Happiness: November 12

THING TWELVE: THIS makes me so. freaking. happy.

Woo Oregon!

Omnes una manet nox

One night awaits us all. 

I didn't take my camera last night downtown, which is probably good because it would have broken, I know it. So you'll just have to believe my saga.

Niki and I drove with Meris, Dashy, Tanya, and Mark to Dashy's apartment in Dupont-ish area. as soon as we got out of the garage, we see hundreds of people running. Of course, we decide to run with them! Niki and I get separated from the other 4, and we just kept running and running down the middle of the street, screaming and shouting "I love you!" and "We did it!" and high-fiving and hugging people leaning out their car windows. 

We had no idea where we were, so Niki and I hailed a cab and told him to take us to the White House. He said "Still?" and we said "YES!" and then I made friends with him. He is from Iran! I told him that I would like to go there someday. We got out of the cab and gave him like a 70% tip, and then started running some random way, screaming and hugging the whole way. 

Somehow we realized we were going the wrong way, so we turned around and went back towards our goal, the White House. We had just hugged and high-fived a block full of people and we did covered the same folks all over again. A random guy with a snare drum appeared out of nowhere, so we started following him and screaming "O-BA-MA!" to his drum beat, and it turned into a little mini-parade through the park that's behind the White House (Liberty Park? something like that. It's supposedly haunted. very creepy).

We finally got to the front/back of the White House (the back is technically the Ellipse side, and you can get much closer to the back, but most people don't know that, so we were at the front but it seems like it's the back), and there were at least a couple thousand people there. Throngs and throngs of people. A giant cardboard cutout of President Elect Obama, people with signs, people with flags, people with drums. Everyone hugging everyone. High fives for all. conversations with people who had to be at work at nine, just like me, about how we changed the world tonight. Everyone screaming Congratulations we did it, Yes We Can, Yes We Did. 

At some point we met a man from Kenya, who gave Niki his email address because she's going to Kenya next term. He's going to hook her up with his cousins in Nairobi! Hugs all around. 

We finally caught a cab, split with some random guy from some small news network, but then we actually drove past Mark, Meris, Tanya, and Dashy, so we hopped out, tipped the driver 120% or so (he drove us maybe 1/2 a mile, and we were in love with everyone), and got in Mark's car to get home. We drove all the way home with the windows down, screaming out the window at every person we saw. 

Oh, and at some point on the street we made friends with a random French dude, and he was on the phone with the French radio, so we were on the radio?? I screamed in French "VIVE LA FRANCE JE VOUZ AIMEZ" which I'm not sure is right. I spoke some French to someone else from France, and he said I had a good accent even though I spoke the wrong words to him (I told him "bonne nuit, which I knew is wrong, but still. Oops.) And then I ran across some people from Spain, and I yelled at them "VIVA ESPANA" as they were sucked back into the crowd. And I missed Lindsey, and everyone who is abroad, and wished that you all had been there dancing in front of the White House on this wonderful night of victory

VICTORY

OBAMERICA!!!!

Happiness, November 5

THING FIVE. Drinking tea to soothe my sore throat, but this only qualifies as a Happy Thing because of the source of my sore throat. Standing in front of the White House at 3am on Election Night with at least 1,000 other people and hugging literally every person I come across and screaming "We did it!" and "Congratulations!" and "Can you believe it!" and "O-Ba-Ma!" at the top of my lungs is a good reason to have a sore throat. And a sore throat is a good reason to have tea.

So really, this is kind of like Victory Tea.

Election Day, Part III (THREE!!!)

Guys. I just got back from the White House. THE WHITE HOUSE.

Remind me to post about it in the morning. OH WAIT IT IS THE MORNING. AAAH!!!!!

Omnes una manet nox

Oregon: unsafe at any speed

Election Day, Part II

WE WOONNNNNNNNNNN

Cheers, Senator McCain. Great concession speech. Good campaign, minus the whole Governor Palin bit. You're a good man. Great Senator.

MSNBC is reporting 338-156 EV

No news yet on CA Propositions 4 and 8, but SD defeated their abortion ban bill, and marijuana has been decriminalized in MA and MI.

FLORIDA, OHIO, NEVADA, VIRGINIA, this shit ROCKSSSSS

Edit 1: Tim just said, "Our work starts tomorrow." How true.

Election Day, Part I

So, folks. It's Election Day. I'm already going insane.

From fivethirtyeight.com, here is a list of 10 reasons why I should be ignoring exit polls.

1. Exit polls have a much larger intrinsic margin for error than regular polls.
2. Exit polls have consistently overstated the Democratic share of the vote.
3. Exit polls were particularly bad in this year's primaries.
4. Exit polls challenge the definition of a random sample.
5. Democrats may be more likely to participate in exit polls.
6. Exit polls may have problems calibrating results from early voting.
7. Exit polls may also miss late voters.
8. "Leaked" exit poll results may not be the genuine article.
9. A high-turnout election may make demographic weighting difficult.
10. You'll know the actual results soon enough anyway.

Nevertheless, in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, the first city to vote in primaries and general elections, there were 15 votes for Senator Obama, and 6 votes for Senator McCain. Of 21 voters. Woohoo Dixville Notch!

Earl Blumenauer has given me this lovely thing!! It is an Election Night Scorecard. Not sure how it works yet but I AM GOING TO FIND OUT. And update when I figure it out. I'm currently making predictions of states. I'm going to get SO much work done today. Just like the rest of America.

Edit 1: Read this article. It's beautiful, and reflects why I have my burning desire to get an "I Voted" sticker... which I will never get on my own so long as Oregon votes by mail. I'll just have to steal my coworkers'.

Game On

Ok, despite all the fun I've had watching Gov. Palin on SNL, and laughing at how ridiculous her silly Midwest+Alaska=Palin accent is, it's pretty apparent to me how terrifying she is as a politician. This morning on the train I was reading Washington Post's Express, to which I'm now nearly-certifiably addicted.

Page one: Picture of Tina Fey, and huge voter turnout in Florida! This page makes me happy.

Page two: Funny story about a cat show. I'm a crazy cat lady, this makes me happy.

Page three: Headline about how Sen. Obama keeps 9 point lead over Sen. McCain, and another story about how Sen. Biden's health records show he's in excellent shape. Needless to say, another happy page.

Page four: the following headline -- "PALIN: BAN GAY MARRIAGE"

Anger anger anger anger anger! I actually think I growled at the newspaper. I read the article with a scowl on my face, and it didn't ever quite leave me, even after Pearls Before Swine brought a killer whale onto their baseball team on the second-to-last page.

Here's a version of the full article from the Associated Press. It makes me sad and angry. Just like Sen. McCain said at the last debate. The American people are angry, I'm angry, the American people are angry, blah blah, something like that. I think we're supposedly angry about the economy?
If the American people are angry, it's for the wrong reasons. We should be angry because people like Gov. Palin are in contention for positions of very serious power. We should be angry that people who promote marriage between teenagers simply because they don't know how to use birth control, but believe that two happy, consenting adults shouldn't have the same right as those punk idiot teenagers have the power to influence any law anywhere, even if only in one state. But the whole country!!

We can't just sit back and let that happen. Game on.

Clearly, our current president is of the same persuasion. However, he hasn't done anything about it. I most certainly believe that it would be one of the first things on her agenda, no matter where she may be on Pennsylvania Avenue, whether it be in the White House or the EEOB next door.

To help soothe my angry angry brain right now, I have a delicious lunch. Grilled chicken with tomato, basil, and melted mozzarella. Baby carrots. Chicken noodle soup with veggies (including garbanzo beans!!). A piece of whole wheat bread. A cup of deliciously cold water. AND. Oregon Chai. yum yum.

Obviously this hearty lunch serves to nourish me for the next two weeks. It's going to be rough and it's going to be awesome.

Game. On.

Two Weeks Out

THIS IS PERHAPS THE MOST HILARIOUS THING I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE




SUPER awesome. She just shouldn't be President, or even Veep. Gov. Palin, that is. On the other hand, OBAMA/FEY 2012!!!!

Update:

Here's the Weekend Update Palin Rap, which makes me love Amy Poehler just a little bit more. Oh wait, a lot more.





Gosh I sure do hope she doesn't become vice president. [/strange midwestern twang]

I'll update on the movie "W" later.

Life on Mars

A couple people sent that to me today, and I had been looking for it since I saw it in someone's GMail Chat status last week.

Lindsey sent me the link to this, which is Wolf Blitzer laughing at Saturday Night Live's genius spoof sketch of Katie Couric interviewing Gov. Palin, which is really verbatim from the real interview. I suppose Blitzer's reaction is somewhat similar to mine when I saw that Tina Fey's jokes were actually Palin's real words, except that my face was plastered with a look of horror, more than amusement.



And here we have a picture of my kittens.

Ok Zoe looks a little wall-eyed but she really isn't.

Happy debate watching tomorrow!

The Debate

Ok, first I have to get this out. I just read this article on CBS News. It's all about bad things that are happening as people are trying to vote and register to vote. This is a particularly horrifying segment:

In late August, a notice by a Montgomery County election official aimed at clarifying the voter registration process for Virginia Tech students actually mislead (sic) potential voters, creating a firestorm. It read in part,

“The Code of Virginia states that a student must declare a legal residence in order to register. A legal residence can be either a student’s permanent address from home or their current college residence. By making Montgomery County your permanent residence, you have declared your independence from your parents and can no longer be claimed as a dependent on their income tax filings.”

The statement also warned that students could lose their scholarships as the result of an address change.

The article says that VA elections officials clarified and told kids that it doesn't change their status as dependents, and it doesn't disqualify them for scholarships. Because DEAR SWEET BABY JESUS that would all be awful if true.

In other news, the VP debate on Thursday was not the train wreck so many of us expected, or rather, hoped for. She seems to have a talking switch with two positions: robotic, or silly. On the other hand, Sen. Biden made my heart hurt sometimes. I love him.

Overall, Gov. Palin "held her own," which means she met the very very low expectations that the American public set for her. I feel like for three solid weeks all she did was memorize-- oh, I mean, prepare. Well, in that three weeks she also had time to stumble her way through a couple of really abysmal(ly hilarious) interviews.



Dear Tina Fey,

I love you.

Love,
me

Opposition Research

This is copied directly from here, an AP article by Jim Kuhnhenn, released today from St. Paul. I'd copy and paste the whole thing, but all you have to do is click the link, so don't be lazy. Read it.

Regarding one of my "favorite" moments so far from the Republican National Convention:

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

Edit:

"Maverick my ass. Doing adventurous things is past his bedtime." - Natalie, re: Sen. McCain

The Black Vera Wang

I've recently become obsessed with Mark Harmon. I'll have to start watching NCIS.

THE TICKETS:

Democrats:
Barack Obama and Joey Biden

Love love love love this ticket.
(are you kidding me? JOE BIDEN'S MOM FOR PRESIDENT)
Nothing more to say.

Republicans:
John McCain and Sarah Palin

I used to think that it was so smart for the GOP to put up McCain for pres. I still believe that, but less so now that I have realized he's 72. 8 years ago would have been better. 8 years ago he wouldn't have picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, because 8 years ago she was still just a hockey mom and only had a couple kids and was 36 years old.
Two things younger than John McCain - (1) Sarah Palin's home state, Alaska, and (2) Sarah Palin's parents. That's right, John McCain is the age of a great-granddaddy. well, in 4 months.

I'm sure there are people that love Gov. Palin. I'm sure she's a lovely person and a wonderful mother. However, I'm truly terrified of her, and would really rather she not be a heart beat away from an office in the West Wing.

I love my kittens. Almost as much as I love Mark Harmon.

Just kidding, I love my kittens more. They are, coincidentally, much more cuddly to me than Mark Harmon.

My musing of the day:
What would lawyers do without Portable Document Format??? Probably die off quickly, is my guess.

Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc

Been a while since I posted, computer was down and then when it wasn't, I was overwhelmed with catching up from when my computer was down. Now it's 1:48 am, I'm locked out of my room and watching the second episode of the West Wing. I miss DC. Oh wait, I live here.

So... Sen. Obama's won the last 8 primaries, and technically is ahead in the delegate count. And we all know that. Next primaries are Hawaii and Wisconsin on Tuesday, which I don't foresee being very difficult for Sen. Obama. At least no problems in Hawaii, seeing as how he's from Hawaii. Wisconsin, I guess I don't know. I had a conversation a year ago in Madison with an old Portuguese man who was a big fan of "Obama Baracka," and that is my only Wisconsin Obama poll. Likely not very accurate.

After HI and WI, we have a little break, then comes Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, and Vermont on March 4. Ohio and Texas are huge. Dr. Allan Lichtman (I guess he's some minor political deal, adviser to Kerry in 2004, friends with Ross Perot, also my professor) says that Sen. Clinton has to win both Ohio and Texas to maintain hope of the nomination. Ohio is a huge battle ground overall; I'm pretty sure that the general is going to come down to Ohio and Florida, and Florida has already gone to Sen. Clinton. I would dearly love to see Ohio go Democratic this year. And Virginia!

Favorite new site to waste my hours. I think it's maybe the coolest site of all time.

College Kids

Last night I started thinking about a Clinton/Obama ticket. Previously I had been a huge supporter of Obama/Richardson, because then you get all the minorities or something? (Also Richardson has pretty decent foreign policy experience) And I don't really like the idea of going Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton during my entire life, but the Senator did make a good point in the last Democratic debate, on Thursday night, that it took a Clinton to clean up after the last Bush.

She does have more experience than Senator Obama, and if she were President and he Veep for 8 years he would be the next logical choice, which means 16 years of Democrats. Having Obama on the ticket might unite people to support Clinton as the headliner, despite the fact that she is so polarizing right now. I'm certainly going to vote for any Democrat on the ticket, but I'd be much happier about voting for Clinton if Obama was her running mate. Not that I don't think she'd be a fabulous president, because I do definitely think she could do great things, but I am worried about electability of Clinton if McCain is the Republican's nominee.

If Sen. Obama wins the nomination, and we'll see how he pulls out of Super Tuesday as to how he can do that, he won't pick Sen. Clinton as his running mate. I wouldn't either, if I were him. And he would likely be reluctant to be her running mate if she asked him, but it would be smart. Four or eight years in the White House would groom him so well. All the people who today argue that he doesn't have enough experience, since he's been a Senator for 2 years and has been campaigning for President the whole time, wouldn't be able to say that in 2016.

For the time being, I'm still an Obama supporter. I like having a young, fresh face that isn't a Bush or a Clinton and who wants to do good things for our country. He's not polarizing. He's speaking to the youth of the nation, which Senator Clinton seems to be ignoring (probably because that is more logical, as 18-25s rarely vote). He's optimistic, which Sen. Clinton trashed him for once but that's exactly how her husband got elected. Plus, electing him would do wonders for our relations with Kenya. ... that was a lame little joke.

Listening to Spice Girls, going to see 27 Dresses tonight in Friendship Heights, folding laundry, haven't done any homework today. I love DC so much. I cannot think of a better town for age 21-30ish. I'm considering coming back here for a summer clerkship during law school, though I have sworn up and down for the past 2 years that I will never spend a summer here. I think it will be different when I can be in an air conditioned building all day, and then the nights are always warm enough to go out on the town with no coat.

And I'm using my same rationale that is letting me go to Egypt for 7 weeks in June and July. It's only a couple of weeks! I can deal with that. My ghost sheet skin, maybe less so.

About 60 hours 'til polls open in the east for Super Tuesday.