[Sina]

I'm going to ride my little, yellow bike into this conversation, just to say something utterly pointless.

Shock tactic on the McCain campaign's part. Nothing more. Bad choice for VP.

Don't like her, don't trust her.

Anyway, VPs don't do dick, so her involvement doesn't sway my vote.

Palin just makes the whole thing laughable, in my opinion. Especially the whole deal with her daughter. Well, that's laughable mostly because I saw that edited parody-picture of Juno or whatever it was.

[J m HofMarN]

The Palin buzz has largely faded. Unless she does something particularly noteworthy in her debate with Biden, she's a non entity. And if she cant act like a responsible and sane adult, or resorts to complaining about people picking on her, she's going to very quickly become a big liability.

By the way, is anyone else as impressed as I am with the Obama ground game? To volunteer I have to travel like 6 miles to the nearest office. One of at least 20 in Virginia alone. McCain has like three I think.

[Spoon Poetic]

It's over and done! I'm very glad that it's over. However, I'm nervous about the years ahead. (Though no more or less nervous than if it had been McCain that won - I didn't like either of them, personally.)

History has been made - first black president! How cool! Even if you hate Obama that is a pretty awesome thing to get to witness.

[TheOrator]

This is my surprised face.

On the plus side (I, too, liked neither of them), I don't have to eat that disgusting pickle tomorrow.

[J m HofMarN]

Wwwooooooooooooooooooooooo woooooooooooooooooooooooo

OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Champagne flowed freely! We were actually shown the results (unlike the McCain parties). After Ohio we knew that he had won it, and then we just stayed to eat our foods and see McCain's concession, and see if we won our home state (Virginia) we were trailing early on, but when the Northern areas were tallied we ended up over 10000 votes up. We took Virginia for the first time in half a century!

There are a lot of "Virginia is McCain Country" signs that will need to be amended to the past-tense.

I reiterate:

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[Gobbler]

I can only second that statement. 's all about ideals and opinions at this point, and Obi is the right one there.

Common sense strikes back. Goddamn effin' finally.

[J m HofMarN]

http://jmhoffman.blogspot.com/

bloggage. it's a long one.

[Gobbler]

Turns out a couple that I had cooked for Monday recognized me.

I got stuck at this sentence for about five minutes.

Anyhoo, my colleagues and the media here are all equally relieved about the results, it seems. America's already lost a bit of the horrible reputation that it built up since the beginning of the war in Iraq.

[Dr Lecter]

Damn, the downside is that now Obama can't be our King ... Maybe when he's done being President.

[civilian_number_two]

California's Proposition 8 appears to have won, with 52 percent of the vote on the Yes side to jut under 48 for No. So unless the final count fixes that, this was no perfect day. Black President, big deal. Even the state of California is still stuck in the past.

This post has been edited by civilian_number_two: 05 November 2008 - 11:54 AM

[J m HofMarN]

Well, we do have a ways to go, but we're going to get there one of these days. There are some good points in the ballot initiatives.

"Meantime, Colorado and South Dakota rejected anti-abortion initiatives.

In Washington state, voters decided to join Oregon as the only states offering terminally ill people the option of physician-assisted suicide.

Michigan approved medical marijuana, and Massachusetts decriminalized the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana."

However two other Western states also banned gay marriage. But those reactionary measures are going to end up as legal dinosaurs on the books soon enough, embarassments to the states that passed them.

[Spoon Poetic]

Florida banned gay marriage too, right?

I know it will be a couple decades but I am waiting for the day that the U.S. Supreme Courts make it "unconstitutional" to deny these privileges to gays. (I call them privileges because really, the things one gets from a marriage isn't really what I would consider a "right," whether you are gay or straight.) I mean, the only argument that isn't religious is just that "well it's just dern always been that way and so it oughta dern stay that way." (Though the argument about whether "separation of church and state" is legitimate or not gets brought up a lot, too - that phrase is actually nowhere in the Constitution and is not an actual law of the land the way most people think it is.)

I hope Obama is as great as everyone thinks he is. I don't think McCain would have been as disastrous as all the liberals say, but I don't think Obama is as great, either. There are looooots of things that Obama wants to do that I DON'T want to see happen. And there are lots of other things that he wanted to do that he was entirely too unclear on the "how" it's going to happen, which also makes me nervous. Also, the fact that now EVERYTHING (presidency, House, and Senate) is completely run by democrats makes me nervous. Not that it being run by Republicans a few years back was better, but I like it best when there are plenty of both parties to go around, so that they can argue lots and give some sort of semblance of a "checks-and-balances" system.

But I am insanely excited about the history our country has made, and I hope things do turn around superbly like all the liberals would have me believe. And I of course don't believe the conservatives who think that now it'd be better to move to Canada, because we're going the way of the USSR. Puh-lease.

I really liked McCain's speech; he was very gracious and humble and supportive. It made me proud. I wonder what Obama's concession speech might have been like. And like Obama said, this is just the beginning. The country's not going to magically be an awesome place just because Obama's president, now. A lot of people seem to think so, but really it's going to be a while before anything changes, and who knows if those changes really will make us a better country? We won't know until it happens.

[Dr Lecter]

Though the argument about whether "separation of church and state" is legitimate or not gets brought up a lot, too - that phrase is actually nowhere in the Constitution and is not an actual law of the land the way most people think it is.

Well... if that's the case it probably just comes from the founding fathers and their distrust of organised religion. Kinda ironic really, alot of them left Europe (Britain in particular) because they wanted to escape organised religion, now it's alot bigger over there than it is here. Abit like us exporting convicts down under, and now they have one of the lowest levels of crime in the world.

This post has been edited by Dr Lecter: 05 November 2008 - 08:59 PM

[civilian_number_two]

Good comments all round from JM and Spoon to my sad negativity. Here I sit in Pismo Beach California acting like the sky fell, even after the candidate I wanted actually won by a solid margin. And his party holds reasonable majorities as well in the Senate as well as the House. So that's good.

I disagree that the social effects of marriage are little more than priveledges, but I won't get into it here. I have been chastized recently for bringing the wqrong shit to the wrong rooms. I can only tolerate one of those a week.

The weather here is gorgeous by the way. I'm almost sorry to be heading back to Vancouver.

[Deucaon]

I was under the impression that America's founding fathers believed that the "self evident" "truths" were god given. If so then how can one possibly separate church and state if the foundation of the law/society is built around god given rights?

Well... if that's the case it probably just comes from the founding fathers and their distrust of organised religion. Kinda ironic really, alot of them left Europe (Britain in particular) because they wanted to escape organised religion, now it's alot bigger over there than it is here. Abit like us exporting convicts down under, and now they have one of the lowest levels of crime in the world.

To be fair, the majority of exported convicts were arresting for stealing bread and such.