Uncounted Ballots and Ongoing Election

As I am starting to write this blog post now, it is 6AM MST on November 10th.  The last poll locations closed in Alaska 31 hours ago.

Thankfully, we are not facing a crisis like we did in 2000 where we didn't get a president-elect for over a month after the election because Florida couldn't get their act together.

Hate it, disagree with it, like it, or love it, it doesn't matter.  Donald Trump will be our next president.  All of the major networks have Trump sitting at 279 electoral votes or higher.  Each network has 3 or less states left to be called.  These are Arizona, New Hampshire, or Michigan.

The three states don't matter from a who wins perspective because of the other 279 Trump electoral votes, but they could have.

Playing the what if game – if Clinton had won Pennsylvania, then Trump would only be at 259 and we still wouldn't know who the next president would be, until these three states get resolved.

Further playing the what if game – if we give Trump Pennsylvania again, but take away Wisconsin, Trump would be at 269.  Then supposing AZ, MI, and NH all go to Clinton, it would be 269-269.  The tie-breaker would be the House of Representatives – with a vote by states (each state gets one vote, so all representatives from each state have to combine together, meaning a Republican victory in modern times since Democratic Reps are concentrated in CA, NY, etc.)

Back to reality now. 

Quite a few interesting stats are occurring.  Piecing these together requires going to all of the major news networks' websites since none are ideal.  ABC News and Fox News get high marks for coming close though.

1) According to ABC News' analysis, only 92% of the ballots across the country have been counted. There is no reason why this should be so low.

2) Arizona – consensus is that only 75% of the ballots are in!  Did the election workers go on strike or what?! This percentage has not budged since Clinton gave her concession speech yesterday around 10AM.  What are they waiting for?

3) New Hampshire – consensus is that 98% of the ballots are in. Clinton has a small 1,437 lead out of 692,000+ votes cast.  I understand why most networks have not called this one.  I don't understand how the AP and CNN have called this one, when the two networks I trust far more than them, ABC News and Fox News, have not called that state for anyone.

4) Michigan – consensus is that 96% of the ballots are in.  Quite a few other states have a lower percentage counted, but the presidential winners have been able to be called.  Michigan currently has about a 12,000 vote lead for Trump, but still has a possibility of flipping to Clinton.  Also understandable why none of the networks have called this one.

5) California – the most populous state in the union has only bothered to count 68% of their ballots so far.  Pathetic! It's a good thing that they never play a major role in presidential elections. Yes, they have 55 electoral votes, but everybody just assumes it goes to the democratic candidate each time.  It could have an effect on House races though.

6) Oregon – this state is unique in that they do all (almost all??) of their voting by mail.  There are no voting locations.  They are currently sitting at 86% counted.  There is no reason why they shouldn't pop up immediately at 100% as soon as the West Coast closes.  Just make the deadline to have stuff received at the proper post office be Saturday before the election.  Then, swear the vote counters to secrecy, under penalty of jail time, and they can have things perfectly counted by the end of the day on election Tuesday.  There, problem solved.


I would like to get it to a point where the states can get the ballot counts out quickly after the polls close in each state.  This would require early counting of absentee ballots, quick resolution of challenged ballots, earlier deadlines for mail in votes, etc.  I only have one voice though, and most of the rest of the country doesn't care any more once they saw that Trump won.

Suicide Squad: Tent-pole Tragedy

Welcome back, me!

Yes, I'm writing again in the blog. Since very few of you would see this on a site that has been dormant for 9 months, of course I have promoted it on Facebook again. Feel free to check out one of the many other posts available to your right.

Some things have changed socially in my life – quite a few good things occurred, against a couple bad things, but on balance, things are good.

Professionally, I have moved to a better casino, but I'm still dealing cards and dice and enjoying it. The only real difference is that one day a week I now supervise the other dealers. Nearly everyone at my new place does that one day a week.

I still live in the Denver metro area, but I have moved twice: once at the end of May to Boulder temporarily, then again in mid August to my current place in Arvada (a northwest suburb of Denver). I'm on my own again, and won't be moving anytime soon. I prefer to have roommates, but it is what it is.

**********

On to the Super Serious Matter I absolutely must discuss with you today: the tragedy that became of the movie Suicide Squad from this summer.

I couldn't have been more disappointed in this movie.

I was first alerted to this movie through a friend who was plenty excited about it long before it ever came out. She was and is an extremely devoted follower of Harley Quinn. I didn't really follow much in the comic book world much before I knew her. I've watched almost all of the movies ever since the comic book movie push started in earnest with the X-Men. Sure, there were movies here and there devoted to comic books, like the big Batman and Superman movies. However, it was nothing like it is today, with the huge, expensive budgets devoted to everything related to either Marvel or DC Comics.

What I didn't do was read the actual comic books growing up. My parents never thought of them as legitimate reading sources, so I read other, more traditional stuff.

Since getting interested in Harley Quinn, I've come to understand the character a bit more. She has the potential to be a nuanced, fully fleshed out character with lots of opportunities to develop the potential moral gray areas, while still making her fall somewhat on the “bad guy” scale.

The Suicide Squad movie was supposed to be her vehicle to shine.

It wasn't. The whole movie was terrible.

This was the kind of big budget, summer, tent-pole blockbuster that just turns into a tragic mess in the simple pursuit of gathering in ticket fares. The writing was lackluster and meandering. The backstory on all of the “bad guys” who are forced to work together was basically a bunch of vignettes with no cohesion. The “super bad guy” they had to team up for was a rather lame witch.

I also wasn't terribly impressed with Margot Robbie, the actress playing Harley Quinn.

Cons:

There were three different accents that I detected throughout her performance. The first was Australian, which Robbie is. The second was the standard Midwestern non-accent you typically find in the movies so that it appears like standard dialogue to most Americans. The third was the Brooklyn accent Harley is supposed to have.

Pros:

Robbie's non-verbal acting was actually quite good. I can't fault her for that.

The bit of color and brightness in her personality was a welcome relief from the overwhelming sense of doom and gloom and incredibly dark colors used in the rest of the film.

The actual phrases she had to speak pointed back to the comics quite well.

Robbie was fighting for the lead amount of screen time with Will Smith's character, Deadshot. It wasn't Smith's best performance by a ways, but it was passable. The rest of the squad was just fill in the blanks kind of superheroes. I'm sure they get a played up treatment in the comics. That just didn't translate into well into exciting cinema. The others should have been ignored like most of the standard, non-enhanced soldiers, or be given more than generic, keep-the-story-moving dialogue. There was even one member introduced and killed within 2 minutes just to prove the suicide squad was forced to perform their mission.

In terms of a rating, I give this ** out of *****.

Politics and Facebook

[Edit]Holy cow have my last few blog posts and this one been serious in nature! I have got to get back to more of the humorous stories of my life!  I've got one or two in mind that I might do within the next couple days or so.[/Edit]

I had an interesting day today.  I decided to unfollow someone on my friends list in Facebook. Keeping with how I run this blog, I'm not going to name this person. Please don't try to guess, you'll get no response.

For those who don't know, when you unfollow someone on Facebook, his or her posts don't show up on your main page unless they specifically mention you in a post.  You are still friends with them, and still have all of those privileges, but you don't see items that they "Like".

This is not the first time I have done something like this.  I have done it to a few people now.  A couple of them I am related to.  Again, no guessing!

It is always a case of somebody whose posts to my news feed just get so voluminous that I get tired of looking at it.  Sorry if it sounds harsh (especially as you're reading a blog dedicated to me just blabbing at the mouth / keyboard).

Today's offender was one who has been posting a huge number of political stories / links / rants / meme images.  They came in bunches each day, so much so that I just had to say that enough was enough.

I like him as a person just fine.  He and I get along well.  He's not just someone that I interact with only on Facebook.  We have a number of things in common.  Our in-person interactions have actually never brought up politics.

Because of what we have in common, I gave him the courtesy of a text message giving a short explanation of what I was planning on doing and why.  He took it graciously, but stated that he wasn't going to slow down on the political stuff.  That is perfectly acceptable, of course.  He is welcome to continue bringing exposure to the things he thinks are worthy of attention.  Facebook can handle the load just fine.  I just recommended that he slow down on that kind of stuff.

A good analogy is the boy who cried wolf.  There was just so much stuff being put up on "teh interwebs" that any grand theme got lost in the clutter.  There were just too many topics for the audience to focus on.  Alarmist pieces only work if they are used sparingly.  Create them in droves and your audience is just going to complain that the wolf crier is pestering them all the time.  Then, when the real issue that you deeply care about comes up, it will not receive the attention that you want since you cried wolf too many times.

I should probably note that I have unfollowed a person each from both sides of the liberal and conservative spectrum.  Each was for the same reason, a deluge of political posts.  Whether or not I agreed with them didn't matter.

A number of you know that I was deeply into politics from the period of about age 17 until maybe the mid-twenties or so.  I was passionate about reading up on political stuff.  My positions on most of the issues haven't changed much, but I have mellowed in intensity quite a bit.

Which part of the political spectrum's Cartesian coordinates I fall in isn't relevant, but I recommend something like here if you don't know where you fall.  If I feel like reading political material at some time, I'll read stuff from people from all over the spectrum.  I have the ability to read biased material and come to my own conclusions on which parts I agree with and how their biases and experiences affect their argument / beliefs.

However, you will rarely see me discuss my political beliefs publicly, especially not on the internet.  I will only discuss this kind of stuff privately, in person, and only in the right context.  No, texting doesn't count.  I need to be able to see facial expressions and your reactions to what I say.  That will allow me to guide the conversation in a direction that will best suit both our needs at the time.

I go to Facebook to easily keep connected with a lot of people and to see the things that they are up to.  I don't go there to get an education in politics, or to change somebody's views on a political issue.  I also don't go there to respond to anybody's game requests :) Those are quickly deleted!




Other tidbits that don't really fit in with the narrative above:

Every so often, like every couple years, I go through my friends list and weed out the ones I am no longer in contact with.  I am not one of those who just try to rack up as many friend requests as possible.  That's cool if you want to do it that way, it's just not my style.  I also don't have circles of people that get told some things and others that get excluded.  Everything that I post on Facebook, or on here, or any other social media is fair game.  If I minded it going public, I wouldn't post it.  If I have any private info I need to take care of, I'll send a private message if the medium allows it, or I'll find another way to do it without the public knowing about it.