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I felt compelled to write something today, just so I can keep my rate of posts as roughly every two weeks...

I hate talking about politics. It's about as fun as talking about religion, or abortion, or which unix text editor you like. (geek joke.) But, I need something to write about, and it's a thought that has been floating around in my head for a while.

Lately in Minnesota, there has been a lot of talk about stadiums, be they for baseball or football. I don't know the exact percentage, but Hennepin county (where Minneapolis resides) recently approved a small (less than 1/2%) sales tax increase to pay for a portion of a new stadium for the Minnesota Twins. I'll leave the rant about why they chose to make it without a retractable roof alone. Anyways, this has been in the works for about 10 years now, and one thing you hear constantly is, "let the people decide!" The idea being that a majority of voters would decide yay or nay on this tax and that would be finalw. Which brings me to the point:

Majority rule is NOT democracy. Therefore, neither are referendums.

Democracy is a representative form of government. We elect our representatives to bicker and argue about things and ultimately make a decision. We may not always agree with what they decide, but we are trusting them to consider all the evidence and make an informed decision, so that we don't have to. If we decide that they made poor decisions, then we vote for someone else. It's a slow process, but that's how it's supposed to work.

This isn't meant to be a political science essay, so I'm not going to go back and reinforce all my statements or even check for spelling errors. I'm just tired of the constant cry of "put it to a vote" no matter what the issue...

Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy

Random Thoughts from the MN State Fair

Sorry, no pictures this time either... I need to a) take some, and b) renew my hosting service (or just use blogger, blah blah...)

Ahem... random bullet-pointed thoughts fresh in my mind:

• We are getting fatter as a state/nation. I don't remember noticing it as much previous years...
  
• The food at the fair is no longer very novel -- everything there can be bought at restaurants and "your grocer's freezer." See above. This does not mean that I don't enjoy it... after all, the only other place that I'm aware of in MN to get a genuine Pronto Pup is Canterbury Park.
• Once the sun goes down, the demographics seem to change to be more urban/hipster and less suburban/outstate. I think it's cool that every type of person shows up.
  
• We have a kick-ass fair in terms of size, number of people, and things to see/do. I've been to Wisconsin's... they got nothing on us.
• Lots of political stuff going on: t-shirts, stickers, radio stations, etc. I found it amusing that one of the conservative radio stations in town were interviewing a democratic candidate and there was a distinct difference in volume between the host's microphone and the guest's. (The host's was louder.)
  

That's all I got, figured I'd better write something. Next time: why never to say, "gee, I haven't yet had a flat in 700 miles of riding" while starting a 40 mile bike ride...