I Sold My Self At This Election

The election is now over.

I was not in favour of any of the candidates that were running, but I still recognized my civic duty to vote. People who do not vote should have no say in the current state of politics or policy.

I was saddened by so many people that I knew of that decided that they were not going to vote in this election. So many of them had been duped into believing that they were somehow making a point. To me the point, though unintended, was simple- we have finally been worn down enough that we will give you what you ultimately want; for us to stop voting.

I encouraged these people to at least write someone in on the ballot. 

My cousin called me one night very concerned that I was telling people to do this. He was under the impression that if I wrote someone else in, who had a lesser chance than McCain, that I was cancelling his vote. Partially right in logistics, but morally wrong.

I am not going to get into all of the details about who I wanted or why, but I will say that I ultimately conceeded and voted for McCain, an electoral mistake that I will not make again.

I don't buy into the crap that says that you should vote for the lesser of two evils or that you should cast your vote for the guy on "your side" that is most likely to win. Voting is a matter of conscience and choice based on representation. If you, like I did, give up your one shot to make your voice be heard [regardless of how the Electoral College will negate you anyways] then you have become a political whore. You weren't bought by money, but by ideology that loses every time.

The next time around I will not be so reluctant to give up my vote to someone who has a better chance. Come hell or high water, even if my candidate has the worst shot than anyone else they will still get my vote. It's all about principle. If you have no principle, regardless of who you're voting for, then you should not be allowed to vote.

Puff, Puff, Pass

I feel like I've been doing what this post is entitled. Puff, Puff, Pass. The smoke fills the room, you get that feeling in your body that lets you know that your senses have been dulled a bit and you've got the effects of what you've inhaled yourself directly as well as the additional contact high.

I say all of that tongue-in-cheek because I need something to smooth the insides of my cheeks back out from all of the gnawing on them that I've done watching this 2008 election madness. At this point I am really starting to feel like we might be best off to just go to the zoo and let the animals have a poo flingin' contest. Whoever of them wins then gets a new seat in the oval office.

Let's take a gander shall we?

On the Democratic side we have Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton. I am bothered by both of them.

I am bothered by Hillary because of all of the darkness that the Clinton family has behind them. And currently there is a lot of speculation as to whether or not she herself is truly a married lesbian. Let's face it- Bill has even been on record as to what her sexual habits are, and yet no one seems to bring that up, ever. I am not saying that she should be disqualified from the race because of that but with it being such a hot-button issue these days you'd think that it might be a more highly discussed topic.

I am bothered by Barak because no one really seems to know what he stands for. He is assumed to have similar positions to his other Democratic counter parts but no one knows for sure. Here's an example- if you watch the news or opinion poles and people are asked why they support him the general answers are either "because he believes in hope" or "because he is committed to change." Well, what I want to know is what hope and change mean to him. Can anyone tell us that?

So on the Democratic side we'd be looking at two possible "firsts." We'd either be looking at our first Black or Woman/Lesbian president. I personally don't think that Obama's race matters. America can handle it...but what about a woman? I'm not saying that it's too much....neither of them have any military experience either.

Now over to the Republican party.

John McCain is said to possibly be even more liberal than Hillary is. Is this the case? He does seem softer on border policy [he is from a border state] than what the majority of conservatives would like to see. He also wants to continue to fight the "War On Terror." This seems to be a common desire among Republicans. "We started it and we should end it," so goes the chant. He is for gun control, which is not very Republican of him. He is pro-life. Well, I guess there is a lot that goes into this man. He is really what should be called a Moderate. Basically many Republicans don't seem to care for him because he's too close to the left for them than what they would prefer. How then did Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee lose so much support? Perhaps Romney was too polished. Ron Paul may have lacked the experience? Maybe the country is past the point of wanting to mix religion and politics with Huckabee.

McCain seems like he would be a better candidate for an actual third party. Perhaps before it is over he will have a third party following. For right now though he just seems to be rubbing many the wrong direction. Or maybe the Republican party is finally starting to fall apart.

Last, but not least, is Ralph Nader.

This guy always seems to come up out of the woodwork at close to the last minute. I have never really been for him but I have come to expect him to throw in his bid in each election. It seems like the guy has now been a candidate at one level or another in every election since the 70's.

I was checking him out the other night and just wasn't sure what to think. He is pro gay-marriage, pro-choice and pro-socialization of many things. He is anti-corporation, anti-NAFTA, anti-outsourcing, anti-war, anti-overinflated military, anti-gun and many other things.

I felt really conflicted as I read about him because it seemed like for every one thing about him that I liked there was something there to match with a negative mark. I really wanted to believe that even though this guy never made it in the past that possibly this election he would bring something to the table worth feasting on. I was hoping that we might finally have some reasonable alternative to the bland and sinking two-party system that we've been tied to for so long.

So now here I sit feeling a little discouraged. Up until now I have kind of written off the political process as something that just didn't interest me. This year something is different. This year I was really hoping that there would be a candidate to get excited about. I really wanted to have someone to rally around but I don't know if that's going to be an option. We'll just have to roll with the punches and get our rations as they are given.

Something about this point in our nation's life just feels so much like it was 1984.

I was waiting for it...

And now I have it! I knew that it was only a matter of time.



I know that the guy will probably never win but he also sure never gives up either.

Caught Up

It has been more than a month now since my last post here, so I apologize to my readers...if I have any left.

I would like to thank my wife for reading this. She is about the only one that I know of who reads this because she is the only one who ever comments. For everyone else, thanks for reading too...I just don't know who's out there.

So much has been happening lately-

The new year was brought in. Welcome 2008, although you feel a lot like last year so far.

This year we spent our first New Year's Eve in a bar. That is not typically something that my wife and I would do but this year was different. My aunt and uncle were in town visiting. My aunt is only six years older than I am and my uncle is only 4 years older. We both have kids that are close to the same age as well so it really felt more like hanging out with friends. The bar was busy. It was the busiest place that I have ever been in. I'm sure that if the Fire Marshall had stopped by that he would have shut the place down; but we almost saw a fight take place right behind our table so that helped add to some excitement.

What was the fight about? There was this guy that had already had too much to drink and someone else that was there with him wouldn't give him his keys. It was funny at first but then it got annoying. We weren't hoping that they would fight, but we were hoping that the drunk guy would either get a cab or walk home. He was in no shape to drive.

Anyways, we had a good time. We drank some beer, smoked some cigars and brought in 2008 together.

I took two weeks off of work around the holidays.

Note to self- it is always harder for me to return to work with good spirits after taking that much time off at once.

I didn't do any more podcasting during my break or up until now because I am not sure if it is worth my time.

Since I have returned to work life has pretty well returned to normal. I get up, drive to work, work all day, come home and maybe work some more, spend a little time with my family, spend a little time on the Internet, and then I go to bed only to get back up and do it all over again. Five days a week.

The Iowa caucus is now over. I can finally go through my day without having some presidential wanna-be calling me to tell me what is wrong with the other candidates.

I went to our district caucus. I admit that I went to caucus for a Republican candidate; but that was only because he was a Libertarian at heart. I was disappointed to find out that the Republican caucus was basically just an inflated version of an opinion poll. I think that I like the Democrat's use of this function to weed out the weaker candidates better. It seems to have more of a point to it. It was an interesting experience though. I had never done that before.

Now it appears that Giulliani and Edwards have dropped out of the race. I wasn't going to vote for either of them but I didn't see that coming. Neither did I foresee John McCain climbing the wall the way he has been lately. I think that the race is showing some interesting things though-

• Republicans are possibly starting to see Mitt Romney as a cardboard candidate; he looks shiny but there's no depth to him. Sure we'd all like him running our company but not necessarily our country
• Republicans don't have as much faith as expected in Mike Huckabee (pun kind of intended)
• Democrats have revealed in the dropping out of John Edwards that there are a bunch of them that don't really care for either Clinton or Obama

I would like to see Ron Paul get elected. We need a good renegade in office for a while.

Movies I've recently seen-

Juno, Superbad, Shoot 'Em Up, 1408, Heat, Saw IV, Hostel 2, I Am Legend, Untraceable, The Reaping, Vacancy, An Evening With Kevin Smith, 28 Weeks Later - I guess that seems like a lot of movies in the last month.

Actor Heath Leger recently passed away. It is always unfortunate whenever anyone dies. It is always even more unfortunate how the press handles such events. It is always then even more unfortunate how the Westboro Baptist Church handles such events.

I have recently switched from drinking a lot of soda and coffee to drinking tea (with only a minimal amount of sugar or none at all) in their place. I now find that I am not as hungry as often and my pants now feel like they are getting bigger.

I don't blog as much as I'd like to. I don't do a lot of what I want to as much as I'd like to, but I hope that I am learning to better prioritize my time to allow for the things that are most important.

A New Message Board On The Block

As many of you who know me personally are aware, I am a big fan of Michael Savage. Although I do not agree with every point of his politics I absolutely LOVE listening to his voice of reason that silences so many of the other sheeple on the airwaves.

Call him what you want but I call him a genius. If you don't know what to call him then you need to check out his website.

The real news in this post is that Michael now has a Savage Message Board.

Listen to the show and check it out!

Theolitics?

I am bothered by this a little bit. I am not so much bothered by the idea that someone in a political office holds a religious view, and not even that they would speak about it publicly...but when an address to a crowd is done so via the avenue of the pretence that such a conversation actually transpires, or is actually valid, is just unsettling to me. The notion that anyone, which I do not accuse Gov. Huckabee of doing outright, would make decisions in office under the premise that they believed that it was a god of some type moving them to do something is just bothersome. Thankfully he did note that god was neither a Democrat nor a Republican.

But lest I be accused of harping on the G.O.P. [God's Own Posse] I would have a similar critique of Senator John Edwards' application of the teachings of Christ. Much of his social policy is based on the national application of Matthew 25 when Jesus speaks of how our attitude toward him is reflected in how we treat "the least of the brethren." Is it fair to take individual admonitions and try to apply them at the national level via political mandate?

I am a fairly conservative guy, politically....but I just don't think that God and politics mix well. It's hard enough to get local churches to come together in agreement of how the world turns; how much harder to let the blind lead the blinder....

The Last King of Scotland

All I have to say is WOW!

This film is a "must see."