This is probably truer than we realize…
I never thought I’d live long enough to see a black man elected President of the United States, but that appears to be what has just happened this evening as most of the networks are calling it a done deal. I have never been more proud of my country than I am at this very moment. Regardless of what happens from here on out this is a monumental step forward and the door is now open for this to happen again in the future and as it becomes normalized there will eventually come a day when people will marvel that it was ever considered remarkable at one point in time.
As good as the polls have looked over the past few weeks I was still hesitant to allow myself to imagine this possibility coming to pass. The frustration of the last election when we reelected a clearly incompetent man to the most important position in the world because we let fear rule us kept me holding my breath until I saw it with my own eyes. My hope that we might see a brighter future here in America is renewed as I truly believe Obama is the man that can restore our reputation in the world and address the tremendous issues we’re facing both at home and abroad.
I thought it was quite striking as I sat down to watch the events unfold this evening the differences between the candidates as illustrated by their choice of celebratory venues. Obama chose a huge park in Chicago and invited anyone who wanted to attend to show up whereas McCain picked a smaller indoor venue that you specifically had to be invited to. It showed how one man is inclusive and the other exclusive in how they dealt with the American public.
John McCain as just taken the stage to make his concession speech. His supporters are booing every mention of Obama’s name. McCain is handling them well and the speech is pretty well considering the circumstances. Amazing. McCain is speaking of working together with Obama and encouraging his supporters to do the same. Some of them aren’t happy with that, but most of them seem to be listening. Whoops, mentioning Biden brought more boos and chants of “Sarah, Sarah.” Overall it was a surprisingly gracious speech. Still I’m quite glad he lost.
A big surprise here in Michigan was the vote to approve a Medical Marijuana law and the possibility that we may expand stem cell research in state looks like it might pass which would be a reversal of a law from the previous election. My state looks to becoming a little more progressive and I couldn’t be happier. This has definitely been one of the best election nights in my life time and I will sleep well tonight.
Obama hasn’t made his acceptance speech yet, but I’m going to end it here for now. It won’t be long before I need to pick Anne up from work so I’ll write more about it later when I’ve had time to gather my thoughts and hear what Obama has to say.
The heads are little small for the bodies in a slightly creepy way, but if I wasn’t paying close attention I might be fooled:
McCain’s got better moves than I do.
Shamelessly lifted from Stonekettle Station.
Both Obama and McCain were scheduled to give outdoor rallies in Pennsylvania yesterday. The weather turned nasty with a cold rain that caused one of the two candidates to cancel his rally:
CHESTER, PA – Dressed in blue jeans and a black jacket, Barack Obama braved the cold rain falling in Pennsylvania, and held his scheduled rally – outdoors. “A little bit of rain never hurt anybody,” he quipped to the 9,000 who showed up in ponchos and futilely holding umbrellas.
Just an hour away in Quakertown, the rival ticket cancelled their own outdoor rally due to inclement weather. Unfazed, Obama incorporated the conditions into his speech.
“I just want all of you to know if we see this kind of dedication on election day – there is no way that we’re not going to bring change to America,” he said as the soggy crowd cheered.
Who do you think is more committed to his cause? The one who braves the rain so as not to disappoint the people who took the time to show up? Or the one who lets a little inclement weather get in the way of his plans? When Wall Street melted down one of these two men tried to suspend his campaign and delay a debate because he couldn’t handle the job of dealing with the crisis at the same time as trying to explain why you should vote for him. Sure these are mostly symbolic differences, but they also say a lot about the dedication of the men in question as well as their character in the face of adversity.
One of them lets a little rain bother them and one of them doesn’t.
I’m voting for the one who doesn’t mind a little rain.
I guess McCain really is giving up on winning Michigan. I’m sure having one of your advisors tell Reuters that the government can’t save the automotive industry isn’t going to win over a lot of Michigan voters:
“I don’t think the government can rescue the industry,” Carly Fiorina, former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Corp, told Reuters at an event in suburban Detroit.
“Whatever the government does, it should not take away the fundamentals of risk-taking. Sometimes it leads to rewards and sometimes consequences, downside,” she said. “In other words, the auto industry cannot be saved from its own bad bets.”
Fiorina also said it remained an open question whether the U.S. auto industry needed aid beyond the $25 billion of low-interest loans already approved by the Bush administration and said any additional aid “depends on the particulars of the circumstance.”
I wouldn’t have a problem with that argument except that McCain voted for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. Apparently rich investment bankers are something the Government should save from their own bad bets, but rich automotive executives aren’t. Which group do you think employs more middle class workers? What does that tell you about who John McCain’s campaign thinks should be getting government help?
Imagine for a moment that there’s a third candidate running for President this fall: Jesus. How would a John McCain style attack ad against that legendary figure look? Surprisingly familiar actually…
I lol’ed!
Sent in by SEB reader Craig.
For all the hot air the Republicans like to push around about how Obama hangs out with terrorists the candidate that the terrorists would most like to see win is John McCain. Why? Because he’d be Bush’s third term:
WASHINGTON – Al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency.
The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, “impetuous” Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier,” the message said. “Then, al-Qaida will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush.”
SITE Intelligence Group, based in Bethesda, Md., monitors the Web site and translated the message.
“If al-Qaida carries out a big operation against American interests,” the message said, “this act will be support of McCain because it will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaida. Al-Qaida then will succeed in exhausting America till its last year in it.”
So remember folks: A vote for John McCain is a vote in line with terrorist goals. That’s not hyperbole, but a solid fact. Needless to say the McCain campaign has not commented on the topic.
It seems the McCain campaign isn’t happy with the folks at YouTube because they’ve taken down a good number of his campaign videos after being hit with DMCA takedown requests:
The McCain campaign on Monday fired off a letter to YouTube complaining that the company had acted too quickly to take down McCain’s videos in response to copyright infringement notices. McCain campaign general counsel Trevor Potter argued that several of the removed ads, which had used excerpts of television footage, fall under the four-factor doctrine of fair-use, and shouldn’t have been removed.
And he’s quite right. The videos in question did contain portions of copyrighted material that did fall under the doctrine of fair-use and were probably perfectly legal. I say “probably” because until a court says it’s fair-use it remain questionable, but they probably were fair-use in the examples being discussed.
There’s just one small problem: YouTube doesn’t have a choice in the matter:
But citing the DMCA, a controversial copyright law that McCain voted to approve a decade ago, Levine pointed out that YouTube risks being sued itself if it doesn’t respond promptly to takedown notices.
“If … service providers do not remove the content to such notice, they do so at their own risk because they lose their safe harbor,” she wrote.
Further, Levine argued, the fair-use analysis is complicated, and the creators of the videos are better equipped to perform it. The uploader can then issue a DMCA counter-notice if they believe they’re on solid legal ground, and YouTube will restore the video.
Oooo! That’s gotta suck when a law you voted for comes back to bite you in your proverbial ass! Once again a lawmaker finds out the hard way that he is susceptible to the laws he passes and perhaps it would be wise to carefully consider what you’re enacting before doing so.
Saw this image this morning and thought it needed a caption:
Oddly enough, I’ve got nothing but either lame fart or McCain’s-really-an-alien jokes. Perhaps you can do better.
Image originally found here.
The Daily Show once again doing the job that real news show should be doing:
