Friday, October 31, 2008

Election 2008: What to Expect at the Polls - washingtonpost.com

"Director Doug Chapin, editor Dan Seligson and research director Sean Greene of the Pew Center for the States's Electionline.org will be online Friday, Oct. 31 at 2 p.m. ET to answer all your questions about voting, polling place etiquette and rules in 2008, and other questions you might have about the election."

The session is over but the transcript is there. Best advice, bring a book or an iPod. Make sure you have a good ID and keep your political buttons and clothing under cover while you're at the polling place. And dress warm, you may be there for a while. Oh yeah, if you're challenged there's a phone number you can call. It's 1-800-OUR-VOTE - 1-800-687-8683. Bring that with you too and don't walk away without voting. If you're registered you have a RIGHT to vote. Use it!!!




Election 2008: What to Expect at the Polls - washingtonpost.com

Saturday, October 25, 2008

The Boy In The Bubbles - Forbes.com

The Boy In The Bubbles - Forbes.com: "Why do I, why do we, never learn? I could get philosophical about hubris and the lust for immortality. Perhaps by slipping history's bounds we are reaching for the stars, even spitting in the eye of Death itself. Perhaps, as some enemy of bubbles put it, 'Man wants the world to be so perfect that he will not have to be good.'"

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Palin In 2012??????????

Rachel Maddow is wondering if Sarah Palin may be drifting away from John McCain with an eye towards 2012. I don't see that happening. Intellectual conservatives don't respect her and I doubt they will want anything to do with her in the future.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Sarah Palin: Moose Huntin' Mom Dressed To Kill

"Sarah Palin, small-town hockey mom and everywoman? More like Sarah Palin, pampered princess. Jeanne Cummings at Politico reports that the RNC’s monthly financial disclosure reports reveal that the Republican National Committee has spent tens of thousands of dollars on the vice presidential candidate's wardrobe and accessories since she was nominated, including $150,000 in September alone."

Take the money and gun, eh Sarah?

Sarah Palin's $150,000 Wardrobe Malfunction? | All The Rage | Los Angeles Times

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist - The Real Plumbers of Ohio - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - The Real Plumbers of Ohio - NYTimes.com:

"I don’t want to suggest that everyone would be better off under the Obama tax plan. Joe the plumber would almost certainly be better off, but Richie the hedge fund manager would take a serious hit."

Monday, October 20, 2008

Colin Powell Speaks Out Against Islamophobia

"I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say, and it is permitted to be said. Such things as 'Well you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.' Well the correct answer is 'He is not a Muslim, he's a Christian, he's always been a Christian.' But the really right answer is 'What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?' The answer is 'No. That's not America.' Is there something wrong with some 7-year old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she can be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion he's a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

"I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo-essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in you can see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have a Star of David. It had a crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Karim Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American, he was born in New Jersey, he was 14 at the time of 9/11 and he waited until he can go serve his counrty and he gave his life."

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

OK, now OpenOffice is definitely good enough | Education IT | ZDNet.com

OK, now OpenOffice is definitely good enough | Education IT | ZDNet.com: "There is a reason that the OpenOffice.org 3.0 servers are struggling to keep up with demand. OO.org 3.0 really is a serious upgrade over version 2.4 and makes NeoOffice irrelevant for Mac OS X users (previously, OpenOffice only worked within X11; While NeoOffice did a great job porting OO.org to native OS X, OO.org 3.0 works out of the box in OS X as a native Aqua application)."

Red Corduroy Pants

According to the writeup they have snob appeal.

"He gathers credibility with a dignified accent, like a Brit working on US soil. Instead of West End/Oxbridge London, he spews an impeccably hewn Kentucky gentry meets Boston Brahmin with a glaze of Vanderbilt Sigma Nu.

Who says people don't have money to burn?

Bonobos Store�::�trousers�::�capertons

Sarah Palin Lies and Ducks the Tough Issues

Questions abound about this woman who makes vicious attacks on her pollitical opponents but seems afraid to talk to anyone but her supporters. Who is Sarah Palin with her ties to seccessionists, lack of ethics, and her fear of confrontation? Sarah Palin: America can't afford a sleazy coward in the White House.

Commentary: Time for Palin to answer tough questions - CNN.com

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Silver Line Tunnel: Next Big Dig? - Boston News Story - WCVB Boston

They're calling for one or two billion. I want to predict six billion right now. And four or five years overdue.

Silver Line Tunnel: Next Big Dig? - Boston News Story - WCVB Boston:

"'We're doing everything we can to stabilize this in terms of best financial planning,' Brennan said."

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Haider Death Could Strengthen Austrian Fascists

BBC NEWS | Europe | Haider death stuns friends and foes:

"Some analysts now believe that with the death of Mr Haider, there may be attempts to reunite the two parties of the far right in Austria - a move that could considerable strengthen their political power."

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

AIG execs' retreat after bailout angers lawmakers - Yahoo! News

AIG execs' retreat after bailout angers lawmakers - Yahoo! News

Three former AIG executives were summoned to appear before the hearing. One of them, Maurice "Hank" Greenberg — who ran AIG for 38 years until 2005 — canceled his appearance citing illness but submitted prepared testimony. In it, he blamed the company's financial woes on his successors, former CEOs Martin Sullivan and Robert Willumstad.

"When I left AIG, the company operated in 130 countries and employed approximately 92,000 people," Greenberg said. "Today, the company we built up over almost four decades has been virtually destroyed."

Sullivan and Willumstad, in turn, cast much of the blame on accounting rules that forced AIG to take tens of billions of dollars in losses stemming from exposure to toxic mortgage-related securities.

Lawmakers also upbraided Sullivan, who ran the firm from 2005 until June of this year, for urging AIG's board of directors to waive pay guidelines to win a $5 million bonus for 2007 — even as the company lost $5 billion in the 4th quarter of that year. Sullivan countered that he was mainly concerned with helping other senior executives.

Sullivan also came under fire for reassuring shareholders about the health of the company last December, just days after its auditor, Pricewaterhouse Cooper, warned of him that AIG was displaying "material weakness" in its huge exposure to potential losses from insuring mortgage-related securities.

Obama Smear Artist Corsi Deported From Kenya

Jerome Corsi of Swift Boat fame and more recently author of an anti Obama screed was deported from Kenya just about as soon as he arrived. The government said he failed to obtain a temporary work permit and maybe that's technically true.

American anti-Obama author arrested before Nairobi book launch | World news | The Guardian

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Smoot Lives!!

Who knew? I knew the Smoot story but I thought it dated back to the early 1900's. Not so, 1958 was the the year MIT fraternity members used their 'brother' to measure the Mass. Ave. bridge and in the process they established a new unit of measurement. They did it by laying him end to end, so to speak. It's even available in the Google calculator. Dorothy Parker comments. "If all the young ladies who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, no one would be the least surprised."

Ceremony honors Smoot, the man who became a measurement - Local News Updates - The Boston Globe