19 THOUSAND

My initial take on the Florida re-count was that Bush would probably win anyway. This is based on the assumption that the few thousand military absentee ballots would go his way[1] and the fact that the "found" ballot box didn't even contain ballots.

Just this morning I heard that 19,000 ballots were "thrown out" in Palm Beach because people had punched two candidates for president. Again, my initial take was that the situation was that folks were questioning that there would be so many votes (just under 4K, I think) for Pat Buchanan in that district. Now who's to question that sort of thing? You can't guess how a district is going to go, and that seemed to require an assumption that people were too dumb to figure out the ballot (though it does look kinda confusing). Once I heard that 19,000 voters in that district clearly couldn't figure out the ballot form, I changed my mind. Even if Gore got a small majority there, that could swing the election, but what is the right thing to do? Do you let that district vote again? I bet a lot of them would vote differently (ie the Nader vote will disappear) if given the chance to vote in the current situation. Doesn't that make it wrong to call a re-do?

So, I took CNN's vote counts and did some math (there are rounding errors):

Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Portion of 19K
Gore	269,696	62.3%	11,843
Bush	152,954	35.3%	6,716
Nader	5,564	1.3%	244
Buchanan	3,407	0.8%	150
Browne	743	0.2%	33
Philips	188	0.0%	8
Hagelin	143	0.0%	6
Total	432,695	100.0%	19,000

As you can see, this is clearly enough to change the election and swing it for Gore since that would give him a 5K vote advantage in that district. It's obvious that a lot of folks in Palm Beach feel disenfranchised and totally screwed (some are protesting as I write!).

A while back, someone made the joke that maybe we need UN observers to make sure our elections are fair. It was ironic and mildly entertaining. Where's your irony now?

I can't really blame the Democrats for going after this, but it's a shame that the person who approved that ballot form was a Democratic official. You know, I bet this sort of shit occurs ALL THE TIME. It's just not usually worth looking into since elections are rarely this close.

So, I have to say that I enjoyed the new South Park last night. I noticed something though: The dark-haird dork, referred to as Pizza Face, was wearing the same sort of wrist brace I have to wear. This confirms, of course, that the wearing of such a brace marks one as a complete and total dork. At least THAT dork's brace was black.

And that got me to thinking.

Why am I not dealing with this thing as a fashion accessory? I have to wear it nearly all the time. I can and do make things out of leather and I've got some black leather with a fairly firm hand lying about. All I have to do is re-use the removable plastic portion of the brace (the splint part) in my own creation. I think I'll be making a one of these this weekend.

If this comes out half-ass good, I should sell them on the net. I'm totally serious. How many of you wear a wrist brace for an RSS? How many of you would like a cool leather one?

I'm going to start hitting SCA sites to look up patterns and information on the vambrace and gauntlet construction. I'm going to make this one with velcro, but I have to admit it would look better with buckles, rings or laces. I can't do grommets this weekend (I have a grommet tool, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to work it), and I can't get decent rings or buckles on short notice, so I suspect I'll be doing velcro this time. Or, alternately, I could go to G Street Fabrics on the way home and see what I can come up with...

Oops. It's not really like a gauntlet or a vambrace. Oh well, I've got the medical appliance beige knit version to work with anyway.