Texas is the 2nd largest state in the union for population. Texas is no more a backwards, odious state than Oklahoma, Arkansas or Louisiana, there's just more of it and more people in it. While Texas may need to examine how our judicial selection process, actual executions are showing a downward trend.

For the dumbasses out there that say things like "kick 'em out" or "let 'em leave", here's a fun fact: Texas is no more eligible to secede from the US than any other state.

Granted, this is deplorable, but I just think it's ridiculous for people to make the generalization that "Oh well, that's just how they do things down there". It's not the case at all.

The next dipshit journalist, news anchor or politician to use the word "deadly" or any other fear-inducing word associated with swine flu needs to be smacked upside the head and banned from public news reporting or commentary for 18 months. Tell you what- when YOU get swine flu or your KID gets it, be alarmed. Until then, STFU about this already. Enough. Enough. Enough.

If you're going to report on this, report on how the uninsured, homeless or any other marginalized group gets access to antiviral should they contract swine flu. Report on what ELSE may have been wrong with the toddler who apparently died from swine flu (weak immune system due to inherent malnutrition - tantamount effect from eating nothing but overly processed foods). Report the upside and use a positive tagline. Do anything but continue to stir the pot with words like "deadly" and "unknown" and "life-threatening" - the list goes on. It's not good journalism, it's not compelling and dramatic, it's just bullshit.

But it causes me to wonder- how much legitimate news was suppressed in the mainstream media during the past eight years?

Barack Obama won this election against all odds. He employed careful strategy in forgiving Lieberman. One of the best potentially unintended results of this decision is that Obama clearly illustrated, without having to say a word, what a jackass Lieberman made of himself in the past few months.

Obama may be hiring people we've seen before, but I honestly believe that he's one step ahead of everyone in this game and I trust him. I have not trusted a president in my adult life time, but I trust Obama to be smarter than every pundit, opinion writer and day-time cable news anchor out there. Who else is he supposed to appoint? Show me a list of cabinet appointees that will serve well in an Obama administration that is 100% untainted from the Clinton era and I'll mail you a box of candy.

I never believed that Obama could accomplish everything he told us he wanted to accomplish- but if we could get just 1/3d of that list- it would be huge. But seriously - let the guy get inaugurated, let him get his desk set up, let him take a breath before he has to go before the firing squad of the nay-sayers and the "press". If I were in charge, the first thing I'd ban is 24-hour cable news. One reason is because MSNBC keeps taking articles JUST LIKE THIS ONE and reporting them as FACTUAL, instead of as the OPINION pieces they are.

And on a final note, I didn't vote for Obama because I thought his marker was furthest to the left on the political spectrum - I voted for him because I think he's smart and I think he cares, just a little bit, about what happens to me and mine. So Obama can put Bozo the Clown in his cabinet for all I care, I think that he will be in control of these people and I believe that under his leadership, they will work towards his original goals, not their underlying self-serving ones.

But currently, http://sadguysontradingfloors.tumblr.com/ is funnier.

Articles like Camille's are why I no longer pay for a Salon account. Not getting my money's worth with so much filler dribble.

Because she's dumber than a box of hammers and isn't afraid to flaunt it.

And I'm forced to feed my kid raw sewage. John McCain sold his soul to the devil that ripped him a new one 8 years ago and he deserves EVERYTHING that comes to him based on this campaign he's run. If he were a real maverick, a real do-it-my-way kind of upstanding guy, he'd have told his campaign manager and staff to politely go fuck themselves right about the time they talked him into picking Sarah Palin as his running mate.

I think it's all over but the crying for the GOP. I wouldn't call myself prematurely exuberant, but I feel like the Democrats are going to tip this one over the edge. And it feels like exactly that very thing - heaving some festering behemoth over the side of the cliff.

McCain's gonna get fewer votes than Goldwater. And he's not half as smart.