politics are not normally something i discuss on this blog, but those who’ve been around me in real life enough know that i’m a man with a few strong opinions: the government shouldn’t rack up a huge deficit, we should avoid war wherever possible, integrity is a key trait in leadership, and the government should focus on providing a few key services and well without excessive meddling other than to help level the broken playing field of capitalism.

so i don’t pare down to any particular party, but over the past six years i have been becoming more and more irate with the republican “toe the line or we cut you” administration of mistakes, lies, and failure. it’s with optimism that i look toward the new democratic house (and senate, hopefully) to step up to the challenge and undo these many years of bad policies. pelosi’s 100 hours will hopefully be a good start, but i fear that even a democratic congress will fail to deal with some of the most egregious offenders: the patriot act and the abominable military commisions act.

i’d also like to see some major changes made to the help america vote act, particularly in terms of electronic ballots and their horrible, horrible security issues. i especially recommend watching the hbo documentary hacking democracy. it’s brilliant in flawless execution of the simple premise: diebold machines are provably insecure at several levels, and show a clear contempt for reasonable software development practices. take the time to watch it, get angry, and then respond when folks suggest that we should have e-voting in our state.

in other national news i’m frustrated at the seven of eight states that passed gay marriage amendments, a backwards policy over such an unimportant non-issue that it makes my blood boil. attention “defense of marriage” advocates: you can start passing anti-gay marriage bills only after you get an amendment passed banning divorce. or does that hit too close to home?

locally i’m excited that proposition 1 passed, ensuring funding for the bicycle master plan as well as the new complete streets initiative.

regardless, after all that excitement yesterday i’m now home sick. what i thought was election fever turned out to be just a regular old fever.