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In This Issue

• East Campus Drink-or-Treating
• Why Your Vote Doesn't Count
• Cheney-Edwards: Now That's A Ticket!
• Fed Fun Guide to Third Party Candidates
• Homeless Voters Choose
• Vintage T-shirt Democracy Plot
• A First lesson in Russian Swearing
• September 10th: The Adjective
• Letters to and from The Fed
• Zombie Reagan!
• Liberal Bias Alleged in Democratic Party
• Presidential Candidates Have Large Height Difference
• Lover's Lane Hook Psycho Mutilated
• Advice from the Manly
• Complete Presidential Debate Coverage
• Monsters of the World
• THEY WATCH
• Alarming Statistics on Brain Eating
• Ice Bitch for Election Day
• Where's Dick Cheney?

Far be it for me to discourage you from shaking the flaccid dick of American democracy, but I would like you to consider a few things before you waste any of your time on November 2nd. A lot of people are pointing to the 2000 presidential election and talking about how much your vote will count. Bullshit. The pressure to engage in the conjugal act of representative government, now more than ever, outweighs the worth of your vote. Judging from the year 2000 results, more than half the votes cast in this coming election, votes cast for any given candidate, will be meaningless.

I'm not a statistician. However, my facts and math are accurate. Some of the things I am about to say might even be true.

First let's have a quick review of the process by which we elect our president. 538 actual votes are cast for the president. This is the Electoral College, composed in part of party loyalists and important financial contributors. The Electoral College is not composed of you, so your vote will not go directly towards the election of the president.

"But," you say (with poor grammar, might I add), "because members of the Electoral College are determined by the popular vote, my votes still counts." First, you're a baby and you shouldn't argue with me. Second, while you are factually accurate as to the nature of the Electoral College, you are grievously mistaken about the weight of your puny vote. Yes, a party wins a state by garnering a majority of the votes cast by the unwashed masses (you). However, what is a simple majority?

Consider Gore's margin of victory in the popular vote from 2000. Most estimates place the margin at around 500,000 votes. Hypothetically (that is to say, assuming 500,000 votes to be the actual margin of victory), 499,999 of those votes were redundant. My first point here is that all votes in excess of the point of majority (or plurality, as the case may be) are wasted. Roughly 12.5 million votes were wasted in this way

Second, a vote cast against the majority in any given state ultimately has no effect on who gets elected president and is therefore useless. For example, every vote cast for the Republican Party in the state of California is a wasted vote. The sum total of votes wasted in this manner is about 44.5 million.

All told, the last presidential election would have terminated with exactly the same result even if 57 million voters had decided not to go to the polls. Approximately 105 million people attempted to make their voices heard in the last presidential election, and over half of them failed.

Let's say you're a stubborn asshole who doesn't agree with me. Let's say you think that 48 million votes is still a lot of votes and that being a part of that isn't such a bad prospect. If this is how you think, you're probably a naive loser, and there's nothing naive losers like better than pie. So let's imagine that on November 2nd, we'll be baking ourselves a nice, hot presidential election pie. And let's imagine that our pie is one foot in diameter and filled with delicious votes. If we tried to represent a slice of pie that was equivalent to your vote, it would look like this: 2*pi*6" / 48 million. In math we have a word for that: Infinitesimal. It describes something that is so small it can be ignored. This is a great way to humiliate your lover, and an even better way to describe your contribution to the political process.

So while you munch on your slice of pie (which is about 190 nanometers thick), consider how you might better use your time on November 2nd. In keeping with the ever retrogressive nature of our government (rolling back protection for the environment, worker's rights, civil liberties, fiscal and ethical accountability, etc), it might be best to try and get ahead of the curve before we're all wearing tricorner hats and breeches again. I suggest secession.

PS: if for some reason you now intentionally are not going to vote, I am going to punch you. Probably in the kidneys. At least twice. So that you will piss blood. Thomas Jefferson once said something about the tree of liberty being watered with the blood of true patriots. I think your bloody urine will work just as well.