Well, I was Going to go skiing today, but I slept in and then awoke to find that the passes were all closed, and didn't feel like driving to Crystal Mountain because the earliest i would've gotten there was 12:30... at this point I should have just thrown my crap in my car and gone, and got in what i could before they close at 4:00... but I sat around drinking coffee trying to decide what to do and my decision was made for me by indecision...

Now I'm wondering if I should caucus today... I'd like to but I have nothing positive to say at this point. I didn't have any say in narrowing the field down to Obama and Hillary, and at this point it hardly matters to me which one wins the nomination.

I heard last night on NPR that the nation is swinging back to the left, and maybe "liberal" shouldn't be a bad word any more. I yawned and changed the station... I have been explaining to people that what makes me a "Democrat" is my lack of being a "Republican," and, for what its worth, I'm far more motivated by what I know I don't like than what I actually believe in, which is precious little.

I know this, and I hate to beat a dead horse here, but I think this shit is important and bears repeating. I have watched the Republican party stand up and defend a presidency that is at best incompetent and at worst criminal. People say that Bill Clinton was a liar, and he very well may have been. It seems that he lied about some business dealings he and Hillary were involved in before their presidency and getting blow jobs while he was president. If you are an absolutist, a lie is a lie, and it reflects upon your character, at that affects your ability to be president. Fair enough...

Then you have the Bush Debacle. They have lied about everything. Middle class tax cuts? Lied... the rich got tax cuts, the middle class got to face the specter of privatized social security. War in the Middle East... holy shit, where to begin on the layers and layers of lies that are involved here... wow. Like I said earlier, the word that comes to mind any more is "criminal." It gets even worse... I've come to believe that the single worst act to come out of this administration is that the United States of America now tortures people, in an officially approved capacity. Of course, we're lied to about that. This only scratches the surface... Cheney and his cronies are so adept at lying they clearly believe their own endless bullshit.

So, I ask, how can any intellectually honest "Absolutist" possibly stand for anything this administration has done? The sum of what has happened here is that Republicans support the administration simply because they are on the same team. Even so, this constitutes the absolute worst from of sleazeball hypocrisy, or outright intellectual dishonesty -- an ethical crime we need to hold more politicians on either side of the aisle accountable for.

Before Bush was elected in 2000, the warning signs were there, and this country ignored them. After a disastrous 4-year trial run, he was then re-elected based, in hindsight, upon some vague doubts raised about Kerry's Vietnam service records which stemmed from fabricated attack ads, a sudden and inexplicable fear that gay marriage would doom our nation, and the idea that you "shouldn't change horses mid-stream" even thought the "stream" we were crossing was an alleged "War on Terror" that was built upon an elaborate and meticulous foundation of lies and propaganda. This is how we choose our leaders, America... are we proud?

If the nation is indeed swinging "left" it is only because it has taken us 7 years to wake up to the horror of what an incompetent and criminal administration can do. The lessons learned from this should be obvious to anyone willing to ponder it, regardless of political affiliation. The Democrats have endlessly heaped the "change" card on us, and it is no mistake that we have a woman and a black man to choose from. While it is clear time for this country to have something other than a rich, white male as president, the Dems made a serious error in passing over their most qualified nominees. This isn't to say that Obama and/or Hillary won't make a decent president -- as we learned from Bush the people a newly elected president surrounds himself with are just as important as the individual -- but in a year when the Dems could've had a slam dunk -- Look! he's Not a Republican And he's qualified! -- they instead went in the direction of "hey, you want Change... we'll give you some motherfucking CHANGE!

Or, at least that's how I feel right now...

So, what DO i believe in... well, that's tricky...

First and foremost, and most obviously, is to reformulate this supposed "war on terror" that has become little more than a blank check for prominent Republicans to act like complete assholes. This involves any number of sub-topics, including but not limited to: 1) please, for the love of god, stop torturing people, 2) back off the Iran thing... seriously, just back...the...fuck...off! We DO NOT know what we are doing here, and we ARE NOT prepared to pay the consequences for an Iraq-esque mis-step. 3) begin the process to restore our "diplomatic credibility," (this will take more than 4 years. 4) define an achievable goal in Iraq ad then get the hell out. Okay, so #4 is a but ambiguous, so maybe 4a is apologize for lying and 4b is ask the Saudis, Iranians, Syrians, Jordanians, and most of all Iraqis what They want us to do.

Next, at this point, is health care. I don't have a solution, it's just clear to me what is wrong: My health care, as is most people's, is managed by for-profit corporations who couldn't care less about shaving costs. This strikes me as an obvious problem. In addition, this nation has an overall case of hypochondria in which those that are covered have a habit of unnecessary doctor visits and procedures, sucking money from an overall pool that is better served to making sure "everyone" is covered.

Then, there is the mother of all issues, which encompasses industry, the environment, and infrastructure. At it's most basic, it is called "ending the oil addiction." This involves a lot of things, not the least of which is grabbing the automakers by their throats and outright FORCING them to make all vehicles more fuel efficient, and ordering them (and help to fund) alternate fuels research. This involves getting utility companies into a room and beating some sense into them (maybe we should be torturing energy mongers and not terrorists!). But most of all, this involves not giving another dime to oil companies. This is just the beginning, of course, but you have to starts somewhere...