Nerd News: Election Results Via Google

 Edited to add:  Like this one a lot (NoScript will block Chrome won't) http://www.politico.com/2012-election/map/#/President/2012/


Link: https://www.google.com/search?q=e%3Bection+results&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US

There are many ways to follow the US Presidential Election, as a Nerd I tend to use Google for a lot of things.

Though I am not following the election closely, this lets me check Presidential, Senate, & Congressional results at a glance, with plenty of more detailed links if I want to drill down.

Though I don't agree with President Obama completely, I have to say of any of the US presidents, of the ones I have been old enough to care about, Obama is my favorite.

Though I am Libertarian, which is not at all the same as Liberal or Democratic Party in the US, though the word sounds similar.

Though I am not actively political now, I was very much so late in High School, and in College.

I ran for and was elected to Student Government in my first two years of college, and was the person on campus that arranged for politicians of all parties to come and speak on campus.

I also attended all of the local press conferences, along with the President/Head Editor of the College paper, for all of the parties in our Town/County.

Not just Republican and Democratic ones, but also Communist, and couple of others that were more like special interest groups than true party.

I had planned to do a few blog posts about Politics over the previous two days, but I have been really sick with Asthma issues, so this single post is all I am planning to do.

Though I might do another one after the election, if I feel a lot of motivation to do so.

Just going to close with a few of my thoughts and observations between Republicans & Democrats here in the US at the Federal level.

[Note:  IME State and Local level is a lot different in my experience, I have met Politicians from both parties at the local and state level that I respected.]

For the Republican Presidents, and generally congress members as well, the ones I can really remember tended to really mess up National Economy, usually by removing or weakening a lot of regulations and oversight on Business.

See:

• Notes President Name Red=Republican Blue=Democrat; Green Number%=Trend is improving, Red Number%=Getting Worse; Also note when a Pres takes over with Green or Red % from previous Pres, and it changes in one year, especially with "War on Terror" going one (Wars waste money like a drug or gambling addiction) http://www.skymachines.com/US-National-Debt-Per-Capita-Percent-of-GDP-and-by-Presidental-Term.htm
• http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21565623-america-could-do-better-barack-obama-sadly-mitt-romney-does-not-fit-bill-which-one

Republican Presidents also seem to like to invade countries, which always involves actually killing many good people on both sides, and completely messing people up as badly as child abuse impacts kids (I know more than a couple of Combat Vets, I have been involved with Criminology, Military History, and Physical Security for a long time, and have worked with and made friends with a lot of Active, Reserve, and Veteran Military people).

They seem to like to invade countries for pretty bad reasons.

See:

• " Former chief counter-terrorism adviser on the National Security Council Richard A. Clarke believes Bush took office with a predetermined plan to invade Iraq." From interview http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq#cite_note-22
• Also Richard Clark's book Against All Enemies [Clark was the one wanting to brief Bush on threat of al-Qaeda & bin Laden, but kept getting brushed off by Bush, until after 9/11 he was also the one making decisions when 9/11 actually happened, Cheney was there but deferred to Clark's expertise] 
•  Joseph Wilson's book Politics of Truth , Wilson was an Ambassador that was stuck in Iraq as Acting Ambassador, during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.  During that invasion, which lead to the First Gulf War, Wilson was essentially a hostage, Saddam Hussein could have had him killed at any time. Wilson's book covers what he calls the lies that led to GW Bush's invasion of Iraq, his efforts to try to prevent US invasion of Iraq, & what happened to him as a result of that.
• Valerie Plame Wilson's book Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House, she was a CIA case officer, her specialty was WMD, her husband was Josep Wilson, mentioned above.

Many Republicans also seem to have real difficulty dealing with, to the point of not even admitting there is a real problem that needs addressing, the real world.  Thinking of Hurricane Katrina and Global warming specifically here, but there are some other pollution issues as well (see weakened Business Regulation & Oversight above).

Democrat Presidents only do one thing, in general, that I think is comparable to the harm Republicans do, there are lot of things they do that I disagree with on political grounds, but the only pattern I have noticed that objectively harms people, is Democrat Presidents like to appoint very politically or publicity hungry Attorney Generals.

See:

• Waco an Excellent Documentry of the entire Waco Texas incident 
• Waco Texas incident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege
• Bio of Janet Reno which covers how she runied a lot of peoples lives over false charges of child sexual abuse.
• Online Newspaper article documenting some of the bogus child sexual abuse trials http://www.sptimes.com/2002/04/28/Perspective/Reno_owes_the_public_.shtml

I have a teacher, who I also consider a friend, that was involved in 3 separate cases, as part of the defense team, as an Expert Witness, for people accused of a crime by Janet Reno.

In every case, that the defense team my Teacher/Friend was a part of won, not because of some brilliant work by him or other members of the defense team, but because there was no real case.

But the Attorney General wanted to push the cases for political, personal, or publicity reasons.

For normal people, defending themselves from that kind of legal abuse is financially and emotionally crippling.

Dollar wise it is similar to struggling with a really bad type of cancer.

While the stress and public, working, and even family damage is hard for most people that have not experienced it, or had close friend/family member suffer it, to even conceive.

It will often cost your job, perhaps even your career, because of what employers or clients see you accused of in the news.

Anyway, this is more than a bit late, and I don't want this blog to stray to far from Gaming and Computer related issues.

Though as I have stated before, in connection to SOPA and ACTA, I think politics does and always will impact Gamers and others that use the internet, computers, and related technology.

GL HF,

~Cliff

PS  I plan to add links to document the Negative Comments I made about both parties in my comments above, I strive to be clear about things that are a matter of opinion vs things based on observations.

I prefer the word "data" to "facts" since I am a good researcher, with pretensions to being a Scientist, I don't think any Scientist actually believes in facts.

Rather at most, a Scientist uses working Hypothesis, that is continually refined as new verifiable data becomes available.

Though my health is slowing me down a lot though this week, and I felt strongly about blogging this before election is over.

So check back later, or post comment, if your wondering what data some of my comments are based on.