Pink Asparagus

This is CNN‘s electoral map calculator.

Some notable changes since Wednesday: ND (3) turned yellow (meaning it is battle-ground) from light red (leaning R), AZ (10) turned light red from dark red and LA (9) turned dark red. So, two states have moved to the left and one moved to the right. It’s still a 4 electoral college count increase for Obama if those states continue moving to the left.

If you have not early voted, remember Tuesday is THE DAY. As KellyGO put it

A lot of us are getting ready to cast our vote. If, next Tuesday, it’s sleeting outside and some of the roads are closed and you’re hungover and all nine of your kids are sick and you’d have to call your mother to watch the kids while you go to the polls and she’ll never let you forget how you should have listened to her and married that guy with the minivan, SUCK IT UP AND DO IT ANYWAY. This is a close election, and nobody has won it yet. Remember Florida, Y2K? Your vote matters, yes it does.

So, if those words don’t motivate you what will? Free treats? Not only will you get a coveted I Voted sticker, you can take it to Krispy Kreme for a free donut! Ben & Jerry’s is giving free scoops on election day too.

CNN turned Colorado blue yesterday.

And another day goes by without my head exploding. Score.

Elliot and I are canvassing for Obama on Saturday. We’ll have great weather (mid-70′s, what’s that? global warming you say? hmmm) and we’ll be helping turn Colorado darker blue.

I voted yesterday – no lines, walked right in with my cheat sheet. Colorado has the country’s longest ballot this election with 14 state-wide questions (although, in all fairness, 4 were removed but after ballots were printed). We have a particularly ugly amendment defining a person from the moment of fertilization.

Less than a week to go and my head hasn’t exploded. Score.

I never intended to be a political blogger. That’s good, because I suck at it. Good political commentators can say more than, “Gah.” And their heads don’t explode when someone says, “Sarah Palin.” Or maybe they explode a little bit but their filters keep it from rushing out their mouths.

Ahem.

Here we are, three weeks before the election. Yesterday the DJIA closed up over 900 points. Bush’s approval rating is in the toilet. The gap is widening between Obama and McCain, but not enough to ensure victory. These will be a long 21 days ahead of us I am sure.

Here is a little boy though that brought joy to my cold, grey heart.

hat tip: MOMocrats, per usual.

Twice in that campaign stop McCain had to talk his supporters off the ledge. These are scary people. I assume they’ll be voting. So, you go vote too, m’kay?

More over at MOMocrats.

Sarah Silverman should totally be Obama’s campaign manager.

Also, I’ll be back to regular posting soon. In a funk. Economy sucks. Perpetual anger at Caribou Barbie.

It says send it to five friends, I have five readers! How convenient. Pass it along.

Thanks Rachel.

Hillary Rodham Clinton (look, she has three names again) co-authored a must-read op-ed in NY Times. Read it here. Login might be required.

Hat tip: 3 Giraffes

NOW endorses Obama. It’s unprecedented for NOW to endorse a candidate in a national election, the president of National Organization of Women said. I think that should help shine some light on how truly anti-woman the McCain/Palin ticket is. I can understand being against abortion. It’s your right. It’s your uterus. You have the right to govern your uterus. And by that same token, I have the right to govern mine. The freedom to choose – I would suspect that if we polled 100 women that exercised this “choice” they’d say it wasn’t a decision they came to lightly nor was it a choice they’d want to make again – is incredibly important to women’s health.

Abortion is an easy target. It garners headlines. Your position on abortion is often an indicator of your position on reproductive health.

Limiting a person’s access to information about their own reproduction health choices is wrong. Sex education in the schools is necessary. Of course it should be supplemented at home. It should actually start at home, but I’m trying to be middle of the road here.

Abstinence only sex education programs do not work. Sex ed programs that are developed by people with abstinence only agendas promote fear and ignorance. In 2004 the Washington Post published

Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person’s genitals “can result in pregnancy,” a congressional staff analysis has found.

I can see how a botched, back-alley, clothes-hanger abortion might lead to sterility. But one performed by a medical professional in a sterile setting? Hardly.

Comprehensive sex education is effective. Family planning clinics work. Women and men need the resources to protect their bodies, their selves and their families. And when planning and prevention fail, we need the option to make hard choices.

McCain is scary, he wants to overturn Roe v Wade. Palin is Anti-Choice (yes, my liberal bent is shining through, I cannot call her Pro-Life, that would suggest the rest of are a bunch a pro-abortion baby killers, and we’re not). McCain and Palin are anti-woman, period. They do not speak to me and I hope they do not speak for me come November.

An interesting site that I was going to use, but couldn’t make it fit in is Catholics for Choice. They’re doing good deeds on all our behalves.

Usually I can come up with something intelligent to say in the face of dumbasses adversity. But, gah! If I hear “and I told the Congress, ‘thanks but no thanks‘ on that Bridge to Nowhere” ONE. MORE. TIME. my head might explode.

She did not say that. This morning on NPR Bill Adair of PolitiFact.com summed it up nicely

“It’s not that she really killed it — but she did perform the last rites.”

Honestly, my head is spinning.

Things I’ve learned on Facebook (which, I’m a little embarassed to say I just joined recently – was I the last hold-out?)

• John McCain made the following joke

“Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father.”

• In 1994, John McCain voted against legislation — pushed through Congress by Joe Biden — that helped put an end to the practice of charging rape victims for sexual assault exams.

Want more? Go read Women Against Sarah Palin. I understand that largely people vote for the top of the ticket, not the bottom, but given McCain’s age, she could be the 45th POTUS. Who really thinks that’s a good idea?