How the hell did Rod Blagojevich get elected in the first place?

Was he always this crazy or did it happen more recently?

We, the United States of America, your top quality supplier of the ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service outage has been located, and the software responsible was replaced November 4.

Early tests of the newly installed program indicate that we are now operating correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional on January 20, 2009. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage.

We look forward to resuming full service and hope to improve in years to come. We thank you for your patience and understanding.

Sincerely,
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Here’s my call for Tuesday (hopefully I will not jinx anything!). Obama 286, McCain 252.

I don’t think we’ll take 60 in the Senate. My call: 57 seats.

And CA Prop 8? Too close to call.

Finally, just for fun, this slightly cheesy video:

If you have not voted early, do your duty tomorrow. I’ll be there when the polls open at 7.

That’s it, in a nutshell.

I realize this is an issue that causes a lot of pain and confusion, even for some people who are generally liberal on social issues.

Bottom line, though, is that change is not always pretty, or safe, or easy, or even comfortable.

No on 8. It’s the right thing to do.

UPDATE: I am very pleased to note that Chuck Geschke, Founder & Chairman of Adobe is quoted in this No on 8 press release.

I spent the evening watching Obama’s historic speech in a packed hotel room in downtown San Francisco. I got home to find close to 100 posts piled up in the “Politics” section of my feed reader. With that amount of text flying, it’s virtually impossible to find anything to say that’s truly original, and there are far better writers than me who will turn out much more lyrical paeans to Obama’s speech.

So I’ll just share one part of the speech, that made my jaw drop amidst all the cheers and even a couple of tears:

….part of what has been lost these past eight years can’t just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose, and that’s what we have to restore.

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country.

The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than they are for those plagued by gang violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.

I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in a hospital and to live lives free of discrimination.

You know, passions may fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.

But this, too, is part of America’s promise, the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

Obama called out what are arguably the four most divisive issues in American domestic policy, and talked about trying to find common ground on them.

A less gutsy politician wouldn’t have done that. And in fact the speech could have been just fine without that section. But no, Obama went the extra mile and took all four of them head on.

Election Day is less than 70 days away. Bring it on. We’re ready.

Righteous outrage, that is. Keith Olbermann going off on Hillary Clinton today was a thing to behold:

He’s pissed, and with very good reason.

if you haven’t seen it, do so. This is the entire thing, not just the snippet you’ll see on TV:

Or at the very least, read the transcript.

It’s closing in on 10 PM and I’ve been watching the returns for almost 5 hours now. As I write this, Obama took 13 states to Clinton’s 8 (New Mexico has not yet been declared), and MSNBC has the two of them within 20 delegates of each other.

Of course, I would have liked to see Obama take California and/or New York in a resounding victory, but all in all, tonight was a good night. This race isn’t even close to being over.

In November of 2004, I donned a black zip-up hoodie and walked out into a grey, foggy San Francisco morning to go vote. I was scared, angry, and stressed out. We all know what happened.

Today, I’m wearing purple and the sun is shining after a week of rain. I’ll be leaving to go vote as soon as I finish this post.

I fear hope — it has let me down bitterly in the past — but right now, I’m cautiously hopeful about the outcome of today. Tonight, I could be looking at this post and wishing I’d never written it, but right now, I’m going to indulge in the luxury of hope for a better, brighter future. And now I’m going to go do something about it.

Get out there and vote today if you live in a primary state!

I think I’ve mentioned in passing that Obama is my candidate, but with Super Tuesday approaching, it’s time I came out and said so in no uncertain terms. There’s a lot of reasons why, but essentially it boils down to something Obama himself said in a speech today:

It’s not enough to say you’ll be ready from Day One — you have to be right from Day One.

I support Barack Obama for President, and if you’re voting in one of the upcoming Democratic primaries, I strongly urge you to vote for him as well.

Frankly, Hillary Clinton and Obama do not differ all that much in many aspects of their platforms and their voting records — except for one glaring difference. Obama was right about the disastrous war Bush got us into, and Hillary was not. All the experience in the world will not help you if you make the wrong choices on key issues like whether or not to go to war, and Hillary got it wrong.

And even more than that, Obama is one of those uniquely gifted leaders who can, despite how rough the last 8 years have been, make people feel good about being an America, make us feel confident about our future, and make us feel that yes, we can get this ship of state back on course.

An America with Barack Obama as its President is an America I’d very much like to see. Whether we’ll get there, I don’t know, but I’ll be doing my part next Tuesday to try to bring it about.

I’m a bit hesitant to link to The Raw Story but if this is for real … it’s a little disconcerting, to say the least:

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”

When Willie Geist reported Huckabee’s opinion on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski was almost speechless, and even Joe Scarborough couldn’t immediately find much to say beyond calling it “interesting”

Someone needs to ask Huckabee exactly what he means by that comment.

If he means we should add stuff about loving your neighbor as yourself, or about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and healing the sick … well, maybe he’s got a point. But if it’s the parts about killing homosexuals and making women into chattel, well, that’s another story.

Regarding this particular piece of news …. both McCain and Lieberman are increasingly irrelevant, so to some degree, who cares whether or not he is endorsing a Republican?

Sen. John McCain, trying to build momentum toward a reprise of his 2000 New Hampshire primary victory, is piling up high-profile endorsements, including one from another political maverick, Sen. Joseph Lieberman.

The Connecticut senator, an independent who was the Democrats’ 2000 vice presidential nominee, was scheduled to announce his support for McCain at a town hall meeting Monday morning in Hillsborough.

A Lieberman adviser said the senator decided to back McCain despite being a Republican because he believes his colleague from Arizona “has the best chance of uniting the country in its fight against Islamic terrorism.”

I have to add, though — of all the reasons he could have given for crossing party lines to make his endorsement, that’s the best he can do?

Pathetic.