The day after inauguration... or the rocky road back to the future.

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Hillary Clinton the new Secretary of State.
VP or President would have been better but I think Obama stands the best chance to get us out of some of this mess.
There will be time for a woman president (and there will be one).
Approval for new position for Hillary 94-2.

Caroline Kennedy is out of the race for the NY senate seat vacated by Hillary. Interesting.
Not sad about that because although she's certainly capable and well educated, I think her manner of speaking would have driven me crazy. I'm happy to not have to listen to GW anymore.

And speaking of people that are somewhat linguistically challenged, David Letterman did a final skit last week and I don't know how long it will be availible to view but I'm going to put it here anyway. It's funny and worth watching.



Funny that the J Crew site went down because of the Obama women's outfits at inauguration.
I think I like this new first family alot!!!
Since today is the start of a new presidency don't have much to say. So what I'm going to do is post some of the photos I took on one of my long walks in the snow a few days ago. It was the only daytime walk I took, mainly so I could take photos.







Walking in the snow is soothing and peaceful. One of my favorite things to do.
I don't think I could live somewhere that there was never any snow.

G'night,

Laura
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Tomorrow!!! Finally it's tomorrow!!! Inauguration Day is finally here.

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G'bye George Bush not sorry to see you go.
Hello President Barack Obama, very happy to see you and good luck with the mess we're in.

Did catch up with all the news I missed yesterday due to my playing in the snow!
I'm heartened by the changing of the guard as are most of us who are really hopeful that President Obama will be better prepared to work with the war in Iraq and our economy. I think it's going to be tough.

They keep talking about Obama's 89% approval rate and how 79% of the people just "like" him and feel he'll be a good president.
The thing that keeps bothering me about these stats (aside from the fact that I took a lot of statistics courses and realize how sketchy they can be) is that there were quite a lot of people attending McCain/Palin rallies that seemed very unhappy with Obama and even a bit scared and angry about him. Where did these people all go off to and are they actually in the count?

Didn't get that much out of the Rhom Emanuel interview (NBC) or David Axlerod's (ABC) as far as what the state of the union might actually be or if the stimulus package will truly fix things. Rather anxious about the amount of spending we don't have. Isn't that what got us all into this mess in the first place? The interviews only brought more questions into my mind.
I want to be supportive and get behind fixing the future, but I'm a bit unsure about what will end up in the plan. I know Obama says there won't be any unnecessary pork but I'm having trouble believing it. How much will creating jobs cost and what kind of jobs will they be? Construction won't work for many that need jobs... what other jobs are we talking about?

What projects will be funded? I suppose if I trusted our elected officials (and it's really hard to do that these days) I'd feel that we'd have an efficient stimulus package. Lean and mean. The problem is that I think congress can't get out of it's own way for the most part. I do believe we have a short window of effectiveness for all this though. What to do, what to do...

I wonder if Palin is sitting in Alaska hoping Obama fails and the republicans will run her to come in and F things up further save the day. Nasty old media made this whole economic mess up to thwart their economic plans, wait, McCain/Palin didn't seem to have one did they?

Please put Bernie Madoff in jail along with anyone else like him. Are his assets frozen like mine would've been? I hope so.
Weasel of the worst kind and he doesn't even get it.

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Okay so I'm going to stop being worried, tomorrow is the start of the Barack Obama presidency and I along with the majority of this fine country will be watching it on the tv, computer and enjoying the start of a new administration.

Went out and took some nice snowy photos today I'll post them after President Elect Barack Obama IS President Barack Obama. Sounds good to me!

G'night,

Laura
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Eight days left of GW Bush... but hey, who's counting?

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Forty-seven days of GW Bush's "administration"

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Did you see the clip of GW Bush squishing himself in between American soldiers for a photo op?
I can't for the life of me remember where I saw it but one soldier doesn't seem thrilled with GW standing there.

Bush's last days interviews both with and without Laura Bush have so far had interesting views by GW on his legacy.
I swear he's language challenged, or really dumb, or maybe both.
He bumbles, misunderstands questions, wanders when answering and mispronounces things.
History is being rewritten in Bush's mind... now it seems it was faulty CIA information on WMD's that caused the war in Iraq.
Interesting, I guess he hasn't seen all his previous speeches on the internets (lol).

The auto industry is in real trouble. Bankers: yay. GE, Chrysler, Ford: nay?
We're bleeding jobs daily, the auto industry carries somewhere around 3 million or more.
If the industry isn't bailed out... then we need some kind of jobs for those that will lose theirs.
Even if they do the bailout, job losses will sky rocket in the industry.
Factory and dealership jobs.
Not gonna be a bright and cheery New Year for a lot of people.

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And what about Plaxico Burress?
If I (or anyone in my family) took a loaded Glock into a club and shot myself in the thigh, I'd all ready be sitting in jail.
I'm so sick of overpaid and overvalued celebrities and athletes behaving badly.
There are no great role models for kids or adults lately.
No, let me rephrase that... there are no great role models that make the news and get press no less monetary reward.
I was trying to think of what role models there were for women my age.
Pretty bleak.

Here's my ode to Plaxico:

Oh Plaxico
who would have thought
you wouldn't know
guns belong in nightstands
not at night clubs tucked
in sweat pant's waistbands
loaded but not locked...

Oh Plaxico
who would have thought
you wouldn't know
now you're just the guy
stupid enough to
shoot himself in the thigh
at least it wasn't someone elses...

from the winning touchdown for the Giants
to just another one of some lawyer's clients
that's amazing talent
indeed.

Tomorrow I have an interesting escapade planned that I'll document with a silly video...
Probably won't get it posted here until Saturday if it comes out at all the way I would like it to.

Going to bed.
Need to go grocery shopping tomorrow.
And run a million errands.

G'night

Laura

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Forty-nine days left to add to the Bush legacy... or something like that.

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I keep reading that David Gregory (chief White House Correspondent for NBC) will be taking over on Meet The press.
I know Tom Brocaw taking Tim Russert's spot was temporary, so David Gregory isn't a bad choice at all and not unexpected.
I really miss Tim Russert. He made watching Meet The Press very interesting with his enthusiasm.
He was so into the show, interviews and debates. Still miss him. In some ways it was his show.
It was such a shame that he died at the premature age of 58.
His son Luke not only looks a bit like Tim but even has some of his mannerisms and voice.

Chambliss (as I expected) won the Georgia senate run off election.
It still looks like Coleman won over Franken in Minnesota too...
So no filibuster proof senate for the democrats.
Let's hope the dems and repubs can get something done in the next few years instead of the usual bullshit.
We have major problems that we need to really fix instead of the normal stalemate until all hell breaks loose and then blame it on the each other. If that happens, well, the word "doomed" or at least "doom and gloom" pops into my head for the middle class.

I also keep coming across the rumor that Sarah Palin might appear on the season finale of abc's Desparate Housewives.
I knew I hated that show. lol. No seriously I don't watch it. Seems a fitting place for her though. Yay.

Newsweek had a very sobering, pessimistic and depressing story about the possibility of attacks with weapons of mass destruction (such as biological pathogens). It's something more for people to be stressed out about.
Beginning to wonder why people are so stressed out and discouraged? Just look and listen to the news these days.
Threat of WMD terrorist attack in future

Auto makers, banks, insurance, state governments, there seems to be a larger and larger list of folk that want $$$.
Still not sure how it's all going to help "Main Street" at all... Maybe, maybe not.

Watched the Laura and George Bush interview with Charles Gibson. It was okay. Nothing really new.
They have the strangest body language with each other. I wonder what their days are like together.

Non Political:

Gun's and Roses cd, something like 17 years in the coming, ain't so great. Sorry Axl.
They're fighting with Dr. Pepper over a free soda deal if the cd came out in 2008. Seriously?

Still struggling with Christmas presents but have some ideas at least.
So far haven't been able to muster much enthusiasm but hopefully it'll get better shortly.
Just have too much on my mind and a little down in the dumps.
I realized tonight that part of my problem is that I stopped working on the book I was writing.
I felt better when my page tally was going upward.

Senior class is one cost after another. Just bought a bunch of pizza's and cheesecakes because we have no relatives to sell all this stuff to... next up is magazines. UGH. I don't want to hit up the few people I know at holiday time to buy overpriced items my senior is selling. January there is the next installment on the Senior Class trip of $200.00.
It's the most expensive year by far!
Well, at least this is the last time we have to do it. Last one in high school.
Hallelujah!!!

Well, G'night for now.
Have a good day.

Laura

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