True or False?

The more you learn about something, the more intriguing it becomes? No? hmm...the more interesting it becomes? Still no? uhh...the more you understand why others could be so intrigued/interested in it? Bingo.

What am I referring to? Well it could be a great many things, but today this relates to politics. Eek! Yes. Politics. Never a hot topic on my radar, nor anything I've ever really bothered to investigate or even have the slightest passing interest in. But today I learned a little more about how the system works, and could start to see how some people (yes i accented those two words for effect...i still don't get how people can get some consumed and fascinated by politics...i just don't) could be so fascinated by it.

After watching a pretty terrible, and yet for the very same reason, a wildly entertaining movie (Shoot 'Em Up), I flipped over to the channel guide and saw the IOWA CAUCUS was on, or had just ended, and because of both of those were true/were going to be true, some 1800 of the channels had current or post-caucus coverage. Political caucus coverage? Really? Even before I knew what that was I found it rather dull and boring. Then I come to find out its just the state of Iowa determining who the people prefer. Apparently its kind of like a primary election, but I still don't see why it didn't several different channels of coverage...or even a single channel. Political pundits debating and arguing and arguing and arguing and trying their hardest to sound hyper-intelligent about what the state of Iowa thinks about this year's candidates. Or maybe it was ongoing footage of people voting. WHOA! Or maybe the actual candidates were there and it was a lot of LIVE!!!!! footage of them pacing a stage, using lots of hand gestures, and OVer ENUNCiaTING theIR worDS to try AND mAke theiR POints seEm THat much MORe....annoying?.....artificial?....oh wait...important? Meh.

So whatever the coverage was....yay CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, etc for all covering the same boring stuff. I mean...even the boring matchup of Kansas v. Va Tech in the Orange Bowl (which turned out to be slightly more exciting because the underdog (Kansas) ended up winning and thus proving they belonged in such a BIG bowl game...woot for Jayhawks football in '07 (no really I'm serious here)) was 10 times more interesting to me than the caucus coverage. And who came up with the word caucus anyway? It sounds dirty. Sounds made up. Sounds...again like I don't care.

Anyway. At lunch today the winners for the two parties at the caucus was brought up by one of my two bosses. Apparently Obama was the "winning" donkey & Huckabee was the "winning" elephant. Notice I didn't call him an ass...ha. See I can do political humor...on second thought, no thanks. So I had no idea what all of this meant, or why it was necessary, or blah-dee-dee-blah-blah. So I asked. And here is what I learned (I think):

-a caucus is a like a primary election, which serves the purpose of giving a preliminary reading on which party, and which candidates from each party the state, as a whole, favors.

-WA state has primaries, not a caucus (good call us...I don't like the way caucus sounds)

-(was reminded of this, bc I forgot I knew this) in WA state if you vote Donkey or Elephant for your presidential candidate, all the rest of your votes have to be within the same party.
-now i think this is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.

-after all these prelim type votes are cast, eventually the national partisan political something or rather convention meets and picks their "main man" for their respective party...the person who they believe will best represent their party as President. I guess this convention is made up of a select few/several from each state.
-but apparently this choice does not have to be who their state favored...or something...yea

-then after the animals choose their respective leaders of the pack, the nation gets to vote in the popular vote...which in some states means absolutely diddly squat when the electoral votes for that state are cast. (This is what I found most interesting.)

-in certain states, the popular vote determines the electoral vote. its an all or nothing type deal. in other states, a candidate can win the popular vote for the state, but the person(s) casting the electoral vote can vote for whoever they want...if they want to keep their job they will choose who the state chose, but still interesting the "power of choice" they still posses.

This is why the recount in FL was such a big deal (which I didn't know, bc I know the popular vote doesn't win elections, electoral votes do), because FL is one of those "all or nothing" states, so whoever won the popular vote got the electoral votes, and thus the presidency.

I found all that interesting...and I may have screwed up the explanation, or even flat out lied, but that's what I remember (or that's what I was told, and if I was told wrong then I have no control over that).

Mother's Mortgage update: they won't allow her Pampered Chef income bc she hasn't been doing it for two years. They will only allow her soon-to-be raise to be retroactive back to September 1 (which is what the raise is doing, but they won't let us project it out forward and use that higher number). They won't change the program from EA1 back to 30 YR FRM (Expanded Approval (for "risky" borrowers...which my mom is NOT but the numbers aren't coming out coming out good enough for them)...30 year fixed rate mortgage). And the boss has been on the phone for the last 30-45 minutes to try and see if switching to a 5 YR I/O (interest only) will solve the problem (bc the qualifying rate for an I/O is lower bc its interest only and not a fully amortized principal and interest payment).

So we shall.

Luckily it was a good day and should continue that way as its Friday & my dad's birthday. Us kids are takin' him out to a hockey game, which is always fun, so the night should just keep gettin' better...although it will be weird to go to a hockey game with my dad and not partake in some beers...bc I did give up booze for 2008 and after four days sober I'm feelin' good I'll make it all year

:D