Those of you who don’t live in my television market should consider yourselves very lucky. These campaign ads are getting really unbearable, and it appears that the people who are bankrolling creepy Doug Hoffman have a lot of money left to spend. In 45 minutes of watching the morning news, I’ve now seen about 20 Hoffman ads – to maybe 8 for Owens. And Hoffman’s are the really nasty annoying kind, too. There’s also one still running about Dede Scozzafava. It’s one of those interesting ones, saying that Dede is the choice for “true progressives,” because she favors abortion and gay marriage. Of course, in the teeny-tiny print, you see it was sponsored by “Common Sense America,” whose board chairman happens to also be the Executive Director of the National Organization for Marriage (an anti-gay group that featured Dougie-boy on its website). It also appears that CSA paid NOM $166,000 for some unspecified reason. But then it looks like the CSA ad was actually paid for by a donor for the Club for Growth, which is another right-wing group (one that wants to privatize Social Security – ‘cuz the stock market is so great, I guess – among other things) that’s running anti-Owens ads, too. At any rate, I’ll be glad when this is all over, though if this weekend poll is accurate (or even close), things don’t look good for Owens.

Otherwise, I’m up early this morning, thanks to the fact that I’ve been unable to explain to the dogs that we set the clocks back the other night. Once they get me out of bed, go outside, and get their breakfast cookies, they seem content to sleep on the couch next to me. It’s time for my annual plea for Congress to enact what I call the “Daylight Preservation Act.”

Now, I know that some people seem to like daylight in the morning and during working hours, and for some reason prefer it to having daylight when it counts – after I get out of work. As misguided as I believe these people are, I acknowledge their right to be wrong. So, in the spirit of compromise, here’s my solution. Every morning at 2 AM, we turn the clocks back an hour (or two; I’m flexible. In fact, I’d be willing to support a plan that adjusts clocks by one hour during the spring and summer months, and by two hours in the fall and winter). This will give us extra daylight in the morning, and make the kids safe at the bus stop and whatnot. Then, at 2PM, we set the clocks ahead again. This would give us some extra daylight in the evening.

Everybody wins.

Sometimes the simple solutions are the most elegant.