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Empowering Play is a project coordinated by the UN and Champlain college exploring how video game design can prevent violence against women. 

Electronic games are a unique vehicle for reaching boys and young men. By profoundly shifting beliefs, stereotypes, and attitudes on gender issues, games can contribute to prevention of violence against women.

A (free) car in every (penthouse) garage:

Canco Lofts in Jersey City is offering a perk its owners hope will rev up sales: A free car with every penthouse purchase.

Gwyneth Paltrow Defends Her Web Site - Gwyneth Paltrow : People.com.

Gwyneth Paltrow is taking on critics of her lifestyle Web site, Goop.com, just days after The New York Times published an article questioning the site's relevance in light of a barrage of published swipes against its cardio-workout and pizza-recipe content.... "I think the people who are criticizing it or criticizing the idea of it, don't really get it, because if they did, they would like it," Paltrow, 36, told PEOPLE Wednesday night...

Adriana has been cooking a lot of GOOP recipes the past month to great effect. Gwyneth, if you are googling yourself,  we get it!

Shea Demo

Rick Warren

I'm unfortunately too busy to blog thoughtfully, but I must comment on Rick Warren!

Obama is the whole country's president. Most of what we lefties don't like about Bush is frankly that he was extremely effective at pushing out an agenda, largely because he was playing to a base. This is why he was reelected in 2004, even though most Americans recognized that our foreign policy was not going well.

What Obama is trying to do is much tougher - he is trying to cast a wider net instead of bunkering down with his base. This is a higher road, not necessarily a sweeter one. This is what Obama means when he says "We share a common destiny as Americans... We must all do our part to serve one another." Happy Holidays!

Link: Reluctant defense secretary 'impressed' with Obama:

Gates also said he was impressed by Michelle Obama's desire to work on behalf of military families.

"I think all of these send very positive signals to our men and women in uniform about the way the new commander-in-chief looks upon his responsibilities as commander-in-chief, but also as the person for whom all of these men and women in uniform work."

This is the "#1 most viewed" article on CNN right now ("Best of CNN!" ?) but it's worth linking to. It's inspiring that Gates has such obviosuly sincere praise for Barack Obama, and it offers me real hope.

Time Magazine - For Obama, Race Remains Elephant in the Room:

Race is the elephant in the room of the 2008 campaign. In West Virginia's primary, one of every four Hillary Clinton voters actually admitted to pollsters that race was a factor in their vote; that may be an Appalachian outlier, but even in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio the figure was a troubling one in ten. It's a tribute to America's racial progress that a biracial man born before Jim Crow died could come this close to the presidency, but if you believe that contemporary America is color-blind, you probably believe the Georgia congressman who recently called Obama "uppity," then claimed he had no idea it was a traditional Southern slur for blacks who didn't know their place.

James Fallows on why Palin's ignorance around "the Bush Doctrine" matters:

Mention a name or theme -- Brett Favre, the Patriots under Belichick, Lance Armstrong's comeback, Venus and Serena -- and anyone who cares about sports can have a very sophisticated discussion about the ins and outs and myth and realities and arguments and rebuttals.

People who don't like sports can't do that. It's not so much that they can't identify the names -- they've heard of Armstrong -- but they've never bothered to follow the flow of debate. I like sports -- and politics and tech and other topics -- so I like joining these debates. On a wide range of other topics -- fashion, antique furniture, (gasp) the world of restaurants and fine dining, or (gasp^2) opera -- I have not been interested enough to learn anything I can add to the discussion. So I embarrass myself if I have to express a view.

What Sarah Palin revealed is that she has not been interested enough in world affairs to become minimally conversant with the issues. Many people in our great land might have difficulty defining the "Bush Doctrine" exactly. But not to recognize the name, as obviously was the case for Palin, indicates not a failure of last-minute cramming but a lack of attention to any foreign-policy discussion whatsoever in the last seven years.

Blogging the Moment

Great Do-Overs of the Past:

If anything about this is fishy it's in an arbitrary application of the right to award a do-over. Lots of close games through the years have involved mistakes of various kinds that could have, in theory, affected outcomes. The normal thought through most of my life has been "done is good" and you move on.

Henry Abbot is talking about the NBA, but he could be talking about any sport, or in fact anything.