Mid-term Elections 2006

Finally the elections are over! Hopefully we'll see less of those cheesy "...and I approve this message" ads. I have a feeling that we're not that lucky though, we'll probably be bombarded with the next Presidential ads soon.

Anyway I live in a "hot" state this election year, along with Montana and Virginia, that has gained attention from the national press. Missouri's Claire McCaskill (D) was going up against Jim Talent (R) and I must say this is definitely a good year for Democrats. I got a little worried before bed as Talent was leading but KC and StL's votes were not counted and those two cities pretty much carried McCaskill to her victory. Some of the bills that passed in Missouri were

• The Stem Cell research and
• Increase of minimum wage
• Tobacco tax was unfortunately shot down. I personally think they should tax the heck out of those things as it a) doesn't affect me and b) would probably encourage people to smoke less

This has been a great week for politics. I am overall happy with the results as that would be what I would have voted if I was allowed to. I'm also glad that the Democrats have taken control of both the House and the Senate! Another great news is that the first woman, Nancy Pelosi, will be Speaker of the House. This position is 3rd in line of Presidency so you can see that it's no small feat. To top it off, Nancy is an extreme liberal from San Francisco! So hopefully she'll bring better cause for gay rights. And one final victory (I should not celebrate on other people's misfortunes but this is one exception) is Rumsfeld resigned as Defense Secretary! He'll be replaced with ex CIA chief, Bob Gates. What I think really happened is that Bush had to do something as it was obvious the American people were dissatisfied with what was happening so Rumsfeld was a pawn in this game of approval ratings.

Anyway, enough about politics. What's been going on with me? Hmmm let's see, Dave came in to Columbia last Thursday for an interview. We went out to Soco Thursday night, nothing too eventful there. Now Friday was a little bizarre. I guess the stars and moons were aligned to create the perfect bitchfest. All three of us were major bitches but we soon realized it and dropped the attitude. We just stayed in and chilled at Justin's. I had Papa Murphy's pizza for the first time and watched two old and bizarre movies; Shine and Mummy Dearest. They were quite strange! Justin insisted we watch Mummy Dearest, apparently that and Steel Magnolia are like a rite of passage for gay men. I had never seen either up until recently and didn't think they were that great. Anyway Mummy Dearest was about the life of Joan Crawford. We all loved it when she'd yell "I'M DAMN MAD!!!" so now that's a phrase we'll be using among us ;)

So the next day, Dave planned on driving back to StL. I made a last minute decision to ride back with him and ride back with Carrie since she was already there. That night I met Jen and Grant Alter for the first time and James, Carrie, Brad, Dave and I had dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. It was fun. We met up with Wes and we all went to Freddy's and I met up with Dwan. Later went to JJ's. Had a very interesting night overall*, I had dim sum with Dwan the next morning. I was so tired and sore* I pretty much slept all the way back while riding with Carrie. And that wraps up my weekend...

Side note: I finally got Halloween pictures from John G so I'll be posting that soon. They're GREAT!!