I swear I don't know why I keep coming back.

Must be something about all these damn intelligent, thoughtful, interesting people. Weird....

Also - if we feel the only way to win is by silencing the opposition, then I could say there's a difference between democracy and a tin cup banana republic...

1. As others have said - we're getting their money!

2. They're wasting their money preaching to the unconvertable and staunchly opposed, yeeha!

3. It's right up front on TPM and annoys the liberals and works as a GREAT REMINDER to donate, donate, donate, volunteer, donate to the Prop8 issue.

Usually, stories just spin by at such speed that it's next to impossible to get our exhortation posts to donate and volunteer). This keeps it upfront, at top, in view, and ALL without any effort on our part - ALL paid for by THEM!!!

4. This emphasizes that the editorial content of this site is independent of the advertisement section. This will encourage future advertisers of all stripes of political opinion and causes. We need (ok, TPM needs) to keep the financial future of this site strong.

5. This provides us with the ammunition should we want to advertise on conservative blogs (we = some liberal cause). They can't hold us as an example against this. We set a good example (we = TPM).

HA!

I mean, this is brilliant, in every way.

Josh, TPM, readers, bloggers, activists, this is GOOD!

The hamlet of Dixville Notch votes early (at midnight) on the day of the election.

You'd need to have some familiarity with the history of America.

With what the slaves went through. How Africans were hunted, captured, sold into slavery, shipped to the New World. How they drove the economy of the new country, working on plantations.

You'd have to know what kind of suffering the Civil War inflicted on people all over the country - and the millions of people who were killed and injured during its horrific battles (pre-morphine days). You'd have to know what Abraham Lincoln really achieved - and why he's considered, arguably, one of our greatest Presidents.

If you have not read the Gettysberg Address, I strongly recommend it. It is not possible to read without weeping. If you find yourself unable to feel anything after reading that stirring speech, you might never understand.

While I'm at it, you should have started with reading the Constitution - the entire thing. The amendments will help you understand where we started from, the weaknesses of the original statements, and how they were addressed.

You would have to have some passing familiarity with the Jim Crowe era. And then the civil rights movement.

There are many scholars and historians and teachers and students who'd give you a far better reading list.

I'll suggest a very random sample:

1. Black like me (Howard Griffin)
2. A Country of Strangers - Black and White in America (David Shipley)
3. The Color of Water (James McBride)
4. Thurgood Marshall, A Biography (Juan Williams)
5. Sula (Toni Morrison, fiction)
6. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Alex Haley)
7. Rosa Parks - My Story
8. Martin Luther King Jr., Speeches, (everything)

And perhaps you'll need an appreciation of just how significant democracy actually is in the progress of the human species (over the last, say, 10,000 years). Individuals had a fairly rotten time of it - ruled over by liegelords and slaveowners and kings and all manner of a handful of the very priviledged and brutalized to a degree we have forgotten.

And perhaps you might need to be a political junkie - and a history junkie, and have an interest in current affairs and have followed this election for 2 years.

And perhaps you might need to have seen the erosion of our constitutional rights, of environmental progress, scientific progress, seen the abuse of power, the utter disrespect for the constitution, for our founding fathers, for human life that this administration has demonstrated.

And perhaps you will need to be aware of just badly the middle class of this country has had it for the last eight years - and for many of the previous twenty.

And how we stand on the cusp of a watershed event, a line in the sand of history that will direct our future success. And then perhaps, just perhaps, you'll understand just how significant each vote that Barak Obama gets is.

Have you ASKED or READ ABOUT or done ANYTHING to find out what the Palestinians want???

AND YES, THAT IS EVERY BIT AS BAD A WORD AS ANTI-SEMITE!!!!

To the idiotic trolls in this comment thread - open your minds, and educate yourselves, and learn not to be such grievously wounded, bitter, polarized, closed-minded haters. It is only hurting your cause and the people you (I charitably presume - you might certainly just be anti-palestinian, not for-someone) are trying to protect.

I get home, tired, anxious and read the news. It's enough to drive me batshit crazy with outrage. And my blood pressure skyrockets, it gets hard to breathe, and I forget what's good about my own life, and just want to SCREAM!! That there are chickenshitlittleidiots out their who pollute this world so badly is insufferable.

And then, when I come here, it's beautiful. Somone has said exactly what I want to say, said it, often, way better than I could have, and my tension and outrage all magically subside.

Just the fact that I'm not the only sane person in the world, just seeing the proof that there are others who think like me, have my values and scream as loud as I want to scream, in a grown-up, civilized way :), is refreshing, restoring, and sanity-inducing.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!