What to say

other than I was wrong. I did not think Obama could beat McCain. There are a lot of reasons why McCain lost and I don't intend to go into what I think they are. Like it or not Obama is the President Elect and will soon be the President of the United States.

I will support him when we agree(which will likely not be often).

He did acomplish some things that are historical aside from the fact that he is the first Black President we have had.

• He increased voter turn out to record levels. The highest ever recorded in Clark County.
• He won a clear majority of the vote which is very rare in our history.

The only recent Presidents to do that were Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

We will see how he does. I know that I will not like most of his policies but there is not much I can do about it now. Hopefully he will lead from the middle.

For those that voted for McCain, like myself, lick your wounds and and hope that President Obama can do something good for our country!!!!

The Vote

In Nevada, unlike Michigan, you can vote early for no reason what so ever. There are voting centers located all over the place. Want to vote at the local grocery store? No problem. Want to vote in the parking lot of Targets as we did yesterday? No problem. The line was a mile long, but fast moving. We waited about 40 mins to vote. All electronic. You could print a record of your vote to make sure it was registered correctly, but you did not get to keep the paper copy. The only thing I didn't like was that they did't want to see my ID although they required Karen to show hers!! Not sure whats up with that.

Like most places, we also had several ballot proposals along with what seemed like 500 non partisan judges running. Who really tracks all of those judges? I skipped them, Karen opted to just randomly pick one if she heard of them before.....not surewhich method is better.....lol

I tend to vote no on all ballot proposals, but I did find two that I felt I had to vote for this time. The first was a change in the law that would severly limit the governments ability to sieze one's property and give it to another private interest. This is known as "eminent domain" and is SUPPOSED to be used to sieze land from private parties to allow the construction of a highway for example. Increasingly it has been used to sieze private property to give to another private party that the government thinks can make better use of said propery. "It ain't right I tell ya".

The second involved repealing a part of the Nevada Constitution(I think) that required voters to establish residency 6 months prior to voting. While I can understand the reasoning for it, I thought back to when I first moved here and if it had been an election year, I would not have been able to vote. This law is likely un constitutional anyways. I thought it should be repealed.

The other one that I voted against was an increase of 3% in the room tax to go to specifically schools. Although I would likely never pay this tax, schools need to do more with less like everyone else is. More money is not the answer.

The other two I voted no because I didn't really understand them or saw no need for them .

There are

no more conservatives. Bailouts for everyone. I just want to know where my bailout is???? I don't really need one, but thats not the point! Bear Sterns, Fannie May, Freddie Mac, AIG! Give me a break. As much as I can't stand Olberman(I watch him to keep up with the other side) he had a headline for one of his stories titled "Private profits/Socialized losses" in regards to all the bailouts going on. I didn't actually watch the segment, but the title summed up my feelling on the issue quite nicely.

Funny though, how the Democrats like Socialized profits/Private losses when it comes to the oil companies.

All of the companies listed above are in dires straits because of poor decisions that they made and they should suffer the consequences. AIG, a huge international conglomerate, primarilly involved in industrial/comercial/consumer insurance, ventured into insuring bonds (aka Credit Default Swaps/CDS). To say that AIG did not understand the risks associated with this type of insurance is an understatement. Credit Default Swaps are almost exclusively responsible for AIG's percarious situation. That gamble has turned out to be a losing one for AIG and instead of suffering the consequences of their risk management decisions, we the tax payers are going to suffer for it.

In any business there is risk and reward. When the government steps in to remove the risk portion of the equation it distorts everything. The government should not be bailing out anyone. Big business nor home owners....no one!!!!

Obama is an agent of change....yea right. His top 2 economic advisors are from none other than.....wait for it....Freddie May and Fannie Mac who walked away with millions as the tax payers were left to foot the bill. There is an agent of change for you!!!

McCain is not much better, though I think he is slightly better.

Increasingly though I thinks it matters not who is in office. They are all slaves to their next election, or their next campaign donor.......