08:49 – I just watched the original video posted by Amanda Todd, the 15-year-old Canadian girl who killed herself after being tortured on Facebook and physically assaulted, all because as a seventh grader she made the mistake of flashing her boobs on a webcam video.
Apparently no one–not her family, not her friends, not her teachers, no one–was able to help this girl. When I read the news story, I went over to Google Images to see what the girl looked like. That’s where this image came from. And among the top image results was one that was truly nauseating: a post from 4chan asking if anyone had the picture of Amanda’s boobs. Jesus.
14:55 – While I was walking Colin earlier today, I stopped to speak with one of the neighbors. He asked me who I thought was likely to win the coming election. I told him that unless something changes drastically, I expect Romney to win in a landslide. I’ll be surprised if Obama wins 221 electoral votes, let alone 271. And I suspect that’s what’s going to happen for the same reason that Obama won last time. Few people actually supported Obama’s ideas, to the extent he had any. They were voting for Obama as not-Bush, and this time I suspect people will vote for Romney as not-Obama.
People understand that things are bad in this country and that Obama hasn’t done anything to make them better. I think people will vote for a change, even though many are aware they’re really just voting for the same-old same-old. Still, given only two realistic choices, I think they’ll pick the not-Obama one.
North Carolina is supposedly a “swing state”, but I don’t sense that locally. I see many fewer Obama signs now than I saw four years ago, and if Obama loses North Carolina’s cities he has no chance to win the state. Rural North Carolina will vote overwhelmingly Republican. I suspect the same is true in the other so-called swing states as well. Obama’s liberal constituency, blacks, labor union members, and so on will vote for Obama, no matter what. The religious right and most of those who are well off will vote for Romney, no matter what. But I think those in the middle, the ones who don’t particularly want to vote for either candidate, will vote for Romney simply because he’s not-Obama. We’ll see.