The voters have spoken...

In what certainly turned out to be a historic election, a record number of voters hit the polls today and voted for what they're hoping will be the change our country needs.

From AP: Barack Obama was elected the nation's first black president Tuesday night in a historic triumph that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself.

The 47-year-old Democratic senator from Illinois sealed his victory by defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in a string of wins in hard-fought battleground states — Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Iowa.

Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, will take their oaths of office as president and vice president on Jan. 20, 2009.

Congratulations to our new president and congratulations to those of you who voted - you made history!

EMPLOYEE: DUMB B----

A Missouri man was shocked to find a racial slur on his Journeys receipt after returning a pair of shoes this weekend.

Keith Slater, 22, bought an $80 pair of shoes at the store, but later returned them after finding a better bargain at another store. Slater got his money back, but was later shocked to see that the receipt identified him as "Dumb N-----"

Like, really? Did anyone there think that someone somewhere might possibly notice the N-word printed on their receipt? My God, that's stupidity!

By the time the college student returned to Journeys that night, the store was closed. When he came back on Saturday, employees said that a generic code had been entered with the return and that's what appeared.

But, Slater's father said, there were six or seven choices that came up when that code was entered and the one the employee had chosen was at the bottom of the list. Probably not a coincidence then, eh?

The employee who rang up Slater was fired, according to a statement issued by Genesco Inc, the company that owns Journeys.

"While we are continuing to investigate this incident, it appears an employee in one of our stores entered highly inappropriate statements in a form used to process a merchandise return...Needless to say, such an act was not authorized by Journeys, and will not be tolerated." --Genesco, Inc.

The Slaters received an apology call today from Genesco's corporate office, and have also been contacted by the Justice Department. The department will reportedly refer the case to the FBI to investigate whether a civil rights violation has occurred.

Like something out of 'Thriller'

I know I'm a few days late on the Michael Jackson birthday jokes, so I won't even try. But I stumbled across this photo slideshow of the King of Pop's 50 years of faces and I couldn't not share it.

Click here to see the show. The transition is not only mind-boggling, but it's so terrifying I should have waited til Halloween to post it.

And as a backward belated birthday wish to Michael, check out the video below. Just, uhh, replace every 'Lisa' with 'Michael'...?

Can't phase the tase

The please of college student Andrew Meyer during a Sen. John Kerry speech in September--"Don't tase me, bro!"--has landed atop a list of 2007's most memorable quotations.

Yet another end of the year list was released today, this one compiled by editor of the Yale Book of Quotations Fred R. Shapiro.

The University of Florida student's quote was ranked number one due to its Internet popularity and pop culture success.

Following close behind was my personal fav, Miss South Carolina Teen USA Caitlin Upton's response during the Miss Teen USA pageant to the question, "Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?" [click here to watch the video]

"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and Iraq and everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for us."--Caitlin Upton

The girl even got her own Wikipedia page for the mindless response!

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's October comment at Columbia University in New York came in third: "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country." And everyone's favorite radio jock Don Imus' comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team landed him the fourth spot: "That's some nappy-headed hos there."

Dog: the Racist Blunder

Duane "Dog" Chapman, best known as "Dog the Bounty Hunter" from his show on A&E is apologizing for racist statements and repeated use of the N-word in a recorded phone conversation leaked to The Enquirer [click here to hear the full conversation].

Chapman was speaking to his son, who is currently dating a Black woman. Dog is "clear" in saying that he doesn't hate Monique because she's black, but his son should break up with her because Dog and his crew use the N-word too much...because that makes sense.

This whole scenario is just dripping with irony though, because Dog's biggest concern is that Monique will leak the fact that Dog is a racist to the media and it will ruin his career. Self-fulfilling prophecy much?

It's not clear at this point how or by whom the conversation was recorded, but Chapman apologized via statement Thursday:

"I did not mean to add yet another slap in the face to an entire race of people who have brought so many gifts to this world. I am ashamed of myself and I pledge to do whatever I can to repair this damage I have caused."

A&E has stopped production of the television show until an investigation has taken place.

UPDATE: Dog's son, Tucker, is responsible for selling the taped phone conversation to the National Enquirer for "a lot of money."

Duh-ble helix

You'd think someone smart enough to discover the double helix would know better than to publicly degrade the African American population, but almost everyone knows not to ignorantly and blatantly claim white people are smarter than black people.

Apparently Nobel Prize -winning Dr. James Watson doesn't.

He said he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really."

He also said he hoped everyone was created equally, but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true." Say whaaaaat?

It's racism, my dear Watson.