January 12, 2005

This image—apparently photoshopped, or perhaps lifted from a Hollywood film—is circulating on the Net:

March to Support the LA County Seal is Scheduled to Start This Sunday

The march to support the original Los Angeles County Seal will take place this Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. David Hernandez emails:

Crosswalk
Walking to Support the Original
Los Angeles County Seal
January 16,17,18, 2005

People taking to the streets, North, South, East and West,
showing their support and conviction.

Marching from Santa Monica, San Gabriel, San Fernando and South Los Angeles to our Rally and Petition collection site at the Ramada Inn
1160 No. Vermont Ave. Hollywood, CA 90029.

Sponsorship Opportunity
The Committee to Support the Los Angeles County Seal Ordinance is pleased to announce the opportunity to participate in our National Media Event.

You, your company or group can help in the success of
our history making petition effort.

January 17, 2005
9:00AM-10:00PM
Special Guests, Celebrities, Community Leaders
Media, Media, Media
Act now!

Contact David Hernandez
818 448-3403

Flyers and route maps for the march are available here.

This site is proud to have this article (“A Myth Debunked: Bush Tax Cuts Did Not Favor the Rich”) included in the latest Carnival of the Vanities, hosted this week by MultipleMentality.

Top Pollster Steve Kinney On How the Exit Polls Went Wrong in the Presidential Election

Last night leading political pollster Steve Kinney, who consults on the national and state level for Republican candidates, spoke at a meeting of The Lincoln Club in Los Angeles.

He commented on what may have happened with the exit polls in the last presidential election:

• At 2pm west coast time on election day, an associate of his noticed that according to the exit polls as they were being reported, 58% of total voters nationally were female.
• Since that was impossible, Steve knew for sure at that time that these reports of the data from the exit polls were wrong and were not accurately reflecting the actual voting results.
• The company handling the exit polling would normally correct sample imbalances, such as the over-representation of women in their sample, before releasing official reports.
• However, it appears that someone in the company that handled the exit polling, leaked these unfinished results.

How Voters in Other Parties Can Tell if They are Really Republicans

From the LA Republican Party website:

Are you Republican? You may very well be…

What do you think of the following…?

• Personal responsibility for our own decisions is an essential part of being an adult in America


• People know better than the government how to spend their money


• The security of America against her enemies is important


• If someone says Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah they are being friendly not insulting to every other religion or secularist on the planet


• Government assistance should provide assistance rather than dependence


• A healthy America provides numerous opportunities for success such as good schools, low taxes, job training, the right to change jobs, and the ability to start and own a business. But it does not provide assurances, it is up to each citizen to use those opportunities and freedoms to convert dreams into their own view of success


• People and companies pursuit of profit leads to the creation of jobs, new inventions, the payment of taxes, the production of needed products and services, the money needed to invest in even newer ideas, and a stronger and safer America


• Schools & teachers should use their time to teach reading, writing, history, art, math, and science and do it well. If they dont do it well, kids should be allowed to go somewhere where it is done well.


• College students should not fear expressing a conservative (or liberal) perspective for fear of getting a bad grade or being degraded in front of the class (it happens more than people know)


• It is possible to be pro-immigrant while being concerned about border security


• We dont all have to agree, because healthy debate strengthens America


• The mention of God by someone paid by the government is not an insult to atheists, but rather a reflection (right or wrong) of the fact that the overwhelming majority of people on the planet and nearly ever founding father believed it possible something greater than us was in someway involved in creating an overwhelmingly complex yet ingeniously simple universe


• There is nothing more American than someone with an innovative idea and the ability to promote it in order to improve their life and that of their family.


• If you break the law, you should be held accountable


• America is a wonderfully unique country with so much to offer the world

Well if much of this resonates with you, welcome to the Republican Party!

Jeff Jarvis expresses reservations about the iPod Shuffle:

: Has the iPod jumped the shark? The entire point of the iPod is that it gives you control. Hell, the entire point of media that succeeds these days is that it gives you control. But the new, cheap, cute iPod takes that control away by shuffling the cuts you put on it. Gimmick. Off target. Doesn’t mean it won’t sell—it’s cheap; it’s iPod—but it corrupts the Apple/iPod message.

...: UPDATE: In a more careful reading of the site, I see that it has an in-order mode but they do deemphasize that to emphasize the shuffle shtick. I think that’s a marketing mistake, then. Glenn Reynolds had the same uneasy feeling.

However, I wonder if Jeff has had a chance to try iTunes/iPod Shuffle Mode yet. Because… it’s very cool. Per MacCentral:

“Shuffling” songs is an enormously popular way for portable music listeners to listen to their songs, according to Jobs, hence the name.

And here’s a report of a music critic who praises the feature:

One devotee is New Yorker classical music critic Alex Ross. Writing in the magazine a few weeks ago, Ross, 36, marveled at the way his machine “goes crashing through barriers of style in ways that change how I listen” when programmed to skip randomly from one track to another. His breakthrough moment, Ross says in a recent telephone interview, occurred when the shuffle mode on his iPod took him from a recording of Igor Stravinksy’s “Rites of Spring” to Louis Armstrong’s “West End Blues,” an unexpected yet inspired musical transition that “was exactly in synch with what I’d been thinking about,” he says.