My friends, with the DNC this week, I thought it might be nice to look into how political blogging can explode on the media.  Let me tell you a tale that is now being affectionately referred to as 'Pizzagate'.

Last Monday, a pizza delivery driver named Anna delivered $30 worth of pizza to a house.  The twist to this is that the pizza was being delivered to Curt Bramble, Senate Majority Leader for the state of Utah.  Mr. Bramble then allegedly began to berate the delivery driver, harass her manager over the phone, and even tried using his position as Senate Majority Leader to force them to accept a personal check.  When they finally agreed to accept a check, it wasn't to his liking, so he then finally put the bill on his American Express card.  All in all, not the best way for anyone to treat someone who provides you food, and definitely not how a political figure should act.

But, the story doesn't end here.  In fact, it just begins.  For, you see, it turns out this young lady is a blogger.  A blogger who let out her frustrations over this in a post, as any blogger in her situation would.  She didn't name names, but she did leave enough clues that it was obvious whom she was writing about.  That's when it hit the fan.

Welcome to the new America, which is the same as the old America.

That was my thought this morning after watching a week of the right trying very hard, in my opinion, to keep women 'barefoot and pregnant'. You may disagree with me right now, but let's take a closer look at why I say this.

First off, we have the Bush administration trying to label birth control as 'abortion'. Now, this is rather shocking, and I'm surprised that more news outlets aren't covering this possible change.

What about a woman's right to choose when or if she gets pregnant? What about safe sex to help curtail the spread of sexually transmitted diseases? Or was the current administration hoping that with the American public concerned about Iraq, rising gas costs, and the coming election, they could sneak in this change of law to force the women of this country to their ways of thinking?

I'm really surprised by the amount of press coverage lately on the Libertarian party.

From Jesse Ventura being interviewed on Al Jazeera to even Time Magazine doing an article on the Libertarian candidate, Bob Barr. It's all rather interesting, to say the least. The current trend, in most news articles, is that the media is gearing up to blame the Libertarian party if EITHER candidate loses.

Some stations, like CBS, are already claiming the Libertarian party is going to cost John McCain votes. While other news media sources are claiming that Sen. Obama may be hurt  -- vote-wise -- by the Libertarian party. 

Whichever side it is, the meaning is clear -- we're not wanted here.

I wanted to look at Barack Obama's heritage, if I may. 

Obama is half-Kenyan and half-Caucasian. He may self-identify as "African-American," but his heritage really has very little in common with most African-American blacks.

His ancestors were not slaves, but were actually free Africans from the opposite side of the continent. It's similar to comparing someone whose family is from Norway and someone whose family came from Austria. Same continent, but two completely different cultures. 

But, the society that we live in seems to believe that if you have any 'black' heritage in your bloodline, then you ARE black - despite the fact that such thinking is outdated.

Within the next week or two, several good friends are getting married. Some are different sexes, but some are the same sex. Some have known each other for only a few months, while others have been together for over 18 years. It is a happy time, with marriage in the air, and it has me very happy for all who are getting married.

But some don't see this as a sappy time. No, they would prefer to shout in the street about the sanctity of marriage being destroyed from under our feet. In an experiment, despite my support for same-sex marriage, I wish to peruse their side, as well is with my own arguments against them.

So, this week a failed attempt to impeach President George Bush made the news, albeit the news is being hidden by the main news media. Apparently, the fact that 166 representatives think that the president LIED to us isn't enough.

Let's examine this closer... 166 people that we, the American People, voted for think we were misled into the Iraq War. That our president knew there were no bombs or weapons in Iraq, but let us go to war anyway. That Saddam Hussein had NO connection to Al Qaeda, but framed him anyway. That, to put it bluntly, he failed in his job in leading America's government.

I, like a lot of San Diegans, didn't vote today.  I just recently moved to a new district, and found out I couldn't register in time for this election.  This saddens me some, as this year I've gotten much more interested in the voting process.

Now, as I start watching the returns creep in, I sigh a heavy sigh and wonder why I didn't register my new voting adress earlier.  My fellow bloggers all got to speak their mind through their votes, but I feel the self-imposed neutering of my thoughts already.

I want to start this post with a story. Once upon a time, there was a young blogger who was originally from Kansas. He grew up with tornados, floods, droughts, snowstorms, and the like. But then, out of love, he moved to San Diego. He survived his first earthquake thinking it weird but fun. He saw mudslides, and thought that was REALLY odd. But, he didn't know true terror until his first firestorm. A firestorm that almost made him pack up everything and leave San Diego forever. That blogger was yours truly...

Just the other day, Google honored KPBS with a special video about their use of Google Maps during the San Diego fires. I wanted to share this video with you, if I may.

In local news, Democratic San Diego mayoral candidate Floyd Morrow appeared on These Days this morning. Mr. Morrow pulled no punches with the interview, and was rather scathing in his attack on the corruption, in his eyes, of some of the other candidate's campaigns. He also spoke wanting a city-wide health care system as a stepping stone to universal health care. Once again, I still can say nothing bad about this candidate. He wants affordable housing, to help the people of the county, and isn't being shoved in my face by the mass media. Overall, it was an interesting interview.

In other news, Hillary Clinton and John McCain are both urging for the 18 cents of taxes to be removed from gasoline for the tax season. Well, today they heard about it from economists around the world. All of them screamed, "NO! What are you thinking!?"

I was proud to see that San Diego's firefighters got their raise last Tuesday.  As the son and sibling of people in law enforcement, it had disheartened me to see our local police and firefighters paid so little.

I can understand that we are in a budget crisis, but this is something we should never skimp on.  Where would we have been last fall during the fires, without dedicated firefighters risking their lives to protect us?  How many times have the nearly stretched thin police of San Diego helped to keep the city safe from criminal elements?  If you ask me, paying these noble people so little is the real crime in San Diego these days.