Roseyland

Today I’m going to share with you one of my favorite recipes. My Grandma’s baked beans. These are the greatest baked beans ever. They are a little bit sweet and pasty. I know pasty doesn’t sound like a good word for describing food, but I can’t think of a better one. These baked beans are cooked long and slow, and it causes the beans to break down. You can still see the individual beans, but you don’t feel the individual beans in your mouth, it all mushes together. Plus, they develop this caramelization on top that is delicious. Kind of like the blackened cheese on top of macaroni and cheese, but different. Here are the ingredients:

• 4 pounds canned baked beans, drained
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup light molasses
• 2 tablespoons dried minced onion
• 2 tablespoons dry mustard
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1 jar bacon bits

This is what the ingredients look like on my counter.

This next step is complicated, make sure you pay attention. Combine all the ingredients like so:

Mix together well, and put into a greased casserole dish. I prefer a large shallow dish, because it maximizes the top layer of caramelization.

Now bake in an oven at 300 degrees for 2-3 hours. I lean towards the 3 hour side, again because I like a nice gooey caramelized top layer. This is what it looks like when it’s done.

Notice the dark crustiness on top. That’s the good stuff. Here is what it looks like served on a plate.

My mouth waters just looking at these baked beans. They are great on their own, or as a cold baked bean sandwich the next day. I know the idea of cold baked beans sounds gross, but it’s actually really good. I was kind of disappointed in this recipe once I knew what it was. I wish it wasn’t made from so many pre-processed ingredients. I’d like to try it without using canned beans and with cooked fresh onions and real bacon. That would be a lot more work though, and it probably wouldn’t taste as good. I think I’ll leave a good thing alone. Here is a pdf of the recipe.

Hello everyone. Today is a big day. It’s my 100th blogging anniversary. Well, it’s my 100th post. That’s the same thing right? Regardless, this is a big deal, and I’ve decided to get you something. I know, I know, I shouldn’t have. It’s you who should be showering me with gifts and admiration. If it helps, consider this a gift for all of us to share. Without further ado, here it is:

Do you like it? I do. Boxing day is my new favorite holiday. I have no idea what Boxing day is, but judging from the picture above, it’s awesome. You are probably wondering where I got her, I mean it, the picture. I got it at istockphoto.com. That’s right, I paid for her, I mean it, the picture. Here’s another:

I think this picture is cool, but I can’t remember, are you supposed to walk towards the light or away from it? I was going to do this whole long post on where I find images for my blog, but then I thought that just posting a bunch of images would be more fun. I’ll give you the list version though:

• I feel like every post should have a picture. Pictures help set the mood and convey much more information than words alone.
• You can’t just grab any picture you want from the web and put it on your blog. You have to have permission from the content owner. Don’t steel, it’s bad.
• Whenever possible, I try to use my own images, but shockingly, I don’t have a picture of everything.
• If I can’t use my own picture, I try to find a creative commons licensed image. These are images that people allow you to use for free. There are different licenses, but most commonly the images are free for non-commercial use with attribution to the author. All of the images on my Flickr account are licensed under creative commons. The only thing I don’t like about creative commons is the attribution part. It isn’t exactly clear to me what attribution means. If it was just a link on the photo, that would be cool, but I think you are supposed to put a caption under the image, and captions suck. I’ve yet to find a caption scheme that I’m happy with. Currently I use tables, but the code for that is ugly. I feel like there should be a more elegant solution.
• When it comes to celebrities, or commercial products, or any type of image that is all over the web anyways, I just download the picture and use it. I don’t know if this is right or wrong, but if the image is everywhere anyways, I figure it doesn’t really matter.
• After all that, I’ve started using istockphoto.com. You have to pay for these pictures, but you don’t have to attribute them to anyone. It’s feels weird to pay for a picture, but the photos in this post only cost a $1.50 each. I certainly waste more money on less important things. Plus, I love browsing the images. Its fun. Seriously, you should try it.

Here is another picture. I already have lots of pictures of a cat, but I thought this image was particularly striking.

Here is a political picture for you. It’s a tea party with Alice and the Mad Hatter. Hmm. The Mad Hatter is crazy. A crazy person at a tea party. Interesting.

Just for fun, I thought I’d throw in the meaning of life, which is clearly defined in the equations below. I’d explain it, but it’s so obvious. I don’t want to insult your intelligence.

I both love and hate this next picture. I love Buddhism and the whole complex human relationship with spirituality and suffering and stuff. This image would be an awesome illustration of all that, except that it’s fake. The problem with a lot of istockphoto.com images is that they usually use models. Which is fine for some things, but I can tell that the woman in this photo is striking a pose rather than expressing any real experience. That sucks, because if this was a real picture, it would be amazing.

One more image just because I love you. You’re welcome.

See, sometimes models are good. This post cost me $10.50. I think that makes it my most expensive post ever. I doubt I’ll use istockphoto.com images very often, but it’s a nice option to have, if you can’t find the perfect picture any other way. So, what did you get me?

I bought groceries tonight. Here they are:

Let’s see, we have soy milk. I got the Omega-3 enriched soy milk, so it would be extra healthy. The bowls things are quick frozen meals. They are actually vegetarian. I’m not a vegetarian, but they are good anyways. The TLC granola bars are what I have for breakfast every morning. Then there are tortilla chips, cheese, and bread. The wine is a Whole Foods 365 brand Bordeaux. It was the cheapest Bordeaux they had ($7.99). I’m interested to see how it compares to the other two Bordeauxs I have had. Did I like them because they were Bordeauxs, or were they just nicer wines in general? I got the berries and black beans because I love berries and black beans (not together of course). The spicy thai Kettle chips were a spontaneous purchase. I have to know what spicy thai taste like.

I didn’t just buy groceries for myself. I also agreed to fill up this bag as part of a canned food drive. I had already filled the bag half way with stuff from my kitchen that I knew I was never going to eat. I bought some extra stuff tonight to top off the bag. Part of me thinks Whole Foods wasn’t the right place to shop for a canned food drive, but that’s where I was. I ended up overfilling the bag a little. I’m a saint.

This was my dinner. Whole Foods has the best pizza, and it’s only $5.00 for two slices. Seriously, you should try it. Whole Foods also has good Sushi. It cost more than $5.00 though. Okay, I’m tired. Tomorrow is my 100th blog post. I have nothing planned as of yet, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something fantastic. Good night.

Okay, I need a quick post tonight. This blogging everyday thing is a bit much. How am I supposed to watch TV? I want to watch V tonight, but I also want to get to bed at a reasonable hour. Considering that it’s 9:30 now, that might not be happening. I’ve heard a few people say they don’t like V, but I think it’s been pretty good so far. Mostly I want see the FBI agent’s kid get it on with the blonde lizard girl. That would be hot.

Some guy left the longest comment ever on my blog on the Electoral Vote post I did a few days ago. It’s all about a National Popular Vote plan where a group of states that have at least 270 electoral votes all agree to pledge their votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. It’s a neat idea, and completely constitutional as far as I can tell, but it feels kind of gimmicky. I’d rather fix the problem head on that use a work around. I also heard from a few people who like the electoral college because it prevents mob mentality. I can see this point, but I still don’t like the way presidential candidates spend all their time in a handful of states. Part of me says that electoral votes should be awarded for each house congressional district (plus a few for D.C.), but then we have to worry about gerrymandering. Oh forget it, this is too hard, let’s just appoint a dictator. I’ll do it if nobody else wants to.

I’m currently in this intense internal debate whether or not to take an additional three days off at Christmas. I’m already off from Christmas Eve to January 4th, which is 11 straight days off. Not bad, but if I took 3 vacation days, I could have 16 straight days off. I probably won’t though, I keep thinking of all the trips I’d like to take, and those 3 vacation days might be vital.

Okay, that is all I can manage tonight. I’ll leave you with a Haiku:

Cats Are Not Very Green

Can You Find Me A Blue Cat?

If You Can, You Win!

Yeah, poetry is not my thing.

I’ve decided that I want one of these cameras for Christmas. I’m just not sure which one. Currently, I have a Nikon Coolpix S51, which I’m very happy with. It’s an 8.1 megapixel camera, with a 3x optical zoom, and it shoots 640 x 480 video. I’ve discovered that I really like the video capturing capability of my camera. It’s a nice way to capture an overall scene that won’t fit into a single picture. Initially, this had me thinking that I should step up to a pocket camcorder for videos, and I was almost set on the Kodak Zi8. The Zi8 takes 1080p HD video, but I’m not sure I take enough video to justify carrying around a camcorder in addition to my camera. I like the connivence of being able to switch between videos and still images on one device. I also wouldn’t mind a camera with a larger optical zoom, wider angle lens, and a few extra megapixels.

This has led me to two possible cameras. First, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3:

The ZS3 is a 10 megapixel camera with a 12x optical zoom, and it can capture 720p HD video. I like that this camera can capture HD video and has a large optical zoom. I also like that it is still fairly compact even when the lens is extended. Another nice thing is that this camera has a dedicated video recording button on the back, so you don’t have to switch the camera into video mode to shoot videos.The reviews say this camera is limited in terms of manual controls, like shutter and aperture settings, but I never touch those settings anyway. I’m a little uncomfortable with the the HD video format used by this camera. The ZS3 records HD video in a format called “AVCHD Lite”, which doesn’t look to be a problem, but it could make importing the videos onto my Mac a little painful.

The second option is the Canon PowerShot SX200 IS:

The SX200 is a newer camera that also has a 12x optical zoom and shoots 720p HD video like the ZS3. This camera has 12 megapixels compared to the 10 megapixels of the ZS3, and according to the reviews, the SX200 has several manual controls. I like that this is a 12 megapixel camera, and that makes me want it, but I don’t like that the flash mechanically raises above the camera. I’m also not thrilled with how far the lens extends from the camera and the optical zoom can’t be adjusted while recording a video. This camera does record HD video in H.264 format, which would probably play nicer with my Mac.

I think I’m leaning towards the Lumix. I really like that it has a dedicated video recording button on the back. I think one of the reasons I don’t shoot more videos now is that it’s a pain to navigate through the menu to the video mode on my current camera. Still, the 12 megapixels of the SX200 is tempting. Thoughts anyone?

One of the hardest parts of writing this blog is the guilt that comes from knowing how jealous it must make others of my life. I’m constantly torn between wanting to share the exciting activities of my day to day existance, and yet not wanting to make everyone realize how boring their lives are in comparison. Today, I’ve decided to throw caution to the wind and let you in on one of my recent endeavors. You might want to sit down for this. Ready? Okay here we go. Recently, I had the opportunity to try the Target Wine Cube. I was fortunate enough receive this opportunity when I visited my local Target and purchased a Target Wine Cube. In case you haven’t guessed, the red box in the picture above is the Target Wine Cube. It’s a cube shaped box filled with wine.

I’ve been trying to drink more wine lately for a few reasons. The biggest reason is that red wine has numerous health benefits, or at least the news keeps saying so. I also love buying bottles of wine. If you are ever bored, and you live in the St. Louis area, you should go to Provisions Market and browse the massive selection of wine. I don’t know why, but bottles of wine just look so cool to me. I also like holding them and running my fingers over the labels, but let’s not go there. Other good places to browse wine include, World Market, Whole Foods, and St. Louis Cellars.

When I first started drinking wine, I liked dryer white wines. Sweet wines are good, but I can only have a few sips before the sweetness gets to be too much. Dry white wines are nice because they are not overly sweet, but they still taste like they have a little sweetness in the background, which I found preferable to the bone dry nature of most red wines I had tried. I have grown to like red wines though, and now I pretty much drink red wines exclusively.

The best glass of wine I have ever had was at Les Chefs de France in Epcot. It was a 2003 Bordeaux from Chateau Haut Mondain. You can’t really find this wine in the U.S. (other than Epcot), I’ve looked. The first thing I thought when I tasted this wine was that it was like drinking air. Which doesn’t sound that great, but what I was trying to say is that it was smooth. So smooth. Usually when there is a liquid in your mouth, you know it’s there. There is a boundary of separation between your mouth and the liquid, because they are two different things. With this wine though, it felt like it was a part of my mouth, and when I swallowed, it went down easily, almost too easily. I also bought another Bordeaux when I was in London, and it was almost as good as the Epcot wine. It has the same smoothness to it. I think the technical wine term would be “silky smooth tannins”. What I don’t know though, is if this silky smooth quality is a feature of Bordeaux wines or of the age of the wine. The Epcot and London wines were both Bordeauxs, but they were also aged longer than the wines I usually drink. Hmm…

I seem to have gotten a little off track. Here is a picture of the Target Wine Cube in my wine cooler. Did I mention I have a wine cooler? I got it because I found out that the drinking temperature for most red wines is between 60 and 65 degrees fahrenheit. Before the wine cooler, I had been drinking red wine straight out of the refrigerator at 34 degrees. Oh the travesty!

So what’s the big deal about the wine cube? The recommend amount of red wine to drink for the health benefits is 4 to 8 ounces a day. This means it will take one person 3 to 6 days to finish a bottle of wine, but wine starts to oxidize the second you open the bottle. A little Google research suggest that you probably don’t want to drink a bottle of wine more than 3 or 4 days after it has been opened. For me this is a problem, because once I open a bottle of wine, I feel this pressure to finish it before it goes bad, but I also don’t want to exceed the recommended amount of wine per day. Yes, I really am this anal.

Fortunately, for people like me, Target invented the Wine Cube. Or more accurately, one day, somebody invented boxed wine. Boxed wine has bad rap here in the U.S., but according to the internets, boxed wine is very popular in Europe and Australia. The benefit of boxed wine is that the wine is stored in a plastic bag. When wine is “poured” from the bag, the bag collapses rather than let air in that would oxidize the wine. This lets wine stay fresh for 4 weeks once the cube is first opened. No more pressure to finish off the bottle before it goes bad. Hurray!

Here is the wine cube wine in a glass next to a candle. The candle is there because the wine glass looked lonely by itself. Don’t you love my stemless wine glass? It’s so sexy and fun to hold. It’s also less likely to be knocked over by a cat. You can get your own at Crate & Barrel.

The wine was good. Nothing amazing, but as good as most of the wine I usually drink. I’m not a wine expert, but it probably had hints of some type of berry and oak notes, or something like that. I love the idea of boxed wine, but it does take the fun away from browsing bottles of wine. Still it is nice to be able to have a glass of wine without having to deal with the hassle of opening a bottle. I think the Wine Cube could make a nice complement to the wine drinking experience. The Wine Cube is nice for casual day to day drinking, and then bottles can be used for more special occasions. Then again, what the hell do I know? Salut!

I bought my condo in lovely Brentwood, Missouri four and a half years ago. About a year later, I started to look around and freak out about everything that wasn’t perfect. I became convinced that no one in their right mind would ever buy my condo with it’s outdated bathroom and kitchen. So I decided to do a cosmetic remodel of my bathroom. I had absolutely no remodeling experience. I once painted a wall, but that’s it. This would have been a great experience to blog about, but I didn’t have a blog back then. But I do now, so let’s just pretend that it’s the 4th of July weekend 2006.

Here is a picture of my original bathroom. You have to love the movie star lights. You can’t see it in the picture, but the room had been painted with regular flat paint, and I had the worst time keeping mildew off the walls. Also notice that I have an astringent and facial lotion. Queer Eye for the Straight guy was popular back then, and the queers said that all guys should be using an astringent and facial lotion daily. I listen to them for awhile, but it quickly became too much of a hassle.

Here is a picture of my old medicine cabinet.

This is half of the junk that filled up my spare bedroom while I was working on the bathroom.

First I tore everything out that I wasn’t going to keep. I would have liked to replace the vanity, but that would have required replacing the floor, which was beyond my skill set and the floor looked to be fairly new. So I opted to just replace the top of the vanity, and hope that it would look new. Here is the bathroom with the mirror, light fixture, and old vanity top removed.

This was the scariest part of the remodel. I found a medicine cabinet at Lowe’s that was the same width as my old medicine cabinet, but one and a half inches longer. This meant I had to cut out 1.5 inches of drywall, which was scary, because if I screwed up, I had no idea how to fix it. It took me about half a day to remove the 1.5 inch strip of drywall, but I got it done.

Here is a picture of the bathroom after painting. Painting might have been the worst part of the job. We (I had an assistant) put on one coat of primer (because of the mildew issues), and then two coats of paint. Painting the ceiling was the worst part. It’s a small room, but it’s hard to reach everywhere you need to reach. While painting, Earl was locked in my bedroom, and he meowed as if he was being brutally murdered. Painting a cramped room for hours with a cat howling in the background, awesome.

Speaking of Earl, here he is checking out the new vanity top and paint job.

Here is Earl playing plumber.

Oh what the hell, this is the internet, you can never have too many cat pictures.

Drum roll please. No seriously, I need you to actually do a drumroll… The finished bathroom.

Another picture of the new bathroom. That mirror was the most expensive single item, but I love it. It’s from Pottery Barn, in case you wanted to know. I was a little frightened to hang it, because in order for it to be centered over the sink, I couldn’t attach it to a stud. It came with some pretty heavy duty drywall anchors though, and it has held firm for the past 3 and a half years. Yes, those are pictures of kittens in my bathroom. They are in black and white though, so that makes it cool.

One more picture, with the new medicine cabinet. Also, notice the new brushed nickel towel racks, and the new vent cover, and you can’t see it, but I also put a new cover on the ceiling fan so that it would look new. Go me!

That’s it, my bathroom remodel is complete. I also had my kitchen remodeled a little over a year ago. You can read about that here, here, and here. I think my next home improvement project is going to be new flooring. I want to get laminate wood flooring throughout my condo, including the steps. I don’t want to know how much that is going to cost though, or how it can be done with all my furniture and a cat in the way. Hmm…   

I worked out tonight. Please… Please.. hold your applause. I want to be the type of person that works out regularly, and I manage to do so for months at a time, but I also manage to go months without working out. Let’s take a trip back in time. When I was in high school, I was on the swim team. I used to swim fairly intensely for 2 hours a day 5 days a week for 10 months of the year. I was in great shape. When I think of how many calories a day I must have burned then versus what I burn now, I cry a little.

In college, I didn’t work out much, but I was still fairly active. For one, I walked all over campus every day, and I rode my bike a little. I gained a little weight in college, but honestly, I probably needed to gain that weight. After college, things got a little worse. In grad school, I spent more and more time in front of a computer, and when I had to start cooking for myself, I ate less and less healthy. At one point, I weighed myself and found out that I had gained 40 pounds since high school. This was a little alarming, so I started going to the rec center on campus, and after a couple months I got myself back to a healthy weight.

Then I entered the working world. My job requires virtually no physical activity whatsoever. Unless you count typing. The most exercise I am forced to get is the two and a half minute walk from my car to my desk. Yes, I have timed it. When I first moved to St. Louis, I joined the Edward Jones YMCA, which is awesome. Seriously, if you live in Maryland Heights, you should check it out. When I moved to Brentwood, I joined the YMCA just down the street, but it wasn’t as nice, and I stopped going. This led to a long period of no exercise. Then a couple years ago, they opened a fitness center at work. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s very convenient. I got into a good habit of working out regularly for nearly a year, but then I got distracted, and I quit.

The problem is, the gym just isn’t fun. You end up doing the same thing every day, and day after day it gets old. I have a new plan though, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to stick with this plan a little longer. Here it is:

• 10 minutes on the elliptical machine doing some form of interval training. This means you go fast, then slow, then fast, then slow.
• Around 15 minutes on the weight machines. I’ll do 1 set of 12 reps on 7 different machines. I’ll alternate which machines i use on different days.
• 10 more minutes of interval training on the elliptical machine.

This is different from my old workout, where I would spend 30 minutes on weight machines, and then 30 minutes on the elliptical at a constant speed. I’m hoping the new plan will be faster paced, and thus less boring. I’ve heard that it’s better to split up your cardio, so that your pulse is elevated during your entire workout. I’ve also heard that doing some form of interval training for your cardio burns more calories than going at a constant speed.

I tried this new plan tonight, and it definitely went faster. It was nice not having to drudge through 30 minutes on the elliptical machine, and I have to admit, the interval training felt more intense. Plus, it was a lot more fun. The biggest benefit to this new plan is that I’m in and out of the gym in less than an hour. This makes it much more likely that I’ll stick with it, and more likely that I’ll start up again if I miss a few weeks. Wish me luck. And, um, you should probably get back to working out too. You can’t fool me, I know how many hours a day you sit there reading blogs. Go for a walk.

Wikimedia Commons : ChrisnHouston

Yesterday I blogged about what I would change in the U.S. Government if I could. Today, I’m going to talk about the answer a lot of other people would give. Eliminating the Electoral College. In case you don’t know, and seriously, you should know, but in case you don’t, the Electoral College is how the United States elects a President and Vice President. Each State is given one elector for each Senator and Representative in the House. Washington D.C. get’s three electors. There are 538 electors in total. Each State decides how to split up their electoral votes depending on the popular vote in that State. Most states use a winner take all system, where whichever candidate wins the popular vote wins all of the State’s electoral votes. So, if a candidate wins a large state with a slim margin in the popular vote, he or she still takes home a large number of electoral votes. This is how George Bush was able to lose the popular vote by 500,000 in the 2000 election, but still win more electoral votes and thus win the election.

Many people believe that George Bush stole the election in 2000 because of our flawed electoral college system. This isn’t really fair though, because candidates campaign to win the most electoral votes. Had George Bush been campaigning to win the popular vote, it is entirely possible that he would have done so. Of course Al Gore wasn’t trying to win the popular vote either, and yet he managed to do it. Regardless, the point is, we don’t know what would have happened in a popular vote election.

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who didn’t think the Electoral College should be eliminated. It’s just that it takes a constitutional amendment to change it, and it hardly ever makes a difference anyways, so why bother? The Electoral College does have it’s good points. It is supposed to protect the rights of small states. Which I think is a fair argument. There is a lot of group think going on in elections. I think most people vote for who their peers vote for, rather than making up their own mind. Just because some groups have more people in them, doesn’t make their opinions any more valid.

All in all, if it were up to me, I would probably eliminate the Electoral College. It doesn’t actually do much to protect the rights of small states, and to a small extent, it undermines the credibility of our democracy. It is interesting to think about how Presidential elections would change if we went to a popular vote system. Under our current system, candidates spend a vast majority of their time in a few key swing states, while a lot of other states are completely ignored. If we went to a popular vote system, I imagine that candidates would spend most of their time in major population centers, and the more rural areas would be ignored. This would probably be an improvement, since candidates would have to pay attention to a lot more of the country.

Wow, you have no idea how boring this blog post is. Oh wait, yes you do, you just read it. Why didn’t you stop and do something better with your time. I’m sorry. You have no idea how many times I stopped while writing this and thought, oh God, this is so boring, just post a Haiku or something. Oh well, at least I checked another NaBloPoMo day off. I’ll post pictures of my cat tomorrow. Everybody loves cat pictures.

Once upon a time, I was senior in High School. As a senior, I had to take a class called American Government. In my high school, everyone was required to take American Government as a senior, which sucked. The nice thing about senior year was that different types of people had self selected themselves onto different paths. Some of us were taking AP classes and applying to college, and some of us were doing other things. American government was the exception to this though, because it threw us all back into one big collective high school student pot. Wonderful. Do I come off snobbish in this paragraph? Oh well, just calling it like I vaguely remember it.

None of what I just said is important. What is important is that in American Government, we learned all about the constitution and the legislative process. At the end of the class, our teacher asked us what change we would make to our government, if we could. My answer at the time was pretty lame. I think I said that I would give Washington D.C. a senator and house representative, since D.C. had no representation in the U.S. congress, which does seem unfair.

Today I have a better answer. Prepare yourself, are you ready to digest my radical ideology??? Wait for it… If I could change one thing about the United States government, I would eliminate the primary election system. For all national elections, there would be a run-off election in May. In this election, every voter would vote among every candidate. There would be no partisan elections. Then, the top two candidates from the run-off election would move on to the general election in November.

This solves a few problems. First, we no longer have the third party candidate problem. I hate the fact that people are forced to choose between the candidate they love, and the candidate they just like, but has a realistic shot of being elected. Under this new plan, you can vote for whomever you want in the run-off election to let your voice be heard. Then, in the general election, you choose the remaining candidate you like the most. If the remaining candidates are two republicans, fine. If they are two democrats, fine. If they are two independents, fine.

Another benefit to this plan, in my mind at least, is that it gives the most power to the moderate majority of America. Under the current primary system, the most conservative segment of society chooses one candidate, and the most progressive segment chooses the other. Then the rest of us are left to choose between two extremes in the general election. If we had a run-off election system, we could choose between two different but moderate candidates. This would do wonders for our sanity.

To be fair, I think our system works well, it could just be better. In my probably biased view, most Democratic candidates are actually fairly moderate. The Republicans on the other hand, ehh, not so much. John McCain is fairly moderate, and would have been a decent President. Sarah Palin on the other hand? She’s a whack job. I should probably say something more diplomatic, but sorry, that’s how I see it. I feel like today’s moderate Republicans are being held hostage by the tea partiers. This is unfortunate, and I believe our country would benefit from a system that prevents these unhealthy relationships.

So, what do you think? Am I crazy? I mean because of this blog post, not because of anything else you may have read (or heard, or witnessed). If I could change another thing about the American government, I would probably eliminate the electoral college. Which is an interesting thought experiment. How would U.S. elections change if there was no electoral college? Maybe I’ll blog about that tomorrow.