The anthropologists of 5,000 years from now are going to have a hell of a time piecing it all together:

Q: What is Rick Roll, Rick Rolling, Rick Rolled?

A: An internet prank or joke. Rick Roll, Rick Roll’d or Rick Rolling is an internet spam trick in which people post a link to a Rick Astley video on Youtube, but say the viewers of the video are being led to another video, usually proof of unconfirmed gaming news or trailers. (courtesy of Yahoo! Answers)

Rick Rollings tend to dump you hereabouts — one of the several “Never Gonna Give You Up” videos with far more viewings than they deserve:

This is part of a broader piece on the RI numbers. Fact number one is a bit of a surprise to me — you’d think that people would tend to come out more in the primaries, in a state where the generals often mean so little.

3 Thing You Didn’t Know About Rhode Island Primaries

1. Historically, voters in Rhode Island do not turn out in great numbers for presidential primaries. In fact, Rhode Island frequently has the nation’s lowest voter turnout rate for primaries, once dipping as low as 4 percent voter participation.

2. Currently, over 50 percent of voters in Rhode Island are registered as “unaffiliated.” They may vote in the party presidential primary of their choosing. However, once they choose, they are considered a member of that party. Residents can “disaffiliate” by filling out a form at their polling location after they vote.

3. To determine the order in which candidates will appear on this year’s presidential primary ballots, Rhode Island Secretary of State Ralph Mollis used a machine borrowed from the Rhode Island Lottery. Much like the daily lottery numbers are chosen, each candidate was assigned a ball, and the order in which these floated to the top decided their place on the ballot. This year’s Democratic ballot will read (in this order): Uncommitted, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama. The Republican ballot will be ordered: John McCain, Ron Paul, Hugh Cort, Mitt Romney, Uncommitted, Alan Keyes, Mike Huckabee.

Are you planning a children’s party or some other event in which you need a magician? Consider hiring President Bush’s newly appointed Attorney General, Michael Mukasey. He is a master of sleight-of-hand tricks. Under fire because of his agency’s support of torture, Mukasey has launched a national campaign to change the subject.

Maybe you’ve seen his handiwork in your local newspaper: “The U.S. Sentencing Commission is letting violent criminals out of prison!” “20,000 crack dealers about to be released into your neighborhood!!” “And they’re all black!!!” “Crack!” “Black Men!!” “Scared yet, America?”

(more…)

From the AP:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Seventeen-year-olds who were charged with felonies as adults under a short-lived state law will either have their cases dismissed or be transferred back to juvenile court, under a judge’s ruling released Tuesday…

More than 100 17-year-olds, known as “gap kids,” were charged with felonies as adults under the law that was in effect from July to November.

This from Charlie Bakst’s column today, about the Governor and his wife and their take on the fiscal mess. Sue invokes the ‘T’-word. (I’m sure she knows much more about terror than do most Cambodians and Laotians…)

Soon she turned the conversation to a protest last month against the governor’s layoff of three Southeast Asian interpreters. At a news conference, a 15-year-old Cambodian girl said, among other things, “The governor is sending a clear message to my community that we are not valued or welcome.” And a 16-year-old Vietnamese boy called his actions “racist.”

I wrote that if I were governor, I wouldn’t rest until I reached out to those two teens and others in the Southeast Asian community.

Now, on Tuesday night, Sue Carcieri suggested that if he were to meet with the teens it would be “rewarding bad behavior.”

She said, “First of all, I think they have mentors who are much older than them who are training them up. You know — how those terrorists have kids blow up, you know, Benazir Bhutto and so forth? You think the kids thought of it? I don’t think so.”

Now this is some great news:

For the first time in the past quarter of a century, in 2007 U.S. unions increased their share of membership among workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) annual union membership report released today. Unions added about 310,000 members last year, raising the unionized share of the workforce to 12.1 percent from 12.0 percent in 2006.

The Projo E-board, and Bob Whitcomb in particular, deserve lots of credit for their persistence on this issue.

In a major victory for cleaner air and energy independence, the federal Minerals Management Service has given preliminary environmental approval to Cape Wind, the proposed wind farm for Nantucket Sound. Final approval is expected later this year. The MMS, the key federal unit in determining whether the project gets built, found that there would be no significant environmental problems with the project. It is still unclear whether political pressure from the powerful and rich people opposing the project explains the long delay in getting this preliminary approval. Those noxious coal plants go up much more quickly…

I hope they keep up the pressure on this, and start pushing harder on potential wind in RI, especially in light of Patrick Kennedy’s recently announced opposition thereto.

NYTimes still likes us:

Selling housewares, jewelry, fashion accessories, books and other gifts, the shop carries the work of RISD (pronounced RIZZ-dee) alumni and faculty

And word has trickled in that next Thursday’s Today Show will have some sort of piece on Providence, including a segment featuring Young Voices and Mayor Cicilline.

Also, lipstick is making a comeback!!!

I’m going to pretend there isn’t an election going on, just for today…

• American Apparel CEO Dov Charney slapped with yet another sexual harrasment suit. The dude allegedly ran around in his underwear, a lot.
• Kate Moss’s epic birthday party: one hour for every year of her life. Looking at the pictures of her, the party should last 47 hours. Also, Ron Wood: still looking dope!
• It’s creepy when two people who look identical make out.

• Closed door hearings this week over alleged destroyed CIA torture tapes.
• Kucinich and Howard get their way, New Hampshire recount starts the 16th.
• You must be this tall to attend MSNBC debate: Kucinich uninvited.
• Obama backed by two more red state senators.
• Middle East TV: “all Bush, all the time.”
• “Pulp Fiction” writer Roger Avary arrested for DUI, manslaughter.

This photo shows every element of the modern American political process: Mike Huckabee, Chuck Norris, bass guitar.

• Giuliani’s brilliant new angle: troop surge for Afganistan.
• Can’t a Malaysian Health Minister have a mistress and make sex tapes in peace?
• It’s really going to be Huckabee, in’t it. Oh God, why hast thou foresaken us?
• Clinton and Obama are scattin’ and be-bopin’ all over poor Cheney. Beware joksters, this man could have you killed.
• And since it wouldn’t be America without some Lohan news, Lindsay made out with an impressive three dudes over 24 hours in Italy. Was I one of them? I guess you’ll just have to read it to find out!

Stolen from Matt:

Rhode Island hip-hop artist Chachi Carvalho will be performing live on BET’s 106 & Park this Wednesday at 6:00pm. Watch and vote!!

Chachi was recently voted one of the “ Top 51 MYSPACE RAPPERS” of 2007 by VIBE MAGAZINE. You can regularly check him out emceeing the open mic sessions on Monday nights at the Black Rep.

I’m a nostalgia fiend, and would love to be the one to put together this month-by-month recap. I guess that’s incentive to not sell the site out to Gothamist for at least a year.

This is Providence, so, needless to say, the threshold isn’t the highest. (Nonetheless, somehow our Xmas party failed to make the cut this time.)

DECEMBER: SNOW PARALYZES PROVIDENCE, FALLOUT CLOBBERS EXECUTIVE STAFFS

NOVEMBER: HERITAGE MUSEUM, DYNAMO HOUSE PROJECT MOVES AHEAD

OCTOBER: FEDS TELL HEAD START TO STOP

SEPTEMBER: TROUBLE FLARES IN CITY-FIRE UNION RELATIONSHIP

AUGUST: IN ONE MONTH, 29 SHOOTINGS

JULY: BUDGET OPTIMISM, TAX TRAUMA; THE RETURN OF BUDDY CIANCI JR.

JUNE: LIBRARY, CITY END STALEMATE

MAY: MASONIC TEMPLE OPENS AS A HOTEL

APRIL: SUB TAKES UNPLANNED DIVE

MARCH: RAPPERS WITH GANG TIES BARRED

FEBRUARY: PARKING WARS HEAT UP

JANUARY: CICILLINE IN CONTROL OF COUNCIL

Can we just get this year over with already?

• Edwards: Obama too “Nice” to be President. Well, that sure is the pot calling the kettle…uh, abort joke! Abort joke! ( NYT)
• Romney’s numbers surging ahead of Iowa caucus as crazy white folk are slowly coming around to his style of thinking. ( HuffPo)
• Mrs. Huckabee acknowledges her husband’s lack of foreign policy expertise, also: “He farts in his sleep.” ( HuffPo)
• Huckabee to gays: “Can y’all stop havin’ the ass-sex, k? thx.” Plus another wierdo exchange on Face The Nation where he flat-out admits to pandering to Southern Baptists in a 1998 speech pledging to “Take this nation back for Christ.” When reached for comment, Christ said; “Hey Huck, if I wanted to live in crazytown I would’ve stayed in Gallilee. Zing!” (Christ’s writers are on strike too.) ( Carpetbagger)
• Hey, anyone wanna see a picture of Sting sucking on his wife’s toes? ( dailymail)

So you can be pretty confident it ain’t great news:

Dear library advocates,

As we move toward a new year, PPL is moving toward a mass-layoff of all seven branch children’s specialists, which will have disastrous consequences for branch services and programs. Meanwhile, PPL administrators are projecting a nearly $1 million deficit for the next fiscal year, and they are suggesting drastic measures for balancing the budget.

For details about these developments, please visit the new Library Reform Group blog — at — which supplements our ongoing Library Reform Group website.

Please feel free to post comments and suggestions on our blog.

Hopefully, we can save the Children’s Specialist positions for the rest of this fiscal year and find a way to avoid the draconian cuts which the PPL trustees are likely to recommend for next year.

Patricia Raub
Chair, Library Reform Group

This is the banner ad off the top of Drudge right now. Swell to have a billion bucks and all, but if the DailyDose were gonna be one of the Chaces, we’d pick “Happy.”