Rusty’s Blog

Speaking of gambling, I realized today I never posted results from election day over/under. Here they are:

2008 election day over/under results

Player	Points
Ben K	4
Decaturguy	3
Reid	3
Tony Ventry	3
Thomas	3
Griftdrift	3
Russell	3
Seth	3
Sara	2
Joseph	2
Garrett	0

Congratulations to Ben, who was the only person to successfully peg the Jim Martin and Jim Marshall races, and is therefore our winner.

You can view the full results spreadsheet here.

Returns from Cobb County

While that was fun, even more fun is the Cobb County write-in results (warning, large PDF) are available!

In my quixotic quest to be elected Cobb County tax commissioner as a DeKalb resident, I appear to have garnered three write-in (type-in?) votes.

For this job, I gained more votes than:

• Al Sharpton (2)
• All Idiots (1)
• Anyyone More Capable (1)
• B (2)
• Baracck Obama (1)
• Batman (2)
• Bart Simpson (1)
• Bob Barker (1)
• Boy George (1)
• Bozo Clown (1)
• B-Real (1)
• Bullwinkle (1)
• Cher (1)
• Chipper Jones (1)
• Clark Howard (1)
• D Duck (2)
• David Letterman (1)
• Dog (2)
• Drew Brees (1)
• Dude McRude (1)
• Elmer Fudd (1)
• Elvis (1)
• Fairtax Fairtax (1)
• Frank Zappa (1)
• Gen Robert E Lee (1)
• George Jetson (1)
• Herman Cain (1)
• Homer Simpson (1)
• Hunter S Thompson (1)
• I Do Not Know (1)
• I Vote Against This Person (1)
• I Want a Choice (1)
• Illegal Alien (1)
• Ima Notgonna (1)
• Jackie (1)
• Jay-Z (1)
• Jesus Christ (2)
• Joe the Plumber (2)
• John Lewis (2)
• Johnny Depp (1)
• Judge Dredd (1)
• Julius Caeser (1)
• Keith Richards (1)
• Ken (1)
• L Ron Hubbard (1)
• Libertarian (2)
• Lou Dobbs (1)
• Ludacris (1)
• Max Cleland (1)
• Michael Jordan (1)
• Mick Jagger (1)
• Minnie Mouse (2)
• Ms Piggy (1)
• Muffin (1)
• My Dog (1)
• Neal Boortz (2)
• Neither (1)
• No More Evil Nazis (1)
• No Republican (1)
• No Taxes (1)
• None I Pay Too Much Already (1)
• Not Inerested (1)
• Not Sure (2)
• Obi Wan Kenobi (1)
• Oprah (2)
• Opt Out (1)
• Paris Hilton (2)
• Paul Johnson (1)
• Pedro (1)
• Pink Panther (1)
• Pluto (1)
• Present (1)
• Prince (2)
• Rad (1)
• Republican (1)
• Right One (1)
• Rocky (1)
• Roy Barnes (1)
• RRHHFDD (1)
• Samuel L Jackson (1)
• Santa Claus (1)
• Sarah Palin (2)
• Snuffalufagus (1)
• Solomon (1)
• Spiderman (1)
• Sponge Bob (1)
• T Boone Pickens (1)
• Tax Man (1)
• The Hell With IRS ;] (1)
• Tinker Bell (1)
• Ty Cobb (1)
• Utah (1)
• Vincent Fort (1)
• Warren Buffett (1)
• Woodrow Wilson (1)
• Your Mom (1)
• Zombie Reagan (1)

Take that L. Ron Hubbard! I tied “Democrate” and Jimmy Carter, who also earned three votes each. God beat me by one vote.

I think this sets us up nicely for 2012, or whenever the next election is.

Update 12/9/2008 4:01 p.m.: Thanks for the link love from Fresh Loaf, Drifting Through The Grift, and Decatur Metro!

I share concerns about President Barack Obama that some of my Republican and Libertarian/libertarian friends have. High among those concerns, I don’t expect the trend of irresponsible government spending to be curbed under his administration, especially with a possible Democratic super majority coming in the U.S. Senate. I have a philosophical aversion to any party having that much power, and that goes for Democrats too. This prospect does worry me some.

But ultimately, I was unable to look at the past eight years and say, “hell yeah, give me some more of that.”

Not to dwell for too long about just what “that” was, but I believe that as a highly narcissistic country we elect presidents that are symbols of what we think we are or aspire to be. The past eight years demonstrated that symbolism is important, even though it may seem superficial.

And for the past eight years, America the symbol has been a belligerent drunken uncle. He’s blood and you love him. As such, you’d do almost anything for him, even if it means bailing him out of jail after his fourth DUI. You want him to dry up and get on the straight and narrow, you really do. But you resent him and are mortified by his behavior.

I don’t know which relative President Barack Obama will turn America into, but I know at least we won’t be that guy anymore. And even if he makes some decisions I disagree with, I will at least know he didn’t make them because a buddy bet him five dollars he wouldn’t.

He’s a symbol that says we’re optimistic about our future; that we value deliberation and intellect; that we can disagree without hating each other; and that we can do some good in the world without a drunken brawl breaking out. That was enough reason for me to support him, and trumped all of my other concerns.

It’s why I feel relief today and not panic, even though the world offers us many reasons to panic.

Prize to be determined later, but will probably involve alcohol. If you think a number is too low, take the over. If you think a number is too high, take the under. If you think it’s exactly right, say push.

• 298 electoral college votes for Barack Obama
• 53 percent of the popular vote for Barack Obama
• 57 U.S. Senate seats for Democrats
• 51 percent of the vote for Jim Marshall in Georgia’s 8th District
• 45 percent of the vote for Jim Martin in Georgia’s U.S. Senate race

So, for example, if you think Obama will win more than 298 electoral votes, take the over.

You can enter your predictions in the comments like this:
over, under, over, under, push

And if you live in Cobb County, remember to vote Rusty Tanton for tax commissioner! This is how I will run staff meetings.

Update 11:14 a.m. I’ve added a tiebreaker: name the exact minute Twitter first goes down tonight. You can’t pick the same minute as anyone else.

Also, FYI for people who pick “push” on percentages, we’ll round up decimal places five or higher (i.e. 52.3 percent counts as 52 percent, 52.6 percent counts as 53 percent).

There’s now a write-in campaign to make me Cobb County tax commissioner. I’m up to three votes! That’s three hundred percent more than I had this time yesterday!

That I live in DeKalb County is an unimportant detail. I figured I should have a platform, so here’s my first campaign promise, following Jen’s endorsement of me on Facebook:

Matt: In line to vote. Want me to write you in for anything?

Me: Dog catcher? Sanitation supervisor?

Matt: What about tax commissioner?

Me: Ha, sure.

Matt: Done.

Me: Awesome. Only about 800,000 votes to go.

Not too long ago, Amber and I took a landlord from an apartment building we used to live in to court — magistrate court, to be specific. We have yet to write much about this encounter, but probably will someday. That’s not what this post is about.

This post is about clown parades.

Magistrate court is a clown parade: an endless source of amusement, sadness and unsettling epiphanies about how miserable, stupid and unfair life can be.

In magistrate court, people frequently forgo the services of an actual lawyer to sue and defend themselves against lawsuits. With rare exception, these people have not the slightest idea what they’re doing. They fill out forms incorrectly, they speak out of turn, their arguments (if you can call them that) trail off into tangents and they are reprimanded by the judge and bailiffs over-and-over again.

Sometimes people just can’t afford a lawyer. Sometimes people have seen enough episodes of Law and Order to think they can get by against an actual lawyer. Regardless of the reason, where magistrate court stops being amusing and morphs into the macabre is people often will torpedo a legitimate claim with their ineptitude.

In one case that came up in court before ours, a man appeared to have a legitimate beef with his landlord. I don’t remember the details of the case, and they’re unimportant now. The man was suing the landlord for probably a couple of thousand dollars. When the judge asked him to explain how he came up with the number, the man just said something like, “that’s what seemed about right.” Not surprisingly, he was lectured by the judge and the case was thrown out.

I was reminded of this clown parade by another one that’s been unfolding this week.

President Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernake asked Congress for $700 billion this week to bail out some failed private investments.

When asked for a justification for this number, a Treasury spokesperson said, “It’s not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

Now, if that poor sap in magistrate court is required to provide a reason to ask for a couple of thousand dollars, one would think that the president, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve would need to provide a reason when asking for $700 billion.

Apparently not.

Larry Kudlow: I want to start with this, an oddball question. Senator McCain says it’s too pristine to drill, Senator Obama says the drilling won’t work. What is your response to this? How do you fight back?

Sarah Palin: Well, it will work. And Senator McCain is wrong on that issue.

Just throwing that out there.

We got here to watch the DNC about ten minutes ago when Bill Richardson was finishing up. Stevie Wonder is singing now. Obama is expected to speak around 10, with Al Gore going on sometime between now and then. I’m blogging from my iPhone, so expect many typos and non-sensical word choices.

As you may or may not be able to see, Amber is sporting her I (heart) Obama t-shirt. Grayson and a friend are here, and Jen might be coming later. The crowd is already dense. Manuels accounted for this with an abridged election night menu.

Not a lot going on yet, and my hot wings are here, so I’ll check back in later.

8:59 p.m. - Al Gore came on while I was eating. Mostly boilerplate, but some good applause lines. The first few minutes went over very well with home crowd here, though if tapered off a little toward the end. My favorite line that I remembered was something like “I’m all about recycling, but that’s ridiculous.” I’m fucking it up, it was a lot funnier when he said it. Change that, I thought his line about the best marketers often having the worst products was the best.

Now Michael McDonald is on. I’ve never understood why people are impressed with him.

Almost got in the first fight of the night already. Some jackass was standing in the isle bumping into Amber’s shoulder and I told him to watch it. He said alright, sorry, the muttered “fucking asshole” under his breath as he walked off.

Next up is Susan Eisenhower…

9:15 p.m. - Jen comments on Twitter that SE is straight out of 1956. I despise Wolf Blitzer, which isn’t news, but bears repeating. I wish they would switch the tv to cspan.

9:20 - Just realized I didn’t charge my phone battery today and it’s less than half full. Hopefully it’ll hold up.

CNN commentator just said this was the largest crowd he’d ever seen at a political rally. Thwn added “and I’m a football fan!” thanks CNN guy.

9:25 p.m. - Biden on now. He is squinty. Requisite blue collar folks references. Families, etc. He says they are going to let them speak tonight before Obama comes out. Interested to see how that will work.

9:31 p.m. - LOL at John McCain’s insistence that this is Obama’s night. Every hour on the hour.

LOL also at every speaker’s “we respect McCains service and all but his policies are whack, yo.”

9:35 p.m. - Elvis Obama has arrived in Invesco Field.

9:47 p.m. - I thought the White House-themed set was going to be really obnoxious, but I barely have noticed it. I guess the liberal media is doing a good job hiding their dumb idea.

We went ahead and asked for our tab to try to beat the rush after Obamas speech. Amber notes that it must be really hard to wait tables with a crowd like this. Yep. Tip well if you’re reading this.

9:54 p.m. - Wtf Dick Durbin is next?

9:57 p.m. - so don’t care about this fucking guy. Angels of unity? Really? I’d give him a FAIL stamp, but I want to withold my cliches for someone more worthy.

10:01 p.m. - movie with weepy music now. Guess they want people to chill to provide contrast to the impending crowd eruption.

10:03 p.m. - Obligatory heartland and no whiners references. This movie is pretty good on the whole though. Good laugh lines. Really like the segment with Barack and Michelle meeting each other.

10:13 p.m. - No, thank you, guy says to the tv.

10:15 p.m. - I think Michelle Obama would be the hottest first lady ever.

10:19 p.m. - “America is better than the past 8 years.”

Better than sitting on it’s hands while a city drowns. Wow, graphic and awesome.

10:24 p.m. - “I don’t think Senator McCain doesn’t care about what’s going on in the lives of Americans. I think he doesn’t know.”

LOL

10:30 p.m. - Thought he was going to say “rewards drunk driving.”

10:33 p.m. - In 10 years we’ll end dependence on foreign oil.

Thought when he said tap natural gas reserves that he was going to say tap that ass.

10:36 p.m. - This sounds expensive.

10:41 p.m. - Showed a McCain lookalike on tv.

10:45 p.m. - I’ve been guffawing every time he sticks if to McCain. The soaring language in the other parts is not doing as much for me.

10:48 p.m. - ok, this last part is good.

10:52 p.m. - I should say that the crowd is eating this up.

10:57 p.m. - Speech is over, phone battery is almost dead. Heading out, catch y’all later.

If you live in DeKalb County as I do, there’s at least one important race to vote in today: the Democratic run-off for CEO. Your choices are Stan Watson and Burrell Ellis, and it’s a no-brainer who you should vote for.

Watson has been a no-show for several debates, choosing to attend fundraisers instead. He has campaigned illegally in front of polling stations. And he has not denounced the distribution of a race-baiting anti-Ellis flier.

I am concerned that Ellis is a little too cozy with Sembler, a company which builds suburban-style developments in places that would be better-served by true mixed-use developments. His election would make the construction of a controversial shopping development on Briarcliff and North Druid Hills roads a near-certainty. But by all other measures it appears he would do a good job. There’s nothing illegal or unethical about taking campaign contributions from Sembler, which is more than I can say about Watson’s activities.

There’s also a snoozer of a U.S. Senate run-off between Democrats Jim Martin and Vernon Jones. It doesn’t really matter who you vote for. To lose, incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss would need to be caught killing a baby, pulling out its entrails and wearing them as a headband—while a young male intern was blowing him. Sadly, I think the second part would be more shocking to people around here.