January 20, 2009

[W'rkncacnter]

Well...there you have it. It's official now; Barack Obama is president of the US.

I've checked around, and there are celebrations all over the world going on for the inauguration.

I personally, feel like some massive weight has been lifted from my shoulders. It's probably a natural high from the gravity of the moment, but I'm gonna enjoy it anyway.

How do y'all feel about this?

[Silent Hunter]

End of the Bush error..ehhh era.

[Baphnedia]

How apt.

[Terastas]

The five words I've been waiting to hear for eight years:
"Former President George W. Bush."

I personally, feel like some massive weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

Those were my mother's exact words. I know we're a long way out of this mess Bush made for us, but at least now we can start digging our way back out.

[*nagowteena*]

Finally, I was so happy to see Bush leave.

[Spongy]

Personally, I think the whole deal is overrated. Why is it that the United States gets so much wordly attention during elections? It's pathetic, in my opinion.

I'm going to semi-quote what Senator Feinstein said today:

[...] in this peaceful exchange of power [...]

She says that as if it was something that only occurs in the United States, when in reality, other countries also have peaceful power exchanges. Of course, many countries also have bloody exchanges in the form of coups or hostile takeovers, etc... But much of the world is civilized enough for bloodless power exchanges.

I'm not saying I hate the United States or anything, and I don't want this to turn into a heated debate/flame war about how great or how poor of a country it is. (Mainly because I don't feel like debating anything at the moment). I will admit to it being a world power, but I do think it gets more attention that it deserves.

And a final note: It's about time that old fart got kicked out of office.

[WerewolfKeeper3]

I would start singing, "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" meaning his time in office, but people might take that the wrong way so... yeah, i'm glad bush is gone... leaving us in a horrible situation, and with so many things to mock for years to come...

[lycanthropeful]

I'm probably the only one who is terrified that Obama is now in office...

... but that's just me.

[Silverclaw]

About freakin' time!



Bye bye Bushie!

[Scott Gardener]

I'm trying not to get too caught up in wanting to hero-worship or build up too much expectations, but...



I'm not the first to post this image to The Pack, but I still love it.


As for Bush, he looks more relieved and worn out than anything at the moment. For all his failures, he believed he was doing the right thing. He was surrounded by crooks, but he himself had honest intentions. Now Chaney, on the other hand, he was either a Sith Lord or plans to go on to invent the Daleks.

[WerewolfKeeper3]

I'm trying not to get too caught up in wanting to hero-worship or build up too much expectations, but...



I'm not the first to post this image to The Pack, but I still love it.


As for Bush, he looks more relieved and worn out than anything at the moment. For all his failures, he believed he was doing the right thing. He was surrounded by crooks, but he himself had honest intentions. Now Chaney, on the other hand, he was either a Sith Lord or plans to go on to invent the Daleks.

Awesome... that's a cool pic...
(Oh... don't you know... Chaney had his hand up Bush's {bleep} the whole time and made him talk. I'm evil in ways that scare even me...)

[Scott Gardener]

Another thing for which I'm very thankful: the first African-American President is also looking like he's going to be one of the really great Presidents. It would have been such a let-down if he or she turned out to be, race aside, no better or more memorable than Gerald Ford, Herbert Hoover, or, God forbid, William Harrison, who died of complications from his inaugural acceptance speech. Instead, Obama is a brilliant man and a great orator, looking to surpass Reagan and go up there with Kennedy, the Roosevelts, and other coin-worthy figures.

Of course, we won't really know until four or eight years from now, but so far, he seems to be living up to his expectations. His acts as President Elect and his declared intentions to focus on rebuilding infrastructure, redirecting economic reforms, and redirecting our military from Iraq to Afghanistan strike me as what we should have been doing all along.

It's also so nice to listen to an orator with eloquence. Bill Clinton sounded like he was having a hard time convincing himself, let alone us, while Bush sounded like a kid reading the words to his speech for the first time out of a grade school book. It's been 20 years since we've had a President who could really stir emotion; some of you are actually getting to experience having one for the first time in your lives.

And, he happens to be the first African-American President. Instead of that historic spot falling into a mediocre person who's one significant spot in history is to be racial proof-of-concept, it goes to one of the greats. That rocks.

[Terastas]

For all his failures, he believed he was doing the right thing.

Did you see him on the way out?! He was laughing!!!

I would dare go as far as to say that Bush did exactly what he'd set out to do in 2000. The only people that profited from his eight years as president were the oil companies and arms contractors -- the very people that set him up to become president in the first place. He made the rich richer and the poor poorer; that's all he'd set out to do.

Hell, if you want to be technical, even they're suffering because of him now. After the American people saw the record profits of the oil companies that Bush was giving them while all else was spiraling down the toilet, the American people lashed out at the oil industries, "alternative energy" became the buzz word, demand for oil dropped and now people are moving towards obsoleting oil altogether. Bush did such a good job screwing the country to the benefit of his corporate buddies that the whiplash from it knocked em' dead.

And he has the arrogance to insist that he did a good job. Everything that wasn't broke in Washington, he "fixed" until it was. If he isn't remembered as the man that sold the nation, the worst president the nation has ever had, all he'll be remembered for is having taken the most vacation time of any president in history. He morally and financially bankrupted this nation, and he wants us to thank him for it?! A job well done?!!

To Hell with him. If he wants someone to thank him, he can go to the Saudis he gave all of our money to.

[vrikasatma]

I have had...just...a DELIRIOUSLY happy day today. There were a few sour notes in this rhapsody but overall...I'm walking on air. I daresay, pure, indilute mead is flowing though my veins (metaphoric...but now that I'm in for the night I could safely take a nip off the ol' honey-wine bottle )

Being on the west coast, I got up at 6:30 to get down to Cozmic Pizza for the Inauguration Breakfast event. They served up coffee and tea drinks, oatmeal, pastries and other good stuff. The a/v guy had a MacBook set up with a live feed off the MSNBC site. Every five minutes or so, though, the full-screen went small and required a refresh, which was annoying. So he changed to the CBS website for their live feed and everyone was happy.

Until the middle of Barack's Inaugural address. I'll get to that in a minute...

I was rather put off by Rick Warren's invocation. I had my doubts from the moment I heard he was tapped, but I decided that, for the sake of unity, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and forestall judgment until I heard the address. Aside from the fact that I'm not Christian, the thought of a man of the cloth speaking out at an official U.S. government event, needle-stabbed me right in my Separation of Church and State nerve ending.

He kept coming back to his version of God. He kept wanting to roar, I could tell. And THEN...sorry if I step on any Christian toes, but he led the Lord's Prayer and had everyone say "Amen" — twice — at the end. I'm sure that half the people watching, on site and throughout the country, continent, hemisphere and world, felt snubbed and marginalized. Jim Webb at least had the sensitivity to let each of us end the DNC invocation in the manner prescribed by our faith.

Maybe he didn't mean to come across as arrogant; maybe he was just caught up in the moment. Maybe black pearls will pop out of my cat's nose. I just keep thinking, "Dammit, as if James Dobson wasn't bad enough, here comes ANOTHER Eminence Grise!"

The oath stumble was rather startling. Later, I found out that Justice Stevens was at fault, and then it was funny; the President knows the Oath of Office better than the Chief Justice does! I loved the "Oh, wait...d'you wanna start again?" smile Barack gave him the second time he muffed it. But at the time, I facepalmed and thought, "Dammit, the Conservitards on Digg are gonna have a field day with this one..." And wouldn't you know it? Some conspiracy whonk commented, "He didn't take the proper oath of office, he messed it up, he's not really President!"

But the high point was when I got home, logged on, and saw that the Inauguration story was top of Front Page, with 9710 Diggs as of mine. Tonight, last I looked (30 seconds ago), the Digg count was up to 20,853 — and no signs of a let-up.

The past couple days have been hellish on Digg. The antis were desperately pulling out all the stops. Someone posted their own blog and all the loonie-toons came crawling out of the woodwork. Dominionists, Freepers, Birthers, Twoofers, WNDbags, fundies, all spewing and turning the comments into a pigshit hurricane. There was one guy who wouldn't let two comments go by without comparing Obama to Hitler. One, apparently off their meds, tried to do a grand unification conspiracy theory that wove 9/11 Truthism, Freemasonry and the birth certificate non-troversy complete with bullet points.

Today, they delivered what they thought was their master-stroke: someone hacked the comments on all the Obama articles so that if you tried to comment, Digg up or Bury, it wouldn't go through and a "Token appears to be invalid" dialog would come up. Or hey, maybe we broke Digg. Normally a story gets a few hundred comments; most of the Obama articles had comment threads that ranged into the low thousands; the algorithm couldn't keep up. The Inauguration story alone was getting a Digg a second this morning.

Update on the Inauguration story: in just the five minutes it took me to type those paragraphs, the Digg count is up to 21,359.

Right...we have a wonderful, intelligent President, Bush is history, he's back to goat-breeding in Dallas. Good riddance to bad rubbish. And from what I've been seeing, the whole WORLD is partying it up!

Welcome back, America. The 21st Century can begin in earnest now.

Oh hey, almost forgot...

The a/v guy went to CBS from MSNBC, and right in the middle of Barack's speech...the connection overloaded and the video signal broke up. It froze on a picture of Barack, fortunately, and someone grabbed a boombox radio. Quick, dial in NPR, pipe it through the speakers, and well...not really fixed, but we at least got to hear the speech

[Lupin]

Another thing for which I'm very thankful: the first African-American President is also looking like he's going to be one of the really great Presidents. It would have been such a let-down if he or she turned out to be, race aside, no better or more memorable than Gerald Ford, Herbert Hoover, or, God forbid, William Harrison, who died of complications from his inaugural acceptance speech. Instead, Obama is a brilliant man and a great orator, looking to surpass Reagan and go up there with Kennedy, the Roosevelts, and other coin-worthy figures.

Of course, we won't really know until four or eight years from now, but so far, he seems to be living up to his expectations. His acts as President Elect and his declared intentions to focus on rebuilding infrastructure, redirecting economic reforms, and redirecting our military from Iraq to Afghanistan strike me as what we should have been doing all along.

He's at least hiring the right people:



Someone had the good sense to move whitehouse.gov to a content delivery network for one of the heaviest traffic periods in the next 4 years.

whitehouse.gov also seems to have DNSSEC implemented now but I can't tell if that's new.

[Silent Hunter]

I'm probably the only one who is terrified that Obama is now in office...

... but that's just me.

Yes fear us. Now the USSA is born. Better red than dead AHAHAHAAHAHAHA.

[Howlitzer]

Yeah, the 20th was kind of an irritating day for me.

I'm going to warn you ahead of time, I clarify at the bottom...so if anybody goes flaming me for things I say at the top, they will face a prompt smiting.

For one, I have made this clear many times, but I despise modern politics, and I despise the media's downright blatant opinions on it and involvement in it.

Second...I've had Obama-worship shoved down my throat for long enough, and extreme Bush-hatred shoved at me for even LONGER, that I was not enthusiastic about this climax of it all. I didn't love Bush, but I did not hate him to the extreme extent that many people go to...He was definitely not the best person to be president during this time, not by a longshot... but I don't make him out to the image of this downright evil, manipulated dumbass that has been pervading EVERYWHERE for the last 8 years, I found that viewpoint rather ignorant. The opposite is true for Obama thus far, I don't know the guy, he hasn't done much thus far other than talk about what he supposedly *will* do, so I find the rather mind-numbing enthusiasm to be a bit much right now.

Third....the 20th is my birthday, and having everyone freaking out about the inauguration of who they seem to see as the next freaking Messiah to the Presidency somewhat compounded the matter. I made sure to be equally as irritating about the *other* personal significance of this day.

Now, to clarify, I'm not *terrified* that Obama is in office. He was not my favorite pick, but I didn't have many *major* issues against the guy. My major issue was the media this time. It was rather painfully obvious that they LOVED Obama, almost to the point of saying that he s*** rainbows...and I don't contest his victory, but I do believe the media had FAR too much of an intentional influence on his victory this time around. That's not Obama's fault, that's the media bending public opinion, and that's my main problem here. I really, REALLY hope that what was the media's rather blatant dislike, and subsequent exaggeration, of Bush's pitfalls over the last 8 years, doesn't turn into a blatant, ignorant adoration of Obama as infallible...even if he is.

The way I see it, he seems intelligent, and I hope that intelligence and honesty isn't simply the slickest false-presentation *ever*, or partially an illusion of the media's blatant adoration of the guy...because it's honestly hard to be sure nowadays, especially when people just go with the media hype, and when the media takes advantage of that. The way things seem to be lined up, he could either be a strong success....or an epic fail. I honestly wish the best for the guy, and the sense of optimism he is admittedly good at stirring up in people is a good thing for the country. I wish him good luck, but I really hope people will take this with just a LITTLE grain of salt, because right now I feel like I'm swimming in honey.

Obama seems like a good, intelligent guy and could potentially do an excellent job, and I hope he does.

But he doesn't s*** rainbows.

People should get over this just a bit and actually put real thought into their adoration of the guy, rather than mindlessly floating around in the awe of it all and ignoring any weaknesses, otherwise they'll be in for a rude awakening if he isn't a success.

[Terastas]

Yes fear us. Now the USSA is born. Better red than dead AHAHAHAAHAHAHA.

Hey, don't rag it if it works. We already tried the Corporate Bordello of America; it didn't work out as I recall. Obama can carve the face of Lenin into Mt. Rushmore for all I care, as least as long as he can clean up the messes Bush worked so hard to create.

Is Obama a savior? No, but he saved us from McCain/Palin and another four years of the Bush regime, and in my book, that's good enough.

But for those of you who do hate the way the media is fawning over him, I'll tell you the same thing I tell everyone else that ever complains about something on TV: Turn it the [bleep] off.

[Silent Hunter]

I hate the media hyping as well. Its terrible. I mean let him do his job and stop making him out as a god. That never helps anything.

Oh and Ter, I am joking as some idiots will post things like that.

[Howlitzer]

Yes fear us. Now the USSA is born. Better red than dead AHAHAHAAHAHAHA.

Hey, don't rag it if it works. We already tried the Corporate Bordello of America; it didn't work out as I recall. Obama can carve the face of Lenin into Mt. Rushmore for all I care, as least as long as he can clean up the messes Bush worked so hard to create.

Is Obama a savior? No, but he saved us from McCain/Palin and another four years of the Bush regime, and in my book, that's good enough.

But for those of you who do hate the way the media is fawning over him, I'll tell you the same thing I tell everyone else that ever complains about something on TV: Turn it the [bleep] off.

No, I'm not going to turn it off. That's telling me to be ignorant of something rather than complain about it when I see problems, which, tbh, is rather hypocritical.

I HAVE watched the TV, and it's for that very reason that I'm calling the media on this....so yes, I have the right to complain. It's if I WASN'T watching the TV that you would have more warrant in telling me to be quiet about it.

[MoonKit]

Well, Im happy about it!

Whether Obama makes all these changes he wants in his presidency or not, Im ecstatic at the reactions of the people. Ive never seen so many people get together and actually want to TRY. It's touching to see people getting off their butts and helping others because they were touched by our Presidents words. He's bringing the country together (more so then we've seen in a long time). AND to top that, those people coming together are helping other people. He's inspired the country.

And THAT alone makes him an already great president in my eyes. So forgive the media if they go "Obama crazy". People are proud to be American again. And they feel a camaraderie and sense of duty to help their fellow citizens. It's nice. So much as been done so far just because of Obama running. And I know that will probably die down in a few months but look at all the good that came from Obama being president already. Just from the people!

[Terastas]

No, I'm not going to turn it off. That's telling me to be ignorant of something rather than complain about it when I see problems, which, tbh, is rather hypocritical.

I HAVE watched the TV, and it's for that very reason that I'm calling the media on this....so yes, I have the right to complain. It's if I WASN'T watching the TV that you would have more warrant in telling me to be quiet about it.

The only ears the media has are for its ratings. If you see something you don't want to watch and change the channel, the ratings will change and the networks will take notice. But if you see something you don't want to watch, piss and moan but continue to keep on watching it anyway, we're just going to assume you're another douche bag with a bee up his a** that is out there looking for something to be upset/offended by. I turned off the TV once I felt I'd seen all there needed to be seen, and I lo-o-o-o-ove Barack Obama. What's your excuse?

Sadly, we do live in a country where people will go out of their way to find something to be upset and/or offended by, and that goes double for anything regarding a Democrat in office (remind me again, why was Bill Clinton impeached and George W. Bush not?). So sorry Howlitzer, but all I'm seeing right now is another meatheaded staunch republican with a bee up his a**. After eight years of Bush, the American people are hungry for politics once again, and the media is just doing their job supplying it to them. If you'd rather watch All My Children than a historic moment in our nation's history, that's your problem and no one else's.

[Set]

[No, I'm not going to turn it off. That's telling me to be ignorant of something rather than complain about it when I see problems, which, tbh, is rather hypocritical.

And bitching and moaning at us about it is going to get you...what, exactly?

Dude, seriously, listen to this before you post anything else about it.

[Vagrant]

Sooo...

That Barack fellah seems to be popular with a number of people, he even has his own action figure!

Sorry for the interlude, I just had to say something light-hearted in here, it's getting very serious. Honestly, I have to admit that Werewolves fighting is particularly hot, but this may turn bad--so I had to inject a little levity.

Yay levity, I like levity.

Now if only I could master brevity.

[Silent Hunter]

Vagrant your attempt to stop this derailing is good but we should not shy away from political discussion and if the term "Meatheaded Republican" is something that is really bad then I have very low hope for this forum. What we need is a set of debating or poltical views where people can...well debate and talk on politics while not derailing threads. This would be easy to set up and do and benefits the site. We can not weasal away from politics.