You may or may not know this, but 2015 is shaping up to be a big election year in San Francisco. Yes, it's an off-year. Yes, there are "only" nine propositions on the ballot. Nonetheless, if you believe the rhetoric, this is the year that's going to make it or break it for the city of San Francisco. How do I know all this? It's because I read through all 46 pieces of printed advertising that I've received so far this season.

At a conservative cost of 35¢ for each glossy full-color card-stock (plus another 0.1¢ for pre-sorted standard in-zipcode postage, but that doesn't matter much), the candidates have already spent $16 advertising just to my household. If you assume the same cost to every one of the 33,400 registered voters¹ in District 3², that's $537,740 spent on just paper mailings in just my district for this off-year election. Clearly, either it's important or a lot of people have a lot of money to burn.³

I'm particularly amused because I made my decisions on most of these issues quite a long time ago; my mailbox is just a pit in which various special interests are burning money. Although on the District 3 Supervisor vote, the ads have swayed me a little bit — I intended (and probably still intend) to vote for Christensen because I fully support increasing the population density of San Francisco and the surrounding suburban wasteland to normal city levels⁴. However, the absolutely idiotic attack ads on both sides are making me wonder if I should vote for Pang. I mean, she's a Republican and doesn't seem to have ever published any meaningful positions anywhere⁵, but at least she isn't sending me attack-filled junk mail.

Anyhow, early voting has started, so hopefully the ads will start to taper off. If you haven't gone through the literature and decided how you're voting, now's a good time. At the very least, you can enjoy some typical [ridiculous] Dr. Terence Faulkner, J.D. rants.