automaticable

I hope all of you Obamamaniacs were right, because he just pushed Hillary out of the game.

That is all.

A couple of weeks ago I had a disheartening conversation with a friend of mine. Somehow we happened upon the subject of choice and gay marriage. My friend, being a conservative Christian, said that she not only supports the ban on gay marriage, but could never, ever vote to allow gays the right to marriage, even if the marriage was simply legal, making it more along the lines of a civil union. Her reasoning was that because she was morally opposed to gay marriage, she could not support a bill overturning the current ban. She willingly admits that she is fine with gays loving each other and would never discriminate against them, but what she doesn’t realize is that she already has.

My friend, by supporting the ban on gay marriage, is not defending her morals. She has decided that her moral conviction is more “right” than the gay population’s, and thus her will must be imposed on these people. Forget the fact that gay marriage has no bearing on her life whatsoever, and that taking away the ability for people to choose to make decisions, even if they may be the “wrong” decision, is closer to a Communist regime than a loving Christian society.

Well, my friend, I have some disappointing news for you.  California, by far the most socially advanced state in the United States (see: smoking bans, highway cleanup, medical marijuana, recycling, etc) and the state which the rest of the country inevitably follows socially, has just pronounced gay marriage as legal.  Not only is gay marriage legal, but, according to Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George,

…discrimination against gays, on the basis of their sexual orientation, [is] equivalent under the California state constitution to discrimination against racial minorities.

Overturning the ban on gay marriage is pretty big, but this quote is huge.  The gay community now has legal authority to go to court over discrimination based on sexual orientation.

I hope this is a signal to the rest of the United States that times are changing.  You will no longer be allowed to impose your impractical religious views on other just because you are morally opposed to the choices people make.  The great thing about this, conservative Christian right, is that you won’t even notice the difference!  The gay community will be happier (gayer, some might say).  They may also be allowed the tax breaks that straight couples get for being married.  But guess what.  Your life will not change.  All that changes is that the will of God will not be imposed on Americans any longer.

I have been ecstatic since I heard this news.  Not because I know anyone this will directly effect, but because I am a champion of choice, and California is a source of hope for everything I believe in.  I can only hope that choice is allowed to the rest of Americans as our country matures and becomes more loving, understanding, and accepting.

Slate (via Clusterflock)

I’ve been busy lately but had a few things I wanted to post about, so I’ll make the points short.

• Last night was the Democratic Presidential Debate in Philadelphia.  I wish I had time for a whole post on this as I have a lot to talk about, but I’ll stick to one point.  When the issue of gas prices came up, Hilary responded that she wanted to find out if there was price gouging going on in the energy markets (which I’m glad to hear) and she hoped that would lower prices.  She then followed up with saying she would tax gas companies majorly because of how much money they are making.  Hilary, maybe you’ve never taken an economics course, but you know that corporate taxes are passed on directly to the consumer, right?  So a tax on Exxon increases the price of Exxon gas.  Awesome.  I liked Obama’s response much better: he would focus heavily on alternative energy issues and increase the minimum MPG on American vehicles.  Decrease demand and decrease the price at the same time.

• I didn’t even mean for these 2 points to relate, but my second topic is also about gas prices.  When I moved to Atlanta I was paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.55 for gas.  Today it is $3.49 at the same station.  That is a 38% increase in less than 1 year, and this is not even peak gas season.  I just wish my paycheck also increased by 38%, as I’ve seen these gas prices effect not only the cost of my vehicle, but my favorite food joints are also feeling the heat and increasing their own prices.

• My third and final point is just to let you all know that something big is brewing for me right now that I’m really excited about.  Actually, 2 things.  I’ll give you more details when I can, but until then I will probably be pretty busy so my posting on here might be fairly light.

That’s all for now.  As always, leave any thoughts you have in the comments.  I’ll definitely have time to respond to comments, as those don’t take nearly as long to write.

As America heads towards a recession, or at the very least an economic slump, it is important to not only find solutions to turn the economy around, but also figure out how we got here. One of the main contributors to our current economic state is America’s irresponsibility in the housing market.

The blame for our current housing crisis can be placed all over, from big banks to small investment firms, and from our government all the way down to the individual home buyer. My negativity currently resides with the latter two, the government and the individual home buyer. I read earlier today in the Atlanta Journal Constitution (one of the larger newspapers in Atlanta) that both of the Democratic Presidential hopefuls have plans in place to help the individuals effected by the housing crisis. $30 billion were set aside to help bail out families whose houses are being foreclosed on. My questions is this: since when does our government set aside billions of dollars to help out Americans who simply made bad, uninformed mistakes?

This is where accountability comes into play. I am 100% against our government bailing out individuals who failed to realize that their sub-prime, adjustable rate mortgages could (gasp!) adjust above the level they could afford to pay. How can so many people be so ignorant? Did they all think a miracle had happened and all of a sudden they could afford their dream house on a combined $50k income? Here is a tip America: when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

If our solution to this problem is to simply bail out Americans who were too blinded by sub-prime loans to read the fine print, what is to stop this from happening again? Just as if you told your young child that every mistake they made was OK and that mommy would always be there to fix everything for them, America will lose all accountability and remain in their uninformed ways, sucking on the governmental teat. If there is no risk involved in a loan, there is no reason to worry about whether you can make the payments or not. And this is what Obama and Clinton are supporting: a program that promotes ignorance and diminishes all accountability in the American people. Mistakes will not be corrected as there is no risk of failure or punishment. This is not the America I want to live in, but a precedent is about to be set that may effect the decisions of Americans for generations.

Think before you make a decision as large as buying a home, and make sure you can afford your payments, no matter how high they may get. Instill accountability in not only your children, but the American people as a whole. Hand-holding is for toddlers, not grown US citizens.

It’s 2008, so you know what that means. No, not the Olympics. No, not your daughter who was born on February 29th, 2000 will FINALLY turn 2. What I’m getting at is that it’s the year of the vote. This is no more fun that doing taxes, except you have to do taxes every year and only vote every four years.  Politics are like the bible, you know what’s going to happen, but you keep going back to them anyways in hopes that there’s going to be some kind of change, but inevitably there won’t be. Now, I’m not very political at all, hell, I usually vote for the guy that can be best photoshopped into a monkey (sorry bout the Bush vote, totally not my fault). Sorry, dramatization there, I do actually take the time and do some research and pick who I think will be best for the position (again, sorry for the Bush vote, totally not my fault). This year we have two front runners who basically sum up the the entire schlepper of man/woman kind. Now, I mean this figuratively of course, because who really is a schlepper now a days, other than Ralph Nader. The two candidates I’m talking about are Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. (Sorry McCain, you have to be a bench warmer for now….)

Now, here’s the first thing that sets these two people apart from every other candidate we’ve ever had; they’re different. Obama is African American, and Hillary is a female. (Is it sad that I thought of Kindergarten Cop when writing about how Hillary is a female?). ANYWAYS this is the first time that the next President of the United States will either be a woman, or an African American and frankly that scares a lot of people. Now, I’m not saying that it scares me, I think it’s a great idea! Maybe in another 4 years we can have a Disney Character in the office! I should prob stop with that part of the rant right now before I take it too far….

But anyways, back to the candidates. So Brittney Clinton, er, I mean Hillary Clinton has been bashing Obama a lot recently. The big one that comes to mind is she is releasing photos of him over in third world nations dressed in typical Muslim attire and implying that he is working with terrorists (she won’t directly state this because THAT is an outlandish statement!). So, yeah, she’s using sly tactics and is just getting bashed beyond belief….oh well!

Now, to be fair, Osama, er Obama’s (wow, slip of the tongue there) no saint either, he’s using mud slinging tactics as well, but unfortunately he’s not as bad as Hillary so therefore, no hard evidence to prove that he’s such a bad guy.

If I come off a little biased here, what ever, its a blog, you should be a work working anyways, not reading this silly thing. For now I’m gunna go eat some frozen french toast sticks with warm eggo syrup and drink a quarter gallon of milk, because I live in America, and darnit, that’s the healthy American thing to do!

By the way, Happy Birthday all the sons and daughters out there born on February 29th….I know your birthday comes only once every 4 years, but trust me, in 84 years, you’ll be able to drink legally!

I am not going to discuss which candidate is better than the other. I’m not going to discuss which political party is better than the other. All I want to talk about here is how relieved I am to finally feel like my vote mattered.

Let me give you a bit of voting history here.

I am from California and I am 22 years old. My first real election was Bush v. Kerry. Talk about a terrible first experience. Californians love flip flops, but Kerry almost made us change our minds. And Bush…well we’ve seen the results of his re-election. Not only that, but the way Bush won was so controversial that I almost lost faith in how the American election system is structured. All of this right on the heels of California voting in the terminator for governor. Sometimes I wonder why certain people are allowed to vote.

After those 2 botched voting experiences I end up living in the bible belt just before the most important presidential election of my life. This is a big deal since I tend to think (socially) Democratic, and the bible belt in general is highly Republican.

Great, so now my vote for president won’t be heard no matter what since Georgia is obviously voting Republican!

In come the most closely watched presidential primary race in the history of the United States. I would have never thought the primaries would be my savior. Even if my state is going to end up supporting the Republicans, my voice can help pick which Democrat stands up to that Republican and hopefully beats them. Also, since less people vote in the primaries and the votes are split between Republicans and Democrats, my vote holds more weight. 1 vote in a total 300,000 (that’s a guess) means a lot more than 1 vote in 18,000,000 (another guess).

So to wrap this up, I am happier than ever to have a voice in politics after years and years of frustration. My vote matters and I am re-energized politically. I now feel like going to the polls is important and plan on voting on everything that comes my way.