Sarah Silverman Is Not Amused With Voter Suppression (NSFW)

Sarah Silverman got a shout out in the last post for her work in the last election cycle and now she's getting her own post complete with video.

Silverman wants to make sure that everyone can vote, even in the face of new voter ID laws.  One thing to do is to go get yourself a gun (only sort of a joke, you'll see)


(this video is NSFW due to all kinds of language, and no there isn't a cleaned up version thank you very much.)

More on voter suppression and supposed voter fraud here and here.

(via NYer)

Sam Jackson Thinks You Should Vote For Obama (NSFW)

And he's not messing around...



(this video is NSFW due to f-bombs; edited version here)

This video is from the Jewish Council for Education and Research, who put together The Great Schlep project with Sarah Silverman the last time we elected a President.

VOTE

In order to exercise the franchise (as none of the kids have probably ever said, but maybe should have) you need to be registered to vote.  Yes, some states will let you register on election day at your polling place, but why wait.  Get it done today - it is National Voter Registration Day after all.

Rock The Vote will help you out as will the NVRD website.  If you live in the DC area you should check out the great new resource that is metrodcvote.org.  The site will help you check your registration status, get yourself registered, and figure out absentee and early voting as well.

Be sure you're ready to get out there and do your thing, it's your chance to participate in your democracy and you should do it.  Too few people vote in the US these days with only about 60% of potential voters in Presidential election years and less than 40% showing up to vote in the midterm elections.

Read This Now - The NFL Refs And Labor Union Struggles

Brad Plummer has a good quick look at how the locked out NFL Refs are just like every other labor union fighting for a better deal for it's members...

In many ways, however, the NFL referee feud is perfectly representative of modern labor battles playing out in Wisconsin and elsewhere. In this case, one of the biggest sticking points, as Dave Jamieson explains, involves pensions. The league wants to replace the defined-benefit pensions for referees that have been in place since the 1970s with riskier and stingier 401(k)s. The referees, by contrast, point out that the NFL hauls in $9 billion per year and can afford to provide generous retirement packages.

If you read the whole thing, and you should, you'll be left wondering if Scott Walker knows the real refs are union guys.

A Refreshing Campaign Ad

Being in DC and not watching much TV means that I only really see spill over VA campaign ads during the Skins games, so I have it pretty good (friends in Boston say that they're about ready to start throwing things at the screen if they see Scott Brown's truck one more time).  Even if I was on ad overload I think I'd enjoy this one...



Not only is it fun, this ad also brings up an important non-partisan election and voting issue.  You can get the back story on the ad from the WaPo.

Make sure you vote and that you fill out the entire ballot this fall.

I miss the West Wing...

(via all over the place)

Fraggles and Five

Ben Folds got the band back together and threw in some Fraggles, and it was good and the people were happy...



(via Nerdist w/ an assist from LS)

Read This Now - Use It Or Lose It

It should be a fairly common sense acknowledgement that walking more is good for your overall health.  So the flip side of that notion being true shouldn't really come as a surprise either; sitting around all day can kill you (more or less)...

"Those who were sitting more were substantially more likely to die," Blair says.

Specifically, he found that men who reported more than 23 hours a week of sedentary activity had a 64 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than those who reported less than 11 hours a week of sedentary activity. And many of these men routinely exercised. Blair says scientists are just beginning to learn about the risks of a mostly sedentary day.

"If you're sitting, your muscles are not contracting, perhaps except to type. But the big muscles, like in your legs and back, are sitting there pretty quietly," Blair says. And because the major muscles aren't moving, metabolism slows down.

"We're finding that people who sit more have less desirable levels" of cholesterol, blood sugar, triglycerides and even waist size, he says, which increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease and a number of health problems.

NPR has the rundown on the research and some tips for moving around more (from a year and a half ago no less).

It isn't that hard to walk a little more each day; take the stairs instead of the elevator, park a little farther away, get off the bus a stop early, go out for a spin around the block at lunch or in the afternoon, walk over to your co-workers' desks instead of calling them, and so on and so forth.

Basically just do what the man says...