I think she is just following what Fox News tells her. The thing is, she is actually a really independent thinker, so I could probably convince her he is an autocratic troll if I had, you know, actual facts. But I tend to do things based on feelings, not facts, and I tend to not pay attention to the Republican candidates because I just get angry.

I've been fiddling around with glassbooth.org all morning. It's not telling me anything I don't already know (Kucinich is my best political match, the Big Three on the left all vote the same way all the time), but it's a really well put-together site.

He was like, "Huckabee is telling everyone to have an extra Jesus-y Christ-mas, and people are concerned about a possibly hidden cross???"

Yeah I saw and article about that and I thought it smelled of the media manufacturing a controversy. I mean who cares? It's like watching a beer commercial and seeing a beer in the background.

Happy Birthday, ita.

I didn't feel strongly one way or another about Giuliani until I heard the NYers here talk about him. After that I read more about him, but if it weren't for the NYers here, I know I would feel more positively towards him.

The weather here is totally depressing, and wet, and I really don't want to go to work.

I'm not sure why Giuliani thinks he has foreign policy experience.

Dude, 9/11! He was totally on TV making us feel better for about ten minutes! HE'S THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN PROTECT US FROM TEH EEEEEEEEEVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIL!!!!!

you know, if by "protect us from teh eeeeeeeeeeeeevilllllllllllllllllll" you mean build his sooper secret headquarters in the last place they attacked

Love matress.

Has a series of slots for feet, elbows, etc.

xkcd addressed this a while ago.

This is totally off the political topic, but I have a survey kind of question as I am trying to improve my organizational skills at my job-

My boss sends me 8 kabillion FYI emails (she copies me in on people she is talking to in case they call or contact me). My work email has fairly limited storage. Somehow just reading these emails once is not enough for me to remember everything, however, if someone calls I can't really be leafing through a great big file of printed out emails so I know what they are talking about. Does anyone have any hints as to what to do with this information so I can either memorize it or have it fairly handy?

There's a great quote (from a woman I used to work with, who is AWESOME) in the recent New Yorker profile, where she says Rudy was surrounded by such yes-men in City Hall that if he said, "Let's kill thirteen-year-olds," someone at the table would be, "Great idea! And have you thought about killing twelve-year-olds?"

I have a credit guide somewhere I can send to you if you'd like, and offer any help I can. I've just seen far too many people get into credit counseling and it takes them much longer to repair it.

I'd appreciate that--profile address works.

I'm supposed to call the credit union back in a couple of hours to see if we were approved for a smaller amount than my original request. I asked about getting enough to cover any or all of the three of our five cards that have the highest interest rate, all of which come from a place I'll call Evil Bank, because that's how I feel about them right now. Of the other two cards, one comes from Not-So-Evil Bank and has a slightly lower rate, and the last one is a new Discover Card that's currently in its 0% on the first year on balance transfers and is set to have the lowest rate of all, actually a bit lower than the credit union's loan rate, once that expires this fall.

Anyway, regardless of how the revised application turns out, I've decided to treat this as if I'd been given a loan. I'm going to figure out what it would take to pay off the debt in five or six years if we don't incur any new debt, and I'm going to pay that amount every month. (Though, given the number of different interest rates involved, the idea of that calculation makes my head hurt.) Whatever money we have left each month after paying our bills and that amount is going to go into a savings account until we build up a cash reserve of $2500. Once we've done that, extra money can go toward paying the debt faster.

Needless to say, I'll adjust as circumstances warrant, seeking lower interest rates, increasing the monthly debt payment amount if our salaries increase or other expenses drop, etc. And I know we might have to use the cards if something drastic happened (like emergency expensive car repair or needing to travel for a family emergency) before we build up the cash reserve. But that way I can create for myself what I wanted from the loan--a sense of control, and a date where this will be over.