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(CNN) — Barack Obama told supporters that “change has come to America” as he claimed victory in a historic presidential election.

“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America — I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you — we as a people will get there,” Obama said in Chicago, Illinois, before an estimated crowd of up to 240,000 people.

Obama had an overwhelming victory over Sen. John McCain, who pledged Tuesday night to help Obama lead. Video Watch Obama pay tribute to McCain »

“Today, I was a candidate for the highest office in the country I love so much, and tonight, I remain her servant,” McCain said.

McCain called Obama to congratulate him, and Obama told the Arizona senator he was eager to sit down and talk about how the two of them can work together.

More on this story from uniquenews

Gibbs — a 37-year-old native of Auburn, Ala. — became familiar to viewers during the campaign for his sunny steeliness during frequent appearances on morning shows and A-list cable news prorgrams.

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“Research has shown from the past two election cycles that the No. 1 question voters have on Election Day is, ‘Am I registered to vote,’ and the second-most frequent question is, ‘Where do I go to vote?’ ” said Kay Stimson, director of communications and special projects for the National Association of Secretaries of State. “So, those are two very powerful things voters can find out in advance.”

Sean Greene, project manager for research for the Pew Center on the States’ electionline.org, agrees.

“Check with a phone call, in person or online that you’re actually registered to vote,” he said. “That’s the most important thing. And when you’re doing that, check what sort of ID you need to bring, and where you’re supposed to vote. Knowing all of that ahead of time, obviously, is the best way.”

Canivote.org “is the only Web portal that’s set up by election officials linking directly to election officials that’s out there,” said Stimson. “It allows people to check their registration, find their polling place, learn about ID requirements and perhaps most importantly, look up a contact for a local election office.”

LWV help by phone
The League of Women Voters, with 850 chapters around the country, also will have volunteers staffing the phones in the next few days to answer voter questions about Election Day. Check your local phone book for the group’s number.

Click for more tips for voters on election day

Also check out google maps for voting locations and other information.

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MONTREAL — A Quebec comedy duo notorious for pulling prank calls on celebrities have struck again. This time, comedian Marc Antoine Audette and Sebastian Trudel Audette, known as the Masked Avengers, tricked Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin into believing that she was speaking to French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The duo kept Palin on the line for several minutes and discussed politics and hunting, even making a jab at the current Vice-President’s infamous 2006 incident where he shot a friend in the face.

Throughout the interview Audette drops hints that he’s not who he claims to be. He names popular French singer Johnny Hallyday as his advisor on U.S. affairs and Quebec singer Stef Carse was named as Canada’s Prime Minister.

“We have such great respect for you [Sarkozy], John and I,” she gushed.

Later in the interview, Audette, jokes that he and Palin shared an interest in common, hunting.

“We should try hunting by helicopter like you did, I never did that,” Audette said.

“We could have a lot of fun together while we’re getting work done. Kill two birds with one stone,” Palin replied.

Palin also went on to praise Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni. “I look forward to working with you and getting to meet you personally, and your beautiful wife, oh my goodness,” she says.

“You’ve added a lot of energy to your country with that beautiful family of yours.”

Audette responded by joking that Sarkozy’s wife, singer and model Carla Bruni, wrote a song about her.

When Audette said that he saw Palin as President one day, Palin’s response was a diplomatic, “maybe in eight years.”

At the end of the interview, Audette tips his hand and tells Palin that the call is a hoax. “Oh, have we been pranked,” Palin says as she hands the phone to an aide who quickly ended the call.

The call will be airing on Montreal radio station CKOI on Monday, the day before Americans go to the polls.

The Palin campaign has also responded to the prank (from Politico):

“Gov. Palin was mildly amused to learn that she had joined the ranks of heads of state, including President Sarkozy, and other celebrities in being targeted by these pranksters. C’est la vie.”

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• $8.4 million. The amount he agreed to pay three cops who sued him and the city. He had vowed to fight the lawsuits — until he learned the cops had copies of damaging text messages he exchanged with Christine Beatty, his former aide and lover, on city-issued text messaging devices.

• $3 million. The cost of a special primary and general election to replace Kilpatrick, who resigned in September.

• $1.1 million. The projected benefit from three conventions that went elsewhere because of Kilpatrick’s travails — including the National Conference of Black Mayors, which was to bring 2,500 to Detroit.

• $825,257. The total paid to four private law firms hired to defend Kilpatrick and the city in the cops’ suit. The city still owes one firm $875.

• $350,729. The cost, as of Sept. 30, of prosecuting Kilpatrick and Beatty. Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has estimated that the final cost will not exceed $1 million.

• $260,000. The amount paid to Bill Goodman, a lawyer the City Council hired to help oust Kilpatrick. Goodman has submitted an additional $90,000 in bills.

• $13,800. At $115 a day, this is how much it will cost to house Kilpatrick in the Wayne County Jail. The tab could drop if he is released early for good behavior and if the county assesses him a $60-a-day charge.

These costs do not include more than $250,000 in legal bills sent to the city by private lawyers defending city lawyers caught up in the text message scandal and a federal case involving Tamara Greene, a slain dancer rumored to have performed at the never-proven Manoogian Mansion party.

Find out more from the freepress

Here is a video from the freepress explaining the text scandal

Windows Azure, a “services-based operating environment,” competes with Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) as a scalable hosting environment

Ozzie said a team of Microsoft developers led by Amitabh Srivastava, vice president of Windows Azure team, had begun working on Azure just before Amazon unveiled EC2. He said he tipped his hat to Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos and the Amazon team for bringing its offering to market before Microsoft.

“All of us are going to be standing on their shoulders” as the technology industry transitions from offering and using traditional software run in enterprise IT networks to running more applications on the Internet via cloud-computing environments hosted by large vendors, Ozzie said.

This is just some interesting details, find the complete article from nytimes.com here

Let me know what you think,

Jon