According to Wikipedia, while the Empire State recognizes same-sex marriages performed in a different state, it, like most Northeastern states, does not have a domestic partnership program.

Gay marriage advocates ever eager to have states recognize same-sex marriage without making a case to the people why gay marriage is a good thing, have been trying to push the New York State legislature to enact legislation providing for such recognition.  Well, today, “the Democrat-controlled New York State Senate resoundingly killed a bill to legalize it that Governor Paterson would have signed.”  They might have had better luck had they, in the wake of last month’s election returns in the Evergreen and Pine Street states, considered a bill recognizing same-sex civil unions.

They wouldn’t get the name they wanted, but they would have provided benefits to same-sex couples, currently unavailable.  Let’s hope that in the wake of this defeat, they consider that option.

Almost three years ago, finding a coupon in my mailbox for discount maid service, I called the company and secured a special rate for two hours cleaning.  When the women arrived, I specifically requested that they first clean the bathroom and kitchen and once those were done there, move on to other priorities.

After they had begun their work, I returned to mine, researching a paper for my graduate program.  When I needed a certain book, I went to my bedroom to fetch it, finding one of the women languidly dusting the windowsill there.  I tried to explain to her that I wasn’t interested in having the windowsill cleaned, but wanted her to first clean the bathroom (her colleague was hard at work in the kitchen).  Unable to speak English, she nodded her head, then returned to further polish the sparkling windowsill.

To get her to work on the bathroom, I had to ask her colleague (who spoke English as well as Spanish) to instruct he co-worker on my priorities.  Now, the first woman may well have been the world’s best windowsill washer (I grant she did do a good job), but I didn’t hire her to clean my windowsills, but to first tackle the bathroom and kitchen.

So, it is right now with Barack Obama.  He may want to focus on health care and cap and trade, but the American people have other priorities.  They first want him to address the job situation and federal spending, then to move on to other issues, much as I wanted my windows cleaned, but only after the kitchen and bathroom were spotless.

No wonder Scott Rasmussen’s “latest telephone poll found that 71 percent of those surveyed are at least somewhat angry at the current policies being pursued in Washington, with fully 46 percent ‘Very Angry.’”  Obama’s priorities are not America’s priorities.

As Mark Tapscott points out in commenting on the poll:

Three-fourths of the public looks at the nation’s capital and sees special interests feasting with their friends in government at the public till, according to Rasmussen. Nearly as many, 68 percent, believe Big Government and Big Business work together against the public interest.

Obama didn’t bring change; he just brought us more of the same.  And as his poll numbers continue to sink, he, like that expert windowsill washer, doesn’t seem understand the complaints on those who hired him.

Alas that we booked him for a term of service considerably longer than two hours.

If you’re going to be in the Los Angeles area this coming weekend, please join us for our holiday party. E-mail me for details.

Last night’s speech may well have been the first Barack Obama delivered which put forward a policy better than the delivery of the speech itself.  Generally, his words soar above the standard liberal policies he proposes.  Last night, his words, save for a few passages, obscured the policy he was poromoting.

The speaker seemed cold, not connecting with his audience.  The delivery was stale, if rushed at times.  The rhetoric mundane, the organization lacking.  The speech had no theme and had, as Jim Geraghty put it, a kind of “kitchen sink quality to” it.  The President put in far more than was necessary to make his point.

At times, it seemed he was going through the motions, speaking without conviction, saying what he had to say.  He was merely dispensing with an obligation to which he needed to attend before moving out, what were to him, more pressing matters.  He wanted to get this over with.

I’m sorry, Mr. President, this is the most pressing matter.  And on the whole, you have acquitted yourself well, though belatedly, in the choice you have made.  In the past, your rhetoric made up for an absence of agenda.  Last night, you might have done better to make absent the rhetoric and let your aides provide the details of the agenda.

In large part, because of his absence of conviction, I won’t be increasing the count of cheers I have already offered you.  For my part, I grant you that one cheer for making a decent choice and withhold a further cheer because of the way you justified it last night.  Yet another might have been forthcoming had you not offered a timetable for the operation and provide instead an assurance of victory.

Indeed, that word, “victory” was strangely absent from the speech.  Yet, talk of himself was omnipresent as well as attacks on his predecessor’s failings.  Seems some habits are hard to break.  Did that predecessor ever, in a prepared speech, brag about the letters he signed to the families of soldiers who gave their all for our country?

Victor Davis Hanson who, like Charles Krauthammer, found the speech “strange,” wondered that the President deplored “partisanship while serially trashing Bush at each new talking point.”   (more…)

Inhofe Asks Boxer to Investigate Possible Scientific ‘Conspiracy’ in ‘Climategate’:

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, is calling on Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to conduct hearings on a possible conspiracy between some of the world’s most prominent climatologists to, among other things, manipulate data on so-called global warming.