Miscellaneous Heathen : Archives for November 2008

Lonely?

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:06:00 -0600

Yeah, it has come to my attention that folks may have bookmarked new.mischeathen.com and never full shifted over to plain-old mischeathen.com.

Owing to the utterly broken nature of this tinkertoy blog platform (Typo, written in fad du jour Ruby on Rails), I've migrated to Movable Type hosted by longtime Heathen afficianado Mike. Point your browser to MiscHeathen.com for all the goodness you've missed for a week. Bonus: the new site's feeds actually work, so you can put 'em in Google Reader or whatever. The long domain (miscellaneousheathen.com) will eventually point there, too.

This is kind of neat

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:21:00 -0600

Saturday Night Live now has its first second-generation castmember in Abby Elliot, an Upright Citizens' Brigade/Groundlings alum who also happens to be Letterman fixture and 1994-95 SNL cast member Chris Elliot's daughter. Bonus: Elliot is the granddaughter of 50s comic Bob Elliot.

Prepare to have you afternoon eaten

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:14:00 -0600

Oobject.com is a fantastic site filled with picture sets of awesome things, like 8 Classic Nakamichi Cassette Decks or 23 Classic Pininfarina Designs (which includes, naturally, the Daytona -- but also something very special at #15).

Things you don't get to be surprised or upset about

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:34:00 -0600

If you actively support taking away someone's right to marry, then you absolutely do NOT get to claim some sort of moral high ground or express surprise when the community you've attacked decides they want to hit back.

The Mormons had the audacity to issue a statement with these paragraphs:

While those who disagree with our position on Proposition 8 have the right to make their feelings known, it is wrong to target the Church and its sacred places of worship for being part of the democratic process.

Once again, we call on those involved in the debate over same-sex marriage to act in a spirit of mutual respect and civility towards each other. No one on either side of the question should be vilified, harassed or subject to erroneous information.

Really? That's the angle you're taking? "Hey, it's just politics, and it's inappropriate to retaliate?" No, I don't think so. Turns out, politics works both ways, and you shouldn't be surprised that there are consequences to enacting hateful legislation.

What's really amazing to me is this story. Precis: Mormon musical theater director in California ends up having to resign -- surprise! -- because it turns out that he donated $1,000 to Prop 8. Dude, WTF? And his sister's even a lesbian. From his statement, quoted in the linked article:

“I understand that my choice of supporting Proposition 8 has been the cause of many hurt feelings, maybe even betrayal,” Mr. Eckern said. “It was not my intent. I honestly had no idea that this would be the reaction.”

Either this man is an incredibly brazen liar, or he has no empathy whatsoever. Prop 8 was not some abstract piece of legislation; prior to its passage, gay couples could legally marry. After, they cannot. To suggest that he "honestly had no idea" that the people around him affected by it would be feel angry and betrayed by his material support of the measure is simply absurd.

Also, good luck finding theater work now, Mr Eckern. Your donation was a matter of public record already, but now you've been on record in the New York Times as a homophobic bigot.

Ah, GOP, do you NEVER stop being evil?

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:45:00 -0600

Rolling Stone has much to say on the GOP's voter suppression efforts.

Suppressing the vote has long been a cornerstone of the GOP's electoral strategy. Shortly before the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, Paul Weyrich — a principal architect of today's Republican Party — scolded evangelicals who believed in democracy. "Many of our Christians have what I call the 'goo goo' syndrome — good government," said Weyrich, who co-founded Moral Majority with Jerry Falwell. "They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. . . . As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

Today, Weyrich's vision has become a national reality. Since 2003, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, at least 2.7 million new voters have had their applications to register rejected. In addition, at least 1.6 million votes were never counted in the 2004 election — and the commission's own data suggests that the real number could be twice as high. To purge registration rolls and discard ballots, partisan election officials used a wide range of pretexts, from "unreadability" to changes in a voter's signature. And this year, thanks to new provisions of the Help America Vote Act, the number of discounted votes could surge even higher.

[...]

To justify this battery of new voting impediments, Republicans cite an alleged upsurge in voting fraud. Indeed, the U.S.-attorney scandal that resulted in the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales began when the White House fired federal prosecutors who resisted political pressure to drum up nonexistent cases of voting fraud against Democrats. "They wanted some splashy pre-election indictments that would scare these alleged hordes of illegal voters away," says David Iglesias, a U.S. attorney for New Mexico who was fired in December 2006. "We took over 100 complaints and investigated for almost two years — but I didn't find one prosecutable case of voter fraud in the entire state of New Mexico."

There's a reason Iglesias couldn't find any evidence of fraud: Individual voters almost never try to cast illegal ballots. The Bush administration's main point person on "ballot protection" has been Hans von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department attorney who has advised states on how to use HAVA to erect more barriers to voting. Appointed to the Federal Election Commission by Bush, von Spakovsky has suggested that voter rolls may be stuffed with 5 million illegal aliens. In fact, studies have repeatedly shown that voter fraud is extremely rare. According to a recent analysis by Lorraine Minnite, an expert on voting crime at Barnard College, federal courts found only 24 voters guilty of fraud from 2002 to 2005, out of hundreds of millions of votes cast. "The claim of widespread voter fraud," Minnite says, "is itself a fraud."

Go read the whole thing.

Puppies!

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:45:00 -0600

No, really. It's a live streaming webcam on a litter of puppies.

Keith on Prop 8

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:57:00 -0600

"It's about the human heart."

Some choice bits:

This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics.

This is about the... human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not... understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want -- a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

[...]

I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage.

If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal... in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry...black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are... gay.

[...]

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness -- this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness -- share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Lierberman Fate Update

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:16:00 -0600

The full Democratic caucus will meet next week to vote on whether or not Joe gets to keep his chairmanship. My gut is that this won't go Joe's way, and that he'll bolt the caucus in a huff. Door. Ass. Bang.

This is cool

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:44:00 -0600

It's Veteran's Day, which was once Armistice Day -- i.e., the day that commemorated the end of World War I, which ended 90 years ago today. You might think all the US veterans of that war are dead. You'd be wrong.

What happens when we wonder late in the day

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:09:00 -0600

So, I was just wondering:

Our presidential electoral system is kind of weird, and some of its weirdness is based on the idea that it's valuable to apportion some amount of Electoral College representation based simply on statehood, without regard to population. This means that even the tiniest "state" gets a minimum of 3 EC votes, even if it's only got a single Representative in the House. It's probably not absurd to handle Congress this way, given the separation of powers between the Senate and the House, but it's far from clear that this is a good idea for Presidential elections.

Because low-population, largely rural states are overwhelmingly conservative, this tends to give a small electoral advantage to Republicans. I wondered, then, what if the Electoral College was concerned ONLY with population-based representation? We'd still have the all-or-nothing state-by-state EC system, but without the Senate-based distortion. How might this affect recent races?

In this world, the smallest number of EC electors is 1, not 3 (I've given DC 1, since it currently has 3, but has about half the population of another 3-EV state, Montana.) Instead of 538, candidates vie for 436 (435 House members + 1 for DC). The magic number is 219, not 270.

So then came the math. It turns out to be pretty easy to do this, since Wikipedia has all the data a mouse click away. I'll cut to the chase and tell you that this "New Math" can only affect races where (a) the winner has more states than the loser and (b) the difference in states won is greater than half the electoral college margin of victory. Only one race in the last 50 years would be affected by this, and it's the same one where we sent the guy with fewer popular votes to Washington. Go figure.

2008: It's not even close, but let's look anyway. Obama won 365 electoral votes, and McCain 173 -- a margin of 68% to 32% in the Electoral College. Obama won 29 states; McCain 22. If we reduce each candidate's total by (states * 2), the adjusted score is 307 to 129, and the margin of victory changes to 70% to 30%. For 2008, then, the extra weight given to small states wasn't that big of a factor.
2004: Bush won 286 EV, 53% of the EC, and 31 states; Kerry won 251, 47%, and 20. If we apply the same math here, we get Bush 224, Kerry 211, and no electoral change (though a narrower EC race at 51% to 49%). Bush took a 62 EV hit, and Kerry 40, but the real-world margin was too much for the state adjustment to flip the race. The state margin (11) is far less than half the EV margin (40, half of which is 20).
2000: Here's the money shot. Bush won 271 (30 states, and a hair over 50% of the EC) to Gore's 266 (21 and 49%) (yes, we're missing an elector because of the rogue dude in Minnesota who voted for John Edwards). Eliminating the small states' advantage drops Bush to 211, below Gore's adjusted store of 224 and flipping this hypothetical race even with Bush carrying Florida. As predicted, the difference in states won (30 - 21 = 9) is more than 1/2 the Electoral Margin (271 - 266 = 5).

With that in hand, let's delve further. Needing the race to be close to be worth analyzing pushes us pretty far back. Clinton won about 70% of the EC in both his elections; George Herbert Walker Bush won with 79%. Reagan famously waltzed off with 91% in '80 and 98% in '84. With EC margins like that, the Senatorial noise becomes immaterial.

1976: Carter, though, was somewhat closer with 55% of the EC in 1976, 297 to 240 for Gerry Ford. However, Carter won fewer states (24 to 27), so the race can't flip (just to be clear: it means Ford would take a bigger EV adjustment than Carter).
Nixon's 1968 run was also close, with about 56%, but the peculiarities of the year save him: first, he won 32 states and bagged 301 EV -- but most significantly the opposition vote was split by Humphrey (Dem, 191 EV, 14 states) and George Wallace (46 EV, 5 states). Ding Nixon his 64 votes and he's still above the real-world totals of his opponents, so no change here, either.
We have to go to 1960 for another "close" race: JFK won with 303, 22 states, and 56% of the EV compared to Nixon's 219 and 26 states. (Harry Byrd won some votes that year, plus we're far enough back the the total is actual 537, not 538, hence the funny totals.) Again, we can't flip the race with the new math because (a) the margin's too big and (b) JFK won with fewer states.

And all of a sudden we're back in the 1950s. Actually, the forties; the 1948 race was relatively close, but not enough to get interesting. Truman won 303 electoral votes and 28 states; Dewey bagged only 189 and 16 (Strom Thurmond picked up 39 and 4), so no flip here, either.

To find another candidate for adjustment we have to jump back to 1916, with Woodrow Wilson vs. Charles Hughes. Wilson got 277 EV and 30 states; Hughes got 254 and 18. The key rule is, again, if the difference in states is more than 1/2 the EV margin; the state difference is 12, and the EV margin is 23, so we'd expect the adjustment to flip the election. Wilson's 277 less (2 x 30) is 217; Hughes' 254 less (2 x 18) is 218, and all of a sudden there's a new President for the First World War.

It's clear that the EC kept the popular vote winner from the White House in 2000. It's interesting to see that a small change to the EV system would rectify that; however, it's also obvious that the barrier to entry on such a change (depending as it does on supermajority (2/3) votes in both houses of Congress PLUS ratification by 75% of the states) will keep this exercise firmly in the realm of the theoretical.

Oh, yeah: Rammer Jammer

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:39:00 -0600

Roll Tide. Saban went home to Baton Rouge and just barely escaped with the win in OT. Rivalry games can frequently get unpredictable, but the way the Tide played for much of the game was just embarrassing. Still, a W is a W, and the results solidify Alabama's number 1 BCS position. Other weekend events kicked PSU out of the elite club, leaving the top 5 40% SEC and 60% Big XII; an all-Southern championship game is now almost a given. Florida and Alabama will meet at the SEC title game in Atlanta, and the winner there will likely play the Big XII winner for all the marbles in Miami come January.

Hobo Matters

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:32:00 -0600

By John Hodgman:

WANT

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 08:15:00 -0600

Dear Intarwub: please buy us a Van De Graaff levitation wand.

(Incidentally, I just discovered in checking the name's spelling that Robert Van De Graaff was born in Tuscaloosa and attended UA for his undegrad degree. How could I have possibly escaped knowing this?)

WoW-related Political LOLs

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 08:09:00 -0600

This is hilarious only if you know where "Azeroth" is.

Because Someone Asked Somewhere Else: Heathen's Top Ten Bond Films

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 23:31:00 -0600

Dr. No (1962, Sean Connery). It all starts here, when Connery introduces himself at the baccarat table. Ursula Andress wows audiences as she strides out of the sea in a belted bikini as Honey Rider (the image is iconic enough that it's been referenced twice since then, first by Halle Berry in the forgettable "Die Another Day," and then in the #2 film by Bond himself). Jack Lord co-stars as Felix Leiter, Bond's CIA counterpart; Lord was already too famous from Hawaii 5-0 to continue in the role, however, and the role proved somewhat intermittent anyway -- since '62, he's been in 9 films (counting the upcoming Quantum) and been played by 7 people (most recently Jeffrey Wright).
Casino Royale (2006). Daniel Craig renews the entire franchise. It's really that simple. That's a little over-simplistic; they did well by hiring Judi Dench a few films ago, but the wholesale reboot here makes the whole affair seem fresh, even if the parkour sequence seems a bit contrived up front.
Goldfinger (1964, Connery). Look, how do you NOT love a film wherein Honor Blackman introduces herself as "My name is Pussy Galore?" The other star of this one is the Aston-Martin DB5 (the same make and model Craig's Bond wins at poker in Casino Royale) chock full of, shall we say, aftermarket goodies. ("Ejector seat? You're joking!" "I never joke about my work, 007".)
From Russia, with Love (1963, Connery). By far the most complexly plotted of the original films, it's still somehow under-appreciated by modern fans. Bonus: nemesis Red Grant is played by Robert Shaw, later famous as the salty old fisherman Quint in Jaws. The gadget thing starts here with a fantastic trick briefcase.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969, George Lazenby). The odd one out; you can win bar bets by knowing this Australian model's name. The story is that Connery left the role for fear of being typecast, and Lazenby got the nod. Then Connery decided to come back one more time (for 1971's Diamonds are Forever), and poor old George got the boot. The film is quieter and a bit more subtle than most Bond outings; it's also the only one with an actual romance (until 2006, anyway). Bond's paramour in this one is played by Diana Rigg, and by the film's end he's married her. Sadly, she's also murdered by arch-nemesis Blofeld (a viciously cackling Telly Savalas!) before the credits roll. [Blofeld, Bond's most persistent antagonist, appears or orchestrates action in five films, but shows his face in only three. In those, he's played by three different actors: Savalas here, but previously Donald Pleasance ("Halloween") in "You Only Live Twice" and subsequently by Charles Gray (the Criminologist from "Rocky Horror") in "Diamonds are Forever."]
GoldenEye (1995, Pierce Brosnan). I always thought it was cool that Brosnan got a second shot at Bond after NBC wouldn't let him out of "Remington Steele" to take the role in '86. It's a damned shame only one of his films is worth watching. It's only in checking facts to write this that I realize why this may be: GoldenEye was directed by martin Campbell, who also directed Casino Royale. The plot here is more plausible than most, too -- post-USSR heavy weapons are ending up in the wrong hands, and Bond has to stop it. It earns extra points by casting Royal Shakespeare alum Sean Bean as the bad guy, and even MORE points by returning to classic nomenclature with Famke Janssen's lethel "Xenia Onatopp." Somewhere, Fleming is smiling. (Robbie "Hagrid" Coletrane makes his first appearance here, too, as ex-KGB Bond associte Zukovsky.)
Live and Let Die (1973, Roger Moore). Bond does the Voodoo, and fights that 7-Up dude. No, really. Actually, the main bad guy here is the mysterious Mister Big, played by Yaphet Kotto (see also "Homicide"), but Geoffrey Holder does appear as Baron Samedi, a voodoo priest. Jane Seymour plays a virginal (until Bond gets to her, anyway) clairvoyant. This one's the first Moore outing, and includes the delightfully absurd super-magnetic Rolex with a bezel that doubles as a circular saw. Suffice it to say that this is where the gadgets get goofy.
Moonraker (1979, Moore). It's terrible -- a few years after Star Wars, and even Bond is in space -- but it was also the first one I saw. My dad took me when I was 9 -- at a drive in. How dated is that? Also, the wrist-mounted dart gun is a delight, even if we are a bit afraid that the by-then 52-year-old Moore will pass out in the G-force testing apparatus. (Bad news: Moore holds on until the patently ridiculous "A View to a Kill" six years later; even Christopher Walken and Grace Jones couldn't save that one from the idea of 58-year-old Bond.)
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977, Moore). This gives us the first appearance of two late-70s Bond fixtures: the Lotus Esprit the doubles as a submarine, and Richard Kiel as the 7-foot steel-toothed henchman Jaws (he returns in Moonraker). It's otherwise reasonably forgettable, except for Barbara Bach as KGB agent Triple X.
License to Kill (1989, Timothy Dalton). By the 80s, the producers at Eon were well out of unmined material with only a few exceptions, and apparently felt that it was too early for a third version of "Casino Royale" (there's a 1954 American TV version, plus the satirical '67 take starring David Niven and Peter Sellers). Several of 80s films were actually cut-ups taken from some of Fleming's short fiction, and LtK is the last of those scripts. As such, it's kind of a mess, but the central thread is still fun: Bond's off the reservation and is hunting down the drug lord who killed his pal Felix's wife (remember him?). (80s note: the wife was played by Priscilla Barnes, near-famous for replacing Suzanne Sommers on "Three's Company.") The film's also fun because of its cast -- Robert Davi chews scenery as the baddie, and Bond's girls include a pre-Law-and-Order Cary Lowell. Lovable gadgetmeister Desmond Llewelyn makes his only field appearance when Q heads to central America to aid the technically unemployed Bond in his quest. Oh, and Wayne Newton shows up as a crooked TV preacher. What's not to love?

Mo Pix

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:18:00 -0600

Shots from Catatrophic's The Strangerer are now on HeathenFlickr.

And now, a shrimp on a treadmill

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:03:00 -0600

Really. Hey, he's got Curtis Mayfield; what more could he want?

Dancing -- and Singing -- in the streets

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:00:00 -0600

Sure, the party I was at became an impromptu flag-waving parade after the race was called (we ended up at Rudz, natch), but something even cooler happened in the St Mark's neighborhood of New York. The assembled crowd spontaneously broke into the National Anthem.

If that doesn't at least give you goosebumps, you have no soul.

These are interesting

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:25:00 -0600

Cartographs of the US electoral map adjusted for population and electoral representation, which gives you an idea how much the whole "small state bias" distorts things.

More on Joe

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:15:00 -0600

He's apparently openly threatening to caucus with the GOP if he loses his committees. Knock yourself out, Joe. The Dem margin is big enough that we don't need you, and you need a fucking spanking like nobody I've ever seen.

Josh Marshall puts it pretty clearly:

I think much of what Lieberman did over the last year was inexcusable. But magnanimity in victory is always a virtue and usually wise. So I don't think it's necessary to expel him from the caucus. And perhaps there are some perks of seniority he could be allowed to retain. But allowing him to keep his chairmanship is simply unacceptable. It's a position the Democrats hold because of the joint efforts of Democrats across the country pulling together to support Democratic policies and ideals and elect Democratic candidates. For Lieberman to enjoy the fruits of that labor after working so hard to stymie that effort would be unconscionable.

Sen. Reid, show your mettle. Kick Joe to the curb. Connecticut will elect another Dem in 4 years, and even if they don't, you'll still have the majority.

What it's like to get elected President

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:04:00 -0600

The Obama campaign has released a set of snapshots taken by a campaign staffer of Obama and his family watching the returns, realizing the result, watching McCain's speech, and heading out to give his own address. There are several really nice and unposed moments caught there.

You may not have voted for him, but the pictures are fascinating anyway -- I don't recall seeing similar pictures from any other election, and these are in particular neat because the candidate has a young family around him. Check 'em out.

Interesting data

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:22:00 -0600

As it turns out, in every election since 1980, each successive Democratic candidate has gotten more (popular) votes than the prior one. Mondale outscored Carter, Dukakis outscored Mondale, Clinton outpolled Dukakis, and then outpolled himself four years later, etc. The line for the Republicans is vastly less consistent.

And don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:51:00 -0600

A reckoning is coming for Joe Lieberman. It's unlikely the Dems will reach 60 even with him, so for my money I say freeze his sorry ass completely out: no chairs, no nothing. Don't even let the turncoat bastard speak. Let him vote with the GOP if he wants to; if he does that, he's unlikely to win his seat back given his constituency. He's of course free to endorse and campaign for whomever he wants, but he shouldn't expect the party he shat all over for two years to support him or reward him for that behavior.

Excellent

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:39:00 -0600

Received in email from the Jackson Office, from a friend of his, in re: the North Carolina results:

From: xxxxx Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 4:57 PM To: Jackson Heathen Subject: Love this Fark headline

Apparently worried about its "strength of schedule" the Obama Campaign is trying to improve its BCS ranking by running up the score, adding 15 more electoral votes today

The cherry on top

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:02:00 -0600

At 1:20 in this video, our friend AJ is clapping. In a crowd of 200,000 people in Grant Park, CNN caught a shot of someone we all knew, and 30 people in Jason Nodler's living room immediately pointed and yelled "THAT'S AJ!"

Oh My

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 01:37:00 -0600

Did Nate Silver pull it off? The current called-state map looks an awful lot like his last projection. Like, exactly. Being essentially right is one thing; calling 50 states correctly is something else again. If Indiana and Virginia break Dem, he's done it.

YES WE CAN

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:39:00 -0600

Currently, the closed-projections from major media outlets total 207 electoral votes. This total does not include the 55 votes for California, the 7 for Oregon, and the 11 for Washington, none of which have been even close to competitive. Further, Virginia and Florida are still uncalled, but Pennsylvania and Ohio are in Obama's column.

We are Done. Oh thank you Jesus, we are done, in so many ways.

Very, Very Wrong

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:39:00 -0600

KittenCannon, a Flash game to fill the time before the polls close.

This just in

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:47:00 -0600

Chris Mohney Hates You.

Yes They Can.

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:36:00 -0600

Sometimes, people can come together for a single cause, and create something really interesting and important. This fall we have an excellent example of this kind of thing, lead partly but not exclusively by a charismatic young African-American man with an extraordinary history and a tremendous amount of personal charisma.

I am speaking, of course, of the Thrill The World project, wherein people all over the world, simultaneously, dress as zombies and dance to "Thriller." Video here, via JWZ.

BTW, apparently they had 800 participants in Austin.