Your favorite worst nightmare.

Today was a strange day for me. After not seeing any of my co-workers in the 2+ months since I have been laid off, I ran into four of them and we had lunch together. It was very enjoyable. I thought it might be awkward (not for me but for them) but it wasn't. I might have occasionally used this site as a vehicle to complain about my job but never about my co-workers. I was very fortunate and still bummed out I was let go. After a very nice lunch full of laughs I was driving home when a good friend called to say he was laid off. I now have about a half dozen friends laid off. You would think misery loves company but that is not true at all. My heart breaks everytime I get the phone call because I know how much being laid off sucks. Fortunately, the economy hits rock bottom soon and no more of my friends have their egos shattered by being told they are being let go.

1. One of President Bush's stances that always irritated me was his morality police stance on stem cell research. Being a progressive libertarian, I always shudder when the government tells me what is morally okay, and what isn't. In the mean time, other countries have had a huge head start on research into finding cures for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and many others that stem cell research might cure. And it will be their universities, and their pharmaceutical companies that will get the patents and make the money off of the research. I applaud you President Obama for overturning this ridiculous policy by your predecessor.

2. According to CNN, Fresh off public complaints about her own love life, Meghan McCain has a new target for her most recent gripes: conservative commentator Ann Coulter. In a new blog post for the Daily Beast as Ann Coulter and HBO host Bill Maher are kicking off a week-long debate tour today in New York, McCain calls President Obama “the hippest politician around” and says being a Republican is “about as edgy as Donny Osmond.” And she blasts Coulter for helping to “perpetuate negative stereotypes” about Republican women. “I straight up don’t understand this woman or her popularity,” says McCain. “I find her offensive, radical, insulting, and confusing all at the same time.” She concedes that Coulter seems to be followed by a “cult that cannot be denied,” and was a popular headliner at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, but adds that “when your competition is a teenager who has a dream about the Republican Party and Stephen Baldwin, it’s not really saying that much.” It’s not Coulter’s politics, says McCain — it’s her personality. “Maybe her popularity stems from the fact that watching her is sometimes like watching a train wreck,” she says. “…Where has our extreme thinking gotten us? President Bush will go down as one the least popular presidents in history. I constantly hear stories about Republicans who previously worked for President Bush and my father feeling ostracized, unable to get jobs in D.C. right now.” This weekend, Meghan McCain’s father, Sen. John McCain, laughed off her recent complaints over her romantic difficulties, which she blamed on his 2008 presidential bid. "I'm proud of all my children,” he said on Fox News Sunday. “Sometimes they say things that I would not do or say — that's what young people are all about."

3. I was reading the Star Tribune today and something interesting caught my eye. For the third year in a row, The Local, a downtown Minneapolis bar sells more Whiskey than at any other bar in the world!!! That is amazing. According to the article, they sell about 25 bottles worth on average every single day. The bar interestingly enough is about two blocks from my Church and I have walked by it well over 100 times but never gone in it. I think that will change this weekend. Saturday night anyone?

4. Currently listening to Arctic Monkey's "Marty Bum"