Barack Obama

This week Obama named one of his best cabinet picks yet: Dr. Steven Chu, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, former chair of Stanford University's physics department, and Nobel Prize-winning (for research in laser cooling and trapping of atoms) physicist, was named Obama's Energy Secretary. Chu also has been an early and strong supporter of alternative fuels and renewable energy research. THIS is the kind of leadership this country needs!

It should be noted that this is the FIRST Energy Secretary who is genuinely an expert on energy.

Dr. Chu's impressive biography can be found here.

Here's a video of Steve Chu at the Davos Annual Meeting, 2007, talking about Climate Change:

If you have been hiding under a rock today, you have not heard then of how fantastically the Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevish, was arrested today on charges that he was trying to sell the US Senate seat vacated by President-Elect Barack Obama.

Yeah. The guy gets caught trying to sell the United States Senate seat vacated by the President-Elect of the United State. You know, because this is just an obscure little state that's under the radar AFTER HAVING ONE OF IT'S SENATORS BECOME THE FIRST BLACK MAN ELECTED PreSIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!

Not only that, the guy has been under investigation for ages by the same U. S. Attorney that took out Scooter Libby. You read that right : The dimwit has the nerve to doubt the prosecutorial abilities of Patrick Fitzgerald.

I just love the way Jazz Shaw of The Moderate Voice put it :

"Blagojevich’s Senate Selection Process Investigated"

Really? You’re investigating his selection process? Given the details leaking out already, isn’t that somewhat akin to checking out Jeffrey Dahmer’s kitchen for questionable cooking techniques?

And this is why I friggin' hate stupidly corrupt Democrats. When it comes to corruption, Republicans seem to have that pat down : "This scrumptious yellow cake is radioactive and not a bakery treat. Let's invade Iraq!"

I think Al-Jazeera captures the WTF state of my brain trying to wrap itself around the idea of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. What it doesn't really explain is the dark underbelly of the "Why?" Is the a show of strength or a show of weakness?

I hope history will prove me absolutely wrong on this one, but I have to go with the second choice and not the first. For all the talk of frenemies being the new black, the fact of the matter is that Obama didn't win support within the Democratic Party unless he had to give up something.

And by the looks of it, it was control of national security both in the foreign and domestic arena. Here's a magical mystery tour of the country's "new" National Security Team :

We have one unconference, one competition and one networking conference all cooking in our burners. Come check it out!

Nota Bene : All text is taken verbatim from each event's site. I will be posting about each event shortly.

Best Moment Ever :

Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House.

¿En dónde nació Barack Obama?

¿Lo bautizaron como cristiano o lo criaron como musulmán?

¿En quién puedo confiar para que me diga la verdad?

Éstas son algunas de la preguntas que están trayendo gente a este blog por medio de los referidos de Google. Honestamente, las encuentro alarmantes.

Barack Hussein Obama II nació en Hawaai, en la ciudad de Honolulu. Su padre era del grupo étnico Luo de Kenya.  Su madre,  Ann Dunham, era una anglo-estadounidense del estado de Kansas. Sus padres se conocieron en la Universidad de Manoa en Hawaii en el 1959. Dos años después y apenas después de que naciera Barack se divorciaron.

Aunque el padre de Barack fue criado como musulmán, renegó su religión y se declaró ateo años antes de que se casara con Ann Dunham. En cuanto a su madre, Barack la describe como intrínsicamente espiritual,  aunque halla sido criada por personas que no fueran particularmente religiosas (los abuelos procedían de familias Metodistas y Bautistas).

Obama fue bautizado bajo la Iglesia de la Trinidad Unida en Cristo (Trinity United Church of Christ) en 1988.

New York City has the onus of making 2,000,000 phone calls to battleground states by the time the polls close on Tuesday. The New York for Obama has a "New York Last Call" action alert that has been going on since Friday.

Babysitting in the city is rather expensive. So to do my bit, I brought them with me to phonebank at the Teamsters' HQ :

Teamsters Local 237
216 West 14th St.
btwn 7th and 8th Aves
New York, NY 10011
Sun noon-9pm
Mon 10am-9pm
Election Day 9am-9pm

If you are in the 14th Street area, send in your RSVP.

The kids helped with picking up all the callers' paperwork and taking it to "the lady with the computer", so she could process the information on their central database. They also streamed some videos and did some interviews. You can see the fruit of their labor at the culturekitchen channel on Qik.com.

Isn't this special.

Australian immigrant Rupert Murdoch owns Times of London, the British publication that first published about Obama's 'Auntie Zeituni'.

Rupert Murdoch owns Fox News, that "fair and balanced as long as it's talking about extreme right-wing politics" network.