Kat, I am so sorry about your sister.

Wow, that Obama Vid is lovely. It made me tear. Also, was Jesse from the first episode of Buffy in it?

> I'm just afraid of Obama pulling a Carter

That's exactly my fear.

The thing is, Carter was the last president I thought was actually, you know, a good person. And that is important to me, even though good people don't seem to do well as president. Which is annoying to me. Of course my perspective on Carter may be skewed because I was a small child during his presidency.

But he wasn't an effective president -- that's my worry.

I actually just got a great email from someone I know about why he's supporting Hillary. It was really compelling.

Reaganesque charm combined with some serious, intelligent and organizational chops = Obama. Not that I think Clinton is unqualified, but what I think the country needs at this point is charismatic leadership in the right direction.

I guess I've finally made up my mind how I'm voting, and more important, why.

Ultimately, I think it's great that I wouldn't be upset with either of them as a candidate. And I think either of them could beat the Republican.

I think I'm just missing the Obama gene - I got about 30 seconds into the "Yes We Can" video before I got bored and had to turn it off, which is pretty par for the course with me and Obama speeches. I just...I don't get it. Whatever wavelength he's speaking on, my brain's not tuned to it.

I was too young when Carter was president to follow politics - what did he do (or not do) that was so bad? My impression at the time was he was a victim of circumstances - the hostage crisis and the horrible economy (stagflation and all).

Oh, and then there was the rabbit attack, and the media making fun of him for that. The "Malaise" speech and his reaction to the energy crisis ("The moral equivalent of war") also stick in my mind as something people thought he overreacted (or reacted badly) to.

I did see a documentary a few years ago that said Carter came into office bringing into his administration people who were naive in what they thought they could do, and condescending to the Democratic power structure of the day.

But my gut feeling (from being a teenager at the time) is still that his presidency got a bum rap... what am I missing?

I watched that video and my main thought was, "Who's that hot guy in the jacket?"

In other, too silly to meara news:

Eli Manning's name is actually Elisha. Which... makes his brother being named Peyton even more counterintuitive, to me. Unless the family had some kind of big religious conversion in between children, or Peyton is a name that runs in the family.

Male pseudohermaphroditism resolves in most cases, meaning that the kid hits puberty, testosterone kicks in, and the kid becomes visibly male (though with lesser primary and secondary sex characteristics than is usual). biochemistry via Wikipedia. That article also notes that, although it occurs once in 146,000 pregnancies, it's much more common for an infant to be born with ambiguous genitalia (resulting in genetic screening, and accurate sex-assessment) than with completely-female genitalia (resulting in inaccurate sex-assessment, so that puberty is a total surprise).

Also, I think that House episode should have been about Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, which is the one where genetic males are born looking female, and never change. (With AIS, it's "I'm allergic to testosterone!" whereas with pseudoherms, it's "I failed to metabolize testosterone properly in utero! But I'm getting better at that with practice.")

my cooking runs to Mark Bittman and the less fussy end of Rachael Ray

Rachael Ray often provides vegitarian options for her recipies. Many of the soups, for example, let you substitute vegetable stock for chicken stock and something else for the protein.

Everyone knows that the Mannings are a New Orleans family, right? I mean, Archie Manning was born in Mississippi, but he played for the Saints and was a game announcer for years.

His wife is named Olivia, and his third son is named Cooper. I suspect she might have had some influence in the naming.

Peyton and Cooper go together somewhat, in both being trendy-ish. Elisha??