The Dark Balloon

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One dollars.

“The boat is sinking,” reported the sailor to the captain.

“Do nothing about it,” the captain said.

Five men jumped overboard, and so the sailor returned.

“The boat is still sinking, and we’ve lost five men.”

“I’ve got it under control,” the captain said. The captain sat his desk, sipped his whiskey, and rubbed his legs.

Ten more men jumped overboard, and so the sailor returned.

“The boat is almost completely underwater, and we’ve lost half our men.”

The captain jumped up, knocked over his liquor, and threw on his captain’s coat. He grabbed his fifteen life rafts, one for him and fourteen for backup.

“Good God, Jones—” the captain bellowed.

“It’s Charles, sir.”

“—why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

The captain rushed down to the leak. Floating among the water in the boat was a plank. The captain—with the greatest effort—reached down, grabbed the plank, and tried to plug the leak.

To no avail.

The captain inflated his life raft, took the other fourteen with him, and prepared to jump.

“But, captain, what about us?”

“I’ve done as much as I could, and nobody can blame me,” the captain announced. He left with the rafts and floated toward the oncoming rescue ship, which had just arrived, hours late.

“What a hero,” the sailor said, standing on the sinking ship with tears in his eyes.

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Australian-American ballot.

So you or your “friend” voted in the recent election for Democratic candidates. Great. Good job, you’re exercising your right to vote. The problem is that your vote makes other people’s vote count less. Your little narcissistic world with you in the middle cares about lofty ideals like hope and change and freedom and liberty, and you get to laugh at the follies of others above you on The Daily Show, broadcasted straight to your high-definition television. Meanwhile, people with real issues like those smelly people on the street and on the roofs and back on the street again have their votes diluted. Don’t their votes deserve to count more? Who’s affected more by the government: you, some kid that can barely spell welfare much less know about it—some kid whose worst daily experience would be tainted weed, or Joe Poverty, chain-smoking his way through Gulf War Syndrome, living day to day on the VA office or Medicare or VAcare or whatever? There, I hope I have now persuaded you to take off your rose-tinted contact lenses and see voting for what it really is: another American sham.

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Asa Dotzler, terminator.

Asa, a QA and project manager for the Mozilla Team, is running for governor. You can see the MozillaZine post here and you can also visit his campaign website (soon to be completed) where you will soon be able to donate money. Although it is unlikely Asa will win, all of us from MZ wish him well.

Update (2008.11.14): The campaign website domain is now defunct. You now need to register to view the thread, but here is the original post.

Forget Arnold, looks like Mozilla Foundation's own Asa is running to become California's governor! [1] [2]

UPDATE: Looks like Asa has dropped out of the race due to lack of time remaining to answer his remaining questions as well as coming up enough money for the filing fee. Maybe next time Asa. [3]