A Foreign Policy Liberal?

According to this quiz by the Christian Science Monitor, I am a foreign policy liberal. I thought, and based on a class at UF, I was a realist. Of course, the quiz doesn't record my answers, nor does it mention how close I am to having a different foreign policy perspective. I've noticed that I am a liberal on most matters - until matters of degrees and gradations kick in, in which I become a moderate. Check out the quiz to see where you lie on foreign policy questions.

Canada Tilts To the Absurd

In my stepmother's native Canada, parliamentary elections yesterday handed the governing Liberals a fourth straight election victory - albeit this time without a majorty. The results overall appeared to mirror recent elections, although the New Democrats were the big winners in terms of votes. In fact, the expected Conservative win failed to materialize because the NDP got most of the protest vote and thereby denied the CPC a stronger showing in Ontario.

That being said, the voters also failed to produce a clear working majority for either side. A likely alliance of the Liberals and the NDP, before the inevitable recounts, stand at 154 - exactly half of the new Parliament. The Conservatives and the separatists also land at 154. Not an exactly happy occurrance.

Patrick Taylor has a couple good tables summarizing the results.

Relaunching of www.kenkerns.com

The relaunch of my homepage, KenKerns.com, has finally happened. Most of my archival material, including links to my previous weblogs, will come in time, but the design is up and running. I will also add other content as it becomes available. Enjoy!

Website Renovation

I have not updated this blog in the last week because I was transferring my web hosting functions from Yahoo! to another service provider that'll save me money, as well as provide more options for site development. Expect me to catch the blog up on things as soon as I get the website relaunched.

5 Years Hence

After cleaning part of the apartment this weekend, I came across a letter I received in the mail a few months ago. It was a time-capsule-styled message I had written to myself 5 years ago as part of an English writing exercise. It was January 1999, senior year of high school down in Florida, and I had very little clues as to what I wanted. I didn't even think I'd be accepted at UC Berkeley and would turn them down for financial reasons. In short, it's been a fantastic ride the last 5 years.

Bachelors and masters both completed. Shocked my friends and family by moving to D.C. and adopting a cat a year later. Put my financial house in order, even as I enjoyed life in the nation's capital. Set up several websites, ran a few campaigns, and garnered several awards from peers that liked what I did. I even managed to write the first draft of not one, but two, mystery novels.

What will I say five years hence, within spit-shot of my 28th birthday? Will I have any books published? Will I be more financially secure, in a better job? It’s tough to look out at the road ahead and make guesses like this. Post a comment if you want to share your own predictions, whether it be about me, you, someone you know, or anything about the next five years.

McCain-manic-depressive Seduction Continues

As the Los Angeles Times reports today, Senator John Kerry has continued his relentless pursuit of his friend John McCain's acceptance of the VP spot. Or did he?

I'm confused here, guys. Is McCain seriously a possibility? If so, doesn't that diminish Kerry's actual pick come convention time? Because we definitely know by now that McCain ain't going to go along with it.

Whether media-sponsored or not, this obsession with the Kerry-McCain should stop and move on to something more realistic before we bore all the liberal activists to death and deliver Bush his badly wanted and poorly deserved landslide.

SG Antics Never End

In today’s Independent Florida Alligator, it is made clear that Student Government antics will continue, regardless of who is in office or what is at stake – and that is good news for someone like me who is trying to publish a trilogy based on the silliness and over-zealousness of SG elites.

This time, a perennial target for bickering (because of the prestige of its directorship and its penchant for overspending), Student Government Productions, the campus entertainment bureau, was at the center of the controversy as Innovate, the Senate’s majority, voted down the Access-backed nominee.

I, for one, think this is par for the course in SG – except that the Senate President (elected as a mediator between the two groups) used his presidential ambitions to play fast with the Senate rules, rather than have an honest debate over the director-nominee’s qualifications. All that is going to do is keep the Senate divided and make his chances slim for an easy election in the spring.

After all, antagonizing the popular and non-elitist President Jamal Sowell is not a smart thing to do if Goldberg wants to succeed him.

Reagan's Death

Death is always an ugly topic. And say what you will about Ronald Reagan's political legacy, but it is only the cold-hearted who do not acknowledge the short-term pain and mourning of the former President by his loving family. Even worse, this was truly a long goodbye for them.

Alzheimer's is a horrific mental disease, almost as bad as having a stroke. My family has suffered from both – my mother is a recovering stroke victim, and my grandmother’s mind is slowly decaying from Alzheimer’s. It is really tough to say which hits the family more acutely – with a stroke, most survivors tend to visibly redevelop their mental and physical abilities, but with Alzheimer’s there really is no turning back, just a slow and mindless downturn in one’s mental – but not necessarily physical – health.

I am as sorry for his death as I am sorry for his family having to see him slowly deteriorate over the last decade. Whether the country needs gavel-to-gavel news coverage, week-long tributes, a month-long flag salute, and a federal government holiday during his funeral, is not my place to say. But I will say its premature to talk about adding his likeness to money, renaming buildings, and setting up memorials.

First, we should complement his political legacy with a personal one – and support his wife Nancy’s efforts to find a cure for that dreadful mine-killer that is Alzheimer’s disease.

Cyberia Awaits!

If you wanted to practice politics, but hate the regular timetable of America's system, consider joining the Virtual Commonwealth of Cyberia. I helped found the micronation 7 years ago, and it is one of the Net's longest-running examples of a virtual democracy. Conservatives, this is your chance to challenge some opinionated socialists! Have fun!

Welcome!

This is a relaunching of the weblog for Ken Kerns, an aspiring political manager from Generation Y. This is used in conjunction with www.kenkerns.com to detail my current exploits, and offer you a chance to keep in contact with me.