Curiosity Killed the Cat

No word if Lego Roberts flubbed Lego Obama's swearing-in ceremony though.

Yes.

OMG NERD

This is what happens after I spend most of the day preparing pages for a launch tomorrow, and need to do SOMETHING THAT'S NOT HTML ZOMGWOW

...The Musical


"JESUS CHRIST!"

Now the hard work starts.

VOTE YES ON MEASURE R!!!


...the best part about Measure R are the arguments for/against, and the rebuttals to the arguments for/against. I mean, when you get a haiku in your voter's guide, you know it's special.
Need Bush memor'l?
Sewage plant available
How appropriate
-- Brian McConnell, Chairman
Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco

This game is quite fun and cleverly put together.

Understanding just what all these bond measures on the California ballot actually mean.
Well, except for the High Speed Rail one, which I'm totally psyched over :D New intercity transit infrastructure is the win.
Also, WHY is the Parental Notification for abortion back on the ballot? We voted against it TWICE. Three times is not a charm.

Tomorrow, LOLcats.


No really. Some folks who run Icanhascheezburger are giving a talk tomorrow. AWESOME. I can't wait.

The part of me that enjoys Helvetica meets the part of me that enjoys politics: NY Times blogs on font usage in presidential campaigns.
Link found at the Things younger than McCain blog, which is quick to point out that Helvetica is younger than McCain, although Helvetica is not a particularly "old" font to begin with. By the by, if anyone knows where I can buy the Helvetica mug in that blog entry, I would be greatly appreciative.

Science Debate 2008

If you enjoy reading about the foibles of (fake) Steve Jobs, you'll definitely enjoy watching the Dan Lyons talk. I especially liked how he would start rambling on a topic, only to remember that the talk would be posted on Youtube and he probably shouldn't be saying those things.
For the politically inclined, Obama gave a talk today. I've never been glared at by so many security officials outside of an airport in my life, since they used the conference room just outside of the webgroup offices before the event as a staging area, which is more awesome then usual when we only see candidates pull up in their cars up to the parking lot turnaround in front of our building (where, conveniently, the haircut truck and bookmobile also pull up on their scheduled days.)

The Craig Venter talk isn't up yet, but when it is, it'll be interesting to contrast that to the James Watson talk from earlier this year.

Unless you're Huckabee, Brownback or Tancredo.

I'm scared.

Now the real fun begins.




===
Why are so many people disenchanted on the whole election process? I posted one of my typical rock-the-vote entries to my other blog and got only several cynical responses on how the election system and/or democracy doesn't work.
I just don't understand. I suppose it's because I've been raised to think of voting as my GodConstitution-given right and, in fact, registered to vote the day I graduated from high school. I try to vote in every election (although once I never received my absentee ballot) and am one of those people who watch the results as avidly as some people watch football games. (I had a tab open on CNN all day waiting for the Virgina results, although I instead learned that Rumsfeld's going away which made me go slackjawed for quite some time). Last election (read: not the special election) I earned the dubious distinction of being a pattern recognition finder.
Voting DOES count. It is one of the most classic and hallowed ways TO count in this country. I mean... two years ago, W won the election by a small margin and proceeded to govern as if he had won by a large margin.
TODAY WE TOLD HIM THAT WASN'T THE CASE.
I can only hope that this brings forward useful dialogue between the parties and supercedes party lines, and not descend into even more petty bickering that made this past year's Congress one of the most pathetic on record.
1a-1e passed. Hooray! 85 WENT DOWN IN FLAMES! Sadly the oil and cigarette taxes didn't pass; I only wonder had gas still been above $3 a gallon if 87 would have passed. Although I'm well-aware that passing 87 is going to raise gas prices down the road, do you know what happened when gas prices were above $3? PEOPLE STARTED THINKING TWICE ABOUT WASTING GAS. Subcompacts looked sexy, and SUVs were so last year. That was what I was hoping for had 87 passed. 86 I was hoping would pass for similar reasons to 87 - making people think twice about smoking if it becomes more of a luxury than a convenience.
Also sadly, the misguided 83 passed. I can't think of a better way to waste money than to track thousands of sex offenders with GPS units. Hooray technology!
Arnold won, but really, did that surprise anyone? I can certainly live with that. Although I still haven't forgiven him for last year's disastrous special election, he at least took the reaming he got to heart and started changing his ways. One hopes he'll remember that lesson well into the future and won't backslide (too much.)
And here's hoping W will take this year's election to heart as Arnie took his mistake - seriously, and with a mind to do better by the public. After all, polls have been showing W's been lagging for some time now. But VOTING PROVED IT. VOTING HAS CHANGED CONGRESS AND HE CAN'T JUST SIT BACK AND IGNORE IT ANYMORE.
Why are people so cynical about voting? It makes me want to cry.

Hang on to your hats, it's gonna be an interesting ride.

It's time for another... Good Idea, Bad Idea.

Good Idea
Using capslock to add emphasis to your personal livejournal.

Bad Idea
Using capslock to add emphasis to your argument in the California General Voter's Guide.

The End.


Seriously though, using so many caps just makes your argument look stupid. Even if I agree with your argument. Feh.

I wonder what the anti-immigration camp would think of Milpitas School District for having Cinco de Mayo as a school holiday.

Mom: Hmm, I wonder what's on TV tonight. Oh... Terminator 3.
Me: Great! I can watch our governor be an ass on TV. OH WAIT. I can just watch the news!

Doesn't that sound like something catsonmars would say?

It was a good day today.
I am sorry that neither of the prescription discount initiatives got passed, though. Even though I don't agree with 78's implementation, any discount plan would be a great boon for those with low income.
Still, $262 million and nothing was changed, except perhaps attitudes. That's a big price to pay for that.
Stupid special election.

For those who were surprised at my stance on 78/79, here's some more details.
79 appears to me to be set up in the same way that nations with socialized health care finagle their discounts (ie Canada, and a number of European countries using their massive spending power.) And it works, obviously, why else do we have boatloads of people trucking up to the snowy north? It's not exactly the same; in countries with socialized health care there's only one buyer, and thus they hold all the cards; however, California has an economy the size of many small nations and even just finacing its own Medical/Medicare programs it holds massive amounts of clout.
I'm all for drug companies needing their profits, but poor people get sick too, and many drug companies tend to seem to care about people with bigger pockets (ie who can afford hundreds of dollars per annum for cholesterol-lowering drugs.)

So my co-workers were confused at my "I voted touchscreen" sticker I got this morning from the polls. They thought it meant I voted at work or something. (I wish.) How did I vote? You can probably already guess:
No, no, no, no, no, no, yes, no.
73: This is the initiative that really pisses me off because it tries to redefine abortion. WTF. Notwithstanding the fact that 2/3 of pregnant teens DO inform their parents as it is; the ohter 1/3 usually have extenuating circumstances, which probably trump any attempt to go through the courts and circumvent the law.
74: I don't understand how this is supposed to help our schools. What bugged me most was looking at the stats for tenures in different states. CA currently one of the few states at 2 years, the shortest. Most states have a 3 or 4 year wait. Only 2 states have a 5 year wait. Why the hell are we going from one extreme to the other? When only 2 other states have a 5 year wait, doesn't that mean something? If it was an increase of 2 to 3 years, or even 2 to 4 years, I would have considered it, but 5?
75: I don't understand how this is supposed to help our state either.
76: Power grab. Go away.
77: While I agree with the principles behind this proposition, I highly disagree with its implementation. 3 retired judges? So redistricting from three old white guys is supposed to be better than redistricting from a bunch of old white guys and gals (with minorities)? Sure, voters get to approve it, but if we don't, it just goes back to the panel of 3. I don't see how panel of three can, in any impartial way, represent Californians' interests. Plus, it's smack in between two census years. Things are changing. I agree with the arguement that we need to wait for the next census before we go forward with it.
78: This one is the most amusing, because of who's financing it. It was always a huge PhARMA initiative, and then yesterday, I heard an ad from BIO. I was wondering if they were going to get involved. A bit late to the game, boys?
79: Using the state's purchasing power to argue drug discounts. Participation is mandatory if the drug companies want to be in the game. None of this namby pamby "if we want to 'cuz it's VOLUNTARY" crap of 78. All for it.
80: The one I wasn't sure on. Not sure how re-regulating will solve the problems, but don't know if sitting on the issue will help either. Reluctant no.
I agree with catsonmars, this was a total waste of time and money. But, hey, if we're wasting money, you might as well vote. Maybe next time WE WON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS CRAP.