Every year I attend a BBQ held by a friend of the family.  Her name is Deborah and sadly is a big-time Republican, though oddly enough not so much a conservative (well socially at least).  Now her late father and my father go way back, fought together in North Africa in WW2, so these people are practically family. Well, as mentioned, she holds an Independence Day BBQ cook out every year, and my father goes out of respect... and a free meal. Outside of me, sometimes, he's the only other non-Republican at these things.

Okay, someone, please, tell me why this is good:

"But that doesn't mean that Obama should not be lauded for rejecting the extremism and the fanaticism of the worst elements of the Democratic base like NARAL, Emily's List, and Planned Parenthood. It is good to know that whatever Barack personally feels about abortion, he has recognized that certain extremist groups with their extraordinarily liberal positions do not deserve to be part of the national conversation, and for that Obama deserves to be praised. Hillary Clinton, for one, would never have done anything like this. Her husband vetoed the Partial Birth Abortion Act twice and by all accounts Hillary treated the Emily's Listers and NARAL extremists like they were important and respectable people. Barack Obama knows better. Good for him."

http://www.redstate.com/stories/election s/2008/in_praise_of_barack_obama

One of the many insults that get thrown at Obama supporters goes something like this,  "Is that more of this 'hope' and 'change' you Obamabots bought into?"

I keep seeing the words "hope" and "change" being thrown at Obama supporters as if they were spears. I see this in comment after comment. "What is this 'hope' you speak of? Where is the 'change' Obama talks about"?

Apparently, it is difficult for some people to understand these terms. Some don't want to understand. They simply want to use those terms as insults to imply that anyone who believes in them is naïve.

Well, I've got news for those nay-sayers. Hope and change are real. Both are greatly needed in this country after the last eight years under Bush/Cheney. Follow with me after the fold, while I try to explain exactly what these words mean to me.

Evidently, this morning it was Sen. Reed's turn to audition on Sunday Talk (opposite Holy Joe with Boy George on ABC).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TF-Fv_1uq-w

IMHO:

Dull as dishwater.

Not physically attractive.

A few days ago Gallup released some composite data culled from polling over the past three months. The partisan self-identification numbers show a remarkable thing: Voters give the Democrats their greatest edge in over a decade, and tied for their greatest advantage in 20 years.

While the percentage of independents shrunk a bit since late 2007, Gallup trends show relatively little change in Americans' identification with the Republican Party over the same period. This has generally held at 27%, while Democratic identification increased from 31% at the end of 2007 to 36% today.

This skew toward one party in the redistribution of voters in an election year is not unprecedented. However, by the third quarter (from July to September) it would be unusual not to see some heightened public identification with both parties. If the percentage of Americans identifying themselves as Republican does not pick up, the Democrats will have their strongest structural advantage in 20 years going into the November election.

[...]

The Democratic Party entered the 2008 election season with a solid advantage in party identification (32% to 27% in the fourth quarter of 2007), but, as a result of independents becoming more partisan in their thinking during the election, the Democrats now lead by a larger nine percentage point margin, 36% to 27%, tying with the third quarter of 1997 for their widest advantage in the past 20 years.

Why is this number so important? Back in the fourth quarter of 2006, the Democrats held a 6-point advantage in self-identification en route to a roughly 7-point victory in the overall popular vote for the House of Representatives. In 2004, Gallup actually found that Republicans had a self-identification edge, a data point that cannot be separated from George W. Bush's 3-point victory in the popular vote that fall.

Does this mean that the Democrats will necessarily have an overwhelming advantage on election day, or that Barack Obama is a shoo-in for the White House with numbers like these? Of course not. Even as partisan self-identification numbers aren't entirely malleable, they do tend to shift slightly as election day approaches and voters harden in their views. Nevertheless, these numbers do underscore a key point that is not really breaking through the media narrative at this juncture: Obama and the Democrats are ahead right now; this is not a tied race.

Politics is a strange, and often fascinating, process. People get involved with politics for any of a number of reasons. Some people view politics as a game. Others view it as a participatory sport. Some see it as a means to make a living, or in some cases, a fortune. I can understand all of those views, but I don't share them.

To me, politics is a means to an end. In my view, politics should be used to advance an agenda. When played for any other reason, such as fun, to gain power, for profit, or even as a means to pass the time, politics becomes about you. When this happens, politics ceases to be a means to an end and becomes nothing more than an ego trip.

What does all of this have to do with PUMA? It's really quite simple. The people in PUMA and like-minded groups have a purpose. You may not like their goals. I know I don't. You and I may disagree with their tactics, or their rhetoric, or even their goals, but that doesn't take away the fact that they are working towards an end result.

I'm not going to start off with a disclaimer about who I'm going to vote for or who I supported in the primary. Draw your own conclusions.

I'm also going to keep it short, because I want to get out of the house and enjoy this national holiday when we celebrate the beginning of the process that found the first democracy since the ancient Greeks.

During the primaries, I watched as people on both sides bashed the other side and the opposing candidates. There were some really egregious comments coming from all sides. The rage was fueled by trolls from the GOP side. Apparently, some people want to keep the anger at a fever pitch and are doing everything they can to disrupt the Democratic party.

Environmentalism is not an upper-income issue, it's not a white issue, it's not a black issue, it's not a South or a North or an East or a West issue. It's an issue that all of us have a stake in - Barack Obama

Contrary to reports of my untimely demise I am still here I just have been having problems coming up with stuff to write about. I've written a lot of diaries on Obama's platform but there is one issue that I have not written about much. And it's a very, very important issue. A little something called our environment. Barack Obama has been a champion of the environment for a long time. In this diary I will take a look at his background on this issue and plans for moving our country and environment forward.