Penny Hero (dot) Net

At last at last at last!

We’re finally imortalized on Google Maps and Google Earth!

Here’s the Digg story, a direct link to the google map (I’m the little dot on the far right in the picture of us near the trucks), and a article about the crop circle being in Google Earth!

I’m so stoked. I’m risking persecution by blogging at work while my bosses are down here because this is just THAT exciting!

btw, here’s the article that talks about the circle project and the the documentary that documented it all!

A couple of my friends plus two of their friends (who are no-doubt equally cool) are trying to get to linux.conf.au and need the internet’s help to get there.

You can do one (or more) of the following things to help:

1. Digg this: How to raise 10,000 grassroots style
2. spread the word by blogging and linking to their website
3. DONATE!!

I donated $50. Beat that, suckers!

A friend of mine sent me this link about people dressed as V (from V for Vendetta) visiting security check points at the White House, the main Treasury, IRS and Justice Department Buildings and the Capitol in order to

…deliver the People’s Petitions for Redress of Grievances relating to the Government’s violations of the war powers, tax, privacy and money clauses of the Constitution, and to inform key Government officials that at least 100 more “Vs” would be at their doorstep on November 14th expecting a response to the Petitions.

The article is both a sort of press-release-style write-up of Nov 6th stuff, and an invitation to participate in the event on the 14th complete with hotel information and itinerary.

It’s run by “We The People” at givemeliberty.org, so I assume that it’s organized by them (and the invite at the bottom mentions when the ‘WTP’ participants will arive, etc.)

I can’t find any news about this, but it’s also currently linked to from their front page. Seems to me that if they really want participation, they’d promote the event a little better nationally in the news.

(or perhaps they did, and I just missed it, considering this happened on Nov. 6. Google news search doesn’t turn up anything that I can find though… it’s all being overshadowed by news of “V for Vendetta” coming to HD-DVD, or basic movie reviews)

My Thoughts:

On one hand, I think it’s cool that a group is borrowing the image of the movie to raise awareness of issues such as the petition of grievences, and our rights as americans (not to mention the whole ‘remaining anonymous and representative’ through wearing the mask. It’s clear that they understood the law when they made this demonstration.

I also think that using the image of V (rather than some other anonymous costume like a ski mask) was a smart move too, because V is decidedly non-threatening (because it’s now a movie-icon) AND it’s decidedly political (rather than axe-murderer-ish).

On the other hand, it really does seem a little tiny bit like an unecessary and tacky stunt. I don’t believe that our government has progressed so far down the wrong path that we should be afraid to identify ourselves when we protest. I’m not afraid to protest, and I would if I felt the need. I’m partly of middle-eastern descent too! (granted, I live in the Super Liberal Eugene area… not sure how I’d feel in Texas, for example.)

Did WTP forget that the Nov. 11 elections were coming up and that a shift in power might (and did) occur? I wonder how the elections have changed things, if at all.

It just seems a little silly since The Vote seems to have accomplished more than what V’s trying to accomplish with this petition of grievences.

Either that, or I’ve misunderstood something. Someone enlighten me?

On the Virginia race:

An Associated Press count Wednesday night showed Webb with 1,172,538 votes and Allen with 1,165,302, a difference of 7,236, or less than one-third of 1 percent.

Wow. There are more people enrolled in some high schools than that. My high school was something like 6,000 people when I was enrolled. Nevermind! I just checked. it was more like 2.5k. I was thinking of my graduating class of 600 people.

Anyway, I guess this means is that Allen can request a re-count on the state’s dime since it’s fewer than half a percentage point difference (if these numbers are the final count).

Cassady just told me that voter turnout exceeded 40% for yesterday’s midterms (preliminary analysis). I know that I was one of those people who decided to stop feeling apathetic and start actually trying to understand what’s going on and get people to vote. Seems I wasn’t the only one.

Other news is saying they projected 45% turnout, and some states (like Michigan) are breaking major voter turnout records.

Not to mention the youth voter turnout record, as well as women turnouts increasing since 2000 in general!

Check out Oregon:

Democrat turnout outpaces Republicans’ and we’re likely to set a 16 year record for voter turnout in a non-presidential election (Nov. 7th story). I’m searching to find out what the end numbers were. That story implies that we could have hit 70%? that sounds very very high to me, but maybe it’s right? someone correct me.

Oregon:
Did you see the OregonLive results yet??

I’m pretty happy about pretty much everything there. :) Except, uh… laughably 47 is passing without 46. Considering that 46 ALLOWS laws regulating campaign funds in the first place, you can’t pass a MEASURE THAT WOULD REGULATE FUNDS (measure 47) without it. And thus… right now, measure 47 is passing…but meaningless if 46 fails. (ORmeasures.org).

(12:09:14 AM) Xander: obviously, someone didn’t read the ballot measures.

Understatement FTW!

Edit: Isaac Laquedem and his readers have much more intelligent things to say about this.

Nation:

I’ve had this insane I-cant-turn-off-the-news night. I’m sure I’m not the only one. I’m ending the night with the Daily Show / Cobert Report mash-up. Cobert paraphrase of the day:

Democrats are going to use our tax dollars to buy electric cars for NPR and teach evolution to illegal immigrants!

Go Cobert go! (someone correct me on the exact text of that quote please?)

In my head:

Another thing that’s spiffy is how all of this led to me having really great conversations with people I don’t get to talk to very often. Like Maiki and Xander to name just two. I suppose it’s not BAD that politics brings people into productive, unexpected, heated, and awesome conversations with each other. That’s what it’s supposed to do.

Anyway. It seems that only three of the friends I talked to didn’t vote, so I think that’s a good sign. People my age … CARE! I feel less disenfranchised!

Help! I need a good (NOT CLICHE!) quote to engrave on an …um… ipod. :)

Any ideas?

(suggestions from complete strangers or new readers are welcome!)