Election: Good News from Around the Country (and some bad)

Same-Sex Marriage:

Maryland and Washington voted to uphold laws that legalized gay marriage, Maine voted by referendum to legalize gay marriage, and Minnesota rejected a constitutional amendment to define marriage as one man, one woman.

California Criminal Law

California failed to end the death penalty, but revised it’s overly harsh and prison-crowding three strikes rule to only apply to serious crime.

Marijuana Legalization

I don’t smoke pot, but boy do I approve of taxing it and ending the war on drugs.  Medical Marijuana was rejected in Arkansas, but approved in Massachusetts and Montana.  Full legalization and taxation was rejected in Oregon, but approved in Colorado and Washington.

Rape Gaffes Kill Campaigns

Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, John Koster, Linda McMahon, and Tom Smith were easily defeated in their races, some of which weren’t even close before their mistakes.  Steve King unfortunately managed to win his race.

Puerto Rico to Become a State?

Currently the vote to become a state is in the lead, and Obama has said he will accept a decision with a clear majority.  The US could have 51 states soon!

Unhappy News:

Bachmann and Paul Ryan won their races.  Pete Stark, the first open atheist in congress, lost his seat.

Happy News

Elizabeth Warren won!  Tammy Baldwin will be our first LGBT senator.  West Virginia elected an LGBT person to their state government.  Kyrsten Sinema, atheist, looks like she’s going to win her election.  Amendment 8 in Florida, which would allow government funded religion, was rejected.  Big Bird is safe.

NATE SILVER IS A WITCH and the rest of the world loves him as much as I did back when he was lowly dude on DailyKos.

Election: Good News from Around the Country (and some bad)
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World Cup Day 9, Day 10, Day 11

So, the most important things we’ve learned in the last three days are.

1. Portugal kicked North Korea’s ass hardcore, and probably could’ve gotten more goals if it’d been more on target.

2. Spain seems to have regained its footing, its next game against Chile is important, but if they continue to play solidly they may still be in this

3. Brazil is definitely in, Portugal is probably in — their game is going to be fun to watch

4. Italy is not quite as embarrassing as France, but close

5. Netherlands is definitely in, Cameroon is definitely out

So, the last round of games is upon us.  They’re going to be two at a time, so a two hour stretch of time is going to determine who moves on of the four of each group.  North Korea and Cameroon are the only teams that are for sure out, and Argentina, Brazil and Netherlands are the only ones definitely in, so it’s 27 teams fighting for 13 spots.

Nate Silver gives odds!

World Cup Day 9, Day 10, Day 11

World Cupdate

So, I’m not a sports person generally, and I’m not even a football/soccer fan regularly, but I really love the World Cup.  I mean, I like soccer, I’ll watch it, but something about the countries competing against each other is really cool, and it’s all in the same sport and not as lame as the Olympics.  It’s probably because I actually played soccer, and was still playing soccer when this happened:

So it’s the one sport that the ladies in the US are better at than the men.  We’ve won the Women’s World Cup twice, and never placed below third.  The boys haven’t done so well.  Right now we’re ranked 14th, which is to say we’ll probably get through the first round (weak bracket) but we’re probably not going to do well.

Anyway, the point of this post is that the schedule is up at ESPN and they’re going to air every game live.  Most of the games will also be on their website, which I have to figure out how to get to actually play on my computer.  It’s vaguely complicated.  They are, of course, not showing the finale online.

Schedule: http://www.worldcupblog.org/world-cup-2010/espns-world-cup-2010-tv-schedule.html

My favorite news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2010/default.stm

Numbers for the Nate Silver in us all: http://www.worldcuppredictions.org/

I really like that last site.  It’s got the odds listed as follows:

Spain (4.75)
Brazil (6.00)
England (7.00)
Argentina (8.00)
Germany (13.00)
Italy (13.00)
Netherlands (13.00)
France (17.00)
Ivory Coast (26.00)
Portugal (29.00)
USA (51.00)

And if you’re worried, don’t be, Nate Silver will have us covered too.

World Cupdate