Will Hines Dot Net

For those of you discouraged by criticisms of Obama’s first year, I point you to this — it was item number one in The Economist’s “The World This Year” round-up:

Barack Obama was inaugurated as America’s 44th president. In a whirlwind first year in office, Mr. Obama overturned a prohibition on federal funding for stem-cell research, eased some restrictions on dealing with Cuba, lifted a ban on people with HIV traveling to the United States, pushed Congress to pass health-care reform, promised to close the detention camp at Guantanamo, pledged a cut in American’s emissions and promoted the first Hispanic person to the Supreme Court.

I’ll remind you that The Economist is a conservative British magazine, which has a skeptical attitude at best towards America in general and Obama in particular. Still, when tallying what’s important about the year, there’s no doubt of the positive overall change that’s happened. It’s fair game to criticize the president as harshly as you want — it’s part of the job — but step back and see the trends: we’re in a good place, getting better. Full disclosure: disagree with me and I’m probably going to totally ignore you.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Big Picture, a really cool photo blog over at The Boston Globe, has great pictures from yesterday’s inauguration. Among the cool stuff:

• The envelope that Bush left behind for Obama (shown above)
• Bush on the helicopter as it passes over Washington
• The two dudes who gave the “black power” salute at the 1968 Olympics watching Obama get sworn in
• Guantanamo Bay changing their photograph of the current president

Nice.

I can’t find a copy of The New York Times out there. Scooped up!

Great pictures of Barack’s campaign at The Big Picture.

Edited to add: The NY Times confirms they and most major newspapers sold out big time yesterday.

Kottke.org points out the NY Times used their bigger headline typesize ever, used only three times before.

The front page of the NY Times looked like this, btw.

I walked into the school behind McCarren Pool to vote. It is, at best, a confusing scenario. The guy at the door asked if I had my voter registration card, which I didn’t. And he shook his head. Were I nervous or hadn’t done it before, I would have gone home. But I’ve done this three or four times and I said “I’m sure I’m registered, and I have photo I.D.” And he waved me on. My name and signature was in the voter rolls, and I showed my ID and voted. I had checked a month ago that I was still registered, but what if I were a nervous non-English speaker who had never voted?

I passed my landlady on the way in. She has lived in my neighborhood since the 1700s and is very sweet (that is not a typo — my landlady has been in the neighborhood forever, centuries at the very least). “Beautiful day. So many young people!” she said. Then as she was leaving she yelled to me “Do the right thing!” and I have no idea if she was recommending a particular candidate or just offering general advice on voting. But after she said it another woman, 50ish, who I did NOT know walked up to me and said “There is no right thing. They’re BOTH bums!” Because I apparently live in a cartoon version of New York City from the 1930s where everyone is constantly in the stands of Ebbets Field.

Voted! That makes, in reverse order: Obama, Kerry, Nader, Clinton, Clinton, Dukakis. C’mon Obama, bring my batting average up to .500!

Edited since the comments and emails and make me think I’m mis-representing my voting place: The guy didn’t ask me for ID. He was polite. He asked if I had a voted registration card because if I did he could tell me which booth to go to and save me time. But when I said I didn’t have it, he shook his head which to him meant “Oh, well, you’re gonna have to wait in line” but to me made me feel like I’d screwed up. I’m just trying to convey how weird it is to go vote when you’re not 100% sure of how it’s supposed to work, and how easily one can be dissuaded from doing it — even if the people working have the best of intentions.

Dry Hump the Vote. Written/starring Rob. Directed by me. Thanks to Damian Chadwick for the logo.

A few things:

• Rob and I have worked on this video for 14 years.
• Any video that’s just jump cutting someone listing a bunch of silly things; I’m down for it.
• I shot it in (fake) 16:9, but tried to export it 4:3 — a process that resulted in me uploading the video 6 times to FunnyOrDie. UCBComedy and YouTube handled the first try no problem though!

Here’s a fun/depressing game: Go to YouTube. Notice how they show you five videos that are being watched at that moment. If you refresh the page, you’ll see five different videos being watched at THAT moment. Now notice how many of them are either a) Sarah Palin or b) Tina Fey’s impression of her on Saturday Night Live or c) any other impersonation of Sarah Palin. My highest score is four out of five, and I’ve never gotten lower than one.