Hey, if I could vote in the British, German, Canadian etc. (countries I like) elections, I'd be fine with letting them vote in mine.
But you won't vote in theirs. Neither will they in yours. That's the paradox, really. "If the world could vote..." then it would be voting for something not called "President of the United States." Similarly, if a person is voting for "The president of Country X" then one can assume that the person under discussion has the right to vote in Country X. It's fun exercise, but it's meaningless, at least until we get some form of World government and invent some office and some suffrage criteria, it's meaningless. And certainly not a scientific poll. What's funny is that all these posters are taking it so seriously. Using it to settle arguments. "Ummm, the Chasidic Jews are the most reliably Republican demographic out there." "Oh, yeah? Well, the shellfish-eating reform Jews used to like Liebermann (before he became a mouthpiece for McCain, that is). Now we don't like him either." "Oh, yeah, well apparently Venezuela likes McCain better than Peru."
We really don't know from this link whether Venezuela likes McCain better than Peru, do we? And of course the Chassids are the most reliable Republicans out there, but that really isn't very relevant, since it's almost certain that Obama will win all the electoral votes from New York. A better question would be, "Who ya hopin' will win?" Have that translated into 103 languages, and get some representative polling, and weight appropriately, knowing, for example, that the average Burkina Faso resident neither owns a computer nor knows who is running for U.S. President. Whether such weighting should account for whether a person gives a rats ass who becomes the next president when he's wondering where his next meal is coming from is a matter for debate, of course, but it's important not to take straw polls too seriously.
Now, Tender Branson's at least looking at people who own telephones. Unfortunately, they're going for folks who have more pimples than bills, and who are at that age where they masturbate more times in one day than I've voted in my entire lifetime, but at least they're trying.
It's all in good fun. I'm just ripping the folks taking such internet straw poll results (about a question that poses an existential paradox) as evidence of anything other than the fact that the 304 Macedonians who actually own computers have heard of Obama, and the 2 Burkina Faso residents who actually own computers have apparently heard of McCain. Lest anyone take any of it too seriously.
Well, that and I'm bored. I should probably find something constructive to do. We all should.
