Please look at these very important maps:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/

I keep reading people talking about Red State this..Red State that...It is meaningless drivel. Check out these maps to see how the last election should really be thought of: Blues tend to live in areas that have defined population centres, e.g., cities, large towns with Universities, etc.  Reds are all over the place, but dominate very few population centres, preferring to weave between blues, filling in cracks of the landscape.  Problem is, all those cracks added up tipped over one too many states, adn we lost big time.

We really need to think about the country this way to win elections. Dichotomies are rarely accurate.

This is weird, but I took this straight from the CNN website http://www.cnn.com/US/.  No doctoring at all.  She is clearly making the sign of satan that I remember using in my teenage weirdo years because cool people like Ronnie James Dio used it as well.  Can anybody explain this?  

I'd like to float the following ideas about marriage and see what people think.  These are based upon my discussions with gay men in Europe about the possibilities of marriage for them.

"Marriage" in the traditional sense is not something same-sex couples should be seeking.  Rather they just want equal rights with hetero couples.  Whatever you name the rights doesn't matter.  In fact the term "marriage" (or non-english equivalent) is so wrapped up in either christianity or fuedal property exchanges that progressives should be avoiding it altogether.

If we had strong enough laws to protect children and economically dependent partners. (it appears that we already do have quite a bit of good law in certain places) then goverment could get out of the business of marriage completely.  Then religious folks would have no quarter to influence policies on civil marriage because there would be no such thing.  

No conclusions here, just thoughts, any ideas?