Some footage of the toasts at my sister's wedding is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8bODbXDJyo or here:

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Seeing things as a difference of brain power is freeing.  I had never really considered that option for most of my life. Instead, I had just assumed that "human intelligence" put everyone at roughly the same place.  It made differences of opinion very difficult for me to grapple with.  I would go over something with a friend, they wouldn't get it, and I'd keep at it again & again under the assumption that eventually, they would catch on.  Ugh.

Sometimes people are just broken from their own personal history, or they're indoctrinated into a way of thinking and cannot see it.  It is very useful to recognize such issues and route around the damage.

The first time I realized that I could write off the opinion of a someone who had consistently voted in ways that had terrible, terrible results, it was incredibly liberating.  Why am I taking advice from someone so reliably wrong?  Why are they lecturing me?  I broadened it out to politics in general.  Why am I listening to the group that screwed things up?  Don't I have any discernment?  Can't I evaluate someone's position and decide it's foolish?  And if they advocate such foolish positions regularly, can't I write off the person as a fool?

I’m still surprised how many states are heavily in favor of the Republican party’s candidate.  To me, it’s like the party is saying, “Hey, we exhibited terrible leadership over the last 8 years, so elect us for better leadership.”  That just doesn’t make sense to me at all.

That's all I have to say on that topic for now.

Just a quick note.  If you use digg.com and you have my "Digg Done That" or "Digg Filter" scripts installed, they have been updated.  You can find the new versions here (newly updated scripts on top):

userscripts.org/users/34026/scripts