ucla student tasered

ok this is making me really angry. and disturbed. and worried. it's not good.
here is the link to the story from the Daily Bruin after it happened (the incident was this past tuesday). there weren't a lot of details at that time, but it still pissed me off. then I saw that someone had actually posted the video from their cellphone that they took while it was happening. after watching that, I felt kind of sick. it is a very disturbing video. you can hear him screaming and the officers yelling at him. it is not good. the students that were around were trying to get information (like their badge numbers and names) from the officers, but they threatened them with the taser instead of giving them the information.
today's LA Times had another article; the student is going to sue. there are more details in this article, especially the student's side of the story. I just hope that something good comes out of this. this is totally insane. what is going on with our country? (and the world?)

life + research = research

today's PhD Comic seemed especially relevant to how I feel about my research right now. *sigh*. for reals.
at least I like what I'm doing. and I seem to be able to get an OK amount of sleep this semester. but still. yeah.

Bill Clinton!

well I had a bit of a fun surprise today. in the middle of a meeting I get an IM from Angel saying that Bill Clinton is coming to campus today and do I want to go? well, of course, yes, I do. so we walked over to the library lawn where it was all set up. and waited. and waited. finally some of the other democrat local candidates spoke and it was nice. and then we waited some more. (I would like to mention that Angel remembered the wrong time, so that made it even longer, but oh well.) finally, Bill Clinton showed up (along with Harry Mitchell and Jim Pederson) and gave a great speech. it was great to see all of us young college-aged (or post-college-aged) students out there cheering on the democrats. only five days until the election. don't forget to vote! this is the most important thing you can do as a citizen in a democratic country - don't take it for granted.

here's a couple pictures I got from my phone. they're not too great, but here they are anyway (if you click on them to make them bigger it is easier to see him).