My blog has been getting short shrift of late what with proliferation of Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and other social networking sites that I frequent. Another way of looking at it is I’m done ranting after 8 years of Bush and Cheney. Although he isn’t perfect I’m impressed with Obama one year into his presidency. At any rate I just redesigned my site and want to take this opportunity to inform you I’m still kicking. ;)

You must understand before Obama was elected president I was an American dissident. I loved my country but I despised and distrusted the government! This was not a new phenomenon. To me the last palatable American president before Obama was Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. For over 45 years I have witnessed America go down the crapper.

Tonight, president Obama gave his first exclusive interview to Al Arabiya, not the New York Times or Larry King. What brains, what balls, what vision, what leadership! I’m so impressed I'm humbled. For the first time in my adult life I'm not an American dissident. I don't know what else to say. Thank you, President Obama for being a leader instead of a follower.

I tried to warn you George W. Bush was the worst president in American history in my last book, "Invasion of Privacy". Its premise, which you can read here, asserted the U.S.A. Patriot Act was enacted to whitewash the fact that government incompetence led to 9/11. This is no far-flung conspiracy theory.

A July 2001 memo by an FBI agent in Phoenix “about Middle Eastern men possibly connected to Osama bin Laden taking flight lessons” was ignored by FBI headquarters. FBI agents then arrested Zacarias Moussaoui, the 20th hijacker, in August 2001. FBI attorney Coleen Rowley wanted to connect the dots by coordinating with the CIA but she was rebuffed by the brass at FBI headquarters because of a childish turf war between America's top "intelligence" agencies. In a stinging rebuke to FBI Director Robert Mueller, Agent Rowley accused FBI headquarters of hampering field agents from investigating Moussaoui and the implication that he only wanted to learn to take off and didn't want landing lessons.

But I digress. In eight short years George W. Bush transformed the greatest democracy in history into a broke and broken socialized country. He squandered the good will it took America over a century to build up with the rest of the world in a few years. George Bush seemingly did the impossible. He gave "democracy" a bad name!

I must confess, I don’t know why I enjoy redesigning my website so much. It takes dozens of hours and it’s a tedious pain in the ass! But it enables me to focus like a laser beam. As you may have noticed I redesigned it once again. Boy, am I ever glad that’s over! Now I can get on with 2009.

I've been holding my breath since election day. I haven't written about Obama's victory thus far because it took me this long to recover. For the first time in decades America has elected a president I don't feel contempt for. Pinch me, it’s real!

Barrack Obama seems too good to be true. Intelligent, imaginative, passionate, capable, and cool, Barrack is the first politician who has challenged the presidential stereotype since RFK. His emulation of Ghandi and the ability to turn the other cheek in the face of sleazy tactics not only stymied the Republicans and the Clintons, it flabbergasted me. Obama has proven he's the genuine article and I'm proud to have been one his earliest and most ardent supporters.

I can't help but wonder what if. What if Obama didn't address the Reverend Wright issue head on? What if he stooped to Hillary's level to counter her racist campaign? What if Romney or Huckabee won the Republican nomination instead of McCain? What if McCain picked either of them to serve as his running mate instead of Sarah Palin? What if McCain ran a competent campaign instead of a circus? What if there were no economic meltdown? The answer is I might not have had the pleasure of writing this today!

The stars aligned in the heavens in such a way that Barrack Obama was elected the President of the United States. I'm slowly adjusting to this fact and have to keep reminding myself that it's OK to exhale.