I know I haven’t been writing so much lately as I have been pointing to other articles. I just can’t do justice to some of the topics out there and this is one of them. The article below is by an author who is preparing to send his son to Iraq. Stop now and go read it.
Archive for October, 2004 Page 2 of 8
Lorie Byrd at Polipundit.com has a great blog about the uninformed voter. All I can say is “AMEN!” Here it is:
“National Review Online has a teaser for a Kate O’Beirne piece that appears in the current print issue of National Review (do magazines still publish paper copies?). O’Beirne’s piece is listed on the online index as “Will ignorant people decide who’s president?” Well, I will be glad to answer that. The answer is yes, of course they will.
In 2002, I was not able to convince a friend to vote for the Republican candidate for Senate, but I was able to convince her that she knew so little about the issues and what either of the candidates stood for, that after talk ing to me she decided she would prefer not voting, to casting an uninformed vote. She was not interested enough in politics to want to take the time to get informed, so decided it would probably be best if she didn’t vote at all. I felt a little guilty about that, especially when every media outlet in the country encourages EVERYONE to vote. (Since Nickelodeon’s viewers are below voting age, and therefore too young to “rock the vote,” this year they are instructing children to “nag the vote.” I am not making that up. They tell kids to nag their apathetic parents and other relatives to go out and vote. )
As I said above, I felt a little bad about my discussion resulting in my friend not voting. I actually felt bad about it for about 30 seconds. Then I realized what a shame it is that so many voters are so incredibly uninformed. The best solution would be for voters to take advantage of the unprecedented volume of information available via television (C-Span, anyway), radio, books and the internet to learn all they could about the issues and the candidates’ records, then to cast an informed vote. But for those who don’t want to take the time to make an informed vote, why should they take the time to vote at all? “
I recently regained interest in the stock market after a long hiatus. Back a couple summers ago I had a strong interest in trading but unfortunately didn’t have any money to invest myself. I advised my father on a couple of trades that turned out good, so when I landed a job, one of the first things i did with that money was open a stock account.
Today I made a purchase on a Google option. The stock itself has been incredible. You may remember that they began trading publicly about a month ago after a stock auction…the price went up and trading started around $80 I think. Today the stock is trading at $190. The past 3 days have been…well…very good for the Google boys. I told my brother a couple days ago that this stock reminds me of the 90’s tech stocks…the only way it knows to go is up! Who knows where the roof is on this one, but I’m beginning to think it’s headed for $220+
I’m not professional, but if you are investing in stocks, this is one I would look at…at least short term.
I just can’t believe what I’m reading. A newspaper in the UK is all but calling for the assasination of our President.
“On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod’s law dictates he’ll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?”
– Guardian “Newspaper”, UK