You Have to Actually Vote
Added 2 new links to the side:

Link One

Illinois State Board of Elections is a good, easy to use and read site that tells you more than you could possibly want to know about anything even touching the subject of elections, and lets you easily drill down into the election data (money) to find out who your representative is beholden to at the state level. Quite, quite interesting. I didn't realize that mine was so well-funded.

More important, it tells all us Illinois people how, where, and how often to vote, eligibility, weight, height, favorite color restrictions... seriously, it does just about all these things.

Link Two

Opensecrets.org lets you search and look at candidates, donors, and money in dozens of different ways over several election cycles, with some predefined searches on hot topic issues to make it childishly simple. It also tells you everything there is to know about campaign law, 527 Committees, etc. I've seen a couple other sites out there that do this too, and may add some links.

We're all good at whining, but when it comes down to it, voting responsibly will solve a lot of problems this year, and by responsibly I mean for John Kerry and, in Illinois, Barack Obama.

And I don't mean the American Idol Travesty, where my theory is that people "assumed" the top 3 from the previous week were taken care of so they either didn't vote or were trying to work some goofy second-guessing stuff, just like the Naderites. But Chicago gem, Jennifer "Al Gore" Hudson, got voted out.

(Putting on the stupid tin foil hat)
Here's a conspiracy theory for you: Jennifer's original audition number was John Lennon's Imagine, an anti-FOX message song if ever there was one. So was she targeted as possibly being unpatriotic? And that red-headed girl who sang the Dixie Chicks' "Sin Wagon" -- gone, a week or so later, after it was seen how popular she was.
(Taking hat off)

Ok, I'm back, and we won't speak of this again.
- posted by Cynthia @ 4:05 PM | | | Link |