November 4, 2014

Luckovich toon: Holding on tight

November 3, 2014

Toon: I voted

http://theobamadiary.com/

November 3, 2014

Guess which Michigan candidates had 6,000+ people rally for them yesterday. HINT: it wasn’t the...

the Republicans.

While Michigan Republican Party chair Bobby Schostak, the man behind “The Worst Campaign Ad That Human Beings Actually Paid for This Year”, tells anyone who will listen that President Obama’s visit to Michigan yesterday is going to harm the election chances of Mark Schauer, Gary Peters, and all of our Democratic candidates, over 6,000 people showed up to see him speak last night and to rally for our candidates. Hundreds of others were turned away. My friend Mary wrote this on my Facebook page:



Here are some images from the Facebook pages of Mark Schauer and the Michigan Democratic Party:

More here: http://www.eclectablog.com/2014/11/guess-which-candidates-had-6000-people-rally-for-them-yesterday-hint-it-wasnt-the-republicans.html

November 3, 2014

Poll Tax Receipt

http://theobamadiary.com/

November 3, 2014

I have the RIGHT to my OWN body - so do YOU

http://theobamadiary.com/

November 3, 2014

Vote wisely in November 2014...

While walking down the street one day a corrupt Senator was tragically hit by a car and died.His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.

"Welcome to heaven," says St. Peter. "Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you."
"No problem, just let me in," says the Senator.

"Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from the higher ups. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity."
"Really?, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven," says the Senator.
"I'm sorry, but we have our rules."

And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.
The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him.

Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people.
They played a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and the finest champagne.
Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly guy who is having a good time dancing and telling jokes.

They are all having such a good time that before the Senator realizes it, it is time to go.
Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises.
The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens in heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him, "Now it's time to visit heaven...”

So, 24 hours passed with the Senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.

"Well, then, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity."
The Senator reflects for a minute, then he answers: "Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell."

So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell...
Now the doors of the elevator open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above
The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulders.

"I don't understand," stammers the Senator. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?"
The devil smiles at him and says,

"Yesterday we were campaigning, Today, you voted.."

Vote wisely in November 2014

November 2, 2014

Headlines You Won't See In Your National Media...

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2014/11/hundreds_turned_away_from_pres_1.html

November 2, 2014

Another gentle reminder about polls....

November 1, 2014

Facebook’s secret newsfeed experiments affected voter turnout in the 2012 election

Summary: Facebook has come under fire before for manipulating the newsfeeds of its users without their knowledge, and now a Mother Jones report says the social network’s experiments may have significantly affected voter turnout in the 2012 elections

As many users know by now, Facebook routinely experiments with the structure of the newsfeed — that is, which updates its ranking algorithm highlights and which it down-votes or hides completely. Much of this experimentation is innocuous, but some of it has real-world consequences that extend beyond Facebook and into the disturbing realm of social manipulation: in the latest example, Mother Jones reports that the network tweaked the newsfeeds of almost 2 million users in 2012, and this experiment materially affected voter-turnout rates.

As Techpresident founder Micah Sifry describes in the Mother Jones piece, the manipulation occurred as Facebook was developing a feature it calls its “voter megaphone” — that is, a tool that allows users to post a prominent “I’m Voting” button on their profile in order to encourage others to vote.

Experimentation on or manipulation of users through tweaks to the newsfeed is a controversial topic for many, ever since Facebook admitted earlier this year that a team of researchers had modified the newsfeeds of users to change the emotional content of what they saw in order to determine whether good or bad news could trigger a kind of “emotional contagion,” and make them feel a certain way.

Some argued that this was just part of the tweaking that web-based services do all the time, and pointed out that the 700,000 users affected were a tiny portion of the social network’s user base — but others were disturbed by what they saw as emotional manipulation without proper disclosure. And many saw it as another example of the potential flaws in an algorithmically-filtered online environment.
rates

The Mother Jones story describes how, in the months leading up to election day in 2012, Facebook made a change to the newsfeeds of 1.9 million users in order to see whether it could influence those users to become more interested in political activity: it did this by increasing the number of hard news items that appeared at the top of a user’s newsfeed. According to one of the Facebook data scientists involved, this change “measurably increased voter turnout.”

As described in a public talk given by Facebook data scientist Lada Adamic in 2012 (a video of which has since been removed from YouTube, according to Sifry), Facebook made the change to the feeds of almost 2 million users and then studied their behavior — and found a “statistically significant” increase in the amount of attention they paid to government-related news. The number who voted (or at least those who said they voted) went from 64 percent to 67 percent.


https://gigaom.com/2014/10/31/facebooks-secret-newsfeed-experiments-affected-voter-turnout-in-the-2012-election/?utm_content=buffer7f34f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

November 1, 2014

I dream of a parade celebrating a Landslide Dems 2014

http://theobamadiary.com/2014/11/01/rise-and-shine-943/