Were gay people in this country forced to wear pink triangles and mutilated before being to put into gas chambers? My American History book was missing that chapter?

I am so out of touch that I thought the Holocaust happened in Germany and German occupied territories.

Too many strawmen, too little time. I must move on. Take my advice or ignore it; the choice is yours. I still say that making the comparison hurts gay rights more than it helps. You don't have to agree with me, but it would be wise to at least consider whether there is any truth in what I argue instead of tossing up strawman arguments.

My argument about it being merely semantic was based on the issue at the state level. The reason I voted against the similar measure in Tennessee was that it explicitly refused to recognize contracts from other states, which is unconstituional. Prop 8 was phrased in less explicit terms and would probably have received my because of the more open-ended nature of the phrasing.

If Massachusetts has gay marriage and California has civil unions (both providing equal protection for civil rights) and California denoted a "married" couple from Massachusetts as being in a "civil union", not a "marriage", then the issue is then a semantic one.

The basic rights that accompany civil unions should be there in some form in EVERY state. I don't disagree with you on that. I don't agree with some of the others who have suggested that bigotry and hatred are the only factors behind the success of Prop 8.

Since I was insulted, I will respond one last time.

Yes, we do need better schools in this country if you think that the holocaust happened in America.

Don't try and Rove me. You know damn well that you took my words out of context.

Sorry I responded harshly to the person I thought was responding harshly to me. Of course, right after I hit Publish, I saw the "sorry, I misread you" post.

Prop 8 passed just today and emotions are running high. Now isn't really the time for this discussion. Some of the posters here had a bigger emotional investment in the issue and my arguments may not be taken in the best way at the moment. I will quietly bow out and wish everyone here luck.

Maybe the voters in Alaska decided that letting Palin pick a replacement was preferable to electing a Democrat. Palin certainly played coy about the whole Stevens thing and even refused to say whether she voted for him. She seemed to be sending the signal that voting for Stevens was voting for Palin's replacement for Stevens.

What a joke!

So, the people who clearly dislike Sarah Palin and think she hurt McCain won't be part of Palin '12? I bet they are going to be really disappointed.

This is a typical knee-jerk Republican reaction. The McCain people were able to lead their candidate to a landslide loss. That doesn't exactly make them first round picks for anyone's 2012 campaign. Distancing themselves from the damage that Palin did isn't so much an attack on Palin as an attempt to salvage their careers. "Palin didn't do what we asked or we would have won" is the best hope the campaign staff have for furthering their careers after they were humiliatingly defeated by a "socialist, Marxist, terrorist named Hussein with ties to the PLO."

Since Late Tuesday night (or early Wednesday morning, depending on your outlook) when 100% of the precincts had reported in, we have seen a steady trickle of revisions to those totals, usually in Franken's favor. The 238 that Salon reported is now 239 according to the Secretary of State site. Who knows what it will be when the results are made official on the 18th?

Theoretically, Franken could be ahead when the official numbers come in. It is doubtful, but I would love to see Coleman try to justify not stopping the recount after saying that if the roles were reversed, he would.

But in the end, the result isn't as important as the process. Every election has glitches and the bigger the election the more glitches there are. Most of the time the minor glitches don't matter because they couldn't affect the outcome, but the margin of "victory" right now in MN is practically microscopic. More important than who actually wins the seat is voter confidence in the process (although a Coleman win would, of course, be horrid for the country).

It is important to recognize that a recount is automatic under MN law if the margin is less that 1/2 of a percent. That is around 15,000 votes and we are talking about less than 250. Al Franken isn't calling for recount. The MN law allows the losing candidate of a close race to decline a recount, but not to request one. If the margin were 2500 votes instead of 250, Franken probably would decline. But he has come from an election night "loss" of almost 800 to trailing by less than 250, just on revisions by the counties of their initial totals.

A recount needs to happen, whether it will ultimately help Franken or Coleman. However, it should be handled professionally and not be the media circus, complete with phony "voters" protesting the outrage of counting votes, that Florida 2000 was.

Why is West Virginia included in the NE? And if it is, as others have asked, didn't McCain win those NE EVs?

WV has almost nothing in common with the NE states, so its placement there seems forced.