I have been interested, and surprised, to see the demographics results of the presidential election.  The experts are saying that although the “youth” have voted in record turnouts, the way they voted really had no significant impact on the results of the election!  That really surprised me because I had kept hearing about how the youth vote was expected to heavily favor Obama!  I’d be really interested to hear more about the youth that chose to vote for McCain, what their reasons were for voting that way!

I cannot believe how many people are out there claiming to be undecided about who they are going to vote for in tomorrow’s election!  I suspect that they really already know who they are going to vote for and simply want to keep that information private.  I can’t say that I blame them, really, because I have seen a lot of very spirited arguments between close friends and family that have ended up with really hard feelings.

Our office has a policy that no politics can be discussed, upon penalty of being fired.  I think that’s a good idea, but have noticed that a lot of people try to discuss it with me anyway.  I just smile and remind them that it’s against the company rules to talk politics.  Mostly I do that with people who have already broadcast that they are supporting the candidate that I’m NOT supporting!

I’m planning to vote, and I hope you are decided and that you go to vote too!  Most elections don’t have a big turnout, so the results don’t really represent who the people really want and need.  It would be really nice if this election really DID represent the people who live here!

I could not believe my ears today when I heard on the news that the big bailout that the US Government was putting together to save our economy has not passed the House of Representatives!  What a complete disaster!  I don’t know what President Bush can do now, I hope he can do SOMETHING, this is a huge crisis for our country!  I have to say that most of those people who voted against the bailout will probably NOT get re-elected!  What a huge mess!

I was so disappointed when Obama chose Biden to be his running mate!  I really wanted Hillary Clinton to be the next President of the United States, and was very disappointed when it became clear that she was not going to get the Democratic nomination.  I was hoping that Obama would choose Hillary Clinton to be his running mate, I think that would have been a really ideal team.  I know there are a lot of women “out there” who are too racially biased to vote for an African American, and will vote for McCain simply because he is caucasian.  That is really sad, because these women don’t support the McCain platform, and are democrats at heart, they are just unfortunately too bigoted to see beyond skin color.  That makes me very sad.

I was just thinking about the television news story I saw a couple of days ago about Richard Simmons going to testify in Congress about how important it is to keep phys ed in school.  He was talking about dedicating his life to making sure that kids get exercise, and even suggested that he might run for political office if that’s what it took to keep kids fit.

I was remembering how many times I’ve seen him in his sequined tank top and shorts and his flamboyant personality and trying to picture him sitting in the Senate’s chambers.  What a picture!

I’ve been listening to the live coverage on CNN of the rescued Columbian hostage’s press conference. I have to say that when I heard about the dramatic rescue, I was so very happy for them and their families. Now that I’ve listened to one of them talk about how they were tortured and led around with chains around their necks I am especially happy for them. I cannot even imagine how hard it was for them to endure what they went through. Congrats to all involved in rescuing them!!

Well the talk this evening at work was about today’s Supreme Court ruling that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment in convictions of child rape. This was a case brought to them from a state where a man was convicted of raping a young child repeatedly and was convicted and sentenced to death.

I have mixed emotions about the death penalty, I really do. If I had a loved one in the system who was convicted of a crime that was punishable by death I would be against the death penalty for sure. But in some cases, where torture occurred (and I believe that child rape IS a form of torture) and in the cases of pedophilia, where the experts agree that pedophilia is NOT curable that perhaps the death penalty would be appropriate. I think perhaps the Supreme Court should have left that up to the individual states to decide.

I was reading an article on the Reuters website earlier today; a friend sent me the link and told me to read it. The article was talking about how solar energy will be cost competitive with fossil fuels by the year 2013. Well, if that is true, I think that the US government should just stop even talking about drilling for oil off the coast of Florida and in Alaska. I understand that even getting that oil drilled and refined will take at least five to ten years to reach the gas pumps, so what’s the point of spoiling the environment when we will have perfectly good alternative fuels ready by then? Now I understand that solar energy will not be able to run everything that needs gasoline, but there ARE other sources of fuel out there that could be used to replace fossil fuels that will be ready to be on the market by then and will be cost completive too.

I don’t know what got the most talk at work today, Tim Russert dying or the prison break in Afghanistan! Both news items are totally shocking! I liked to watch Tim Russert’s Meet the Press show on Sunday mornings when I had Sunday off of work, he asked some great questions. He will be sorely missed by many people. Quite a few of our customers today were talking about him, and how he died unexpectedly of cardiac arrest. I think that has scared quite a few of them; a lot of them look like they could keel over any day themselves!

And the prison break in Afghanistan, all of those Taliban prisoners set free! How very scary is that? We don’t need any more terrorists running around blowing themselves up and taking lots of people with them! I hope that the authorities can track them down and recapture them!