Persistence...

When I went to vote in the Primary, the lines were HUGE.  Jamie and I stood in line for an hour with our dog in the cold, waiting to vote for Barack Obama.

In the Primary.

There are stories across the country of longer lines and in better weather, and this is why I think Obama will win.  There will be an insane amount of people who have never voted before that will come out and vote in November.  Just like the primary, people in your neighborhood that you would never have expected to be there and maybe have never even seen will be at your polling place.  In the meantime, listen to my sister Maria's Governor Ed Rendell tell his people that you need to get out there and get your lazy ass neighbors to the voting booths and make this country a better place.

"It's on each and every one of you to bring your friends, your relatives, your co-workers, people on the block, everybody has to vote," Rendell said. "I don't care how long the lines are. Nobody leaves."

No matter where you live, bring that philosophy to your neighborhood and get people out to vote.  Drag them.  Voter registration is through the roof this year but that won't matter if people stay at home.

On a side note, that article makes Philly sound like some fucking 3rd world country when it comes to "street money."

East Coast, boyeeee!

Worse...

Holy crap, I feel like I live in Georgia. Or at least Missouri. There have been a few posts regarding the rally in my last post but the Star Tribune has at least an on paper account of her state of mind and what I'm sure is at least a secondary education...

Turns out as I click the links that TPM made the same link I did. On Halloween this woman's house is going to look like an egg farm fell on it and then God decided that this was the ass he needed to wipe. Too bad I'm too lazy to drive to Lakeville...

People are Scared of the Black Man

Here's a particularly scary piece of video that came across my RSS feed from Talking Points Memo.  Two things strike me: One, the real, palpable fear in the voices of these people as they admit to John McCain that they are afraid of a Barack Obama presidency.  I saw another clip on MSNBC earlier today that I'll look for where a man in Wisconsin almost started to cry while talking about his fear of an Obama administration.  Two, I am stunned that these people in the clip are Minnesotans (the rally was in Lakeville) and I'm embarassed, particularly of the woman in who starts talking around :51.

I can't understand how people can be this afraid and I really have a hard time wrestling with what exactly they are afraid of.  The last administration has left everyone worse off than ever but there is still this fringe element who, despite the fact that they are leading harder lives due to the Republican policies, still cling to beliefs like Obama is an "Arab" to keep their worldview intact.  How much worse could it really get at this point?

It must be true that no matter what people say to their friends and family, when we're this close to the first black president that fear-fed rascism just can't be held back or hidden anymore.

Scorpion Sez...

I think that the "Get Over Here!" moment was when Joe almost broke into tears talking about the family that he lost BEFORE it was politically expedient... maybe the make or break moment of a very 50/50 debate where Palin was very prepared with talking points and (uncharacteristically) proper name pronunciation of foreign leaders.

Finishing move?

"Ummm..."

I Hope You Can See This, Because I'm Doing It As Hard As I Can

People in Boston need to relax. Commuters freaked out when they saw these things all over town and called the fuzz. Typical. That's just the kind of terror that the Mooninites inflict upon their hapless victims. My favorite overreaction from the chumps at Boston City Hall:

"It's clear the intent was to get attention by causing fear and unrest that there was a bomb in that location."

At least the citizens of Boston understand what's going on and how ridiculous this is:

About a dozen fans gathered outside Charlestown District Court on Thursday morning with signs saying "1-31-07 Never Forget" and "Free Peter."

"We're the laughing stock," said Tracy O'Connor, 34.

"It's almost too easy to be a terrorist these days," said Jennifer Mason, 26. "You stick a box on a corner and you can shut down a city."

I only wish I had cable so I could see Adult Swim's reaction on the bumps. If you see any, post them in the comments!

Update: I even beat the Daily Kos to the punch on this one, but he's a much better writer so here's a link to his post.

Britney Spears Is An American Avatar

Not too many people were on board with my A-Rod killed Cory Lidle theory, but hear me out on this one: Britney Spears is the modern allegory for the United States of America.

Remember back in the late nineties when everyone loved Britney? I do. People bought her albums even though she was pumping out the same teen pop that America has produced since the 50s. Every guy I knew wanted to at least just see her naked because, God, we gotta figure out what's up with those boobs. Not until she turned 18, though.

Remember back in the late nineties when everyone loved America? The only thing we had to worry about was if our President got a hummer or not from some college girl. That was great.

And now look what's happened - Britney/America fell off. Britney/America married some no-talent idiot who's done nothing but make her look terrible. The idiot has embarrassed her on a day-to-day basis, saying retarded shit on TV, hanging out with his punk friends and being an overall drain on her. Then, Britney/America had a life-changing experience. She got pregnant, we got attacked.

America pulled together. We wanted to fucking kill those guys, and dammit, Britney's gonna be the one to do it for us, we thought. And even though Britney's baby made her look like a mom now and nothing like the old Britney we wanted to see naked, we'd still be up for a little peep show in a pinch. We thought that with the baby around and the stakes high, the idiot she married would stop being such an idiot and own up to some responsibility.

Wrong. Wrongwrong wrong.

Instead of manning up and focusing on his kid, her husband got her pregnant again and now Britney/America had TWO kids on her hands and she was starting to look a little haggard. Like, gross. And he was still out there, partying with his punk friends like nothing was going on at home, like his wife hadn't lost her looks that made her rich and was now apparently doomed to a life of being non-stop barefoot and pregnant.

And then, to top it off, The President/K-Fed thought in the middle of all this that it would be a good idea to put out an album? Well, no one else thought that would be good, but Britney/America decided that she would pay for it. And the album dropped, and it sucked total balls, and Popozao/Stay the Course was not at all resembling anything that anyone ever wanted to hear.

Britney/America woke up recently, took a good long look around at her two kids/wars, at her idiot husband/President and his fuck-up friends and their extravagant lifestyle and decided that she'd had enough. She stopped eating Taco Bell, got off the couch and dropped like, 30 pounds in a month. She waited and waited, teasing K-Fed/the President with her new good looks, and I'm sure he thought "Oh, good, everything's looking great for me. I'm pretty good at this husband thing." The next thing he knows - BAM - divorce. One minute all of your friends are telling you how great of a job you're doing, the next minute you and you're friends are losing your asses on CNN. One minute you're shooting a day-in-the-life special for some Canadian MTV show, the next you're getting fuckin' stone cold dumped in a text message.

So Britney/America is cool now. She's still got those two kids that she's got to take care of, but she's looking good and is taking control of her own life, God bless her.

UPDATE: As soon as Britney started hanging out with Paris Hilton this argument lost all merit. Dammit.



**Thanks to What Would Tyler Durden Do, The Superficial, and CNN for the links**

Klobuchar v. Kennedy on Meet the Press

Tim Russert manages to spend 6 minutes not doing his job and Minnesota's senate candidates square off on national TV.

I mean seriously "What would you ask your opponent," followed by "What yould you ask your opponent?" I thought the interviewer was supposed to ask the questions? Slacker.

There are somehow alot of people that don't know who they're voting for yet - I thought the last month or so would sort of cement that.

Got six minutes? Watch the video.

Politics! Politics! Politics!

Real quick, here are a few links that I think are interesting from the Chicago Tribune:

There's some bad, bad shit going on in the Sudan, in case George Clooney didn't tell you. A Tribune reporter was captured and recently released. Here's his article. Too bad we don't think the Sudanese have any WMDs. We might be able to help. I guess when you don't have any food you probably don't have any WMDs, huh?

Also, Garrison Keillor manages to write a really scathing commentary on the United States' latest interrogation practices. I thought he could only write funny little folksy jokes about Republicans. I haven't said this since high school debate, but... slippery slope indeed.