Berlusconi in context

"Suntanned"? Was always thus?

Rory Bremner, you may miss Bush but I think you have your next impression.

Dodgee - the Olympic Hoodie

The Guardian asked for designs for an Olympic mascot. All were pretty great (I liked the pigeon as well) but this one made me laugh.

Re: 4.01am tears

My friend Toby Grace writes from New Jersey about what last night meant for him:

Trenton is to a large extent, a black city. Over half the population is black and Latino. Last night, the people were honking horns and rejoicing in the streets. Church bells rang.

What makes me especially happy though, is that this rejoicing was not split along racial lines. Obama could not have been elected without a substantial part of the white vote and he got it.

There is the real change - the real cause for rejoicing - that those who were blind can now see and who were deaf can now hear. That we can look at our neighbors of other races and see them as the same as us and hear them when they cry out and know that some among them are better than we are and that we can say "let's take the best and have them lead."

It has taken a long time to get to this point and it has been a terribly difficult and even a bloody road. Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, Medgar Evers, and many others, you did not die in vain.

It is a road that gay people know very, very we ll. Our road has run parallel and even been one and the same. We are a long way from the end of our road still, but at least we can see that it is in fact a road that can be traveled and it leads to a mountaintop where the sunshine and the starlight are truly beautiful.

On Christopher Street, the tears shed by those of us, black, white and Latino, who fought there for liberty so long ago still sparkle in that starlight if we look to see them and this evening, they will shine more brightly.

4.01am tears

.. finally, they make the projection.

It's hard to know what to say except the obvious: I am watching history. One of those moments which will change us. Mandela walking free, the Wall coming down, even - and I remember this - "one small step for a man".

Stevie is playing 'signed,sealed, delivered' ... and here's the release.

It's done. Change.

~~~~

I am watching Jess Jackson in tears, Jesse who was there when Luther King died. This is the time for tears.

And McCain concedes honorably. Bless.

Fingers crossed, legs clenched

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awh, this takes me right back ...

HT: DaisyDooks

Gervais on Letterman

.. doing the Top Ten



HT: Daily Mail (yes, really)

The whole thing

Let the issues be the issue

Cool stuff. Source: Sky. HT: Chris.

Music: History and a day to remember

The Ruler (from Malcolm to Barack) by Fly Gypsy. Can't think of anything more appropriate for this day.

Real electoral map

Another great widget (though they're not making it widgetty ;[ - and it's late).

This is the 'real electoral map', produced by TechPresident, which shows the US vote based on population, not geography:

Look at an electoral map such as those shown by CNN, New York Times, or Pollster.com, and it looks like America is a sea of red (for Republican states) with pockets of blue (Democratic). The problem is conventional maps based on landmass do not accurately reflect the Electoral College. Instead they unwittingly perpetuate a kind of geographic media bias. But land mass does not equal votes.

Neat widget

This is a beta product. That means it is not done and is a work in progress. We constantly make updates and enhancements based on user feedback.

No maverick

Samuel Maverick was a Texas cattleman, land baron and politician, so influential that he was one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Fiercely independent and equally liberal. Sam became well known for what he didn't do, however. It seems, according to Fontaine, that he had taken some cattle in lieu of a debt he was owed. He let them roam on an island off of Texas, and for whatever reason, didn't brand them. So, any unbranded cattle became known as Maverick's.

Now, this more than likely wasn't an act of revolt. No one knows for sure, but Maverick really wasn't much of a cattleman. He was also shrewd, later on in life if cattle weren't branded, he would often claim them.

Sam was also very spirited and free minded. It was because of this that in 1867 the term Maverick was first cited as being used to describe someone with an independent streak, someone not branded.

Mavericks believe everybody has a right to be in America so long as they obey the law," Fontaine told me. "Grandfather Maury was no coward. He chased the Klan right out of San Antonio once, stood up to the mob... Maury was burned in effigy in San Antonio, for his defense of members of the Communist Party's right to assemble, for his defense of the Hispanic community, support for those who didn't have a voice. "

The C team

This seems to be about the best we can come up with on the humorous political video front in the UK.

Mild chuckles ...

Music: Apache

The Incredible Bongo Band, also known as Michael Viner’s Incredible Bongo Band, was a project started by Michael Viner, a record artist manager and executive at MGM Records. The band’s output consisted of instrumental music in the funk genre, characterised by the prominence of bongo drums and also conga drums.

Although the band released two albums, 1973’s Bongo Rock and 1974’s Return of the Incredible Bongo Band, the band is best known for its cover of “Apache”, a song originally made popular by The Shadows.

"Apache" has been cited by Afrika Bambaataa as an important early element of hip hop music with the record being sampled and scratched by many DJs. But it wasn't the hit versions by The Shadows, Ingmann or Weedon that Bambaataa, Kool Herc and the like turned into "hip-hop’s national anthem": it was the 1973 version by Michael Viner and an ad hoc group called the Incredible Bongo Band. They added a distinctive bongo drum intro to the tune, and added more percussion throughout the song.

This version was not a hit upon its initial release, but later became the sampled foundation of several rap and hip-hop classics, being reworked by hip hop performers "ranging from the Sugarhill Gang and L.L. Cool J to The Roots and Nas," not to mention sampling by techno performers Future Sound of London and Moby and drum and bass acts J. Majik and Goldie.

Michaelangelo Matos, All Roads Lead to ‘Apache’