BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because
it was time for a change! The chicken wanted change!

JOHN MC CAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the
road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation
and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the
road…

SARAH PALIN: Because by golly, I was gonna shoot
his sorry liberal butt for blocking my view of Russia!

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I
personally helped that little chicken to cross the road.
This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure right
from Day One that every chicken in this country gets the
chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really
isn’t about me.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don’t really care why the
chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the
chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is
either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground
here.

DICK CHENEY: Where’s my gun?

COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you
can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing
the road.

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that
chicken. What is your definition of crossing?

AL GORE: I invented the chicken.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken
cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross,
and I was misled about the chicken’s
intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white? We
need some black chickens.

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this
chicken won’t realize that he must first deal with the
problem on this side of the road before it goes after the
problem on the other side of the road. What we need to do is
help him realize how stupid he’s acting by not taking on
his current problems before adding new problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is
having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so
bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his
mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I’m
going to give this chicken a car so that he c an just drive
across the road and not live his life like the rest of the
chickens.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: We have reason to believe
here is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have
access to the other side of the road.

NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because
he’s guilty! You can see it in his eyes and the way he
walks.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent,
hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which
way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the
Farmers Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a
certain level. No little bird gave me any insider
information.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he
cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but
why it crossed I’ve not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain, alone.

JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay!
Can’t you people see the plain truth? That’s why
they call it the other side. Yes, my friends, that chicken
is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay,
too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this
abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with
seemingly ha rmless phrases like the other side. That
chicken should not be crossing the road. It’s as plain
and as simple as that.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn’t ask why the
chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken
crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn’t that interesting? In a
few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for
the first time, the heart warming story of how it
experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to
accomplish its lifelong dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross
the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world
crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2008,
which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file
your important documents, and balance your checkbook.
Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken2008. This
new platform is much more stable and will never crash.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the
road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

Shamelessly yoinked from a message sent to the LDS Humor group on Facebook.

I have never been to the Temple to perform a baptism for the dead, simply because my time has primarily been occupied with things relating to my education since my twelfth birthday, which is when I first would have been eligible to do so. Unfortunately there’s been an uproar lately about Holocaust victims allegedly continuing to be baptized by proxy, despite The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints making an agreement with Jewish leaders over 13 years ago to try to prevent this from happening. The Church has been doing what it can with what for a long time has been a very inefficient system for tracking Temple ordinances performed by proxy; now there is a new system in place that records the administering of ordinances immediately to prevent duplicate ordinances, and can and is also being applied to “flag” the names of Holocost victims in the Church’s genealogical databases to prevent ordinances being performed for them. The Church Newsroom has released a response to the recent revival of the issue, as well as a statement by Elder D. Todd Christofferson.

The whole ordeal though stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the significance of Church ordinances performed by proxy in the Temple. The actual procedure of the ordinance of baptism for the dead by proxy is very straightforward: it is identical to a regular baptism, but the name read is that of an ancestor of the stand-in, or another name submitted (hopefully with much research into ordinances already performed, or any other situational considerations).

What happens though, is that the person who was baptized by proxy is not added to the Church’s membership records—they are not considered “posthumously Mormon” or anything of the sort. In the spirit world—which is the Church’s equivalent to heaven or hell which many other Christian faiths believe in in a generic form—the soul of that person retains their full agency (ability to choose), and is given the opportunity to accept or reject that ordinance, and the others that are performed for them by proxy in sequence (baptism, confirmation, endowment, and sealing to spouse). We cannot tell here whether or not someone has accepted the ordinances, and they are not considered members of the Church following their baptism by proxy.

Baptism and other ordinances performed for the dead by proxy do not detract from their heritage or that of their living descendents. Ideally, only the names of the ancestors of members of the Church would be submitted for ordinances by proxy, and with the new Family Search genealogical system that is being put into place which focuses on the immediate family tree of the person using it this is much more feasible. The issue was with well-meaning members, hoping to extend the opportunity to receive and accept a baptism by proxy to as many departed souls as possible, submitting large registries of names without first researching the source of the registry and each name on it, and without it having been obtained by personal genealogical studies.

One of the fundamental beliefs of the Church is in the literal gathering of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, the direct and adopted descendents of Jacob, prior to Christ’s second coming, and the Church has a very good relationship and the deepest respect for the Jewish community at large and the state of Israel. The person, in this case, who has been repeatedly raising the issue of the presence of the names of Holocaust victims in the Church’s genealogical database and lists of ordinances performed by proxy does not appear to represent the sentiments of the Jewish community as a whole. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League of Phoenix condemned the distribution of an anti-LDS video in 2007, and we return the sentiment of the words from their press release: “Hate directed at any of us is hate directed at all of us.” Any perception that the Church is seeking to diminish the faith and heritage of any living or deceased member of the Jewish or any other faith is misinformed and false.

Responses to other claims I have encountered in researching this post:

• Joseph Smith was illiterate and uneducated in his early life, but as an adult sought higher education, and became particularly well-versed in and fond of the Bible, and the Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith manual repeatedly quotes him as reciting from the Bible. The Book of Mormon itself quotes obscure, difficult (including much of Isaiah), and lost segments of the Bible in such a way that even many scolars of the Bible would not be able to do so, and much of the translation of the Book of Mormon was prior to or concurrent with Joseph Smith’s own Biblical studies. Allegations that the Church rejected the Bible in the beginning, only to accept it later to be recognized by the government as a Christian faith, are false (as are, accordingly, allegations that the Book of Mormon was completely fabricated by Joseph Smith, as this would have been impossible for an illiterate, relatively Bible-unsavvy twentysomething to accomplish). Collectively across all Church Scripture and other doctrinal and other materials, the number of references to each of the Bible (both Old and New Testaments), the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price, is roughly proportional to the size of each text (depending of course on context and topic).
• Alleging accusingly that logically, Christ would have to be baptized by proxy to “become a Mormon,” and that the Church would do so to attempt to gain leverage in its proselytism efforts, is absurd and deeply offensive. Christ himself was baptized under the same authority with which all members of Christ’s church in the New Testament and Book of Mormon were baptized, and with which all members of the Church today are baptized. The Church today is, in its most basic form, a restoration of that sacred authority and the organization that existed in the Church in the days of Christ and the years following until the deaths of the Apostles.
• The God in which members of the Church believe is the same as the God in which all followers of Abrahamic faiths (other forms of Christianity, as well as Islam and Judaeism) believe; Jehovah of the Torah is specifically Christ, and Heavenly Father is known to followers of Islam as Allah, while Christ is referred to separately and specifically in the Quran. (There is a well-written article by James B. Mayfield from the June 1979 issue of the Ensign discussing Islam from both an LDS and a scholarly perspective. To quote from the “Statement of the First Presidency Regarding God’s Love for All Mankind” issued 15 February 1978 as so quoted in the article: “The great religious leaders of the world such as Mohammad, Confucius, and the Reformers, as well as philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and others, received a portion of God’s light. Moral truths were given to them by God to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals.”)

Short answer: no, it isn’t.

Long answer: I’m too lazy to retype it all; luckily Obama-Biden’s website already has done that for me. Additionally, there is an actual socialist party here in America, and they would take serious offense to any part of Obama’s economic plan being called socialism—because it isn’t. Plain and simple.

About eliminating small businesses and forcing everyone to quit their jobs and beg for government handouts: if you seriously think that, you are STUPID. Businesses that create jobs on American soil get tax breaks. Startups are not taxed on capital gains. Businesses and individuals that are rich enough already and can afford to pay more taxes are going to have to *ZOMG* actually pay taxes. Businesses and individuals that are worried about being able to stay afloat will get the relief they need by…not having to pay taxes out the everywhere—not by being forcibly put on welfare. Seriously, if you actually believe that Obama is going to FORCE everyone to have government healthcare and FORCE everyone to go on welfare, you are, among other things, an idiot and a chump.

Basically all Obama is doing here is fixing the progressive tax from what it had in some ways turned into: a regressive tax, where the percentage of income paid in taxes is inversely proportional to income. What will this do?

1. Give the government more money to spend, because more of it will be coming from the wealthy and large corporations, instead of draining the middle class and small businesses dry.
2. Make government-provided healthcare and welfare programs actually sustainable for those who DO need them because they can’t afford healthcare or are living in poverty.
3. Encourage the free market by making starting a business easier, instead of having it be impossible because of the skewed tax distribution in place de facto now.
4. Encourage competition by not letting the big corporations have runaway profits, and by the government having money to enforce common-sense regulations to keep the playing field level.

What’s hilarious to me is that everyone who’s scared of America turning into a socialist country wants to move to either Canada or England. In England, Obama would be in the FAR-right party—government in much of Europe is far more progressive than here—and if you’re afraid of socialism, Canada will be like a much colder version of hell for you. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire” doesn’t work as well as “out of the fridge and into the permafrost” here, but if you do go to Canada enjoy your hockey, cold fronts, annoying pop singers and socialized healthcare.

9:00pm Mountain Standard Time: Senator Barack Obama is projected as the winner of the 2008 United States Presidential Election. He has become the first African-American to be elected to the office of President of the United States.

I have kept prett quiet about the pending Presidential elections so far. I’ve already voted by mail in Pima County, Arizona, but I want to give the election its due just once before it’s all said and done.

First: I am a Barack Obama supporter and donator, and congratulate him on what really should be a historic and groundbreaking campaign, in terms of the use of technology and ground-game, grassroots organization the likes of which have never been seen on such a scale as this. I also want to congratulate John McCain on carrying his campaign this far, despite the problems he’s had and the mistakes I think he’s made.

Now the good stuff. My personal prediction: Obama 367, McCain 171. This is just a guess, with lots of basis on the statistical polling-based predictions out there, and a little bit of gut feeling about some of the remaining toss-ups. I think Obama will get Florida and keep Pennsylvania and Virginia, which on top of the other states he has a significant or insurmountable lead in will give him well more than the minimum 270 required. He could also make a serious play for Arizona, and if he’d made a campaign trip here in the last few days he could possibly have even carried Arizona’s 10 electoral votes, which would spell absolute doom for McCain, but I think many Arizonans will vote on the job McCain has done as a Senator for this state, which is a just reason. There are scenarios where McCain comes from behind in multiple states to carry them over Obama and win the election, but it’s a real stretch to call any of them at all likely. Early vote in states, like Colorado and even Georgia, where more than half of the total electorate of 2004 has already voted, will matter, and if any of those states have a significant gap before the polls open tomorrow then a come-from behind win is unlikely. When all is said and done though, Obama will win with more than 300 electoral votes.

In the Senate, the Democratic Party will not win a 60-40 majority if Georgia isn’t decided by the end of the night. If they can man up and have the sense to take advantage of a majority in both houses of Congress and a Democratic President, we might actually see something happening on Capitol Hill for once.

Closer to home, Arizona will move into the territory of a Democratic-majority state in the House. Gabby Giffords will keep her job in my home district of AZ-08, AZ-01 will flip to the Democratic side after Rick Renzi’s mess, and John Shadegg could still lose by a narrow margin to make Arizona primarily Democratic in the House, 6 seats to 2. Not much will happen in the state legislature though.

Arizona propositions: all but three of them will Epic Fail. 102 (same-sex marriage ban) will come closest to passing of the ones that won’t pass; 200 (payday loans reform) has the best chance of passing; and 202 (further sanctions on illegal-immigrant hirers) is a toss-up. 105 is a terrible proposition, counting registered non-voters the same as those who do vote (”if you don’t vote, you don’t get to bitch about it” should be in the US Constitution), as is 201 (allows “potential homebuyers” to sue homebuilders—without actually defining a “potential homebuyer”). A 40x (local) proposition in Tucson would give the Tucson Unified School District a bigger maintenance budget, which it desperately needs, but levies a new real estate tax so it’ll fail, as will prop 300 for higher state legislator salaries.

Looking ahead to 2012: my dream contest is Obama/Biden versus Mitt Romney/Joe Lieberman. Either way we’d be guaranteed to have a good combination of sensibility, level-headedness, experience, and genuine concern for the American people in the White House for another four years. Look at how well Romney ran Massachusetts—as blue a state as there ever was—and I think between those four men we would see the cleanest Presidential campaign ever. Obama has been able to keep the issues at hand limited to the real issues while enduring constant attacks from all sides—nary a retaliatory attack in sight—and the people will remember that in four years’ time and expect the same from both parties.

I got nothing else. Get out there and vote tomorrow; yes, it does matter—and remember what I said above: if you don’t vote, you don’t get to bitch about the outcome.

I discovered the Foxkeh theme for Firefox 3 just today. It is excellent, and cute; my mom is right when she says nobody does cute like Japan.

I’m moved out of the condo I was living in (roommate difficulties; email me if you haven’t heard the story yet) and am back in my grandparents’ house. I applied last week to live on campus, either in an apartment at University Towers or a studio apartment at Cholla. I’ll post updates.

I have a new wallet; photos coming sometime soon-ish, along with vacation photos from ages ago.

Related to Ubuntu Intrepid, I’m researching getting an external hard drive, and rearranging my system so that Ubuntu is my primary OS even on my Mac, and that each OS (OS X, Ubuntu, and Windows) has its own hard drive on my Mac, with a yet-to-be-determined arrangement for media (anime, movies, music) and backup.

I think that’s everything.

Forget translation; this restaurant sign in China didn’t even make it that far, and shows why you really shouldn’t rely on the internet for translating into languages you can’t read:

I don’t post just plain links very much, but when I find one that reaches as far into the realm of Epic as this I just can’t help it. I don’t even know how to categorize this.