From NYTimes.com: Obama Asks Bush to Provide Help for Automakers

Mr. Bush indicated at the meeting that he might support some aid and a broader economic stimulus package if Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats dropped their opposition to a free-trade agreement with Colombia, a measure for which Mr. Bush has long fought, people familiar with the discussion said.

This is one thing that I hate about politics.  If you feel like aiding the automakers is the right thing, then do it.  If you don’t, then don’t do it.  A decision like this deserves to be decided on its own merit, not as part of deal for something else.

I am torn about the idea of aiding automakers.  I understand that jobs are at stake, but the automakers are primarily at fault for their own problems.  When has GM produced a car that you would actually want to drive?  They have a fundamental problem that lending 25 billion dollars won’t solve.  People don’t want to drive the cars they sell.

If you lend them the money, will this buy them the time to be able to fix the company and produce fuel-efficient and technologically innovative cars?  The irony of this is that GM has spent years lobbying the government against increased fuel efficiency standards.  If they had just gone along with this and improved their efficiency, their problems wouldn’t be as dire as they are now.

From Boston.com: Scenes from Antarctica

32 Amazing photos of Antarctica. Thanks to Doug for sending me the link.

Upload your picture and become a James Bond villain!

Be a Bond Baddie

“Warning could create PINOT ENVY!”

I’ve written about the Hillary Nutcracker before, but now they’ve added “Corkscrew Bill“!

From Mediaweek.com: CNN.com Cashes In on Obama T-Shirts

The election of Barack Obama has sent Americans scrambling for keepsakes of the historic moment, creating lines outside printing plants for yesterday’s newspaper editions. It has also led to a small flurry of a new kind of keepsake: CNN has registered thousands of orders for T-shirts carrying the headline from the site reporting Obama’s election victory.
 
In the 24 hours since CNN.com published its story calling the election for Obama, the site sold nearly 5,000 T-shirts emblazoned with “Obama inspires historic victory.” Under the headline is “I just saw it on CNN.com” and the time and date 11:04 p.m., 11-4-08.
 
CNN in April rolled out the application, built by The Barbarian Group, to offer readers the chance to buy T-shirts carrying the site’s headlines. The promotion is meant to build awareness of the CNN.com brand and traffic to the site. The T-shirts cost $15.
 
The customized T-shirts are a new digital twist on the marking of historic occasions. Newspapers have seen huge spikes in demand for copies of the paper declaring Obama’s victory. CNN sites enjoyed a big influx of traffic on Election Day, drawing 12.8 million visitors on Tuesday, compared with 8.4 million the same day last week.
 
The interest translated into nearly $75,000 in T-shirt sales. The 5,000 T-shirts sold doubled the total purchased during the first five months of the promotion.

Of all the keepsakes available for Barack Obama’s historic victory, this has to be one of the lamest.  What are you going to do with a shirt like this?  It isn’t worth anything as a keepsake, and if you wear it in public you look like a total dork.  A headline form CNN?  Woooooo.  A newspaper or an actual Obama campaign shirt will be a nicer piece of memorabilia. 

Or even the Obama commemorative plate.  Well, I take it back on the plate, that’s pretty cheesy too.  Who actually buys these? 
I’m not sure selling 5000 T-shirts is exactly cashing in for CNN.   Selling 5000 shirts to a total of 12.8 million visitors represents less than .04% of visitors actually buying a shirt.

From NYTimes.com: Stretching: The Truth

Researchers now believe that some of the more entrenched elements of many athletes’ warm-up regimens are not only a waste of time but actually bad for you. The old presumption that holding a stretch for 20 to 30 seconds — known as static stretching — primes muscles for a workout is dead wrong. It actually weakens them. In a recent study conducted at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, athletes generated less force from their leg muscles after static stretching than they did after not stretching at all. Other studies have found that this stretching decreases muscle strength by as much as 30 percent. Also, stretching one leg’s muscles can reduce strength in the other leg as well, probably because the central nervous system rebels against the movements.

When I was studying karate several years ago we did mostly static stretching, but one of the higher level students who was leading warm-up exercises introduced us to a couple of “active” stretching exercises.  We’d hold our hand in straight out in front and kick up to it.  The way he explained it to us is that if we ever had to fight on the street that our opponents wouldn’t give us a chance to static stretch first.  But, I guess we wouldn’t have a chance to active stretch either, but that’s besides the point.

The article illustrates a couple of interesting exercises that I would describe as more whole body stretching exercises.

OK, I made it through two days without blogging about Sarah Palin, but I had to do this, I was getting withdrawal shakes! Darn the liberal media for taking shots at Sarah Palin! Darn Fox News!

UPDATE: Here’s another story
From The Huffington Post: Palin Once Greeted McCain Staff Wearing Only A Towel

At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Palin was completely unfazed by the boys’ club fraternity she had just joined. One night, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. “I’ll be just a minute,” she said.
…
One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

An excerpt from President-elect Barack Obama’s speech at Grant Park:

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that’s on my mind tonight’s about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She’s a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons — because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America — the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that “We Shall Overcome.” Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.

And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.

Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves — if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.

his is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.

Full Transcript of Barack Obama’s speech