too bad the poster didnt provide link back to the original site T^T so I couldn’t manage to screen cap the bigger pic, but yay!

Jaejoong blew all candidates by winning for 46.5% votes in Best Korean Artists in Blond Hair

Dear Quickie readers and romance aficionados,

It’s time to show your true colors and pick a side. As you might have guessed from my Eye Candy post about Taylor Lautner, I am Team Jacob all the way. What about you? Did you enjoy New Moon or was it not as good as it was hyped up to be? I haven’t seen it yet because I live in South Korea and it hasn’t be released here yet. For now, I will live vicariously though you dear readers.

xx,    Genevieve

Stephen Fry has topped a poll of the nation’s favourite dinner party hosts according to a survey by After Eight.

The poll, which asked people who they would most like to have as their dinner party host, named the comedian and author as Brits’ dream host with nearly a quarter of the votes (22%). The survey also revealed Brits would rather be hosted at a dinner party by Cheryl Cole (14%) than by Barack Obama (11%). Cheryl, who lives in Surrey with her husband Ashley Cole, outpointed Barack who, with his wife Michelle, has hosted many a dignitary at The White House.

Unfortunately, it was further bad news for Gordon Brown in the battle of politicians as he and his wife Sarah finished bottom of the pile. However, David Cameron and his wife Samantha fared only marginally better finishing two places ahead of the Browns and just one place ahead of TV couple Richard and Judy.

Source

VOTED YET? DON’T FORGET TO READ ALL THE POEMS AND VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE IN EACH CATEGORY!! Adult leaders after day one: Mimi (who cannot win again for twelve months), Marjie, and Steven. Student leaders: Sophia, Clio, and Claire.

Announcing another of my upcoming guests — Gay Fawcett Hints to get you going: Gay is a former classroom teacher and principal and she collaborated with David Harrison and Tim Rasinski on the recently published Partner Poems for Building Fluency: Grades 4-6.

I’ll post Gay’s bio on the 27th and her guest article on the 28th. I’ve read what she has to offer us, and you are going to love it!

I had a great time the other day visiting Ozark South Elementry School and talking to the kids there. Here are some pictures.

Ozark South Elementary School

Ozark South Elementary SchoolEveryone was there

I hope to receive lots of word-of-the-month poems in December from young poets at Ozark South Elementary School. Go Tigers!

David

During one my presentations at a recent DAM conference, the audience made a request for a DAM internship or mentorship program. This poll is meant to find out how many people are interested in an internship program and/or mentorship program, specifically about Digital Asset Management. This program would be led by DAM professionals who use DAM and are willing to mentor. Please vote so we can publicly gauge the need for such a program. You may also email me directly if you are interested in this type of opportunity.

We wonder who the best teen stars are. Is it Miley, The Jonas Brothers, Demi Lavato, or even Selena Gomez. Well  if you are don’t worry just take the Top Teen Star poll. Please don’t vote more than 3 times.

Results

Ruitomo won, but Ixrec, because of gg, decided that “We are convinced that the results of the poll do not accurately represent the will of the VN community, therefore we will decide between the top candidates ourselves after I’ve played them.”

Obvious this was coming. Well done gg. Not intelligent enough.

Some political science geekery:  interesting analysis of recent poll numbers, arguing that Obama’s loss of support among Independents is not as catastrophic as it has been played in the MSM.

There’s an old saying that “he who laughs last is dumbest.”  In this case, he/they who figure out what everyone else knew nine months ago is dumbest.  Talk about a sold out media.  Jeez.

When Obama and all of the liberals are saying “we’re not out of debt yet because we haven’t spent enough money,” it’s no wonder anyone who has to actually balance a checkbook doesn’t trust them.

CBS Catches Up with Conservatives and Realizes Obama Has ‘Credibility’ Problem

By: Brent Baker
November 24, 2009 02:38 ET

Long after conservatives and the American people figured it out, CBS on Monday night came to the realization President Barack Obama has a “credibility” problem fueled by the “disconnect” between Obama’s promise to reduce the deficit as he pushes for massive new spending. Back in August, the CBS Evening News denigrated the town hall questioners as “unruly protests,” but on Monday reporter Chip Reid warned:

The American people are increasingly questioning the President’s credibility. He says the stimulus has saved or created 640,000 jobs, but only seven percent of Americans believe it has created any. And he’s repeatedly promised health care reform will not increase the deficit, but a mere 19 percent believe him.

Reid proceeded to relay how CBS News analyst John Dickerson “says for many Americans there’s a basic disconnect — a President who promises to trim the budget but only seems to want to spend and spend.” More amazing for CBS, Reid noted how “highly respected foreign policy analyst Leslie Gelb” called Obama’s just-completed Asia trip “’amateur hour‘ for failing to get deals locked in before the President left home.”

Katie Couric set up the story by asking: “Is the honeymoon over? Though President Obama has been in office less than a year, many Americans are growing disenchanted with his handling of the enormous problems he and the country are facing — from unemployment to health care to Afghanistan.” She introduced Reid by worrying: “Are there signs of strain apparent at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue these days?”

(Meanwhile, over on World News, ABC anchor Charles Gibson fretted over all the “problems” Obama “faces, all coming to a head, it seems, soon. Health care to be debated by the Senate but support could easily unravel, a much delayed presidential decision on more troops for Afghanistan and, on the horizon, the huge ballooning costs of the federal deficit.”)

The MRC’s Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video to provide this transcript of the story on the Monday, November 23 CBS Evening News:

KATIE COURIC: Turning to politics now, is the honeymoon over? Though President Obama has been in office less than a year, many Americans are growing disenchanted with his handling of the enormous problems he and the country are facing – from unemployment to health care to Afghanistan. His poll numbers are sliding, and at least one poll, Gallup, shows his job approval rating has fallen for the first time below 50 percent. Chip Reid is at the White House tonight. And, Chip, are there signs of strain apparent at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue these days?

CHIP REID: There sure are, Katie. The President is getting battered on everything from health care to the economy to foreign policy. Some polls show Americans are increasingly questioning his credibility. It’s a speech the President has given over and over-

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA Our economy’s growing again for the first time in more than a year.

REID: -emphasizing the good news and promising to fix the bad.

OBAMA: I will not rest until businesses are investing again and businesses are hiring again and people have work again.

REID: But with unemployment over 10 percent and expected to rise for months to come, he offered no new ideas. He says next week’s White House jobs summit will break new ground, but critics are already dismissing the summit as a gimmick. To make matters worse, the American people are increasingly questioning the President’s credibility. He says the stimulus has saved or created 640,000 jobs, but only seven percent of Americans believe it has created any [CBS News poll]. And he’s repeatedly promised health care reform will not increase the deficit, but a mere 19 percent believe him [Quinnipiac poll].

JOHN DICKERSON, CBS NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: The more he talks about these hard issues, the less people are buying it.

REID: Dickerson says for many Americans there’s a basic disconnect – a President who promises to trim the budget but only seems to want to spend and spend.

DICKERSON: People want something to be done about the deficit, and here he’s talking about spending a trillion more dollars.

REID: All this comes as the so-called debt bomb is getting ready to explode. The national debt is now more than $12 trillion – simply paying the interest on the debt is expected to soar from $200 billion to $700 billion by 2019. The President is also suffering a credibility gap on foreign policy. He called his eight-day Asia trip a “job strategy” but came home with little to show for it. Highly respected foreign policy analyst Leslie Gelb calls the trip “amateur hour” for failing to get deals locked in before the President left home. On Afghanistan tonight, the President holds his ninth meeting with his war council, a full month after Dick Cheney accused him of dithering over the decision – and the President says it’s still several weeks away.

REID, AT WHITE HOUSE BRIEFING: Are you concerned that Americans are increasingly looking at this President as simply indecisive and uncertain?

REID: It’s a topic that dominated today’s White House briefing.

ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think the American people want the President to take time to get this decision right.

REID: But while the President is taking all that time, some Democratic opponents of a troop surge are stealing the spotlight. They’re calling for a war tax to pay for any additional troops.  (Ahhh, the liberal answer to everything, because they have no other ideas.)

— Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center

According to a survey released last week by Corizon, only 4% of British consumers use social media platforms to contact a company.

According to the poll of 2,127 consumers, asked what contact method they preferred:

Phone 75%
E-mail 70%
Web Self Service 43%
Letter 31%
Twitter/Facebook 4%
Fax 3%
SMS 3%

And when contact centre managers were asked what chennels they supported:

Phone 100%
E-mail 96%
Web Self Service 65%
SMS 27%
Twitter/Facebook 20%
IM 11%

This just goes to continue demonstrating that social media, however important it is as a customer service channel, is still the exception, rather than the norm for the majority of people in the UK.

It is important to remember Auntie Agnes on the end of the phone needs just as much support as young Matt who uses Twitter to communicate his brand related woes.

Washington (CNN) – A new national poll indicates that some Americans are cooling to global warming.

According to an ABC News/Washington Post survey released Tuesday — less than two weeks before the start of a global conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark — 72 percent of those polled believe that climate change is happening, down 8 points over the past year.

The poll indicates that the rise in skepticism is mostly due to a shift among Republicans and independents. According to the survey, 54 percent of Republicans questioned believe global warming is happening, down 22 points over the past three-and-a-half years, with a drop of 15 points among independents. The belief in climate change dipped 6 points among Democrats during the same period of time.

The survey’s release comes as a Democratic-sponsored “cap-and-trade” proposal to cut pollution slowly makes it way through Congress. The bill calls for the federal government to limit the amount of greenhouse gases that companies can produce in their factories or power plants, and to penalize companies that exceed greenhouse gas limits with fines or by making those businesses pay money to other companies that produce less pollution.

The legislation narrowly passed the House this summer, but won’t be considered by the full Senate until next spring. According to the poll, Americans support such a bill by a 53 percent to 42 percent margin. Six in 10 people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey conducted last month supported a “cap and trade” bill.

The ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted November 12-15, with 1,001 adults questioned by telephone. The survey’s sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

–CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report

Before proceeding with the premiere issue of the Scott Creative newsletter, I needed to know that my audience could see the value in it. I fully understand that graphic design questions and concerns probably aren’t at the top of the heap of business concerns that professionals are dealing with right now – but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be addressed at some point.

So, why not segue into solving a few of these problems with a friendly newsletter? The goal of this newsletter is to serve as an entry point into learning more about the role that graphic design plays in our professional lives and just how large of a role it plays in business.

Graphic design is a concern of small businesses [and] individuals who come from these businesses are interested in learning how it applies to their business.

If you participated in the poll that I posted earlier this month on my LinkedIn profile page, thank you for doing so: the information I gathered from it was extremely helpful in determining the sort of content that will end up in future newsletters. The poll asked a single question: “Are you interested in receiving an eNewsletter covering graphic design trends and design-related questions for your business?” Here are some of my findings from the poll results:

• Three quarters of poll participants replied “yes”, they were interested in receiving the newsletter.
  
• The age of poll participants varied widely. Three quarters of votes came from participants 25-54 years old. The oldest age group represented (55+) showed the most opposition to receiving the newsletter.
  
• Nearly 70% of poll participants came from small businesses.

What other observations will I be taking away from this poll? It pointed out many things that I’ve spoken about with many people over the last year: that graphic design is a concern of small businesses, and that individuals who come from these businesses are interested in learning how it applies to their business.

If you own your own business or are coming from a small business, then this recent poll demonstrates the value this newsletter will have for you or your business. Of course I also hope that if/when you’re really interested in the influence graphic design can have on your business, you’ll get in touch with me. Also, if you’re interested in receiving this monthly newsletter, please let me know!

A heavyweight ad battle continues to rage during commercial breaks across America. It’s a somewhat equitable battle in terms of dollars spent but my scorecard shows AT&T getting drubbed by Verizon in terms of creativity.

AT&T continues to advertise in “damage control mode” after Verizon’s recent onslaught of ads, with a new spot featuring actor Luke Wilson. If you watched any TV over the weekend you invariably saw him standing in the middle of the US map where he tosses postcards to all of the locations covered in AT&Ts 3G network. This spot is very tedious as he slowly reads city names one by one and adds odd “fun facts” as he throws the cards. The initial ad gains some momentum when you see a second commercial where he continues to throw cards until the map is bursting with them. Kudos on that media buy, but this pair seems like a big “so what”.

All of this was of course brought on by Verizon’s choice to deride AT&T’s coverage areas in multiple ads that coincided with the release of it’s new 3G phone, The Droid. They turned the iPhone’s “There’s an app for that” line into “There’s a map for that” and started attacking the largest US phone company with said maps. This ad (seen in the photo above) uses a classic holiday special to compare the networks. But as entertaining as these commercials are, comparing the maps side-by-side isn’t exactly fair. Or at least that what AT&T argues in their lawsuit against Verizon, saying that they do have 2G coverage in the areas that are not 3G-ready. (Verizon’s map for AT&T only depicts the 3G areas and nothing more; they’ve omitted the 2G and 2.5G coverage areas.)

Bloomberg.com reports: “U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten said that while the ads, which use maps to compare the companies’ third-generation networks, might be “sneaky” or “clever,” they are “literally true.” AT&T will have another chance to ask the court to prohibit the ads in a Dec. 16 hearing. Batten said AT&T is unlikely to prevail.”

Stay tuned, and if you read this blog with your 3G device just stay out of Death Valley, I don’t think either wireless carrier covers it – yet.

Heb een uitnodiging voor Google Wave ontvangen. Is het de moeite van het proberen waard?

I don’t normally write about Gender violence but since it’s White Ribbon Day tomorrow I wanted to take some form of action on Violence Against Women. With over 70% of Kenyan women affected seems we may not know how these statistics are compiled…Do you what gender violence is?

Here’s a really easy way to take action today, just take the poll

Thanks

Oh, and tell your friends to do so too

It could be the Olympics, the HST, cuts to tourism, sport, and the arts, or even the way the province has handled the ambulance strike, but an Angus-Reid poll shows that the NDP has the support of almost half of BC voters:

NDP Keeps Large Lead in British Columbia

The opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) is holding on to a double-digit advantage in British Columbia, according to a poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion. 47 per cent of respondents would support the NDP in the next provincial ballot, while 33 per cent would support the governing BC Liberals.

The BC Greens are third with 10 per cent, followed by the BC Conservatives with seven per cent.

In the 2001 election, the BC Liberals—led by Gordon Campbell—took control of 77 seats in the British Columbia Legislature, with the remaining two going to the NDP. The New Democrats had administered the westernmost province of Canada under four different premiers since November 1991. British Columbia voters renewed their provincial legislature in May 2005. Campbell earned a new four-year term in office, with 46 seats. The opposition NDP—led by Carole James—elected 33 lawmakers.

In the May 2009 election, the BC Liberals secured a third consecutive majority mandate, with 46 per cent of the vote and 49 of the 85 seats at stake. The NDP received 42 per cent of the vote and won 35 seats.

Last month, James criticized the BC government’s economic management, saying, “I don’t blame the Liberal government for the economic downturn. I recognize the economic downturn is global. But what government does control is how they help people get through these difficult times. I think there’s things this government could have done to help businesses cope.”

Polling Data

If a provincial election were held tomorrow in British Columbia, which one of the following parties would you be most likely to support in your constituency?

	Nov. 2009	Sept. 2009
BC New Democratic Party (NDP)	47%	45%
BC Liberals	33%	31%
BC Greens	10%	11%
BC Conservatives	7%	7%

Source: Angus Reid Public Opinion
Methodology: Online interviews with 800 British Columbia adults, conducted from Nov. 10 and Nov. 11, 2009. Margin of error is 3.5 per cent.

Comment about this post

Think Progress » Fox’s Fuzzy Math: 193 Percent Of The Public Support Palin, Huckabee, And Romney.

Here’s a follow-up to my post back in October about an inexplicably U.S.-backed resolution circulating in the United Nations which would ban speech that could “defame” religion, i.e., Islam.  According to a WPO poll, the majority of 20 questioned countries oppose blasphemy laws, believing in freedom of speech and freedom of religion.  Guess which countries are in that minority?:

Of the seven nations where most people agree with that criticism of religion should be prohibited five have overwhelmingly Muslim populations — Egypt (71%), Pakistan (62%), Iraq (57%), Indonesia (49%), and the Palestinian territories (51%). Another two — India (59%) and Nigeria (54%)– have historically been plagued by sectarian violence.

As always, I’m not saying, I’m just saying.

Here’s the graph:

-Mister Person

Stop Going Rogue, Sarah.  You’re causing an epidemic of rogueness!!!