Obama Victory Party on Valencia Street!

(the fun starts at 00:40) Awesome energy on the streets last night after the Obama victory. We rode from 3rd street down Market to the Mission -- the whole way, people whooping it up on the streets and sidewalks, car horns honking, high fives and peace signs and huges smiles on everybody's face. Finally, we can get out of the dark ages of the 20th century. It's a new day, baby!!!

no djs, no band, no megaphones, no problems // just all-American exuberance

A good collection of other people's photos + videos is on sfist.com

Check out On the Street | After-Party - photos and narration by the New York Times’ Bill Cunningham (also a bicyclist-photographer!)

Report voting problems via National Public Radio

Vote Report: Help NPR Identify Voting Problems

NPR.org, November 4, 2008 · If you have any voting problems, NPR wants to hear about them. As part of Twitter Vote Report – a project born out of a collaboration of volunteer software developers, bloggers and the NPR social media desk – we'll be monitoring voting irregularities, everything from long waits and broken voting machines to polling places with insufficient ballots.

Here's how to participate:

Text: Send a text message to 66937. Begin the message with the phrase #votereport, include your ZIP code and a very brief description of the problem.

Twitter: Send a tweet with the phrase #votereport making sure to include your zip code and a description of the problem.

iPhone and Google phone: Download the iPhone app from the education section of the iPhone app store. For the Google phone, go to the Android Market and search for “votereport.”

YouTube: In conjunction with PBS and YouTube's Video Your Vote project, you can upload a video to report any problems you experience.

You can find or verify your polling location by looking up your most recent registration address at VoteForChange.com.

Read on (updated Nov. 6):

• Democracy at risk when ballots cast early — Stefan Passantino writing in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• John McCain let Sarah Palin take us to the brink
• Joe The Welfare King
  
• Sarah Palin, freeloader. Also.

Technorati Tags: democracy, election, Election2008, vote

McCain + Palin are a bad joke

The worst thing that could happen on Tuesday, November 4 would be for McCain/Palin to win the presidential election. Not that disaster would ensue, but we'd be missing an historic opportunity to take this country forward, instead of slipping into the dark ages of anti-science conservatism and militarism.

See:

• Vote for Obama
• McCain/Palin info
• The Evidence Establishes, Without Question, That Republican Rule Is Dangerous
• From Midwest to M.T.A., Pain From Global Gamble
  
• Our economy is over-optimized and we are at risk because of it (YouTube) ~ PBS News Hour Interview with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, famous economist and author of "The Black Swan." They discuss how the complexities of our globalized economy might lead to the biggest collapse of society ever seen.
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb profiled by Time magazine

(By the way, I'm a small business owner and I'm voting for Obama.)

Technorati Tags: Democrazy, election, Election2008, McCain, Palin, politics, USA, vote

They’re hurting and they’re angry (they’re hurting and they’re angry)

Live blogging the  October 15 presidential debate — Barack Obama and John McCain:

Did you get that? They’re hurting and they’re angry. McCain said so. Twice, right off the bat. This is classic garbage talk — the man can barely even speak coherently. NOT MY PRESIDENT, no way. We just endured a tongue-tripping President Bush for an awful 8 years and it didn't do us any good. Clear speaking equals clear thinking equals a better leader and better policy. Vote for the guy with the unscrambled brains:  vote Obama.

"Joe..." Wow, McCain is really desperate here. He goes right for the personal anecdote, and he doesn't sound good when he does. Obama comes back with clear straight-forward language.

"We're gonna take Joe's money, and give it to Senator Obama." Oh really? Is that what's going to happen?

McCain asks rhetorically  "Why would we increase taxes right now, on anyone at all in America? Anyone?" Well, because the gains of the super-rich may be ill-begotten. Hell yes, raise taxes on the super-rich now! I'm all for it! TAX THE RICH! Tax those insane oil company profits!  Take back the money that Wall Street's big players gamed from the system! Prosecute white collar and government crime: let's make New York's Elliot Spitzer a special prosecutor, let him rake the guilty over the coals! Bring on the justice.

They both talk too slow, but Obama especially. They need to shut their mouths about the "negative ads" and talk about their policies and answer questions about the war, taxes, health care, and economic and foreign policy. HELLO MODERATOR, get to the real stuff! Shut these two blokes up and ask some hard questions!

Why does McCain bring up Acorn & Ayers? WTF? As if we don't all know this? It's all over the news. We know all this stuff already. Move on to something of relevance to running the nation!

Why can't Obama answer whether he thinks Palin is qualified to be president? That was a clear question from the moderator, and Obama totally dodged it. Ugh.

Climate control? Climate change! Good catch, McCain!

"Preventive care" notes Obama. YES! That's huge. We've got to take personal health seriously in this country. See 8 foods to eat every day.

I think they should both be banished from speaking to the camera. That should be dis-allowed by the debate rules. We the public are definitely screwed by these debates, by our lack of access to the candidates in a public inquiry setting. This isn't a debate (yet again), this is propaganda opportunity. Ugh.

Related posts:

• mydebates.org
• Vote for Obama
• The Bailout’s bad logic: we can’t trust the financial system

This dog-and-pony at the end is humorous. I'm watching this debate not on TV but on the New York Times website, and now that it's over, they're showing just a raw un-moderated video feed of the stage, and now the meet-and-greet that follows the debate, which seems to be McCain only. Poor guy — I don't think he actually wants to be president. (That's OK, he won't be. :)

At the end of the day, there's really no reason for hope. C'est la vie.

Vote for Obama

barackobama.com 

Vote in the United States presidential election on Tuesday November 4, 2008!

 

(“Progress” by Obey)

Now for a laugh:

Technorati Tags: America, Democrazy, Election2008, election, Obama, politics, Progress, TrueAmerican, USA

The Bailout’s bad logic: we can’t trust the financial system

Here's the stinking thing about the bailout plan, and why I'm glad that Congress rejected it today: the same people who engineered the conditions for the failure of the economy are now telling us they should be entrusted to engineer its rescue, in the form of the just-rejected $700bn bailout plan. As far as I'm concerned, we the people have let these jokers on Wall Street and their allies in government de-regulate the markets and formulate a financial system that was destined to implode, as it has been doing quite predictably for the past 13 months. Now that the much-foreseen financial collapse is upon us, Paulson, Bush and the other top politicians are saying, in effect, “We need this bailout/rescue plan or else the economy will implode even further.” But are we really to trust them with either the analysis or the solution? As far as I'm concerned, they given us notably bad policy for years, during which we've gotten plenty of commentary from public intellectuals and journalists (see Gretchen Morgenson or Frank Rich in the New York Times) who described how obvious it is that the Bush  Administration's policies are destined to cause great harm to the country. Of course, this is true not only of the financial system, but of the Iraq War (going strong since 2003!). My, how poorly the U.S. has been led for the past 8 years. Blame the Republicans first and foremost, but don't let the Democrats off the hook either.

The people who created the big problems for our country cannot be trusted with its repair. Those pillagers of the public good who advocated the radical liberalization of the financial markets have only made it possible for a select few to grow obscenely rich by placing wild bets with investors' money. All involved should be held accountable. The  system needs to be so thoroughly exploded that it can never reconstitute itself again. 

Get-rich-quick thinking is destroying us, weakening the nation as a whole while allowing a very few to grow rich beyond all rationality. We are living in a period where wealth flows to the richest in ever wider streams, while more and more of America's middle class falls into disrepair, where the ranks of the impoverished grows larger by the month.  And all this happens in the distracting glow of the television, where the bearers of bad news always look so good that viewers can't believe what they're hearing.

Let’s not forget that the economic meltdown we're in is the result of actual people, known in the public record and often holding highly public office, who authored the laws of deregulation and made strings of bad decisions, while all along alarms were sounding (check out The Giant Pool of Money). We should hold these individuals accountable: Alan Greenspan, Phil Gramm, Henry Paulson and many, many others. They made hugely costly errors in judgment. They should not be allowed to continue making decisions for us.

Required reading:

• Lesson From a Crisis: When Trust Vanishes, Worry
• Washington Post's Pearlstein: Anyone opposing the bailout is ignorant
• Predatory Lenders' Partners in Crime -- Eliot Spitzer
• The Fall of Fannie Mae -- Fortune -- January 2005
• PANIC TIME: MARKET DOWN, REALLY DOWN, AS BAILOUT BILL TANKS
• FALLING INTO FALL
• Behind Insurer’s Crisis, Blind Eye to a Web of Risk
• Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait      

McCain/Palin info

• Cindy McCain’s nontraditional campaign
• A problem for Sarah Palin
• Election coverage from The New Yorker
• Common Dreams
• Obama and the Palin Effect
• Gov. Palin’s Worldview
• Campaign '08 (The Nation)

Let's not elect the same incompetent Republican party that led us into this unnecessary horrible 5+ year war in Iraq, OK? Vote OBAMA!

Democracy and a “free press” in action: no mention of today's election

So much for democracy and a free press. Today, November 6, is an election day, and yet there is nothing on the Examiner.com's home page to remind readers that “Today is Election Day - vote!”

Nothing.

I have to conclude that the Examiner doesn't want people to vote.

Oh, but they do have a top-of-page feature about a man in a bathtub with rattlesnakes. GOOD JOB, Examiner!

American soldiers are getting killed in a misguided attempt to prop up a failing democracy in Iraq. The least we can do is vote.

No on H -- yes on A.

Democracy: use it or lose it.

Technorati Tags: election, FreePress, newspapers, politics

Why weren't YOU at the Iraq war protest on October 27, 2007 in San Francisco?

Here's what our disaster in Iraq has brought: 3,800+ Americans dead; 785,000 civilians dead. America is less safe; you are less safe.

Stop going along with the war. Demand an end to Bush's ongoing disaster. Demand that your government extend diplomacy to the world.

Contact your Senator and demand an end to the war.

Hold your elected officials accountable. Vote for peace. Demonstrate against war.

Contact Congressman Dave Obey and demand that Congress stop funding the war!

WAR IS OVER (if you want it).

How to STOP junk mail: get off mailing lists, save the environment, and get your life back!

(UPDATED JUNE 15, 2007) Every month, your home mailbox probably gets a bunch of catalogs, credit card offers, AOL discs and CDS, and all kinds of advertising. We call that “junk mail” and it's out of control! Look at all that paper, and think about the energy that goes into making and sending it —  a huge waste.

You can actually stop junk mail. It's easy.

Use this online form to get off mailing lists. Trust me, it's worth it. 

You can also call the toll-free 800 number on the junk mail catalogs and ask to be removed. They usually have that option built right into the telephone menu system. Be patient when you make the call, because the “stop sending catalogs” option is usually at the end of the call menu. But really, it only takes a moment and you will be doing good — do not give up!

After you make the effort, it takes about 2-3 months for the mail to actually stop being delivered.

Be persistent. You know as well as I do that most of the crap coming in the mail is useless and unnecessary. It's all just pushing you to spend more money, to buy more stuff that you know won't actually make you any happier. So quit it already.

Kill your junk mail, and have a good time doing it!

Remember: every time you subscribe to a magazine or buy something from a catalog you usually get signed up to junk mail lists. If you notice in a year or two that you're getting more junk mail, then do it again - pay the damn dollar the stop that damn junk mail.

Do your part to reduce waste and  energy consumption. And while you're at it, cancel your cable TV,  eat more fresh vegetables, and walk instead of drive. Shut off lights and computers when not in use. Be proud to care for the Earth. Say no to reckless consumption.

And most of all, remember that you alone possess the power to stop junk mail. Do your part now and go over to the Direct Marketing Association's DMAchoice.org website and get yourself off the lists. It's the right thing to do.

* * *

You can read more about stopping junk mail at these sites: Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and Do-it-yourself: Stop junk mail, email and phone calls.