I can’t express how proud I am of our nation right now, not just because we’ve elected the first African American, but because we’ve elected a truly great man and the leader our country needs. Barack Obama will guide us back to the just path our country needs to be on, and right all of the wrongs our past leaders have done to us as a people.

McCain’s concession speech made enough reference to Barack’s race to imply that was why he was elected. Such an implication is not true. He won because he stuck to the truth and promised us change. We all now wait to see this change, and I for one am not worried.

That said, I still am immensely proud of seeing this happen in my lifetime. Mock me if you will, but I’ve always loved Tupac Shakur’s aptly titled song Changes. One line of the lines in this song reads:

“And although it seems heaven sent, We ain’t ready, to see a black President”

.

Look how far we’ve come not only in the decade since that line was written, but more importantly, since the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts of 1964 and 1965.

The Democrats are back in control and its time to make this nation great once again. I’m proud to be an American.

With just an hour to go until the first polls close, many people have asked me if I’m nervous. I voted two weeks ago and even then I was cautiously optimistic. I am by no means cocky and I knock on wood as I write this, but I think Obama has a fantastic shot.

Matty B. Turned me onto a great website for electoral vote projections and information in general about the elections, http://www.fivethirtyeight.com, and I’ve been there throughout the last couple of months. One of the latest articles posted there affirm my optimism:

If those states go roughly as expected (meaning, say, an Obama win in Virginia and a close race in Indiana), we can conclude with almost literal 100 percent certainty that Obama will win the election

fivethirtyeight.com

C’mon Virginia! Vote Obama!

I’m crossing my fingers, eating bread and cinnamon butter in lieu of popcorn, and watchin’ the map

“Who told you this?” I began. “Who told you supporting our troops meant supporting endless war; that disagreeing with our administration’s policies meant turning my back on my country? Who told you that I have to follow our President into the pits of a hell of our own making, never questioning the course though my heart and head scream for sanity? As for our fighting men and women, who told you I’ve no compassion for their sacrifice or respect for their service? As I beg my elected representatives to bring them home, so they might be safe until the day a war of choice becomes a war of necessity – who told you that makes me a traitor?

Also this,
(requires login, attainable here)

PS: Forgive the metafilter-style non-descriptive links

Geezuz. I couldn’t even get through this whole video. I wonder if he gave them ANY information AT ALL? What a pussy way to plead the 5th amendment. I hope nobody believes him. If he has that poor a recollection he needs to step down and seek medical attention for amnesia.

via CNN.com

On the eve of Iraq’s historic election, President Bush took responsibility Wednesday for “wrong” intelligence that led to the war, but he said removing Saddam Hussein was still necessary.

He still states that he was justified and it was the right thing to do, which is bull, but I can’t exactly expect miracles here. The article goes on to state that his aproval rating is at 42%, up 4% from November, which I don’t understand, but I also don’t understand how ID has gotten as far as it has, so logic doesn’t exactly enter into it.

On a side note, I got so furious while reading Atlas Shrugged last night (I’m at the part where Ellis Wyatt, Hammond, and the like are starting to disapear) that I was just fuming at the flood of ignorance and self-serving hypocracy. I though I was going to punch something. It’s amazing what an affect a novel can have on a person. The way people like Hank Rearden’s “wet nurse” pervert the English language into a babbling, meaningless bastardization makes me sick.

Also, I was wondering when this would happen. I don’t know whether I should be terrified or thrilled. The novel has a lot of internal emotional dialog, like 2001: A Space Odessy, which, while written at the same time as the movie was being written, doesn’t make any sense in movie form. Will the Atlas Shrugged movie be the same, turning into a bastardization of its novel form? We all know that a movie has NEVER been made that lived up to the book it was based on. I personally think that certain distinguished litterary figures or professors should have input into the creation of such a monumental film as this one. If only Ayn could have written the screenplay herself, as she did with The Fountainhead.

via WorldNetDaily

“I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples’ heads on television to intimidate…”

I hate to be a conspiracy theorist– hell, I still think Tupac is dead even though they’ve just released his 12th+ (i lost count) album since his death on September 13, 1996– but there is some very real controvercy over what went on before and during 9-11-01.

What Happened at Emma E. Booker School on the Morning of September 11th?

We say, “show me,” and what does this video show us?

* That Bush is a pawn and unable to act decisively until his handlers tell him what to do and hand him a script.
* That he put at risk the children and adults at Booker School by staying in the classroom, even though he might, the White House claimed, have been a target of the terrorist attacks that day.
* That he calmly listened to a pet goat story and complimented the children on their reading skills as Americans and foreigners burned alive or jumped to their deaths from the twin towers.
* That he did not ask a question of Andrew Card or seek any further information on the terrorist attack on America until his handlers had decided FOR him what he should do.
* That he showed the chronic lack of leadership that has characterized his entire life, the scion of a family who are brand names that other forces use to advance an anti-American, Neo-Confederate, plutocratic, fundamentalist religious agenda. He cannot act on his own.
* That he chose to continue a photo-op with black children designed to give him the image of a “compassionate conservative” concerned about education for even black kids was more important than the national security of the United States.

Minutes of Silence That Should Live in Infamy: As Americans Leapt to Their Deaths from the Twin Towers, George W. Bush Sat Cluelessly in a Florida Classroom, Endangering the Lives of the Children Around Him, Until His Handlers Could Figure Out What to Do With Him

Bush is a placeholder for those whom really have the power to manipulate as they see fit. He is a coward and a senseless child.

Propagandists like Bill Kristol aside, smart people, by and large, seem to understand that George W. Bush is a disaster. Not too long ago, for example, 8 in 10 professional historians deemed this president “an overall failure,” — a conclusion readily reached by anyone who hasn’t: a) been brainwashed by Charles Krauthammer b) sold his soul to the GOP or c) suffered irreversible brain damage.

Asking, “Which State is Smartest?” Morgan Quinto compiled information based on 21 factors and concluded that Massachusetts is the most cerebral state in the union. But even more intriguing, according to projected electoral votes for 2004, Kerry is ahead in 9 in 10 of America’s smartest states, while Bush leads in but one, Montana, which, by many accounts, is Ted Kaczynski crazy.

This is what I like about pro-Kerry arguments. They make sense on a factual level, instead of a blind rage/calling everybody ‘unamerican’ and ‘terrorism supporters’ arguments that Bush supporters seem to use again and again.

I wouldn’t say I LOVE Kerry, but if you had a choice between strawberry and blueberry ice cream, and you were lethally allergic to strawberries, while blueberries just plain weren’t your favorite, what would you choose?