Cool

It is so nice that it is not hot over here any more. The weather over here quickly went from hot clear days to warm hazy days. There is always lots of dust and smoke in the air now, but I haven't seen rain for months. I know it rained while I was gone, but it hasn't since I have been back. I am anxiously waiting the end of the election so that I can see something new on the news. I realize that the final results will probably be all the news talks about for at least two weeks after the fact, but I can dream. Unfortunately I don't have a lot to talk about right now.

Yes, I'm Back...

...if you couldn't tell already from my last post. I'm finally starting to over come jet lag and get my head somewhat back in the game.

I had a great time back home with my family. We went to a waterslide park and did a lot of Geocaching. (Here was one of my favorite hunts.) We had birthday parties, lots of eating out, and lots of wrestling, singing, reading, and playing with my children. All together to time went by entirely too fast, but I am trying to focus on making my remaining time over here fly by even faster.

I sent in my absentee ballot yesterday and was glad to get that over with, now I just can't wait to see the end of this election. As I have said before, the only channels I get on my TV are AFN news and AFN sports. Since I don't like sports, I really only watch the news and all they talk about is the election 24hrs a day. I know who I want to win.

Who Thinks the Electoral System is Unfair?

Lately the news has been reporting again on peoples' cries to change the electoral system. Some say that it should be done only by the popular vote. Some complain that candidates are only focusing on key states. Before I go on, look at this graph. It shows the results from the 2000 election by county! Before I saw this graph, I used to think as I looked at the predictions of the 2004 elections that there was a whole lot of red on the map and not a lot of blue so why is it so close? Well this graph just amazes me even more.

To the people who complain about candidates focusing only on key states, you can quickly see that if you change the system, candidates would then only focus on key cities!!!People are right, Gore won the popular vote, but Bush destroyed Gore when it came to winning counties, square milage, and population of counties.

The electoral voting system prevents any one group(urban or rural)/city/state from having to much say in the presidential election. It allows a reflection of the entire United States. You can look at this graph and identify almost every major city that is related with the blue areas. You can easily see that if we went with the popular vote of the 2000 election it reflects only that the urban population was voting for Gore. It's obvious to see that the vast majority of ALL American regions voted for Bush.