discoveries from the internets and some stuff I wrote too
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recent quotes i like
"Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." - ? | | | | | | |
"If there is anything I have learned from liberals and conservatives, it's that you can have great answers and still be mean... and that just as important as being right is being nice. " - shane claiborne | | | | | | |
"If Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." --George Orwell ||||||
"On Facebook, no one can hear you scream." - I dont know ||||||
"The reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it." - Machiavelli ||||||
Chest of Drawers
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This chest of drawers is to replace the cheap stand (with no storage) that
was previously holding up our parrot's travel cage. She only lives with us
a few...
An important message from Consumer Reports
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This is our last post on Consumerist.com. We’re deeply proud of all the
work we’ve done on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by
secretive ...
My Milk Toof Travel Update
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*Dear International readers from Southeast France!*
ickle, Lardee & myself will be traveling around the southeast of France
area from 06/02-06/20. If anyo...
The Years Of Writing Dangerously
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Thirteen years ago, as I was starting to experiment with this blogging
thing, I wrote the following: [T]he speed with which an idea in your head
reaches th...
Saint Francis of Assisi
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… everyone who follows Christ receives true peace, the peace that Christ
alone can give, a peace which the world cannot give. Many people, when they
think ...
X-Factor Auditions, Part Two: The registration...
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Kind of creepy to be walking around White Plains at 4:30 in the morning. No
lights on, no cars, no people. I felt like I was in a zombie movie. And,
really...
Leslie Lemke didn't have a great start in life. He was born with severe birth defects that required doctors to remove his eyes. His own mother gave him up for adoption, and a nurse named May Lemke (who at the time was 52 and was raising 5 children of her own) adopted him when he was six months old.
As a young child, Leslie had to be force-fed to teach him how to swallow. He could not stand until he was 12. At 15, Leslie finally learned how to walk (May had to strap his fragile body to hers to teach him, step by step, how to walk).
At 16 years of age, Leslie Lemke bloomed. In the middle of one night, May woke up to find Leslie playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. Leslie, who has no classical music training, was playing the piece flawlessly after hearing it just once earlier on the television.
Orlando Serrell wasn't born autistic - indeed, his savant skills only came about after a brain injury. In 1979, then ten-year-old Orlando was playing baseball when the ball struck him hard on the left side of his head. He fell to the ground but eventually got up to continue playing.
For a while, Orlando had headaches. When they went away, he realized he had new abilities: he could perform complex calendar calculations and remember the weather every day from the day of the accident.
anyone who knew me before the age of 12 or so would know that i find this one very interesting due to my obsessive drawing of imaginary cities on the giant rolls of paper my dad would bring home from his office mailroom job:
Urville isn't just an idle idea - Gilles has 250 detailed drawings, complete "history" of the founding the the city, and has even published a book detailing it (Sneak peak at Google Books)
Visit Urville at Gilles' official website here: Link
Does you're creepy friend hiding behind the couch come with the place?
"Oven? What oven? Found by Whitney, who points out that "the listing remarks say that the gas bill is less than $10.00 a month -- BECAUSE YOU CAN'T USE THE OVEN." "
and then a bit from her bio on Wikipedia that pretty much sums it up:
Leslie first began displaying herself in "strangely glamorous and unflattering ways" while attending Ames High School in Iowa. During her senior year, she entered the homecoming parade, as part of a prom queen campaign, donning a sparkling pink Goodwill gown, a neck brace, and a tiara (won by her mother who was crowned Miss Auburn, Nebraska in 1970). Her publicity stunt made the front page of the local newspaper the following day. Her campaign was a success, and when springtime came, she was crowned queen. After graduating from high school, Hall moved to Boston, Massachusetts and completed her education at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in May 2006. Currently she resides in Ames and lives with her parents.
Sometimes, you wake up following a drunken night out and realise you have sent an inappropriate text to an ex-girlfriend or your boss.
And sometimes you realise you have drunkenly admitted to plagiarism to camera, and spectacularly resigned from your job, shouting "F**k you' to your boss.
from http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/:
The candidate receiving a majority of the votes in the electoral college wins the election. The electors are apportioned roughly according to states' populations, as measured by the census, but with a small but deliberate bias in favor of smaller states.
We can represent the effects of the electoral college by scaling the sizes of states to be proportional to their number of electoral votes, which gives a map that looks like this:
One way to improve the map and reveal more nuance in the vote is to use not just two colors, red and blue, but to use red, blue, and shades of purple in between to indicate percentages of votes. Here is what the normal map looks like if you do this:
and finally i will let this map speak for itself:
red areas shifted more republican since 2004, blue areas shifted more democratic:
fivethirtyeight.com's poll of the polls pre-election prediction followed by the actual results (perfectly correct except Indiana went Obama too):
also worth considering: these relatively lily white states that went Obama as well - Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington State.
first is l-tran's awesome video she took from her car in philly just after the results were announced:
At 52nd and Pine Sts. in West Philly (about 8 blocks from my house) there has been an Obama field office busy with volunteers for nearly two years. At roughly 11:02 p.m. - following the official announcement that Barack Obama had won the presidential race - the place erupted into the streets. For a clear mile you could see/hear/feel relief, celebration, thank you Jesuses, YES WE CAN's, O-Bam-A's!, pots and pans, honking cars, fireworks and noisemakers of all kinds.
At 11:03, too excited to fall back to sleep, I left the house in my pajamas (Pajamas for Obama!) to experience it firsthand.
second, from another section of the US that probably fell into Palin's supposedly "anti-amercian parts of america", St. Marks & Ave. A, NYC: and then the east village:
There were people all over the streets of NYC, but Brooklyn was the place to be:
almost no one sings the entire thing - so - click below and you can see the FULL lyrics :)
actually it's not that hard to see why most performers don't sing the whole thing, it's a bit of a tougue twister even just reading it - let alone memorizing and singing it!
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines in the stream: 'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion, A home and a country should leave us no more! Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave: And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved home and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust." And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
from slavery, 3/5th of a vote in the constitution, to no vote in the poll tax south, to the president in just 140 odd years. everyone's child can become president. half white half black. half kansas and half immigrant. the original american dream, realized. finally. all men ARE created equal. America is the great melting pot - isn't that what we were supposed to believe all along? well, the pot has melted.
i feel a great sense of relief. it is time. it has been long enough. when the old confederacy votes to deliver the presidency to an african american - it's done. you all who drug your feet, it's over, america is transformed. it is finished. we have arrived at Jefferson's original ideal.
all men ARE created equal.
perhaps it IS because i was a child of the 70's that i think that this is the future and not an apocolyptic future, but a fresh and clear future. the elementary school i went to was named leda shishoff elementary school. this was in 1978 - the school was named after a past principal of the school. she was an african american and she made her way to be principal in an elementary school in nj in the 1950's! a majority white town voted to name the school after her. she had passed away before i ever even attended the school. so maybe to me - it is different - why wouldn't an african american be a good leader? she was. and she was good enough for all the white folks in williamstown in the 50's and 60's. why would someone be ineligable for leadership now due to their melanin count? why wasn't colin powell ineligible when he led our armed forces, or condoleeza rice when she led our foriegn affairs? those two republicans - and african americans - had risen to some of the highest ranks America has to offer. would they not be eligible?
it is over. it is finished. the declaration of independence has finally reached fruition today! all the words of the declaration are now a reality. God bless and protect us all. and i do not see why He would not.
beyond race - in fact - when a man is 50% white and raised by his white grandparents and 50% black - is there even such a thing as race anymore? i'm losing words....
race. given the reality of science and the workings of genetics taking us all back to africa, and given the cultural realization that, yes, despite the fact that generations said the words but did not enact them - ALL men ARE created equal.
