• Barack Obama - Secret Service codename Renegade
• Barack wants to remove the plasma TV from the famous Lincoln bedroom. Instead, he wants guests to read.
• To help him keep in shape, Barack will build an indoor basketball court - to replace the bowling alley that Richard Nixon installed.
• White House pets - especially dogs - are popular with voters. In his acceptance speech, Obama promised his girls a new puppy to take with them to their new home.

Their latest photos, of course, are of President-Elect Obama and regardless of your politics, you have to admit that the photos are pretty cool (I’ve always been into photography, so I appreciate great photos!)

One thing that sticks out to me in the photos are the huge crowds of 75,000 and 100,000 people! I guess I don’t understand why anyone would go stand outside among tens of thousands of people just to listen to a politician — and I’ve certainly never cried over a presidential candidate, or someone running for any office for that matter.

Personally I think that most people place far too big of an emphasis on who is president rather than who we have in congress. Democrats talk about Clinton having a balanced budget, but neglect to point out that was after Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America and the first time since the 1950s that Republicans had control of both the House and the Senate. Who controls congress is at least as important as who is in the White House, if not more.

Now the Democrats have a near super majority in the Senate, control of the House, and the presidency. So, after January 20 the blame-Bush politics will be out the window and the Democrats will have to be accountable for the policies that they enact.

Personally, I think the Republican party has only themselves to blame. They offered up the same thing that they have election after election. Nothing new or revolutionary. They shut out real change like that Ron Paul was offering to stick by their party politics and promote the same Washington-insiders year after year. It’s unfortunate because I don’t really think that either side of the aisle is for “less government” anymore — they simply argue on how they are going to spend our money, not whether or not they should be spending it or, heaven forbid, let us keep some more of it.

I probably won’t post too much more about politics because on balance it really doesn’t affect daily life — we all have to still get up and go to work, spend time with our family and friends, and live our lives. I guess this is a contrast between me and the tens of thousands attending Obama rallies — I don’t expect the government to put gas in my car or pay my mortgage and at the same time I don’t want them taking part of my “pie” away to give to others. I just want to live my life with as little government interference as possible — to run a business and be taxed as little as possible — and to be free to make choices in my life without much interference by government bureaucrats.

Certainly the next four years will be interesting…

Here’s McCain’s problem — Obama is very likable. If Hillary had been the nominee I think it would have been a much easier road for McCain, but Obama just comes across with a calm, effective demeanor that people are attracted to. And by people, I mean ‘voters’. And like it or not, that is what many will base their votes on.

Watch this clip from the Daily Show and you’ll see what I mean. Imagine McCain on the same program? He couldn’t pull it off.

Of course, I still disagree with many of Obama’s policies and viewpoints (here’s a good article that my dad sent me explaining the pitfalls of raising taxes on the ‘rich’), but I’d have a beer with him.

This is completely worthless on so many levels — the US does not own or regulate the internet, let alone Kentucky! Can you imagine if other countries started regulating what was available on the internet and seizing domain names? The idea that a state in the US can regulate a site that has an international audience is beyond absurd.

Also, this will not stop or hinder internet gambling in the least. Gambling sites use programs that you download in order to access their services. These programs do not rely on the domain names that are being seized, but are pointed to IP addresses of specific servers. Seizing the domain names isn’t going to stop anyone from continuing to gambling using software they have already downloaded. At most it will prevent new people from downloading the software for a very short amount of time — until the company puts everything on a new domain name. OK — you seized gambling.com, I’ll put everything on gambling.net, or gambling.cc, or gambling-stuff-here-download-it-now.com.

Judge Wingate demonstrated his complete ignorance of technology when he said that he would be willing to exempt any gambling site that would use “geographically filtering” to block Kentucky residents. It is trivial to use a proxy server in your browser to circumvent any attempt to geographically filter users — Google “proxy servers” and you’ll see how many are out there to use — many for free.

Politicians and lawmakers need to realize that you cannot apply old-school laws and practices to new technology. The internet is a global phenomenon and we can’t regulate how Japan, China, or other international countries utilize it. I think it’s funny how much money and effort China pours into “censoring” the internet. I’m sure that they do a pretty good job of wiping the majority of what they don’t want seen on major sites, but if you think that there aren’t some Chinese computer geeks that know enough about encryption and internet protocols to get to whatever they want to see, you’re kidding yourself.

Information and knowledge was always meant to be free … the internet is making that a reality and will eventually overcome all obstacles that those in power want to put in the way of citizens that just want to live free!

I’ve told two people recently that I thought that Obama was going to win — and that it wasn’t even going to be close. McCain (and the Republicans) just really haven’t done anything to appeal to voters - he really is more of the same. Now, I don’t think that Obama is all about change either - I’d say they are both for bigger government, which is exactly what this country doesn’t need. But McCain’s loss is going to firmly rest on the Republican elite for pushing the same boring candidates through year after year.

I think that the real shock from the article is that the race is tied among NASCAR fans! Maybe since both Obama and McCain sat down at the same bailout table a few weeks back they are having trouble knowing who to thank for including NASCAR in the bailout bill.

I’ll leave you with the Palin rap…