I realized as I got older that I was not raised in an environment typical of most people my age.  I'm in my mid-twenties and live in the middle of one of the largest cities in the country, but I spent the first 18 years of my life in a small rural community, with less than 20,000 people in the entire county.  I lived in a house over-looking a giant bluff, in the middle of the woods with thick poplar trees surrounding my house on all sides.  The house was some where in the middle of Kentucky, at least 85 miles from Louisville or any other major city, my nearest neighbors were over a quarter mile away.  My parents, when they were still married, never allowed me to watch TV.  Both of my parents are college educated, my mother has her master's in History and taught at a small university 20 miles away, and my father was an attorney.  Whenever I asked a question, instead of answering it, my parents made me look it up in the encyclopedia or dictionary.  My father used make breakfast for me every morning before school, and starting in first grade, we both read the newspaper together while we ate.  It was our daily ritual, over eggs, bacon, toast, we sat there and passed sections back and forth.  I still continue that tradition today, even though my father now lives 500 miles away from me. My parents challenged me to think and form opinions for myself, to reason my way through life, and to always see the big picture.   That is why it makes me sick to my stomach to see the juvenile bullshit being sprayed across the media as we move closer to the election.  Instead of intelligently discussing the differences between the two candidates, the media, and likewise everyone who gets sucked into it, have resorted to absurd tactics to bring the other one down.  An "outside" conservative group run by one of McCain's former aides is now running an ad in battle ground states attempting to link Obama to William Ayers.  Obama was 8 years old when Ayers set off his bombs, but that doesn't stop the slime machine from propagating their lies.  Here's a link to the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m89m0pC_bpY  This group is also being funded by the same billionaire (Harold Simmons) who funded the Swift Boaters in 2004.  Then there's Jerome Corsi's new book, which everyone admits is a bastion of lies and distortions.  For references in his book, Jerome Corsi cites works by none other than... Jerome Corsi.  The Obama campaign is slinging their mud as well.  Who gives a shit how many houses McCain has?  Or whether he mentioned his wife being in a "beauty pageant" that involves topless dancers?  It's all meaning less bullshit that the cable news networks try to pass off as "NEWS"  when really it's just "ENTERTAINMENT".  All of this shit is designed to tear us apart, make us argue about things that have no bearing on the real world (see my blog about Todd Bentley, similar concept) and keep you a stupid piece of shit drooling on yourself while you get fucked in the ass.  Instead of wasting our time listening and arguing about this nonsense, ordinary citizens should be discussing what would really better the economy, how better foreign relations could benefit us in the long run, the advantages and disadvantages of a national health care system, who would do a better job of limiting pork barrel legislation (McCain), what are we doing about the sick and homeless in OUR country, is No Child Left Behind actually working (no, it's not), should everyone who makes the grades be able to go to college?  There are a thousand issues that are a million times more important than the paper-thin veneer of bullshit that's passed off as "news", and 90% of it is ignored.  I really don't give a shit that McCain told a dirty joke about women 20 years ago, or that Biden used an excerpt from somebody's speech a dozen times and forgot to credit him once.  There are more important things to consider, and people need to pull their heads out of their asses and think long and hard about what is best from themselves and go fucking vote!