Happy New Year, and other ramblings.

Football-wise 2008 has started rather poorly, with the Fighting Illini getting their heads (and other body parts) handed to them in the Rose Bowl by USC, who is actually the best team in America, since the SEC is always over-rated.  Then Wisconsin lost to the Orange boys of East Tennessee (sorry, 'Coma, I am NOT a Vols fan, not since they sent a moving van to Bill Battle's house in 1976), which disturbed me to no end.  Oh well, at least Lloyd Carr went out a winner as the Maize & Blue beat the Florida Tebows, 41-35.  Yes, I'm a Big Ten guy, why do you ask?

Now, to other matters.  We are one year and 19 days away from the end of our long national nightmare, unless Bu$h and Cheney attempt to prevent the 2008 elections from happening for "national security" reasons.  Paranoid, you say?  Have you lived here for the last seven years?

I believe that a Democrat will be elected President, and not just because we will have the better candidate (even if it's Gravel), but for this reason:  the Huckster is the last hope of the religious conservatives in the GOP who actually believe in social justice (and there's more than you think).  If he wins the nomination, the Club For Growth crowd will vote Democratic or for the Constitution Party candidate.  If he LOSES, the people who have been the faithful foot-soldiers of the Republican Party since the mid-70s will stay home, no matter how hard Rove, Dobson and Robertson beg and plead for them to stop those commie Democrats.

So what needs to happen here is that we need to demand MORE and BETTER Democrats.  This is why I am voting for John Edwards, because his is the message that Democrats need to carry, and follow up on; that the last seven years have been nothing more than wealth redistribution to those who need it least, and NONE of it is based on merit.  This has to stop, before the nation is completely destroyed economically, and we're on the verge of that already.

Truly, anyone would be better than what we have now, at least if they're Democrats, but now is a time that calls for someone who understands the economic problems facing America, which is why the Kewl Kids of the Beltway are trying to get voters to care more about John Edwards' hair than his message.  They are frightened of Edwards, and that's why we're starting to see the likes of Rupert Murdoch cozying up to Senator Clinton.

Hillary?  A) she's NOT Bill, she grew up in the NW suburbs of Chicago and was a Goldwater Girl, for heaven's sakes.  She has relics of the past like James Carville and sellouts like Mark Penn running her show, and people need to understand that this is NOT a restoration, because we face different problems, due to the incompetence and malfeasance and unlawfulness of the Bu$h Administration.  She's not the answer.

Neither is the junior Senator from Illinois, I'm afraid.  A good man? Absolutely.  A great orator? He's almost in Bill Clinton territory.  So, why not jump on the bandwagon?  Because he is too timid to say no to business, or anyone else, for that matter.  He simply has not been around long enough to be tempered and tested for this office that he seeks.  2016? Quite possibly.  2008?  No way.

Confession:  Whenever I take one of those surveys that match me up with candidates, I inevitably wind up agreeing more with Dennis Kucinich than anyone else.  If I had any thought that he could win, I would send him money today, but I just don't, and the problem is we need someone with Kucinich's views and Bill Clinton's salesmanship to lead this country right now, and the candidate who, to me exemplifies the best combination of both is John Edwards.

So, now you know.