I'm Really IRRITATED! Read at your own risk....

This article really made me angry for any number of reasons. First of all, implanting 8 eggs is nothing short of malpractice because of the dangers it presents to the mother and the babies. Secondly because she is a single mom who currently has 6 children and now she has 8 more to support so she's expecting Oprah and the media to bail her stupid a** out! I'm sorry, but if you're a bankrupt single mother with 6 kids, you don't go through IVF to get 8 more. That's asinine! I've heard it mentioned that she is receiving government assistance but I'm not sure whether or not that's true. I haven't found that in print yet but if that's true it makes me all the angrier. Why is it that I live in a town house and have 2 kids because that is the responsible thing to do when I'd love to have a big, beautiful single family home and at least try for a girl someday. I'm tired of bailing stupid people out because there is no longer any sense of personal responsibility in this country. You got a mortgage you couldn't afford, it was the predatory lenders fault. The banks made a bunch of risky loans, lets bail them out because they're too big to fail. Oh, and by the way, we won't require any oversight for those millions of dollars we've just handed them. The banks should feel free to spend millions on Superbowl commercials and jets until the media shames them out of those deals. And while we're at it, let's ask the people making $15-$20 an hour to bail out the poor auto workers with their sweet union contracts who make something ridiculous like $55 an hour. And our wonderful president, the second coming of Christ, has this ridiculous porkulous package, I mean stimulus package that is primarily a spending package consisting of every pet project Nancy Pelosi could think up to ram down the American people's throats while we're too busy worrying about where our next pay check is coming from to notice. It's bad, I get that. But I have to wonder if it's really as bad as our wonderful government officials and the media claim it is. I can't help but think that maybe it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Tell them how bad it is, scare the crap out of them, so those who can still spend start saving for a time when maybe they can't and we'll really whip up enough of a frenzy to scare everyone into believing that these spending packages are absolute necessities. Maybe I'm just dumb and don't get it. But it makes me really mad that my taxes are going to go up and my poor children will be left to shoulder the burden of this kind of irresponsibility. Who am I to question those with more knowledge of the situation than I? The way I see it, I'm the one footing the bill, like every other tax payer in the country, I should have a say in the way my money is spent. Because clearly, those in congress, can't figure out how the hell to do it. Geitner and Daschle can't figure out how to manage their own money but you want me to hand them control of the IRS and Medicare. Can you imagine if us regular Joe Schmoe's forgot to pay our taxes? The IRS would be all over us making our lives a living hell, they sure wouldn't be forgiving penalties and not charging interest because we decided to pay up once we got caught. How many other politicians are getting away with this kind of crap? Next election we should vote out every single politician on the ballot currently in office and the same thing the election after that until we get to a point where we have a bunch of fresh faces not bogged down by the way things used to be done. I want to believe President God, I mean Obama, that he's trying to change things, I really do. I like that he came out and rooted for the Steelers and softened the dress code. I like that he called wall street bonuses shameful and froze salaries for those making over $100k. I really had to laugh at Jon Stewart pointing out all the ways Obama's speech was similar to things Bush had said. We wanted change and we got it. We have turned our back on our parents and grandparents culture of hard work and responsibility for a culture of entitlements. Nothing is our fault anymore, it is all someone else's fault. We don't want to make difficult decisions to fix our problems, we want the government to fix them for us, free no less. If you couldn't tell, I'm disgusted.

Why I will NEVER watch Oprah again

10:33 p.m.

Oprah (!) being interviewed at the Obama rally in Chicago: "It's my town. My town's been vibrating all day...[Gail tells her to tell a story about how she voted.] I was voting across from a drug rehab center. And there were some ladies in there that I was like, 'Well, how long have you all been detoxed?' And they said, 'Just last week,' and I said, 'Okay, that's good. That's sober enough.'...And I thought, 'We will even take the drug addicts' vote.

In case you couldn't tell from my last rant I'm a bit disenchanted with the voting process these days. The quote above is exactly as Oprah said it and it absolutely makes my blood boil. Are we so desperate in this country that we need to have the drug addicts voting for president? This election has been going on for more than a year. In the week or less that they've been sober did they research what the candidates stood for? I doubt it. It's our right to vote in this country and I would never deny anyone that right. More than a right, it's our civic duty to vote. I believe it is also our duty to understand the issues and what the candidates stand for before we vote. Obama wasn't my choice for President but I'm not that upset that he won. My biggest problem with him was that he wants more government and I think the government screws up just about everything it touches with too much bureaucracy, but what do I know? I could be totally wrong and I hope I am. My problem isn't that he was elected, my problem is that McCain didn't stand a chance right from the beginning. The media crowned Obama King a long time ago and he was able to outspend McCain by two to one. How do you possibly compete with that? You can't. Obama ran an innovative campaign. He had a lot of new techniques that were nothing short of ingenious but you also had ACORN out there registering the Dallas Cowboys and God only knows who else to vote. It's those type of things that I object to. I'm glad to see so many people so excited about the election and I hope that this excitement continues. Its good to see young people finally involved and excited about something that's so important. My hope for the next election is that both candidates use the same type of financing and that the media stops telling us all who is going to win long before the election takes place and for God's sake, get rid of ACORN and replace them with a non partisan group who will register real people to vote once and only once. Yes, I know, by and large, that is what happens, but there were tons of reports of people registering multiple times and under false names and it just bugs me. An election should be won without those kind of shady tactics being necessary. Obama would have been able to win even without that kind of stuff. I think it demeans him and his presidency that people weren't confident enough in him and his abilities that they felt it necessary to register anyone and everyone, multiple times if necessary, and get the drug addicts out to vote just to get him elected. I hope that he is able to unite the country and deliver the kind of change he promises.

I promise this is the last bit of ranting I will do on the election and politics, at least for another 2 years. And by the way, the Washington Redskins did correctly predict the outcome of the election by losing Monday night. And here's another stat I heard recently. It's going to be a good 4 years for the New York Yankees. They only win the World Series when a democrat is president so they have 4 years to return to their former glory. Talk about a stat I like to see turn out to be wrong this time!

Election Day Rant (Why I Hate the Media)

I went out and cast my vote today and although I've studiously avoided coverage of the election since this morning, my husband has currently won the argument over the TV and I'm stuck watching the talking heads call the election in New Mexico for Barack Obama with a whole whopping 3% reporting. I can't begin to tell you how much this whole process has irritated me. From the months and months and months and months of talking ad neauseum about who is the better candidate,to ACORN, to early voting, to the electoral college, and especially the talking heads calling elections based on exit polling; I'm sick of all of it. I don't think the process is a good one any more and it should be changed. I know there is some reason why the electoral college was instituted and I'm sure it was a good one, at least at the time, but shouldn't the election results reflect the will of all of the people? If a majority of people in the state vote for one person, that person gets all the states electoral votes and the votes of the people who voted for the other candidate no longer count. It is possible to win the popular vote and not the White House. How is that OK? And why is exit polling allowed? If I'm getting home from work and getting ready to go vote and they've already called the election, why would I bother going to vote? Either the candidate I'd be voting for has won or has no chance of winning so I might as well stay home. I don't agree with early voting either, I think it leads to greater voter fraud. Absentee ballots don't bother me provided you have to show proof of identification to use one. I feel like political coverage should be limited to what each candidate's views are, not who is likely to win. Everyone should vote on the same day and there should be absolutely no coverage of the results until all the ballots have been cast and counted. I also think that you should be required to prove you are who you say you are before you're allowed to vote. I was asked for my name, address and date of birth. If I had registered as someone else in addition to myself, I could have given that information and voted again at a different polling place. I wasn't asked for any form of picture ID although Tim did say he was asked for his licence. I guess I'm just looking for some uniformity and some semblance of fairness. I've been irate over exit polling and media coverage since Ehrlich lost the election to O'Malley a number of years ago. I remember very clearly watching the TV in the early evening (I don't even think polls were closed yet) and the screen said Ehrlich had over 100,000 votes and O'Malley had 60,000 with some small percentage of precincts reporting and they called the election for O'Malley. It just irks me to no end. Not so much because Ehrlich lost, despite the fact that he was doing a good job and even had a decent approval rating. I can accept that O'Malley, for some reason beyond my comprehension, was popular and a Democrat so of course he was going to win. What I can't accept is that the election was called before all the votes were counted. That would be like saying that because one team is winning in the third quarter they win the game. If you're going to call it after three quarters, why bother playing a fourth? I can't stand the entire process anymore. I'm tired of the media determining, by their coverage, what the outcome will be. Yes, I realize this has been a bit of a bitter rant but I do feel a little bit better. It's just wrong that we call the election before all of the votes are counted. I guess the media need something to do all day and night but if it were up to me, I'd be watching Dancing with the Stars and hoping Susan Lucci gets kicked off. Instead I have to wait until tomorrow to find out who loses that election.

And the winner is...

For the last 5 presidential elections when the incumbent is not running for re-election the Washington Redskins have predicted the winner of the election by winning or losing their game the week before the election. If they win, the party leaving the White House will remain in power. If they lose, the opposing party wins the White House. The Redskins are playing the Steelers tonight and the game will go on far later than I'm able to stay up. Regardless of the outcome of the game, I'm still going to cast my vote at some point tomorrow. I can't wait to see if history repeats itself and the outcome of the election follows the outcome of the game. By the way, I want to be the person whose job it is to keep these kinds of stats. Really, who sits around and says "hmm...I wonder which football team's record corresponds to the presidential election results?" I can't believe this stat actually exists!