The almost end of a 6 year nightmare for the world

Many good things happened yesterday. Nancy Pelosi will be the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Keith Ellison (D-MN), will become the first Muslim to serve in Congress. And with With Claire McCaskill’s (D) Senate victory in Missouri, a record number of women (16) will now serve in the U.S. Senate.

Many people and politicians alike, around the world, saw the way voters took to the polls on Tuesday as a rejection to Bush Inc's corrupt and murderous ways. There is no doubt that many American's made it clear that we will not stand by and have our freedoms and others' freedoms violated around the world.

A French teacher said it was about time U.S. voters figured out what much of the rest of the world already knew. Well said.

More than 200 Socialist members of the European Parliament hailed the American election results as "the beginning of the end of a six-year nightmare for the world."Only two more years.

But we should not become too joyous as of yet, for we now must decapitate the monster, and finish the job.

What will come next? Will America continue down it's distraught and always failed path in foreign policy? Can we expect more corruption? Most likely. More leaders playing off of the American publics' fear? We hope not.

It is our job as citizens to keep the power balanced, to question everything done by our government, and to make the government fear US.

"People Should Not Be Afraid Of Their Governments. Governments Should Be Afraid Of Their People."

Bush tells terrorists: ‘Do Not Be Joyful’ over election results

President Bush, befor ethe elections said that if opponents of his Iraq policy were victorious, “the terrorists win and America loses.”

Terrorists say, "But, but... you said we win!" Sorry terrorists, we have a pseudo-dictatorship going on here. And remember terrorists, if it wasn't for Bush, many of you newly formed terror cells would not have jobs.

Via Think Progress

Six states raise minimum wage! A good start.

Six states approvedraising the minimum wage, joining 18 other states in setting a wage higher than the ridiculously low federal mark of $5.15 an hour.

In my state, Ohio, voters raised the wage to $6.85 an hour, Montana to $6.15 or the federal wage, whichever is higher, and Missouri to $6.50. Arizona voters raised the minimum wage to $6.75.

CNN also projects that Nevada voters will approve a mandatory minimum wage constitutional amendment that would set the wage at $6.15 if the employer does not provide health benefits. Blah.

A good start for most states. But they are still too low for anyone to live off of, even on the slimmest of budgets. There's a book, which I read, called Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

The author, Barbara Ehrenreich, sets out to find how anyone could make ends meet on $7 an hour, she left behind her middle class life as a journalist except for $1000 in start-up funds, a car and her laptop computer to try to sustain herself as a low-skilled worker for a month at a time. In 1999 and 2000, Ehrenreich worked as a waitress , a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and in a Wal-Mart employee.

End result? Her income barely covered her month's expenses in only one instance, when she worked seven days a week at two jobs (one of which provided free meals) during the off-season in a vacation town.

13 nations denounced for web censorship

Belarus, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam have all censored the web in some way.

Reporters Without Borders (RWB) claims these nations are the worst culprits for systematic online censorship, and they were targeted in the group's 24-hour online protest. No one should ever be prevented from posting news online or writing a blog," said the Paris-based group, and I agree.

In an annual report, the group said 61 people worldwide, 52 in China, are in prison for posting what the countries claimed was "subversive" content.

RWB obtained a copy of the verdict in the case of Jiang Lijun, sentenced to 4 years in prison in Nov. 2003 for his online pro-democracy articles in China. RWB said that Yahoo! had helped Chinese police identify him. 200 people have already recorded a message for the founder of Yahoo!, deploring the fact that his company helps the Chinese authorities track down cyber-dissidents.

Nepal, Maldives and Libya have been removed from Reporters Without Borders' annual list of Internet enemies. But there's an addition to the list, Egypt, where it said "many bloggers were harassed and imprisoned this year." What do you think?

Via Newsvine