Multi-Post Tuesday

Now it's time for another multi-post! Cool things have been going down lately. Here's a couple of the more prominent ones:

Yesterday, President Obama lifted the limits on federal funding for stem-cell research. More info and a video at C&L.

TF2 has a big new update as of 2 weeks ago. Some new maps and the Scout weapons and achievements are now available. Get updating if you haven't yet. More info at the Scout Update page.

A new season of Full Metal Alchemist is in the works and should begin airing in Japan in April. More info at Anime News Network.

Multi-Post Thursday

This pic is way better than his official presidential portrait I put up on the last news post. Well today he signed his first bill into a law. From the Washington Post:

The bill is a response to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that said a person must file a claim of discrimination within 180 days of a company's initial decision to pay a worker less than it pays another worker doing the same job. Under the bill, every new discriminatory paycheck would extend the statute of limitations for another 180 days.

So far so good. In other news the House passed the economic stimulus package 244-188 with absolutely no republicans supporting it and 11 democrats voting against it. You'd think that maybe they might see which way the wind is blowing from the last couple elections and maybe be a little more open to supporting healthcare and education, things they currently want removed from the package. Obama has invited key members of the House and Senate from both sides of the aisle over for drinks to try persuade them to support the package.

If anyone is concerned that their ISP might be throttling their bandwidth, check out this post on lifehacker to run tests to find out.

Blackelk has still not returned to the land of the living and if he's still not back by tomorrow Blizzard should be contacted and harrased. In his absence I've become addicted to Warhammer Online and playing it far too much every day. It doesn't have the polish of WoW, but it does have a shitload of things that I think WoW would be wise to abscond with. As the list could end up a post all its own, I won't get into it all at the moment, but I will say that unless something else spectacular comes along in the meantime, when I'm done with WoW I'm switching to WAR.

There's a free beta out right now on Steam for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II multiplayer which seems to be their version of Starcraft. I've only briefly played it once and got whomped on, but in honor of Sean Marney whose fighting bandwidth caps abroad, anyone who can get it should so we can try it out together. Hope all is well and I should be talking with most of you later today!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

In his first week as the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama has so far failed to disappoint, making several important executive orders. Here's some of the highlights:

Obama Seeks Halt to Legal Proceedings at Guantanamo
President Obama freezes WH staff salaries
Obama signs the orders closing Guantanamo prison
Obama Reaffirms FP Campaign Pledges
Obama Overturns Bush Records Secrecy Order

By far a very eventful week! Hopefully the rest of his first hundred days are as constructive in fixing the mistakes of the last regime. My favorite act by far, and also the most unexpected, I think is the over-turning of the secrecy order. No one but the president himself should ever have the authority to claim executive privilege. On top of all that he also re-took the oath of office to shut up people like the ever douchey Chris Wallace. Stay classy fox!

A new day...sort of =)

Hey all, looks like we have a new president, yay! Boy, that was some inauguration, Aretha Franklin, Yo-Yo Ma, Chaney, Obama, Clinton! Anyways, I loved the speech, loved the poem and the benediction from Rev. Lowery

Especially this part of the Benediction:

"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right."
- Rev. Joseph Lowery

And while not a spiffy turtle vid the following may seem oddly familiar but re-imagined for a new erra...

Watch more videos of TF2

So in case you need your memory jogged, here's the original post with heavy influence from the old regime.

And if the inauguration of Barak Obama or TF2 "where is DAV team?" dance video didn't bring utter bliss and joy to your heart then I weep for you...or more specifically, Neil Patrick Harris weeps for you...

Interweb Newz!

Some random cool news for you all. First off is some awesome news regarding the upcoming FCC:

Last week, President-elect Obama appointed Kevin Werbach, assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton, and Susan Crawford, who teaches communications and Internet law at the University of Michigan, to co-chair his FCC transition team. In preparation for his incoming administration, the two, both seasoned Net Neutrality advocates, will be tasked with providing information on U.S. government Internet and telecom policies, along with advising on budgetary and personnel matters.

Other than the part where they're Net Neutrality advocates, my favorite part is that the guy is in two guilds in WoW. Let's just hope he's on Horde side, hehe. Secondly lifehacker just mentioned today that Monty Python will now have it's very own official high quality Youtube channel. Comments from the cast in the video below:

One Small Step for Man

So for the first time I went and worked the polls on election day. This picture is of the line at our polling place in the morning. People were already lining up to vote at like 6:30am! At one point there was an hour an a half wait.

Some people treated us like customer service workers with "I will have satisfaction" attitudes. More still were the people who realized that we were all volunteers trying our best to make things go smoothly. We got many thank yous for volunteering from people. One lady said she was going to go get us some cookies that she had baked. Within 10 minutes she was back with some tasty chocolate chip cookies for us. Another woman brought us cokes and bananas and offered to go pick up any food or anything we might want!

Everyone was expecting an after work 5pm rush to polls that never came. People made sure they voted absentee or early. So the last couple hours were a lot more relaxed than the huge rush of the morning. The most memorable moment of that time was when an excited flustered woman came in to drop off her absentee ballot. Her ballot was all crumpled up as was the envelope and we had to tell her she needed to put it in the envelope, seal it, and sign it, as she didn't seem to know what to do with herself. She asked us "you guys didn't hear?" We had all been required to be at the polls with no breaks from 5pm on so we said "no what's going on?" She said "He won virginia! McCain has to win the entire West Coast to even have a chance!" Needless to say we were all happily shocked blinking at each other and smiling ear to ear. When we were cleaning up after the polls closed one of the clerks said "hey guys want to see something?" We said sure and she showed us the screen of her iphone with a picture of Obama and little color coded bar graphs of the electoral votes: Obama 364 McCain 163. That was the happiest a graph had ever made me feel in my life.

And yet it still didn't sink in. I honked my horn with 20 other cars at MLK and University that night and it still hadn't sunk in. I talked with Adam late into the night, called my Mom, and went to sleep. When I finally woke up today it was because a group of children were walking by outside chanting "Obama! Obama! Obama!" It made me wake up with a big smile on my face. I went on with breakfast and the internet. I read on Crooks and Liars that people were standing outside the White House singing "Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye". Then I watched Obama's acceptance speech and was brought to tears several times. We did it. No third term for BushCo. There's a chance now for this country to flourish once again as a whole and not just 1% of it. Now he just needs to be the change we've been talking about for so long. We still have work to do and long roads to travel.

Time For Some Campaignin'

I used to love jibjab videos back in the day, I haven't stayed up with them though. Just saw this one through Crooks and Liars and was pretty impressed with the animation quality. They've come a long way since Bubba's Brownies.

Democratic Primary is Over

Just watched this vid a little bit ago from Crooks and Liars. It's Obama's speech from last night, the last night of the Democratic Primary for this coming election. After our discussion over Skype, watching this, and Hillary's speech from last night, I cant help but wonder if they are actually going to run together. A good portion of his speech is praise for Hillary and a sureness of her involvement in the years to come. It seemed as though he was prepping his supporters to accept her. Hillary's speech did not mention throwing in the towel, despite the fact that numerically she can no longer win the nomination. She simply thanks her supporters and makes no mention of what's to come. Both campaigns have broken records for fund raising and getting people involved in voting and it's not even the general election. If they combined the momentum of their campaigns in terms of people involvement and fund raising, I'd be pretty surprised if they wouldn't completely steamroll McCain at the polls in November. On the flip side, I don't think that Obama would need Hillary to clinch a victory in November. Perhaps he will choose Edwards as his running mate, but I think there's a strong likeliness that the two former foes will join forces. Time will tell.