my favorite thing to do on a voting Tuesday

Vote, naturally.

My least favorite thing to do on a voting Tuesday is try to find a parking spot within 1/2 mile of our apartment because our area's voting place is the elementary school literally on our block. Why they can't use the huge asphalt playground as a parking lot, I dunno. I guess because kids might actually be playing on it. (That said, you should see what St. Louis city considers an adequate playground. So sad. A couple rubber balls and a few tires. Yes. Tires.)

Voting is, like totally my new favorite thing. Unfortunately during the last election I was living in a thoroughly blue state and they didn't need my vote as much as my home state did. It'll be very interesting to see what happens today in Missouri, which always votes for the winning president, but this time it's a local thang so all bets are off. As of last night the polls showed a lead for the Democrat, Claire McCaskill. The margin is frightfully tiny, however, which means people will actually go vote. Awesome.

A couple of other highly inflammatory issues are at stake in MO. Amendment 2, the Stem Cell Initiative, is causing all kinds of controversy locally and nationally. The always endearing Michael J. Fox brought our local issue to national attention, which is more blessing than curse, except when idiots like Limbaugh take cheap shots at an ailing man and make up lies about what Amendment 2 is all about - he'd have you believe it funds cloning, but it doesn't. I just looked it up for myself and the VERY FIRST LINE after the introductory paragraph says this: (a) No person may clone or attempt to clone a human being.

The second hot-button issue is the proposed increase in cigarette taxes to fund anti-smoking measures. Of course as a smoker I will be voting against this. They are suggesting a tax of 4 cents per cigarette - that's an extra 80 cents a pack, which sucks but not hard enough to make smokers quit. I realize smokers in other states are already paying roughly twice what we pay, so if it's passed I won't complain.

There's also a proposition to raise the minimum wage, which I'm pretty sure hasn't been increased for like 20 years. And they're raising it to a whole $6.50, those generous lawmakers! Ok, maybe I should read up on these things before I go criticizing them, because this proposition actually says that if the federal minimum wage is higher than $6.50, MO will match that amount, and "thereafter the state minimum wage will be adjusted every year based on changes in the Consumer Price Index." How about that. Progression.

----In Other News----

If you read this and know my husband Micah and you weren't at our wedding reception this weekend, you might be interested to know that Micah cut all his hair off last week. He thought his long hair looked terrible with his new suit. I had NOTHING to do with it. Really, I didn't. I was just as shocked as everyone else. But DAMN, my man is foyne.

Your contest question! A.k.a. the end of the political shtuff, because it really ain't my back of tricks.

Which state has the highest voter turnout (77.3% in 2004)?

a) Indiana
b) Montana
c) Iowa
d) Minnesota

Go! Vote!