So happy that it happened so quickly:

I hope people in other countries can see the above video.

Here’s to more of Fey and Poehler over the next few months on SNL. o

GOP rhetoric as told by Sarah Palin while being interviewed by Charlie Gibson:

“…it is about putting government back on the side of the people…”

Really? By lining up for earmarks and then lying about it later? By being vindictive and misusing her paltry power for personal reasons and lying about it later? Her record isn’t matching her rhetoric in the least. She’s giving the current president a run for his money with baldfaced lies. Just what the country needs.

John McCain on Sarah Palin:

“…Energy. She knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America….”

And this circus of absurdity is meant to make people vote for a McCain/Palin ticket? Are you serious?

The fundamentalist christian voice in the U.S. has had eight years to show their leadership skills. They blew it.

To wit: get everybody riled up over stupid stuff and then slowly and surely erode the constitution.

As a country, the United States should have learned that fundamentalists make for horrible leaders. They routinely pick the wrong people for any number of jobs and seek to bring out the worst in human nature. They give the incompetent power and position where none is warranted. They fail when people depend on them. I don’t care what your political views are if you can’t honestly assess the landscape: McCain chose the wrong person to run so that he could pander to the very element that needs to be run out of Washington D.C. o

I watched this last night and I am happy to share it here:

Boom.

And they STILL claim a moral high ground. HAHAHAHAHAHA. GOP = Done.o

Taken of this building in downtown San Francisco. I like these kinds of crazy architectural mashups. I’m a fan of the work that I.M. Pei did with the Louvre in Paris. You can’t add to an old building without incident or somebody getting worked up. These departures seem like a great solution to a major challenge. I know that not everybody agrees and there is a slight tug of my inner purist from deep within that wants to hate architecture like this, but it’s really a great solution.

This was taken with the G9 and if you look closely enough, you can see the noise. I shot this at 80 ISO RAW and it just doesn’t have the same range as the 5D sensor. Still, a pretty good result given the cost and size of this camera. o

I watched America’s Next Top Model instead of listening to what I knew would be a dishonest screed. I was right:

Attacks, praise stretch truth at GOP convention - Yahoo! News Via: waxy. Go, Greg, go!

Besides, ANTM has a pre-op trannie who made the house cut; simple math indicates that ANTM is the anti-GOP.

Obama ‘08, people. o

If one wants to get a great lightning shot, one should not shoot it through a double-paned window that is in desperate need of a washing. Also, one would not add wind and blowing rain (adhering to said window) that makes the foreground objects blurry for the long exposure (wanted a lower f-stop) and you have yourself an okay lightning shot.

This was taken when the power was out Sunday night. We haven’t had a lot of lightning this summer and I figure if I try this enough, one of the shots I get will be the one that I hang on my wall. This isn’t so much that shot. The composition is a bit wonky.

Anyway, power out for 10 hours, which I’ve been documenting on Twitter so that when the class action suit starts, I’ll have exact times and ranges of the outages. I’ve never lived in an area that had more outages. Sure, the weather is extreme here, but even the California rolling blackouts in 2000-2001 were less severe than the ones we’ve had here. I would do mypowerisout.com with google map integration to track monopolies who don’t spend enough on infrastructure, tree-trimming and line burial.

Two more months until the general election for President of the U.S. I’m feeling ornery. So I’ll stop here.

Hey. Lightning! o

With nary a mention of statutory rape, the scourge of single moms (big with the GOP in the late 80s and 90s) or teen pregnancy:

Palin secured earmarks for town - Washington Post- msnbc.com

Via: reader C. Thanks!

Best bit near the bottom of the first page:

“In fiscal year 2002, Wasilla took in $6.1 million in earmarks — about $1,000 in federal money for every resident. By contrast, Boise, Idaho — which has more than 190,000 residents — received $6.9 million in earmarks in fiscal 2008.”

Then this bit from the bottom of the second page:

In addition, Palin has reversed course on at least one major earmark: After initially supporting the $223 million bridge, which was to connect the town of Ketchikan with a remote island, she reversed course last year and canceled the project because of cost overruns. Critics have dubbed the project the “Bridge to Nowhere.”

But her administration remains eager for many other earmarks.

In February, Palin’s office sent Sen. Stevens a 70-page memo outlining almost $200 million worth of new funding requests for Alaska.

GOP: Big government sucks. But give me my money. o

I had read the rumblings this morning about the “faked” pregnancy of Sarah Palin, presumptive GOP Vice Presidential nominee.

Then things got weirder:

CNN: Teen daughter of GOP VP pick is pregnant - CNN.com

Fox: Palin’s 17-Year-Old Daughter is Pregnant - America’s Election HQ

NYTimes: Palin’s 17-Year-Old Daughter Is Pregnant - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com

Talking Points Memo: TPM Election Central | Talking Points Memo | McCain Campaign: Palin’s 17-Year-Old Daughter Is Pregnant

Talk about an indictment of “abstinence-only” sex education. Those wacky right wingers!

And then the Washington post has this nugget:
Palin Was a Director of Embattled Sen. Stevens’s 527 Group | The Trail | washingtonpost.com

This is the craziest presidential election. What will happen next?

p.s. Vote Obama ‘08. o

This is a crop of a portrait oriented shot taken with the Canon Powershot G9. I almost bought this camera back in April 2008 as a pseudo back-up for our 5D should we ever need to send it in (probably for service soon). I decided then to wait. I saw a bunch of great shots with it on flickr and elsewhere online and decided that if we ran into any clearance issues at Outside Lands, we’d have a backup that would at least give us RAW files to work with. I picked it up at a big box retailer with an included 4gb card for $439 US. Not bad at all for a super portable yet powerful point and shoot.

While the range isn’t even close to what one would get with an SLR, if the controls are tweaked correctly, the shots are very usable and I’ve heard stories of outdoor photographers using a G9 for cover shots of rock/mountain climbers.

I’d say the camera was worth it given the quality of the Radiohead shots alone. Those shots were taken under extremely difficult and challenging circumstances; low light, crowd jostling, heavy fog (natural and artificial, which both mess with auto-focus) and ever changing lighting.

I’ll be sharing a few more from this camera from time to time. I’m traveling next month and I’ll be seeing how far I can push the G9. o

Taken from the photo pit right before Wilco took the stage. That photo pit was insane. There were tons of people in the pit, including 50 photographers. Getting a good angle in three songs was a pain compared to the other artist sets from this same stage.

More photos coming in a later post. o