I just read David Mizner's The Sphere Coalescing Behind Edwards in which Sean Casey asks an honest question:

What is it about Obama that is causing people to leave Edwards and move to him? I just can't understand it. Neither Obama or HRC is offering anything impressive, where are they winning the battle against Edwards. After what has happened the last 7 years, are people just that complacent?

I attempted to answer in the diary but was one of the last posters.  I'd like my response to go on the record so...I decided to diary it.

Here it is, below the fold:

Approved Dreams Only !
By David Glenn Cox

What the hell? It’s new years day! A time of reflection a time of introspection to correct our paths and plot new directions. But like millions of you in America, I’m frustrated, frustrated by a government that treats us as offal. Unneeded unwanted and of little economic value. For you see, that’s all we are to them, economic units to be pushed down the capitalist chutes until our time comes to have the electrodes placed to our temples. Then we can make that last transaction with the funeral home and the cemetery; our capitalist books closed our value extinguished.

Another year closes and the world is in more turmoil then I have seen in my thirty plus years on this spinning rock.  Now more then ever we need to seize this time of renewal for both personal and political growth and dedicate this year to keeping the torches lit and the powder dry.  I have used this phrase frequently of late so I feel now would be a good time to explain it to those who might have any questions.

I have no doubt, fellow Kossacks, that the order in which the various States participate in the rituals of this time of year has long been a thorn in all our collective sides.

Though they command less than 1% of the population, these two undersized non-representational states have, for far too long, been first and set the tone for the rest of us.

I am of course speaking of New Zealand and Australia going first in celebrating New Year's Eve.

That's it.
No horror stories.
No sad stories.

So, Merry Christmas.

I decided that perhaps I'd take a break from the blogsphere for the holidays. I'll be coming back for comments occasionally, but this will be my last diary for the year. I forsee my return during or after the Iowa caucuses. I'll be spending Christmas and New Years home in Queens, New York with family and friends before starting a cushy new job in magazine publishing on January 2nd in Manhattan. I also had my very first work of fiction published, a short novella that will be hitting stores soon, so I have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season and a lot to look forward to in the New Year. 2008 will be chock full of debates, fights, and eternally long threads as we figure out where to go from here and how much of a voice progressives will have in the White House and in Congress after the next election. I am full of the Christmas hope that while we are not there yet, the America we'd all love to see is slowly coming to fruition. Hope is what Christmas gives us and hope is what keeps me going. That hope transcends religion. I hope it's what keeps you going as well. As I sit here with my tumbler full of egg nog, I wish all kossacks and all Americans a very Merry Christmas and/or Happy New Year. Before I leave I'd like to do something unpolitical if I may. Look over the jump;

This invitation comes with the proviso that you are one of the people we don't really want to invite to our wedding but have to for some reason. If you decide to attend anyway, we hope you do so only if you don't really want to go but didn't have a good excuse to back out.

I just read Mem from Somerville's excellent but scary-as-fuck diary about climate change affecting the U.S. maple syrup industry. I am just desperate for something we can all do. Something easy, but effective.

There's a lot everyone can do that is easier and cheaper than buying a Prius. I have all of my ideas organized on the site http://www.dailygranola.com but for now I want to talk about one specific thing that every single one of us can do:

Let's all reduce our waste in a few ways. Details below, and it's all easy.

End the war and bring the troops home alive instead of dead. Accept no compromise or delay.

Its already a disaster of Republican proportions, the consequences are dire now, there is no way we can salvage the situation and we are hard pressed not to make it worse by our mere presence there.

Repeal every bit of legislation passed in the past six years.
Get rid of the Patriot Act, Warrantless Surveillance, Kidnapping, Murder, Torture, Holding without Rendition and all of the other little Yoo/Gonzales tears in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Fund Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Education and all the other HHS programs that have had to depend on earmarks for their survival. Do away with the 14,000 some odd earmarks we presently use to pay off campaign contributors and go to PayGo

more below the fold...

I don't put much stock into rabid celebration.  Sure, there's a place for it -- getting roaring drunk, telling everyone what their problem is, and dancing on tables is fun from time to time, but I've found it's cheaper and much less self-destructive (especially the next morning) to just Not.

In my daily meditation, I like to enumerate what I've learned today.  It helps with perspective.  Sometimes it's something fairly mundane, and sometimes its an epiphany of cosmic scale.

Here's a short list of the things I've learned this year, in a mostly reverse order:

I'll delete if one goes up on the front page. But I don't see one a'comin'!

Love to y'all from portland!

Happy New Year Everyone!  On the New Years open thread I was asking everyone what their favorite drink of choice was so I thought I would just post a drinking diary instead.  

I don't mean to sound like an old scold, but I would like to say the following. I have been hit by two drunk drivers in my life (the last one messed me up, I spent 6 weeks out of work). So I myself, stay in on New Years. I know everyone has heard it a million times but....

If you drink please don't drive. Also don't let your family and friends drive drunk. Be safe!
(plus we may need your votes for 2007 and 2008 :-)

HAPPY NEW YEARS KOSSACKS, SEE YOU IN 2007

Well here it is. Another year ending, another New Year's Eve wasted. Sure, I'd like to go out and hit the downtown Chicago nightlife on this dank and dreary night, but thanks to the NFL, the Bears, Packers game has been moved to 7:15. Which will no doubt cause intense congestion throughout the Chicago metropolitian area. Nonetheless, I'm grateful for still being alive. Still, as a Graduate of Columbia College with a B.A. in Radio, I'm on the neverending quest for that elusive job. And we all know that finding anything that is remotely close to happiness in George Bush's America is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Even for those of us who scorn convention, New Year's is often a time of reflection. Aside from the turning over of the calendar, there is a tendency, after the bustle and glitter of the holidays, and as the world settles into its winter slumber, to pause and take stock of our actions over the past year, and to make plans for the next.

For many of us, however, the ritual can feel painful. Looking back, we see mainly, or only, failure and disappointment: goals that weren't reached, promises (our own or others’) that weren't kept, and relationships that deteriorated. And so, our hopes for the upcoming year are tinged with defeatism, if not despair.

It doesn't have to be that way – and won’t, if you set just one resolution for 2007...

From Hillary Rettig, the author of The Lifelong Activist: How to Change the World Without Losing Your Way (Lantern Books, 2006).

Well, it's the end of the year again, and what a hell of a year it's been! I won't list everything that's happened, as that's been done on the front page and elsewhere already by far more eloquent people than I, but most of those things have shaken me to the core.

Along with all of the news, excitement, and other things, I've noticed that a new slew of meta diaries have gone up today. For once, they got me to thinking. (A hard thing to do sometimes... getting me to think that is. Tee Hee!)

Today is the day to plan for new beginnings. I've decided that I'd like to plan for a new beginning here on Kos as well. Nah, I'm not changing my name, or my style, etc., however, I have decided that I do have a few DKos Resolutions to make. So in the spirit of sharing, here they are:

If you read my diaries regularly, you probably have a good idea of what I like to eat. Maybe not specifically, but in general at least. Lots of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, nuts, beans, and grains. No trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, rBST, refined grains or sugars, factory farmed meat, PCB- or mercury-laden fish, etc etc etc.

If you saw what I put in my mouth this week, you would fall over. I was doing good until about Christmas eve, when I ate my great aunt's nameless culinary creation (It tasted like a cheesy blintz with a bit of a cheddar  and no berry syrup). As the entire meal was the cheesy stuff and some delicious salad, it was easier to just eat it. Not to mention tastier.

I was back on track until twelve hours later, when I gobbled down two home made cinnamon sticky buns. Later in the day, the eggnog was calling to me. First I tried a little bit of soy nog (Silk, another brand I boycott), which tasted OK. When nobody was looking, I went after the real stuff.

The binge continued. Greasy home made rolls came with dinner. The next day, more greasy rolls.

Surprised I was eating a bunch of junk? Well, get this: the kind angels providing those meals were a dietician and a retired home ec teacher. Now I need to resolve to eat healthy again...

   (Cross posted to Unscrewing the Inscrutable)

I had lunch the other day with an old friend and fellow atheist. It’s ironic that we really only get to see one another during the Christmas period, when he is in town to visit family.

In the course of the wide-ranging conversation (we share many opinions, and differ just enough on some others to keep things lively), he mentioned that he thought that what my wife and I were doing in caring for her mom was praiseworthy.