• Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton? (Bill has agreed to disclose his foundation donors; looks like a move forward in the vetting process.)
• Secretary of the Treasury: no choice yet; the short list seems to be Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geitner, and Laura Tyson.
• Secretary of Defense: unknown
• Attorney General: Eric Holder
• Secretary of the Interior: Ken Salazar? mmmmaybe….
• Secretary of Agriculture: Tom Vilsack? Michael Pollan? (the botany of desire is a great book, btw) Charlie Stenholm?
• Secretary of Commerce: Penny Pritzker?
• Secretary of Labor: the short list still looks rather long
• Secretary of Health and Human Services: Tom Daschle
• Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: several options
• Secretary of Transportation: Jane Garvey?
• Secretary of Energy:
• Secretary of Education:
• Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Tammy Duckworth and Max Cleland appear to be in the running
• Secretary of Homeland Security: Janet Napolitano

“we may prevent a tobacco user from growing up.”

says Kathleen Dachille, director of the Center for Tobacco Regulation at the University of Maryland School of Law.

okay, so she’s not threatening to kill kids. but it was a very unfortunate phrasing. and even as a former tobacco control advocate myself, i think the PG restrictions are asinine. they’re really going to attempt to charge people holding a single cigar with a drug paraphernalia offense? give me a break.

apparently this contradicts earlier findings of the IOM, and it may have an impact on the position taken by the office of the special assistant for gulf war illnesses. then again, it might not. from the website, GulfLINK “was established in August 1995 to provide on-line access to medical, operational, and intelligence documents from the 1990-1991 Gulf War. Its purpose was and is to provide Service members, veterans, and any interested person with information on what happened during that war that might have affected the health of those who served.”

inneresting.

• one whole peeled lemon
• one dried cayenne pepper (preferably from your garden)¹
• honey to taste
• hot water, in an amount sufficient to render an imbibible consistency

liquefy all ingredients in a blender. drink the resulting concoction.

i have no idea if it works. with the exception of the cayenne, it sounds like the lemon-honey tea i used to drink when my throat was sore.
___________________

¹webMD notes that capsaicin, the “hot” chemical in peppers (including cayenne), may thin mucus and treat emphysema, but adds a few contraindications, including high blood pressure.

President-elect Barack Obama has offered the nomination of Secretary of Health and Human Services to his close ally Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the former Democratic Senate leader who was an early supporter of Mr. Obama’s run for the presidency.

this is an interesting choice - my preference would be for someone with a more practical health background (but when was the last time we had that, really?), but at least daschle’s been involved in the ongoing discussion about our nation’s health care system.

oh, and if you’ll keep it under your hat, i’ve a secret to share:

i have a fur coat. not a real one. just a shearling. and i eat lamb, so i figure it’s okay. and it’s waaaarm….

(and i write the post title with a giggle in my heart and nothing but admiration for warren.)

another hard workout at the gym this morning - after squatting more weight that i care to think about on monday, a couple dozen walking lunges this morning with an extra 25 lbs. sent my legs into muscle failure. it was a struggle to get upright after the last few. then upper-body exercises and more hanging reverse crunches (described in an earlier post). i made it into the shower, dried off, changed into work clothes (and discovered i’d forgotten to pack work shoes, so i’m stuck in reasonably professional attire and cross trainers), and staggered to the office.

i share this because right now all i want to do is curl up into a ball and go to sleep - but the odd thing is, i’m not sleepy. my muscles have been reduced to blobs of gelatin, but my brain’s still sharp (at least, as sharp as it ever is). sleep seems like a good idea, but fact of the matter is that i’d probably end up under the covers, twitching gently.

which sounds awful. but the risotto with prosciutto and truffle oil i made last night for dinner was delish. i may have to make more risotto in the days ahead. squash risotto, vegetable risotto, mmm….

the moderate voice links to and reprints a portion of the message from kathryn kolbert, president of people for the american way;

a post on dailykos goes after CNN’s sampling methodology among other things (i don’t agree with all of the assertions, but it’s worth the read);

and raymond leon roker at huffpo has even more.

now, that said, if CNN’s sample was correct as to distribution of the black vote (if not the overall percentage of the vote that was cast by black residents of california), it does beg the question as to why 70% of california’s black voters cast a ballot in favor of prop 8. andrew sullivan links to more.

and what of the mormon support? apparently the LDS church pulled out all the stops in supporting prop 8. an LA times op-ed piece looks at the mormons’ own history of non-traditional marriages, opining that “there is no religious group in our country that should be more tolerant of “nontraditional” forms of marriage than those of us whose ancestors were polygamist Mormons, who were persecuted because of their “nontraditional” marriages.”

oh well.