av8rmike

Obama to speak Saturday at Baltimore's War Memorial Plaza

So, President-Elect Obama is going to be speaking about half a mile from where I live. I knew in advance because the city police have put up "no parking" signs for Saturday all up and down my street (which is the main route from the train station to the speech venue). Am I an idiot for not wanting to go? They're expecting 100,000 people to show up in a space that can hold probably a third of that. "Doors" open 3 hours before the speech, and with the security checks and all, it would mean standing in 20° weather for maybe four hours. The local TV stations will be carrying the speech live, anyway, so why not stay warm inside?

Also, I don't believe the man is our Savior. To quote Stephen Colbert (I think), "even Jesus had to do stuff before he got his own holiday."

It's almost hard to believe, but in a little over a week, we'll know who our next President will be.

This election season just flew by, didn't it? ;)

I meant to post something about this earlier, but it escaped me until I saw it last night on The Daily Show. The world is officially two minutes closer to Doomsday, so say the good people at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:

[The] deteriorating state of global affairs leads the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists--in consultation with a Board of Sponsors that includes 18 Nobel laureates--to move the minute hand of the “Doomsday Clock” from seven to five minutes to midnight.

It's not really a measure of anything, of course, just a barometer created as a kind of gimmick by an obscure (at the time) publication for scientists to raise awareness of global issues. Now that they've decided to take climate changes into consideration, it's become slightly more relevant than if they focused solely on a U.S./Soviet Union nuclear war. What surprises me is the time lag in the scientists' response to world events. I'd have thought they'd have changed the hands after Sept. 11, or the start of the war in Iraq, or even the Israel/Lebanon conflict. The last time the clock hands were changed was in 2002, after the U.S. withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. I guess the scientists take the time to see how events will play out, rather than being seen as worry-worts.

So what happens at midnight? This column in the Chicago Sun-Times sheds some light, by way of a Case Western physics professor: "The whole purpose of the clock is to stop us from ever getting to midnight. If there's Armageddon, then the clock doesn't matter."

Finally, I couldn't pass up passing along this little gem from the same column:
Barack Obama has formed a committee to test the presidential waters and see if they are safe for him to walk on.

Man, who ever thought that city Board of Public Works meetings would be boring? Not with a guy like Schaefer attending. When he's not sexually harassing staffers, he's raking Governor Ehrlich over the coals:

At yesterday's Board of Public Works meeting, the first since Comptroller William Donald Schaefer lost the Democratic primary, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. was planning the same kind of pick-me-up he had employed time and again to stay on his ally's good side: a freshly baked cake from the Government House kitchen.
One of the governor's aides stood in the wings at the start of the meeting, holding a plastic-wrapped pound cake (the chef's grandmother's recipe) with a yellow bow on top.
But Schaefer's opening comments blasted the governor and his staff for not taking responsibility for the voting problems in the primary election and blaming them on state Elections Administrator Linda H. Lamone.

After that, the aide left, taking the cake with her. No mention of where it went or who got to eat it, but you can bet it wasn't Schaefer. At least the Governor didn't splurge and go to Charm City Cakes. If he had, maybe we'd have seen the aftermath on TV.

So yeah, it's finally time for me to start talking politics in my journal. I know, I'm only four years or so too late.

I went and did my civic duty this morning. I got to the library around 7:10 and there were already about 40-50 people in line. It waited a good 40 minutes, but it was fast and easy. No sticker, though. =(

One thing occurred to me, though: It's all been leading up to today. All the speeches and campaigning, sure, but also the political divisiveness, the endless discussions on Iraq, Sept. 11, taxes, everything. I know it's not a particularly Earth-shattering revelation, but it's the best my simple brain can come up with. A Republican victory means validation for them and all their policies; a free pass to continue to do whatever they want. A Democratic win sends an equally clear message that the country is not happy with the direction we're going. I'm going to refrain from making any predictions either way, but I just hope we can put all the sniping and arguing behind us. Sadly, I doubt it will be that simple, but we'll see in a couple of hours.