It can't happen soon enough.

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a
list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that
could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate
change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues,
according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts
working with the transition team.

"The kind of regulations they are looking at" are those imposed by Bush
for "overtly political" reasons, in pursuit of what Democrats say was a
partisan Republican agenda, said Dan Mendelson, a former associate
administrator for health in the Clinton administration's Office of
Management and Budget. The list of executive orders targeted by Obama's
team could well get longer in the coming days, as Bush's appointees
rush to enact a number of last-minute policies in an effort to extend
his legacy.

I know it's tradition for a President to want to extend his legacy, but extending your legacy by being a dick is just stupid. Besides, we already know George W. Bush is a dick, he doesn't need to remind us.

I spent some time perusing change.gov yesterday after it went live, and I have to say, it's a good start for encouraging open, people-powered government. The BBC seems to agree.

Via a website called Change.gov, the Obama campaign plans to provide a guide to the transition process.

The site also solicits suggestions from US citizens about their
vision for America, and lets them apply for a post with the new
administration.

On its transition website, the US governmental watchdog has
listed the 13 most urgent issues that will soon confront President
Elect Obama.

The creation of the Change.gov website is seen by many as making
good on Mr Obama's stated aim to make the process of governing more
transparent.

A blog on the site will document the transition process, and
elsewhere it plans to provide biographies and background on the people
Mr Obama is recruiting.

The site will also accept applications for "non-career" posts
in the incoming administration. The site does not give details about
posts for which it is seeking recruits, but it said some of the roles
would require "Senate approval" suggesting they could be positions of
some influence.

The site also wants US citizens to tell their stories about
what Obama's campaign meant to them, and pass on their "vision" for
what they would like to see happen in America.

I doubt I apply for a job within the Obama administration, but I have to admit, the idea is tempting.

With a new administration soon to take over in the White House, I've been putting some thoughts into a few items that I would like to see take place in the first few months of Obama's presidency. There are a million things that need to be fixed after the disaster of the Bush administration, but nobody is capable of doing it all overnight. What he can do, however, is start us on the right path and get us moving in the right direction.

I've broken this list down into two parts: domestic issues and global issues. This post will contain my thoughts on domestic issues and I will follow with a later post on global/foreign policy issues. Keep in mind that all of the topics I address, regardless of their domestic or foreign status, are topics that will help us move towards a better global community.

• Adult Education Programs: One of the greatest achievements of Bill Clinton's administration was the creation of programs such as the Workforce Investment Act to help adults who found themselves out of work get the training they need to find a new job. I want to see President-elect Obama expand on these programs. With his promises to expand the workforce by creating new jobs in the fields of environmental & clean energy technologies, we are going to need a workforce capable of filling these new positions, of which manufacturing is only going to be a small part. We need ways to enable workers to get even more job training than is already available, but just as importantly, we need to find ways to make it easier for adults to return to college, earn a four-year degree, and expand our base highly skilled workers.
• Equal Rights Legislation: 2008 was, at one point, believed to be a great year for equal rights, especially in the LGBT community. California's Supreme Court enabled same-sex couples to marry, and many thought this would create a wave of similar rulings throughout the country. Unfortunately, the opposite happened when voters in California passed Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage in California. I want to see Obama and the Democratic Congress push for legislation that would guarantee equal rights for all of our citizens and once and for all end legalized discrimination based on sexual-orientation or gender identity. With the strong likelihood that President Obama will appoint two or more Supreme Court justices, the time is right to end gender identity and sexual discrimination. A single federal law can put an end to same-sex marriage bans at the state level permanently, and I firmly believe President Obama has the ability to make it happen.
• Alternative Energy Grants for Homeowners: While I applaud President-elect Obama's plans to push for an economy free of foreign oil within ten years, there are things he can do to help average Americans reduce their monthly energy bills and reduce our use of fossil fuels. One of the biggest ways we can do this is to help homeowners invest in small-scale renewable energy sources for their homes through a government grant program. I would like to see each homeowner given a grant, not a tax-credit, to cover the cost of purchasing and installing solar panels or small wind-turbines or other forms of renewable energy sources depending on where they live. By doing this, we reduce the burden of rising energy costs on families as well as inject billions of dollars into the economy, giving it a much needed boost.

There are more items I obviously want to see happen in the Obama administration, and perhaps some of them are more important than those I've listed here. But these three items are big items that I think can kickstart the process of change, get people excited about working for and with the government again, and show people that this government is here to make a difference for the better.

In honor of President-elect Barack Obama, I'm bringing this site back online today. The responses I've been reading in press around the world tells me that yes, the whole of planet Earth really does want to become one community, and with a President Obama, we may be well on the way to seeing that dream come true.

My many congratulations to President-elect Obama. As everyone else around the world, I watched with joy as the vote tallies came in, and like everyone else, cried in ecstasy when the 11pm hour came and 270 electoral votes was not just passed, but blown away.

I flew home to Ohio a week ago to volunteer for Obama's campaign, and spent most of Monday knocking on doors, finding out who had voted, who hadn't, and helping to get people to their correct polling places, so victory last night was a little sweeter. I felt like this wasn't just Obama's victory, but a little bit of the victory belonged to me as well.

So Republican Congressmen are celebrating the many accomplishments of George W. Bush, in spite of his gawd-awful approval ratings and the fact that 84% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. What are they celebrating? Accomplishments like this

Good, Obama has released a statement on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Change bill. I was a little concerned that he didn't show up to vote for cloture on this bill, but I'll get to that after you read his statement, which is here in full.

“As this week’s debate on climate change has unfolded, the American people and those watching us around the world had every reason to hope that we would act. Every credible scientist and expert believes action is necessary. This is critical and long overdue legislation that represents a good first step in addressing one of the most serious problems facing our generation.

Like many of my Senate colleagues, I believe the legislation could have been made even better. Had there been a substantive Senate debate about some of the concerns with this bill, I believe the outcome could have generated broad support. It certainly would have received my support.

Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in the Senate has chosen to block progress, rather than work in a good faith manner to address this challenge. This is a failure of our politics and a failure of leadership — a President who for years denied the problem, and a Republican nominee, John McCain, who claims leadership on the issue but opposes this bipartisan bill.

We can’t afford more of the same timid politics when the future of our planet is at stake. We are already breaking records with the intensity of our storms, the number of forest fires, and the periods of drought. By 2050, famine could force more than 250 million from their homes. And if we do nothing, sea levels will rise high enough to swallow large portions of every coastal city and town.

This bipartisan legislation establishes an economy-wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions. It helps states, cities, and towns invest in technologies to reduce energy bills for homeowners, increase energy efficiency, construct green buildings, and expand public transit. It invests in green technology to help our automakers to retool and our fossil-fuel industries to become clean. The bill provides real financial relief to working families. Importantly, the bill restores our great nation’s international leadership role, while including provisions to ensure that all major emitting nations also take serious action to solve this global problem.

Let me clear, this bill is not perfect. Emissions reductions must reflect the scientific consensus, which are reductions of at least 80 percent 2050. We must ensure that more middle-class families reap more of the financial benefits created by this bill. And we must direct greater resources to the regions of the country that will bear the brunt of this critical transition to a clean energy economy.

I believe that the American people are ready to lead the world on this issue. The time for distractions, divisions, and excuses is over. The time for new coalitions, informed and civil debate, and a sense of shared purpose is long overdue. As president, I am committed to ensuring that our children and our children’s children can point to this generation as the time when American found its way again.”

The fact that he did show up to vote for cloture is not a great thing, but it's not entirely bad either since there weren't near enough votes for cloture to happen. At best, only 54 Senators would have voted for cloture, which essentially means the same results would have happened with or without Obama.

It's good, however, that he's as conflicted about Lieberman-Warner as a lot of us are. As much as I want a climate change bill to pass, I would prefer a good, solid bill that actually starts us down the correct path over a lukewarm bill that's been watered down and may be difficult to build on down the road.

Perhaps H.R.6186, the Investing in Climate Action and Protection Act introduced by Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts will be more to his liking, and mine as well. We'll see how it plays out, but I don't really expect a major climate change bill to pass until next year.

I'll be back in Boston on Sunday evening. My grandmother had a triple bypass yesterday so I'm back in Ohio for a couple of days. All went well and she's stubbornly refusing her pain meds, so I know she's ok. In the meantime, I thought this particular cartoon was especially poignant considering we find out what happens with Michigan and Florida today.

via MSNBC

I found this one pretty amusing, so I thought I'd share it.

I'm in my hotel now watching the election returns and I'm quite literally stunned. For one, I did not expect a 14% win for Obama in North Carolina. 10% would have been about the top of my expectations, and at this point it looks like they're going to rack up a huge win down there.

As for Indiana, I'm holding my breath. I doubt Obama wins, but it doesn't really matter at this point because it's too close for Clinton to make up any ground. I simply didn't expect it to be this close, and apparently neither did any of the pundits.

The only big question I have is how much money does the Clinton campaign have? If what people are saying is true, then she's broke, again, and any continuation of her campaign is purely out of spite. I hope that's not why she chooses to continue her campaign. Then again, as I said earlier I hope this turns out to be the end of the primary contests so that we can get to work on the important stuff.

The rest of the results probably won't be known until after midnight, so I guess the real news will be made in the morning, when I hope to be moving my furniture into my new apartment.

Well, I'm in Chicago, sitting and waiting to board my next plane to Boston, which looks like it's going to be delayed an hour. This is actually only the second time in my life I've ever been in this airport. The first time was close to two decades ago when I was going to Japan for a high school trip, so I barely remember anything about this place.

At least the delay gives me a little more time to grab a bite to eat and maybe have a couple of drinks before having to board the next plane. Plus there's a couple of elections happening right now, and the bartender was nice enough to switch it to MSNBC instead of FOX. It was actually kind of amusing because when I asked the bartender if he could change channels the gentleman sitting a couple of seats down said "Yes, please!". Seems I'm not the only person here who can't stand that worthless network.

I do have to admit, I'm starting to get tired of the primary campaign. Usually I'm a politics junkie and am either reading about it, watching coverage of it, or listening to it on Sirius, but enough is enough. The primary campaign has gotten too ugly and gone on far too long for my tastes, and I'm ready to get the real campaign started.

I'm not going to get my hopes up, though. I fear that the Clinton campaign will do what they've done this entire primary season and move the goalposts even further back, no matter what the outcome is today.

Then again, strange things could happen and Obama could potentially squeak out a win in Indiana, which assuming he also wins North Carolina, means there's the tiniest of possibilities that Clinton won't want to cause any more damage to the party than she's already caused.

What I really want is for us to have a candidate, so that whoever the candidate is (hopefully Obama) we can start to differentiate ourselves from the Republicans on important issues like the environment, energy policy, and social justice. I just don't see how those issues are going to get any coverage until the primaries are over.