An Amusing New Map

Except that I suspect that eastern Washington, Oregon and BC, and all of Alberta would prefer to be part of greater Texas.

The best way to really figure out where the boundaries should be is to look at it by county, instead of by state. Then all you get is a few little socialist enclaves (unable to defend themselves, since they’d presumably outlaw guns) in a sea of Texas and Jesusland.

A Generation Decimated As Non-Voting Youth Die Off In Droves

ANN ARBOR (APUPI) In a catastrophe certain to reverberate throughout American society for decades, millions of the MTV generation have succumbed suddenly in the past twenty-four hours, after ignoring rapper P. Diddy’s and Senator Hillary Clinton’s frantic warnings over the past weeks.

“I feel like I failed,” said the morose musician. “I called millions of young people in the hopes that we could avoid this, but somehow the message just didn’t get through.”

The unprecedented die-off has resulted in horrific scenes all across the nation. Bodies are stacking up on college campuses, in pizza parlors, malls, and bars, and the older survivors have their hands full keeping up with it. Cruelly, the affliction doesn’t always kill. There are many who live, but in a zombie-like state–those who made it to the polling place, but couldn’t quite figure out how to work the machines.

Elderly workers, seemingly immune to whatever is causing this, are performing triage and trying to sort those who have been felled by their failure to vote, those who are merely injured but can survive with a rapid administration of provisional ballots, and those Bush supporters who are just sleeping off a bender after celebrating the night before.

Authorities have been unable to estimate the total number of casualties, which continues to grow hourly, but the few survivors are envying the dead. Upon seeing the carnage and contemplating life without their cohorts, many now regret their own votes yesterday, particularly with the loss of their candidate, Senator Kerry.

One young woman stared across a sunny quad full of her former classmates, limbs askew as they fell where they stood, many still clutching their color-coordinated cell phones. There was a dazed look of disbelief in her eyes. “I warned my roommate about what P. Diddy said,” she sobbed. “But she wouldn’t listen. She said she was too busy, and she didn’t know anything about the issues.”

“I told her that wasn’t important, that what was important was to make her voice heard, no matter how uninformed and incapable of critical thinking she was, but I couldn’t get her there, and now it’s too late.”

“My boyfriend is gone, my candidate lost. Why did I vote? What is there left to live for?”

It’s too early to know the full sociological impact of this new holocaust, but it may be similar to Europe in the early twentieth century, when millions of young men were slaughtered in the flower of their youth in the Great War. Except this time, the culling had no gender bias–both young men and young women have been cut down in equal numbers, at least relieving any potential imbalance. Some have even pointed out that there’s a silver lining to the dark cloud. The average IQ of the nation is expected to skyrocket almost overnight.

Young Bush voters are saddened, but stoic.

“We have to go on,” said one young couple. “We’re now the hope of our generation.”

One More Thing

Can we put to bed this weird myth about John Kerry being a “good closer“? He’s really a pretty lousy politician, and has only survived in his Senate races by being a liberal plant in the hothouse of Massachusetts. He couldn’t survive out in the wild of the rest of the country.

The frightening thing is that Bush really was vulnerable this year, and the donkeys screwed up by picking one of the worst possible candidates, because they foolishly thought that Kerry’s Vietnam record would somehow inoculate them against being soft on defense. In retrospect, I think that a Gephardt, or a Biden, or particularly a Lieberman (I might have even voted for him, despite the dreary prospect of having to listen to his whiny voice for four years) could have knocked him off.

Usenet Problem

I just switched ISPs, and for some reason, I’m not getting any posts from the sci.space.* hierarchy on the new provider’s (Bellsouth) news server. I’m using Agent as my news client. Does anyone know what the problem might be?

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!