I"m sorry but I find it amusing that Putin doesn't want to come off like Bush

From The Times

November 14, 2008

Vladimir Putin 'wanted to hang Georgian President Saakashvili by the balls'

(Dmitry Astahov/AFP/Getty Images)

Vladimir Putin reportedly wanted to hang President Saakashvili "like the Americans hanged Saddam"

Charles Bremner in Paris

Nicolas Sarkozy saved the President of Georgia from being hanged “by the balls” — a threat made last summer by Vladimir Putin, according to an account that emerged yesterday from the Élysée Palace.

The Russian Prime Minister had revealed his plans for disposing of Mr Saakashvili when Mr Sarkozy was in Moscow in August to broker a ceasefire in Georgia.

Jean-David Levitte, Mr Sarkozy’s chief diplomatic adviser, reported the exchange in a news magazine before an EU-Russia summit today. The meeting will be chaired by the French leader and President Medvedev.

With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr Sarkozy told Mr Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. According to Mr Levitte, the Russian seemed unconcerned by international reaction. “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls,” Mr Putin declared.

Mr Sarkozy thought he had misheard. “Hang him?” — he asked. “Why not?” Mr Putin replied. “The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.”

Mr Sarkozy, using the familiar tu, tried to reason with him: “Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?” Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: “Ah — you have scored a point there.”

Mr Saakashvili, who was in Paris to meet Mr Sarkozy yesterday, laughed nervously when a French radio station read him the exchange. “I knew about this scene, but not all the details. It’s funny, all the same,” he said.

Mr Putin’s remarks confirmed that he was calling the shots in Moscow and not Mr Medvedev, who was Mr Sarkozy’s official host at the Kremlin meeting. The language was in keeping with Mr Putin’s fondness for coarse imagery: in 1999 he vowed to chase down Chechen separatists wherever they were — “we will rub them out in their s***houses,” he said.

In Brussels in 2002 he threatened a French journalist with circumcision — remarks that the news conference interpreter failed to translate. “I will recommend that they carry out the operation in such a way that nothing grows back,” he added.

Mr Sarkozy’s team leaked their exchange to bolster their claim that the French President’s intervention saved Georgia — or at least its leader — from further torment. They want to counter charges that he ceded too much in Europe’s name by accepting the Russian annexation of the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Mr Saakashvili denounced Mr Sarkozy for that, saying Europe’s acquiescence over Georgia was identical to its appeasement of Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1938 after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. “I never imagined that I would be saying such things but unfortunately those are the facts,” he said.

Mr Sarkozy, who is under fire for his cosy relations with the two Russian leaders, hit back with sarcasm and an attack on Mr Bush for his supposed impotence towards Russia. Mr Bush had telephoned him and urged him repeatedly not to fly to Moscow to negotiate a ceasefire, he said. “When someone had to leave for Moscow or Tbilisi, who defended human rights?” Mr Sarkozy asked.

“Was it the President of the United States who said, ‘this is unacceptable’? Or was it France which kept up the dialogue [with Russia]? . . . We were in Moscow and, as if by chance, the ceasefire was announced.” He was speaking after receiving an annual Political Courage Prize from a French review.

Smoke Weed, it's safer

Prescription Drugs Kill 300 Percent More Americans Than Illegal Drugs

Monday 10 November 2008

by: David Gutierrez, Natural News

A report by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission has concluded that prescription drugs have outstripped illegal drugs as a cause of death.

An analysis of 168,900 autopsies conducted in Florida in 2007 found that three times as many people were killed by legal drugs as by cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines put together. According to state law enforcement officials, this is a sign of a burgeoning prescription drug abuse problem.

"The abuse has reached epidemic proportions," said Lisa McElhaney, a sergeant in the pharmaceutical drug diversion unit of the Broward County Sheriff's Office. "It's just explosive."

In 2007, cocaine was responsible for 843 deaths, heroin for 121, methamphetamines for 25 and marijuana for zero, for a total of 989 deaths. In contrast, 2,328 people were killed by opioid painkillers, including Vicodin and Oxycontin, and 743 were killed by drugs containing benzodiazepine, including the depressants Valium and Xanax.

Alcohol directly caused 466 deaths, but was found in the bodies of 4,179 cadavers in all.

While the number of dead bodies containing heroin jumped 14 percent from the prior year, to a total of 110, the number of deaths influenced by the painkiller oxycodone increased by 36 percent, to a total of 1,253.

Across the country, prescription drugs have become an increasingly popular alternative to the more difficult to acquire illegal drugs. Even as illegal drug use among teenagers have fallen, prescription drug abuse has increased. For example, while 4 percent of U.S. 12th graders were using Oxycontin in 2002, by 2005 that number had increased to 5.5 percent.

It's not hard for teens to come by prescription drugs, according to Sgt. Tracy Busby, supervisor of the Calaveras County, Calif., Sheriff's Office narcotics unit.

"You go to every medicine cabinet in the county, and I bet you're going to find some sort of prescription medicine in 95 percent of them," he said.

Adults can acquire prescriptions by faking injuries, or by visiting multiple doctors and pharmacies for the same health complaint. Some people get more drugs than they expect to need, then sell the extras.

"You have health care providers involved, you have doctor shoppers, and then there are crimes like robbing drug shipments," said Jeff Beasley of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. "There is a multitude of ways to get these drugs, and that's what makes things complicated."

And while some people may believe that the medicines' legality makes them less dangerous than illegal drugs, Tuolumne County, Calif., Sheriff's Office Deputy Dan Crow warns that this is not the case. Because everybody reacts differently to foreign chemicals, there is no way of predicting the exact response anyone will have to a given dosage. That is why prescription drugs are supposed to be taken under a doctor's supervision.

"All this stuff is poison," Crow said. "Your body will fight all of this stuff." Tuolumne County Health Officer Todd Stolp agreed. A prescription drug taken recreationally is "much like a firearm in the hands of someone who's not trained to use them," he said.

While anyone taking a prescription medicine runs a risk of negative effects, the drugs are even more dangerous when abused. For example, many painkillers are designed to have a delayed effect that fades out over time. This can lead recreational users to take more drugs before the old ones are out of their system, placing them at risk of an overdose. Likewise, the common practice of grinding pills up causes a large dose of drugs to hit the body all at once, with potentially dangerous consequences.

"A medication that was meant to be distributed over 24 hours has immediate effect," Stolp said.

Even more dangerous is the trend of mixing drugs with alcohol, which, like most popularly abused drugs, is a depressant.

"In the case of alcohol and drugs, one plus one equals more than two," said Tuolumne County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Lt. Dan Bressler.

Florida pays careful attention to drug-related deaths, and as such has significantly better data on the problem than any other state. But a recent study conducted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) suggests that the problem is indeed national. According to the DEA, the number of people abusing prescription drugs in the United States has jumped 80 percent in six years to seven million, or more than those abusing cocaine, Ecstasy, heroin, hallucinogens an inhalants put together.

Not surprisingly, there has been a corresponding increase in deaths. According to the Drug Abuse Warning Network, the number of emergency room visits related to painkillers has increased by 153 percent since 1995. And a 2007 report by the Justice Department National Intelligence Drug Center found that deaths related to the opioid methadone jumped from 786 in 1999 to 3,849 in 2004 - an increase of 390 percent.

Many experts attribute the trend to the increasing popularity among doctors of prescribing painkillers, combined with a leap in direct-to-consumer marketing by drug companies. For example, promotional spending on Oxycontin increased threefold between 1996 and 2001, to $30 million per year.

Sonora, Calif., pharmacist Eddie Howard reports that he's seen painkiller prescriptions jump dramatically in the last five years.

"I don't know that there is that much pain out there to demand such an increase," he said. The trend concerns Howard, and he tries to keep an eye out for patients who are coming in too frequently. But he admits that there is little he can do about the problem.

"When you have a lot of people waiting for prescriptions, it's hard to find time to play detective," he said.

Still, the situation makes Howard uncomfortable.

"It almost makes me a legalized drug dealer, and that's not a good position to be in," he said.

The Youtube Presidency

So President Elect Obama said he will post weekly videos on youtube to keep us posted on whats going on the white house. Does this guy know his audience or what?

Add another Rice to the Niners

49ers rebut Condoleezza Rice rumor

By Daniel Brown

Mercury News

Article Launched: 10/26/2008 07:52:47 PM PDT
A

nother Rice in San Francisco?

The NFL Network reported Sunday morning that an unnamed high-ranking 49ers official is willing to explore the idea of hiring Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as team president.

"If she's interested in talking to us, I'm interested in talking to her,'' the official told Adam Schefter of the NFL Network's "GameDay Morning."

The report added that Rice has told friends as recently as last week that she would love to become president of an NFL team and is planning to return to California in January.

49ers officials dismissed the topic before kickoff Sunday. Team spokesman Aaron Salkin said: "We don't respond to rumors."

He went on to say, "We have our office structure in place." He pointed out that Chief Operating Officer Andy Dolich handles the business side while General Manager Scot McCloughan handles the football side.

Also on the NFL Network, ousted 49ers coach Mike Nolan gave his first national television interview. Nolan said last week marked the first time he reflected on the 2005 draft in which the team selected quarterback Alex Smith over quarterback Aaron Rodgers and receiver Braylon Edwards.

"We made the decision based on the information that we had at that time,'' Nolan said. "It's been unfortunate in Alex's case because he's been hurt for two of his four seasons in the NFL.

"He did play a lot early, but we never seemed to get over the hump. He's had

outstanding coaches, several different (offensive) coordinators, which you could look at as a negative, but when you've had coordinators such as Mike McCarthy, Norv Turner and Mike Martz, you've had some outstanding coaches and that should only bode well for you and make you a better player."

Nolan, who finished his 49ers career with an 18-37 record, said he would love to coach in the NFL again. "Very much so, yes,'' he said.

In the only starting lineup change in Mike Singletary's coaching debut, David Baas started at left guard in place of Adam Snyder. Baas' previous 13 career starts came at right guard.

The 49ers played mostly a 3-4 defense, allowing linebacker Manny Lawson his most significant playing time of the season. Lawson had a team-high nine tackles, including a sack and a quarterback hurry.

"It felt good to play, but it kind of negates the feeling if you don't win,'' he said.

The 49ers announced plans to honor new Hall of Famer Fred Dean during halftime of the New York Jets game Dec. 7 at Candlestick Park. Dean, the pass-rushing defensive end, played on 49ers championship teams in Super Bowls XVI and XIX.

On Josh Wilson's 75-yard interception return for a touchdown, he had to hold off former Maryland teammate Vernon Davis. The 49ers tight end raced down the field and just missed making a touchdown-saving tackle.

"We used to have a lot of foot races,'' Wilson said of Davis. "He didn't catch me. He had a good angle, and he just touched me."

The initial word was that none of the four injured players who left the game will miss more time: return man Allen Rossum (hamstring), tackle Barry Sims (ankle), tight end Delanie Walker (elbow), receiver Arnaz Battle (foot).

Jason Hill recorded his first NFL touchdown a 2-yard catch from Shaun Hill in the fourth quarter.

The 49ers have given up 230 points in eight games. Singletary's 1985 Bears team gave up 208 — including three playoff games.

Fullback David Kirtman made his debut on special teams after joining the team recently from the San Diego practice squad.

From San Jose Mercury News

oh wow... no seriously FUCK Sarah Pailn

I came across this when reading about rape in the military (who also won't pay for rape kits)
I wouldn't normally wish this kinda thing on someone, but if Sarah Palin ever goes broke and gets attacked by a sexually repressed old ass republican.... make her pay for her own shit.

From Jessica Yellin
CNN

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNN) -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's hometown required women to pay for their own rape examinations while she was mayor, a practice her police chief fought to keep as late as 2000.

A former Alaskan lawmaker says it seems unlikely that Gov. Sarah Palin was unaware of Wasilla's policy.

Former state Rep. Eric Croft, a Democrat, sponsored a state law requiring cities to provide the examinations free of charge to victims. He said the only ongoing resistance he met was from Wasilla, where Palin was mayor from 1996 to 2002.

"It was one of those things everyone could agree on except Wasilla," Croft told CNN. "We couldn't convince the chief of police to stop charging them."

Alaska's Legislature in 2000 banned the practice of charging women for rape exam kits -- which experts said could cost up to $1,000.

Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, often talks about her experience running Wasilla, population approximately 7,000, and that has prompted close scrutiny of her record there. Wasilla's practice of charging victims for their rape exams while she was mayor has gotten wide circulation on the Internet and in the mainstream media. Watch CNN's Jessica Yellin check the facts in Wasilla »

Some supporters of Palin say they believe she had no knowledge of the practice. But critics call it "outrageous" and question Palin's commitment to helping women who are the victims of violence.

For years, Alaska has had the worst record of any state in rape and in murder of women by men. The rape rate in Alaska is 2.5 times the national average.

Interviews and a review of records turned up no evidence that Palin knew that rape victims were being charged in her town. But Croft, the former state representative who sponsored the law changing the practice, says it seems unlikely Palin was not aware of the issue.

"I find it hard to believe that for six months a small town, a police chief, would lead the fight against a statewide piece of legislation receiving unanimous support and the mayor not know about it," Croft said.

During the time Palin was mayor of Wasilla, her city was not the only one in Alaska charging rape victims. Experts testified before the Legislature that in a handful of small cities across Alaska, law enforcement agencies were charging victims or their insurance "more than sporadically."

One woman who wrote in support of the legislation says she was charged for her rape exam by a police department in the city of Juneau, which is hundreds of miles from Wasilla.

But Wasilla stood out. Tara Henry, a forensic nurse who has been treating rape victims across Alaska for the last 12 years, told CNN that opposition to Croft's bill from Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon was memorable.

"Several municipal law enforcement agencies in the state did have trouble budgeting and paying for the evidence collection for sexual assault victims," Henry said. "What I recall is that the chief of police in the Wasilla police department seemed to be the most vocal about how it was going to affect their budget."

Croft has a similar memory. He said victims' advocates suggested he introduce legislation as a way to shame cities into changing their practice, and Wasilla resisted.

"I remember they had continued opposition," Croft said. "It was eight years ago now, but they were sort of unrepentant that they thought the taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for that."

He does not recall discussing the issue with then-Mayor Palin.

The bill, HB270, was before the legislature for six months. In testimony, one expert called the practice of billing the victim "incomprehensible." Others compared it to "dust[ing] for fingerprints" after a burglary, only "the victim's body is the crime scene."

During a rape exam, the victim removes her clothing and a medical professional gathers DNA evidence from her body. There is also a medical component to assess her injuries. That component has led some law enforcement agencies to balk at paying.

Henry, the forensic nurse, said charging victims "retraumatizes them."

"Asking them to pay for something law enforcement needs in order to investigate their case, it's almost like blaming them for getting sexually assaulted," she said.

The Alaska Legislature agreed. The bill passed unanimously with the support of the Alaska Department of Public Safety, the Alaska Peace Officers Association and more than two dozen co-sponsors.

After it became law, Wasilla's police chief told the local paper, The Frontiersman, that it would cost the city $5,000 to $14,000 a year -- money that he'd have to find.

"In the past, we've charged the cost of the exams to the victim's insurance company when possible," Fannon was quoted as saying. "I just don't want to see any more burden on the taxpayer."

He suggested the criminals should pay as restitution if and when they're convicted. Repeated attempts to reach Fannon for comment were unsuccessful.

Judy Patrick, who was Palin's deputy mayor and friend, blames the state.

"The bigger picture of what was going on at the time was that the state was trying to cut their own budget, and one of the things that they were doing was passing on costs to cities, and that was one of the many things that they were passing on, the cost to the city," said Patrick, who recalls enormous pressure to keep the city's budget down.

But the state was never responsible for paying the costs of local investigations. Patrick was also a member of Wasilla City Council, and she doesn't recall the issue coming before council members, nor does she remember discussing the issue with Palin.

She does recall Palin going through the budget in detail. She said Palin would review each department's budget line by line and send it back to department heads with her changes.

"Sarah is a fiscal conservative, and so she had seen that the city was heading in a direction of bigger projects, costing taxpayers more money, and she was determined to change that," Patrick said.

Before Palin came to City Hall, the Wasilla Police Department paid for rape kits out of a fund for miscellaneous costs, according to the police chief who preceded Fannon and was fired by Palin. That budget line was cut by more than half during Palin's tenure, but it did not specifically mention rape exams.

In a statement, Jill Hazelbaker, communications director for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, said that "to imply that Gov. Palin is or has ever been an advocate of charging victims for evidence gathering kits is an utter distortion of reality."

"As her record shows, Gov. Palin is committed to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice," Hazelbaker said. "She does not, nor has she ever believed that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence gathering test."

Those who fought the policy are unconvinced.

"It's incomprehensible to me that this could be a rogue police chief and not a policy decision. It lasted too long and it was too high-profile," Croft said.

The rape kit charges have become an issue among Palin critics who say as governor she has not done enough to combat Alaska's epidemic problem of violence against women. They point to a small funding increase for domestic violence shelters at a time when Alaska has a multibillion-dollar budget surplus. Victims' advocates say that services are lacking and that Palin cut funding for a number of programs that treat female victims of violence.

In the past week, Alaska's challenges with sexual assault have been in the spotlight again -- in connection with an ongoing inquiry into whether Palin abused her power by firing the head of Alaska's Department of Public Safety. Palin's office released e-mails showing that one area of disagreement between her and Department of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan was his lobbying in Washington for $30 million to fund a new program of sexual assault response teams.

The McCain-Palin campaign insists that fighting domestic violence and sexual assault are priorities for Palin. And they say she has been looking at other programs to support. As governor, Palin approved a funding increase for domestic violence shelters -- $266,200 over two years. And she reauthorized a Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.

Sex Slave "art" in the UK

amazing greenary

Bret, you've got it goin on

Flight of the Concords



i may have played this already... but it's my favorite song of theirs

Mystery Man - Gnarls Barkley (NEW)

Directed by Walter Robot
Art by Bill Barminski

Golden Age - TV On The Radio (NEW)

From the Dear Science album

new charlie the unicorn

It's always a White woman....

Sarah Palin blamed by the US Secret Service over death threats against Barack Obama

Sarah Palin's attacks on Barack Obama's patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.

By Tim Shipman in Washington
Last Updated: 4:04PM GMT 08 Nov 2008

Palin's tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists Photo: Reuters

The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of "palling around with terrorists", citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.

The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling "terrorist" and "kill him" until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.

But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.

The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin's attacks.

Michelle Obama, the future First Lady, was so upset that she turned to her friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett and said: "Why would they try to make people hate us?"

The revelations, contained in a Newsweek history of the campaign, are likely to further damage Mrs Palin's credentials as a future presidential candidate. She is already a frontrunner, with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, to take on Mr Obama in four years time.

Details of the spike in threats to Mr Obama come as a report last week by security and intelligence analysts Stratfor, warned that he is a high risk target for racist gunmen. It concluded: "Two plots to assassinate Obama were broken up during the campaign season, and several more remain under investigation. We would expect federal authorities to uncover many more plots to attack the president that have been hatched by white supremacist ideologues."

Irate John McCain aides, who blame Mrs Palin for losing the election, claim Mrs Palin took it upon herself to question Mr Obama's patriotism, before the line of attack had been cleared by Mr McCain.

That claim is part of a campaign of targeted leaks designed to torpedo her ambitions, with claims that she did not know that Africawas a continent rather than a country.

The advisers have branded her a "diva" and a "whack job" and claimed that she did not know which other countries are in the North American Free Trade Area, (Canada and Mexico). They say she spent more than $150,000 on designer clothes, including $40,000 on her husband Todd and that she refused to prepare for the disastrous series of interviews with CBS's Katie Couric.

In a bid to salvage her reputation Mrs Palin came out firing in an interview with CNN, dismissing the anonymous leakers in unpresidential language as "jerks" who had taken "questions or comments I made in debate prep out of context."

She said: "I consider it cowardly. It's not true. That's cruel, it's mean-spirited, it's immature, it's unprofessional and those guys are jerks if they came away taking things out of context and then tried to spread something on national news that's not fair and not right."

She was not asked about her incendiary rhetoric against Mr Obama. But she did deny the spending spree claims, saying the clothes in question had been returned to the Republican National Committee. "Those are the RNC's clothes, they're not my clothes. I asked for anything more than maybe a diet Dr Pepper once in a while. These are false allegations."

Speaking as she returned to her native Alaska, Mrs Palin claimed to be baffled by what she claims was sexism on the national stage. "Here in Alaska that double standard isn't applied because these guys know that Alaskan women are pretty tough, on a par with the men in terms of being outdoors, working hard," she said.

"They're commercial fishermen, they're pilots, they're working up on the North slopein the oil fields. You see equality in Alaska. I think that was a bit of as surprise on the national level."

Dr. Rice is especially poud of Obama's win

I personally HIGHLY respect Dr. Rice and hope Obama appoints her to a position because no one is more qualified in foreign policy than her at the moment.

THANK YOU CALIFORNIA

It all rested on MY state.
And not 2 seconds in to the count, Cali elected the first Black President




We're ALL the Obama Posse now

Today's the Day We've All Been Waiting For

Let's make it happen.

GO OBAMA!!!!!

If Mos Def were president

(I'd be first lady)
If Mos Def Were President by GOOD Magazine

The Anticipation is Killing Me

The anticipation is killing me. Probably you too. This will be the first time a viable Black president is running for the United States Presidency. I never thought, up until at least a 2 years ago when I first heard him speak, that there would ever be an opportunity like this in America for a Black man. I figured a Black woman would be safer for the public than a Black man. So this is truely an amazing time. It's amazing watching your country get to a point where it has to deal with its internal problems. It's a situation where it seems the whole nation has been affronted with itself because of a cascade of disasters that are impossible to ignore. Hurricanes, war, entire cabinets under arrest. We're setting up for either great change or epic fail. I"ve been waiting for November 4th and it's here tomorrow.

I already voted so I won't get my sticker, but I can at least be assured that my vote counts on paper. All I can do now is wait until midnight tomorrow and see who our next president is. And whether or not I should riot. My gear is ready. You know, just in case.

epic friend fail

They're just mad cuz Black people are better at EVERYTHING

Angry racist Spaniards take out thier inferiority complex on Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton subject of racist abuse ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix
The ugly head of Spanish racism has returned to blight Lewis Hamilton's world championship challenge in Brazil.

By Kevin Garside and Simon Arron
Last Updated: 5:25PM GMT 31 Oct 2008




Thousands have targeted Hamilton on a voodoo style website, taunting him about the colour of his skin in a vile campaign that reprised the abuse he received at the start of the year in Barcelona.

More than 16,000 racist messages using terms like "nigger" and "half-breed" have been posted on a Spanish website.

It encourages visitors to leave imaginary nails for Hamilton on a computer mock-up of the Interlagos racetrack. Spanish fans of Hamilton's rival, Fernando Alonso, are believed to be behind the outrage. One, calling himself David, left a message saying: "---- you -------. Monkey."

Another, dubbed Hamilton a conguito – a type of chocolate sweet with racist overtones – and wrote: "Conguito, you are going to die."

One left a nail out near the finishing line on lap 12. Other messages read: "Half-breed, kill yourself in your car," and "I hope you run over your dad in the first pit stop, Hamilton."

Formula One's ruling body, the FIA, who launched an anti-racism campaign following the abuse that Hamilton received at the hands of fans with
blacked-out faces during the Barcelona test in February, condemned the latest attack.

A spokesman said: "Discrimination and prejudice have no place in sport and society. Everybody in our sport will join us in condemning these abusive, hateful comments."

A spokesman for Hamilton's team, McLaren, said: "McLaren was one of the earliest supporters of the FIA's 'Every Race' campaign. We echo the position of the FIA in response to this latest episode."

Hamilton was booed and racially abused as he tested a new car in Barcelona in February. England's footballers were subjected to racist chants during a friendly against Spain at Real Madrid's Bernabeu Stadium in 2004. Sections of the Spanish crowd made monkey chants when Ashley Cole, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Jermaine Jenas touched the ball.

The same year former Spanish coach Luis Aragones was fined more than £2,000 for making racist remarks about Arsenal player Thierry Henry.

From Telegraph.co.uk

Soulja Boy gets Supermanned

Last week in Atlanta, I got to interview Soulja Boy Tell Em. I found out just how young he really is. He was one of about ten rappers I interviewed in one day for my BET show, The Black Carpet. I decided it'd be fun to give all the rappers part of the Proust questionnaire. I thought it'd be a way to get beyond image and into who they really are. Most of the guys gave good, thoughtful, intelligent, sensitive answers. I asked Juelz Santana, “How would you like to die?” He said, "Loved."
Then came Soulja Boy Tell Em. I asked him, “What historical figure do you most hate?” He was stumped. I said, "Others have said Hitler, bin Laden, the slave masters..." He said, "Oh wait! Hold up! Shout out to the slave masters! Without them we'd still be in Africa."
My jaw, at this point, was on the ground."We wouldn't be here," he continued, having no idea how far in it he'd stepped, "to get this ice and tattoos."
Wow. Never mind that diamonds come from Africa. Never mind that there were many generations of pain in between leaving Africa and getting diamonds. Never mind that the long-term cataclysmic effects of subtracting about tens of millions of young, strong people from Africa over the course of a couple of centuries is a large part of the reason why Africa now appears so distasteful to you. Never mind all that, Soulja Boy. You put country first.

By thedailybeast.com via Jarrett Martineau

Rare dragon-like reptile found breeding in New Zealand for the first time in 200 years

By Daily Mail ReporterLast updated at 9:27 AM on 31st October 2008

A rare dragon-like reptile with lineage dating back to the dinosaur age has been found nesting on the New Zealand mainland for the first time in about 200 years, officials said.
Four leathery, white eggs from an indigenous tuatara, which once roused fears of extinction, were discovered today by staff at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in Wellington, conservation manager Rouen Epson said.
'The nest was uncovered by accident and is the first concrete proof we have that our tuatara are breeding,' Epson said.

Rare: Tuatara are the last descendants of a species that walked the earth with the dinosaurs 225 million years ago
'It suggests that there may be other nests in the sanctuary we don't know of.'
Tuatara, dragon-like reptiles that grow to up to 32 inches (80 centimeters), are the last descendants of a species that walked the earth with the dinosaurs 225 million years ago, zoologists say.
They have unique characteristics, such as two rows of top teeth closing over one row at the bottom.
They also have a pronounced 'third eye' on the top of their skull. This white patch of light-sensitive skin - called its parietal eye - slowly disappears as they mature.
A native species to New Zealand, tuatara were nearly extinct on the country's three main islands by the late 1700s due to the introduction of predators such as rats.

Hope: The discovery of the four rare eggs is 'concrete proof' that the tuatara are breeding and suggests there are more nests undiscovered in the sanctuary
They still live in the wild on 32 small offshore islands cleared of predators.
A population of 70 tuatara was established at the Karori Sanctuary in 2005. Another 130 were released in the sanctuary in 2007.
The sanctuary, a 620-acre (250-hectare) wilderness minutes from downtown Wellington, was established to breed native birds, insects and other creatures securely behind a predator-proof fence.
Empson said that the four eggs - the size of pingpong balls - are likely the first of a larger number because the average nest contains around ten eggs.
The eggs were immediately covered up again to avoid disturbing incubation.
If all goes well, juvenile tuatara could hatch any time between now and March, Empson said.

the GRE is such bullshit

First of all its a glorified vocab test. Which is fine, except I don't really know how this measures a person's aptitutde, and I HATE bullshit. I know that the test is a BIG bullshit meter. And when you take it you get the impression that you're getting a snow job. But that's not even my issue today...
WHY is it SO hard to retrieve any information?
First of all you have to pay $12 more dollars on a $140 test just to hear your scores. WTF.
Then, as if I kept the test date and registration number stored somewhere useful like my BlackBerry, I need that to listen in the first place. And if I don't have these things I'm SOL. But if I don't report that last test to my schools (even though I have a second pending...) they'll get mad. So I called the place where I took the test, but they don't answer. I called the GRE hotline, but it's looping about it can't talk to me cuz my SSN is NOT enough information. Why do I have to do this again? All this and i PAID for it. OMG I better find this stupid piece of paper with my scores on it. I wish I had cared a little bit more the last time I looked at it.


just venting.

IF YOU DON'T MAKE THIS AN ISSUE YOUR VOTE WON'T COUNT!

W. Virginia Gives E-Voting VP an Award While Machines Malfunction
By Kim Zetter EmailOctober 27, 2008 | 2:19:04 PMCategories: E-Voting, Election '08

Betty_ireland_2 A day after West Virginia secretary of state Betty Ireland held a press conference to address vote-switching problems with touchscreen voting machines made by Election Systems & Software, she presented an award of merit to an ES&S vice president, who had abruptly and mysteriously left the company in May after 11 years of service, according to the Charleston Gazette.

Gary Greenhalgh, as ES&S's vice president of sales, helped the company win a $17-million contract to supply machines to West Virginia in 2005 and was the company's point person for dealing with election officials until he left ES&S.

Last week, Ireland gave him a Medallion Award from the National Association of Secretaries of State at a special ceremony. The award came the same week that voters in several West Virginia counties reported that ES&S's iVotronic touchscreen machines were flipping their votes from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to Republican rival John McCain. Ireland addressed the problem by directing the 34 West Virginia counties that use the touchscreen machines to re-calibrate them each morning during early voting and on election day.

At the ceremony honoring Greenhalgh, Ireland said the Medallion Award was given to people who have "established a very distinctive record in areas including responsible citizenship, voter registration, use of technology and service to local elected officials and county government."

Ireland seemed less satisfied with Greenhalgh's record two years ago, when she filed a formal complaint against ES&S with the federal Election Assistance Commission, the body that oversees federal testing and certification of voting machines. She called for an audit of the company's contractual performance.

The complaint charged ES&S with failing to program and deliver voting machines to county officials in time for testing before that year's May primary, forcing some counties to fall back to paper ballots. ES&S failed to provide accessible voting machines to counties by the time early voting in the primary began, despite promises that the machines would be supplied months earlier. That delay put the state in violation of a federal law that required every voting precinct in the country to have at least one accessible voting machine for disabled voters by January 1, 2006 elections.

"I am more than upset that our county clerks and their staffs and the county commissions had to withstand stress and anxiety over the broken promises and delays ES&S put them through," Ireland said in a press release (.pdf) at the time. "The county election officials are to be commended for their valor and hard work above and beyond the call of duty."

She also said in the statement that "ES&S was chosen to provide West Virginia's voting machines partly based on its local connection, its past service in the state, and its knowledge of West Virginia election deadlines and procedures. Unfortunately, we now feel ES&S let West Virginia down."

The "local connection" refers in part to Greenhalgh, who lives in West Virginia with his wife.

Greenhalgh has been the source of specific frustration in Kanawha County, West Virginia, where he and the company are accused of repeatedly missing deadlines and making mistakes on voting materials.

Threat Level obtained a series of letters and faxes (.pdf) the county's commissioners sent to Greenhalgh in 2006 complaining about repeated delays, broken promises and poor equipment. In one fax to Greenhalgh, Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper complained that a printer ES&S provided for the county's central tabulation system must have come from a "Cracker Jacks" box.

The county uses optical-scan machines made by ES&S as well as its AutoMark system for disabled voters. The AutoMark provides a touchscreen, Braille keyboard and audio feed for voters and produces a paper ballot that is scanned through an optical reader.

Greenhalgh is a former Federal Election Commission official and was largely responsible for creating the voting system standards that were developed in the 1980s that were used for testing and certifying Diebold and ES&S voting systems, as well as others, for two decades.

In the late 1970's, long before he went to work for ES&S, Greenhalgh helped organize election officials to lobby Congress to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act to establish the standards. He personally pushed the amendment into conference in the Senate and then hired the person who wrote the standards, Bob Naegele. He did this, ironically, to address problems that election officials were having with voting machine vendors who would sell their machines to states then fail to provide adequate customer service afterward or go out of business.

Neither Greenhalgh nor ES&S responded to a call for comment from Threat Level, but in 2004 I interviewed Greenhalgh about the voting system standards and he explained the motivation for establishing them.

"A number of us got together and said that we need to come up with baseline national standards that everyone needs to meet so that we don't have election officials victimized by these small companies that didn't have any real interest in staying in the business and making things work correctly," he said.

With regard to Greenhalgh's recent departure from ES&S, the Charleston Gazette reports that neither Greenhalgh nor ES&S would discuss the reason for his leaving the company. His wife, Jane Greenhalgh, is now project director for ES&S in West Virginia, but when the Gazette asked him whether his wife worked for ES&S, Greenhalgh replied, "I have no idea" and refused to answer any questions.

Reminiscent of the complaints against her husband, Jane Greenhalgh received her own complaint from Kanawha County this month after officials discovered that an ES&S sub-contractor had misprogrammed voting machine PCMCIA cards ahead of a state Supreme Court race. The programming error would have caused the machines to mis-record votes when a voter opted to vote a straight Republican ticket, but chose one Democratic candidate in the Supreme Court race. The state had to have the PCMCIA cards re-programmed quickly to keep Democratic votes from being discarded.

In a fax (.doc) sent from Commission president Kent Carper to Jane Greenhalgh about a week before her husband received his award, Carper wrote that he continued to be "amazed at the lack of attention on the part of ES&S, not only to Kanawha County, but the entire State of West Virginia."

Carper writes that the change in leadership that occurred when Jane Greenhalgh replaced her husband as ES&S's representative in West Virginia "has not improved the lack of commitment made by ES&S to this State."

Carper told Threat Level, "When you spend the kind of tax dollars that we spent on these machines, you shouldn't have programming errors the day before early voting starts. You shouldn't have cards fail."

For his part, Gary Greenhalgh didn't completely leave the ES&S fold after he left the company in May. According to the Charleston Gazette, he now works as a regional account manager for Casto & Harris, Inc., the subcontractor that misprogrammed the PCMCIA cards in the Supreme Court race. It's not known who was responsible for calibrating the touchscreen machines that were flipping votes last week.

Casto & Harris did not respond to a call for comment.

Ireland's office did not respond to a call for comment, but the secretary of state is expected to hold a press conference Monday afternoon to address issues about the election and ES&S.

UPDATE: Greenhalgh has now responded to the message I left him this morning. He says the Charleston Gazette got it wrong and he does not work for Casto & Harris. He had been talking with the company recently about going to work for it, but decided he wanted out of the election business entirely. He's now looking to get back into the federal government and has interviewed for a congressional staff position as well as a position with the U.S. Census Bureau.

Greenhalgh also said that he and ES&S parted on amicable terms and he left the company only because he felt he'd accomplished all he wanted to after eleven years.

As for the award that Ireland gave him on behalf of the National Association of Secretaries of State, he said it was a belated award for the work he did in 1979 to convince Congress to create voting system standards.

Barack & Curtis: Manhood, Power & Respect

Friday Flora

Carl Sagan on DNA

It's this kind of stuff that made me a scientist



thanks Sagan

Napoleon Dolemite

ass on an ass

Vote for Democrats.

even Palin agrees that the Republican party isn't worth voting for... look at her scarf...

$55 from here to LA?! GIVE ME MY BULLET TRAIN!

Dude. Seriously. $55 to LA... AND it's only 2.5 hours. I probably won't even be living in CA by the time this is finished but I want it. Vote for it dammit!!!!



Fate of America's First Bullet Train Rests With California Voters
By Dave Demerjian

High-speed rail advocates in California have long dreamed of the day when bullet trains would revolutionize transportation, and they're counting on voters to pony up nearly $10 billion to bankroll what would be the nation's first true high-speed rail line.
Proponents have been pushing high-speed rail for 25 years and always fallen short. But they say a confluence of events -- rising fuel prices, gridlocked roads, jammed airports and concern about global warming -- present the best chance yet to bring bullet trains to America. "We have a perfect storm ... those four factors make a perfect case for high-speed rail," Ron Diridion of the state's High Speed Rail Authority, recently told the San Francisco Chronicle.
We've heard this before. There once was talk of a bullet train between Los Angeles and San Diego, and of a line linking L.A. and Las Vegas. Both were shot down. Will things be any different this time, and will America finally follow Europe and Japan in embracing high-speed rail? If it does, it will require changing how we live and how our cities grow.
Proposition 1A would authorize $9.95 billion in bonds to finance the first phase of an 800-mile high-speed rail line that would connect the San Francisco Bay Area with Los Angeles. Several transportation, environmental and business groups say it would offer a faster, cheaper and greener travel while easing the strain on California's notoriously backed-up highways and airports. Trains would make the 400-mile run between the two cities at about 220 mph (considerably faster than the 150 mph top speed attained by the Acela Express linking Washington, D.C. with Boston). The trip would take about 2 1/2 hours and cost riders $55, according to the High Speed Rail Authority.
The project is expected to cost $32 billion, with extensions to San Diego and Sacramento adding another $10 billion. State officials are banking on taxpayers, Uncle Sam and private investors sharing the costs equally. Construction could begin as early as 2011 and trains might be running by 2020. Advocates claim the largest public works project in state history would create as many as 160,000 construction jobs and spur 400,000 more jobs once the system is up and running.
Some opponents warn the final tab could be closer to $80 billion. Regardless of the final cost, taxpayer advocates and the California Chamber of Commerce argue California can't afford it. Repaying the $9.95 billion bond issue over 30 years would cost $19.4 billion, with annual payments hitting $647 million. That's a lot of coin for a state that already spends 6.1-percent of its budget on debt service. Opponents also say final tab might be closer to $80 billion. Even some rail advocates and transportation experts say the current proposal would never work.
"It's technologically impossible to do what the High Speed Rail Authority claims can be done, for any amount of money," Prof. James Moore, director of the transportation engineering program at the University of Southern California, told the Los Angeles Times. "When it comes to predicting the actual cost of systems like this, I just say a zillion and leave it at that."
Voters may be leery of spending any money, given the state of the economy, the collapse of Wall Street and California's budget deficit. And then there's the fact a Metrolink commuter train crashed in L.A. last month, killing 25 people. That could make the high-speed line a tough sell.
Of course, it isn't enough to simply build a high-speed rail line. As the Chronicle notes this morning, if bullet trains are going to work here like they do in Europe and Japan, California -- and, by extension, America -- must develop and live in denser cities while expanding public transportation. "It's a lifestyle change we're talking about," Noriyuki Shikata of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs says. "It affects how people lead their lives."
It remains to be seen whether people are pony up for high-speed rail, let alone make the changes that might be needed to ensure its success, but polls show the proposition passing by a slim margin.
Post updated 11:45 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. PST.
Image by California High Speed Rail Authority.

i can has internets fame!

LOLcat art show space announcedGreat news!
The first-ever LOLcat art show I am curating in tangent with Icanhascheezburger.com has a home!
The show opens on Thursday October 23rd, 2008 - 7-9:30pm - at Varnish Fine Art (77 Natoma Street, San Francisco).
For more info: www.thelolarts.com


you eated my cheezburger.

=( Dolemite died

You can probably vote EARLY and avoid any voter FRAUD

However, the information about voting early is a little difficult to find. Especially if you're not an internet adept, or if you have a terrible SOS website (Washington, blech!).
So, to help people out, I dug through the SOS websites for all of the battleground states and a few of the big blue states (where people could definitely vote early and then volunteer). Below, I have listed by state
The state's SOS website
The states policies for early/absentee voting
The dates when you can vote early
A basic "how to", with links to needed documents and voting locations.
Important notes about the information:In a lot of states there is no "early" voting, but there is absentee voting. In some of these states, you must "qualify" for absentee voting. Don't be discouraged. Volunteering on election day is a perfectly legitimate reason to vote absentee.Also, in these states, even though there is no "early voting" option, there is a quick way to vote early. You can vote absentee in person by filing out the absentee application in the polling office and then immediately voting. Good deal!
Before we get to the info, I would like to mention two quick things. First, in order to vote early, you must first be registered. Please go to voteforchange.com to make sure that your registration is correct and up-to-date. The deadline for registration is fast approaching. Please encourage your friends/acquaintances/anyone you know to do so as well. Nothing is worse that getting to your polling place and being unable to vote. Second, please encourage those same people to vote early, and possibly do some volunteering work on election day.
Californiawww.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections.htmCalifornia has early voting and mail-in voting. In California anyone can vote early.Voting Window: County dependentHow to:
You can vote early in person at any of your county voting locations. Times and dates vary (and are not posted yet in some cases) by county. You can find your specific county information here.
Anyone can apply for a mail-in ballot. Vote by mail = absentee voting. Fill out the vote by mail application found here and mail it to your local county elections office, info found here. Starting October 7th, they will begin to mail ballots to the address at which you are registered to vote. You can then mail in your ballot.
Coloradowww.elections.colorado.gov/Default.aspxColorado has early voting and mail-in voting. In Colorado anyone can vote early.Voting Window: October 20th-October 31st (in person) or now- November 3rd (vote by mail)How to:
You can vote early in person by going to any of your valid county voting locations. To find times and locations for your county, you should check your local county website found here
Anyone can apply for a mail-in ballot. Vote by mail = absentee voting. Fill out the vote by mail application. I can't link directly to the application. Go here and open the "Mail-in ballot Application" link and mail it to your local county elections office, info found here. They will mail ballots to the address at which you are registered to vote. You can then mail in your ballot.
Floridahttp://election.dos.state.fl.us/Florida has early voting and mail-in voting. In Florida anyone can vote early.Voting Window: October 20th-November 1stst (in person) or now- Nov 4th (vote by mail)How to:
You can vote early in person by going to any of your valid county voting locations. Locations and voting hours vary by county, check with your Supervisor of Elections website which can be found here
Anyone can apply for a mail-in ballot. Vote by mail = absentee voting. You must request your vote by mail application directly from you Supervisor of elections found here . A registered voter may request an absentee ballot by telephone, mail, email, fax, or in person, to be mailed to or picked by the voter. They will mail ballots to the address at which you are registered to vote. You can then mail in your ballot.
Georgiahttp://sos.georgia.gov/...Georgia has early voting and absentee voting. In Georgia anyone can vote early.Voting Window: October 27th-October 31stst (in person) or now-November 4th (absentee voting)How to:
To vote early, you must go to an advance voting office, and fill out an application. You will then be issued a ballot that must be filled out and cast while you are in the office. Locations and times are county dependent and can be found here.
Anyone can apply for an absentee ballot. You must fill out the application here . You can then either
i) Fill it out at one of your country registrar offices, information found here, and vote immediately.ii) Or fill it out and mail it in to your county here .They will mail ballots to the address at which you are registered to vote. You can then mail in your ballot.
Illinoiswww.elections.il.gov/Illinois has early voting and mail-in voting. In Illinois anyone can vote early.Voting Window: October 14th-October 30th (in person) or now- November 4th (vote by mail)How to:
You can vote early in person by going to any of the early voting centers across the state. I cannot find any information on the locations yet. You should seek information from your county websites found here
Anyone can apply for an absentee ballot. The applications can be found at your local county clerks office found here. You can then either
i) Fill it out at one of your country registrar offices and vote immediately. This can be done from September 30th – November 3rd.ii) Or fill it out and mail it in to your county clerk's office.They will mail ballots to the address at which you are registered to vote. You can then mail in your ballot. This can be done from September 30th – October 30th.
Indianahttp://www.in.gov/...Indiana has absentee in person voting and absentee mail-in voting. In Indiana anyone can vote early.Voting Window: October 6th-November 3rd (in person) or now- November 3rd (vote by mail)How to:
All registered voters in Indiana are eligible to vote absentee-in-person at the county election board office. To do so, you must fill out an application to vote absentee in person (weird, eh?) found here and bring it to your local county clerk's office (found in the same link) where you will be able to vote.
To vote absentee by mail, you must check off one of the reasons why you cannot make it to the polls. You must fill out the application found here and return it (mailed, faxed, or hand delivered) to your local county election board (found in the same link) by October 27th. They will mail ballots to the address at which you are registered to vote. You can then mail in your ballot.
Iowawww.sos.state.ia.us/index.htmIowa has absentee in person voting and absentee mail-in voting. You must qualify to vote absentee.An absentee ballot can be requested for one of these reasons:-When, during the time the polls are open on Election Day, the voter expects to be absent from the precinct in which he/she is a registered voter.-When, through illness or physical disability, the voter expects to be prevented from going to the polls and voting on Election Day.-When the voter expects to be unable to go to the polls and vote on Election DayVoting Window: September 25th - ??How To:
Any qualified voter may vote early in person by completing the absentee ballot application, found here, at his County Auditor’s Office. Office locations can be found here here.
Or you can fill out the form and mail it to the County Auditor's Office. They will mail ballots to the address at which you are registered to vote. You can then mail in your ballot.
Mainewww.maine.gov/cgi-bin/online/AbsenteeBallot/index.pl
Michiganwww.michigan.gov/sos/0,1607,7-127-1633---,00.htmThere is absentee voting in Michigan.To qualify for absentee voting you must be:-Age 60 or older-Unable to vote without assistance at the polls-Expecting to be out of town on election day (eg VOLUNTEERING!)-There are a few other optionsVoting Window: now-November 4thHow to:
You can request an absentee ballot by filling in the form found here. . This should then be mailed to your local clerk's office found here. It must arrive by October 31st. They will mail you a ballot which you must then return to vote.
Minnesotawww.sos.state.mn.us/home/index.asp?page=4Minnesota has absentee voting in-person and by mail.Voting Window: October 6th-??How to:
If you complete the absentee voter application at a state registrar's office, you can then immediately vote at the same office. Registrar locations here. They should have copies at the registrar's office, but you can still look at/print out an online copy here.
Or you can fill out the application and mail it to the state registrar's office. They will send you a ballot which you must then return to vote.
Missouriwww.sos.mo.gov/elections/s_default.asp?id=votingMissouri has absentee voting by mail and in person. In order to be able to vote absentee, one must fulfill one of various criteria such as: Absence on Election Day from the jurisdiction of the election authority in which such voter is registered to vote (due to, say, volunteering).Voting Window: In person now-Nov. 3rd. Absentee ballot requests by mail must be received by October 30th.How to:
If you complete the absentee voter application at a county clerk's office, you can then immediately vote at the same office. Information on locations here. They should have copies at the registrar's office, but you can still look at/print out an online copy here.
Or you can fill out the application and mail it to the state registrar's office. They will send you a ballot which you must then return to vote.
NOTE: Voters requesting an absentee ballot by mail who have registered by mail and have not voted in person are required to submit a copy of their personal identification unless they provided a copy with their registration application.
Montanahttp://sos.mt.gov/...In Montana absentee voting = early voting. Anyone can vote absentee.Voting Window: absentee in-person now-September 25th by-mail now-November 3rd*I am little perplexed by the voting window here, and would suggest you call the free voting hotline to confirm the dates 1-888-884-VOTE (8683)How to:
If you complete the absentee voter application at a state registrar's office, you can then immediately vote at the same office. Registrar locations here. They should have copies at the registrar's office, but you can still look at/print out an online copy here.
Or you can mail the form to your local registrar's office and they will send you a ballot.
Nevadahttp://sos.state.nv.us/...Nevada has early voting and absentee voting options available to any person.Voting Window: Early voting is October 18th to October 31st. Absentee voting now-November 4th.How to:
Voters can vote at any location in their respective county where early voting is offered. Hours and locations vary from county to county. You can check with your local county website here.
Any registered voter may request to vote by mail. To request an absentee ballot, you must complete and submit an absentee ballot request form, which may be obtained from your local county election official. You can find county information here. The absentee ballot request must be submitted by October 28th. They will then send you a ballot which you must submit by election day.
New Hampshirehttp://www.sos.nh.gov/...New Hampshire has absentee voting. You must qualify to be able to vote absentee, by (for example) being out of the county on election day volunteering.Voting Window: October 3rd -November 3rd.How to:
You must complete the absentee ballot application found here and return it to your town or city clerk, locations found here. I could not tell if there is the possibility to fill out the form at the clerk's office and vote at the same time. You might want to call to inquire.
New Jerseywww.njelections.orgNew Jersey has absentee voting in-person and by-mail for any voter.Voting Window: now-November 3rdHow to:
If you complete the absentee voter application at a county clerk's office, you can then immediately vote at the same office. County Clerk's office locations here. They should have copies at the clerks's office, but you can still look at/print out an online copy here.
Or you can mail the form to your local registrar's office and they will send you a ballot. You must submit the application by October 27th.
New Mexicohttp://www.sos.state.nm.us/...New Mexico has early voting and absentee voting available to all voters.Voting Window: Early voting October 6th-November 1st. Absentee voting now-Nov 4thHow to:
You may go to your county clerk's office to vote early County clerk locations found here here.
Early voting begins on October 18th at alternate sites. Call your county clerk for locations, contact information here . Alternate sites for early voting are open from 12:00 Noon until 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The sites are open from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. on Saturdays. They are closed on Sunday and Monday.
Any registered voter may request to vote by mail. To request an absentee ballot, you must complete and submit an absent ballotee request form, found here. Then mail your request to your county clerk. Find your county clerk here. The absentee ballot request must be submitted by October 31st. They will then send you a ballot which you must submit by election day.
New Yorkhttp://www.elections.state.ny.us/New York has absentee voting in-person and by mail. You must qualify to vote absentee in New York, by (for example) being "unavoidably absent from your county on Election Day" while volunteering.Voting Window: In person October 5th – November 3rd.How to:
If you complete the absentee voter application at your county board of elections, you can then immediately vote at the same location. Board of election locations here. They should have copies at the board of election's office, but you can still look at/print out an online copy here.
Or you can fill out the application and mail it to the county board of elections. The application must be received by October 28th. They will send you a ballot which you must then return to vote.
North Carolinahttp://www.sboe.state.nc.us/Any registered voter may vote early in person with "One Stop Early Voting." Any registered voter may vote early by mail.Voting Window: Early voting October 16th-October 31st. Absentee by mail now – November 3rd.How to:
To use this process, a citizen must (1) go to a One-Stop Voting Site in the county of residence during the One Stop Absentee Voting period, (2) fill out a voter registration application, and (3) provide proof of residency by showing the elections official an appropriate form of identification with the citizen’s current name and current address. To find your local one-stop voting location, contact your county board of elections here.
Any registered North Carolina voter can request an absentee ballot from his/her respective county board of elections prior to the last Tuesday before the election. County board of election information can be found here.
*A handwritten absentee ballot request must include:Name of voterResidential Address of voterMailing Address of voter (if different from residential address)Date of Birth of voterSignature of voter or near relative (indicate relationship with voter)I suspect there is a standard form somewhere.
Ohiohttp://www.sos.state.oh.us/...Ohio has absentee in-person and by-mail voting available to all voters.Voting Window: September 30th – November 3rd.How to:
If you complete the absentee voter application at your county board of elections, you can then immediately vote at the same location. Board of election locations here.
They should have copies at the board's office, but you can still look at/print out an online copy here.SPECIAL NOTE: Voter registration goes until October 6th. From September 30th – October 6th you can register to vote and vote early all at once!
Or you can fill out the application and mail it to the county board of elections. The application must be received by October 31st. They will send you a ballot which you must then return to vote.
Pennsylvaniahttp://www.dos.state.pa.us/...Pennsylvania has absentee by mail. You must qualify to vote absentee in Pennsylvania, by (for example) "expecting to be absent election day" while volunteering. I was not able to determine if there is absentee voting in person.Voting Window: now – November 3rd.How to:
An application for absentee ballot, found here must be filled out and returned to your County Election Offices by October 28th . County Election Office locations found here. They will send you a ballot which you must then return to vote.
Texas:
Offical Site
Early Voting in person-
Early voting in person may be easier than you think. You don't have to stand in long lines on Election Day. Registered voters may vote early at a location convenient to them within their political subdivision. Early voting in person generally starts 17 days before each election and ends 4 days before each election.
Early Voting by mail-
You may vote early by mail if you are:
* going to be away from your county on Election Day and during early voting;* sick or disabled;* 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or* confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
Virgina:www.sbe.virginia.gov/cms/Index.htmlVirginia has in-person and by-mail absentee voting. You must qualify to vote absentee, by (for example) "being absent from the county or city" due to volunteering.Voting Window: September 20th-November 1stHow to:
If you complete the absentee voter application at a state registrar's office, you can then immediately vote at the same office. Registrar locations here.
They should have copies at the registrar's office, but you can still look at/print out an online copy here.
Or you can fill out the form and mail it to your local registrar's office. They will then mail you a ballot.
Washingtonhttp://www.secstate.wa.gov/...In Washington any registered voter may vote early by mail.Voting Window: October 15th to November 4thHow to:
An absentee ballot may be requested from the voter's County Auditor's Office by phone, mail, fax, electronically, or in person. Absentee ballots are available 20 days before each election. Contact information for each County Auditor's Office is available here. Absentee ballots must be postmarked or delivered to the county election officer on or before Election Day
Wisconsinhttp://elections.state.wi.us/Wisconsin has in-person and by-mail absentee voting. Any registered voter may request an absentee ballot.Voting window: now-November 3rd.How to:
If you complete the absentee voter application at your municipal clerk's office, you can then immediately vote at the same office. Clerk's office locations here.
They should have copies at the clerk's office, but you can still look at/print out an online copy here.
Or you can fill out the form and mail it to your local registrar's office. The request must be received by October 30th. They will then mail you a ballot.



***vote early, vote often.

oh i'm pretty sure i CAN get you to stfu... heh

flavor tripping hipsters!

being that I'm half hipster, I wanna go to the next one.

cuz only on sesame street

James Earl Jones


Richard Pryor

stopping to see the plants

okra
cannibus sativa
bolinas
bamboo
red maple

obama being awesome (ly funny)

Neal Hefti, Jazz Musician and Composer of the Batman Theme, Dies

by Jon Azpiri | October 15, 2008 at 09:39 am

Musician Neal Hefti died in Los Angeles at the age of 85. An accomplished trumpet player and composer, Hefti is best-known for having written the theme song to the hit 1960s TV series "Batman".

The catchy song was a Top 40 hit and won a Grammy Award in 1966 for best instrumental theme. Although the theme featured a simple chord progression and the lyrics contained just one word, Hefti struggled writing the song.

It was, Hefti later said, the hardest piece of music he ever wrote.

"I tore up a lot of paper," he told Jon Burlingame, author of "TV's Biggest Hits," a 1996 book on television themes. "It did not come easy to me. . . . I just sweated over that thing, more so than any other single piece of music I ever wrote. I was never satisfied with it."

"Batman," he said, "was not a comedy. This was about unreal people. Batman and Robin were both very, very serious. The bad guys would be chasing them, and they would come to a stop at a red light, you know. They wouldn't break the law even to save their own lives. So there was a grimness and a self-righteousness about all this."

Hefti said it took him "the better part of a month" to come up with the theme.

"I was almost going to call them and say, I can't do it," he said. "But I never walk out on projects, so I sort of forced myself to finish."

Hefti's "musical solution to a combined dramatic and comedic problem," Burlingame wrote in his book, "was perfect: bass guitar, low brass and percussion to create a driving rhythm, while an eight-voice chorus sings 'Batman!' in harmony with the trumpets. It was part serious, part silly: just like the series."
Source: latimes.com

In addition, Hefti composed music for films such as "Harlow" (which featured “Girl Talk,” one of his best-known songs), "How to Murder Your Wife," "Barefoot in the Park," and “The Odd Couple,” which was later used in the 1970s TV series.

Prior to working in Hollywood, Hefti was an accomplished jazz trumpeter and arranger, having worked with the likes Woody Herman, Frank Sinatra, and Count Basie. Hefti's song "Lil' Darlin'" is considered a jazz standard, having been recorded by Basie and dozens of other jazz artists.

Poverty in Haiti Spawns Child Slavery

Russian Military building strength & ties with Venezuela

part 1


part 2

Earthquake Simulation

Although this is effin SCARY, I do like how Oakland is the center of the world.