This Is How To Fix The Electoral College

We all know its purpose. It's to "even-out" the vote, so that all of the giant metropolitan areas across the country don't dominate the election.. blah blah blah.

Rolling Stone is certainly not a source I would usually cite, and/nor proudly expect positive consequences for pretty much anything - especially rock 'n' roll - but here's a good article from them I ran across a week or two ago... and I'll quote the most important part below, you know, for the lazy.

"Wyoming, the nation's lowest population state, has just over 560,000 people. Those people get three electoral votes, or one per 186,000 people. California, our most populous state, has more than 37 million people. Those Californians have 55 electoral votes, or one per 670,000 people. Comparatively, people in Wyoming have nearly four times the power in the Electoral College as people in California. Put another way, if California had the same proportion of electoral votes per person as Wyoming, it would have about 200 electoral votes." (Source)

Yep, it's just simple math, people. Each state's electoral vote total needs to be proportional to the population of each state. That was the intention some 240 years ago, anyway. However the simple fact that each state (regardless of population) has exactly two senators, and that the number TWO helps to determine the number of electoral college votes for each state, is absurd!

So here's the fix:
Click it to enlarge!

Original Content (Data from Wikipedia)

And it needs to be edited before every election. I'm pretty sure the government has several statisticians employed, who can accurately project the population growth of each state based on the last census each time. If not, there are probably a few available. It's not that difficult.

By the way, with that fix I also just created 1,105 extra jobs (and growing).

Just a RANT about Anti-Smoking Commercials

You know what really makes me SICK?

Several DECADES ago, our government put their foot down, and decided to no longer allow cigarette advertisements on TV. None whatsoever.

So now that it's 2016, why in the hell do I have to watch commercials showing a guy explaining how much it sucks to live his life when he has a hole in his throat? I won't watch, but I also mute the TV, because the last thing anyone wants to hear is a guy having to hold a machine against his larynx to be able to talk, and I don't want to hear it. And it's not only him. This company has launched several anti-smoking advertisements recently, with a few different "victims". Some of them have recently died, and they are sure to let us know that.


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Not only that, but now we also have to see tons of new anti-smoking commercials, such as these.

I'm a smoker, and I have been since I was about 21. Most of the past 23 years I enjoyed smoking a few cigarettes a day. Some of those days I smoke wayy tooo much. People enjoy smoking. Cigarettes.. Pipes.. Cigars.. Marijuana.... But I stray from the point.

I used to pay $3.25 for a pack of smokes back in the 90's. These days a pack is at least $6. Sometimes they're $7.50.

You're not allowed to advertise cigarette sales. Please stop advertising only the worst possible scenarios that result from smoking!

Fixing The American Election Process

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Long-time No-see!

Well, with these stupid cauci going on, I had to bring this up one more time. I'll explain to you later why caucuses (cauci) are stupid, but for right now, I wanna show you how we fix one of the main flaws of our government -- the voting process.

(Aside: Many forms of proof that American elections are, in fact, rigged, have been produced for years. That computer programmers can do it with ease is believable. If you're interested, watch this, or at least acknowledge it for a few minutes.. I just happened to run across that video today.)


Anyway on to the point!


I. First Past The Post

Here is the Wikipedia entry for First-Past-the-Post (FPTP). I'm pretty sure I have posted CGP Grey's explanation of FPTP voting before. The United States and several other nations have exclusively "used" this system for many years. The reason for the parentheses in the prior sentence is that FPTP is more of a phenomenon than a method, much less a chosen or preferred method. (And it's even more far-fetched to claim that it is a GOOD method.) Anyway, ^^^watch it again. It's a great video, and it's only 6:30.

I'll go let the dog out while you do.


II. Gerrymandering

Moving on.. One of the main problems (cheats) with FPTP voting, as he pointed out, is Gerrymandering. "In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries to create partisan-advantaged districts." (Source)      Continuing: "The resulting district apportionment is known as a gerrymander; however, that word can also refer to the process. When used to allege that a given party is gaining disproportionate power, the term gerrymandering has negative connotations."

A recent Chicago electoral districts map:

(Image Source)     ^^^..A perfect example of bogus alignment.


Here is CGP Grey's awesome explanation of gerrymandering. Once again it is a fantastic video, and is also only 5:26.


III. Shortest Splitline

Now (drumroll), here is how you fix it! But first I must say that in order for this FIX to work, it is imperative that those who draw such lines of electoral districts, do so under absolutely no influence of any party-affiliation. Centrist mathematicians with a strong knowledge of geography (like myself) would be perfect for the job! Seriously though.. it's definitely not rocket surgery, nor brain science, so I'm pretty sure each and every electoral district in the United States, is able to find 1 (ONE) person to perform this task. There are 435 of these districts in the United States!!

This concept is called Shortest Splitline, and it's a concept most of us probably learned before fourth grade. Granted there are some high school freshman level mathematics in progress here, but again, we're talking about just 435 people. The U.S. population (as of 2014) is approximately 320 million people. I would think it would be pretty easy to find these 435 qualified individuals among a population of 320,000,000. Wouldn't you?

Finally, here you go. This is CGP Grey's 3-minute explanation of Shortest Splitline (3:37).


-- By the way, the "Iowa Caucus is an electoral event in which residents of the U.S. state of Iowa meet in precinct caucuses in all of Iowa's 1,681 precincts,* and elect delegates to the corresponding county conventions. There are 99 counties in Iowa, and thus there are 99 conventions. These county conventions then select delegates for both Iowa's Congressional District Convention and the State Convention, which eventually choose the delegates for the presidential nominating conventions. About 1% of the nation's delegates are chosen by the Iowa State Convention." (Source)


* Seriously? The population of Iowa is 3.107 million (again 2014)     ...I wonder how many dozens of these precincts' cauci contain about 11 people?


CGP Grey's Entire YouTube stream

Now Signing Off, Subliminally

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An Unnecessary Prohibition

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Speaking of Which...

U.S. Drug Addiction Rate vs. Spending

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Hypocrisy

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We Don't Even Know

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2012 Election Results - By County

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Reveals a little more than the map with only red & blue states, doesn't it!

Nice Rachel Maddow Quote

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Four More Years!

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The Flip Side

Via / Source: Steve Greenberg

A Scheme?

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Oddly, I can't find the image on the source page.. perhaps it was deleted.

Just a Handful of Anti-GOP Stuff I Found

Sources: Groobiecat FB, and Lefteousindignation FB / Via - (NSFW)

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Paul Ryan

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Not only that, but here's a great article from PoliticusUSA Dot Com entitled "The 5 Biggest Lies in Paul Ryan’s RNC Acceptance Speech." Be sure to read this if you are on the fence about the upcoming vote! (Thanks Barbara!)

UPDATE:  Now here's "The 5 Biggest Lies In Mitt Romney’s Acceptance Speech," again from PoliticusUSA Dot Com. Enjoy!!

Just Some Politics & Stuff

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Nit-Wits

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US Government Considering Using Super-Scanners

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Apparently these new scanners are able to instantly discover everything there is to know about you - from 164 feet away - without your knowledge, and it does it all in real time! These are new laser-based molecular scanners, called Picosecond Programmable Lasers, that our government is considering placing in our airports to replace the TSA's current methods of body-frisking and -scanning.

Here is the full story at Gizmodo, and here is the product's website.

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American Government Spending

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Misdirection?

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