Nov. 5- The Aftermath

Of course we all know by now that Barack Obama is going to be the new president of the United States. George Bush already addressed the nation by saying it will be a smooth transition for Obama coming in. Whatever that means.

The electoral vote count was 349 for Obama and 162 for McCain.

As for California propositions:

Prop 1A- is still not fully counted but it looks like we're going to have a high speed rail as the vote so far is at 52% yes. Umm.. great??

Prop 2- won by 62% I wrote a story on this so I will gladly take credit for this victory... unless it goes bad in the future. In that case I will blame George Bush for it.

Prop 3- passed at 54%. So we finally get to pay higher taxes for money that won't be used properly... Yet again.

Prop 4- Looks like is not going to pass with 52% of the vote saying no. Hoorah! Young confused girls can finally make their own decisions without the consent of their parents, in a time where they probably aren't thinking things through and are vulnerable to rash decisions.

Prop 5- will not pass with 59% saying no... You gave it a shot Prop 5. Maybe some other time.

Prop 6- Really? so unnecessary... Lost! with 69% of the vote going no.

Prop 7- 64% say no... What a waste of tons of commercials between every inning of the baseball playoffs.

Prop 8- 52% said yes... Should have taken down 7% more of the signs guys.

Prop 9- 53% said yes.

Prop 10- 59% said no... Alternative fuels? what do you think we live in the future??

Prop 11- Is barely winning with 50.5%!!!! how much closer can you cut it?

Prop 12- 63% said yes, we do want to give loans to veterans.

Measure RR- I have no idea. I can't find results anywhere, but who wouldn't want to help Mt. SAC?? I'm going to put an Isai Rocha prediction. I say it passed with 67%

Prop. 8 - 11:15

It is 11:15 and we have voted for our president, but cannot determine Prop. 8.

It has been the most controversial Prop of this election, and I guess it is fitting that it is the dramatic point of the election down to the very end of the night.

It is too close to call at this point, but as of this moment, 52.8% have voted yes as 47.2 have voted no.

Personally I hope this conflict is over as soon as possible.

I think it is ridiculous how worked up people have gotten over this proposition. This proposition is something that as soon as you read it, you know right away whether you're going to say yes or no.

People have held rallies, protested at Mt. SAC, and openly shown outrage toward the gay community.

I don't support homosexuality. I have a Christian upbringing and don't believe it is right, but even in saying this, I'm not going to go out and publicly disrespect a group of people.

All the protests and all the rallies weren't set up to persuade people to vote Yes on Prop 8, they were set up to cause attention and make a scene. They were successful in this, but in the end didn't prove anything other than they are willing to openly show hatred.

If you're against something, go ahead and be heard through your vote, but it really made me mad that people made unnecessary scenes.

I feel a bit embarrassed that a group of people decide to do this and now Christians are seen as crazy hateful fanatics.

I refuse to be associated in this way.

I do not condone homosexuality, but I will not show passionate hatred like some of the opposer's. There are plenty of things that people do that I do not support, but I will still show them the same respect that I would want them to show me.

Obama speaks 9:10 p.m.

Obama addresses the nation for the first time as elected president. He said all the right things of course. He said he's going to help the economy, he said he's going to help with our health care, he addressed the troops over seas and showed support, told a heart warming story about a 114 year old black woman who voted and has seen numerous historic events in her life, and promised his daughters a new puppy.

So it seems that Barack Obama is going to be the best president ever. If anything, he is one damn good and convincing speaker.

If there's anything that I think we can expect, it is Obama seeking acceptance from those who doubt him. I hope that means he will fight to do great things right away.

I hope this speech won't be his last good speech, and I hope that he doesn't lose steam in the down time between now and January.

You can hear passion in his voice. Passion for good change, and I hope that in holding this position he doesn't lose this passion.

He was chosen to lead for a reason. It is no coincidence that Obama is in this position.

When Jackie Robinson changed the way things work in baseball, he wasn't chosen just because of his skills and abilities, he was chosen because he had IT.

What is IT?

Jackie Robinson had IT. He had the positive mindset to take criticism. He had the strength to accept being in a difficult position and still succeeding. He had IT, and Obama has IT as well.

If Obama doesn't lose IT, our country should be in good hands. However, if he loses IT there might be a reason for worry.

New U.S. President Breaking Barriers

This is going to be interesting. Half the country is celebrating, and the other half is in agony. What kind of president is Barack Obama going to be?

It's the start of a new era. This is pretty exciting!

What will happen in the next four years? Every time there is a new president there's no knowing what will come. I want to see what will happen.

How will the world view us now that we've shaken up the system. We've had pure white men up to this point, and all that is changed now.

How much will things change under Obama? Will things get better? Will they get worse? We'll find out very soon.

All polls are closed, New president announced - 8:00

As the state of California closed its polls, it has been announced that Barack Obama won the electoral votes in California, and is going to be the 44th president of the United States of America.

Looks bad for McCain- 7:55

No Republican has ever won without winning Ohio, and it appears that Obama is projected a victory in the good ol' O-H-10. The McCain campaign is not in high spirits as even though McCain is winning the popular vote, Obama is winning the electoral college.

Election update- 7:40 p.m.

Obama has 207 electoral votes and McCain has 141 according to abc news.

McCain has quite a hill to climb in order to make things interesting, but there's a lot of states to go. Anything can happen. Will McCain's last minute west coast campaigning pay off, or will Obama stay consistent? We'll find out soon.

Obama's almost there- 6:20

Obama's running away with it so far. He has 194 electoral votes thus far while McCain has only 69. For writing purposes, hopefully McCain will catch up and make things interesting.

Obama has 50% of the popular vote so that race is a little closer.

California will be done voting in a little over an hour. We'll see how the voting turns out for that.

Missing ballots? -1:35

It seems that there are already problems with the polls. Florida, Virginia, and Ohio are some of the states complaining about the lines and problems with the voting machines. It is being reported that there are overwhelming amounts of voters and the machines are malfunctioning.

Here we go again with Florida's problems. This should not be happening. This is an election and these problems should not be happening at this point in the election. It's kind of embarrassing.

BACK TO SERIOUS COVERAGE... 11:30

It is election day and McCain is still campaigning. McCain voted in Phoenix Arizona and is headed to New Mexico and Colorado to campaign on those two western states.

Obama is leading in New Mexico and Colorado with 51% according to the CNN polls, but McCain is making a final push for those two states.

Here, I'll be fair.. 11:10

THE ROCK OBAMA!

McCain and Palin 11:05

I'm not one of those McCain haters. I don't hate him becuase he's old, and I don't hate Palin because her speeches are questionable, but come on! This is funny. 

If you don't think this is funny, you take life way too seriously.

fivethirtyeight.com presidential projections 10:35 a.m

Fivethirtyeight.com projects Obama to win pretty easily.  Of course they are just projections and in no way can really predict what will happen.  

For those who watch ESPN as religiously as I do, you know that projections hardly ever mean a thing.

What do you guys think? Obama is projected to win 52.3% of the popular vote, while McCain only 46.2.  

It's not just the popular vote, they're saying that Obama has a hold of the electoral votes as well by a number 0f 348.6 to McCain's 189.4.

Is it really this lop sided?  I think these numbers are interesting.

What will be the final vote?

ELECTION DAY- IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN 10:16 a.m.

I am not talking sports today. Today is one of the biggest day in American history, and for once sports is not the biggest deal of the day.  

Obama vs. McCain, or McCain vs. Obama, depending on who you like. I am watching live coverage just like most of the country is. 

I am one of the representatives of the Mountaineer who will keep you posted on what is going on in today's election. There is no telling what could happen today, but I will be letting you know about it.

East coast bias; Enough already!

"Dodgers help the Cubs beat themselves." "A failure beyond compare." "Cubs doomed not by curses, but themselves." All headlines you can find on espn.com when reading a story involving the the Dodgers vs. Cubs playoff series, and all headlines that support the east coast bias.

Well I'm going to put a little bit of west coast bias into this series.

Despite the Dodgers putting a beating on the Cubs, the story lines consist of the Cubs beating themselves. As if the Dodgers had nothing to do with it.

The Dodgers had three consecutive stellar starting pitching performances from Derek Lowe, Chad Billingsley and Hiroki Kuroda, who had a combined 1.35 ERA.

The Cubs had their chance to smile for four full innings in game one before James Loney hit his grand slam, and crushed the city of Chicago's spirit. From that point on the series was dominated by the Dodgers.

The Cubs didn't collapse, they didn't beat themselves, they're not cursed, they were over-powered by a far better team.

The Cubs did commit costly errors, gave up costly walks, and didn't hit in key situations, but had the Dodgers not capitalized on the errors, and pitched out of the key situations, the game would have been much different.

The fact is that the Dodgers did capitalize on the mistakes, and got the outs when they needed them thus putting a choke-hold on the Cubs and forcing them to feel the pressure. There's nothing the Cubs could have done.

Errors didn't doom the Cubs, the Dodgers timely hitting and strong pitching doomed them.

The Dodgers won, yet the media chooses to ignore that, and make the Cubs loss the main focus.

The Dodgers WON!

Get over it east coast.

Pretty soon they're not going to be able to ignore the west, and they will be forced to acknowledge the Dodgers accomplishments as accomplishments, and not as back stories to an east coast loss.

Would it have been so hard to write those headlines as, "Dodgers help the Cubs go home," or "Dodgers crush the best in the National League," or "Cubs doomed not by curses, but the Dodgers?" It shouldn't have been that hard because that's what happened.

That's my take on the east coast bias.

Why can't the Dodgers win??

The Dodgers franchise pisses me off. I was two months old the last time the Dodgers won a World Series championship.
They are a team which is rich in tradition, but in my 20 years of life that tradition slowly burned out. When I go to the stadium I see all the retired numbers posted in the bleachers and videos of old championship highlights, and none of these great accomplishments were ever in my era.
Los Angeles is a big market team and always has been, but the money is distributed stupidly.
Over the years 10's of millions of dollars have been spent on free agents such as Kevin Brown, Darren Dreifort, Shawn Green, J.D. Drew, and even this year they spent a fortune to get Andruw Jones, all acquisitions which have made no positive impact on the team.
They have always recruited top high school and college players, but then trade them away for a "big name" player who ends up being a bust.
I wish I knew why the formula isn't working. It always seems like they're doing the right thing, but it ends up blowing up in their face. Is it a curse? I sure hope not.
Maybe they need better trainers because ever year there are always significant injuries to the team. Whatever it is, it needs to be fixed.
We as fans have stuck by them through everything, and we have a Guinness record for all time attendance to show for it.
We don't ask for much. We've sat through 19 seasons of failure, I think we deserve to watch a good product on the field, we pay enough for it.
I will admit that things look better this year, finally. Other than the Andruw Jones signing, things haven't looked so bad for the Dodgers this year. They finally won the NL West division for the first time in four years and punched a ticket into the playoffs. I really hope this is the beginning of a new Dodgers era because it's been 20 long years in the making.

Putting lipstick on a lame story

Lipstick is used to bring attention to the lips. Apparently when used in politics, lipstick brings attention to a story that has little, if any significance to the election itself.

So what was the big deal? That Barack Obama said it?

Hit up Youtube, the "lipstick on a pig" phrase has been used by politicians time and time again.

It's lame.

Sure, lets forget about our struggling economy and rising gas prices, lets talk about Obama referring to Palin as a pig, and Palin referring to herself as a pitbull with lipstick, or whatever for two weeks instead.

You gotta be kidding me. I don't care what kind of animal Sara Palin is, or how much lipstick she puts on as this animal.

I know we live in an age where even the people who are going to run our country resort to mindless babble to get our attention and get people talking, but seriously?? beauty products on animals?? Aren't there laws against that?

Maybe PETA should protest the elections for cruelty to these poor animals who's names are being thrown around in speeches like a football.

It's funny, it's news, but give me a break.
Lets try to focus on what's going on in our country instead of wasting the news hour talking about how one of the leaders of our country wants to be compared to the breed of dog that used to chase me home in high school.

Seriously! I'm probably talking sports

People have tried for years to convince me that the world doesn't revolve around sports, but mine does.  I'm sure once in a while I'll talk about other things that are on my mind, but usually, the Dodgers  postseason hopes, and Mt. SAC sports is what's on my mind.

I am the sports editor for the Mt. San Antonio College newspaper, the Mountaineer.  

If you don't know about Mt. SAC sports, you should.  Mt. SAC sports has become a gateway for many athletes to move on to greater things.

It seems that every time I talk to one of the athletes here, they have great attitudes.  Their hard work combined with great coaching has translated into success.

Sport doesn't end.  There are always sports being played around the world, probably at all times that you can think of.

Welcome to my head.  If you don't like sports, watch your step.