Last night I went to the meeting of the North Tempe Neighborhood Association in order to learn enough about the candidates for state representative for legislative district 17. I decided to vote for Ed Ableser after hearing him mention Vancouver, Canada as an example of how better to treat people with drug use problems rather than the current US policy of prohibition and incarceration (don't get me wrong, Vancouver is still Fascist lite, but until people have learned to mind their own p's and q's it beats more of the same). I then chose to vote for Rhett Wilson for a reason I have been unable to document on the web basically having to do with his performance as resident and City Council member of Kearny, Arizona as well has his stated dislike of government accounting gimmicks (although what candidate is going to come out in favor of them eh?). I came oh so close to giving the second slot to David Shapira because while although every single Democrat there was a Socialist ala "Goverment isn't the problem, it's the solution!" I figure that Mr. Shapira's keen sense of humor might presage an intellect worthy of Jon Stewart. Lastly my mother and I were able to listen to Angie Crouse give her pitch on why voters should choose her come election day. She gave a fine presentation but suffers from the same ailment the 3 other Democrats do which is they have yet to meet a government program or law they don't like. I can readily see each of the Democratic candidates getting elected and coming back in an interview 2 years later claiming that the reason education is not all peaches and cream is that the law of outrage don't permit the government to impound all private monies and hand it straight across to government school teachers (they do this now on a smaller basis, they just 'allow' us to keep some of our money). I can easily imagine any one of the four candidates claiming that the reason public (government) education fails to educate is (insert existing tired, old excuse) class sizes aren't small enough, we don't pay government teachers enough, we just need one more blue ribbon panel, we need to 'support' the teachers (more) or the standards are too tough (ditch AIMS)] (boo-freakin-hoo).