Posts from — October 2008

With only 6 days to go, today’s commentary comes from Shaun with some fresh perspectives. I’ll be back to wrap it up in just a couple of days.

Here’s Shaun:

All -

Forgive me for intruding on what are busy times. But I wanted to
interupt your busy lives, just once, to tell you why I am voting
for the candidate I am voting for.

This is america gosh darn it and if there is anything other than a
gun I am entitled to it is an opinion. Until someone tells me to
shut up, I plan to keep offering it. Conversely you are definately
welcomed to offer your opinion back. Or even to write back and
say, you know Shaun, I’d rather you didn’t email me things like
this. Or if you spent half the time you spent cooking up these
whitty emails that you spend on your job there’d be a solar system
on every house in New York State by now.

This email comes in two parts. My personal view on why I think
Barack Obama is a better Presidential pick than John McCain. And
evidence of the sort of things that make me want to move away from
McCain camp.

First:

There was some talk long ago of Barack Obama being an elitest who
likes arugula. I love arugula. It is delicious. Maybe spicy
greens aren’t your thing. But I eat it once a week (when it is in
season). So I guess I am an elitest, too.

But so what? For years and years we have been giving the awesomest
jobs to the most elitest people in the world. When someone is
going to open up your brain and take out a tumor wouldn’t you want
nothing but the most elite surgeon in the world? If your kitten
was stuck in a tree, would you not the most elite strike team of
firemen to get whiskers (if I had a cat I’d call him wiskers) out
the tree? If your family was being held hostage in Texas would you
not call upon Chuck Norris, widely belived to be the most elite of
the Texas Rangers, to rescue them?

My point is being President of the United States is pretty much the
most awesome of jobs in all the land. If you are looking to
disqualify someone as President of the Untied States, elitest is
about the last thing you should call them.

Second:

How many years had George Washington served in the senate before
becoming president? All he did was rally up, organized if you
will, a bunch rag tag tax evaders from his “community” to fight a
bunch of tea drinking biscut biters.

Okay. A stretch. But seriously. What were Reagan’s credentials?
Two terms as governor of the most arugally state in the union.
Lincoln spent one full term in office as a Congressman and just two
years as a Senator. Oh, also from Illinois. If that matters to you.

Third:

And this is where it gets real, and stuff.

I know that neither of these candidates have all the answers. When
Barack Obama becomes President, it will not magically make slavery
like, never ever happened, nor will the economic crisis end, nor
the iraq war, and certainly not the afghan war he has pledged to
escalate. If John McCain wins we will not be safe guarded,
necessarily, by a man “who knows what to do” and “doesn’t need to
be tested”.

However, what I like to do in my mind is to think about how each
deals with each problem. From what I have seen and have heard from
other people I admire (Powell, Buffet, Clinton) is that Barack
Obama will be the sort of President who will gather all the
smartest of the smart people in the whole wide world to give him
advice. He will gather them all in one room at the time of crisis
and listen intently to what each of them have to say. And at the
end of the day he will say, “Thank you for your time and council
ladies and gentleman. You will have my decision in the morning”.

And I believe he will deliberate accordingly, based on ALL the BEST
availble information. And that is what I want out of my President.

Not someone who is awesome to share a beer with, nor someone who is
such a “man in charge” figure that they do not come across as
someone willing to take council.

This final point is what got me thinking in the first place about
the email I received below. That Barack Obama is a person willing
to read crazy books of all points of view. Heck, I know I am
living in crazy liberal land, but I still check drudgereport each
and every single day. Why? Because the dude sets news cycles.
He’s read by millions every day. There has to be something to it.
And if nothing else (as long as it isn’t a site of interesting new
ways to kill people or some other wacco cult site) it is worth my
five minutes a day to see what others are thinking and how that
might influence what I am thinking.

What separates us from so many other places in the world is not
that we aren’t required to read, say, the Qur’an (Koran). But that
we are not forbidden from doing so. And not forbidden to read the
bible, or the torah or Hop On Pop, even.

So the fact that the possible next President of the United States
wants to know why a respected thinker, (a thinker who was called
upon by Paul Wolfolwitz as recently as 2006) believes that we are
coming upon “A Post-American World” really bothers me much, much,
much, much less than the fact that people are (A) bothered by a
Presidential Candidate reading such a book (B) is Judging what the
book is about (muslim indoctrination) by the authors name, Fareed
Zakaria

Mr. Zakaria was a supporter, at first, of the Iraq war, but of
course he wanted far higher troop levels. He does come from the
terrorist training school of Harvard, though. About religion, Mr .
Zakaria says: “I occasionally find myself reluctant to be pulled
into a world that’s not mine, in the sense that I’m not a religious
guy.”

What zealotry!

Well if you have made it this far, you can make it a few steps
further. Below is the email that was sent around and one friend’s
response to try and dampen the “facts” in the email.

Again. Go with what you believe in this election. I have decided
that McCain is not right for me or my country this time around.
But I would never suggest that his time spent in another country
made him a comminist. I’d ask the McCain supporters to do the same.

And that’s the end (except for the stuff I want you to read
below). I guess I should have come up with a catchy way to say
this. Something like “Drill, Baby, Drill”.

I guess “Think, Baby, Think” isn’t winning people over anytime soon.

djd note: For more on what prompted Shaun to write this up, see this rumor debunked on Snopes.

Congratulations Chris and Jerilyn! Your wedding couldn’t have been more beautiful. We had such a great weekend with you, your family, and friends. You really have an unbelievable amount of love and support. Thanks for letting me capture your special day. It was a blast!

You’ll find some select images below but the full sets are now available on Flickr.
View the complete Collection or specific Sets (Saturday, The Wedding, Receiving Line, Portraits, and Reception).

You can order inexpensive prints and other fun stuff directly from Flickr. I’ve written up a step-by-step guide to get you started but let me know if you get stuck.

Flickr is my favorite photo sharing site and community to be sure, but it always amazes me how much confusion there is over what should be really simple tasks like ordering prints.

The Printing FAQ on Flickr isn’t much help either so I’ve decided to roll my own. If you’re looking for a step by step to ordering prints, look no further.

Step 1 – Sign In
Before you can even add a photo to your shopping cart, you need to log into Flickr. If you don’t already have an account, you can create one for free. Having to login first always trips people up so make sure you get this out of the way before continuing.

Step 2 – Request Permission
You won’t be able to print every picture you come across on Flickr because the owner of the photo gets to control who can and can’t order prints in their account settings. Most of my photos tend to be available to anyone but if you don’t see the buttons described in the following steps, you may need to ask the specific owner for permission.

Step 3 – Part 1: Ordering Individual Photos
You can add individual photos to your shopping cart by clicking the ‘Prints & More’ button just above the image.

The first time you do this, you may be asked to confirm that you are located in the United States as Flickr unfortunately only ships to the USA at this time.

After setting this up, the next time you click ‘Prints & More’ you’ll be presented with a list of sizes and prices to choose from. Just select the quantity you want and click ‘Add to Cart’.

Rinse and repeat for other photos you want to order.

Step 3 – Part 2: Ordering A Set of Photos
Photos are often grouped together into ‘Sets’ on Flickr. You can quickly add a bunch of photos from a particular set by following the steps here.

First, browse to the particular Set you’re interested in. There are a few ways to get there but one is to click the Set Title in the box to the right of a photo.

You’ll be taken to a page with a bunch of thumbnails like shown below. Just above the pictures will be an option to ‘Make Stuff’. Click this link and then ‘Prints & more’.

You’ll then have the option to check whichever photos you want, select a size, and add them all to your cart at once.

Step 4 – Check Out
This is where things start to get easier. Just click the shopping cart icon near the top right corner of the page. You’ll be able to review the photos in your cart, change quantities, and remove particular items. When you’re happy with everything, select to pick up the prints at Target or to have them mailed to you at home. Then just enter your info and billing details and you’re all set.

—

Well, I hope this helps. If you’re still stuck let me know in the comments below and I’ll try to update this to make it more clear.

20081018_St.Louis_MO_ArchRally0158.jpg, originally uploaded by Barack Obama.

“All I can say is, wow.”
- Barack Obama greeting the 100,000 person crowd in St. Louis this past weekend. [via Chicago Tribune].

Yorkshire Puddings Take 2, originally uploaded by -DjD-.

I believe I finally have this down…