Midterm Maddness

This is what Gatz has to say:

skip to main | skip to sidebar
MidTerm Maddness

Sunday, October 17, 2010
Midterm Maddness

Well, after endless ads, cajoling, promises, warnings and begging the midterm elections are upon us. This occurs two years after a President takes office and it's where digruntled Americans get to undo their vote (sort of)from two years before. Don't like what President Obama has done for two years, vote Republican or if you don't like what any of them have done (in many years) go Tea Party.

What's different this time around is that there are plenty of pissed off people all over the spectrum. Demos are unhappy that Obama hasn't done enough; Republicans think he has caused too much damage, Libertarians are still smarting over never being taken seriously and the truely scared and pissed off want to don three cornered hats and dump tea in the harbor.

Of course with so many new faces running for office, anything and everything is up for grabs. Nothing more endangered these days than an incumbent poltician from Washington. Years of lying, cheating, snow jobs and blow jobs (not with the wife) will get people to the point that even if you are (Jimmy Stewart's) Mr. Smith in Washington they look at you like you are Bernie Madeoff eying their rolex.

Much is made of the kooky Carl Paladino. If you vote him in you may get less graft but you will also get a loose cannon likely to embarass New York every time he opens his mouth. He may be different but so was Alfred E. Neuman from Mad Magazine. Christine O'Donnell in Delaware gets static because she went on a date with a wiccan in HS. Who didn't? I went on a date with Pam Shriver and although she didn't take me to a coven meeting she babbled alot and spooked me out the whole night. The big issue with O'Donnell is not her anti masterbation campaign or her junior high laugh, it's the fact that this sorority air head would actually be voting as one of the 100 in the Senate. Giving her 1% say in anything is like electing John Belushi's character from Animal House to the Supreme Court. Funny on film not so funny in real life.

Meg Whitman's push for California Governor is a Kafka story unfolding. She crows about her E-Bay presidency. But she was driven out after awarding herself 120 million and then laying off thousands of employees. She also left, Hasbro, Disney and 3 other companies. She's the ulltimate vulture....moves in, cleans up on the left overs and flees before being shot by offended people. I still think anyone that spend 139 million of her own money to get a job that pays 175,000 a years is marginal at best. Yet her big deal is I am the big business woman. Do you really want her running your business.

Oh yes, countless more like the personality and ethics strapped Harry Reid, or the clowns running for office in Texas. Look, we don't want career politicians that have lost touch with the reality the rest of us have and yet we also don't want to elect nut jobs and "Carny" characters so what does that leave us?

I suggest we elect no one to the Senate. Who says you have to have 100? Maybe 1 per state is better. Yeah, let's have 50 total. That way each state gets one chance and one chance only to elect a responsible sane person. If they screw that up they deserve no representation. While we're at it let's dump the bloated House of Represenatives from hundreds and hundreds down to 1 for every 5 million people. California would have 7 instead of 28 or more. Wyoming would get 1/2 a person. Better to work a part time job than no job at all and besides other than depleting the state of minerals and okaying shooting wolves what else would they vote on?

Let's streamline everything in Washington. That's what I'm voting for!
Posted by RHobbs at 4:25 PM 0 comments
Email This
BlogThis!
Share to Twitter
Share to Facebook
Share to Google Buzz Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Followers
Blog Archive
▼ 2010 (1)
▼ October (1)
Midterm Maddness
About Me

Will Bailey
Responsible yet ecletic and unpredictable
View my complete profile

New Approach to Suicide Prevention

This is what Gatz has to say:

My friend Mike who has spent a significant portion of his life trying to stop suicides ran across an interesting new approach to suicide prevention. This involves social networks and if you like this blurb you can go to the link provided and read the entire article.


'The “contagion” of social networks, Los Angeles Times, Sep. 13, 2010.
Public health researchers are experimenting with new programs that tap
into the power of social networks to promote healthy habits, including
help-seeking for suicidal ideation. The basic approach is to identify
influential members within a social network (classroom, neighborhood,
online community, etc.) and target them with a positive health message
in the hope that it will become “contagious” within the network. As
this article in the Los Angeles Times explains, these experiments have
had mixed results. According to researcher Thomas Valente, who has led
several studies of smoking prevention and drug abuse prevention
programs in schools, efforts to influence behavior may need to be
designed differently for different types of social networks.

Link to the article and excerpt from the LA Times are at:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/13/health/la-he-social-networks-health-20100913