My sister-in-law bugged me to sign up on Facebook, so I finally gave in (mostly to see pictures of her and Dave in costume...). On the one hand, its nice to be able to easily connect with my brothers. On the other hand, I have cousins coming out of the woodwork who I didn't even know existed!

When the "friend" requests came in from people whose last names I recognized, I obliged. But then I started seeing who they are. Paying members of the "Keep Marriage Between a Man and a Woman" clubs? All sorts of right-wing, religious ideas floating around their profiles. It made my skin crawl. Not because I disagree with them (which I do), but because they think we share some sort of bond!

I went in and fleshed out my own profile: they need to know I'm an atheist and find religious nut-jobs of all stripes the most horrible part of politics and humanity.

But the nail in that coffin was the status update of one cousin (with whom I thankfully have no personal relationship) who is "terrified" that Obama might win.

"Terrified"!?!?!?!?!? Of what, exactly? In what way would Obama mess up her life? Cutting her taxes? Ending a stupid war that we never should have got into? Regulating banks so they don't play roulette with your money? THE HORROR!

I'm glad it all ends today (God forbid we have a 2000 repeat, but if we do he'd better fucking fight to the end!).

As I said before, politics seems a very transitory thing for a blog and everyone has an opinion (like assholes...), what really bugs me is Facebook and the phalanx of people who think that just because we are related that we have something ideologically in common. Its such a Mormon idea: that your friends are all interchangeable, ward to ward, and that family must suppress their opinions in order to keep harmony. In the end all that happens is the loud ones brow-beat the rest into demurring.

As the apostate-evil outsider I can be safely ignored.

So hopefully today's election will go the way I want. If not, I'm not sure even McCain/Palin could not be worse than George W., but we all seriously underestimated how badly he could fuck up the country, so you never know.

As for Facebook, the jury is still out for me. I'll update it in a way that reminds cousins that their opinion isn't the only one out there and that just because we're related, doesn't mean we relate.