Let the games begin!

As the Olympic games come to an end, the political games in the USA are ramping up. This week, it is the Democratic Party National Convention. Want a good seat? Well, the hottest seats will be in the skyboxes at the convention center, and those are going to the corporate powers that be, who made lots of donations!

>"It's a bigger than the Super Bowl," said Texas lobbyist Ben Barnes, a convention veteran who'll be in one of the boxes on Thursday's final, historic night.

He'll be in good company. Xcel Energy, Pfizer and Molson Coors, which each have given more than $1 million, will be among scores of deep-pocket donors with their own private luxury suites. Home of the Denver Broncos, the football stadium's 131 skyboxes, seating 14 to 20 people, are mostly going to the party's biggest backers and political VIPs.

A few thousand of Mr. Obama's closest fiscal friends also are being offered club-level seats – with 8,300 primo spots available – some going to deep-pocket donors and others sold for $1,000.<

Well, I guess you have to pay to play here in the land of the free. I am so sick of it, and sick of the dog and pony shows that these two major parties produce on a regular basis. It is a total waste of money, and sinful in light of the fact that so many people are homeless and hungry right here in America. And from that same article:

>Four years ago, Ameriquest Mortgage Co., the nation's largest subprime housing lender which resisted tighter government regulations, was a $5 million donor and a major presence at the 2004 GOP convention. The company isn't around anymore, a casualty of excesses in the home mortgage industry.<

It is all just so sickening. Kos wrote up a report on the various PACs who are hosting a big party at the convention, and the amount of their donations to the Democrats and to the Republicans.

And this past weekend, we heard that Obama picked Biden as his running mate. Personally, I have a huge chip on my shoulder towards Biden. He proposed chopping Iraq up into three parts, he voted to allow bush & cheney to go into Iraq, and then he voted for funding this mass murder for oil. On top of that, I believe he voted for the FISA bill, and the Military Commissions Act in 2006.

So, I voted for Obama in the primary because I thought he was the best Democratic candidate for peace. Since then, he has made more and more belligerent statements about Iran and Pakistan and Russia. He has also sucked up to AIPAC. I finally have figured out who I will vote for in the general election: Cynthia McKinney. I am sick to death of voting for “the lesser of two evils”. I have voted for the Democratic candidate since 1976, and the votes I cast for Carter and Gore were the only ones that I felt were not “the lesser of two evils” and now, at middle age, I am going to vote for the candidate who represents my values and beliefs. This year, that will be Cynthia McKinney.

Go McKinney!!

Photo: The Pinwheel galaxy, otherwise known as Messier 101, sports bright reddish edges in this new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope released by NASA July 21, 2008. Research from Spitzer has revealed that this outer red zone lacks organic molecules present in the rest of the galaxy. The red and blue spots outside of the spiral galaxy are either foreground stars or more distant galaxies. REUTERS/NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/Handout (UNITED STATES).

In spite of what the US population and US politicians have done to the plant, it is still a beautiful world out there. Go NASA!!