The rain in New Jersey falls mainly on my head....

My god they know how to have a rain storm here. It's a non-stop, heavy rain. It lasts all day. It is wet and cold and blows up all over you. Monkey got to school this morning, and was completely soaked just from walking between the car and the building!

Happily though, it is a pleasant sounding rain when one is warm and inside.

POLITICAL COMMENTARY (Warning, sports metaphors in the following segment are meant to mimic hockey, however, I am not really knowledgeable when it comes to hockey terms, I mostly watch it for the violence. Please forgive any inconsistencies.)

So, the Democrats won! Or, depending on your viewpoint, the republicans lost.

I found it interesting that a great number of Republican pundits spent a good portion of the morning stressing that the Dems didn't win, but rather, the Republicans lost.

Republicans losing seats in a large number of races + Democrats winning seats in a large number of races = Democrats not winning.

Hmm... in my experience, in a race of two parties, there is generally one loser, and one winner. (Unless of course, it is grade school, then we are all winners, just for trying.) It's not really as though we have a loser, and a non-losing participant. So why do the talking heads stress that "the Dems didn't win, the republican's lost"? I mean, doesn't one party losing imply by necessity that the other party won? I understand they are trying to explain that the voting was against republicans more than it was for democrats. However, it may be that the thinking of these pundits is too deep for me this early on a rainy day, with only half a cup of coffee in my system.

Also, it seems to me that many members of the republican party suffer from poor sportsmanship. As a child, when I lost a race, my parents would make me walk up to the winner and shake their hand, saying something like "Good race! Congratulations!" I wasn't allowed to talk about how they didn't win, I just lost, nor was I allowed to criticize what they were going to do with their win, making dire predictions about their chances in the future. (Granted, the Dems weren't really sportsmanlike last election, but allegations of extreme cheating are a different story, IMHO.)

In any event, of the two contenders last night, there was one whose successes looked a lot like winning, and one whose failures looked a lot like losing. This was important to some people, because the contenders whose failures looked a lot like losing have been kicking the country around unimpeded for a while. I am glad the referee stood up and benched some of their players. It is time for some new blood on the ice. I am not expecting miracles, a game that has run corrupt for most of it's quarters is unlikely to suddenly get cleaned up when new players are sent in. The score from the previous quarters doesn't get deleted and the losing side still has to pony up and run a good offense. However, it will hopefully be easier to run a good offense when there are no blind referees, and players caught high-sticking are actually given a penalty, instead of ignored.

I guess I am trying to say, I expect no miracles from the next two years. At this point, the game is so corrupt, I barely even recognize it anymore. I just hope my team gets to score some points and even up the game a little. Maybe we can create a new game, or if not, get the rules back to something remotely resembling the old game.