SIGH. My team at my old job used to hold impromptu staff "meetings" at the nearest heated and/or AC'd public place to our floor's designated meeting point. It was relaxed, pleasant, reasonably informative and used up work time that we'd have otherwise lost.

Ha! This is seriously the e-mail my mom just sent me --

Subject: the zombies have taken over the world

Don't watch your TV unless you already have but the world has gone mad. Everyone I voted for lost and the zombies have taken control.

I get my left-wingery from her, obviously.

(I told her that no, the zombies have NOT taken over, because zombies WANT brains, and last night proved that the winners were NOT looking for brains.)

Huh -- I haven't had a fire drill at all here at this job, and I've been here almost 6 months. We used to have some kind of drill monthly at my last job, I'm pretty sure. But mostly we didn't have to go outside, just gather in the elevator lobby to learn about what to do in case of fire/non-fire emergency/etc.

Sane Republicans have no more love for Palin than you, Teppy. Unless someone out of left field--or, I guess, right field--shows up, the Repubs biggest names for president are Palin and Mitt Romney. Romney cannot win because too many people think he's a flip-flopper, and the rest go "Mormon? Of the devil!" No hard-core evangelical will vote for a Mormon, despite the glowing visions that hold in Utah. Mormons really don't understand how much the rest of the right-wing world dislike them.

The next two years are going to be bad, but the Tea Partiers are now sitting at a poker table when Call has been declared. It's time to actually come up with specifics and see what they can accomplish in the real world. Obama's Ship of Change bashed up against the rocks of reality, the Tea Partiers are about to see that same shipwreck coming.

the deficit which Obama hasn't addressed, TARP, the auto bailouts

The sad thing is that these three points are actually pluses for the Dems--the deficit is actually lower than it was, TARP was a success according to all nonpartisan economists, and both it and the auto bailouts not only did what they were supposed to do, but the money is either now being or has already been paid back, with interest.

Whomever is in charge of putting in the Daily Extra on the pages of my New Yorker cartoon daily calendar has an interesting sense of humor. On the back of the sheet for yesterday, Election Day: "Rearrange the phrase to discover the related word or phrase: Lies--let's recount"

I feel bad for TARP, flawed though it was, it accomplished its goal and did so for less net cost than anyone every thought. If you consider what could have happened if the commercial paper market had frozen, then it probably saved a lot more money that it cost. I think it was really one of the Bush administration's finer moments.

My disdain for politics this morning has been overwhelmed by rage at a coworker underling who changed my numbered list to bullets because she thought it looked better. I am a tech writer! There are rules! Do not undermine my authority with this Word document!

Looks like Buck lost in Colorado. There are still some counties to be counted, but they're heavily Democratic.

I am a tech writer! There are rules! Do not undermine my authority with this Word document!

Amen, sister.