worship Nader! but not this year, please.....

Much gnashing of teeth and exasperated slapping of foreheads among Democrat supporters as Ralph Nader announces his intention to run for President of the USA in the upcoming election. Those same Democrat supporters will be hoping that Nader's support runs at 2004 levels (just under half a million votes), and not 2000 levels (just under 3 million votes), and that the race isn't as close as it was in 2000.

It's as certain as it's possible to be in hindsight that Nader's election campaign in 2000 took more votes from people who would otherwise have voted for Al Gore than it did from people who would otherwise have voted for George W Bush, and that therefore Nader is directly responsible for the Bush presidency. So if you're inclined to dismiss him as a harmless crank, or enthuse about him adding a bit of much-needed colour and interest, etc. etc., well, think on.

As ever, one of Tim Kreider's pictures speaks a thousand words. And there are words too, if you want them. It's slightly amusing that Nader's own campaign website features an image of big bolts of lightning coming out of the sky as well. Maybe he's seen the cartoon.

Just to shoehorn a religious reference in here, I'm reminded that there was a bizarre sect in Greg Bear's excellent science fiction epic Eon called the Orthodox Naderites who worshipped, erm, Ralph Nader (long since dead in their particular reality). The link is taken from this site which lists religious cults and practices depicted in fiction (largely science fiction, in practice). It's got the space-station-dwelling Rastas from William Gibson's Neuromancer, so it's OK with me. Neuromancer, incidentally, appears in the Time magazine 20th-century classic book list I referenced in my last book review. And rightly so.