I'm Confused

If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you' re 'exotic, different.'

Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.


If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.


Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.


If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.


If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.


If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.


If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

If your husband is nicknamed 'First Dude,' with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.


OK, much clearer now.

(Not sure where this originated, or I'd give attribution. If you're the author, please let me know; I'd like to buy you a drink.)

How's Your Sex Life?

Now that I have your attention, I'd like to say a few words about the upcoming election. For years, no, decades, I have been trying to explain, in the simplest terms possible, to my "conservative" friends that voting for Republicans is acting contrary to their own self-interests. Despite having the facts on my side, and despite the fact that these fine folks are now experiencing for themselves the effects of thirty-plus years of trickle-down (piss on my leg and tell me it's raining) Reaganonmics, by way of the massive bloodletting of decent paying jobs to overseas companies, the shifting of the tax burden from wealthy individuals and huge corporations to the middle class, the gutting of programs designed to both act as a safety net and ensure at least a minimum standard of living, etc., for some odd reason, they still don't believe me. It's mind-boggling, really.

Once again, I see that the Republicans are trying to pull that same of scare tactic of branding Barack Obama a "tax and spend Liberal," in an attempt to get average, working people to vote for them because they're afraid that Obama's going to make their already dire financial situation (created by those wonderful Republican policies, BTW) worse. I call bullshit. Aside from the fact that even if he was a "tax and spend Liberal," I'd much prefer that to a "borrow and spend" corporatist, the facts just don't bear that out. Witness:



Unless I'm very sadly mistaken, or unless my friends are exceptionally adept at hiding their wealth from me and everyone else, I'm pretty sure that I don't even know anyone who makes more than $603,000 a year. Do you? Didn't think so.

Here, you can get a rough estimate of how much less you'll pay in taxes under Obama's plan, and how much more you'll pay under McCain's:

Tax Cut Calculator

Go ahead, take a moment and visit the link. I'll wait...

Okay, now that you've seen it for yourself, are you ready to set aside your delusions and vote your wallet? The rest of us would very much appreciate it.

By the way, my sex life? Fantastic. ;)