are available here. Out of 803,009 registered voters, 628,545 or 78.27% cast a ballot either in advance (in person or by absentee ballot) or in person on election day. The number of people who voted in person on election day barely exceeded those who voted by other means. Of those who cast a vote for President/Vice President (5,632 voters did not ( Read more... )

I am a huge admirer of the late Harvey Milk, and I look forward to seeing his biopic, Milk, starring Sean Penn, sometime very soon. However, I was reading promotional material from the film's official web site, and I noticed that it said Milk was the first openly gay man elected (in 1977) to "major" political office in the United States. I have a ( Read more... )

I had read on the Freakonomics blog that on-line shoe retailer Zappos had unusually good customer service. As someone who works in customer service, as well as someone who badly needed a new pair of shoes, I decided to put Zappos' reputation to the test. I logged on to their site, found a pair of Sperry TopSiders for $64 (no tax in California, free ( Read more... )

I predicted fairly recently that McCain would be our next President, by a comfortable margin. I think I was caught up in the post-Republican convention hype, and I thought Sarah Palin would really help energize Republicans. I'm glad to have been proven wrong.

I predicted a couple of years ago that we'd have a woman President and a Jewish President ( Read more... )

I would like to concede that my earlier prediction that McCain would defeat Obama in a walk proved, happily, to be untrue. When I was born in America 43 years ago, African-Americans could not exercise their right to vote in the American South. Tonight, an African-American man was elected President of the United States. I have never been a ( Read more... )

Shamelesssly stolen (and adapted very slightly) from melsky:

I would never have bothered to get married if seven years ago couples of the same sex could have the same rights as me. It was just the thought of lording it over gay friends and acquaintances that pushed me into matrimony. The only thing holding my union together this long has been the fact ( Read more... )

Copy this sentence into your livejournal if you're in a heterosexual non-same-sex marriage, and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.

Amy pointed out that killing the television might be too extreme as a first step. As a compromise, she suggested we cancel HBO, Showtime, and digital cable, and return the digital cable box/DVR boxes to the cable company, keeping only analog cable with the smallest set of channels available. That way, we'd continue to receive local broadcast ( Read more... )

Amy and I discussed becoming a television-free household. We both watch quite a lot, and we have limited free time. I also feel like television, with its food commercials and utter lack of intellectual demands, contributes to my tendency to overeat and to crave foods that are a poor nutritional choice for me.

This morning, Amy announced that she is ( Read more... )

It doesn't look like I'm going to be making it this month, either. Too late of a start, and too many days when I just said "What the fuck" and ate whatever I fancied, though I did manage to keep the junk food to a minimum and the fast food to just about zero.

My new approach, starting today, is to not give up, redouble my efforts, and make sure ( Read more... )