Pinochio

How fitting is the Pinochio story as an analogy for our own current dilemmas.

Pinochio and lots of other children were enticed to this place called Pleasure Island, where they could do whatever they wanted. Pleasure Island promised to fulfill all of their desires, while requiring no personal responsibility or adult supervision.

Of course, it all turned into a mirage, as Pinochio and his other misguided friends' excesses at Pleasure Island placed them into a stupor. The evil people who created Pleasure Island then were able to easily turn them into asses and enslave them.

Sound familiar? I suppose you might have a good guess at who runs America's Pleasure Island right now.

On another topic, I've been following the case of the election contest in Minnesota between Coleman and Franken. The vote counts are so close and the issues so complex that I'm convinced the only fair resolution is a runoff election.

Which of course is why there will not be a runoff election.

Ultimately the courts are going to decide the winner in this one. That's a shame.

It seems to me that all States should provide for a runoff in any election that has more than 2 candidates and the vote differential between the top 2 is less than, say, half a percent.

Apparently the Franken side is dead-set against a runoff, because they'd likely lose. I guess part of the reason it was so close, according to my friends in Minnesota, is that a third-party candidate siphoned off a significant number of what would otherwise have been Coleman votes. There seems to be a pretty major beef among Minnesotans toward Coleman, but I haven't got a clear understanding of the reasons. It must be pretty serious if it resulted in such a close contest with somebody as ridiculously unfit, amoral and corrupt as Stuart Smalley.