Making serious decisions...

I'm getting political today, so I first wanted to share this video that Against Me! (the same guys behind "White People For Peace") produced for Rock the Vote. I think it's really important, because it points out that when you step into the voting booth in November, what you're really voting on, and it's not Obama vs. McCain. Believe it or not, that's not what this election is really about. There are much bigger ideas at stake.



Politics is gettin' real thick around here. For one, the Governor is holding a hearing right now to remove Detroit's mayor from office, while at the same time, he is expected to go into court this morning to enter a guilty plea.

Why would he finally plead guilty after waiting so long? Because there is apparently a deal on the table right now that if he pleads guilty and resigns, he can look at reduced jail time. If the governor removes him from office, that deal is no longer on the table and they'll nail his ass to the wall.

Personally, although I'd love to see him go to jail, I really would just like to see him out.

Granted, the new boss is most likely going to be the same as the old boss, but hopefully, there will be so much scrutiny from now on that the corruption that has plagued this city for a long long time will be reduced.

Moving on, I want to mention a little bit about Palin, and what a colossal mistake I think she is.

First off, I'll lay it out in the interest of self-disclosure so you know where I'm coming from. While I am all over the range on a lot of issues, I am a social liberal, and these social issues are issues that I think trump over my decisions. I believe human rights supersede economic issues, and that environmental are prominent as well.

As such, I was not voting Republican. Even so, man did they eff up. She just wasn't a good choice, and everyone seems to know it.

I'm not going to attack her for having a pregnant teenage daughter; shit happens, and that's really not anybody's business except her family's. They'll deal with it, like families have forever. Even so, it doesn't seem like the best display of the "abstinence only education" that Palin advocates.

It just seems like little or no examination of her background happened, like she was a last-minute choice made with little or no forethought.

"Wait, you know what would be great? Let's offset the groundbreaking nature of Obama's campaign by choosing a woman to fill out our ticket!"

"Great idea! Who should we pick?"

"I don't care, a woman should be home cooking, cleaning and making babies anyway..."

Sorry, that was a social conservative stereotype I need not have made, but it's my blog and I'll do what I want.

I also, and I'm speaking way off the hip here, because this is so out of my realm, but I can't understand how a woman could be in favor of surrendering choice regarding her own body to the government. Again, I have no background or basis, just personal beliefs.

And the last thing I'm going to say about Palin (for now anyway, and then I'm done trashtalking the poor woman), is that, even though it contradicts what I said before, she has a 5-month baby with Down Syndrome. I think, as a parent of an infant, whether or not it had a disability, a public office is the last thing I'd want to take on. Typically, I guess that's partially a reason why our presidents have been older. Four or eight years from now, should the 'Publicans get elected, and if they somehow have managed to not start a global war that has us all dead, will she look back and regret missing time with her little ones? I think I might.

But you, know, that's just me, and it's not my place to say, even though I just said it.

I hate talking politics, as much as I hate talking religion. It's not that I don't care about them, I do deeply. It's just that I don't feel like it's any of my business to force you to hear my beliefs, and I don't need to hear yours. I am going to vote with my conscience; I will vote for what I believe in. I will practice my spiritual beliefs in a way that is personal to me, and that's that.

At the same time, man, Palin was a bad choice.

OOOOOH! This just in:

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick will spend 120 days in jail and pay $1 million in restitution. He pleaded guilty this morning to two counts of obstruction of justice. He will serve 5 years of probation and announce his resignation immediately. Full story here.

It's looking good today.