Today is the last day of Bush's presidency. Tomorrow, Barack Obama takes the oath and becomes the 44^th President of the United States. There is a palpable excitement in the country surrounding Obama. There are of course many reasons for this, but I believe there is one that dominates the others. Americans have thirsted for an inspiring leader. The last couple decades have brought many leaders, some better than others, but none in the league of Kennedy or Roosevelt or Lincoln. No larger-than-life leaders that almost seem ascended from us mere mortals. Such inspired reverence is dangerous in that it can move the masses and sweep society in dark and dangerous directions, but it can also move the masses away from apathy and towards a brighter and better future.

FOX News and the McCain folks are still going on about ACORN. Are they that certain that Micky Mouse is going to vote. Is it that hard to understand that ACORN had to turn in every voter registration card handed to them and that they flagged the suspicious ones? Are the people running the FOX News and the McCain really that dumb or do they just think that they're supporters are? Or is it something more sinister?

The FBI has been investigating ACORN and is trying to get all new voters registered by ACORN disenfranchised en masse. The FBI is part of the the Justice Department where firings and hirings are based solely on a willingness to do Bush's political dirty work. They know full well that the suspicious voter registration cards are known about because ACORN itself flagged them as suspicious before turning them in. They know full well ACORN is required to turn in all voter registration cards by law, even cards that were filled out as an obvious joke by some fool. They know that ACORN has complied with the law. They just don't care because they aren't motivated by justice, they are motivated by the political agenda they were hired to carry out.

This is a voter suppression campaign, pure and simple. The Republican leadership feels the need to do this because they aren't sure if there are enough tainted Diebold machines to rig the election this time around: the margin is too large and they need to go the extra mile.

The corruption charges against Ted Stevens are likely to be dismissed later this afternoon because of an "oops" by the federal prosecutor. With all the corruption and political-based hirings and firings at the Department of Justice lately, it isn't much of a stretch to wonder if this wasn't a "gift" to a longtime loyal Bush ally. "Sorry, your honor, I 'accidentally' forgot to disclose the material to the defence. I guess you'll have to dismiss the charges now. Shucks." Does anyone actually trust the Department of Justice enough at this point to think that this isn't a real possibility? If this wasn't deliberate, what does that say about the quality of our federal prosecutors?

Whenever there is a Republican sex scandal, every media mention of it will be sure to specify "Republican Senator Blah Blah". However, the majority of the coverage of the Spitzer scandal neglects to label him as a Democrat. It might be tempting to point to the hypocrisy bias of sex scandal impact, but with his pride in his prostitution prosecutions as Attorney General of New York, his hypocrisy level in this is as high as any Republican that has been involved in a sex scandal. Republicans have been implicated in more sex scandals lately, so one could hardly argue that Democrats were the default. So, why obscure his party membership?

via sheerchaos:



How times have changed. The Bush Administration has tainted this country's soul.

Dear Human Rights Campaign:

Congratulations on getting ENDA through the House of Representatives. I forgave you the last time you betrayed the transgender community. Many of us did. We believed that your organization had changed. We gave you the benefit of the doubt. We were wrong and we won't make that mistake again.

If by some chance you manage to get the trans-excluded ENDA through the senate, President Bush is almost guaranteed to veto it. You sold out the transgender community for nothing. Nothing. You are not going to get ENDA &mdash all your going to get is a split and angry queer community, a queer community in which many do not and cannot support you, a queer community in which many actively despise and oppose you. That is what you've won, enjoy your spoils.

By the way, I fixed your logo for you. You should really consider changing it:

This amused me greatly...

Poll #1069391
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Who would you be more likely to vote for?

The addition $42 billion dollars in war funding requested by the Bush Administration is political move designed to allow both the Democrats and the Republicans to appeal to their bases. It smells of backroom dealing. The Democrats in congress will not approve this additional funding, but instead will fund the war at the originally requested levels. The Republicans can then appeal to their base by saying that the Democrats aren't giving the troops the funding they need, and the Democrats can appeal to their base by saying the actually did something by turning down the Bush Administration's additional request.

In the end, nothing changes.

ganked from sophiaserpentia:

"I heard somebody say, Where's Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas."        —George W. Bush, September 20, 2007

I'd really like to know what the hell he's on.

Poll #1045935
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Two weeks after Karl Rove's departure, Alberto Gonzales follows. The Bush administration is...

Just for fun, I decided to look at the edits made from the United States Department of state using wikiscanner. I only looked at a fraction of the over 2,500 edits, but here are the ones I thought were interesting:

Laura Bush thinks Condi would be a great president

We're being invaded by Mexicans!!

"...the World Bank is one of the most highly-regarded financial institutions in the world..."

Tiawan is a pseudostate

"The statements about events in 2007 are clearly written by a Russian."

State Department predicts what issues will be contentious at the next Intergovernmental Conference of the European Union

The Department of State knows a lot about science and technology in China.

Somewhere in the world, humans can marry non-human animals

Delete – Who said the 2003 invasion of Iraq was illegal? No one said that

Delete – You can't say that the U.S. officials should have know that Bin Laden would turn his attention to the west after the Soviets were out of the way

Delete – Text on the United States Interests Section in Havana

Delete – A large chunk of the Missouri United States Senate election, 2006 article

Delete – Part of the discussion on the Agent Orange talk page

For years now, the Canadian dollar has been growing stronger while the U.S. dollar has been growing weaker, with the U.S. Dollar dollar falling as low as C$1.0555 yesterday. Long gone are the days when traveling from the United States to Canada felt like winning the lottery in the currency exchange.

With the slump in stock prices and the now overtly worried fed things don't look to well for the United States. Add in the Chinese using threats of liquidating their U.S. debt holdings to ward off trade sanctions, I see no reason to believe that this trend will not continue. The Chinese threat, even if never acted on, demonstrates effectively the direness of the financial situation in the United States after almost 7 years of Bush's borrow and spend policies.

My prediction: Within the next 6 months, the Canadian dollar will surpass the U.S. dollar.

The Bush administration has decided it has too much credibility and is planning on listing the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as terrorist organization based on classified "irrefutable evidence" that they've been supplying the Taliban - the first time an organization controlled by a foreign government has been listed as such. The evidence is irrefutable, no one can refute it if they can't see it. Even so, it still seems unlikely that Iran would be supplying weapons to a group they've consistently and openly opposed throughout the 90's up to today. Even the U.S. backed Afghan government of Hamid Karzai rejects the idea that Iran is supplying the Taliban.

There is still the classified evidence that Iran is supplying the Iraqi insurgents. More irrefutable stuff no one can see. At the very least, Iran is interfering in Iraqi affairs and as Paul Wolfowitz stated so eloquently a few months after the fall of Baghdad, "I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq". I guess Americans don't count as foreigners in Iraq.

In the United States, the Republicans often complain that sex scandals involving Democrats don't tend to have the same level of fallout as ones involving Republicans. In fact, sex scandals involving Democrats sometimes end up burning Republicans who make political hay out of it. Liberals, on the other hand, dislike the joy right wingers find in accusing the left of being intolerant of Christianity, even though many members of the right have no problem being intolerant of religions outside their own.

Pro-abstinence Republicans are more vulnerable to sexual misconduct scandals because it directly contradicts their message of morality, liberals are far more vulnerable to accusations of intolerance because it contradicts their message. For the most part, the hardline right makes little claim of tolerance and the hardline left makes little claim of sexual chastity. The double standard in both of those cases is due to a general dislike of hypocrisy throughout the political spectrum.

The message is: keep true to your message or adapt your message to what you really mean.

Karl Rove is resigning! While deep inside I know this is nothing but a tactical move, it is nonetheless exciting!

Perusing the headlines on Google News, I notice most media outlets avoiding the word "filibuster". I see phrases such as "procedurally blocked", "flexed senate rules that require a 60 vote supermajority" or "failed to pass a motion to limit debate". The media had no problem calling the democratic filibusters "filibusters" when the Republicans controlled the senate. What's the aversion to the term now? I strongly suspect that years of conservatives yelling "liberal media" has resulted a news media that is so afraid of saying anything seen as critical of the right for fear of being labeled "liberal".

Bush described his pardon of Scooter Libby as "fair and balanced". I wonder if Fox News will sue him for trademark infringement.

For each of the following, indicate which person you like more (or dislike less) by selecting a number on their side of the scale. The closer to -5 or 5 indicates the degree to which you prefer that option.

Poll #1003784
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Hillary Clinton (-5) vs. Rudy Giuliani (5)

Ronald Reagan (-5) vs. George W. Bush (5)

Vladimir Putin (-5) vs. Mikhail Gorbachev (5)

Jimmy Carter (-5) vs. Kofi Annan (5)

Queen Elizabeth II (-5) vs. Princess Diana (5)

Audrey Hepburn (-5) vs. Katharine Hepburn (5)

River Phoenix (-5) vs. Joaquin Phoenix (5)