i admit it, i’ve wondered. you have too. is voting rational?

” It’s a dilemma many voters face whenever there’s still a serious third or fourth candidate for president after the primaries. This year, let’s say your first choice would be Ralph Nader or Pat Buchanan. But is voting for a candidate with no serious chance of winning just “throwing away your vote”? Worse, is it in effect a vote for the less desirable of the two realistic candidates? Is it wrong to vote for Nader if you would prefer Al Gore over George W. Bush? Or for Buchanan if you would prefer Bush over Gore?

The answer is ultimately subjective, but objective analysis will take you further than you might have thought.”

sometimes i forget to visit the register and i’m the worse for it:

“A year ago, few would have predicted that a simple software application written by a college Freshman would capture the international media main-stage. Fewer still would have anticipated that this modest computer-science project would quickly swell to grotesque proportions, terrifying the mighty Titans of Hollywood’s entertainment industry, taxing the best wits of US judges and high-priced legal teams. But all this, and more, it has managed to do.

Stunning performance for a Freshman project to be sure; but a perverse complex of acrimonious and absurdly convoluted political contests in Washington, in which a conservative Senator has aligned himself against his own legislation, and of which Napster forms the raw core, has outshone even these considerable achievements.”

{ intertwingled since 2000 }