… I was on my fifth mojito last night at about 8:30, and some dumb bitch came to my door canvassing for McCain. She asked if I was excited that Palin was in Noblesville today. I said, “No, I’d rather have my cat on the ticket than Caribou Barbie.” She just walked away.

I love my friends.

She was a force in Indiana politics, voting against the war in Iraq in 2003 and vehemently supporting GLBT rights. She’ll definitely be missed.

The Governor has to call a special session of the General Assembly in order to appoint someone to replace her. I hope it isn’t some douchebag that ends up getting the job.

We saw Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M For Murder at the Louisville Palace. I like this film so much that it might very well be my favorite Hitchcock movie ever.

I had a good time at the Bastille Day Party. It was hosted by Michelle and Pascale, who are a lesbian couple that work in my brother-in-law’s department at the university. Lots of interesting people.

We also saw Sicko, on Sunday, before I came back home. It was pretty emotional at times, especially since it deals with life and death situations. Regardless of your political views, you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t come away from this documentary with some level of disgust for the American health care system.

Photo Set: Bastille Day Party – 2007-07-21

I don’t think people need them as much as they think they do.

And I think it should be very difficult to get them.

With that being said, I also don’t think that having stricter gun control laws would necessarily have made a difference in preventing Cho Seung-Hui from killing 30-some people at Virginia Tech on Monday. I’m sorry. I just don’t think that it would have stopped a deranged lunatic from getting a gun and shooting it at a bunch of people.

My point is that all of this rhetoric right now about changing the gun laws is nothing more than damage control. People are justifiably upset, and we all have an emotional need to explain what happened. People demand action and politicians make it a political issue, so it appears that someone is going to fix it.

If you want to take the overall issue we have with shootings in the USA in to scope, I would be inclined to agree that stricter gun control laws would have a measurable and provable impact over time, but I think we need to get off this notion that it is some kind of silver bullet.

Regardless of whether or not we have stricter gun laws in this country, someone will always be able to find a way to kill lots of people. There are plenty of alternatives for someone who is hell-bent on hurting and killing others.

I guess I’m a pragmatist about it. I believe that these things just happen. If history has taught us anything (for those that bother to understand it), bad things have always happened to people, and they will happen again.

As I’ve already said, there just isn’t a silver bullet solution here.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m delighted the Democrats won both houses of the Congress, but I’m not naive as to believe that having the Democrats in control will represent any kind of silver bullet, in that everything is going to change and the situation in Iraq is going to improve. That is just not realistic; however, I do believe that one-party rule is bad for us.

Our national government is setup with a system of checks and balances, but, in my opinion, those don’t work so well when the leadership of the executive and legislative branches are of the same party. One party should balance out the other.

In the end, the Republicans and Democrats will need to work together and compromise, in order to accomplish anything. I am certain the President will start vetoing more bills, but Congress won’t be so willing to push forward his agenda either.

So, with all that being said, I think the positive outcome of this election is that we have a more balanced government than we’ve had in the last six years.

And I think that’s good for us.