Election Day: Please Vote

It's no secret that I hope Barack Obama wins the election today but regardless I encourage everyone to go out and get your sticker just like our man Homer here; let's hope you have considerably less trouble in the booth:

My '08 Election Predictions

In the first few weeks of this blog way back in February I attempted to predict the Academy Awards with partial success (I went 5 for 8 in the major categories) but I only did so publicly because I had swept every category and won some dough in a pool at work the year before; of course I had not seen a single movie I was choosing from at the time so I'm hoping that my political prognostications are a little more finely tuned.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has visited this site lately that I think Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States but here are the numbers I'm officially putting down: I predict Obama/Biden will win the popular vote by 4-5 1/2% with 20-25 electoral votes if John McCain and Sarah Palin do well or with 100 or more electoral votes if they do poorly; I'm not going to try to predict the numbers for a McCain/Palin victory other than to say that I'd give that scenario 20-1 odds or worse of happening. I also predict that the Democrats will increase their majorities in both houses of congress but that neither will achieve a veto-proof filibuster-proof margin.

So for those who care, there they are; in about 24 hours we'll see how finely honed my political instincts are. I've stocked my house with provisions both alcoholic and non so that I can spend the entire day soaking up the last drops of electoral fever before this odyssey of an election season is over. I only plan on leaving the house once and that's to vote; yes, I'm an irresponsible bastard who didn't fill out my absentee ballot in time. However tomorrow turns out, I've had fun writing about this election and I hope you've had just as much fun reading about it, and I promise to come up with all kinds of new and interesting things to bitch and rant about if you keep reading in the future. Now go vote.

The Kids Are Alright

It seems that all of the video games and beer pong haven't had as deleterious an effect as I had feared:

NEW YORK The Obama campaign leads by better than 2-1 in newspaper endorsements from dailies and weeklies, based on our tally so far. But the Democratic ticket has an even more impressive lead when it comes to college newspapers — 63 to 1, according to UWIRE’s Presidential Endorsement Scorecard (we have been providing a partial tabulation).

Sadly, The Battalion from my beloved Texas A&M University is not amongst them but at least it's not the lone McCain holdout either; I guess they're going the Switzerland route on this one.

Why We'll Win

Because they have this guy on their side:

Some of the dissenters get a little rowdy but I think it's understandable.

Something Someone Else Said

"The drive for gay marriage represents the end of the sexual revolution. Marriage lost its glamour. It lost its connection to sex. Divorce got so easy that "single mom" became a sympathetic political trope. Cohabitation became normal. Nowadays, nobody--least of all gays--has to get married to be a respectable member of society. And yet people want to get married. They want to bind themselves to be monogamous. They want to promise in public to face bad breath in the morning. That's pretty remarkable." -Virginia Postrel, Dynamist.com

I realize that the photo above is not representative of gay marriage so much as it is just some hot lesbian action but my conservative counterpart used it in his post trying to scare families about gay marriage being taught to their children in schools so I considered it appropriate, and again: hot.

Vader Endorses McCain

Not nearly as entertaining as Ferrell's Bush endorsement but still pretty funny if you're an Obama supporter:

Obama seemed a lot happier to hear the news than I imagine McCain was:

President Bush is sitting out the last few days before the election. But earlier today, Dick Cheney came out of his undisclosed location and hit the campaign trail. He said that he is, and I quote, “delighted to support John McCain.”

I’d like to congratulate Senator McCain on this endorsement because he really earned it. That endorsement didn’t come easy. Senator McCain had to vote 90 percent of the time with George Bush and Dick Cheney to get it. He served as Washington’s biggest cheerleader for going to war in Iraq, and supports economic policies that are no different from the last eight years. So Senator McCain worked hard to get Dick Cheney’s support.

(hat tip: Doug E)

[Update: In fact, he and his campaign seem "delighted":
]

Who Are You Named After?

When your ideas and policies just aren't enough to get you elected I guess there's only one way to go:

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. – “John McCain! Not Hussein!”

So goes the latest popular chant on the campaign trail with Gov. Sarah Palin, demonstrated at a morning rally in central Florida.

Ms. Palin was midway through her stump speech when a group of supporters began shouting it in unison, drowned out a few seconds later as Ms. Palin talked over them.

A similar chant, “Vote McCain, not Hussein,” was heard at a campaign event for Ms. Palin in Williamsport, Pa., earlier this week.

Senator Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein, a fact that some of his opponents say proves that he is a Muslim. Mr. Obama is, in fact, a Christian.

If these people sound stupid and hateful it's only because they are, but this idiot is probably my favorite of the bunch; when asked about his reservations about Obama he had this brilliant piece of information to impart:

The middle name Hussein, he said, added to the suspicion. “I guess Obama was named after Saddam Hussein,” he said.

Discounting the fact that the former Iraqi dictator was an unknown 24 year old at the time Obama was born Hussein is one of the most common names in the Muslim world, probably the most popular after Mohammad and Ali (and we know how anti-American the guy with those names turned out to be). I love America and I would like for us to be the greatest country in the world but dead weight like these assholes is only dragging us down, and the rest of the world can clearly see that.

I'm Sorry, Barack

More than one person has sent this to me so here is my secret shame for all to witness:


(hat tip: Reza and Tami)

Maher's New Rules: '08 Recap

I must admit that I'm guilty of breaking this one myself lately but I can't argue that despite all of the ugliness of late that this hasn't been one of the most interesting and exciting presidential elections in modern history:

Censoring Sarah Palin

She's already proven that she has no idea what the job of the vice-president is, so why should we expect her to understand how the first amendment works?

Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama's associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate's free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

Really? Since Chris Plante is a right-wing talk radio host it's no surprise that he didn't call her on her shit but just in case any of you (besides Palin and Plante) have forgotten:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So according to Sarah Palin (and yes, I know how loaded a phrase that can be) the media and others exercising their free speech rights to refute and/or criticize what she says is the same thing as the United States government passing laws explicitly outlawing what she says. In other words, Palin's idea of free speech is the right to say anything critical about anybody or anything without anyone else criticizing what you've just said; in point of fact, that's the exact opposite of free speech.

Which brings me to the inevitable question that I have to ask so often in the face of people who make a practice of uttering inanities that completely contradict reality: is Sarah Palin just so ignorant/stupid that she completely misunderstands one of the most basic rights granted to us as Americans by our constitution or is she just an inveterate liar who thinks she can somehow play the victim card on a national stage and that we're all just so dumb that we'll believe her and let it slide?

I'd like to give her the benefit of the doubt and hope that she's just another dishonest politician saying anything to try to win this thing (her history of blatant and easily refuted lies has been well documented) but the mountain of evidence that she's actually just an ignorant fool who slid into her place in history through McCain's monumentally irresponsible judgement is certainly piling up. What's your opinion?

(hat tip: Doug E)