Chris Weber at SUNY-Stony Brook is looking for people to answer a survey. Musing Minds has participated in this before and we are pleased to participate again.

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The purpose of this survey is to examine how people think and feel about the political issues, parties, and candidates in the upcoming election. In the survey, you will be asked a series of questions about two political candidates, John McCain and Hillary Clinton. We are very interested in how individuals that find information on the web think about politics, and your participation would be greatly appreciated. In total, the survey should take about 15 minutes to complete. The survey is completely anonymous and you can skip any questions you do not wish to answer.

Click here to take the survey:

http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/stu/crweber/TAKESURVEY/election_2008.htm

Please feel free to contact Chris Weber (crweber@notes.cc.sunysb.edu) at Stony Brook University with any questions or concerns. Thanks for your help!

At Chris’ request, comments for this post are closed.

I’ve been achy and sick and have a lot of homework today so here are some links:

Althouse got a little more ice and snow than we did about 2 hours drive southeast… Pretty pictures.

Overlawyered, as always, brings us interesting legal stories such as the William Lerach saga (start here and more from here), traffic cams, and litigation lottery awards such as Ford being responsible to the tune of $6.5 million for the injuries caused to a driver who was thrown from his truck after the tread peeled off his tires. The passengers were wearing seatbelts and sustained minor (if any) injuries. The driver wasn’t wearing his seatbelt.

VK has a new Caption Contest!

And one of these will keep the Siberian from getting into the back of the house to pee on a bed (which he has been known to do if he gets mad) but will still allow the cats and the Shih Tzu access…

This one is lazy and doesn’t like to jump the gate to the back of the house so she sits there and cries until someone opens the gate for her.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I received one of these today…

Click to see Bernice in action!

Kurt Westergaard and the Jyllands-Posten newspaper are still being threatened over the publication of 12 cartoons.

Captain Ed tells us that newspapers in Denmark have reprinted the cartoon in solidarity with Kurt and the Jyllands-Posten in light of the arrest of three people who were planning to assassinate Kurt over the drawing.

This is Kurt’s contribution:

Michelle has more.

I’ve had a lot of traffic today to my blogburst post of 2 years ago through Google Image Search.

It’s scary that the woman who would be President of the United States feels free to pressure a media outlet to suspend and/or fire an employee who says something on air that she doesn’t like. Howard Kurtz writes:

In case there was any doubt, using a prostitution metaphor for the daughter of a presidential candidate is not a good career move.

MSNBC suspended correspondent David Shuster yesterday for an undetermined period for making a disparaging on-air remark about Chelsea Clinton. Meanwhile, officials in her mother’s campaign raised the possibility of punishing the news channel by boycotting future debates.

While filling in as a host Thursday, Shuster was discussing the 27-year-old’s role in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign with two guests when he asked: “Doesn’t it seem as if Chelsea is sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?”

In my opinion, the comment was pretty innocuous. The reference wasn’t to prostitution even with the use of the word “pimp”. Isn’t there a TV show called “Pimp My Ride”? From the urban dictionary:

pimping

More commonly used nowadays as making something cool or better.
Yeah, I was totally pimping up my profile today!

Sure MSNBC has the right to suspend or even fire an employee for something he says on air. The first amendment refers to government retaliation for speech, but this woman would be President of the United States. What happens when someone says something not so innocuous that’s against her or her administration? When she is the face of the government?

In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya (to Vizzini):

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Chris Lynch has some more musings over at A Large Regular.

And Atlantis is on her way to the International Space Station.

These launches never cease to amaze me.

So I went and voted in Illinois’ primary. For the Republicans, we have the candidates themselves, and then 2-4 delegates in each Congressional District. Mine has three. Then there are also three alternate delegates and other offices that are up for the primaries too.

Voting for the candidate means nothing on the Republican side. Just the delegates that are pledged to the candidates count.

So, I voted for Fred Dalton Thompson as a candidate and voted for Mitt Romney’s three delegates and alternate delegates.

And it’s Paczki Day! (Poonch-key). A fried dough filled with fruit or custard and dusted with powdered sugar. Paczki are made to use up the last of the lard, fruit, and sugar before Lent.

Tomorrow is the beginning of Lent, the Lenten season encompassing both St. Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day this year.

I only watched two game minutes of the Superbowl last night and I picked the right two game minutes to watch, the last two. Wow. I was hoping the Giants would win. Congrats Giants and Eli Manning. Mr and Mrs Manning must be so proud of their boys, and with reason.

I was looking at an insert that had come with our Transformers DVD about a Bumblebee Camaro contest. You could win a Chevy Bumblebee 2009 Camaro if you had entered before 1/15/08. Too late.

What struck me though was the disclaimer:

WARNING: Cybertron Law forbids these vehicles to be equipped with Energon-powered alien technology of any sort. These Camaros will not transform into 18-ft.-tall Autobots. If they did, they would not do so in your presence. (It goes against the whole “robots in disguise” directive they live by.)

Ah. I love Bumblebee. When I was a kid, our first new car was a ’67 Camaro, maroon/burgundy with a black vinyl interior. I went on the test drive with my dad. 5 years old, in the front seat, legs sticking out because the seat hit about mid-calf on me, lap belt only. Crank windows, automatic transmission. I don’t remember if it had power steering, but I doubt it. Dad wanted to save money and didn’t even get the factory radio. For a few years we had this little brown cube AM battery powered radio that we used in the car. Dad did break down and have a stereo put in at some time.

Tomorrow is Paczki Day! (Poonch-key) Mardi Gras! The last day before lent begins. Ash Wednesday is, of course, Wednesday. Easter is March 23rd this year. Just a week after St. Patrick’s Day.

Via our friend Don Surber we find this interesting test from NPR. Who does the test indicate is the best fit for you?

My scores were:
McCain 30
Romney 26
Huckabee 23
Paul 20
Gavel 9
Obama 4
Clinton 1

I was a Thompson supporter. As he is no longer in the running, I have to make another choice on ÜberTuesday. It won’t be Mr. McCain however. I have issues with McCain. I will be marking my ballot for Mitt Romney on Tuesday.

We’re having a snow day here in the Chicago area. No school (except for me, I go to grad school online and work from home as a matter of course). Little Guy is home today and playing with his Transformers.

My neighbor has a Camaro and he got stuck in front of our driveway, then again a couple houses up, and one more time another house up. He turned around and came back. He was going to have to call in, but it’s difficult when you work retail. Luckily his boss lives nearby, has an SUV, and was on a four day weekend so he was available to drive my neighbor to work.

We have a Yukon XL. This kind of weather is one of the reasons why. The two mile trip to the train station was not too bad, but smaller cars with rear wheel drive and those with front wheel drive were having difficulty on even slight hills with the amount of snow on the ground.

Last night when driving to the train station to pick Hubby up, as opposed to dropping him off this morning, there was a car driving with only parking lights on. Please, why do dash lights come on with only the parking lights instead of with only the headlights. I have seen so many cars driving at night with parking lights because the driver isn’t aware that the headlights aren’t on because the driver can see his or her dash. With last night’s snow, the driver may have thought that his or her headlights were covered in snow or dirty and that’s why visibility was diminished…

Nikita the Siberian, however, is in his element!