“They’re happy to have us back,” Roberts said. “They told me the food concessions sold $38,000 worth of food on the first day alone — and that’s more than they do in a whole week at the California Gift Show.”

via Marijuana’s new high life — latimes.com.

Support the legalization of marijuana.  Lobby your Congressional representatives, local legislators.  Heck, President Obama could with the stroke of a pen move marijuana off the Schedule I Controlled Substance list.

Can the United States have clean power from renewable sources? I think we can.

You can read the transcript behind the cut…

Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics, and this isn’t really just about Prop-8. And I don’t have a personal investment in this: I’m not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics.

This is about the… human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not… understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don’t want to deny you yours. They don’t want to take anything away from you. They want what you want — a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them — no. You can’t have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don’t cause too much trouble. You’ll even give them all the same legal rights — even as you’re taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can’t marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn’t marry?

I keep hearing this term “re-defining” marriage.

If this country hadn’t re-defined marriage, black people still couldn’t marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal… in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn’t have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it’s worse than that. If this country had not “re-defined” marriage, some black people still couldn’t marry…black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not “Until Death, Do You Part,” but “Until Death or Distance, Do You Part.” Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are… gay.

And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing — centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children… All because we said a man couldn’t marry another man, or a woman couldn’t marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage. How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the “sanctity” of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don’t you, as human beings, have to embrace… that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate… this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness — this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness — share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

—

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of…love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate. You don’t have to help it, you don’t have it applaud it, you don’t have to fight for it. Just don’t put it out. Just don’t extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don’t know and you don’t understand and maybe you don’t even want to know…It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow **person…

Just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

“I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam,” he told the judge.

“It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all:

“So I be written in the Book of Love;

“I do not care about that Book above.

“Erase my name, or write it as you will,

“So I be written in the Book of Love.”

—

Good night, and good luck.

Current Mood:  rejuvenated

This fight will not end until all citizens are equal, that they can choose to marry the adult person of their choosing.

But just to say: a child cannot enter into a contract. A non-human animal cannot enter into a contract. An inanimate object cannot enter into a contract.

These are dynamite facts that demand immediate action to halt the bailout deal and correct its giveaway terms. Stop payment on the Treasury checks before the bankers can cash them. Open an immediate Congressional investigation into how Paulson and his staff determined such a sweetheart deal for leading players in the financial sector and for their own former employer. Paulson’s bailout staff is heavily populated with Goldman Sachs veterans and individuals from other Wall Street firms. Yet we do not know whether these financiers have fully divested their own Wall Street holdings. Were they perhaps enriching themselves as they engineered this generous distribution of public wealth to embattled private banks and their shareholders?

Leo W. Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers, raised these explosive questions in a stinging letter sent to Paulson this week. The union did what any private investor would do. Its finance experts vetted the terms of the bailout investment and calculated the real value of what Treasury bought with the public’s money. In the case of Goldman Sachs, the analysis could conveniently rely on a comparable sale twenty days earlier. Billionaire Warren Buffett invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs and bought the same types of securities–preferred stock and warrants to purchase common stock in the future. Only Buffett’s preferred shares pay a 10 percent dividend, while the public gets only 5 percent. Dollar for dollar, Buffett “received at least seven and perhaps up to 14 times more warrants than Treasury did and his warrants have more favorable terms,” Gerard pointed out.

With everyone so focused on the election, we can’t afford to drop the ball on this important issue.  Remember, the American people were against this bailout to begin with, so we need to pay extra attention to the this to make sure it doesn’t become a complete swindle of our money and treasure.

After the debacle elections of 2000 and 2004 and the resulting disaster of the Bush epoch many people are saying that some Senator Obama a liberal person of color will be cheated by the powers that be.

I have met this power and s/he is us.

Senator McCain can of course win. Anybody who saw the Red Soxs come back in game 5 of the ALCS can see that. He can win if we as Citizens don’t vote or vote for Senator Obama for the same short sided, backward bigoted reasons. We, (yes we, all of us share the country and our collective fates despite personal reservations we may have to the great intellectually unwashed, zealots we share our nation and polity with.) could fall victim to the old school of politics (Hussien Obama Jackson Washington, that one over there, is liberal, weak on crime, terrorism, Pastor Wright, Negro/Arab whose Mama used food stamps), especially find if we need an excuse not to vote for a Brown President.

In 2000 the excuse not to elect Al Gore was his ties to the Clinton Scandal. Well America in your moral outrage how did that one work out. That one, Bush 42, lied to you and got us in a war that has hamstrung us finically for a generation. The Democrats where afraid to run against him so when his popularity started to slip all they had left to run against him was John Kerry. Senator Kerry a man so gutless to allow a trust Fun kid, draft dodger, Cocaine addict /drunkard, to get with misrepresenting his war record.

In 2004 the election came to Ohio. Many conspiracy theorist would say that the machines where rigged throwing the election to Bush. As president he lied to enter the country into a war what’s stealing an election. I think what happened is more sinister. Many people voted in Ohio to defeat a law that would allow gay Americans equal rights.

Even in their moral outrage most people understand that it is unconstitutional to out law homosexual activity. Denying equal protection to a class who offends your well developed moral outrage is text book oppression. We all got another 4 years of W’s special brand of unintellectual morally intrusive governing and we can all see what happened. The Country is in such bad shape there is a good chance a man of color with the middle name Hussein is about to be elected President of the United States. Those Ohio Americans who vote for Mr. Bush who are suffering this economy should ask Reverend Wright about their chickens and where they roost.

They’ve tried to race bait already but Americans stung by a failing economy and quagmire of foreign affairs called them on that. As a student of politics and the human psyche I’m interested to see how far Senator McCain and His Female dog with lipstick will go in the coming weeks to win. (Governor I know about inner city hopelessness and urban decay because I can see Camden from the Wachovia Center.)

For you keep score at home Senator McCain has make sure that one over there (Senator Obama) wins no other states than one on this list and Senator McCain and the Hockey Mom with 5 kids one of which has a sever developmental disability and a knocked up 17 year old Daughter, take one of the states on this list or two of the three vote states (Which is unlikely see as Delaware is home to Joe the Senator Biden and D.C is well,… racially diverse.)

Washington

Oregon

California

Colorado

New Mexico

Iowa

Minnesota

Wisconsin

Michigan

Illinois

Maine

New Hampshire

Vermont

New York

New Jersey

Pennsylvania

Delaware

Maryland

Washington D.C.

That’s 273.3 more than needed. Thats 273 without Ohio, Florida, West Virginia, North Carolina etc.

If you live in these states Vote. Even if you vote for Senator McCain please do so for reasons based on policy, not fear or as a way to legislate your moral agenda or because he… reminds you of your Grandfather. If you support Senator Obama, vote.

McCain’s eye roll at Obama’s explanation for why he doesn’t support the Colombian trade agreement continues the example of his contempt he shows toward his opponent.

Another example of McCain’s contempt. He’s “proud of the people who come to [his] rallies.” And while that is good, that means he’s also proud of the people who threaten violence and throw racial epithets? Yes, he has “rebuked” his audience recently, but he certainly hasn’t repudiated Sarah Palin’s comments.

Here we see McCain not knowing his opponent’s plan that he had just trashed. The deer in the headlights look on his face is pretty funny.

And hey, I bet with all the free publicity Joe the Plumber is getting tonight, he’ll be able to buy that business after all!

But these clips are the perfect example of why Barack Obama is the right candidate for the troubles that face us: he’s calm, knowledgeable, seeks justice, and clearly cares about the people of the United States. John McCain looked angry and old, and out of touch. The creepy eye rolling and other scary facial expressions only show his contempt for the process, and by extension, the American people.

On the other hand, Todd Palin until 2002 was a member of the Alaska Independence Party, which seeks for Alaska to secede from the United States. As Robert Kennedy at HuffPo reports:

Palin’s husband Todd remained an AIP party member from 1995 to 2002. Sarah can be described in McCarthy-era palaver as a “fellow traveler.” While retaining her Republican registration, she attended the AIP’s 1994 convention where the party called for a draft constitution to secede from the United States and create an independent nation of Alaska. The McCain Campaign has reluctantly acknowledged that she also attended AIP’s 2000 Convention. She apparently found the experience so inspiring that she agreed to give a keynote address at the AIP’s 2006 convention and she recorded a video greeting for this year’s 2008 convention. In other words, this is not something that happened when she was eight!

So when Palin accuses Barack of “not seeing the same America as you and me,” maybe she is referring to an America without Alaska. In any case, isn’t it time the media start giving equal time to Palin’s buddy list of anti-American bombers and other radical associates?

Which brings us back to the question of judgement.   It’s clear that McCain’s service in Vietnam has left him too damaged to be a good president, and Palin’s association with traitors – the founder of the AIP was murdered in 1993 in a plastic explosives purchase gone bad – who crave secession from the United States.

McCain’s judgement in choosing Sarah Palin shows that he is not fit to be the leader of the United States.  If McCain is elected, I predict that he’ll die in office “peacefully” and that Palin, who has expressed already that she would “go [her] own way,” would take the country in a dangerous direction nearer to being a theocracy.

Poor McCain: can’t reconcile the fact that he was partially responsible for the deaths of 134 sailors aboard the USS Forrestal in 1967 during the Vietnam conflict.  Can’t reconcile the fact that he saw the horrors of napalm up close in the Forrestal fire and continued to apply it to Vietnamese civilians.  Can’t reconcile the fact that he broke under torture and signed a war crimes confession.  Can’t reconcile the fact that even after the debacle of the South Carolina primary in 2000, he campaigned for Bush.  Or that even after he pushed for the anti-torture bill, Bush’s signing statement essentially negated the law, and McCain swallowed it anyway.  Weak character defines his life.

Just imagine how tortured and angry he must be after all that.   Even before his Vietname experience, he was known for having a volatile temper and being unpredictable.  All of those horrors he experience has only made that worse.

His nearly uncontrollable temper is legend.  His treatment of the families of POW/MIA servicemen is disgraceful.  He broke under torture and attempted suicide.

“Bob Dole Admits John McCain Has A Temper”; “John McCain’s Temper His Undoing!”; “Harkin: McCain’s temper is ’scary’”; “Will McCain’s Temper Be a Liability?”; “Should John McCain’s temper be a campaign issue?”; “John McCain’s $#@%$#@ Temper.”

Clearly, this person should not be president.  We’ve already experienced the amiable dunce of George W. Bush.  We don’t need to experience the Doctor Strangelovian craziness of John Sidney McCain, III.