Well, that's that, then. What's my reaction? Short version: not real thrilled, but hopeful that President(*) Bush II won't cause too much damage. I'm probably hoping for too much.

Gore's concession speech, while apparently good enough for Chris Matthews to get choked up over, struck me as well-written but still delivered in his fakey, self-conscious-n-times-over manner (which is one of the things that has always turned me off from Gore).

Bush's victory(*) speech was nothing special; I remember nothing ... of the content ... but was annoyed with ... the delivery. Clause ... pause clause ... pause clause. He might deliver his speeches better if he would actually be involved with the writing of them. Oh well.

Sorry about that hiatus, there. Was swamped with things to do, then I came down with something, got better, then was swamped again. Full refunds are in order, all 'round. :/

I haven't read his columns that much, but I enjoyed Jack Germond's book (Fat Man in a Middle Seat) and I always found him worth listening to on the old McLaughlin Group. He says things bluntly and well:

• Jack Germond Ends Long Run as Columnist [Washington Post]
  "I really found this campaign odious. I couldn't get up for it. The quality of the candidates and the campaign, I just found the whole thing second-rate. I didn't know how to explain to my granddaughter that I was spending my dotage writing about Al Gore and George W. Bush."

From Slate, an eye-opening examination of just how unremarkable it is in the rest of the world to have women in positions of power. We act like it's such a breakthrough to have one high-ranking woman at a time...

• Why the Fuss Over Condi Rice? by Anne Applebaum [Slate]
  ...in the past decade alone, a good two-dozen women have served as prime minsters or elected presidents around the world -- not counting monarchs -- many of them in countries that most Americans would assume to be less "progressive," or at least more male chauvinist, than the United States: They include ... Norway's Gro Harlem Brundtland, Turkey's Tansu Ciller, Poland's Hanna Suchocka, as well as leaders of Bangladesh, France, Lithuania, Latvia, Canada, ...

Via Lilly, a well-written, oft-told tale about a dot-com's organizational cluelessness and some people who could have benefited from a few good business courses:

• Inside the Cult of Kibu [The Standard]
  Mere moments after I was told that the CEO's management style was about "total openness," I was asked to keep information that a current editor was leaving a secret.

In the dictionary under "sucking up": naming as Person of the Year someone who has yet to do much of anything. Lyn suggested the Software Engineer (as an abstract), for fixing the Y2K bug well enough that nothing horrible happened. That would have made more sense to me too.

No time for any more right now... I'll be taking a break until the 27th or so, then I should be back with a vengeance. No, really.