innauguration nonsense

I've got a question about inaugural parties - I was reading the off topic posts at fertility friend.com, the place where I chart my fertility, and there was a thread debating whether Bush should have a big innauguration party.

Some weird facts have been flying around and I'd like to know if any of you know if any of them have factual basis.

The first is a contradiction about who is funding the party - the Bush supporters say that private corporations are funding the party (which makes me nervous), and the Bush bashers say that the administration is making the city of DC foot the bill (which makes me very sad, especially since DC is a very blue city). Anybody know the real story on this?

Then there is someone who said that the only wartime president who has had an inauguration party was Richard Nixon.

This was countered by someone mentioning that FDR had a huge inauguration party during the great depression, which isn't an actual counter to the war-time no-party rule, but I'm interested to hear about it anyway.

Any one have any thoughts or info?

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I've definitely been playing too much Zuma lately - I just got through the entire game without loosing a life. I'm contemplating sending a gloating email to my father who got me hooked on the game, but that's probably not good form.

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I just had the funniest cab driver ever. As I was riding along in his cab, making small talk with him in Uzbek, he looks at me and says - "in my opinion you are an American." I say that yes, I'm an American, and he goes on to say that "Americans are very interested in Uzbekistan and they speak Uzbek very well."

I really have to wonder who else he's run into or talked to or if he saw one of us give an interview on TV or what.

The ride home was lovely too - the snowy mountains outside Tashkent are visible today and it is breathtaking.