San Francisco Catholic Archbishop George Niederauer has spoken out on his role in the passage of Proposition 8 in the aftermath of the ensuing protests, asking, "What is the way forward for all of us together? Even though we supporters of Proposition 8 did not intend to hurt or offend our opponents, still many of them, especially in the gay community, feel hurt and offended. What is to be done?"

Niederauer, who is credited with bringing in the Mormon church and the massive finances of its donors, urged people to tone down the rhetoric: "Tolerance, respect, and trust are always two-way streets, and tolerance respect and trust often do not include agreement, or even approval. We need to be able to disagree without being disagreeable. We need to stop talking as if we are experts on the real motives of people with whom we have never even spoken. We need to stop hurling names like 'bigot' and 'pervert' at each other. And we need to stop it now."

The SF Chronicle reports:

"During the campaign, Niederauer issued statements, sent flyers and gave a videotaped interview posted at www.marriagematterstokids.org. But Niederauer's most prominent action was drawing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members responded with intensive grassroots organizing and an estimated $20 million in campaign contributions from individuals that accounted for half of the Yes on 8 campaign's total. Niederauer noted that many other Christian denominations supported Prop. 8, including evangelical Protestant, Orthodox and historically African American churches. The Mormon church has said Niederauer, previously the bishop of Salt Lake City for 11 years, played a pivotal role in its joining the cause. 'We were invited to join the coalition,' Michael Otterson, managing director of public affairs for the church, told The Chronicle in an interview shortly after the election. 'We didn't unilaterally go into the battle.' Otterson said Niederauer's letter persuaded the Mormon church that they wouldn't be fighting this battle alone, a status that would have made them vulnerable."

Niederauer wants everyone to accept the procreation argument for the family and the "marriage" label, and wants gays to accept "a contract for the benefit of a relationship between adults" but not call it marriage.

He forgives "single parents, grandparents, foster parents and others" who "fail to realize" the ideal procreative one man-one woman model but doesn't deny them his permission to marry, because they are heterosexual.

Basically, Niederauer wants gays and lesbians (many of whom do procreate through surrogates, etc, I might add) to accept our status as second-class citizens and move on.

Read his full message, entitled "Moving Forward Together," AFTER THE JUMP...

S.F. archbishop defends role in Prop. 8 passage [sf chronicle]

***

SAN FRANCISCO CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP NIEDERAUER - "MOVING FORWARD TOGETHER"

“Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” In the weeks since the adoption of this amendment the media have carried many speculations about the role of the Catholic bishops in California, and about my role in particular, in the passage of this proposition. It is my wish to clarify here what was done and why it was done, and offer some thoughts about the way forward amid so many misunderstandings and hard feelings.

Five years before my appointment as Archbishop of San Francisco, in the year 2000, Proposition 22 was placed on the California ballot. This statute, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, passed with 61% of the vote. On May 15th of this year, the California State Supreme Court declared that statute unconstitutional and legalized same-sex marriage in California. Around the same time, Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment qualified for the ballot.

The Catholic bishops of California, organized as the California Catholic Conference, and speaking through their office of public policy in Sacramento, endorsed Proposition 8 and urged Catholics, and organizations of lay Catholics, to work for its passage, by means of grass roots activity and contributions from their resources. We bishops also endorsed Proposition 4, regarding parental notification of a minor child’s intended abortion (defeated at the polls) and we opposed Proposition 6, a “tough on crime” initiative inconsistent with the principles of restorative justice (defeated).

The Archdiocese of San Francisco did not donate or transfer any Archdiocesan funds to the campaign in favor of Proposition 8. As far as I know, that is also true of other Catholic dioceses in California. The Archdiocese did pay, and appropriately disclose, printing and distribution of flyers to parishes.

Last May the staff of the Conference office informed me that leaders and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) had given their support to the campaign for Proposition 22 in the year 2000, and were already considering an involvement in connection with Proposition 8. Accordingly, I was asked to contact leaders of the LDS Church whom I had come to know during my eleven years as Bishop of Salt Lake City, to ask them to cooperate again, in this election cycle. I did write to them and they urged the members of their Church, especially those in California, to become involved.

It is important to point out here that a wide range of churches became active in favor of Proposition 8: in addition to Catholics and LDS members, evangelical Protestant churches and churches with many African-American members joined the effort, and, among the Orthodox churches, the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of San Francisco and three other Orthodox bishops signed and published a joint statement in favor of Proposition 8.

That is what was done. Why was it done? Some voices in the wider community declare that there could be only one motive: hatred, prejudice and bigotry against gays, along with a determination to discriminate against them and deny them their civil rights. That is not so. The churches that worked in favor of Proposition 8 did so because of their belief that the traditional understanding and definition of marriage is in need of defense and support, and not in need of being re-designed or re-configured.

Some of our opponents respond with this question: Even if these churches saw the California State Supreme Court decision in May as damaging to the institution of marriage as they understood and valued it, shouldn’t they have kept quiet and stayed on the sidelines? Some would say that, in light of the separation of church and state, churches should remain silent about any political matter. However, religious leaders in America have the constitutional right to speak out on issues of public policy. Catholic bishops, specifically, also have a responsibility to teach the faith, and our beliefs about marriage and family are part of this faith.

Indeed, to insist that citizens be silent about their religious beliefs when they are participating in the public square is to go against the constant American political tradition. Such a gag order would have silenced many abolitionists in the nineteenth century and many civil rights advocates in the twentieth. Quite a number of important political issues regularly touch upon the ethical, moral, and religious convictions of citizens: immigration policy, the death penalty, torture of prisoners, abortion, euthanasia, and the right to health care are some such issues.

Members of churches who supported Proposition 8 sincerely believe that defining marriage as only between a man and a woman is one such issue. They see marriage and the family as the basic building blocks of human society, existing before government and not created by it. Marriage is for us the ideal relationship between a man and woman, in which, through their unique sexual complementarity, the spouses offer themselves to God as co-creators of new human persons, a father and mother giving them life and enabling them to thrive in the family setting.

Are there many instances in which this ideal fails to be realized? Of course there are. Single parents, grandparents, foster parents and others deserve praise and support for their courage, sacrifice and devotion in raising the children for whom they are responsible. Still, the proponents of Proposition 8 subscribe to a definition of marriage that recognizes and protects its potential to create and nurture new human life, not merely a contract for the benefit of a relationship between adults.

Whatever others may say, the proponents of Proposition 8 supported it as a defense of the traditional understanding and definition of marriage, not as an attack on any group, or as an attempt to deprive others of their civil rights. The fact remains that, under California law, after the passage of Proposition 8, same sex couples who register as domestic partners will continue to have “the same rights, protections and benefits” as married couples. Proposition 8 simply recognizes that there is a difference between traditional marriage and a same sex partnership.

What is the way forward for all of us together? Even though we supporters of Proposition 8 did not intend to hurt or offend our opponents, still many of them, especially in the gay community, feel hurt and offended. What is to be done?

Tolerance, respect, and trust are always two-way streets, and tolerance respect and trust often do not include agreement, or even approval. We need to be able to disagree without being disagreeable. We need to stop talking as if we are experts on the real motives of people with whom we have never even spoken. We need to stop hurling names like “bigot” and “pervert” at each other. And we need to stop it now.

For our part, we churchgoers need to speak and act out of the truth that all people are God’s children and are unconditionally loved by God. While we argue among ourselves, the people who need our help with hunger, unemployment, homelessness and other problems wait for us to turn together toward them. More particularly, we Catholics in the Archdiocese of San Francisco need to minister to the needs of all Catholics in this local Church. Whoever they are, and whatever their circumstances, their spiritual and pastoral rights should be respected, together with their membership in the Church. In that spirit, with God’s grace and much prayer, perhaps we can all move forward together.

***END OF STATEMENT***

pFiled under: a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/culture/" rel="tag"Culture/a, a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/online/" rel="tag"Online/a, a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/polls/" rel="tag"Polls/a/pa href="http://xkcd.com/506/"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="0" align="right" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2008/12/theft-of-magi.jpg" class="imagepadding" //a... Wow, that was close. The last time we checked on the webcomic wrapup, XKCD's a href="http://xkcd.com/506/"Theft of the Magi/a and CAD's a href="http://cad-comic.com/comic.php?d=20081124"Crossover/a were tied with 145 votes apiece. We decided to be somewhat Vice Presidential and cast the deciding vote ... to XKCD. Cheer up, CAD, you still got second place, and your prize is just as big as first place's (read: emnada/em). br /br /Laughing about the race in third place is a href="http://www.indoorheroes.com/index.php?s=259"Red, the Color of Seduction/a (Indoor Heroes), who beat out a href="http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/11/24/"The Truth is the New Lie/a (Penny Arcade) also by one vote. Thanks to everyone who voted (see? your vote counts) and be sure to let us know of any game-related webcomics you stumble up on this week!p style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/03/readers-pick-best-webcomic-theft-of-the-magi/"Readers pick best webcomic: Theft of the Magi/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.joystiq.com"Joystiq/a on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:28:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./pp style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"nbsp;/ppa href=http://xkcd.com/506/Read/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/03/readers-pick-best-webcomic-theft-of-the-magi/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.joystiq.com/forward/1390767/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/03/readers-pick-best-webcomic-theft-of-the-magi/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/QO252Nu1WgyhsTq9xWsbbVxcz1M/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/QO252Nu1WgyhsTq9xWsbbVxcz1M/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?a=Zk57vNTC"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?i=Zk57vNTC" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?a=BLLJvNpB"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?i=BLLJvNpB" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/joystiq/~4/7qMDK5z4rDY" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/wp-edit.png" width="494" height="223" style="display:block;" /CNET reports that Wikipedia has received $890,000 in funding specifically aimed at creating an easier to use interface for readers with a low level of tech knowledge. Wikipedia's goal is "to identify the most common barriers to entry for first-time writers, and then work to systematically reduce or eliminate them." It's an excellent idea, considering the obvious fact that there are presumably countless potential contributors with a lot of knowledge but a low level of tech skill. Still, since most of our readers are a tech-savvy bunch, it got us wondering:/p pscript type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://static.polldaddy.com/p/1161819.js" /scriptnoscripta href="http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1161819/"Have You Ever Edited Wikipedia?/abr span style="font-size:9px;"( a href="http://www.polldaddy.com"polls/a)/span/noscript/p pIt's not clear when the new and improved interface will reach public eyes, but all the new code will remain open source for those of us who've a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/wikipedia/geek-to-live-set-up-your-personal-wikipedia-163707.php"set up ou own personal Wikipedia/a using MediaWiki's software. Until then, check out our a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/wikipedia/geek-to-live-how-to-contribute-to-wikipedia-133747.php"previous guide to contributing to Wikipedia/a./p div class="related"a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10112138-36.html?part=rsssubj=newstag=2547-1_3-0-20"Wikipedia gets $890,000 for the Luddites/a [CNET]/div br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=camp;i=e2534c5753937fe1018279d0e91461d8amp;p=1"img style="border:0;" src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=vamp;i=e2534c5753937fe1018279d0e91461d8amp;p=1" border="0" //adiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=WSafKtdG"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=114pJMhx"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=vGclBI42"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=vGclBI42" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=C3nii2cZ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=C3nii2cZ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/Iwf2w_RtufE" height="1" width="1"/

Defeated US presidential candidate John McCain says elections in Bangladesh could be "the fairest" in the world.

The current issue of Rolling Stone has posted its Prop 8 article online, which takes to task the "No on 8" campaign for its failure to anticipate that it had a major opponent in the Mormon church and criticizes its strategies both on the ground, and on the air.

An excerpt:

"But evidence of entrenched homophobia and religious intolerance obscure a more difficult truth. Prop 8 should have been defeated — two months before the election, it was down 17 points in the polls — but the gay-rights groups that tried to stop it ran a lousy campaign. According to veteran political observers, the No on Prop 8 effort was slow to raise money, ran weak and confusing ads, and failed to put together a grass-roots operation to get out the vote. 'This was political malpractice,' says a Democratic consultant who operates at the highest level of California politics. 'They fucked this up, and it was painful to watch. They shouldn't be allowed to pawn this off on the Mormons or anyone else. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and now hundreds of thousands of gay couples are going to pay the price.' From the start, the leaders of the No on Prop 8 campaign and their high-priced consultants failed to realize what they were up against. According to Geoff Kors, who headed the campaign's executive committee, the No side anticipated needing no more than $20 million to stop the gay-marriage ban. The Yes side, by contrast, set out to change how initiative politics are played, building a well-funded operation that rivaled a swing-state presidential campaign in its scope and complexity. It also built a powerful, faith-based coalition that included the Catholic Church, Protestant evangelicals and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 'The direct involvement of the Mormon church — moving donors in a very short window to give early — was stunning,' says Patrick Guerriero, who was called in to take over as campaign manager of No on Prop 8 in the final month. "It was unprecedented — and probably impossible to predict."

National Center for Lesbian Rights executive director Kate Kendall (katek), hit back at the magazine in a comment to the article online.

"When Dickinson called to interview me about the No on Prop 8 campaign it became obvious he wasn't interested in the facts about the campaign, he wanted only information that supported this hit piece. When he didn't like my answers, he just asked more leading questions. We lost. Yes, as in any campaign, mistakes were made, but to quote from unnamed sources and anonymous gay leaders running for cover in the wake of this devastating loss while ignoring all facts that don't support your assasination attempt against those who worked tirelessly for months is not jouralism, it's just trash. Dickinson should ply his 'blaming the victim' tactics with the National Enquirer."

Same-Sex Setback [rolling stone]

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/bestof2008_01.png" width="494" height="290" Mobile phone operating systems and a reheated web browser war: that's how we'll recall the year 2008 when it comes to software. From brand new to revamped browsers and mobile platforms and apps, 2008's been good to technophiles who like their data in the cloud and accessible wherever they are. Let's take a look back at this year in software, and some of the best new and improved applications, web services, and mobile platforms that were born in 2008. Looking back at the last 12 months, these are the apps that get a gold foil-wrapped chocolate coin from us this year. iPhoto by a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gaetanlee/1947414336/"Gaetan Lee/a./i/p pbr clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Firefox 3/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/firefox3-sq-thumb_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Not only did you swoon over the release of Firefox 3 because of a href="http://lifehacker.com/392160/top-10-firefox-3-features"the "AwesomeBar" and the rest of the "Had no idea I needed this but now I love it!" features/a it offers, but because the launch itself was a grass-roots community-driven effort towards making software history. Indeed, on June 17th of this year, the makers of Firefox a href="http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/press/mozilla-2008-07-02.html"set a new Guinness World Record for most software downloads in a given day/a, at more than eight million downloads of the new browser iteration in 24 hours. If you haven't dug into the advanced functionality Firefox has to offer, check out our a href="http://lifehacker.com/396312/power-users-guide-to-firefox-3"power user's guide to Firefox 3/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Google Chrome/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/thumb160x_gchrome.png" width="135" height="135"While Mozillians and Firefox users celebrated across the globe over the summer, no one knew that search powerhouse Google was in the software development lab cooking up their own lean, mean browsing machine that would forsake all of the fox's bells and whistles (and extensibility) to run Javascript-based applications lightening-fast. On September 2nd, Google released the first beta of a href="http://google.com/chrome/"Chrome/a, their new web browser which they hope you'll make your window to the web and all its apps. Our own in-house a href="http://lifehacker.com/5055406/browser-speed-tests-the-compiled-up+to+date-results"browser speed tests show that Chrome is indeed speedy/a, and we're seeing a significant uptake on Chrome usage by Lifehacker readers. (Last month's browser breakdown for Lifehacker readers was 62% Firefox, 22% IE, 8% Safari, and 6% Chrome. Not bad for a browser that's been out only a few months.) For more Chrome goodness, see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/5045904/the-power-users-guide-to-google-chrome"power user's guide to Google Chrome/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"iPhone 2.0 and the App Store/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/iphone20-sq-thumb_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Yeah, yeah, the iPhone launched in 2007, but this year the iPhone 2.0 software and the new iPhone 3G model with a faster data plan and GPS came out to hype almost as big as the original iPhone launch. The combination of an operating system that finally ran third-party apps officially plus pinpointy GPS goodness set the bar for what users can expect to get from the next generation of smartphone with a fast internet connection, full-on browser, and spot-on location-awareness. Plus, dozens of the apps available for the phone are free. At first, we were a href="http://lifehacker.com/395171/how-your-location+aware-iphone-will-change-your-life"in/a a href="http://lifehacker.com/398338/iphone-20-gets-you-laid-and-more"love/a. Later, a href="http://lifehacker.com/398658/why-youre-better-off-avoiding-the-iphone"we had our doubts/a. The iPhone 2.0 launch did start to show some of the cracks in the Apple armormdash;several of the earliest versions of the software were crash and freeze-prone, requiring many users to uninstall apps and reset their phone software to fix maddening keyboard delays and application crashes. Meanwhile, Apple's approval-only App Store left a few applications out in the cold. Still, the iPhone 2.0 software created a compelling mobile platform and app marketing campaign that made Aunt Bertha really want to try that Neil Diamond song out on Shazam.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"iPhone 2.0 Jailbreak Utilities and Apps/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/cydia-thumb.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" What with the App Store limitations and Apple's insistence on ruling over what you can and cannot do on your phone, it's not surprising the enthusiastic "jailbreak" community soldiered on this year, continuing to offer installers and non-Apple-approved applications for your iPhone even in the face of the mainstream iTunes App Store. We take our hats off to these intrepid hackers, who offer such lovely functionality as the ability to SSH into, theme, and download video clips to your phone; if you haven't jailbroken your iPhone or iPod touch, here are a few of our picks of best a href="http://lifehacker.com/400148/iphone-20-jailbreak-apps-you-cant-find-in-the-itunes-store"iPhone 2.0 jailbreak apps you can't find in the iTunes Store/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Google Android/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/android-logo-sq.png" width="135" height="135" Google's answer to Apple's proprietary iPhone hardware and software came in the form of their very own touch mobile phone operating system, Android, which launched this past October. Unlike the iPhone, this new mobile platform is open source and will run on various handsets going forward. Right now Android's first release is only available on the HTC G1 handset; you can see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/5064117/a-hands+on-first-look-at-google-android"hands-on first look at Google Android running on the G1 here/a. As an iPhone user frustrated by limited apps, crashiness, and lack of copy and paste, Android is like a breath of fresh air. Even though the mobile OS is still very new, its open-source nature has led to hundreds of new apps. See our pick of a href="http://lifehacker.com/5075332/best-android-apps-to-boost-your-mobile-productivity-so-far"best Android apps to boost your mobile productivity/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Digsby/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/digsby-logo_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" One of the few software apps on this list that's not open source or made by a ginormous company, new instant messenger client Digsby took chatters by storm with its ability to a href="http://lifehacker.com/354345/consolidate-im-email-and-social-networking-with-digsby"consolidate your IM, email, and social networking in one place/a. Even though the Digsby beta only went public in February, by April it was already a href="http://lifehacker.com/375391/five-best-instant-messengers"one of our readers' top five favorite instant messaging tools/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"XBMC and Forks/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/xbmc-logo-sq_01.png" width="135" height="135" We were really late to the Xbox Media Center (XBMC) party when we showed up last year and a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/transform-your-classic-xbox-into-a-killer-media-center-299809.php"installed it on our old classic Xbox/a, but since then we've been hooked on this rich, open-source media center. Luckily, just because those old black boxes are becoming obselete doesn't mean the XBMC software project has died off. Just the opposite: XBMC has forked into several neat branches that run on various hardware platforms so you can enjoy the same media center goodness without hacking an old Xbox. Check out a few launches from various factions of XBMC developers this past year that have warmed our hearts:/p ul lia href="http://lifehacker.com/5051874/xbmc-atlantis-beta-1-released-for-all-platforms"XBMC 'Atlantis' Beta 1 Released for All Platforms/a/li lia href="http://lifehacker.com/5095241/plex-7-adds-itunes-and-iphoto-support-and-more"Plex 7 for Mac Adds iTunes and iPhoto Support and More/a/li lia href="http://lifehacker.com/396382/boxee-is-xbmc-with-newer-look-and-social-flair"Boxee Is XBMC with Newer Look and Social Flair/a/li /ul br clear="all" h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Ubuntu Hardy Heron/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/hardyheron-logo.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Another year, another Ubuntu release, and they just keep getting better. Seriously, you have to love the free, open source operating system that manages a new major release on a yearly basismdash;something Apple and Microsoft, companies you pay hundreds of dollars to for the privilege of using their software, don't pull off. If you've tried Linux on your desktop before and killed the partition in frustration, only to slink back to Windows, it's time to give it another go. This year's flavor, a href="http://lifehacker.com/383769/hardy-heron-makes-linux-worth-another-look"version 8.04 Hardy Heron makes Linux worth another look/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Gmail Labs, Gadgets, and Themes/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/thumb160x_thumb160x_thumb160x_thumb160x_smallish_smallish_smallish_smallish_gmailenvelope.png" width="135" height="135" Our favorite web application on the internet, Gmail, continues to burn down barns and rip up the competition with continual iteration and feature adds. This year, Gmail added a "Labs" section to your account, a safe way for power users to enable "experimental" power features to their email while keeping everyone else's safe from harm. Truthfully, when I a href="http://lifehacker.com/395211/gmail-gets-13-experimental-new-features"attended the Google press event announcing Gmail Labs/a back in June, I had my doubts about whether or not the featureset would ever expand beyond the initial 13, and if it would go beyond eye-candy games like Snakey to, you know, actually useful stuff. Turns out it did. Six months later, a href="http://lifehacker.com/5052060/what-gmail-labs-features-do-you-have-enabled"ten more Gmail Labs features/a are available in your account, including a super-useful Gadgets feature that lets third parties embed their apps into your inbox. (Like a href="http://lifehacker.com/5101139/bitly-offers-in+gmail-url-shortening-gadget"Bit.ly/a or a href="http://lifehacker.com/5084502/add-your-basecamp-projects-to-gmail"Basecamp/a.) Later, Gmail launched a href="http://lifehacker.com/5093536/gmail-updates-its-look-adds-themes"themes/a as well as a href="http://lifehacker.com/5100649/gmail-google-desktop-gadget-now-available"a Google Desktop gadget/a. In the midst of all this, the Gmail security team took the time a href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2008/11/gmail-security-and-recent-phishing.html"to respond to a breach/a that several users had experienced and blogged about online. Clearly there's someone home at Gmail; this is a rapidly-evolving product that any webapp developer should use as an example on how to iterate quickly.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Honorable Mentions/h3 pMaking best-of-year lists is always difficult because you risk leaving off really deserving items. At least two that go in our honorable mentions bin are the a href="http://lifehacker.com/5042312/ubiquity-prototype-offers-a-natural-language-web-command-line"Firefox keyboard interface prototype Ubiquity/a, and photo-sharing site a href="http://lifehacker.com/377598/flickr-adds-video"Flickr's launch of short video clips/a in April./p pNow, you tell us which one of these apps impressed you the most in the year two thousand and eight./p pscript type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://static.polldaddy.com/p/1160637.js" /scriptnoscripta href="http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1160637/"Which new or improved app impressed you the most in 2008?/abr span style="font-size:9px;"( a href="http://www.polldaddy.com"polls/a)/span/noscript/p pIf you can't get enough of best-of lists, hop into the time machine and see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-top-10/top-10-new-and-improved-apps-of-2007-332617.php"top 10 new and improved apps of 2007/a, and our a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/best-of-2006/geek-to-live--the-best-apps-of-2006-221920.php"best apps of 2006/a and of a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/geek-to-live-best-apps-of-2005-144388.php"2005/a./p pAnything you would have included on this list that we left out? Tell us about it in the comments./p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=cDx19c1S"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=ZTEOZvTR"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=6Kfin5AZ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=6Kfin5AZ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=Sg3nuEAr"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=Sg3nuEAr" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/TRlejqKX0-0" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/bestof2008_01.png" width="494" height="290" style="display:block;" / iframe src="http://digg.com/api/diggthis.php?u=http://digg.com/software/Lifehacker_Best_New_and_Improved_Software_of_2008" align="right" frameborder="0" height="82" scrolling="no" width="55"/iframe Mobile phone operating systems and a reheated web browser war: that's how we'll recall the year 2008 when it comes to software. From brand new to revamped browsers and mobile platforms and apps, 2008's been good to technophiles who like their data in the cloud and accessible wherever they are. Let's take a look back at this year in software, and some of the best new and improved applications, web services, and mobile platforms that were born in 2008. Looking back at the last 12 months, these are the apps that get a gold foil-wrapped chocolate coin from us this year. iPhoto by a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gaetanlee/1947414336/"Gaetan Lee/a./i/p pbr clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Firefox 3/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/firefox3-sq-thumb_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Not only did you swoon over the release of Firefox 3 because of a href="http://lifehacker.com/392160/top-10-firefox-3-features"the "AwesomeBar" and the rest of the "Had no idea I needed this but now I love it!" features/a it offers, but because the launch itself was a grass-roots community-driven effort towards making software history. Indeed, on June 17th of this year, the makers of Firefox a href="http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/press/mozilla-2008-07-02.html"set a new Guinness World Record for most software downloads in a given day/a, at more than eight million downloads of the new browser iteration in 24 hours. If you haven't dug into the advanced functionality Firefox has to offer, check out our a href="http://lifehacker.com/396312/power-users-guide-to-firefox-3"power user's guide to Firefox 3/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Google Chrome/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/thumb160x_gchrome.png" width="135" height="135"While Mozillians and Firefox users celebrated across the globe over the summer, no one knew that search powerhouse Google was in the software development lab cooking up their own lean, mean browsing machine that would forsake all of the fox's bells and whistles (and extensibility) to run Javascript-based applications lightening-fast. On September 2nd, Google released the first beta of a href="http://google.com/chrome/"Chrome/a, their new web browser which they hope you'll make your window to the web and all its apps. Our own in-house a href="http://lifehacker.com/5055406/browser-speed-tests-the-compiled-up+to+date-results"browser speed tests show that Chrome is indeed speedy/a, and we're seeing a significant uptake on Chrome usage by Lifehacker readers. (Last month's browser breakdown for Lifehacker readers was 62% Firefox, 22% IE, 8% Safari, and 6% Chrome. Not bad for a browser that's been out only a few months.) For more Chrome goodness, see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/5045904/the-power-users-guide-to-google-chrome"power user's guide to Google Chrome/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"iPhone 2.0 and the App Store/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/iphone20-sq-thumb_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Yeah, yeah, the iPhone launched in 2007, but this year the iPhone 2.0 software and the new iPhone 3G model with a faster data plan and GPS came out to hype almost as big as the original iPhone launch. The combination of an operating system that finally ran third-party apps officially plus pinpointy GPS goodness set the bar for what users can expect to get from the next generation of smartphone with a fast internet connection, full-on browser, and spot-on location-awareness. Plus, dozens of the apps available for the phone are free. At first, we were a href="http://lifehacker.com/395171/how-your-location+aware-iphone-will-change-your-life"in/a a href="http://lifehacker.com/398338/iphone-20-gets-you-laid-and-more"love/a. Later, a href="http://lifehacker.com/398658/why-youre-better-off-avoiding-the-iphone"we had our doubts/a. The iPhone 2.0 launch did start to show some of the cracks in the Apple armormdash;several of the earliest versions of the software were crash and freeze-prone, requiring many users to uninstall apps and reset their phone software to fix maddening keyboard delays and application crashes. Meanwhile, Apple's approval-only App Store left a few applications out in the cold. Still, the iPhone 2.0 software created a compelling mobile platform and app marketing campaign that made Aunt Bertha really want to try that Neil Diamond song out on Shazam.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"iPhone 2.0 Jailbreak Utilities and Apps/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/cydia-thumb.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" What with the App Store limitations and Apple's insistence on ruling over what you can and cannot do on your phone, it's not surprising the enthusiastic "jailbreak" community soldiered on this year, continuing to offer installers and non-Apple-approved applications for your iPhone even in the face of the mainstream iTunes App Store. We take our hats off to these intrepid hackers, who offer such lovely functionality as the ability to SSH into, theme, and download video clips to your phone; if you haven't jailbroken your iPhone or iPod touch, here are a few of our picks of best a href="http://lifehacker.com/400148/iphone-20-jailbreak-apps-you-cant-find-in-the-itunes-store"iPhone 2.0 jailbreak apps you can't find in the iTunes Store/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Google Android/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/android-logo-sq.png" width="135" height="135" Google's answer to Apple's proprietary iPhone hardware and software came in the form of their very own touch mobile phone operating system, Android, which launched this past October. Unlike the iPhone, this new mobile platform is open source and will run on various handsets going forward. Right now Android's first release is only available on the HTC G1 handset; you can see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/5064117/a-hands+on-first-look-at-google-android"hands-on first look at Google Android running on the G1 here/a. As an iPhone user frustrated by limited apps, crashiness, and lack of copy and paste, Android is like a breath of fresh air. Even though the mobile OS is still very new, its open-source nature has led to hundreds of new apps. See our pick of a href="http://lifehacker.com/5075332/best-android-apps-to-boost-your-mobile-productivity-so-far"best Android apps to boost your mobile productivity/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Digsby/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/digsby-logo_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" One of the few software apps on this list that's not open source or made by a ginormous company, new instant messenger client Digsby took chatters by storm with its ability to a href="http://lifehacker.com/354345/consolidate-im-email-and-social-networking-with-digsby"consolidate your IM, email, and social networking in one place/a. Even though the Digsby beta only went public in February, by April it was already a href="http://lifehacker.com/375391/five-best-instant-messengers"one of our readers' top five favorite instant messaging tools/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"XBMC and Forks/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/xbmc-logo-sq_01.png" width="135" height="135" We were really late to the Xbox Media Center (XBMC) party when we showed up last year and a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/transform-your-classic-xbox-into-a-killer-media-center-299809.php"installed it on our old classic Xbox/a, but since then we've been hooked on this rich, open-source media center. Luckily, just because those old black boxes are becoming obselete doesn't mean the XBMC software project has died off. Just the opposite: XBMC has forked into several neat branches that run on various hardware platforms so you can enjoy the same media center goodness without hacking an old Xbox. Check out a few launches from various factions of XBMC developers this past year that have warmed our hearts:/p ul lia href="http://lifehacker.com/5051874/xbmc-atlantis-beta-1-released-for-all-platforms"XBMC 'Atlantis' Beta 1 Released for All Platforms/a/li lia href="http://lifehacker.com/5095241/plex-7-adds-itunes-and-iphoto-support-and-more"Plex 7 for Mac Adds iTunes and iPhoto Support and More/a/li lia href="http://lifehacker.com/396382/boxee-is-xbmc-with-newer-look-and-social-flair"Boxee Is XBMC with Newer Look and Social Flair/a/li /ul br clear="all" h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Ubuntu Hardy Heron/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/hardyheron-logo.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Another year, another Ubuntu release, and they just keep getting better. Seriously, you have to love the free, open source operating system that manages a new major release on a yearly basismdash;something Apple and Microsoft, companies you pay hundreds of dollars to for the privilege of using their software, don't pull off. If you've tried Linux on your desktop before and killed the partition in frustration, only to slink back to Windows, it's time to give it another go. This year's flavor, a href="http://lifehacker.com/383769/hardy-heron-makes-linux-worth-another-look"version 8.04 Hardy Heron makes Linux worth another look/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Gmail Labs, Gadgets, and Themes/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/thumb160x_thumb160x_thumb160x_thumb160x_smallish_smallish_smallish_smallish_gmailenvelope.png" width="135" height="135" Our favorite web application on the internet, Gmail, continues to burn down barns and rip up the competition with continual iteration and feature adds. This year, Gmail added a "Labs" section to your account, a safe way for power users to enable "experimental" power features to their email while keeping everyone else's safe from harm. Truthfully, when I a href="http://lifehacker.com/395211/gmail-gets-13-experimental-new-features"attended the Google press event announcing Gmail Labs/a back in June, I had my doubts about whether or not the featureset would ever expand beyond the initial 13, and if it would go beyond eye-candy games like Snakey to, you know, actually useful stuff. Turns out it did. Six months later, a href="http://lifehacker.com/5052060/what-gmail-labs-features-do-you-have-enabled"ten more Gmail Labs features/a are available in your account, including a super-useful Gadgets feature that lets third parties embed their apps into your inbox. (Like a href="http://lifehacker.com/5101139/bitly-offers-in+gmail-url-shortening-gadget"Bit.ly/a or a href="http://lifehacker.com/5084502/add-your-basecamp-projects-to-gmail"Basecamp/a.) Later, Gmail launched a href="http://lifehacker.com/5093536/gmail-updates-its-look-adds-themes"themes/a as well as a href="http://lifehacker.com/5100649/gmail-google-desktop-gadget-now-available"a Google Desktop gadget/a. In the midst of all this, the Gmail security team took the time a href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2008/11/gmail-security-and-recent-phishing.html"to respond to a breach/a that several users had experienced and blogged about online. Clearly there's someone home at Gmail; this is a rapidly-evolving product that any webapp developer should use as an example on how to iterate quickly.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Honorable Mentions/h3 pMaking best-of-year lists is always difficult because you risk leaving off really deserving items. At least two that go in our honorable mentions bin are the a href="http://lifehacker.com/5042312/ubiquity-prototype-offers-a-natural-language-web-command-line"Firefox keyboard interface prototype Ubiquity/a, and photo-sharing site a href="http://lifehacker.com/377598/flickr-adds-video"Flickr's launch of short video clips/a in April./p pNow, you tell us which one of these apps impressed you the most in the year two thousand and eight./p pscript type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://static.polldaddy.com/p/1160637.js" /scriptnoscripta href="http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1160637/"Which new or improved app impressed you the most in 2008?/abr span style="font-size:9px;"( a href="http://www.polldaddy.com"polls/a)/span/noscript/p pIf you can't get enough of best-of lists, hop into the time machine and see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-top-10/top-10-new-and-improved-apps-of-2007-332617.php"top 10 new and improved apps of 2007/a, and our a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/best-of-2006/geek-to-live--the-best-apps-of-2006-221920.php"best apps of 2006/a and of a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/geek-to-live-best-apps-of-2005-144388.php"2005/a./p pAnything you would have included on this list that we left out? Tell us about it in the comments./p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=cDx19c1S"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=ZTEOZvTR"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=6Kfin5AZ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=6Kfin5AZ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=Sg3nuEAr"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=Sg3nuEAr" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/TRlejqKX0-0" height="1" width="1"/

Georgia voters are going to the polls Tuesday in a runoff election that could determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.

During the December 2 edition of NBC's Today, when asked about the effect of President Bush's approval ratings on Barack Obama's election as president, Fox News contributor Karl Rove claimed that the "call for change gave Barack Obama the presidency of the United States with 2.1 percent more than Al Gore got." In fact, in 2000, Gore received 48.38 percent of the popular vote, and according to unofficial election results posted on National Public Radio's website, Obama has received 52.7 percent of the popular vote, which is a difference of 4.32 percentage points.

Rove has previously made similar claims to downplay the extent of Obama's victory. During the November 5 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, when asked how responsible Bush was for Obama's victory, Rove responded, "[L]et me put this in a little bit of a frame for you. ... [Obama] got two and a half points better than Al Gore did." Rove added: "So, if this was all about George W. Bush, and -- and you looked at George W. Bush's standing in the polls, and this was all a reaction to him, you'd expect this thing to be a blowout." Rove similarly claimed in his November 6 Wall Street Journal column that Obama did "2.5 points better than Al Gore did in 2000. These small changes on the margin meant all the difference between winning and losing."

From the December 2 edition of NBC's Today:

MATT LAUER (co-host): President Bush said in an interview recently that he is sure some of the votes for Barack Obama recently were a repudiation of Republicans, and he said, "I'm sure some people voted for Barack Obama because of me." He's leaving office with -- with dismal approval ratings. What went wrong? This was, this -- you were the architect in many ways --

ROVE: Yeah --

LAUER: -- of this administration. What went wrong?

ROVE: Well, first of all, let's take what went right. What went right is that we were struck on Novemb -- on September 11, and for seven years he has kept our country safe. He has liberated 25 million people in Afghanistan, and 25 million people in Iraq --

LAUER: So you'd think they'd carry him out on their -- on their shoulders.

ROVE: No, well, look -- look, that's not -- that's not the way the system works. At the end of eight years, Republicans or Democrats have had -- when they've had the White House, people tire of it. And he's asked the country to do a lot of tough things. And he's asked -- he's asked -- we've gone through big and bold changes, and the country doesn't like that. And we have some economic difficulties. I would remind you of economic difficulties.

LAUER: But the call for change became -- came long before the meltdown.

ROVE: Well, and I would rememb-- remind you this: The call for change gave Barack Obama the presidency of the United States with 2.1 percent more than Al Gore got in 19 -- in 2000.

From Rove's November 6 Wall Street Journal column:

But we do know President-elect Obama ran better among frequent churchgoers (perhaps getting 10 points more than John Kerry did), independents (perhaps five points more than Kerry and eight points more than Al Gore), Hispanics and white men. He even made special appeals to gun owners and sent his wife to cultivate military families. This allowed him to carry previously red states like Florida, New Mexico and Iowa.

This combination helped Senator Obama run four points better nationally than John Kerry did in 2004 and 2.5 points better than Al Gore did in 2000. These small changes on the margin meant all the difference between winning and losing.

From the November 5 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

ALAN COLMES (co-host): How responsible is George W. Bush and what his administration has left us for what happened?

ROVE: Well, look, if you want to look at it that way, let -- and let me put this in a little bit of a frame for you.

Barack Obama got 1.5 percent more of the vote than did George W. Bush. He got four points better than John Kerry. He got two and a half points better than Al Gore did.

So, if this was all about George W. Bush, and -- and you looked at George W. Bush's standing in the polls, and this was all a reaction to him, you'd expect this thing to be a blowout, not something that was essentially a mild improvement over what John Kerry got. I mean look at that. That's four points better.

COLMES: [inaudible] But you add in the House, the Senate, and the number of gains for Democrats there -- does that not also speak to --

ROVE: Well, look, the Republicans have a challenge, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Georgia voters had their hands on the balance of power in the next U.S. Senate as polls opened Tuesday for a runoff election, one of two unresolved races that Democrats need to win to get a 60-seat majority impervious to GOP filibusters.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=CSRko"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=CSRko" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=ho8RO"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=ho8RO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=7oqSo"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=7oqSo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=5iX8o"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=5iX8o" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=7fYzO"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=7fYzO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=BncxO"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=BncxO" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsMain/~4/473064739" height="1" width="1"/

Georgia voters are going to the polls Tuesday in a runoff election that could determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.div class="feedflare" a href="http://rss.cnn.com/~f/rss/cnn_topstories?a=yckxLpMk"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/rss/cnn_topstories?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://rss.cnn.com/~f/rss/cnn_topstories?a=QdqCjdmS"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/rss/cnn_topstories?d=50" border="0"/img/a a href="http://rss.cnn.com/~f/rss/cnn_topstories?a=ZneHSVV8"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/rss/cnn_topstories?i=ZneHSVV8" border="0"/img/a a href="http://rss.cnn.com/~f/rss/cnn_topstories?a=ygeQYixh"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/rss/cnn_topstories?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://rss.cnn.com/~f/rss/cnn_topstories?a=Uhcfca7d"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/rss/cnn_topstories?i=Uhcfca7d" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rss/cnn_topstories/~4/Lwp1vy4wDWo" height="1" width="1"/

Robbie Brown / New York Times:
Short Lines at Polls in Georgia Senate Runoff  —  ATLANTA — Georgia voters encountered short lines but heavy campaigning Tuesday on the morning of the state's runoff election for the Senate between the incumbent Republican, Saxby Chambliss, and Democratic challenger Jim Martin.

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/tivo_toast.jpg" width="400" height="391" align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2"/According to CNN, you are not the only one who may have "a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/12/02/tivo.guilt/index.html?eref=rss_tech"TiVo guilt/a." Plenty of people keep shows on there forever. So, how far back do your unwatched TiVo / DVR shows go?/p pscript type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://static.polldaddy.com/p/1159505.js"/scriptnoscript a href ="http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1159505/" How Far Back Do Your Unwatched TiVo / DVR Shows Go?/a br/ span style="font-size:9px;" (a href ="http://www.polldaddy.com" polls/a)/span/noscript/p blockquotepResults from "a href="http://gizmodo.com/5100474/question-of-the-day-who-is-most-to-blame-for-the-walmart-trampling-incident"Who is Most to Blame For the Walmart Trampling Incident?/a"/p pWalmart 12%br / The Walmart managers at that store. 9%br / The shoppers. 53%br / The materialistic society we live in. 21%br / The media 1%br / Other 1%/p/blockquote p[Image via a href="http://www.jakeludington.com/life/2007/tivo-toaster-and-roxio-toast/"Jake Ludington/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=710c2634a05eb868e92022f254776918p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=710c2634a05eb868e92022f254776918p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=710c2634a05eb868e92022f254776918" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=Q6Bg5Oca"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=7pb9amm9"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=fyKQbHSS"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=fyKQbHSS" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=RbffCWtQ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=RbffCWtQ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/ZmovzCAduTQ" height="1" width="1"/

Last year we featured over 100 web applications to organize every aspect of your life, from your belongings to your social calendar, and more. Since then, many have been significantly improved and lots of new apps have been released.

From basic to do lists to event planning, fitness, educational organizers, and more, here are 100 new applications to get you even more organized.

Have a favorite? Tell us more about it in the comments.

Organize Your Stuff

LivingSocial - Organize your interests (restaurants, video games, books, TV shows, etc.) and share them with others.

eMove.com - Online tools to help you move.

BookBump - Complete book organization, including in-depth management tools, instant bibliographies, and organized book lists.

GuruLib - Home library organization application.

allmythings - Secure home inventory software that offers both free and paid plans.

WhatYah! - Organize and create complete lists of your movies, games and TV shows and share them with your friends.

TuneUp - Automatically cleans up and fixes your music collection, relabeling files, finding missing cover art, and even notifying you of upcoming concerts based on your collection.

PutPlace - Organize, store and backup all your digital stuff in one place.

Closet Assistant - A complete wardrobe management application that even includes an events calendar, so you know what events you need to dress for on a given day, and can plan accordingly.

Booktagger - Keep track of all your books, discover new books to read based on recommendations, keep lists of books, and even start an online book club.

Organize Your Shopping

No More Notebooks - Manage your shopping wish lists, research and compare prices, and recommend items to friends.

Rearden Personal Assistant - Online application that helps you book and organize services from trusted suppliers.