Florida Senior Moment

Posted on by Mike 4 Comments

From the Daily Sun, February 6, 2008:

Confused Florida voters try to cast ballots

Florida voters got so caught up in the excitement of Super Tuesday many tried to cast ballots for the presidential primaries — again.

Election officials across the state said they fielded hundreds of phone calls from confused voters asking where they could vote Tuesday, apparently unaware that Florida’s presidential primary was last week.

“We’ve had over 100 calls at least over the last two days,” said Kathy Adams, a spokesman for the Palm Beach County Election Supervisor.

“Caught up in the excitement” is a complete mis characterization of the ignorance of these Florida voters. It’s not that we had early polling for two solid weeks before a week ago Tuesday’s election complete with campaign visits and ads from all the Republican candidates. One would have to living in a cave to miss all that.

Maybe we should yield to the stereotype of Florida and chalk it up to a “senior moment”.

Maybe since the Dems side of the primary was essentially marching in place due to the decision by the DNC to not count Florida’s votes at the convention for having the primary on Jan 29, many Dems weren’t paying attention to the election. 1It wasn’t reported, by the way, how many of the callers were Republicans or Democrats Or since Hillary came to Florida after the primary vote, perhaps voters got confused as to when the election was. 2Palm Beach County is the next county north of the infamous Broward and Miami-Date counties made famous by the 2000 presidential election

Maybe some voters just figured that they were entitled to vote twice during each election. 3We do have migrants from Chicago and New York, don’tchaknow

I don’t know.

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 It wasn’t reported, by the way, how many of the callers were Republicans or Democrats
↑2 Palm Beach County is the next county north of the infamous Broward and Miami-Date counties made famous by the 2000 presidential election
↑3 We do have migrants from Chicago and New York, don’tchaknow

Religious People Give More

Posted on by Mike 2 Comments

From the “Campus Ministry Update 2008” published by the Ivy Jungle:

Religious People Give More:  Religious Americans give more money and time to charitable causes than their non-religious neighbors.   A new book by Arthur Brooks, Who Really Cares, analyzed ten data sets, concluding that religiosity is one of the best predictors of charitable giving.  Religious citizens give 3.5 times more money, volunteer with organizations twice as often, are 57% more likely to help the homeless, and 66% more likely to donate blood than those who are not religious.   The findings also paint an unexpected political picture as those who are more religious also tend to be more conservative in social and political issues.  In fact, of the 25 states with above average charitable giving, 24 voted for George Bush in the last election.  In Arkansas, citizens donate an average of 3.9% of their income, while in Massachusetts it is only 1.8%.   Good news for religion, however, among religious people, the data showed nothing distinctive about those who consider themselves evangelicals.  (Books and Culture January/February 2008 p. 11)

Stop With The Address Labels Already

Posted on by Mike 3 Comments

I got two more today: you know, those fancy labels sent from charitable organizations as a “free” gift to entice you to give a donation. Here are some of the address label contributors:

  • The American Heart Association
  • St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital
  • The US Olympic Committee
  • Veterans of Foreign Wars Read more

Now That’s a Knife

Posted on by Mike 6 Comments

Knife

Try this one on for size. Swiss Army knife lovers are rejoicing over this one, the world record holder according to Fox News.Personally, I like knives, but I can’t imagine carrying around this nearly three pound behemoth in my pocket, or my toolbox, for that matter.WARNING: If you wear your pants below your butt, they’ll be around your ankles if you carry this knife.