Obama Retakes Oath

In a move that will disappoint several burgeoning conspiracy theorists, President Barack Obama, retook the oath of office today (on Jan 21, 2009).

This time around, both CJ Roberts and the President said it flawlessly standing inside the White House. However, this time around he (BHO) did not use a bible, so the extreme "conservatives" are going to be whining anyways.

But that is not a big deal, because according to the US Constitution, Obama became the president automatically at 12 noon on 20th January. So the oath is mainly a symbolic gesture.
I also found out that the phrase "so help me God" is nonobligatory!

A satirical piece on the same news

Your learn something new everyday!
Hat tip: Times of India

Obama Inauguration

Wow. It happened!! Obama is now the P.O.T.U.S. or President of the United States. I should like to give a shout out to my parents who called from India to make sure I am watching it. [I wasn't when they called, as I was tied up with some work.

Since it was close to lunch time, I gave in and decided to watch history being made. I googled "live feed of inauguration" and went to the usual sites like cnn, foxnews, nyt, cspan, etc. But all of these sites were incredibly slow and choppy, and were lagging the live event by several seconds. I expected this as the popular sites are where all the people would go first.

Then, I went to the 2nd or 3rd page of search results and stumbled upon the good folks of Daily Press. Thanks to you guys for a high speed, trouble free coverage on windows media player.

My lab office colleagues also watched with me. Interesting fact is that when Obama mentioned about Christians & Muslims and Jews and Hindus and non-believers, I looked around and realized that the three of us were each from a different faith, one Christian, Jewish and Hindu. If only my friend Mohammed had been there, we would have encompassed all 4. lol. Add to the fact within a 200 ft radius there is probably Buddhists, one or two Sikhs, other religions and plenty of non-believers :).

Just finished watching the inauguration, best thing I liked was the 'Benediction: The Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery", tha man totally rapped at the end and I loved that more than the poet just before!
You can listen to the benediction here on NPR.Or in the embedded video

[Edit] The South Asian blog Sepia Mutiny carries a special post on exactly this subject. Thanks to them (abhi) now the exact transcript is available.

Some things I caught from this ending note and am trying to remember, sounded like this:
If a man is black, he is not held back
If a man is brown, he can still get around...
Exact text from transcript

black will not be asked to get in back,
when brown can stick around
when yellow will be mellow
when the red man can get ahead, man;
and when white will embrace what is right.

he really rhymed well and everyone was laughing by the time he finished! I guess Mr. Joseph Lowery clearly overshadowed Rick Warren's invocation in the process.

A little note about Obama's fumbling with the oath, it seemed a little funny, both to see him start soon after Justice Roberts started saying his name, as well as his pause when he wanted Roberts to repeat the phrase about "that I will execute the office of the president of the united states faithfully". It seemed unrehearsed, but perhaps it was. You also have to cut him some slack for the enormity of the occasion and the thousands of things going through his mind (or so say my office mates.) I also realized when I played back the video, that Roberts also had some contribution to messing up the oath. But, hey no big deal, in the long run these minor things do not matter.

Highlights in Obama's Address:

Obama saying that
"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. "
drew lot of applause.

"With hope and virtue, let us endure the icy currents".. etc.
I liked it.

He also mentioned something about people listening to him, son of a man who 60 years ago might not have been served in a restaurant in the Mall area, and listen to him (Barack Obama) take the most sacred oath. I was't able to find that text in the transcript, but I heard it and then listened at ~ 20:00 on the C-Span video replay.
This also drew good applause.

That's it folks. Back to work now. Today has been decent till now on the work front!

Thanks and Credits to:
Daily Press
Dallas News (transcript)
C-Span (pdf transcript)
C-Span Video Playback

Presidential Inauguration Tickets and Gubmint

The government seems to be taking early action when it comes to the Presidential Inauguration Tickets craze going on out there.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif, the senator overseeing Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony said Monday she's writing to Internet sites like eBay asking them not to sell scalped inauguration tickets. The senator also said she's crafting a bill that would make a federal crime of selling tickets to the historic event Jan. 20. Link to source

OFFICIAL STATEMENT BY THE GOVT.
The public should also be aware that no website or other ticket outlet actually has inaugural swearing-in tickets to sell, regardless of what they may claim. Tickets will not be distributed to Congressional offices until the week before the inauguration and will require in-person pick-up.[Source]

Taxpayer dollars are used to run the Inauguration event, and consequently, any arguments bringing up "capitalism" just fall flat. Oh wait, did I hear whining about bailouts? Two wrongs don't make one right. Unscrupulous elements should just not be allowed to get in the way and speculate on items which people should be getting from their representatives in a straightforward manner. Of course, there might be (allegations of) favoritism coming into play, (e.g. people making donations to the party of the local rep might get better chances) but at least the chance to see this event will go to people who were more interested in this man's rise from the beginning.

The official press release http://inaugural.senate.gov/

CNN coverage on this issue.

Vice Presidential Debate: Biden v Palin, Expert vs High school student

This post is not really about travel, but more about an interesting evening that I spent with some friends. Although I had lots to study, I decided to take some time off and watch the US Vice Presidential debate between the candidates Senator Joe Biden (Democrate- Delaware) v. Governor Sarah Palin (Republican- Alaska). I know there are some people out there who want the Independent candidates also on this debate (Link with list) but then most debates are managed by media companies that care about ratings and frankly, why play with a system that is in place already? .

So what were the oft-repeated phrases by the candidates. Digging into my memory, I could remember Palin going on and on about

• "in my experience as Mayor and Governor"
  
• Energy independence
• Largest energy producing state
• the hungry markets (referring to crude oil markets)
• betcha
• darn it
• kinda
  
• predatory lenders
• small town America
• small businesses
• tax cuts
  
• team of mavericks
• maverick
• McCain
• Obama
  
• tax on windfall profit -- no she did nt use those words, but you know what it is about.

Joe Biden on the other hand relied on these:

• not a maverick
• I understand
• Iraq
• middle class
• 95% of American families/small businesses
• $ 250,000
  
• John McCain
• Obama
• Gwen

Note that some words may not be keywords, but are just words that got repeatedly used by the candidate. If you want a more detailes you can read the debate transcripts here. Well overall my opinion was the Biden managed a confident attack on John McCain and McCain's voting record and policies. However, when it came to actually tackling the questions direct he did not do very well, but neither did Sarah Palin which was already expected. But even she exceeded expectations by giving solid responses to several questions. But most of the time, she was just attacking Obama, instead of debating with Biden on the issues. Substance wise this debate was low, but voice modulation wise it was great. The one other thing which had me groaning was Palin's repeated use of folksy language - which was annoying, not too many actually speak like that and I live in a rural town. It was a blatant attempt by her to reach out. Arggh!