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A small step, but an important one, if true. I'm eager to hear more about this.

I'm not at all a fan of Nicholas Kristof, but he's got some good ideas going here. I've always been a little concerned about any potential influence that ADM might have on President-Elect Obama; appointing someone like Pollan (or a less prominent but perhaps more qualified candidate like one of the people listed at FoodDemocracyNow) would be a clear sign that he won't be unduly swayed by the agribusiness lobby.

I know that President Obama will have many more important things to do. But I hope that one of his first acts as president will be to launch an investigation into Billy Mays. Specifically, two concerns need to be addressed:

1. Why does he talk so loud?
2. Why are there people who worship him as a cult figure?

The people demand answers.

On a day when I am feeling apprehensive but inescapably optimistic, I really, really hate having to hear about crap like this (from the Indianapolis TV station WISH):

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Mine isn't particularly noteworthy. I managed to get up early enough to vote this morning so that I could avoid what will certainly be long lines this afternoon, and headed over to the middle school a couple of blocks away. I was expecting either very long lines or none at all, but the actual scene was somewhere in between; I ended up waiting for about twenty minutes. I got in line right behind my neighbor, the only one I've actually met and talked to. She's not a passionately political person, but she was excited about voting for Senator Obama. We chatted briefly and then were joined by another neighbor, one I hadn't met before. She didn't say who she was voting for, but it was pretty clear it wasn't Barack, and that made conversation a little stilted.

Still, I felt a big burst of happiness when I got to the voting booth, pressed the little button for Obama, and saw a green light appear next to his name. I walked out of the booth with a smile so big that the older couple I passed when I left the building couldn't help but smile back. I smiled all the way to work, and I can't entirely keep myself from smiling even now: the feeling of satisfaction at voting for the right person—the first person I've felt truly honored to vote for, the person who deserves to be our president—is enough to keep the smile on my face. Let's hope it has reason to stay there as the results start coming in.

So how was your voting experience?

Another Repug "makes the case" for McCain-Palin. I believe this is what is known as damning with faint praise.

Not the 5th Amendment. The 5th of November. I'm taking it as a vacation day, because even if I don't know the outcome of the election, I know for sure that I will be utterly useless that day. I know for a fact that I will have been up all night on the 4th.

With luck, I will have been up all night calling all my friends, drinking champagne with my husband, and dancing in the streets.

There is also the possibility—remote, but still a possibility—that I will have been up all night worrying about the future of the nation and the world, weeping inconsolably, checking my score on the move to Canada test, and just generally despairing.

Either way, I will be good for less than nothing the next day. So I'm taking the day off.

Anil Dash makes a thought-provoking argument here.

And now this bright young aspiring reporter does too.

Hollywood endorsements are nothing new, but this one is special.

I don't know how I missed this one, but it comes from a most distinguished group: the Socialist International Conspiracy!

This report from Ben Smith on Politico moved me to tears. I am white, and just barely old enough to remember the civil rights struggles of the early and mid-'60s, but my parents were politically active, and I was immersed from an early age in the spirit of those times; all my beliefs and values were forged then. It's been too easy for me in recent weeks and months to get caught up in anger and frustration, but as the election finally approaches, I'm paying more attention to the positives and remembering what is truly important, and historic, about Senator Obama and his candidacy. I am deeply grateful for him, for what he has done and is doing, and it is not only for people like the grandmother mentioned in the Politico report but for all of us, as a nation, that I hope and pray that there will be cause for many more tears of joy on November 4.

Self-described conservatives who are voting for Obama speak out. There's some genuinely moving stuff there. Worth a look.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/20/mccain-employing-gop-oper_n_136254.html

More evidence that the entire McShame campaign is a textbook case of projection, or in playground terms, "I know you are, but what am I?"