Spotted in a Bangkok Newspaper

Original: (Sunday, October 28, 2007)

...
A poll by ABAC (Assumption University of Thailand, Bangkok) indicating that some 83% of Thai voters think it's perfectly acceptable to accept money in return for their vote in the upcoming election! There has been a lot of shock and awe surrounding this number, in spite of the fact that in Thailand, unlike the food, statistical numbers tend to be rather poorly cooked. Lots of pontificating by farang (foreigners) about the simpleminded rural Thai people not understanding Democracy - as if the citizens of the United States understood it. Which the evidence shows they do not.
In any event, here is a letter (e-mail, really) that appeared in the Bangkok Post a few days ago:

The secret ballot is a truly wondrous thing. You can
sell your vote to whomever you wish, as many times as
you wish. When it comes time to cast your ballot, you
are entirely free to bless the candidate of your
choice. Witness the classic movie "The Great Man
Votes" (John Barrymore, 1938), wherein the hero is
courted, wined and dined; his arrears of rent is paid
up. In the final scene he is driven to the polling
place. He saunters up the steps. He turns to the
camera. He smiles. He winks. The message is clear - he
is voting his choice, NOT the corrupt politicians who
"bought" him. Of course, the audience doesn't get to
know who gets the Great Man's vote; that's not the
point of the movie, is it?
I think it's wonderfully appropriate to accept money
from corrupt candidates. And then vote as you will.
Of course, it all depends on the secrecy of the
ballot. The secret ballot used to be a given in the
USA. That's why vote-buyers were forced to look for
votes in the local graveyards. In some places people
continued to vote for decades after their death!
However, with the wonders of the computer age, that's
being done away with. Now the computer can cast your
vote for you, even decide what choice you will be
making. Progress!
Thank you,
Aj. Frank,
Bangkok

Insanity

Original: (Sunday, January 29, 2006)

Reminded of that trendy definiton of Insanity... "doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results."
Comes a report in Financial Times

FT.com

(and many others) about a new poll, in which 57% of the pollees apparently think that it's a good idea to attack Iran! Fifty-seven percent of my countrymen appear to be insane!
Now, we have one of our body parts stuck in Afghanistan; another stuck in Iraq. Since that hasn't worked, lets put another one in Iran. Sure - that'll work! We'll just keep on attacking other countries until we manage to get it right. Casting back through recent history (well, recent to me anyway), we haven't been very successful at attacking other countries since the 1940's. Since then, ever since General MacArthur tried to start a war with China, which he succeeded in doing at a cost of around a million lives, thousands of them American servicemen, all our military adventuring seems to have gone awry. To put it mildly. I think we are soon going to run out of body parts to invest.

Which leads me to a (somewhat) parallel topic. I have changed my mind! Here's what I said last November:

I Did Not Think I Would Hear This

I regretfully take it back. Sorry Congressman Murtha.

Now it's my opinion that we need to leave all those troops in Iraq. More even, we need to send the entire force of the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force to Iraq. If the troops come home, that will only make them available for Mad George to send to attack yet another country that isn't a "Partner For Peace". I'm guessing here, but it sort of appears that any who aren't Partners For Peace are potential "Partners For War".
And there seem to be a lot of 'em.
No; lets send everyone to Iraq, where we have already had more Americans killed than in the World Trade Center. Keep 'em out of the bloody hands of the President.