Reverse Osmosis Purple Sage Fuel Pump

What in the world did the title of your last post -- Resource Object Data Manager -- have to do with the content of your post? :-)

Do you ever tire of your own company?

Certainly. And at such times I come out for a little social interaction. But only a little. Lisa likes a lot more than me. Early on in our marriage she insisted I accompany her to all manner of social events, all of which taxed me enormously. She's come to understand I can't tolerate it as much, and of late she's content to go to those functions by herself.

So how does this US election work?

We are in the very early stages of what's known as the "primary season." In the United States there are two dominant parties -- the Democrats (liberal) and Republicans (conservative). Every four years they go through a series of state-level elections called primaries. The purpose of these primaries is to determine how many delegates each candidate will have voting for them at the each party's political convention, to be held in the summer of 2008. The winner of the voting at the conventions is that party's candidate for the general election.

Note 1: we have other parties, but they almost never garner more than a low single-digit vote count. The highest was Ross Perot's tally in the 1992 election, when he got nearly 19% of the vote. It is widely believed that Perot's votes siphoned off support from George H. W. Bush (the senior), and thus giving Bill Clinton a ticket to the White House. The same holds for Ralph Nader's run in 2000, which garnered 3% of the vote and took just enough votes from Al Gore to give Florida, and thus the election, to George W. Bush.

Note 2: there is nothing in our constitution that dictates two parties, or any parties at all for that matter. It's what evolved. The concept of parties is firmly entrenched in our political DNA; the primary cycle is a thing of the past. I'm not sure what will replace it.

Right now, the front-runners for each party are:

Democrats

• Hillary Clinton
• Barack Obama
• John Edwards (VP candidate with Kerry in 2004)
  
• (distant third) Bill Richardson (current governor of New Mexico)
  

Republicans

• Rudy Guiliani (ex-mayor of New York City)
• John McCain (senator from my fair state)
• Mitt Romney (ex-governor of Massachusetts)
• Sam Brownback (senator from Kansas -- no chance whatever of winning)
  

In the past, the primary schedule was relatively spaced out, with Iowa and New Hampshire having the first, and then a series of states following, interspaced with a few weeks' time each. However, that's changing. Now we're seeing a lot of "front loading" of the primary schedule, with state parties tired of having their primary be largely irrelevant months after the first primaries have concluded. U.S. politics operates to a large extent on momentum. Whoever captures it first -- and doesn't burn out -- typically wins the nomination for each party.

The front-loading of the primary schedule is changing the dynamics of this. It used to be possible for a dark horse to capture a larger-than-expected percentage in the early primaries and then parlay that into a nomination. Jimmy Carter in 1976 did precisely that; so did Bill Clinton in 1992. But with pretty much the whole shooting match up for grabs in the very early part of the cycle, now it's no longer about momentum in the actual primary elections, but momentum before then raising cash to pay for advertising to drive the votes in a dozen different states. Campaign contributions tend to follow the likely winner. Establishing a aura of inevitability is key. Hillary Clinton was presumed to have that from the start, but the Obama surge caught her campaign completely by surprise and she's now playing catch up. Obama is the media darling; they are giving him tens of millions of dollars of free advertising and support.

Whether this country can elect another Clinton is yet to be seen. Coming off eight years of the second Bush, perhaps not. George Bush's brother, Governor Jeb of Florida, is widely considered to be a far better candidate for president than George. But by dint of his name he has no chance in 2008.

So now you believe in the evolutionary ideas behind religions? :) It's all fairy tales?

Absolutely! It's all unicorns and Dan Brown novels!

I'm not sure where you connected evolution of the human mind to religion. But I'll play along. I've never discounted evolution. I don't see any incompatibility between it and God ... provided the argument is not "God or evolution, take your pick." That's the false dichotomy that's presented which I rail against.

Plus, I've long held that all issues of evolution and our mind and our beliefs and our perceptions of God are utterly irrelevant to the question of God himself. He either is, or isn't. And our beliefs one way or the other won't change that. (And please don't bring up the quantum stuff ... it's not applicable to the idea of a creator-being that does not exist in the physical or quantum realm.)

I choose to believe God is. "I am who I AM." Nothing on this earth changes that at all.

Now, that said, my original post had more to do with the question of whether or not in our present fat-and-lazy state our minds tend to invent challenges and excitement where we wouldn't otherwise have it. I think that's true. If we were busy 14 hours a day scratching in the ground to survive, we wouldn't think up ways to excite ourselves. But we don't do that. So we skydive, and ride motorcycles, and have illicit affairs. Or, if you're a wire-head geek like you, you play computer chess! :-)