Tag Archives: New York City

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Official Google blog

05/04/2011 Nativegrl77

The polls are open—vote for your favorite doodle! http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/SVQwdy-QHzk/polls-are-openvote-for-your-favorite.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

Today, we’re thrilled to introduce the 40 Regional Finalists for this year’s U.S. Doodle 4 Google contest. This year we had a record number of submissions—more than 107,000 from talented student artists from every state across the country. We were amazed and delighted by not only the quantity of submissions but the caliber of this year’s entries.

For the second year in a row, we’re celebrating these winners in their very own schools. From Stilwell, Okla. to Woodinville, Wash., today Googlers are visiting the schools of our Regional Finalists to celebrate their incredible artwork along with thousands of their teachers, friends and classmates.

Our doodle team, volunteer Googlers and incredibly talented Guest Judges helped us determine the 40 Regional Finalists. Whoopi Goldberg, Evan Lysacek, Michael Phelps and Jim Davis (just to name a few) lent a hand to help find the cream of the artistic crop. Now comes one of the most exciting parts of the contest—your votes! From now until May 13 at 11:59 p.m. PDT, you can cast your online votes for your favorite Regional Finalist’s doodle (one vote for each of the four grade groups). On May 19, we’ll announce the national winner at our awards ceremony in New York City. The national winner will receive a $15,000 college scholarship and $25,000 towards a new computer lab for his or her school, and the winning design will appear on google.com on Friday, May 20. All of the top 40 Regional Finalists will also have their work publicly displayed at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and at SFMOMA in San Francisco.

Our top 40 Regional Finalists weren’t the only winners today—we’d also like to congratulate the 400 State Finalists. Last but not least, we’d like to take the time to thank the teachers, parents and administrators who encouraged their students to dream big and put those ambitions on paper. Without you, this contest wouldn’t have been possible.

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Product Management

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

NOM Exposed: A Facebook Swarm -from Kevin Nix

04/21/2011 Nativegrl77

A door just opened, one that allows all of us to further expose and challenge the homophobia of the National Organization for Marriage.

You may have heard about Louis Marinelli, NOM’s online strategist who recently resigned because he supports marriage equality. He took all of the organization’s 290,000 Facebook fans with him. They’ve just begun to rebuild a Facebook fan base from scratch.

Here’s where you come in. If everyone on this list – after holding your nose – friended NOM, pro-equality supporters would outnumber NOM’s current anti-equality supporters 6 to 1.

But you know what would really make an impact? Leave a comment on NOM’s Facebook posts. Let’s saturate their page with positive, fact-based pro-equality messages. Some suggestions:

-Marriage for gays and lesbians will do nothing to religious freedom. Houses of worship will continue to decide whether they want to recognize gay marriages, or not. We’re talking about committed gay and lesbian couples going down to city hall to get married.

-Gay couples want to make the public commitment of marriage – and be held accountable for that commitment .

-Credible polls show a majority of American Catholics actually support marriage for gay and lesbian couples. People in the pews do not necessarily agree with the Catholic hierarchy.

You can get more ideas for comments in our “Fact” section of NOMExposed.org. But – please – don’t leave personal, ad hominem attacks. Don’t let them drag you into the gutter. No tit for tat. That gets us nowhere. We need elevated, positive conversation.

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/site/R?i=5k_xjG_BkXX9ISoCeENCgQ..

One last thing. The fight for marriage in New York is heating up. While HRC and other LGBT groups just launched a new campaign in New York. NOM has too and is trying to mobilize its people. If you live in New York State, become a NY NOMWatcher. We need more eyes and ears on the ground and online.

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/site/R?i=4anDOjLLVetvFWAvD1fd8g..

As always, thanks for your interest and engagement.

Kevin Nix

Director, NOM Project

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Breaking: House takes on gun checks …Michael Bloomberg

03/17/2011 Nativegrl77

Yesterday on Capitol Hill, I joined members of Congress to announce the introduction of the Fix Gun Checks Act of 2011 in the House of Representatives. This marks another milestone in our mission to fix the national gun background check system.

I want to take this moment to thank you for your support – and to ask for your help in the work to come.

The Fix Gun Checks campaign has reached a critical stage. As we work to get this legislation passed and signed into law by President Obama, our representatives in Washington need to hear that communities across the country demand swift action to stop dangerous people like the Tucson shooter from getting their hands on guns.

Today, 34 Americans will be murdered by a killer with a gun. Tomorrow, it will be another 34. That is why we must call on Congress to pass the Fix Gun Checks Act

http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=stzaUHE5rkmlYhFcjTLOy6wOoElb5xGD

The bill we announced yesterday would take two critical steps to fix our background check system:

Get all the names of dangerous people who should be prohibited from buying guns into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

Require a background check for every gun sale in America.

Earlier this week, President Obama signaled his support for fixing background checks, adding to our campaign’s growing momentum.

But now that legislation has been introduced, we need to work harder than ever to ensure that Washington hears our clear message: we will not stand idly by while 34 Americans are shot and killed each day.

www.FixGunChecks.org/CallCongress

Right now, we have a moment of opportunity to make real change. I hope you’ll join me in asking Congress to do its part to keep our communities safe.

http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=FvLaAasaD7qQSubEGl8mEhuMlkLr%2FtAS

Thanks for standing with us.

Sincerely,

Michael Bloomberg

Mayor, New York City

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Official Google Blog

10/13/2010 Nativegrl77

Official Google Blog

The YouTube Symphony Orchestra returns!

Posted: 12 Oct 2010 03:12 PM PDT

(Cross-posted from the YouTube Blog)

The world’s first online collaborative orchestra is back, and this time a new round of performers will be playing their part onstage at the iconic Sydney Opera House.

It seems like just yesterday that Carnegie Hall was abuzz with a sold-out performance that made headlines around the globe. Ninety-six musicians arrived in New York City, from over 30 countries, to perform together after uploading an audition video and then being chosen by the YouTube community to be a part of the exciting event. We are thrilled to invite you to audition for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011.

In addition to the new locale, this “second act” includes another new element: “Mothership,” a musical work from composer Mason Bates. Right now, it’s still missing something: an improvisation provided by you. Take a listen to it here and start planning your contribution.

This time there are two ways to audition, for the classical audition perform the pieces listed on the channel according to instrument. For the opportunity to contribute your own creation, choose the solo improviser—it doesn’t matter if you play trumpet, viola or didgeridoo. If you proceed to the final stages, you will join musicians from around the world in a week-long music summit with Grammy-award-winning conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who returns to guide the orchestra.

The YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011 is a collaboration with partners the Sydney Symphony, the London Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker and many other leading institutions of the classical music world. This event is being made possible by Hyundai.

Posted by Michele Flannery, Music Manager, YouTube

Be the next Gone Google ad

Posted: 12 Oct 2010 11:08 AM PDT

A little over a year ago, we began the “Go Google” campaign with just a single billboard in four U.S. cities. In the past year, we’ve grown from two to three million businesses and more than 30 million users on Google Apps; through the campaign, thousands have shared their Gone Google stories via tweets, photos and submissions to our community map. We’ve heard from companies across the country and around the world; from large enterprises such as Konica Minolta and leading global food retailer Ahold, to small businesses like Bowery Lane Bicycles in New York and Luna & Larry’s Coconut Bliss in Oregon, we’re excited to hear how Google Apps has helped your business increase productivity, reduce costs and innovate.

As we kick off the next wave of our global campaign this week in airports and train stations in 11 major cities in nine countries around the globe, we want to use this opportunity to invite the millions of companies and schools using Google Apps to tell us why your organization would like to be featured in our next global Gone Google ad campaign. For this contest, we’ll pick up to five companies/schools in each of the following regions: the Americas, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and Asia Pacific. The winners will be featured in an upcoming outdoor ad campaign in each region early next year.

To participate, tell us your organization’s Gone Google story, and create a “sample ad” using our template:

We encourage you to be creative and have fun with your ad! (You may want to check out some of our previous ads for some inspiration.) Once you create your ad, be sure to publish and share it with us. (Bonus points for tweeting it with the #gonegoogle hashtag.) For complete rules and details, visit our contest site. We can’t wait to see your ads, and look forwarding to putting your organization’s name in lights!

And if you are still thinking about going Google, we encourage you to check out the Go Google cloud calculator to learn more about the benefits of switching to Google Apps.

Posted by Vivian Leung, Google Apps Team

App Tuesday welcomes apps from around the world to the Google Apps Marketplace

Posted: 12 Oct 2010 10:59 AM PDT

Since our Google Apps Marketplace has been around, we’ve been working hard to bring you apps from all around the world. This App Tuesday, four apps launching in the Apps Marketplace are from companies that are not solely in the United States. Brightpearl joins us from the U.K., SprinxCRM is headquartered in the Czech Republic, and Clio calls Canada home. And even though Producteev is based out of New York, their founders are all from France. These apps join other international apps in our Marketplace, including apps from Australia, Bulgaria, Japan, Germany and 17 other countries.

We’re also excited to welcome our second education-focused app, PlanbookEdu, as well as our first legal-focused app, Clio. The apps launching this App Tuesday sport a number of advanced integrations that will make your business run much more smoothly. For example, Producteev, offers a Gmail contextual gadget that allows users to use its features right from the Gmail inbox.

Check out the Google Enterprise Blog for more information or go shop the Google Apps Marketplace.

Posted by Harrison Shih, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Google Apps Marketplace Team

~ my 2cents ...

thrumming Thursday &some News

10/07/2010 Nativegrl77

i hope that people who have yet to decide who they will be voting for understand the need for a change in the way the mid-term elections are viewed in the year 2010. The idea that the midterms are no big deal is just old school politics because the end result or impact was usually in your own particular state. We all have to accept that the mid-terms are a beacon of the change some of us voted for in 2008 because the fact is …what happens on Nov. 2 will determine our future and could move us forward into the 21^st Century or the middle and lower class could continue living with the status quo. It will be the difference between moving stem cell research along, standing up and speaking out for the current Hyde amendment, agreeing to move immigration reform to the table and keeping laws like SB1070 and the birther law out of the hands of states willing to engage in racial profiling to control their reasonably suspicious people, btw the idea that being undocumented here in the US refers to Hispanics only is absurd. The US is going through non-partisan realities that need to be handled by people(All of Congress) who care about health care reform and all the corrections that are needed, equal wages for equal work, maintain religious freedom as well as the separation of church and state, a woman’s right to choose, oil prices, our environment,education, local and national disaster response time improvements. We are ten years out and parts of New Orleans still look like such a disaster. We told Haiti we would help but not only is that not moving forward quick enough there are reports that money donated have yet to become a reality. It is obvious we all need to be watchdogs of our own destiny, vote out Republicans who have a history of definitely making bad decisions or things will get worse. We have people who claim to be lobbying when in fact they are bribing officials and embezzling funds not just from Wall Street, Main Street or even Average Joe but from 1st nation people and Black Farmers, we have sexual predators who are in charge of and who make laws that will guarantee the safety of our kids, government officials making passes at young men in what should be safe environments for anyone while at work. We have candidates from the right who clearly are on the extremist side of the issues trying to get into positions of power who obviously only plan to represent only a select few and will repeal, replace and eliminate as soon as they grab power. If you listen to both sides of any political debate, interview or panel discussion it all seems extremely simple to me… a change has to be made and yes, I definitely am biased. I believe for change, positive change for All Americans is to get truer Dems on the floor of Congress… our vote on November is the way to start showing our power as Americans… Vote Dems November 2nd

im just sayin

Other News …

**Jobless claims fall below 450thousand

**CO’Donnell complains the media is assassinating her

**President Obama will be in Maryland and Illinois to do some campaigning

**Today is the annv of the Afghanistan war

**Apple will be making their version of the iPhone

**October is Breast Cancer awareness month

**Reports are that Karzai and Taliban have been meeting

**The NRA will endorse 58 Democrats stating it’s useful and good practice to support those politicians that support them no matter what side of the aisle

**Insurance companies are by passing HCR rules

**Desmond Tutu retires

CSPAN …