Collected Thoughts on Elections and Squirrel-Like Behavior

Below, please find some of my collected thoughts that individually didn't warrant a blog post (even by my own, low standards) and together probably don't warrant one either.

First, there's this upcoming presidential election. While I'll apply my thoughts specifically to that particular race, it also applies generically to voting as a whole.

So, for the sake of simplicity, please accept that the presidential race has already been reduced to a two-man event. Why this is the case is a topic for another day and I want to keep this as simple as possible. Also, please ignore the electoral college and its implications to the election outcome. Finally, I'm also going to ask you to think of people as falling into one of three categories:

1. Those who *want* Obama to win.
2. Those who *want* Romney to win.
3. Those who *want* someone else to win.

I fall squarely into category #3 but I'm under no illusions that my candidate will win. He won't. And I'm faced with a choice: vote for #3 and effectively nullify my vote, or vote for the "lesser of two evils". From a purely practical standpoint I should vote for the candidate whose ratio of "good" and "likeliness to win" is the highest, with a priority on the "good" category, to minimize the chances that my least-favored candidate will win. But from a morality perspective I can't (in good conscience) vote for someone I can't condone.

My conclusion is (as I think I've suggested in years past) that you should be able to cast a negative vote; that is, "I want #3 to win, but apart from that I want #1 *not* to win." So I toss a thumbs-down to Obama in November having quite clearly voted my conscience but without throwing my vote away on a candidate who doesn't have the necessary backing to win.

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Moving on. I had the unfortunate luck to decide to visit the East Side Beltline trail today, which must be some grand opening because there was live music, people out grilling food and every bicycle for ten counties.

I came to the conclusion that kids on bikes (and even on foot, but less so) can be thought of as 30+ pound squirrels: they dart about randomly, they're unaware of their surroundings until its usually too late, and for the most part there's no governing authority over their actions (oblivious parents breed oblivious kids). While squishing a suicidal squirrel with your bike will earn you some dirty looks, society looks down considerably more when you fail to avoid some kid's cleverly timed left-hook attack. The adults were not much better - randomly stopping while people are piled up behind you, stuck at your pace, left-hooking whenever the whim struck, etc. How do these people operate motor vehicles? Navigate parking lots? Negotiate shopping malls? I don't understand.

As if proof is actually needed: my GPS informs me that my average speed on this afternoon's bike ride was 0.5mph (yes, one-half of a mile per hour) faster than my jogging speed.