Yesterday was positively historic, make no question.  And enough words will already have been written on how great this election outcome is by the time I hit "Publish" on this sure-to-be-overlooked-by-the-Pulitzer-committee piece, that I'm not going to waste time waxing eloquent on Obama's win. But I have some things I want to get off my chest. First of all, I'm really proud to be a citizen of the United States right now.  As a country, we sent a message to the world -- we get it.  We understand.  We'll be worthy of respect again.  Despite the beliefs of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain, and Sarah Palin, the opinion of the rest of the world matters.  The United States isn't a world power just Because We Say So.  Without the respect of the other nations, the United States is doomed.  We took a big step. I'm also very proud that my first ballot in a general election in this country went towards the first African-American president.  We made history, and my ballot, in its own little way, was a part of that.  For the first time since 1976 a Democrat received better than 50% of the vote. It's big, no question. But I'm angry.  Angry that in this day and age, so many people still feel the need to pass some laws defining marriage as something exclusively between a man and a woman.  Florida, California, and Arizona passed initiatives to prohibit same-sex marriage.  This simply leaves me irate, andI'm just going to throw it out here right now, laid bare.  If you have no opposition to same-sex marriage for other people, this article is not speaking to you.  But for the others... The only marriage that concerns you is yours.  That's it.  If you're opposed to same-sex marriage, then I recommend you find someone who is not of your gender and set your sights there.  You have no say in anyone else's marriage. If you think I'm wrong about that, I want you to pick up a dictionary.  Go ahead.  I'll wait. Now, look up the word miscegenation.  It's a mouthful, I know.  Got it?  Good.  Now, hie thee to yon encyclopedia, history book, or friendly neighborhood Wikipedia and look up "anti-miscegenation laws" and bask in the glory of what happens when people get concerned about other people's marriages when they clearly shouldn't. As recently as three years before I was born, my marriage would have been illegal in Virginia.  My.  Fucking.  Marriage. To what end?  Why? You think people of the same sex shouldn't marry because it's some sort of affront to God?  Perhaps your should remember that people once thought that of interracial marriages.  I'm sure some still do.  If you tried to pass an anti-miscegenation law today you'd be chased out of town with pitchforks, and rightly so.  If your affront to same-sex marriage comes from a church's view or a quote from the bible, I strongly encourage you to read the rest of Leviticus.  Soon you'll be keeping kosher, sacrificing animals and engaging in a spree of mayhem and biblical killing the likes of which have not been seen in eons.  So, unless you're going to be taking everything in that book literally as The Word, and I mean everything, climb down off the pulpit and mingle with the rest of us heathen. That the Supreme Court has not yet overturned these horrible laws is astounding to me.  Let's look at what the Supreme Court said in its unanimous decision in the case of Loving v. Virginia:

Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not to marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

Look at that.  "Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man.'"  Wow.  Just reflect on that for a moment. The Fourteenth Amendment is that which ensured equal rights to all Americans -- it abolished slavery and prohibited discrimination based on race.  It was part of the basis for striking down these horrible laws. When one couples this with one of my favorite amendments, the Ninth Amendment ("The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."), it is staggering to me that these laws can even stand up to a Supreme Court challenge. I'm one of those people who believes, fundamentally, the concept of 'marriage' is not a matter for the government anyway.  If it's some religious church ritual, keep it in the churches and out of the government.  But that's across the board.  If what the government recognizes as the union of two people of the same sex is a "civil union", then that should be the case universally.  Man/woman, man/man, woman/woman -- if it's a government official's stamp of approval on said union, then by the very constitution, all those unions must be labeled and treated equally. And if some church wants to have a holy ceremony with all sorts of pomp and circumstance and call that a marriage, fantastic.  But that ceremony should have no legal status.  It's something the church does.  My first communion and confirmation weren't government events logged anywhere, why should any other church ceremony? I'm hostile, because I'm angry.  If I've offended you, I want you to consider the offense of someone in California who's just been told their marriage is invalidated.  There is no logical reason to preclude a loving couple of consenting adults from joining together in a lifelong partnership.  And unless you're one of the people in that couple, it's really none of your business. I'll end with the comic from February. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Gay Marriage"] [/caption]

For some reason, the McCain campaign is trying to paint Obama as elitist and out of touch. So, there's a certain irony that, when recently asked how many homes he owned, McCain couldn't answer. He didn't know how many homes he owned. Smartly, the Obama campaign is capitalizing on this. However, given the recent response to any sort of attack on McCain, I fully expect the indignant response of "Obama is implying that John McCain, a former POW, is out of touch." Where Giuliani was renowned for his endless plugging of 9/11, we can be sure McCain will constantly be going to the well about his POW status. (And let's not even go into the fact that he acquiesced to the current administration, and voted to allow the US to do to its POWs what was done to him in Vietnam.) Mr. McCain, you're a sad, sad man.

This is long, but worth reading/watching. I can't say how angry this administration makes me. The outright lies are bad enough. That there's a large base of gullible people who lap it up is even worse. And, worst of all, is that nobody in the mainstream media except Olbermann seems to be calling them on it. January 20, 2009 cannot come soon enough.

The image above comes from CNN's Election Center as of this morning. I'm just amused at it right now.

the Illinois primary is Tuesday, Feb 5. I won't be in Illinois on that day, so today I took my final opportunity to vote early. This was my first vote as a US Citizen. And it felt good. I wear my politics on my sleeve, and I'm a bleeding heart liberal. I'm proud of it. And I'll argue with anyone who isn't in the bizarre hopes I'll somehow make them see the error of their ways. But that's not what today's post is about. I voted my preference in the presidential primaries, of the candidates still running. Kucinich was my man, but he's dropped out of the race, which left me the choice between Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Mike Gravel. I like Gravel, but he's a bit looney and way too long a shot. That leaves Hillary and Obama. Well, I liked Bill Clinton as a president, but I don't like how the Clintons are campaigning right now. I also don't much like many of Hillary's policy ideas, and I find she's a Democrat version of Mitt Romney -- she'll say whatever it takes to win a vote, whether she means it or not. I know that's almost the very definition of a politician, but she takes it to an inspiring level. It's almost impressive. And then there's the name. If there's one candidate who can inspire the rabidly right into getting out and voting against someone, it's Hillary Clinton. A lot of people love her, but more people hate her. And I just don't think I can stomach another Republican administration. It just hurts too much. So, I'll quote Susan Sarandon, who summed it up very nicely:

There's absolutely no reason why a woman shouldn't be in that office, but I am not sure about this woman.

If you haven't guessed it, I voted for Obama. Hardly a meaningful gesture -- this is Illinois and there's no way he won't win here. But I like him. And of the candidates left, he's the closest to my ideals. But that's not what today's post is about. I'm in Illinois's third district. It's a Democratic district at the moment, and the incumbent is Dan Lipinski. And he's awful. He's basically Joe Lieberman as a congressman. And that's what today's post is about. Today, I voted to unseat an incumbent. I voted for Mark Pera, and I hope I was far from alone. I can't say how nice it would be to have a real Democrat represent me in this district. Unseat an incumbent! This congress has been horrible. They got in on a promise of standing up to the president, and have done anything but. They've let him rip apart the constitution. They've let him legislate by signing statement. They've let him "pocket veto" when he wasn't entitled to do so. And they've let him completely ruin this country -- its economy, its currency, its global standing. It's not enough that Bush is going. We need to remove those complicit in his plundering. I just wish I could have voted against Pelosi or Reid. So that's what today's post is about. Vote for change -- anything's got to be better than this.

An avid reddit reader, I was happy to see this headline making its way to the front page: Canada's Gay Politicians are getting married - Not getting caught in dirty Men's rooms. The story The reddit comments This is an issue I have an unflappable stance on. Once upon a time in this country, this same debate was being held over interracial marriages. The same rhetoric is pulled out every election cycle to scare the base into voting for more conservative nutballs, because apparently if same sex marriages are recognized, apparently it means we'll all have to go marry someone of the same sex. So, yay Canada! My home and native land! Now come on, USA, get with the program and stop being afraid of that which you have absolutely no reason to fear.

I wrote an article, posted to thisisby.us. I've been posting stuff over there that I also submit to reddit, in an attempt to not bomb my site with traffic. Feel free to read and comment (there or here). And, hey, thanks for reading this tripe that I pump out -- really, it warms my heart.

Obviously, I've never voted in a presidential election before. I've been in the US for 3 presidential elections, however. The first, 1996, when very much the way I wanted it to go. The second two didn't have the person I favored winding up in the White House, but as I read through this excellent commentary by Keith Olbermann, I'm inspired to point out some things. The man who is ruining this country, in the course of two elections, received 112,500,720 votes. 112,500,720 ballots were registered as declaring this man as their president. Over the course of those elections, 115,210,303 ballots were cast for someone else. Over the course of two elections, this man with the sweeping mandate to wage an unprovoked and unpopular war, to send to their death over 3,000 American soldiers, to cause the death of thousands upon thousands of Iraqi citizens, and to possibly irreparably damage the country's reputation -- was outvoted by 2,709,583 ballots. Something needs to be fixed here. Clinton beat Bush in '92 by almost 5 million ballots alone. In '96 he won by almost 8 million over Dole. Even adding in his popular vote ballot victory in 2004, this man still has received less votes for him over two elections than against him. It's my firm belief that George W. Bush will go down in history as the worst president of his lifetime, if not ever. As a lame duck, I fear what he'll bring to this country over the next year. And I shudder to think what the result would be should any of his wannabe successors on the GOP ticket take the office following him. Giuliani is an authoritarian despot whose only "strength" seems to be that he happened to be mayor of New York during the September 11th attacks, and seems to have profited tremendously from that. Mitt Romney seems to think we ought to "double Guantanamo", whatever that means -- Guantanamo isn't overcrowded so he apparently thinks we need to detain even more people without trial or representation. We've got a Supreme Court that claims to uphold the constitution but is undermining it with every opportunity it can get. We've got a unitary executive that rewrites laws it doesn't like, disregards others, and isn't terribly concerned with court rulings. And we've got a congress that despite clear evidence to the contrary, seems to think the American public doesn't want this president impeached. Sigh. I've got myself worked up now. I'm going to stop. Just, please, if you're fed up like I am, do something about it. Let your representative know you support getting this criminal and incompetent executive branch ousted. Now.

This story goes over how our current president and exalted leader will be a high value terrorist target, and thus will require the protection of over 100 security guards for the 10 years following his leaving office. Seems to me if we could actually get this criminal impeached, convicted and put in prison where he belongs we could save a boatload of money. Ahh, a man can dream.