A historic day!  Congratulations to President Obama.  He overcame incredible odds (personally & politically) to land the most important job in the world.  Truly impressive.  Here's very cool montage of all 44 US Presidents. 

It appears the crowds in DC will be enormous.  People were already gathering on the mall at 3 am this morning.  Obama comes to office with an incredible sense of optimism from the populace.  It's now his tough task to turn that optimism into results.

Great piece in today's WSJ on why George Bush is hated so much.  Please read it.


Some interesting side notes to today's events:
        Barak Obama will use his full name "Barack Hussein Obama" when he is sworn in.  While some have expressed outrage, traditionally every President uses all three names (or 4 in the case of George Herbert Walker Bush) when being sworn in.
        The last line of the oath ends with "....defend the constitution of the United States".  That's the official oath.  Since, George Washington, every President has added the words, "So help me God." There's some speculation that Obama may not utter those words, since it's not in the official oath.  I'm predicting their wrong.  Why start off such a great inauguration by ticking off 78% of the US population who consider themselves Christian?


    My other prediction is that today will be the high water mark for Democratic unity in Washington.  Already, the Blue Dog Democrats (a group of conservative congressman) have enough votes to stop any of Nancy Pelosi's hair brained ideas.  They know they have the votes.  Nancy knows they have the votes.  The only group that remains clueless are the left wing internet crowd.  The "Change" they are expecting will be hampered by these thoughtful Democrats who won't be "going along" just because Speaker Pelosi demands it.
    As I've stated before, here in Illinois, when we saw the Democratic party take control, many of the zany left wing ideas were no longer discussed.  Illinois' Speaker of the House advocated all sorts of left wing ideas, until there was no longer a Republican Governor to provide the necessary veto.  Suddenly, the speaker started acting like a responsible, fiscally-responsible legislator (ie. a Republican).  
    While I don't predict Speaker Pelosi can remove her left wing nuttiness, I'm sensing many of her members (along with the Senate and Obama) are realizing they can't responsibly pass the agenda of moveon.org and the bunch.


BIden on Oprah - Yesterday, on Oprah's show, Joe Biden's wife revealed that Obama contacted Biden and offered him either the VP slot, or that of Secretary of State - his choice.  Biden immediately silenced his wife, but the word was out.  Hillary Clinton (the Secretary of State) ended up getting Joe Biden's leftovers! 


No double standard here!  California tax payers to get IOU instead of their tax refund.   So, I presume the state won't object when their citizens send in an IOU instead of their property and income tax payments?  After all, California citizens are having the same "financial challenges" as the state.