Author: swanksalot

A few interesting links for October 23rd through October 24th:

• Police Declare 'Mutilation' of McCain Campaign Worker a Hoax – Here's another reason why Drudge sucks – I figured out this story was a hoax about 25 seconds after reading the headline.
  "Police in Pittsburgh have declared it all a hoax, and are charging the McCain worker at the center of the episode.

  It started yesterday afternoon with Matt Drudge screaming at the top of his site in red type — but no siren — that a Pittsburgh campaign worker for McCain, age 20, had been viciously attacked and the letter "B" carved into her face, presumably by a Barack Obama fan. Her name, it soon emerged, was Ashley Todd and she had come to Pittsburgh from College Station, Texas, to help out."

• Chicago Public Radio Blog » Polling Place: 42W/18P and 11W/33P | News and Notes from WBEZ – "Flickr pool member swanksalot (aka Seth Anderson) got some shots of his polling place in the 42nd Ward’s 18th Precinct in Chicago. It’s the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 134 and from these photos it’s pretty clear that they’re supporting Obama."

Some additional reading October 22nd from 20:52 to 21:34:

• Daily Kos: Listening to the Locals: Texas – Talking about pipe dreams, albeit pleasant ones:
  "Imagine, New York, California, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Texas all in the Democratic column. That would mean every election cycle, Democrats would start with 162 electoral college votes. "
  TX used to be a reliable Democratic state, up until the Civil Rights act of 1964. 1968 D, 1972 R, 1976 D, 1980-2004 R
• Conkers – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – Not sure why I know about this game, but I do:
  "Conkers is a game traditionally played by children in Britain, Ireland and some former British colonies using the nuts of horse-chestnut trees – the name conker is also applied to the nut and to the tree itself. The game is played by two players, each with a conker threaded onto a piece of string: they take turns to strike each other's conker until one breaks."
• The Pub Game Project: Pub Conkers! – I don't know why I know about conkers, never played it, must have been a book I read as a kid.

Some additional reading October 22nd from 17:08 to 17:35:

• Sarah Palin’s Personal Shopper – The Atlantic – "The attention from Jeanne Cummings’s much-talked-about Politico story has naturally focused on the $150,000 in luxury clothing purchased for Sarah Palin at Neiman Marcus, Sak’s Fifth Avenue, and Barney’s. What hasn’t yet gotten any attention is who bought it for her. But buried in the same FEC disclosure form that revealed Palin’s taste for the fine life is the name of the man who appears to have been her personal shopper: Jeff Larson."
• Multicolr Search Lab – Idée Inc. – This is pretty much awesome:
  "We extracted the colours from 10 million of the most “interesting” Creative Commons images on Flickr. Using our visual similarity technology you can navigate the collection by colour"
• Classic Presidential Campaign Ads — chicagotribune.com – some highlights and low lights from recent US Presidential campaigns

A few interesting links for October 20th through October 21st:

• Tue, Oct. 21 Electoral Vote Predictor Obama 364 McCain 171 Ties 3 – "McCain is abandoning Colorado (9 EVs), Iowa (7 EVs) and New Mexico (5 Evs). If Obama wins these three he gets 21 EVs. Add these to the 252 EVs Kerry won and he has 273 and becomes President. McCain's strategy at this point is to win Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, and–get this–Pennsylvania. The first six are arguably swing states, but our three-poll average puts Obama 12 points ahead in Pennsylvania. McCain is effectively betting the farm on a state which looks like an Obama landslide. It is a strange choice. Colorado looks a lot easier than Pennsylvania. James Carville once famously said that Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama sandwiched in between. Maybe McCain is going to go all out to win the white working class men in the Alabama section of Pennsylvania. McCain can't possibly do it on the economy. What's left? "
• Un-American – "I’ve always felt that patriotism is a stupid concept. It’s nothing more than a weapon to use against those we disagree with. No nation is any better or worse than any other. Patriotism can’t be forced. Kids shouldn’t be forced to recite words they don’t understand. We should earn their respect as a free society that values all people equally."
  Amen.

Some additional reading October 19th from 02:54 to 21:20:

• Arrest made in GOP voter registration scandal – "The charges against Jacoby and YPM, if true, are far more serious than any of the allegations against ACORN. The ACORN canvassers were registering fictional characters who couldn't possibly show up to vote–especially not with the new federal photo ID requirements. ACORN itself was the victim of their deception. Whereas, YPM canvassers allegedly lied to real-life voters in order to register them against their will and this deception might have a real outcome on the election if it infered with GOTV efforts by the Obama camp or future Democratic campaigns."
• James Jamerson: Motown's Secret Weapon | MetaFilter – awesome stuff. Check out some of the isolated tracks linked here.
  "The original Motown hit machine dominated popular music between 1959 and 1971, making household names out of Stevie Wonder, the Jacksons, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, and many others. Their secret sauce was a tight knit group of musicians called the Funk Brothers. Uncredited until Marvin Gaye's 1971 LP "What's Going On", these musicians provided the backing instrumentation on over 100 hit songs, gracing the charts more than Elvis, the Beatles, and the Beach Boys combined. The soul sound of Motown was driven largely by its innovative bass playing, and that playing was provided largely by the unheralded James Jamerson. "