that the homosexual might face -- but that's a symptom of the persecution, not the homosexuality itself).

The problem with the "Bible condemns it, so it must be wrong" approach is that the Bible (particularly the Old Testament) also condemns a lot of other things (eating of seafood, working on the Sabbath, and divorce, to name a few) that we as a society accept routinely with little or no censure. So it's clear that even devout Christians regard the Bible as something where they can pick and choose which "rules" to follow and which to ignore as outmoded.

So then the question becomes, is the prohibition of homosexuality like the prohibition of eating seafood, merely an anachronism whose time has passed? Or does it still serve some useful purpose in our society that makes it worth the suffering and discrimination it causes to homosexuals?

My opinion is that science has clearly demonstrated that homosexuality is a legitimate part of the human condition, and that trying to outlaw it or proscribe it makes no more sense than trying to outlaw or proscribe left-handedness or red hair. Given what we now know, there is no moral justification for condemning homosexuality per se.

-Jeremy

I'm tired of hearing people use the word 'troops' to describe U.S. military personnel. Every time I hear it, it reminds me of the stormtroopers from Star Wars. The singular form ('troop', as used in this article... is that even grammatically correct? I thought a 'troop' was a group of soldiers, not an individual) is even more cringe-inducing. Can we call them 'our soldiers' or 'our men and women', or really anything else, instead?

Okay, I'm done nit-picking now.

-Jeremy

It's great that Bush (and the Democrats) now feel they have a bit more political wiggle room to come up with new solutions in Iraq, but I have to wonder if any solutions even exist at this point. My fear is that Iraq has passed a sort of event horizon where things have degenerated past any hope of redemption, no matter how ingenious or motivated our new plans might be.

It seems that the invasion of Iraq was like opening Pandora's box, and now the demons are loose and can perhaps never be put back in.

Hi Eliezer,

Third, if you had to be told what to do by the non-supervisors don't you feel like an ass for getting more money than they did?

There's no reason for the author to "feel like an ass" for getting more money than the other poll workers... she volunteered for a position with more duties and more responsibility, and was paid accordingly. Since it was her first time, it's perfectly understandable that she knew less than people who had more experience. A lot of volunteers don't want to be "in charge" of a precinct, for various reasons... that's why (in my experience) newbies often end up in the leadership role.

Finally, the amounts of money we're talking about ($75 vs $100) are fairly nominal anyway.... nobody working at a polling station is going to be making much more than minimum wage.

I think you are being way too critical. When someone donates their time and does a good job, it serves no purpose to harangue them about not being perfect on their first try.

-Jeremy