Health Care Forum – Calm and Quiet

I went to a Health Care Forum tonight. You’ve heard about all the teabagger mobs that have shut down some of the forums? Nothing like that happenned here. It was calm, quiet, and kind of boring.

Kyrsten Synema, one of the state legislators, conducted the event. She’s on Obama’s Health Care Task Force, so she’s traveling around the state presenting information and answering questions.

Yes, there were people who cheered the comment about our border — if ex-Gov Napolitano had closed it there would be no health care crisis. Yeah, makes no sense to me either. I’m sure that the insurance companies would have cut prices, insured all, and never denied care to anyone as long as that dang border was closed.

Anyway, I can’t report anything exciting. It was informative, but I bet the two bills described will be very different by the time they are combined in the conference committee.

I’ll Be a Tad Unhappy Also

Atrios linked to A Blog Named Sue’s post about the end of the world as we know it:

You know, in every movie I’ve seen about the end of the world, civilization collapses because of something wicked cool happening – an asteroid hits, nuclear war, a supervirus, an ape revolution, whatever. If civilization collapses over credit default swaps I an going to be pissed.

I’m with Blog Named Sue on this. Can’t we at least have some nasty, invading aliens to at least make our downfall seem logical?

President Obama

President Obama. It sounds good, doesn’t it? A president who can speak in complete sentences will be refreshing.

By the way, I loved this moment at the Neighborhood Ball. How fitting to hear the Etta James’ song “At Last” as the Obamas dance.

Yes, quite the day.

Okay, I’m Bored Now

Not having to work is nice due to work cancellations due to snow. Still, I want to go out and do something… besides shovel snow, which I’ve already done. I guess the boredom occurs because I’m feeling better now and have more energy. The last two days I had no issue sitting on the couch playing in Second Life or watching DVDs (I watched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy yesterday).

Oh well, I’ll just enjoy this day. Hey, I can have the fun of watching the Coleman vs Franken recount take place in Minnesota. Go here: http://theuptake.org/

Happy Zombie

Ah, there’s nothing like trundling off to bed about 2:30 in the morning. Though I know I dozed a bit on the couch last night. Yes, falling asleep while sitting up with my laptop in my lap. Hey, I had to read everything about Obama’s win last night.

So, sometime after midnight I woke up  enough with a whiplash  effect (sleeping sitting up is just not great for the neck), and instead of going to bed I stayed up a few more hours. Now? I am a zombie.

Yeah, I woke up to read more about election night. I wanted to see how the Al Franken/Norm Coleman race came out — it’s heading for a recount. Plus the Oregon and Alaska senate races weren’t called last night. Today it looks like a convicted felon will hold on to the Alaska senate seat and the Oregon ballets are stil being counted. Even better, the Georgia race still had plenty of early ballots to count and the senate race will go to a runoff in December (Georgia requires at least 50% of the vote).

My zombiehood is a happy one. Obama won decisively, and though he didn’t win Arizona, he won lots of other states. Plus, Ann Kirkpatrick won the Arizona CD-1 congressional seat vacated by Rick Renzi. Yay!

It wasn’t a perfect election (Prop 8 passed in California and so did Prop 102 in Arizona — both anti-gay propositions). Arizona’s legislature will ralso emain too Republican. Still, I’m pretty happy.

Now if only I could stop being a zombie, even if I’m a happy one. I have things to do!

Damn

It’s going to be so great to have a president that can talk in complete sentences. Obama is amazing.

The Day Before the Election

This is a vacation week for me. When else is a better time to take vacation days than election week? I volunteered today and will be doing more volunteering for the Democratic party tomorrow.

Today it was more phone-banking. I even got to talk to a woman who wouldn’t vote for Obama because he was…you know…a Muslim. Sheesh. She also swore that she heard Obama say in a speech over the weekend thatMcCain shouldn’t call Obama a “Child of God.” Huh? I actually had read about that speech. It was Obama declaring that McCain had called Obama everything BUT a “Child of God.” I couldn’t make the woman believe that and as Obama is a Muslim (let me roll my eyes here), I stayed pleasant and did urge her to vote for Ann Kirkpatrick for Congress. I think she might, as she seemed to sense my unhappiness about her opinions on Obama.

The real fun today was that Ann Kirkpatrick showed up to do some phone-banking herself. I even got to ask her about her hair. Okay, what a silly thing to ask, but I loved her curly locks, and as a curly girl myself, I felt that she betrayed the honor of curldom by straightening her hair. She did laugh as I asked her and made a good argument when I asked why she got rid of the curls, “When you’ve been campaigning for two years the last thing you want to worry about is your hair. You just try to give a speech outside on a windy day. It helps to have your hair fall back flat and in place.”  Okay, okay, I’ll cut her some slack.

She did make calls for about an hour or so. We weren’t getting too many live bodies when calling, but she did get a few. I’d probably faint if a candidate actually called me to tell me my polling place. At one point it worked out that the rest of us in the room had finished a round of calling and heard Ann on the phone. I know that I was curious to hear how she did and listened. The rest of us did too. She did great. In fact, after she hung up, we all clapped and cheered for her good job. Ann laughed and blushed.

Tomorrow, election day, should prove interesting. Tons of volunteers, but I don’t know what we’ll be doing. We already were on the third round of calling the people on the phone lists.

All I know is that I’m glad that the election is here. I can’t take much more of this.

Early Voting in Arizona on the Huge Side

It looks like early voting is heavy in Arizona. I’d been wondering about it. I voted back in early October and there were no lines, but it seems that there are lines now. According to a Phoenix news station:

…the turnout has been so big that some people have reported waiting up to four hours to cast their ballots.

and

There are 1.7 million voters registered in Maricopa County. Nearly 1/3 of them have already cast their ballots.

“We are processing ballots as fast as possible,” Purcell said. “We’ve got over 520,000 back in the house. We’ll get those processed. We counted over 100,000 yesterday.”

I watched the video that went along with the article and had a pleasant surprise. Bob Vanwyck is interviewed as he was one of the people waiting to vote. I was in a play with Bob. In fact, he played my husband. He obviously lived in Flagstaff then. It’s been ages since I saw him, but there he was, in a TV news story, waiting to do his democratic duty.

Pima county is also seeing a large turnout, which is good, as it runs bluer than Maricopa county.

More than 11,000 people have voted early in person at offices downtown and satellite polling places, Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez said Thursday evening…

…Rodriguez said she expects the numbers of voters coming to the early voting stations to increase as the election draws nearer.

There are almost 500,000 registered voters in Pima County and about half will vote early, either via mail or at satellite polling stations, she said.

Very nice.

McCain in Trouble in Arizona?

I heard rumors, but this is exciting news… as long as you’re not John McCain. McCain is barely ahead in his home state of Arizona. Kos just posted this information at DailyKos.

Likely voters
McCain 44
Obama 40

Early voters (34% of sample)
McCain 46
Obama 47

The polling is from Myers Research and Groves Insight with a 4% margin of error. Kos also mentions that another poll from ASU will be released soon with similar numbers.

Wow. Could McCain lose Arizona?

Debating about the Debate

Do I really want to listen to the debate tonight? Maybe a movie would be a better idea. Shoot, maybe categorizing my spare change would be more fun.

The debates have their moments, but they usually just seem a waste of time. I’ve already voted. Nothing is going to change my mind at this point.

Well, here’s something to play with if you get bored watching the debates. Do click on things and see what happens: Palin as President.

Tonight’s Debate

Okay, I got to hear a good chunk of the debate, but missed the first half hour due to working late. I’m thinking Obama won tonight, but it’s hard to tell how it looks to people when you only listen on the radio. Of course, the debate also seemed pretty boring. I’m falling asleep here.

I’m going to vote this week. I love early voting. The debate hasn’t changed my mind…like it would. Please let’s get some grown-ups in charge. I’m voting for Obama.

VP Debate Survival

I survived listening to the Vice Presidential debate. Whew. Palin survived, using lots of those “Mavericky” talking points. Biden was engaging. I bet it doesn’t change much in the race.

I’m happy I didn’t do the Palin debate drinking game. Words like “doggonnit” and “maverick” were used enough to give alcohol poisoning.

Gee Whiz — Crazy Day

So I drive down to Sedona today to have some stitches pulled by the periodontist who did some surgery on my mouth two weeks ago. It was a lovely day, except for a huge plume of smoke rising above Oak Creek Canyon (controlled burn? Maybe). I stop and have lunch in Sedona, drive up and stop for groceries, come home, open up the laptop, and discover all hell is breaking loose.

The bailout failed? Wow. I’m actually happy that it did, but do hope we get something in place in the long run that isn’t such a giveaway to the Wall Street idiots.

The Dow loses 777 points? Now that will certainly put pressure on Congress to do something. I just hope they do something smart, but don’t have high hopes. You know what I’d like? If all those folks who made tons of money working for the banks that screwed up could be taxed up the ying yang. If tax dollars are going to make their life right again, then let them pay for a good share of it.

I’m just wondering what else is in store for us. I wonder what happens when I go to my regular dentist tomorrow for a filling. Will I return to work and discover that stockbrokers are jumping out of windows on Wall Street?

I’m telling you, interesting days we live in. My retirement funds may disappear, but at least my teeth will be healthy.

Netroots Nation – Second Life Style!

I’d say I’m tuckered out, but I’m too excited to be tuckered out! Next week is the big Netroots Nation convention in Austin, Texas. It’s the annual gathering of political progressives.  So, am I going to Austin and that’s why I’m excited? Heck no! It’s Austin in July, why would anyone get excited? Nope, I’m staying  right here on the couch with my laptop. There is a Netroots Nation in Second Life convention also. Yep, Ms. Moran Singh is going all conventioneer style next week in Second Life.

What’s even more fun, and what’s leading to some of the tuckered out feeling, is that I’m one of the organizers for the Second Life event. Yep, I’m in charge of the Social Events. Yeah, me, Miss Unsocial.

Everyone’s been incredibly involved creating this event. We’ll be streaming video from Austin, plus putting on our own panels. We’ve worked hard on creating buildings, ballrooms, orientation areas, exhibition booths, and all kinds of things. The learning opportunities keep coming my way.

Here’s a view of the ballroom at Netroots Nation Island (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Yearly%20Kos%20Convention%204/156/59/24/):

Ballroom at Netroots Nation Island

Here’s the orientation area. Any newbies can find themselves right at home. They can even pick up some freebies, including avatars and outfits.

Netroots Nation Island orientation area

For more information about Netroots Nation in Second Life (or NNinSL for short), check out the web site and blog. It’s free. Anyone who cares about politics, community organizing, health care, economics, and anything else to do with how our country is run, should join us.

So, what does a fashionable person wear to Netroots Nation in Second Life? What a silly question!

Moran in her NNinSL t-shirt

Are We There Yet?

I’m surfing the web reading up on the Democratic primaries in North Carolina and Indiana. I expected something much less satisfying: a bigger Clinton win in Indiana than an Obama win in North Carolina. My expectation are not being met. Gee, what a shame, huh? ‘Cause I would love to see Obama still pull out a win in Indiana and Clinton drop out of the race, but I don’t expect it to happen.

But hey, I’d be happy not to have my expectations met again.