Aloha Dump

This presidential election is going to be doozy. The whole process will drain me emotionally and intellectually until the moment the results are flung to the world this November, which is only 30 days away. I watched both debates and I have reflected on both what was said and what wasn’t said. Obama is a great speaker; he reminds me of Bill Clinton in a lot of ways and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the same people have prepped both men. But I hold the same mistrust for both men also. I believe that the election is not going to be won by policies and attacks on the opposition’s stances but by whom the American people trust the most. Let’s face it, neither the Obama-Biden nor the McCain-Palin tickets are that impressive when it comes to combining all the elements of what a U.S. President should have. But then again, I can’t remember an election when they did. Obama has had a tough time with the Ad Hominem fallacy of “guilt by association.” The first blow out was with, ironically, Ob...

After reviewing the election results for the different issues that were on the ballots this year I have mixed feelings about the outcomes of the initiatives and propositions. For example, Arizona voters elected to make English the official state language. At first I thought, “Good for them” but then as I read how many states have made English as their official state language I realized that it really doesn’t matter. English Only California, believe it or not, made English its official language in 1986 yet still shells out a lot of money for multilingual paper products. Here are some statistics from USEnglish.org : - The cost of multilingual ballots and translations represented one-eighth of Los Angeles County?s $16 million expense in the Nov. 2004 general election. (Source: European Commission) - The City of San Francisco must spend $350,000 for each language that a document is translated into under the city's bilingual government ordinance. (Source: Janet Ng, Asian Week.com, Jun...