Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

I'm back from an amazing trip to South Africa. I've wanted to see animals in the wild since I was a kid. And, I did. Lots of them. We spent several days in Kruger National Park and I couldn't get enough of it. We also spent a couple days in Cape Town, which is a great city.

Coming back to the loss in the New York State Senate on marriage was a punch in the gut. Same-sex marriage is legal in South Africa. But, in my own country, which purports to offer its citizens full equality, LGBT Americans aren't equal.

I'm catching up on the news that I missed over the past two weeks. I can say for the record that I don't care about Tiger Woods or the White House party crashers. Congress, meanwhile, is busily holding hearings on the party crashers. There really are many, many other serious issues that warrant Hill hearings.

The President is holding his "Jobs and Economic Growth Forum" today at the White House. Jobs is the issue for 2010. That will be the top priority for Hill Democrats over the next few months -- and everything will be filtered through how it impacts jobs creation.

Anyway, let's get threading. And, to get the day started, some of Kruger's young baboons: