Is the nightmare over yet?
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In years past, when I visited the UK (which happens to be where I am now), I'd tell people where I was from, and they'd exclaim, "Alaska?!" as though they didn't realize you could actually get here from there, and then they'd ask one of a handful of questions:
- Is it really like Northern Exposure?
- Was it a very long flight?
- Have you ever seen a polar bear?
- What's the weather like in Alaska now?
- Do you have snow all year?
This year? 90+% of the time I get, "Alaska? Oohhh. So, what do you think of Sarah Palin then?" (Except my friends, who ask things like, "Is it just me, or does that Sarah Palin woman seem a bit retarded?" I love my friends.)
I would like to bitch-slap that fuckwit cunt halfway to the next century.
If it makes you feel any better, I've lived in the UK all my life and I can't stand Palin either!
I'd like to hear what you think of the UK actually, apart from the usual stuff we hear about how we're crap at sports and the weather's awful. A no-BS appraisal of this rainy, godforsaken lump of rock from someone like you would be awesome. (:
13th October 2008 at 2:41 pm | permalink |Of course, Brits confuse Alaska with American …same with Yank..you're all the same. :)
I'm surprised they even know what Northern Exposure is…I've never seen it, but assumed it was Canadian.
Generaly they do travel, so should know the distance thing. However, but I don't think Spain, Ibiza or Greece emphasise the whole "great circle", minimum distance between two points thing. Plus apparently you can see Russian from Alaska, so it must be pretty far away from UK.
Brit's don't get much snow…they like the idea of it…but when it happens the country comes to a standstill.
I miss M&S.
-c.
(brit living in US)
13th October 2008 at 3:48 pm | permalink |@Martin: What do I think of the UK … I've been coming over for 1–3 months almost every year for the past … oohhh … 5 or 6 years now? I adore the UK, crap rainy weather aside. ;-) People are really nice when you talk to them (even in London), but other than that they actually mind their own business, which is quite nice as well.
I went to a motorcycle rally somewhere in Nottingham a few years ago, and I was a bit perturbed (though not at all surprised) to find the bikers there were better educated as far as international affairs and general world history than most of the people I went to University with. I quite like that: Being in a country where I can talk about politics and world affairs, and not have to fill everyone in on the background information (although being the one to give the relevant history lesson in question does offer some very interesting opportunities for "bringing people to the dark side" as it were … hehehe).
I personally don't give a crap about sports, and the US and UK don't even compete at the same ones (given that most popular US sports are mostly exclusive to the US, eh?). Oh, and my first couple visits to the UK are what I credit with getting me started brewing my own beer and learning to cook Indian curries. ;-)
Two things I don't like about the UK: It's next to impossible to get a good steak or a good espresso (given that I generally refuse to go to Starbucks, and wouldn't class them as particularly good to begin with). Oh, and sandwiches … it took forever to get my head around the fact that you need to ask for "salad" if you want lettuce on your sandwich.
@charlie: Yeah, you can't fucking see Russia from Alaska. At least nowhere in Alaska I've ever been. Maybe you can catch a glimpse of it from one of the furthest Aleutian islands, but I doubt it. hehe
Saying you can see Russia from Palin's house would be a bit like saying you can see France from North London. ;-)
14th October 2008 at 3:23 am | permalink |Here's what terrifies me, AB(I'm Jamaican, but like to consider myself fairly well-informed). I agree with everything you say about McPalin. Friends in Europe tell me they're hoping that Obama pulls it off JUST so that constructive talks can start again between European governments and the USA.
My fear is that it might not be enough. As retarded and out of it as Palin is (excellent fodder for Tina Fey) and McCain's glaring shortcomings, it doesn't seem like your "it's a no-brainer" feeling is shared by many of your countrymen.
With the growing ugly anti-Obama sentiment seemingly accepted at Mccain/Palin rallies ("Obama=terrorist", because of Ayers of all things - sigh) and, quite frankly, the fact that he's Black.
Is America ready to say "Hail to the Chief" to a Black man, i'm still not so sure. But I certainly hope so
oops, i didn't curse, shit, my mistake ;)
14th October 2008 at 4:44 am | permalink |Sarah was lifted by the angels, who came to bless her again for her being McCain's sideshow Bobbette, to the clouds so she could feel God's love (the aurora borealis) and see the devil's domes of the Kremlin. The angels told Sarah that it was her holy duty to protect America's frozen colony of Canada should the atheist Puddin'(ya betcha) ever invade.
14th October 2008 at 5:28 am | permalink |I've been reading your site for a while now, and I empathise 100% with your pain.
14th October 2008 at 11:57 pm | permalink |I am a South African and it seems every single one of our politicians is a fucking moron.
Then again…who is voting these guys in?
@Kira: I once got a cab ride from a hotel in Florida to the airport … turns out the cab driver was from Jamaica, and he had a better grasp of US politics and world history than most Americans I know, so I certainly wouldn't assume you were uninformed based on location. ;-)
At any rate, I think the increasingly overt racism at McCain/Palin rallies could end up compounding his current disadvantage in the polls. See, while many Americans are basically still quite racist, the vast majority certainly don't want to admit it. So, if the backwards-ass racist fuckwits continue speaking up at McCain/Palin rallies , without Palin or McCain saying anything to shut them down, they're running a serious risk of becoming seen as the "racist's candidates", which will cause a whole bunch of guilty white folks to vote against them just out of fear of association, and will almost certainly take a massive chunk out of whatever number of black Republican supporters they currently have.
My only fear, since it seems highly likely that Obama will win at this point, is that one of those backwards-ass racist fuckwits will succeed in martyring Obama. :-\
@Ray: Well shit. Why didn't I think of that?! It all makes sense now. I guess I'll have to vote for McCain, eh?
@Nell: I think the problem is less about who's voting them in, than it is about how many people don't bother to vote. Or, at least, I can pretend that higher voter turnout would result in more intelligent election results, eh?
15th October 2008 at 10:28 am | permalink |I'm not sure about more intelligent, but likely less republican. One of the major issues with voluntary voting is that people who're already in the shit, who feel like they're effectively screwed no matter what, don't vote. Which means the people who want to screw them more get a higher proportion of votes than they should.
I'm also kinda dubious about election day being during the working week - that seems to give bosses a huge amount of control over voting: if you don't like your employees' politics, don't let them leave to go vote. Are voting stations open longer hours in the US than here? I think we have like 8-6 or something, but on the weekend. 8-6 on a workday'd make it all but impossible.
15th October 2008 at 6:41 pm | permalink |@grimbles: Polls here are open 'till 8pm … I've actually got no idea when they open, because I'm never up that early. hehe
However, I'm fairly certain anyone who was proven to have prevented their employees from voting (or who fired an employee for showing up late because they were voting) would be fined heavily, if not jailed. Election day is practically a national holiday.
16th October 2008 at 12:06 am | permalink |Speaking of not voting. I wonder what official reason the US has for requiring their citizenry to actively register for voting some time before the election. I can see how it might discourage some US citizens from voting if compared to, say, Australian citizens.
16th October 2008 at 4:09 am | permalink |If they don't have you on the electoral roll, they don't have a list of who's eligible to vote. I'm not sure the exact process, here or there, but from what I've seen locally it makes it easier to keep track of who's voted - a less inky version of the dipping your finger in ink that you see in news stories about the elections in Iraq/Afghanistan/wherever else.
There's also citizenship issues - just rocking up unregistered to a booth would mean you'd have to bring proof of citizenship every time, since a driver's license or equivalent wouldn't cut it. Pre-registration means that the electoral supervisors know you're eligible to vote when you get there. Otherwise, holding elections would be a much more work intensive process - imagine 100+ million people all getting their ID confirmed and backgrounds checked in one day.
More particular to the US (maybe here too, I've not heard anything either way), there's felony disenfranchisement. Even if Mr Joseph "I just got paroled from my sentence for murder" Sixpack has all the papers to show the official at the polling station to prove his eligibility, there's no way said official would be able to know the guy's not eligible to vote.
16th October 2008 at 4:50 am | permalink |Ah, that was a bad comparison, I'm sorry. I figured that if an Australian citizen didn't bother to register, the Australian government would take matter in its own hands to correct it. But, that doesn't seem to be the case. I should have compared to my own country, where citizens are automatically registered the year they turn 18. It was the source of my question anyway, and I shouldn't have tried to spice it up with using a country with even higher voter turnout. Mea culpa.
Well, anyway, I was thinking that it's the government that knows whether a citizen is eligible to vote or not. Therefore, it seems unusual to disallow the citizen from voting if they didn't take the time a few weeks prior to point out their eligibility to the very government that knew all along. It might be a very good reason behind it, for all I know. But, I don't know, so I try to ask.
Also, you get my thinking about disenfranchisement, and I found out that, around here, franchise isn't generally lost to felons. Disenfranchisement would have to be specifically added as part of their sentence, and that's typically reserved for election fraud, treason and coup d'etat.
16th October 2008 at 9:35 am | permalink |@Secateur & grimbles - Disenfranchisement of convicted felons varys from state to state. For instance, Maine and Vermont actually allow inmates to vote. 35 states exclude felons who are still on parole and 30 of those states exclude people on felony probation as well. 2 states deny voting rights to all sex offenders, period. Some states are just happy if you can figure out the voting machine:)
Also, voter registration is used to select people for jury duty ( at least in Michigan and Texas).
16th October 2008 at 12:59 pm | permalink |Ooops "varies"
16th October 2008 at 1:25 pm | permalink |Australian's aren't 'automatically' registered, but its technically illegal not to. And yes, it's the government's job to know if you're eligible to vote or not, but given the small government bent a lot of Americans have going, I think they'd be slightly pissed about the electoral roll farming their personal details. Aside from anything else, it's not particularly common for any government to do something for you without the need for filling in forms :P
16th October 2008 at 6:29 pm | permalink |I keep thinking I'll have something to add here, and then someone beats me to it … lol
17th October 2008 at 12:37 am | permalink |=D
17th October 2008 at 5:34 am | permalink |Wait! I do have something to add now … just that it's something someone else wrote, lol:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17fri1.html
17th October 2008 at 6:08 am | permalink |I see. This is all very interesting. Thank you all for the information and thank you for your time.
17th October 2008 at 9:53 am | permalink |"governments should do their own large-scale registration drives"
17th October 2008 at 9:38 pm | permalink |That'll never happen under a Republican government =/