I picked a good day.

Not working today. It was nice to sleep in (I didn't get up until 7:30!). So I'm catching up with Morning Joe on the tivo. Apparently MSNBC's feed to the satellite isn't on that much vaunted 7-second delay because I just heard Joe Scarborough say "fuck you" on TV. I wonder how long this will take to show up on youtube.

ETA: Here it is.

A few comments on the state of things

On the subject of the First Dog. I say they should get themselves a retired Greyhound. There's low incidence of allergy and it would also be socially responsible.

I think Rahm Emanuel is a good choice for White House Chief of Staff. I know a lot of people are saying he's too partisan, but he's tough, and he's worked with everyone in congress who's just had their power and influence greatly increased, and he's not going to let them steamroll the President.

Also, on a completely superficial note, I think he's pretty hot.

I know the choice of Larry Summers for Treasury secretary would be problematic for a lot of reasons, but I think he'd do a good job.

I don't think John Kerry or Hillary Clinton would make a good Secretary of State.

I think consistency is important at Defense right now and that for the time being it would be a good idea for Gates to keep his job. I'm not saying he's done the best job, and if he thinks he can't discharge his duties according to the policies of the new President then he should refuse any job offers, but if he can I think he should stick around at least until the Obama administration is in full swing.

The best thing to do about Sarah Palin is to ignore her and let her disappear. All this talk coming out of the McCain campaign may be fun for people (myself included) who don't like her, but the truth is it's incredibly unprofessional on the part of the people who are leaking these comments. Also, as much fun as it is for us, it's only going to galvanize support for her in the base of the Republican party and that's the last thing we need. The best thing for us to do is stop talking about her and let her fade away.

So now the auto industry wants a bail out. I'm worried about the message these bail outs are sending. I mean, it seems like we're sending the message to the corporate world that it's ok to be as irresponsible as they want to be and the government will be there to bail them out. And I know it's more complicated than that. Especially where GM is concerned. There are millions of jobs at stake. At the same time GM has been ignoring industry trends for the last 30 years. Why the hell shouldn't they be allowed to go under now that it's finally caught up with them? I'll tell you this, if the government does bail GM out then they need to put some serious conditions on what's done with that money.

I'm having some trouble getting my righteous indignation up over the way Prop 8 turned out. For one thing I didn't really have a realistic expectation that it wouldn't pass. But also, the No on 8 campaign was run incredibly poorly. They framed the issue entirely wrong. Also, this thing that gay rights groups are doing now where they're blaming increased African American turnout for the loss on 8 is not helping anyone. It's true that it made a difference, but it's also true that the No on 8 campaign made absolutley no attempt to make any sort of in-roads into POC communities unil literally a week before the vote. There is a lot of subtle racism in the gay community and it's something we need to take a good hard look at. The gay rights movement really needs to forge stronger connections with other civil rights organizations.

Also, I'm getting tired of the polygamy jokes. The mainstream Mormon church has not endorsed polygamy for a very long time and immature and irrelevant jokes only reveal the ignorance of those making them. There's a lot that can be said about the Mormon church and its involvement in the campaign, so go ahead and say it. But let's aim a little higher here.

I think this picture here really illustrates a lot of my feelings:

Seriously people. Garnering sympathy: You're doing it wrong!

Two good things that happened to me today.

Well, three if you count being home to hear Joe Scarborough drop the F-bomb on live TV, but I already talked about that.

Wegmans had the mushroom soup that I like so much today. They haven't had it all summer. I wasn't aware that mushroom soup was a seasonal item, but apparently it is at Wegmans.

I've been having trouble with my contact lenses since I picked them up from the eye doctor last week. My right eye was so blurry that I had to wear my glasses to work all weekend. Today, I figured out why. They mislabled them before they gave them to me. The one that's supposed to go in my left eye (-8.0) Had the little 'R' sticker on it while my right lens (-9.0) had the little 'L' on it. I was actually thinking of going back to the eye doctor and getting checked again when I decided to check the new boxes against some old ones I haven't thrown away yet.