This is a fairly simple diary, along with a poll.  I want to know if you all feel that I should remove my Obama 2008 bumper sticker or not.  If you feel you need to understand my justification for removing it, keep reading below.

Many of us live in what are considered to be "red states" and while we hope for a record turnout for Obama in November, we realistically know that there isn't much hope that our vote for Obama will be able to outweigh the votes of ignorance, cowardice, and racism that favor McCain.  So what can we do about it?

Plenty.

According to Reuters:

MEXICO CITY, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Mexican state-owned energy company Pemex said on Monday explosions caused by sabotage hit several of its natural gas pipelines on the Gulf of Mexico.

There is not a lot of news yet, and I will be updating this as more information comes in.

Today is Father's Day, as everyone knows.  For me, this is not a holiday that I've ever really celebrated.  Having grown up with a birth father that was absent, and bad when he was present, a step-father that is a good man but is part of a strict religious cult, I've not necessarily had the best father figure present.  I don't really have a specific "dad" to celebrate.

Now I am a dad of a five week old baby.  I want to learn from the mistakes of the fathers I've known and try to do a better job.  I've got a lot to learn.

Also posted on Blue House Diaries.

From the New York Times:

The insane revenge of a man maddened by financial worries
brought death to at least thirty-three children today when the Consolidated
School in this little village of 300 souls, eight miles north-east of Lansing,
was dynamited just after the morning bell had called the classes together.  
Forty-one dead have been identified and one is still unknown.

It's been all over the news.  

"Forecaster Blasts Gore on Global Warming."

 Some stories even report that he is a leading climate scientist.  The reality is that William Gray is not a scientist, and is nothing more than a propagandist for companies that want to hide the truth behind global warming.

Crossposted on Blue House Diaries and Texas Kaos

The idea that African-Americans are privileged and have advantages over whites is an idea that is strong in the white supremacist movement.  They view equalizing measures such as desegregation and scholarships set up only for poor minorities as some sort of special rights that whites are deprived of.  All of this is clearly wrong, as it is obvious that blacks have never been treated equally with whites, have never been given the same educational opportunities as a whole, and are still either generally feared or despised by the white public.

However, a conversation with an Indian friend made me question my view of racial problems in the U.S., and wonder if there is a possibility that black privilege exists in some form, and what it is being used for.

Cross-posted in Blue

According to this CNET article, Senators Feinstein and Biden are working with some corrupt Republicans in an attempt to stifle our constitutionally protected freedom of speech.  How are they doing this?  By pushing the PERFORM Act.

This week, my wife and I went to see the new Mike Judge movie "Idiocracy", starring Luke Wilson.  The basic premise of the movie is that an "average guy", who is in reality a lazy loser by our standards, gets locked into suspended animation only to be awakened 400 years into the future, where mankind has devolved into mindless consumers incapable of even basic intelligence.  Below I will give my thoughts on the film.

We're still waiting for the media to pick this up, and I will update this diary as the news becomes available. It happened yesterday in Aspen according to my sources.

This past Wednesday, my wife and I had the honor of attending the release of Al Gore's book, "An Inconvenient Truth" which is a companion to the movie by the same name.  It is all part of a media blitz meant to bring awareness of the impending climate disaster to the awareness of all Americans.

Overall, Al Gore 2.0 brought together an amazing presentation of what is happening to our planet, what have the conditions been like historically, and what the expected results should be.  Gore is working on spreading the word about what could be the greatest danger our civilization has ever faced.

We were able to not only see a first-hand, updated version of the presentation the movie and book were based on, but also to meet the man himself, plus walk away with two autographed copies of his book.  Below, you will be introduced not only to the multimedia presentation of "An Inconvenient Truth" but also my thoughts on things such as Al Gore's future roll in politics and in society.  This will be cross posted all over the place.

It seems that my last diary pissed some of you off.  Good.  You deserve it.  I'm tired of seeing so many failures result from blogging, especially on this site.  However, since I'm such a nice guy, I'm going to answer a few of the questions people posed, and challenge you once again to get off of your lazy asses and go to the streets and do something.

On Monday, while most of you were in your homes, schools, or jobs, I attended one of many immigrants civil rights marches and rallies around the country.  While most of you were here, posting about how you are going to "crash the gates" by signing online petitions and sending money to candidates and calling your jobs done, a larger number of people, most of whom had never even heard of blogs were putting up flyers and walking the streets to tell others to be ready to take action.

The revolution will not be televised, nor will it be run off of blogs.

All too often I hear people complaining about how commercialized Christmas has become, and how the holiday season is now a time of buying expensive gifts and that it has lost it's original meaning.  I agree, and I support those who want to bring the original spirit of the holidays back.  So, with that in mind, let's take a look at the origins of Christmas.

I got an email that the Veterans For Peace will be demonstrating outside a Tom Delay fundraiser being held by Dick Cheney at 6:00 PM on Monday, December 5th at the Westin Oaks Hotel.  The VFP Houston chapter will be showing up at 5:30, but I don't know that they will be the only ones showing up, and if there are other groups planning to go there they might want to coordinate with the VFP.

I haven't seen this posted previously, so if it is let me know and I'll delete this.

My wife and I were returning to the U.S. today after an extended stay in Mexico with her family.  It was a pretty good trip, and we thought that things would go easily for her getting into the country since she's been a permanent resident for years and is going to be eligable to apply for U.S. citizenship next year.  Unfortunately, this was not the case.

View this as a personal story that should be shown to all the idiots that whine about illegal immigrants, and believe that the U.S. really does have a working immigration policy.

It amazes me how the media and most people let the Bush administration get away with so many lies. Bush has been in power for five years, and while he's not gone in front of the camera as often as a normal president would, he has often enough for us to have some quotes from him. Next time someone starts claiming that the CIA lied to Bush or that we didn't know there were no WMD, or whatever, here is the truth.

Bush lied. So did Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others.

This weekend, my wife and I spent some time volunteering at Reliant Arena.  I'm going to talk about some of my observations there of the people, of the state of the overall effort to help the victims of Katrina, and let you know what is needed and what is not needed.  You may be suprised.