Singer Gwen Stefani released a picture of her and her new daughter under a Creative Commons license, instead of selling the rights to a sleazy magazine for millions. The license (here, with a few extra clauses) allows the image to be reused pretty liberally. Also, President-Elect Obama has a set on photos on Flickr that show rarely-seen behind-the-scenes watching election returns with the candidate (which were also released under a Creative Commons license).
This evening, just after 11 pm Eastern, Senator Barack Obama was projected as the winner of this election and the next President of the United States. Obama will become the 44th, and first African American, elected to this highest office in the land. What an occasion.
In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.
Let’s remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.
Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.
As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.
And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.
2004 was a great year, and that was an amazing game. I’m getting pumped for the LSU game this weekend, and I really wish I was going to be at the game. 2004 was my first year at the University of Georgia, and I still remember that morning of the first home game – I woke up at 7:30 am and the people were already crowding campus and I could hear the fight song being played. I love the SEC. The opponent was Georgia Southern, and my car got hit in the parking lot of O-House during the game (not a negative, it was a Georgia Southern bands truck and they filed a police report that I found out about after discovering my car, crooked in a parking space).
I got to cheer for the likes of David Greene, David Pollack (who went to my high school!), Reggie Brown, Fred Gibson (sorry Fred, I love you, but I think AJ Green might be better), Tyson Browning, Greg Blue, Will Thompson, and Odell Thurman (2004 roster). We finished the season in Tampa Bay at the Outback Bowl, where we stomped Wisconsin at the Outback bowl. I went down with my whole family and we had a great time.
I don’t know how Saturday will turn out for us, but here’s the video that gets me pumped up for games, or anything really. Paul Westerdawg made that video, and it’s an alternate version of the scoreboard video that is played right before kickoff.
I’m going to be liveblogging the game, using FriendFeed’s new real-time feature to embed a room here on the site. Anyone who wants should be able to participate (I think). Make sure to check back on Saturday!
If that isn’t incredible, I don’t know what is. A referee at the LSU-South Carolina game this past weekend looks to block South Carolina quarterback Stephen Garcia on a qb run. The referee, Wilbur Hackett Jr., played linebacker at the University of Kentucky from 1968 through 1970.
Hackett was caught off balance when Garcia made his cut and was trying to get out of the way.
Ha. If that ref lost his balance, I’m a monkey’s uncle. It more looks like he is falling forward, or in real people’s terminology, dropping his shoulder into the quarterback. I’ve watched the play from 9 different angles, and every time, this looks deliberate.
This is nonsense. He might have had a flashback to his Vietnam/Kentucky days and gotten too into the game. Whatever the case, he should no longer get to wear the stripes.
And why was a former University of Kentucky football player refereeing an SEC game? The University of Kentucky is in the SEC. Has Hackett ever refereed a Kentucky game???
Umm, I don’t care whether this was deliberate or not, the Southeastern Conference should never allow former SEC football players to referee football games. In fact, we should expand that, so former SEC athletes should never be allowed to official any SEC sports competitions. It is wrong.
Any conference or sports league should not have any referee who has any questionable connection to the outcome of the event.
The SEC and their referees are starting to get to me. Every time I see Penn Wagers call a game, I get angry. See examples of Penn Wagers officiating here, here, here, here, here, and here. Yeah, if you see this ugly mug getting ready to call a game, it’s going to be a long game.
I’ve already talked about the Transportation Security Administration before. Now The Atlantic reports on the many ways terrorists could get around the TSA. Among the many issues with the airport security:
… the transportation-security officer in charge of my secondary screening emptied my carry-on bag of nearly everything it contained, including a yellow, three-foot-by-four-foot Hezbollah flag, purchased at a Hezbollah gift shop in south Lebanon. The flag features, as its charming main image, an upraised fist clutching an AK-47 automatic rifle.
And he got through screening, no problem.
I didn’t know you could take medical supplies of more than three ounces in a carry-on (this is indeed true):
Later, Schneier would carry two bottles labeled saline solution—24 ounces in total—through security. An officer asked him why he needed two bottles. “Two eyes,” he said. He was allowed to keep the bottles.
The author, Jeffrey Goldberg, and security expert named Bruce Schneier made it through TSA checkpoints at multiple airports multiple times with homemade boarding passes. Made in Schneier’s “sophisticated underground forgery works, which consists of a Sony VAIO laptop and an HP LaserJet printer.”
And for someone wishing to cause harm, it is extremely easy to get on a flight, even if your name is on the No-Fly-List:
To slip through the only check against the no-fly list, the terrorist uses a stolen credit card to buy a ticket under a fake name. “Then you print a fake boarding pass with your real name on it and go to the airport. You give your real ID, and the fake boarding pass with your real name on it, to security. They’re checking the documents against each other. They’re not checking your name against the no-fly list—that was done on the airline’s computers. Once you’re through security, you rip up the fake boarding pass, and use the real boarding pass that has the name from the stolen credit card. Then you board the plane, because they’re not checking your name against your ID at boarding.”
Scary stuff. Even more reason we need real reform.
