President-Elect Barack Obama's Video Adress For Saturday, February 15, 2008

Here, President-Elect Obama calls for Congress to act swiftly on economic relief for the Auto Industry.

Barack Obama's Radio Address, November 15, 2008

Get your own at Scribd or explore others:  Politics    Campaigns and Electi    radio address    Barack Obama  

Barack Obama Collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian Comics - Fun Facts About Barack

Ok.  So you're wondering what President-Elect Obama's weird and little known likes and interests are? Here's a list just presented by Denise Hawkins on the Obama listserv:

He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics

• He was known as "O'Bomber" at high school for his skill at  basketball

• His name means "one who is blessed" in Swahili

• His favourite meal is wife Michelle's shrimp linguini

• He won a Grammy in 2006 for the audio version of his memoir,  Dreams

   From My Father

• He is left-handed – the sixth post-war president to be  left-handed

• He has read every Harry Potter book

• He owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali

• He worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager and  now

   can't stand ice cream

• His favourite snacks are chocolate-peanut protein bars

• He ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while  living in

   Indonesia

• He can speak Spanish

• While on the campaign trail he refused to watch CNN and had  sports

   channels on instead

• His favourite drink is black forest berry iced tea

• He promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for  president –

   he didn't

• He kept a pet ape called Tata while in Indonesia

• He can bench press an impressive 200lbs

• He was known as Barry until university when he asked to be  addressed

   by his full name

• His favourite book is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

• He visited Wokingham, Berks, in 1996 for the stag party of his

   half-sister's fiancé, but left when a stripper arrived

• His desk in his Senate office once belonged to Robert Kennedy

• He and Michelle made $4.2 million (£2.7 million) last year,  with

   much coming from sales of his books

• His favourite films are Casablanca and One Flew Over the  Cuckoo's Nest  

• He carries a tiny Madonna and child statue and a bracelet  belonging

   to a soldier in Iraq for good luck

• He applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at  Harvard, but was

   rejected by the all-female committee.

• His favourite music includes Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Bach and  The Fugees

• He took Michelle to see the Spike Lee film Do The Right Thing  on their

   first date

• He enjoys playing Scrabble and poker

• He doesn't drink coffee and rarely drinks alcohol

• He would have liked to have been an architect if he were not a politician

• As a teenager he took drugs including marijuana and cocaine

• His daughters' ambitions are to go to Yale before becoming an actress

   (Malia, 10) and to sing and dance (Sasha, 7)

• He hates the youth trend for trousers which sag beneath the  backside

• He repaid his student loan only four years ago after signing  his book deal

• His house in Chicago has four fire places

• Daughter Malia's godmother is Jesse Jackson's daughter Santita

• He says his worst habit is constantly checking his BlackBerry

• He uses an Apple Mac laptop

• He drives a Ford Escape Hybrid, having ditched his gas-guzzling  Chrysler

   300 SUV

• He wears $1,500 (£952) Hart Schaffner Marx suits

• He owns four identical pairs of black size 11 shoes

• He has his hair cut once a week by his Chicago barber, Zariff,  who charges

   $21 (£13)

• His favourite fictional television programmes are Mash and The  Wire

• He was given the code name "Renegade" by his Secret Service  handlers

• He was nicknamed "Bear" by his late grandmother

• He plans to install a basketball court in the White House  grounds

• His favourite artist is Pablo Picasso

• His speciality as a cook is chilli

• He has said many of his friends in Indonesia were "street  urchins"

• He keeps on his desk a carving of a wooden hand holding an egg,  a Kenyan

   symbol of the fragility of life

• His late father was a senior economist for the Kenyan  government

"Lost" Inauguration Hotel Reservations Prompt New Facebook Page

Are you one of those who had the presence of mind to make your inauguration reservations earlier this year, only to have recently gotten a call from a hotel representative stating that your well-earned hotel room was "lost" are undoubtedly irate -- but not alone. 

Such reports have spawned this new Facebook Page called "Hotels "Losing" Reservations for The Inauguration".   This is what it's creator reports:

Have any of you who may have booked hotel rooms in the DC area for the inauguration months and months ago, suddenly received a phonecall from the hotel informing you that due to some sort of "computer malfunction" you no longer have a room reserved?

This just happended to me yesterday, and I'm trying to find out if this is starting to happen to many supporters. As I'm sure you're all aware, they are estimating there will be well over a million people coming to DC for this inauguration, and hotels that weren't already booked solid jacked their rates to rape people. That's bad enough, but now...I'm trying to get a feel for whether they are also now starting to "lose" reservations for people who booked months ago at lower rates, so they can resell those rooms at the rape rates.

As you might imagine, I am RAGING over this. I booked 2 rooms (for 6 of us) at the Hilton Garden Inn, in Greenbelt, MD back on May 11th, before Obama even won the primary! I have email confirmations on my reservations. In addition, I called the hotel directly 2 days after the election to reconfirm verbally they still showed my reservation, which they did. And now....magically....they tell me that the reservation never made it from the Hilton central system into their property system. I've spoken with a friend of mine in the hospitality industry, and she assures me they are blowing smoke up my skirt.

So, while I continue to call the hotel every hour on the hour, demanding that the general manager do something to rectify this situtation, I am attempting to find anywhere to stay. I worked 2 years on this campaign, and I'm heartbroken at the prospect of not being able to attend this historic event. There truly are zero hotel vacancies within a 250 mile radius of DC. I've been searching house rental sites, but I'm not having any luck there either. I'm livid.

If any of you have reservations, I would HIGHLY recommend you contact your hotels and reconfirm that they really do show you with a room...and somehow get them to confirm that in blood.

If any of you are experiencing the same problem that I have, please let me know. I think if we discover this has turned into an epidemic, we need to somehow get this out as a major story in the MSM and on the web. I would think a story about grassroots supporters getting screwed by corporate hotel chains would be a story that journalists would love. At the very least, I need to find a way to make Hilton pay dearly for this.

Also....if anyone is aware of someone in the DC area who would be willing to rent their house to a group of 6 of us, please contact me.

If you have been screwed by your hotel, please contact me with your story. I do NOT want to let them get away with this.

How Blogging Is Like An Election Campaign - A Set of Tips 1. You need a story

I saw what is an interesting take on Blogging and how it's like an election campaign, and since we just experienced and participated in one, I thought it was appropriate.  I found it at Problogger and it's by "Trish" of "Ideas for Women."

I disagree that a Blogger should take a break, not that Bloggers should not, but one has to make sure there's a constant churn of information -- posts -- daily.  I read somewhere -- I think here at Technorati -- that the most successful blogs had between four and 30 posts a day.  That's work. 

Here's an excerpt:

I followed this year’s U.S. presidential election pretty closely on T.V. and also volunteered for one of the candidates. Over I time I began to notice some parallels between running a successful campaign and a successful blog.

I don’t plan to ever run for president - but I would like to have a more successful blog. I would also like to share what I learned and hope that it will be helpful to other bloggers.



1. You need a story

Both of the presidential candidates and their running mates had a story. John McCain was a P.O.W., Sarah Palin, a hockey mom. Joe Biden was from Scranton, Pennsylvania and stuttered as kid. Barack Obama’s story is that he is the “son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas”.

The details of the stories don’t really matter. What matters is how they /framed/ their story - their story had to be everyone else’s story - a story people could relate to.

Editorial: Abusive police chief needs to go

THE OAKLAND SCHOOL district should fire the chief of its small police force for his abusive behavior caught on tape as he inappropriately detained an Oakland Tribune journalist during a student protest against immigration raids after striking her with his car.

read more | digg story

Valerie Jarrett Joins Obama Administration

With speculation that Senator Hillary Clinton is pondering whether or not to accept the Secretary of State position in President-elect Barack Obama’s administration, close friend Valerie Jarrett has been named senior adviser in the White House.

read more | digg story

Clinton to State? Is Mid-East Peace Back On The Table?

There has been a lot of chatter the last 48 hours or so about Obama considering Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. The chatter practically exploded this afternoon with the report that the President-Elect had formally offered the job to her and she was considering the offer. Most all of the discussion to date as to why Barack Obama might be

read more | digg story

Hillary Clinton tipped for Secretary of State

SPECULATION is mounting in the US that Hillary Clinton could take control of the country’s foreign affairs policy as president-elect Barack Obama considers her for his secretary of state.

read more | digg story

Buffi The Gym Girl - My New Sim Game - BuffiTheGymGirl.com

 

Regular visitors to our blog are undoubtedly saying "What?!" but I've not forgotten the basics of Sports Business Simulations: our sim games.  But I've spent so much time developing the online marketing and online reputation management aspect of the business, that I had to delay the introduction of my third classroom sim: Buffi The Gym Girl. 

What's Buffi The Gym Girl?

BUFFI THE GYM GIRL BETA is a simulation of a very real, daily activity: going to the gym and the reasons why we pick a gym or leave one. Since some consider gyms as great places to meet people, and to date, it comes as no suprise that people change gyms based on clientele. Enter Buffi, expertly played by actress Cynthia Lee (with her sister Mary Lee playing "Buffi's Sister".) 

Buffi is a beautiful, intelligent girl-next-door, approachable, talkative, and totaly hot and famous star gym rat and personal trainer. She's not shy about her opinions and if she comes to your gym, all kind of good things happen, namely, membership skyrockets.

Your job as gym owner is to make the right decisions to keep Buffi happy and prevent her from leaving and yet make a profit at the same time. You have several decisions you can make, from the monthly fee to use the gym, to the number of sales representatives you need to get new members, the money you spend on marketing and maintenance, the number of employees you have, and if you should expand the gym, provided you can do so.

BUFFI THE GYM GIRL is a system dynamics sim, so there are some business dynamics to be aware of. First, you can have too many members.

If you do, and Buffi's at your gym, she will leave.

You can spend too little money on maintenance, and if you do, Buffi will not come to your gym. You can have too few employees, and risk losing Buffi and everyone else. Or you can have too few amenities, and not get Buffi at all.

The question for you is can you run a successful gym and do without Buffi? That's something you will have to figure out for yourself, either for fun or as part of a business or sport management or fitness management class.  If you're interested in using this for your class, call me, Zennie Abraham, its creator, at 510-387-9809 or email: zennie@sportsbusinesssims.com

Buffi The Gym Girl Decisions

There are several decisions that make up Buffi The Gym Girl

"Expand Gym" - Select 1 for "yes" or "0" for no expansion.
"Number of Gym Employees" - Each change increases or decreases personel costs and impacts service.
"Gym Maintenance Expenditure" - Select the expenditure you will make for gym maintenance each month.
"Gym Marketing Expenditure" - Select the expenditure you will make for marketing the gym each month here.
"Gym Monthly Fee" - What You Will Charge Per Month For Gym Membership
"Number of Gym Sales Reps" - Select the number of sales people at the gym.
 Click For Buffi The Gym Girl - Beta

Obama Transition Update: Valerie Jarrett on Ethics Reform - Video

Obama for America's Valerie Jarrett -- who may be President-Elect Obama's replacement in the U.S. Senate after he resigns his seat this Sunday -- gives us an update   of what the Transition Team is doing. I know personally that some Obama volunteers have been offered low-level positions in the Transition Team.


In a related note, President Obama will continue to use YouTube to annouce his policies and initiatives. Frankly, I never expected him to give up the practice, but it's also light years ahead of what "43" did and is doing -- nothing.

NextArts.org Planning San Francisco Simulcast Of Inauguration, But Upsetting Obama Volunteers

UPDATE: click here. 


NextArts is a San Francisco-based community organization that dates back to 1998, and has as it's charge..

..to return San Francisco to its renown as a cultural center by fostering artists who displayed exceptional musical and songwriting talents. Rather than hemming artistic expression in with labels, we sought to expand possibilities. 

In lock-step with that objective, NextArts is planning what is sure to be a giant simulcast of the Obama Presidential Inauguration using San Francisco's City Hall.  Sounds great and one would think NextArts would have no problem gaining support.  But in the process  of doing just that, NextArts has managed to piss off a large group of San Francisco-based Obama supporters at a listserv called "SFforObama".  Here's some of the exchange:

NextArts:  

We want to share more w/ you on what's going on with our plans.

First, we are hiring some people to help us.  Maybe some of you saw our listing on Craigslist?  We would prefer to hire within, so to speak.  If anyone wants a job working on the Simulcast send your resume in right away because we will be interviewing this weekend and those we hire will start on Monday.

Second, our event is not a party.  Our event will be very reverent and it will be an opportunity for this movement to in essence step up and begin to help others.  We will be collecting socks and underwear for the homeless.  And, we just want to say from the bottom of our hearts that we really "hope" this is what this movement has been all about, beginning the process of becoming our brother's and sister's keeper.

Today, Sen. Dianne Feinstein became our honorary chair.  More politicians will follow.  But, we want to be clear about what this really is for us:  It is a new day, a new way.

I hope you guys don't mind if we give you updates as we move along in this process.  While NextArts has done big events before, this is by far the largest undertaking we have ever endeavored.  Or it could be, with your help and your blessings.

SFforObama:

FYI - I forwarded nextart's email to a friend who I thought would be interested in doing work for the simulcast and this was her feedback;

These people are rude ASSHOLES!  I called early am and then noticed that they open at 11am so I decided I'd call then.  Well, I just got a call from a guy called Tony saying my number showed up and he was calling me back.  I told him about the email and that it wasn't clear what they were hiring f or and he says "Didn't you read that you are supposed to email us your resume?" And so I answered "Yes but how am I supposed to know if this even is for me unless I know what you are hiring for?" and he says "THAT'S what you called me for???" and he HANGS UP ON ME!

NextArts:

(unnamed by me)...

What your friend says is untrue.  I really think some of you should take a look at things too.  We apologize for bringing our plans up, because it seems there is no room for us.  From our perspective it hasn't been criticism, but attacks.  Mean spirited attacks.  It starts w/ emails to the group and ends w/ phone calls at 7AM to our 24 hour emergency number for clients, and ends with this.

It hurts, really.  And takes away form everything we had "hoped" to achieve when we joined this group.

Some of you have sent us emails of apology, and we are very thankful for that.  But, it is just too nasty.

  SFforObama:

I don't think anyone from this group would want to work for you to be completely honest. You seem very hyper-sensitive to even the vaguest criticism and you've completely over-reacted to a couple of comments made by members of this group. Your immediate reaction was to criticize everyone in the group and to, I am assuming, be rude to my friend who has absolutely nothing to do with this group but has been a huge Obama supporter, nonetheless. You are really positioning yourself to build a nasty reputation for nextarts not just amongst the sf4obama group but way, way, way outside of it as well.

 NextArts:

You have no interest in participating in a function where Feinstein is an honorary chair????  Hmmmmm...  Then I think you need to sit the inauguration out, because Sen. Dianne Feinstein IS the chair of that.

 Okay gang, you win..   We will not make any more announcements to this list.

 We are very regretful we reached out..

I think NextArts should just keep trying.  That particular listserv is known for  some who are constantly ill-tempered and for reasons that aren't clear.  An "honorary chair" means the person's name can be used, but they do not have to attend the event.  Thus, it's easy for Senator Feinstein to be the "honorary chair" of a number of events, and still be in Washington D.C. for the inauguration.   

Mayor Mark Begich Ahead of Sen. Ted Stevens By 814 Votes In Alaska Senate Race

In the race for Alaska Senate, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich is ahead of embattled Republican Senator Ted Stevens by 814 votes according to Begich's website .  If that lead holds or expands, Begich wins the Alaska Senate race, giving Democrats 58 seats versus 41 Republican seats -- two shy of a filibuster-proof majority.