Fine, okay, it's a blog already!

I should have taken a picture of the large, bright decoration in my father-in-law's neighbor's yard.

I should have, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. And now I regret the decision.

Why? Because the only picture I could find of this is nowhere near the majesty of the one I actually saw. Imagine this as the primary lit object on a dark cul de sac framed in a blue, then red bordered Texas state shape with white lettering and you'll hopefully get the idea.

I've been listening to the relentless NewSpeak about Hillary Clinton and how she MUST BE THE CANDIDATE for months now, and I'm sure most of you have as well. Hilariously enough, most of this talk has come from either fervent Clinton supporters as well as right wing Talibangelical types who think they could run a smear of George Bush's shit on a piece of newspaper and win. And, looking at their options, that would probably be their best bet too.

Anyway, for those Republicans who keep telling me it MUST BE CLINTON, I've always said, "No one has voted yet. Stay tuned." They laugh and go on with their fantasies of a continuation of the Bush Apocalypse. Well, tonight people finally got to vote. Just the farmers and small town folks of Iowa, but it still counts. Given the results, maybe moreso.

So, how did the initial set of voters do? Obama won. Clinton didn't. Actually, she came in third to John Edwards. And if you watched her speech, it was of a woman who truly believes her own press releases than the reality in front of her. She looked - and sounded - defeated but unaware of the consequences of her lack of personality and charisma. Running on name recognition and telling everyone you are the candidate will probably not make you the candidate. It's too early to tell if this is the trend I hope it is, but tonight Edwards earned his righteous indignation, Obama smiled brighter and began to believe, and Clinton should have put out a press release. She sounded ridiculous.

Well, another story about Obama's win, written by Arianna Huffington. Well put and worth a few moments of your time.

I'm stuck in limbo at the airport and getting ready to plow through another book as I wait. Tired of internet and ready to kick it with old school entertainment. Have a good one.

Alright, this is me crossing the lines of cultural insensitivity. Consider yourself warned.

First off, I'm in Northern California, and yeah, the weather actually IS as bad as you heard. Three hour delay in Vegas because of the 60+ mph wind gusts in Sacramento. Rain so hard it took me three hours to make a two hour drive, going around some busted up trees and lots of water on the road.

Anyway, on the way up, I was listening to NPR and heard that the annual Dakar Rally has been cancelled due to concerns over terrorist attacks. Now, I'm not really sure how much we're supposed to stop civilization to these assclown fundamentalists but auto racing? Seriously?

I mean, I'm sure there was some form of credible threat but these guys are going to bring down society by shooting up cars? Hell, L.A. would have fallen decades ago if that were the case.

Anyway, and here's where I truly plumb the depths of my sick mind, but the first thing I thought off when I heard of backward, 8th-century al-Qaeda wannabes shooting up race cars was this bit from The Phantom Menace. Fast forward to about 1:50 and you'll quickly figure out what I'm talking about.

On the eve of the NH primary, Barack delivered a message: “Do not take this race for granted.” It was a prescient warning.

Polls might have indeed demotivated numerous NH voters, a number of independent voters telling themselves "it's already an Obama landslide, I'd better focus on McCain", or some democrats thinking "it's already an Obama landslide, no need to kneecap Hillary..."

- Post at BarackObama.com on the dangers of listening to pundits

Yesterday a dose of reality set it as Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary. Not by much, but a win is a win and we're probably stuck with her until the convention when hopefully whatever delegates Edwards draws go for Obama. You gotta dream, right?

One thing of note is Hillary's emotional outburst. In the argument that this humanizes her a bit, I agree and think the whole country could have used this bit of info - oh, about 15 years ago. Personally, it seemed forced and a little too well-timed to be believable. Oh, I'm sure the pressures of campaigning and being under so much angry scrutiny *does* have an impact on her. However, I'm pretty sure she's been long-since "experienced" enough to keep that behind the public mask she so notoriously wears. The irony here is two-fold. One, the amount of media thugs who jumped her case but always excuse away conservative crybabies, and two, the woman who asked the question that almost caused the crocodile tears voted for Obama anyway.

I may think she's a faker, but I don't disparage her for trying a valid campaign trick.

What *does* concern me is her ability to be such an angry, petty, egotistical twit. I mean, hell, we've already got those "qualities" with Bush and we're losing troops daily in Iraq because of it.

So the thing was gets me is the absolute slew of stories about Clinton attacking Obama before the primary. Really, whatever happened to running on your record of 35 years or whatever. Check it out if you want: story after story after story about her angry attacks.

ABC offers a comparison of their styles but I think I can provide a simpler explanation.

Last night, Obama started off being very congratulatory of Clinton's win and hushed the dissenters in his crowd. Meanwhile, her supporters were encouraged to boo him when he was on their screens. Obama even hushed folks who booed a bunch of gate-crashing anti-abortion types who tried to mug one of his recent rallies. I'm not saying this makes him a better person, but...well, maybe I *am* saying that.

While on various server builds and holiday vacation and whatnot, I read and listened to a lot of magazines and radio. I wanted to pass a couple of these along to you just because they interested me.

The first one is a recent This American Life replay that I heard when I was in northern California recently. It is about the impact of our government-sponsored fear and hatred of Muslims mixed with a fundamentalist zealot teacher and how they impacted and insulted a young Muslim girl and her family. Take a listen to Act 1. It will make you question the concept of patriotism and put the lie to the so-called decency behind the Family Values and Compassionate Conservatism crowd.

Texas Highways magazine did a fine job covering photos from the set of Lonesome Dove.

Spirit Magazine, Southwest's airline mag, has a great story on the pinball museum here in town. Give it a here.

Hillary Clinton does not respect our people. Hillary Clinton supporters went to court to prevent working people to vote this Saturday — that is an embarrassment.

Hillary Clinton supporters want to prevent people from voting in their workplace on Saturday. This is unforgivable. Hillary Clinton is shameless. Hillary Clinton should not allow her friends to attack our people’s right to vote this Saturday. This is unforgivable; there’s no respect

Sen. Obama is defending our right to vote. Sen. Obama wants our votes. He respects our votes, our community, and our people.

Sen. Obama’s campaign slogan is “Si Se Puede” (“Yes We Can”). Vote for a president that respects us, and that respects our right to vote. Obama for president, “Si Se Puede”

Paid for by UNITE HERE Campaign Committee

- UNITE HERE radio ad (translation)

After a pro-Clinton teacher's union tried to illegally tilt the Nevada caucus in Hillary's favor, a judge threw out their case. After going after votes with crocodile tears, the Clinton campaign is all about using proxies to provoke racial incidents. Here in Nevada, she's trying to disenfranchise largely Latino workers in the culinary union.

In South Carolina, she uses the conservative president of BET, Bob Johnson, to bring up that Obama - gasp! - may have used drugs in the past. How that is relevant, or even useful, in the 21st century isn't clear. What IS clear is that Clinton just stood there and let it happen and didn't say a damn thing until controversy erupted. What is also clear is that she is tying herself to corporate conservatives to attempt character assassinations on her opponent as a strategy. And yes, what is even more clear is that she is trying to fan the Fear of a Black Man meme to scare African-Americans into voting for her.

While Clinton is trying to start a race war and Bill is increasingly becoming unhinged, her campaign is starting to sound, well, Republican.

Mike Huckabee is also fanning the flames of racism and intolerance, but at least he's honest about it. And that's the only damn positive thing I'll say about him. In South Carolina he's wrapping himself up in the Confederate flag, as only true Republicans know how to do.

He has also compared homosexuality with bestiality, also as only true Republicans know how to do.

Seriously, where do they find these assholes?

Also, Gustavo Arellano takes Mitt Romney to task for being a ungrateful rabid anti-immigrant bastard considering how much Mexico gave his polygamy-loving forebearers.

Wanna know why I don't like golf? Shit like this:

Read this article on the controversy in case you aren't up to date. Just the fact someone in the golf community thought this was even okay should keep me off of a green for at least another decade.

Meanwhile, Obama has been trying, though not always successfully, to avoid being suckered in by Clinton's race baiting. He's also been picking up endorsements from party officials, including John Kerry and, soon, Patrick Leahy. Look, a lot of folks aren't even making endorsements, which probably is more of a slap to Hillary Clinton than anything. For people to even speak up for Obama is a fairly gutsy move given her campaign machine. Kudos to them for joining the rest of us.

Leslie and I went to see Obama speak last night here on campus. We also brought Mono and sat aways back so he could see all the people and play a bit with Bea, one of the campus police dogs, when she had a break. Anyways, Barack looked and sounded tired. I have no idea what this kind of thing will do to a person but it probably isn't easy. That said, the crowd got him going. He ending up running through his platform highlights and through some real life examples, as all politicians do. Then he moved on to jokes and storytelling, which I've never heard from him. It was actually pretty damn cool to see him start to relax and feed off of the crowd.

Either way, I doubt we'll see the candidates much after today so this is probably the last time we catch him live and in person. And I have to say, if the kind of crowd Obama draws is indicative of who shows up to caucus today, he's got a damn good chance of winning.

Here's hoping anyway.

By the way, in what is apparently a total surrender to the youth vote, the GOP caucus site is like 8 miles from campus. We can walk five minutes to the Democratic one from our apartment. Or hell, maybe this is a GOP strategy to keep down the Ron Paul support. Either way, it stinks of either failure or collusion. Hmmm.

Something has been bugging me since I read about Huckabee being super-supportive of asshats who love their Confederate flags. Basically, we *know* racism still exists in this country, and that it is given a wink and a nod by the Republican party. That's not news. But what bothers me is why any honest American does it at all.

I mean, we beat the Japanese army and navy and even banned them from using their flag without permission for a time after the war. And that's a foreign country.

The so-called Confederate flag we all are familiar with is a frigging battle flag, people. It isn't even a political symbol, much less a historic one for the South as it is argued. What it actually is - if you want to accept Bush-era language - is a treasonous symbol of insurrection and, since we're arguing the point, anyone who flies it and/or supports it should be flagged as an enemy combatant and deported and shoved down the nearest off-shore rat-hole to be deterred indefinitely and without charge or means to a court of law.

Honestly, wouldn't that take care of at least a few million of our racists and cow the rest of the bastards into silence? I mean, they are the assholes who voted for Bush. They should reap the benefits of the laws they so approved of him breaking and the quasi-martial law he has since put into place. It would serve them right anyway.

Anyway, more on Huckabee's white supremacist support. And one article about some wise-ass politician in Colorado who is probably a Hillary supporter.

Of course Huckabee is the asshat who wondered recently if Jesus and Satan are brothers to Mormons. Racism AND religious freak in one candidate! If nothing else, Huckabee will make normal Americans less reactionary to LDS members if he keeps it up.

CNN says the Clintons have been playing "good cop/bad cop". The problem is, I don't really see a lot of "good cop" in the things Hillary says. Never mind the fact that she just stands quietly by as her proxies try to fuel the fires of racism in this country. Even silence counts as acquiescence.

Meanwhile, Obama is taking a stand against Bill Clinton's recent bouts of BS and will confront the ex-prez on the many occasions he has been wrong of late. I know Bill loves a good campaign, but his being a total dick really isn't doing a damn thing for his legacy.

And the Clintons must get totally excited about the fact that Southern Whites are finding it hard to think they can vote for Obama. Doesn't surprise me but you'd hope for better in this country. Then again, with Bush, Cheney, and FAUXNews feeding the fires of racial intolerance, I guess I shouldn't hope for much.

I keep meaning to find a home for this link and this post might just as well do. Your "compassionate conservative" friends are asking each other if multiculturalism aids the terrorists.

"What's going to happen now? Will I need a passport to get into my own back yard?"

- Nydia Garcia, San Benito, TX on the feds trying to steal her land to build a ridiculous wall

That's about as ridiculous as believing a wall will keep out illegal immigrants. According to this article, border residents do not want a wall and do not think it will work. Michael Chertoff puts the lie to the GOP platform of not wanting big government imposing their will on people's rights and their land by suing 71 Texas families who don't want to give up their land. Here's another homeowner who does not want a wall in their backyard. Some of these folks have had this land in their family before the US even planted its flag in their neighborhood.

Even more damning is the federal seizure of Apache tribal lands. So much for respecting them as a sovereign nation.

Republicans, give up all pretense to your so-called beliefs or stop the fascists that have taken over your party. Otherwise, shut the hell up and get out of the way.

I'm in my hotel room in Camp Verde, AZ watching the results come in from the South Carolina primary. Frankly, there's still plenty of hope in the tank, as Obama trounced Clinton and Edwards in that state.

Hillary Clinton just came on to give her concession/glossing over bad news speech. She's already in Tennessee, having tacitly acknowledged she was going to get whupped.

I don't what she's saying as I've turned it off.

I've been turning her off for awhile. Lately, Bill Clinton is on the list too, for the obvious reason that he's become his wife's equivalent of a Republican attack dog. And I really should come up with a new word for that as it is an insult to pups everywhere.

For a long while now, I've been turning Bush off whenever he comes on the radio or TV. He has nothing worthwhile to say to me and I can just as easily read about his lies and hatred without listening to his annoying ass voice.

And you know what? I don't get my blood boiling as much by not giving these kinds of people air time in my head. My heart rate remains steady and I don't get as wound up as I could be with all that hate and disrespect and verbal crap running around my brainpan.

And you know what else? I doubt NPR or CNN or whoever gives a damn really, but wouldn't it be fun if they started noticing these momentary blips of people turning off their feed and at least reported on it? Wouldn't it be nice to at least freak out a couple marketing freaks, if just for one moment in time?

So, come on. Give it a shot. Turn it off or change the channel. Kill the sound bites, the lecherous ads, the outright lying speeches. You really aren't missing anything important. I promise.

McCain and Romney have been going at it for days, each trying to paint the other as a liberal. Because of it, McCain may have won Florida, but lost a little more decency in the process.

Look at it this way. The Republicans are all running to the right, kissing the asses of the so-called religious right. You know, the Taliban-analogs we have that want to kill gays, take away citizenship for children of illegals, blow up abortion clinics and assassinate doctors, who want public funding of their hate-filled churches so they can teach our children that evolution and global warming don't exist and that the earth is only 6,000 years old and that we should pillage the planet because Jebus is coming any day now.

And then there are all the racists and corporate sleazebags which make up the rest of the party.

Meanwhile, Obama is trying to appeal to all Americans, Clinton is swearing she's not the evil dragon lady the GOP has labeled her all these years (despite apparently turning out to actually BE said dragon lady given recent behavior), and Edwards is at least speaking up for the majority of Americans and not just a few thousand hojillionaires.

So yeah, I like the Democrats chances if the argument can be made in such a way.

That said, I was going to rant on some more about this but One Pissed Off Veterans does it so much better.

Also, if you haven't been to the site before, be sure to check out his weekly Friday by the Numbers.