Trick or Treat

So here I am at 6:30 p.m. sitting with several bags of candy waiting for the kids to come. There's only been one so far, so it's kind of a slow night. I wonder if a recent, apparently random shooting of a college student in the area is making people nervous about going out.

In the meantime I'm catching up on the week's episodes of The Daily Show. I am unabashedly smitten with John Stewart. My favorite clip so far is the comparison of the McCain and Larry King interview with the two old, heckling muppets. Perfect!

The politician who is currently irritating me the most this week is surprisingly not Palin -- instead it's Ted Stevens. He keeps telling the media that he has not been convicted of anything. Ummm ... is he senile??? Just because you keep saying it, doesn't make it true. NPR interviewed several Alaskans who are still going to vote for Stevens even though he is a convicted felon and all I can say is -- Wow! Between those nuts and Palin's "leadership," I think it's safe to say that moving to Alaska is no longer an option for us.

Further Support of My Point

Regarding how Americans should be better at "democracy" than we are. Check out this story from NY:

Barack "Osama" on Rensselear County Ballots.

Typo, my ass!

Snippets

Random stuff on my mind:

• Why is it that the "beacon of democracy," which also happens to be one of the wealthiest and most technologically sophisticated countries in the world, still struggles with basic voter registration issues? This doesn't exactly inspire confidence in our ability to impose spread democracy worldwide.


• My new favorite Palin retort: Just because I can see the moon from my house doesn't make me an astronaut. (I lost the YouTube link to a funny Palin song using this line. (Update: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jltqTRmiVjg. Thanks, Hol!)


• How long does it take for a new, enthusiastic Assistant Professor to lose all faith in her ability to actually teach her students something meaningful? I haven't given up hope yet, but with each round of "research" papers that I grade, my faith is diminishing.


• I should start counting the number of times per week that I have to remind my students that they are adults. Perhaps after several months of data collection I can create a pretty graph to post on my door that would save me the trouble of actually having to say it.


• I cannot bring myself to blog about the economy. It is simply too depressing.