Congratulations, America.

Obama wins.
Congratulations, America. You made the right choice.
After 8 years of utter incompetence, you are on the cusp of 4 years of sanity.
Perhaps now your country will rise above it's reputation as laughing stock of the international stage.
Congratulations.

Need I give more proof?

In my last post I showed a video, which I claimed depicted the average McCain supporter. It was a video of one, and only one, woman and her beliefs. Perhaps I need more proof that the average McCain supporter is an ignorant waste of organic matter. Well, here it is (video below):



There are more slurs, insults, lies, and incomprehensible ignorance spewing from the mouths of that crowd than I can count. The scene reminds me of a KKK rally sans the white sheets - they expel the same hatred and filth. These people compose a large portion of McCain's support, and both McCain and Palin do little but pander to their interests. The whole ACORN voting fraud and Ayers connection smear campaigns are proof of that; indeed, the McCain campaign is guilty of starting many of the nasty, ignorant, uninformed rumors and misconceptions that his fervorous, mindless proponents howl.

And what was the crowd in that clip getting so worked up over? That footage was taken at a Palin rally, but you'd think it was an angry mob that showed up outside Obama's house. Perhaps they should consider yelling out reasons why McCain will make the country a better place if they wish to win over undecided voters or Obama supporters, but no, they have to be loud bigots because Obama's a "got-dang baby killing commie Muzzie terr'rist".

It's people like these that make me think that voting should only be a right for those who prove themselves to be informed voters who understand the issues at hand and the platforms of the candidate, and will vote based on who they think will do a better job at making the country worth living in. I would love to see a voter competence exam introduced, but that would never fly because people have the right to vote, no matter how ignorant they are....but that's a topic for some other post.

The sad truth: this is the average McCain supporter

A significant proportion of supporters of McCain are not supporters based on his political platform; rather, the refer to themselves as "values voters". What does that mean, exactly? The video below does a pretty good job of explaining:

Tracy here feels that the most important issue in the upcoming election is "the one who has the most faith in the Lord". Not their foreign policy, not their stance on the current economic crisis, not their thoughts on the war in Iraq, but who believes in God more.

But Tracy's ignorance truly shines when explains why she won't be voting for Obama:

"I can't imagine a President of the United States being named President Obama. I really have a problem with that and I'm not the only one."

If you wont vote for someone based on their name, then you should probably rethink voting at all. And what's really sad is that she's right that she's not the only one who has a problem with Obama's name: the "Obama's a Muslim, just look at his name" thing is common among the fundies, despite the fact that he is a Christian.

And she follows up that gem with the following dumbosity:

"His background. A mother that was atheist. Huh, that really gets to me. A father that was a Muslim. That should get to everyone."

So what if his mother was an atheist (is there even any evidence to support that? I've never heard of this)? What does his father's religion matter (there is actually evidence that points to his father being an atheist, actually)? None of these have any bearing on Obama's faith, and Obama's faith has no bearing on how well he could run the country. Again, if this is the reason you're voting against someone, then you should rethink voting at all.

Oh, if only the world could vote...

I stumbled across and interesting website today that showed an even more interesting statistic.
The website is called If The World Could Vote, and it simply contains a single online poll, open to everyone worldwide, that asks "If you could vote on the American election right now, who would you vote for?".
The results so far look like this (my apologies for the incredibly poor picture quality, check out the results page on the site if you want to save your eyes):
Almost unanimously, the entire would would vote in Obama.

Now, I know there are a lot of problems with internet polls; people can sometimes cast multiple votes, only people with internet connections and computers are included so they only test a select demographic, etc etc, so take this with a grain of salt.

But I thought there were a few interesting things to point out.

First, there are a few countries in which support for McCain is the majority or close to it. Burkina Faso is one such country, with 100% support for the Republicans, but this is with a meager 2 votes so it's hardly accurate. It does seem, however, that many of the former Soviet republics have a higher than average number voting Red: Belarus is a prime example. Countries in and around the Balkans (Macedonia, Czech Republic, Slovakia) also are a bit higher on the McCain scale. What could account for such a trend in these regions? Perhaps a disdain for the Democrat's handling of the Balkan conflict could account for it in the Balkan regions (though this is unlikely, since Bill Clinton seems to be popular in the region...at least in Kosovo, where his likeness has been engraved into the city's tallest building and a statue of the former president has been erected) but what about Belarus? I admit I know very little about Belarusian history so I cannot even begin to guess.

Also interesting is the support for Obama in the US: this poll shows 82% of the votes in his favour. It is my understanding that Obama is currently ahead in the polls, but I don't believe that the numbers are this high.

I have to wonder, though, if this poll is somewhat biased towards Obama. The poll exclusively polls internet users, and I would go so far to say that it includes "core" internet users rather than casual internet users. In general (and, as any visit to an internet forum would confirm *cough*4chan*cough*, I am being very general), the core internet population is more "intellectually based" than the rest of the general population: after all, it does take a degree of technical knowhow to use the internet and it is usually more intellectually minded people who enjoy learning such technical skills. And, I do not think it would be a stretch to claim that support for Obama and the Democrats is high among intellectuals. If this is the case then the high support for Obama is not unexpected.

But then again, who knows? The overall message from this poll (however unfair or inaccurate it may be) is that pretty much the entire world is rooting for Obama. Will America do the same?

Nobel Laureates for Obama!

Perhaps it's Obama's science-friendly stance, or perhaps it's the McCain campaign's blatant anti-science (particularly Palin's creationist and anti-global warming sentiments), but a large group of Nobel laureates have gotten together and drafted a letter endorsing Obama for president. A total of 61 laureates have signed the letter, which is more than any other candidate in history (apparently John Kerry got 48 endorsements from prize winners).

As some people have pointed out, though, the 61 laureates are those from the science categories. No laureates from the economics category were represented. Does this say something about Obama and his platform (Nay-sayers would say yes)? Or did those in the sciences simply get together and write up an endorsement letter, and not tell the economists about it (more likely, in my opinion)? Does it even matter (the Nobel Prize in Economics isn't even a real Nobel Prize ;) )

I'm familiar with a good number of names on the list. Some interesting things I noticed though:

• The list includes H. Robert Horvitz, but neither Sydney Brenner nor John Sulston (the three of them won the 2002 prize in Medicine for their work on genetic regulation of apoptosis and organ development). Brenner is by far the most well known of the trio and his signature would carry more weight than Horvitz' or Sulston's. Brenner is also a liberal guy so his absence from the list is a bit surprising.
• The ever infamous James Watson gave his John Hancock. Many commentors seem surprised to see his name on the list, given his recent comments regarding race and intelligence. However, anyone familiar with Watson and has read any of his biographical works knows that he's far from the conservative side of the spectrum. Watson would endorse Obama on his stance on science alone.
• There are very few female laureates on the list - only one by my count: Linda Buck, who won the prize in Medicine for her work on the olfactory system. True, there are very few female laureates ( and even fewer that are still alive to sign the letter!) but I would have expected at least to see Christiane Nusslein-Volhard on the list.

The original PDF of the letter can be found here.