Barack Obama says in an interview with Men's Health magazine that he has bummed cigarettes "a couple of times" along the campaign trail.

Fox News on top of things - as usual.

Obama Admits Bumming Cigarettes on the Campaign Trail - FOXNews.com Elections

Hundreds of millions of dollars in production financing will be committed to fill slates for 2010 and 2011, signaling the end of the de facto thesp strike that has kept pic production at a low ebb for nearly a year.

With a handful of exceptions, the majors mostly stopped greenlighting films in October 2007, which led to a large number of productions that wrapped before June 30.

Studios are ready to replicate that pre-strike rush by creating the same kind of boom market for production starting early next year.

Studios prep major film production - Entertainment News, Film News, Media - Variety

John McCain faces the "crisis of his career," says former House Speak Newt Gingrich, who predicted the Republican nominee will lose the election unless he makes a public break from the economic bailout proposal.

In a column posted on the Web site of the conservative Human Events Tuesday, Gingrich says it is impossible for McCain to catch up in the national or state polls unless he taps into the anger many Americans feel toward the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street investment banks.

"If Senator McCain is not prepared to separate himself from the Bush-Paulson economic program, he has no opportunity to win," Gingrich writes. "The country is deeply fed up with the Bush presidency and angry about the Paulson bailout. If McCain is confused or uncertain about how bad this economic performance is, he will never get the country to listen to him."

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time - Blogs from CNN.com

WELCOME TO THE GREAT SCHLEP
The Great Schlep aims to have Jewish grandchildren visit their grandparents in Florida, educate them about Obama, and therefore swing the crucial Florida vote in his favor. Don’t have grandparents in Florida? Not Jewish? No problem! You can still become a schlepper and make change happen in 2008, simply by talking to your relatives about Obama.

The Great Schlep

A lot of supplies have now recovered and about half of the local gas stations seem to have fuel based on my unscientific guess while driving around. A lot are still totally dry. But even with a lot of stations still without gasoline, the lines have disappeared. It has probably been 3 or 4 days since I’ve seen a line for a gas pump. In fact, I’ve seen some stations with gas and no one is at any of the pumps.

So what does this all mean? To me, it means that we have too many gas stations. If the number of gas stations that are currently serving fuel were not sufficient to fulfill demand, there would be lines. Since there aren’t lines, that means there is a sufficient amount of fuel, and more importantly, enough available distribution locations for the current level of consumption.

Too Many Gas Stations / (Sanjay_Parekh) == (Rambling)

For the next Open Coffee, we’re heading to Norcross. It’ll be October 14, 2008 from 1pm until 4pm (note slightly earlier start and end times).

If you’re an entrepreneur, angel investor, or VC you’re welcome to join us. If you’re not one of those three things, you’re welcome to stay away from this get together.

Feel free to RSVP below or on the Upcoming event. Or don’t and just show up. Whatever.

Also, do you find keeping up with these local events tough? If so, I’ve started an announcements only mailing list that you can subscribe to. Just send an email to atlstartups-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and you’ll get the announcements. I plan to keep the list postings to about one every few days at most but in no case more than one a day. Or you can just keep coming here to read the latest event scoop.

Open Coffee - Norcross.

Atlanta Open Coffee - October 14, 2008 / (Sanjay_Parekh) == (Rambling)

"Bush has now tied Richard Nixon's worst rating ever, taken in a poll just before he resigned in 1975, and is only 2 points higher than the worst presidential approval rating in history, Harry Truman's 22 percent mark in February 1952," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

And that's bad news for McCain, because the poll suggests a growing number of Americans believe the Republican presidential nominee would have the same policies as the current Republican president. Fifty-six percent say McCain's policies would be the same as Bush, up from 50 percent a month ago.

The financial crisis also appears to be contributing to Obama's increased lead in the poll. Sixty-eight percent are confident in the Democratic presidential nominee's ability to handle the financial crisis, 18 points ahead of McCain, and 42 points ahead of President Bush.

More Americans appear to have an unfavorable view of Gov. Sarah Palin, and that may also be helping Obama in the fight for the presidency. Forty percent now have an unfavorable view of Palin, up from 27 percent a month ago and from 21 percent in late August, when McCain surprised many people by picking the first-term Alaska governor as his running mate.

Obama widens lead in national poll - CNN.com

"She totally reminds me of my cousin!" the delegate screeched. "She's a real woman! The real thing!"

I stared at her open-mouthed. In that moment, the rank cynicism of the whole sorry deal was laid bare. Here's the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.

And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she's a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed middle-American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin' Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else's, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning.

The scariest thing about Sarah Palin isn't how unqualified she is - it's what her candidacy says about America | The Smirking Chimp

Joshua Hoblitt: Here's something to put on Perlbuzz.

JH: WTF MVC framework is working this week?

Andy Lester: Sounds like an editorial in the making?

JH: Maypole is dead, Catalyst is um, well, I've never managed to finish a project with it.

JH: The documentation is SHIIITTT.

JH: And the book is one of the most crapped-on books I've ever seen on Amazon.

JH: So Catalyst is a no go for me.

JH: So what's left? Roll your own with Mason?

AL: CGI::Application?

JH: Ya, I've used it for small stuff.

JH: The kind of stuff you put in one monster .pm file so it's trivial to install.

JH: Hmm, there's MasonX::MiniMVC.

JH: And this egg thing.

AL: Can I post this chat as an article?

JH: Please do.

A really dumb chat transcript that set the Perl/Catalyst community on fire, with good comments.

What's the state of Perl web frameworks? - Perl Buzz

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