Fantastic, Pivotal Victory Speech

Awe-inspiring, utterly historic, election victory speech by President-elect Barack Obama in Chicago.

This embedded video is the entire speech, from one fixed camera.

I watched with great pride as an American. I held my wife's hand while experiencing this great moment. We have restored HOPE.

Amazing.

We Dodged a Bullet

The election is completely over and the vice presidential candidacy of Sarah Palin is now completely nonviable.

What's interesting is that the news media is diving head first into previously embargoed information from campaign sources about how badly Palin got along with the McCain campaign, and how much of a dummy she really was.  Those early weeks when Palin was held back from the media was clearly the best decision, because she would have caused immense damage to the McCain campaign.

Word is leaking out now that Palin did not know what countries are covered by NAFTA (that would be Canada, the U.S., and Mexico), and she didn't know that Africa was a continent as opposed to a single country.  

Other reports indicate her fundamental misunderstanding of the First Amendment's rights to free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association, wrongly assuming the First Amendment is degraded when a public official, such as herself, is criticized by the media, when they attacked her for questioning Obama's associations with questionable individuals.

It has now leaked that Palin was prepped for her first media interview with Charlie Gibson, but refused to be prepped for the interview with Katie Couric.  Her lack of preparation totally showed. Palin's non-answer to Couric's question about what newspapers and magazines she reads to shape her world view now makes a lot of sense.  She obviously didn't read any.

Also leaking now is Palin going on shopping sprees for herself and her husband using funds from a major donor, as well as credit cards from campaign underlings, who now want to be reimbursed.  All this spending was far beyond the already reported $150,000 spent by the RNC.

McCain made a huge  gamble in picking Palin without properly vetting her, and he simply lost. Most Americans sensed this already, but the truth is coming out now.

We certainly dodged a bullet, that of a Sarah Palin vice presidency.

She is being treated as a scapegoat now.  And, in my opinion, she has little chance of re-emerging as a national candidate in future.

LinkedIn Layoffs

TechCrunch has just reported that LinkedIn "will be cutting 36 of 370 employees, or around 10% of the company." These days, it's not a surprise. As a customer of LinkedIn, I have a slightly concern about LinkedIn's financial health, but I don't feel that they are about to go out of business. Obviously, it's a tough world for VC backed startups right now.

My speculation is that since the bulk of their revenue is from companies which are recruiting, the number of such employers willing to renew their job postings and search subscriptions are probably starting to drop. LinkedIn would presumably start cutting back on customer service people, perhaps on some sales and marketing folks, and any dead weight. Every company has at least 5% dead weight amongst the staff.

In HR, we have a saying, "there is such a thing as good attrition."

Holding Breath for Prop 8 Results

Initial results from just 30% of California precincts show Prop 8 winning by 53.1% of the vote. CNN exit polls predict Prop 8 will lose with just 48%. Let's wait and see.

The big hope is that the more rural precincts have tabulated their votes first, while the bigger, more urban precincts will report later in the night.

Hopefully, that means Prop 8 will eventually be defeated. We'll see.

The TV is turned off.

Thank You John McCain

I have great respect for John McCain's service to the United States. He is an honorable man, a brave soldier and POW, and an accomplished senator.

His campaign clearly was not honorable in many ways, but given he faced such a gigantic tidal wave of a political opponent from Obama's campaign, McCain's campaign was forced to take chances. Unfortunately for McCain, his campaign came across as erratic, rather than risk taking.

McCain will still serve as Arizona's senator and one of the most powerful members of the Senate for another two years.  He will continue to serve this great country.  The United States is certainly better off with McCain as senator and even as a presidential candidate.

I just wanted to mention here a side note.  CNN is doing a pretty good job.  We are watching CNN exclusively tonight.  The hologram gimmick is pretty worthless, and I'm convinced CNN is more committed to being an entertainment channel over being a news channel.

YES WE CAN

I am absolutely thrilled that Obama has been elected President of the United States!!!  CNN has just called the election for Obama the moment the polls officially closed for California, Oregon, and Washington.

This is a momentous occasion.  It's great to be alive to witness these events, to experience it with my wife.  Clearly, an historic event.

I don't have anything deep to express, just to document my joy, my hope, my feelings.

McCain is giving his concession speech right now and I'll pay attention.

Next big moment will be Obama's acceptance speech.

My New Favorite Breakfast

I discovered my new favorite breakfast. 

It doesn't sound so good in words, but it was delicious. 

It's the "meatless soyrizo scramble" with eggs, corn, green onions, a soy substitute version of chorizo (normally a greasy, spicy Mexican sausage meat often served as a crumbled meat), melted pepperjack cheese, with spicy black beans on the side (instead of hash browns as specified in the menu), and my choice of light rye toast, plus a large glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, at Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe in Emeryville.

Even Racists Voting for Obama

James Hannaham of salon.com writes how racism not only continues in America, but is revealed to be complex and flexible, when people are faced with the prospect of voting for or against Obama with a multitude of interests in mind.

I find the article interesting, enlightening, and fairly agreeable to my views of how racism seems to operate in America.

One bit of semantics which could help with understanding all this is a definition which I learned while attending a special multiculturalism workshop as an undergrad at UC Berkeley.  An African American friend of mine at the time, also of mixed heritage, succinctly pointed out, "Racism is prejudice plus power."  

Perhaps the two most important inferences from that definition is that prejudice and racism are not exactly the same, and that racism is far more than thoughts and biases, but when actions are taken based on those thoughts and biases which negatively impact another. This could happen consciously or subconsciously, intentionally or inadvertently.

And, perhaps further, it is then easy enough to say that even highly prejudiced people can and do still choose to vote for Obama by applying the power of their vote based on far more than a singular bias.  Racists in other areas of their lives, but for a brief moment in the polling booth.

The Growing Irrelevance of the Culture Wars

Peter Beinart of the Washington Post focuses on how Sarah Palin is "Last of the Culture Warriors" as a beacon of how the culture wars are growing in irrelevance.  A really good read and a striking perspective of how times really are changing.  The brief history lesson of the parallels to the 1920s and 1960s are fascinating.

Eating Thanksgiving

I've had the privilege to cook the family Thanksgiving dinner for at least the last 15 years. I always target the serving time for 6:00 P.M. because I was raised with the idea that Thanksgiving dinner is served at dinner time.

Over the years, I've learned that many other people serve and eat their traditional Thanksgiving dinner much earlier in the day, as early as 2:00 P.M., some even earlier at 1:00 P.M. or even 12:00 Noon. Others at 3:00 P.M. or 4:00 P.M.

I've wondered for a long time why such a discrepancy in the tradition among families.  There was one year, 1999, when I asked as many people as I could why some people ate earlier in the day. Most could only state that it was the way it was.  That's their family tradition and that's it. A few would mention something about taking the full afternoon to eat the large meal.

I had my own private theory that since senior citizens tend to eat dinner earlier than others, and Thanksgiving often included celebrating with seniors, that the roast turkey was served early for their sake.  But that would only explain a serving time as early as 4:00 P.M., not 1:00 P.M.

I've heard some people actually take advantage of this discrepancy, allowing them to attend two or more Thanksgiving celebrations, in which one party's meal was served early, while subsequent parties' meals were served later.

A quick search on Yahoo! Answers reveals similar questions posed by people, asking others when they serve and eat.  Interestingly, most people seem to answer 2:00 P.M. or earlier, and a few people point to the advantage of completing the meal early, so they could either watch nationally televised football games (Army vs Navy, or Detroit Lions), or go toss their own football, or enjoy a walk with the remaining daylight.  Some mentioned the practice of serving the turkey early in the afternoon and then serving the dessert, typically pie, in the evening.

Having been the Thanksgiving cook for so long, I usually experience the day as an opportunity to flex my cooking skills and also a cathartic break from my hectic career oriented life. An evening serving time allowed for most of the daytime to anticipated and enjoyed food preparation.

Switching to a high temperature roasting method some 7 years ago did reduce the turkey cooking time significantly, as did the shrinking of the number of relatives attending a few years ago, but the annual tradition of cooking has always been something I've looked forward to.

So, what time do you usually serve/eat Thanksgiving Dinner, and why?