After discovering the rude disappearance of my side menu, I tried in vain to sort through the piles upon piles of code that made up my WordPress template. But alas, CSS is so far beyond me that it’s not even funny, so the reason for the egregious error eluded me. Without a solution in sight, I decided to do something drastic…
Completely redesign the site! Yay!
So now BarackNObama.net has an entirely new look, one that is complete with its side-menu-ness. Honestly, I’m really glad the previous site’s side menu decided to escape, because I actually like this look a whole lot more. It’s so much brighter, so much more cheerful, which is honestly necessary since all too often I’m blogging about wholly depressing topics. But hey, our country may be going to hell in a hand basket, but oooo look, a cute blue birdie!!

Speaking of that cute blue birdie, the birdie was just oh so cute that I didn’t dare remove it. After all, when I picked out this template I didn’t even have a twitter account to link to, so there would really be no point in keeping the cute blue birdie. That is, unless I finally swallowed my pride and opened up a twitter account.

You know, I never really understood twitter. It always seemed to me to be either a tool for the incredibly narcissistic, or for those with super teensy attention spans, or both. But my good friend Joey has been telling me about its wonders for the past few weeks. Which, knowing Joey, is quite remarkable – she’s even more skeptical of the latest Internet fads than I am. I always kind of look at Internet fads like this: it’s all been done before to some extent. For instance, Facebook is the new MySpace, and MySpace was the new Friendster. So what does that make Twitter? The new form of permanent, public, open-mic IMing? It just seemed so silly. Most of the “tweets” (oh gag, the lingo…) seemed to be stupid stuff no one would care about, like “Hey, I’m at the grocery store right now, buying Ben & Jerry’s. Aren’t I awesome?!”

Anyway, all rants aside, Joey assured me that twitter has evolved from those days – in her words, “it’s grown up” – so here I am, compelled to start my own twitter account because I picked out a new WordPress template with a cute blue birdie I couldn’t resist.
If you’re so inclined to join the twitterista (is that really part of the lingo or did I just make that one up?), you can follow me at BarackNObamaNet. As you also might have noticed, just to the left of that cute blue birdie is a little window featuring my latest tweets. I’m particularly proud of that little window – that wasn’t there in the original template. Oh no, I had to program that myself! And I’m oh so very proud of myself for doing so. I couldn’t repair my side menu, but I damn well wanted to make sure my new tweets filled up that otherwise useless space. When I finally got it working – through a great deal of wild ass guessing, throwing code around like darts hoping it’d stick somewhere – I literally did a little squeal and a happy dance in my office chair. So I sincerely hope you enjoy that little ‘Latest Tweets’ window, cause it sure wasn’t easy to set up.

That’s about it from me for tonight. I hope to be blogging and tweeting (a little part of me dies each time I say that…) more often over the next several weeks. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the new design and any other improvements you think I could make. No guarantees I’ll actually be able to accomplish them, mind, but I can sure try. Thanks!

Forgive me, but it appears that the sidebar menu has decided to go on holiday and I can’t seem to reach it (oh no! Maybe it’s in Argentina!! Shame on you, Sidebar, shame!) Um, anyway, I’m still trying to figure out what’s happened. I kinda suck at CSS, though, so it may take me a while. Sorry for the mess and confusion!

I’m heading out of town tomorrow and will be gone for at least a week, if not longer. I’m going up north for some medical treatment (no, not Canada, I’ve had enough socialized medicine for one lifetime) , so if it goes well I may end up staying longer. So we’ll see. I will be taking my laptop, so I should be able to answer emails, but I’m not sure how much time – if any – I’ll have to write new entries. So I apologize for the forthcoming gap in new NObamaness! I promise I’ll make it up to you when I get back home.

In other news, I apologize for not writing a post about the tea parties which swept the nation. Unfortunately I was unable to attend my local tea party due to my health, but I was with all of you in spirit! My congratulations to everyone who attended for keeping the tea parties peaceful, pleasant, and within the law! (Although I was a bit disappointed with Washington, DC! What were you guys thinking, throwing a box of tea bags over the White House fence?!?! As a fellow Washingtonite, I’m ashamed – unless it was a tourist who did that, you all should have known better! I’m honestly shocked no one was arrested, they certainly would have had probable cause. Such lunacy! Surely you all must realize that stunts like that aren’t doing the movement any favors – thanks so much for putting a dent in our credibility.)
Other than that, I definitely have a post brewing in my brain over the vulgar sexual insults that certain news anchors in the MSM threw around that day (I’m looking at you, Anderson Cooper! Any respect I may have once had for you, it has been thoroughly flushed down the drain.) I thought I was to the point where nothing from the MSM could shock me anymore, but that unfortunately did. I wish the FCC would follow through on their pledge of consistency and slap NBC with a fine or two for their participation in that vulgar tirade. But yeah, like that’ll ever happen.

Back to packing for me! I’ll see you all in a week! In the mean time, everyone keep up the great work and hopefully I’ll be well enough to see you at the next tea party!

I wanted to apologize to everyone for that long drought without posts; I’ve been going to see doctors pretty much every day for the past two weeks and it’s absolutely wiped me out. But hopefully I’m through with that for at least a little while and I’ll slowly be able to get back to posting as normal.
Thanks for your patience!

I received this funny poem from a Republican friend and I just have to share it. So with this, I’ll inaugurate my return to the blog after my little siesta from the news for the Thanksgiving holidays. Enjoy!

Election Day’s over,
The talking is done.
My party has lost,
Your party has won.
So let us be friends,
Let arguments pass.
I’ll hug my elephant,
You kiss your ass.

Hehe, hope that made you smile, no matter what party you belong to. I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of things! There’s so much for me to get caught up on though… ah well. It’s at least nice to be back! I hope you all had a wonderful stress-free Thanksgiving!

As I’m sure most of you have noticed, I haven’t blogged in a while. The simple reason for that is I have company visiting for Thanksgiving. A lot of company. Seriously, this house is chock full. And it’s going to get even more crowded tomorrow, as even more family members arrive.
Another reason besides just being busy with company has to do with a little family rule my parents have established in an effort to keep the peace. That ultra liberal brother I mentioned, the one that ultimately led to me creating this blog for fear of his personal reprisals, he’s coming. To prevent any sort of nuclear explosions, my Mother has outlawed any political discussions for the duration of the Thanksgiving holiday. Since I’m normally the one who recounts the daily political news to the rest of the family, I’m going to avoid reading the news while everyone’s here so that I’ll avoid any accidental slip ups out of force of habit. So I’m taking the week off so I can spend some time with the family and prevent any catastrophes. It’s shaping up to be an already stressful week anyway, since my Father’s brother died last week and my ultra liberal brother has taken it upon himself to drop one hell of a bombshell via email shortly before their arrival. Everybody’s already on edge anyway, so I just don’t think politics will help any.
I hope you all might consider stepping away from the news for a little while too. There’s been so much stress lately that I would hate for it to taint anyone’s turkey or anything. So take some time for yourself, shut the world outside, and keep it from poisoning your home over the holidays.
Have a lovely Thanksgiving, everybody! See you in a week or so.

I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’ve finally decided how I will react to President Obama.

1 – I will show President Obama precisely the same amount of loyalty he and the Democratic party were kind enough to show to President Bush. Although I am no fan of Bush, I feel it is only fair that they finally get a taste of their own medicine, so to speak.

2- Unlike the Democrats, I will not hold Obama responsible for things beyond his control, and I will not fault him for failings which have absolutely nothing to do with the responsibilities of the president.

3 – I will not behave as though history immediately pauses and restarts during the transition from one administration to the other. In other words, I will not fault him for the residual effects of previous presidents’ policies, so long as he does not involve himself in making such residual effects worse.

4 – I will not engage in childish behavior, such as mindlessly and repetitively dressing him up as Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, or any other infamous leader, purely for the sake of manipulating the masses.

5 – I will not question his intelligence simply because he may have an accent that I don’t particularly like. However, I reserve the right to comment in the event that he continues to switch at will between his normal speaking voice and his “Black Southern Preacher” voice. Cause that’s just plain silly.

6 – I will – as I always have – maintain respect for the office of the presidency. I will respect the office itself. I do not, however, have to respect the man who occupies it.

7 – These rules will be in place until President Obama truly and completely earns my respect, trust, and loyalty. Such respect should not be freely granted without first being earned. I’m not sure how he could possibly do that, but if by some miracle he actually does, only then will I regard him as my President.

I’m sure I might have a few more to add to this as I continue to consider how best to proceed. I’ll also need to come up with a new headline for this blog, since this site is no longer about making a decision about who to vote for. If you have any ideas, please feel free to share them! And if you have any suggestions about further guidelines about how to respond to President Obama, please post those as well.

Good luck, everybody! The next four years probably won’t be a lot of fun, but please, we absolutely must maintain our honor, maturity, integrity, and dignity. One of my worst fears is that those of us who didn’t vote for Obama will sink to the same lows previously displayed by some Democrats during the Bush years. I don’t want us to turn into them, I don’t want us – independents, republicans, PUMAs, whatever – to be just as childish as they were. Please, as we continue to fight for what we believe in, we need to make sure we maintain our maturity and dignity as well. We cannot allow ourselves to indulge in moral equivalencies as they did. Let’s rise above it and show them what we’re made of.

Before the voting begins, I wanted to talk specifically about this site for a moment. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, and after an email exchange with Robert from POW in CA, I’ve decided what I intend to do with this site after the election results are in. Click “more” to check it out!

Because I’m currently disabled, I’m allowed to vote early by absentee so that I don’t have to wait in any lines on November 4th. So this evening I went to my poling place, made sure to vote by paper, and cast my vote! I’m so excited and glad to have that done and out of the way.
There’s a reason for this post, however, beyond just announcing that I got to vote early (neener, neener! Hehe ) I don’t know about you, but in my state I was offered the choice between electronic and paper voting. I just want to remind everybody, if you have the choice, please, please, please, choose a paper ballot! There are SO many questions and concerns about the reliability of electronic voting machines. Not only can many of them register your vote incorrectly, but if for any reason the voting machines are disabled or tampered with, more often than not there’s simply no paper trail of your vote. If any evidence arises at all that the electronic voting machine is tampered with, I believe that all the votes cast on that machine are then thrown out.
Please, please, please, do NOT let this happen to your vote! All the while I’ve been trying to remind everyone that their vote is precious, that it deserves to be backed up with solid facts and research. Well, your vote is also precious enough that it deserves to be counted. So please do everything you can to ensure your vote is counted: vote paper!

Not Pro-McCain ~ Anti-Obama!

Let me introduce myself – I’m Meg! Nice to meet you. I’m young, I’m a woman, I live outside Washington, DC, and I’m a moderate registered Independent. “Meg” is not my real name, nor is this my first blog. I have created this blog specifically to maintain my anonymity. Why? Because the attacks against me because of my point of view got so out of hand that I simply couldn’t tolerate it anymore. On my original blog, if I dared to voice even the slightest hint of dissent against Barack Obama, I was attacked by my own family and my closest friends. I couldn’t figure out what had happened. Suddenly, those closest to me – people with whom I normally share a great deal of mutual respect – would turn on me in an instant, spewing the most hateful of insults, all because I had the unending nerve to disagree with them politically. I didn’t get it; what changed? One minute they’re asking me for advice, as any friend would, then the next they’re calling me “brainwashed” and “stupid.” Or worse, people who have known me my whole life and know full well who I am and what I stand for, as soon as they hear I don’t like Obama, they start accusing me of being a “bigoted, crazy, right-wing fundamentalist Christian Republican.” (Their words, not mine!) I’m so tired of being attacked personally by people I know and love, I’m tired of being dragged through the mud by people who know better. So I’m removing my name, I’m sequestering this part of my life, so at least now the attacks – that I know are inevitable – at least won’t feel quite so personal. Call it cowardly if you wish, but I just don’t want to stir up anymore strife amongst my family. Yet I still wish to speak my mind, so here I am.

After the jump, on to politics, the reason I want to speak my mind, as well as my promises to you about what you can expect from this blog.