CafeChatNoir

I don’t talk much on politics here, because it just seems to bring out the worst in people.  Though he’s not exactly my cup of tea, I’ve found myself fascinated by Newt Gingrich’s campaign.

Back in May, I was sitting in the airport on my way to Vegas and pondering the news of his getting into the 2012 presidential race.  While I was kind of surprised that he was even running (I genuinely had gotten the impression that he was content writing books and providing analysis to the various and sundry news and political shows) I was more surprised that he was only announcing on Facebook and Twitter.  Not in conjunction with a press conference or a rally – just on Facebook and Twitter.  My first (very snarky) thought on that was, “Are you running your campaign out of your Mom’s basement?”  Running an effective social media campaign takes work, of course,  but only making the announcement via those outlets struck me as a bit, well – lazy.  Call me a throwback, but I think a presidential bid deserves an actual press conference or rally or something along those lines.  (I know he’s not the only one to announce via social media, but his is the one that is standing out right now.)

Less than a week later, he stepped in at again by criticizing the Republican Medicare overhaul plan. I was actually impressed that he spoke his mind rather than simply running in lockstep with the rest of the party.  (Though I do wonder how he would have reacted if someone else did this when he was Speaker.)  Political suicide in this climate, but admirable to me nonetheless.

That was then followed by a two week cruise to Greece. That one had me scratching my head a bit – he was either going for the “Yes, dear, you’re right, we need to get away” demographic, or he just didn’t really care that much.  I guess I wasn’t the only one thinking it didn’t seem to be the best move as on June 9th, his top campaign aides resigned en masse.  I don’t care what business you’re in, when everyone walks out the door, that’s a bad sign.

Then came yesterday’s news that his finance staff had quit. (Insert joke about sticking around to make sure the Tiffany’s bill was paid off.)  Stick a fork in him, he’s done.

I was talking with a friend last weekend about this – why on earth would you run for president if you just really don’t care that much?  His answer?  “Easy.  He wants to stay relevant.”

I get that.  Everyone wants to stay relevant – in their field, in life, all of it.  No one wants to get pushed to the backburner and relegated to a footnote in the history books.

But running for president?  Write more books, OpEd pieces – there are any number of ways to stay on the Sunday talk show circuit and stay relevant in the party.  Running for president seems a bit extreme to say the least, and frankly smacks a bit of desperation.  Why you’d put yourself through the hell of a presidential bid simply to stay on the map simply eludes me.

Of course, ask me the question again when I’m 68 and feeling like I’m fading into obscurity and I might have a different answer.

I’ll admit I’m feeling a bit of a letdown this evening after voting, since my Congressional district is still too close to call, and tomorrow morning they’ll start the canvas for provisional ballots. Even after that, there’s a good chance there will still be a recount. (If a candidate loses by less than 1% in Virginia, they’re automatically entitled to request a recount.) I am an instant-gratification junkie and I’ll be perfectly honest – I don’t mind staying up late for election results, but I would like to know who won before I go to bed. Not so much this go-round. Though I at least know that our 3 State Constitutional Amendments were passed, and the Transportation Bond referendum also passed, so at least I’ve got that I can sleep on.

That being said – I so love election day, despite the frustrations and strife it may bring about. Absentee, vote early, and mail-in voting is great and convienient, and for some folks it is the only way they can vote. (I’ve had to go absentee on a few occasions because I couldn’t be sure at all that I could get to a precinct before it closed.) However, there is something I really love about going up to my precinct on election day and filling out my ballot. Sure, voting is voting and it doesn’t matter when or how you do it, but I love being at the polling place on election day.

Now, looking back at my track record of actually voting for the guy that won – I really shouldn’t enjoy election day at all. It usually is just a confirmation that I am totally out of sync with my nation/state/neighborhood. I suspect it means that I am hopelessly out of touch with the issues at stake, but I prefer to think that it because I am just that far ahead of the curve as to what is going to matter, and the rest of the nation just hasn’t caught up with me yet.

Maybe it is just because there are many things in this life that I don’t feel qualified to be a part of, but voting? I can do that! There is no right or wrong, there is no litmus test to participate. You read up, you make your decisions, you mark your ballot and turn it in. And by that action, you have done your little part in deciding where the country is going to go next.

When you think about it, it’s pretty damn cool.

I knew it was on the schedule from previous news reports, but had no idea it was today until I spent about 2 hours in the car listening to WTOP, and then I heard about it around a dozen times.

I will say that I do understand the concept. There are lots of folks out there with prescription drugs that they no longer need or want* and/or have long since expired sitting in their medicine cabinets. They also want to get rid of them, and don’t feel that there is a truly safe way to dispose of said drugs. I’ll also not even begin to argue the fact that prescription drug abuse is a problem. I’ve personally known someone who was skimming painkillers from his parents’ stash. (The pathetic part is that he was supposedly an adult, but whatever.)

But for years we were told, “Flush the drugs!” However, if the water testing is even remotely accurate – boy howdy, did we. It sounds like the Rockfish being caught are exceptionally relaxed and lacking back pain, anxiety, and STD’s given the amount of ibuprofen, naproxen, carbamazepine, sulfamethoxazole, and triclocarban that were found in the waters in 2008.

So, the powers on high changed their tune from “flush it” to “chuck it”. Really not a problem – it’s a mere 8 feet from my powder room to my trash can, so it’s hardly a trial to change my ways. (Not that I wasn’t chucking old meds into the trash to begin with, but if I had been flushing them, it’s not exactly difficult to start putting them in the trash bin.)

My issue with the whole DEA giveback is this: How stupid are we that we can’t actually move from flushing our drugs down the loo to simply upending the bottle of pills into the trash can and recycling the bottle, and now we have to go to a “Prescription Drug Turn-In Event” to make this happen? Did they have free funnel cakes, corn dogs and moon bounces at these events? Cause if they did, then I’ll be turning in my unused Centrum vitamins at the next event. But I suspect that there were no awesome freebies to be had, which really, really makes me wonder – WHY would you drive over all town to dump your pills when your trash can is RIGHT IN YOUR KITCHEN??

Yes, there are people who will happily dredge through your trash to try to steal your identity, but I would have to say that I’m fairly sure they wouldn’t take an unidentified pill that they found in the midst of the cat litter – everyone does have some standards. And if they choose to do so? Then they certainly deserve getting a dose of cat-sized Amoxicillin when they thought they were getting adult-sized Percoset.

Come on America – you’re smarter than this. Save your gas and time and just toss the pills in the trash already!! You don’t need an “EVENT” to get rid of them!

*I’ll admit the idea of “wanting” to dump perfectly good prescription drugs is slightly foreign to me – I’m OK with having prescription drugs on hand in case of accidentally twisting a knee or throwing out a back. However, my kickass painkillers are non-narcotic, so they’re not exactly coveted by those looking for an easy high – if you take them when nothing hurts – nothing even remotely interesting happens.

So, we have a new Supreme Court Justice nominee. I’ll admit I don’t know a ton about her yet, but I’m quite sure the pundits on both side will let me know a lot in the near future. I do know that Elena Kagan is the Solicitor General and was a dean of Harvard’s law school, so I’m fairly certain she’s not stupid.

I was in the car listening to the announcers talk about the nominee with a couple of commentators about it. Some worries that she hasn’t been a judge, which were quickly countered with the point that there have been several justices and chief justices that weren’t judges. (Apparently all on the court today have been judges. I don’t see an issue with throwing someone a little different in the mix. I don’t think we have a Harriet Myers situation on our hands here.)

I was a bit amused by a comment that came from a Congressman (I think) about the Supreme Court not being academia and “not a place for flights of fancy and intellectual debates.” (I may be paraphrasing a bit, I can’t find the quote online to confirm.) Well, heaven forbid there be any intellectual debate taking place on the Supreme Court! We certainly can’t have that.

Then one of the announcers asked if there would be questions about her sexuality.

This was where I almost ran off the road. Wait, her WHAT?

It seems she’s 50, single and has never been married. Well, I guess we all know what that means.

It means she’s 50, single and has never been married.

Please, PLEASE tell me that no one on the Judiciary Committee is going to decide that because she’s never been married that she must be a lesbian and then decide that would make her too liberal or otherwise biased. Someone please tell me there isn’t anyone on that committee or in the media would go down that road. We’re all better than that, right?

We’ve had a week of bricks going through windows, lawmakers being spit on and cursed at, personal threats, and vandalism of a private citizens home by mucking around with the propane tank. (And I don’t give a crap what your political views are, you don’t muck with a man’s BBQ equipment.)

And now this:

Threats made to the Senate Parliamentarian.

To whatever nutbag did this: Do you even understand what his job is????? He advises on the rules of the Senate & parliamentary procedure. HE READS AND EXPLAINS THE RULEBOOK! He doesn’t make policy! He doesn’t write legislation! He doesn’t vote on legislation!

I understand that there are people that are unhappy about the health care legislation, but for god’s sake at least get angry at people who actually have something to do with the legislation, write them letters and explain why you’re not happy. Then go volunteer for the campaign of whomever is running against them next time around. That’s how we do it in this country. We don’t go chucking bricks through the windows of people we disagree with or try to intimidate them into following our views.

The advantage of voting in the middle of the day is no lines.  The downside is no bake sales, either.

Virginia is back to paper ballots, and I can’t say that I mind.  As much as electronic voting is cool and easy and I’d love someday to be able to vote from home, there is still something nice about having a piece of paper to back up my vote.

I’ll be interested to see what the statewide turnout is – I would think it would be fairly decent as we are electing a governor, but who knows.  The Democrats seem to have lost a lot of momentum with getting out the youth and minority vote, so I suspect that it will be down quite a bit from last year.  If the plethora of yard signs is any indicator, our district will again have a good turnout.  (We tend to have a high turnout every year anyway.)

One thing that has perplexed me a bit is that I keep hearing that these elections are a “referendum on Obama” – which I hope they are not, since it seems a touch shortsighted to me.  Call me crazy, but I tend to vote for candidates that will best represent me, regardless of who is sitting in the Oval Office.  Then again, I could just be talking out my ass, cause I’ll admit I don’t understand political strategy for crap.

It’s what all the pundits are telling me on TV.  However, looking at what has gone through the house so far, I see no mention of grandma-offing.  (Nor do I see anything particularly egregious that is going to make the world come to an end.)

Now, if the President is going to kill my grandmother as I keep hearing, I am going to sell tickets and take bets.  I give it 10 minutes before he’s in the fetal position in the corner crying and saying, “Make the mean lady go away!”  Besides, if the government was going to take out my grandmother over her cost to the government, they would have hired a hitman years ago over her survivor benefit pension.

I realize there are people who aren’t in favor of these bills.  But come up with something better than “we’ll end up euthanizing the elderly” as your sound bite.

In today’s White House press conference, the press decided to beat up the new press secretary a bit on it with, “Well, if he took the oath again, why didn’t he sign his first executive orders again?”

Now folks, I think we ALL know why they did the oath again.  Not out of “an abundance of caution” as is the party line at the moment.

They did it to get people to STFU about the “OMG, he’s not really the president!” hollering.

He’s president.  He’s been the president since the 20th.  He will be for the next 4 years, goofed oath or not.

Please be aware that you need to download form RNBW-UNC-2009 from Change.gov, fully complete the form and return it to the White House, or your local chapter of the Democratic National Committee.

Bear in mind that these are live animals and can’t just be sent out willy-nilly across the country like a slew of tax stimulus checks.  There is also the issue that only so many unicorns can be fit in a standard USPS delivery truck, and trained animal handlers are still being dispatched to the regional post offices.  Delivery addresses need to be confirmed as well as verification that zoning laws allow unicorns in residences in your area.  If you rent your home, a note from your landlord indicating that unicorns are allowed as pets will be required as well.

Additionally, it has been brought to light that many people are planning on naming their unicorn “Hope” or “Change”…  You may wish to seriously consider alternate names, as you could end up with half a dozen unicorns at your back door when you go out to call “Hope” inside for the evening.

Finally, please do not be duped by those claiming that they can “expedite” your unicorn delivery for a “small administrative fee” – these are not legitimate government officials, and often can also be found selling “marijuana farming licenses” as well as “jackalope hunting permits”  Be aware!

Enjoy your unicorn, and be sure to follow the care and feeding instructions that will be provided at delivery.

Between the DCist updates and CNBC coverage, I’d say Obamapalooza is in full swing.  As of 10 AM, the Mall is at capacity.  One Metro line has been shut down.  Several Metro stations are holding trains because you can’t get *out* of the station.  Cell phone service is spotty at best as everyone tries to send cell phone camera pictures back home.

I’d say my decision to stay home and watch from the comfort of home wasn’t the worst idea in the world, but the energy of the crowds is evident, even through the TV.

Word has it that Cheney will be attending in a wheelchair because he threw his back out trying to move things…  Mr. Cheney, didn’t anyone tell you they will provide help for that?  You shouldn’t be trying to move a man sized safe by yourself.

While I don’t think there is enough money in the world for me to want to be the President of the United States, there is one aspect of it all that I do envy:  The moving staff.

Between the time that the Bushes and Obamas leave the White House after their morning coffee and the Obamas return back home this evening, all the old items will be packed up and moved out, and all of the new items will be moved in – AND UNPACKED.  Who wouldn’t want that crew the next time they have to move?

In all seriousness, it’s a pretty nifty day today, and I am enjoying how chuffed people are about it all.  It wasn’t that long ago that the idea of electing someone into our highest office who *wasn’t* a white male (and probably a somewhat older one to boot) was well, inconceivable.

I don’t expect that at 12:01 this afternoon that the world will be filled with unicorns and rainbows.  President Obama will have his share of screwups.  Every President does.  And he’s walking into a bit of a mess to put it mildly, and trying to fix it all without at least a few missteps will be virtually impossible.

However, I’m looking forward to something different.  Maybe it will be better, maybe it will be worse.  But I think a new approach won’t be the worst thing for the country by any means.

Welcome to DC, Mr. President.

It would seem that the Blair House is booked for the inauguration – except the Obamas aren’t on the reservation list.

Seriously??  How is there not a permanent hold on rooms for the President Elect and the entourage for every election year?  If it’s a year where the incumbent wins, release the rooms the day after the election.  Not that hard!

While the President Elect isn’t the most important person on the planet, for inauguration weekend I really can’t think of a more important guest at the Blair House.  Honestly, I can only think of one other person in the US that could trump the President Elect, and frankly, if that family is involved – it’s kind of a jerk move.

Or, WOW, what a screwup on the part of the Blair House.

Well, there’s always Craigslist for the incoming First Family.  I’d offer up our guest rooms, but the little one’s allergies wouldn’t go well with the Moxley dog.

Virginia went Blue.  Well done.  And yes, I was on CNN.com hitting refresh every minute last night watching those returns come in.

I’m still fumbling about for words.

I wish my Mom had been alive to see this.  She would have loved it.  When she moved to Atlanta as a child, there were still separate water fountains.  And look how far we’ve come.

I was amazed it was over and done so early – I really thought we’d be up half the night counting and watching and waiting.

McCain’s concession speech was exceptionally classy.  Little bro & I went up to the pub and watched Obama’s acceptance speech.  Though the pub leans a little more right than left, there were a few teary eyes and a fair amount of smiles.  The shot of the throngs of people celebrating in front of the White House had me grinning from ear to ear.  I have never seen an election where people were so downright joyous at the outcome.

Congratulations President-Elect Obama.

By calling the Virginia Senate race – WITH ZERO PRECINCTS REPORTING.

I hate exit polling.

The Virginia polls are closed (or more likely in some places, the last person in line has been told they will be the last person allowed in) and soon we’ll be on our way to knowing who our new President is.

I love elections.  The campaigns usually drive me nuts, but I do love to go and vote and sometimes who I pick actually wins to boot.

And yes, I’ll be up all night watching the returns come in.

and all that good stuff.

Orange Hunt Precinct, 1PM – no waiting, but a good steady stream of folks coming and going.

Pretty cool when you think about it – go in, hit a few buttons, check a few boxes and at the end of the day, we have a new President!

Not that I don’t RIDICULOUSLY miss my Dad, too, because I do.  But, Mom & I had developed a great ability to talk politics with absolutely NO hurt feelings whatsoever.

I think it is because we both discovered that we had a lot more in common politically than either of us might had thought possible when I was younger.*  That, and she was able to impart a LOT of insight as how the exec branch affected her job**, which was more telling than any press conference could be as to how any administration would be doing things to affect the country.

While I do have a small handful of people that I feel mildly comfortable talking politics with, it’s just not the same.  Maybe part of it was knowing that even if I joined up with the Anarchists, Mom would be happy that I found a party I could identify with and support and she wouldn’t give me shit about it.  That, and she’s probably nicely quiz me on their platform, if nothing else if to see if perhaps they were a good fit for her as well. ;)

At least little bro & I seem to be running on the same wavelength, so I have someone I can rant to about various political things without worrying about upsetting anyone.  But it was always fun to have a partner in righteous indignation on Friday-night-pizza&beer&ranting-with-Mom night.  (She always won on the “whose employer is more screwed up” game every week.)

I think she’d be tickled as hell that Obama is a viable candidate.  She moved from CA to GA as a little kid and discovered segregation – and being a little one, didn’t understand it one bit.  (And regularly drank from the “colored” fountains because there was no line and couldn’t understand why it made a damn bit of difference.)  I think she would have liked to see the progression from separate fountains, schools, and everything else to candidate for the Presidency of the United States.  Hell, all I know is what she told me over the years and *I* think it’s cool as shit that we’ve managed to come this far in a relatively short period of time.

I still wish she was around so we could crack a couple Guinnesses and split a pizza and solve the problems of the world on Fridays.

*  She genuinely wondered where the hell I could go politically, given that folks tend to get more conservative as they get older, and as a senior in HS, she described me as “one step right of Attila the Hun” – it was delivered with love, but also accurate as I was leaning fairly right at the time.  I think she’d like the fact that I discovered and have lovingly embraced my inner hippie.
**The most basic description of her job:  Government HR rules and regs.  Fine line between fairness to employees, screwing employees and protecting the gov’t from it’s employees.

Watching the Banking Committee hearings this morning on CNBC re: market bailout.

It would be more comforting if the members understood what a reverse auction was.

So, Palin’s 17 year old daughter is pregnant.  Already seen lots of snarky comments floating about re: the parenting skills of the VP candidate and her husband.  Eh, as far as I am concerned, it’s more of an “it is what it is” situation.  They’re hardly the first to try to do their best with their kids and still have a 17 year old that gets pregnant.

Lots of speculation that the young lady had no say in the matter as far as keeping the baby and marrying the father are concerned.  Then again – I doubt she’s the only teen to get pregnant that found she had no say in the matter.

I did read the rumors that Palin had faked her 5th pregnancy and it was really her daughter’s child.  Just a tad far fetched, don’t you think?  Though I’ll admit I did giggle at the Fark headline of “Bristol Palin pregnant with second child.”

What really surprises me is that McCain supposedly knew and still picked Palin as his running mate. I really would have thought that would have been a dealbreaker.

Just got a news email that Gustav is now a Cat 5.

Still absorbing McCain’s VP pick. I know Palin is very well regarded among her constituents and it doesn’t appear that Alaska is about to fall into the ocean so I assume she’s not done too badly there. But, she’s pretty conservative and McCain didn’t really need that, cause the hard core conservatives weren’t going to be crossing over to the democrats anyway. Hate to think it was nothing more than a pandering move, but maybe it was.

Upgraded WP again and went ahead and blew away all my customizations and theme, which should take care of the disappearing posts issue, because it was something in the comment form, I just never figured out what – but now that I’ve got a shiny new untouched form, that should do it. Unfortunately, I’m having a hard time finding a theme that I like, so I’m going to give some of the theme generators a try and see if I can get things back to looking somewhat like they were before, if not better.

…

OK, so maybe by the end of the day we’ll know who the Democratic presidential nominee will be – or not.

What I am quite interested in (among other things) is to see how the results sync up (if at all) with the “straw poll” organized by Stephen Colbert on DonorsChoose.org – at the moment, Obama is leading $157K in donations to Clinton’s $29K.  Obviously there is no way to know if any of the folks that donated are even voting in today’s election, but it does say to me that Stephen Colbert’s viewers tend to be generous, and there are a fair amount of Obama supporters in there.

Guess we’ll see if that extends to the state of Pennsylvania tonight.

Having a Tom in town can be hazardous to your health. We had a painful amount of fun last evening and today I am definitely feeling it. But hey, I only see the guy every couple of years.  And as a result of his presence, there is a case of Mountain Dew in the fridge.  I haven’t had that in years – damn, that stuff is good.

Hillary coming in 3rd last evening in Iowa really surprised me. I knew Obama would give her a run for her money, but I certainly didn’t see Edwards beating her. And on the republican side – Huckabee? Huh? Perhaps it’s time to move to New Zealand – Tom says it’s pretty nice.

Went and did my civic duty. Though I can’t say I was exceptionally enthusiastic about it, at least I don’t live in a country where the constitution has been suspended and the next elections are now in question. (Yet.) For the most part, the campaigns have been snarky and uninspiring and didn’t exactly leave me with a feeling of “YES! That is who I want in office!”

Bonds were voted upon, my delegate ran unopposed, and my state senator will learn that I don’t like being responded to with a form letter.

Clerk of the Court was up again – I believe it was visgoth that wondered aloud why the position of a professional administrator was an elected one, rather than an appointment given to the most qualified person. Can’t say I disagree on that one.

Then there is my favorite – Soil & Water Conservation Board. If these folks are actively campaigning, they sure as hell missed my neighborhood. I read the candidate profiles, try to do my due diligence, and never manage to see anyone that is either spectacularly perfect for it, or egregiously wrong for it. Short of going and personally interviewing these folks, I never feel like I am making a truly informed decision.

I must say, I do love my polling place – it’s 5 minutes away, only one precinct, and no lines. (OK, doesn’t hurt that I go in the middle of the day.)

We may get our Constitution back!!!!!!!!

Alberto Gonzales Resigns

“…Armageddon is not exactly a foreign policy…”

- Madeline Albright on the Colbert Report, 3.27.07

Add to that list: Congressional hearings. Sure, Congressional hearings aren’t actually making anything, but eventually they lead to laws being made and well, it’s not always pretty.

Been watching Ben Bernake in front of the finance committees the past two days. Despite the fact that I’ve been a swooning fangirl of Alan Greenspan’s for years, the new guy has won me over in his time in the position. He knows his stuff, is very levelheaded and not into fear-mongering.

Overall, the hearings have been fairly tame, a lot of good questions and answers, no raking over the coals and very minimal snarkiness.

However, what is going to make my head explode is how many times I’ve heard reps saying things about “MY district” – do you not understand that the Fed is a regional/national organization? When you’re talking about Fed issues you have to think about the entire region that you are a part of, not just your district. Your district is just a little piece of a bigger thing and you have to remember that – it’s not all about you.

The other question/comment that just killed me was someone talking about “increasing take home pay” in her district… It seemed to be asked in a matter that she expected him to wave a magic wand and everyone would have higher take home pay. In my mind, for higher take home pay, there are two ways to go about it: 1) Make yourself more marketable so you can move up (and Bernake HAS said addressed workforce education as being critical) and/or 2) Find a better employer. Honestly, not sure how the Federal Reserve could directly control it, at least not in the way the representative appeared to think. (Yes, part of their work is employment, but not “*poof*, here’s higher take home pay”)

Best question/comment? From a congressman new to Congress and the committee – just asked (paraphrased to be sure) “Can you give a high level rundown of what the Fed is actually responsible for so that we don’t ask questions about things that you have absolutely no responsibility for?” Kinda think maybe he should have gotten to ask his question first…

This just came across the wires: Texas Governor Rick Perry Issues Order Requiring HPV Vaccine

However, parents can opt-out for “reasons of conscience, including religious beliefs”, which in my eyes takes it from an “order” to a “suggestion”. Even with that, I am sure there will folks on both sides of the debate completely up in arms over it.

Some interesting info from CNBC on this – apparently the Texas governor has close ties with Merck, who makes the vaccine, and their Texas lobbyist used to be on the governor’s staff. Talk about things that make you go Hmmmm. He’s also considered to be fairly right-wing/conservative, so that makes the order a little more surprising, at least to me. It will be interesting to see what political fallout (if any) there is over this with his constituency.

As far as the vaccine itself goes, if I had daughters, I’d most likely get them vaccinated for it, school requirements or not. (I say “most likely” because at the moment, I don’t have all the information needed to make a final decision. Or a daughter.) I’m just not big on government mandating what I see as a decision to be made by parents & health care providers.

I still don’t understand the argument that this will somehow encourage girls to be sexually active. It just really doesn’t make sense to me. If you genuinely think this is going to make your daughter turn into a trollop, then I’d say it’s time to sit down and have a very long talk with them.

I also don’t like hearing the words “cancer vaccine” get thrown around as it is NOT – it’s a vaccine against a virus, and you could get the vaccine and still get cervical cancer.

It’s $360 for the full series of doses, which not everyone has just sitting around. It will be included in the federal Vaccines for Children program, but there is still going to be a gap of families that don’t qualify for VfC or state programs and don’t have it covered by their insurance plans. The Texas order doesn’t go into effect until September of next year, so in theory most insurance plans that are going to cover it will have picked it up by then. Personally, I imagine it will be covered like other childhood vaccines are, given that $360 is cheap compared to cancer treatments.

Several other states are considering similar measures at this time. Maryland has already dropped a proposal to mandate the vaccine for school admission stating that there are “too many vaccine requirements” for schoolchildren already. Which I suppose sounds better than, “We really don’t want to get into this entire mess, thanks.”

Watching the President totally hose floor trading at the NYSE at the moment. The White House had repeatedly denied that he would be visiting the NYSE after his speech across the street at Federal Hall, but there you go. The Secret Service folks do not seem pleased with this turn of events. (I hope they are at least grateful that the NYSE floor is an exceptionally secure area to start with.)

I’ve got a friend that could be making a mistake and I’ve done my best to give warning. (Not “you’re an idiot” mistake but a “you’ve got bad information, PLEASE double check it” mistake.) I’ve done what I can and now all I can do is hope that things turn out OK. Frustrating to say the least.

Entry migration is still coming along. Everything that has been brought over so far has been tagged and checked for security. Once everything is in, then there will be some minor cleanup still to do, as anything without a subject is automatically assigned a # for the subject and that has to go. Minor, but mildly annoying. Need to figure out how to convert the archive list to a dropdown cause it’s just too long, and there will likely be some category cleanups as well.

It’s been really interested re-reading everything as I’ve been importing it. I’ve found that when things are going badly, I write a lot more. It’s a little disturbing how things are so different for me now than they were just two years ago. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d be where I am today. Even with all the changes, there are a lot of good reminders of “don’t make that mistake again, dumbass” in the older entries.

Yup, I watched it. Didn’t even throw anything at the TV and the wine bottle is still in the kitchen.

9PM this evening, pretty much every channel.

I’m debating whether or not I want to watch it. I think as a semi-decent citizen I should take the time to hear what the President has to say. However, I also think it will probably piss me off so much that I will drinking wine straight from the bottle with a straw by the time it’s halfway through.