I’m thrilled to announce that we’ve met Safe Creative’s matching challenge 4 days before the deadline! Thanks to everyone who took advantage of Safe Creative’s generous offer to match all donations up to $4000. Instead of raising $4000 we raised $8000 — which will help us continue providing the world with the tools you so readily rely upon.

If you have yet to donate to CC by joining the CC Network, please consider doing so now. There are only two months left in the campaign and we still need to raise $438,958. Here’s a brief list of ways you can help; for more options check out our Other Ways to Give page:

• Join the CC Network
• Increase the value of your donation by participating in your company’s matching gifts program
• Buy swag from the CC store
• Send us a gift of stock
• Encourage the company you work for to consider becoming a corporate sponsor
• Promote the campaign on your blog and encourage your readers to give via the CC widget

CC exists for you — help keep us running so you can continue to use our tools to help build and sustain a shared culture. Special thanks to Safe Creative and to the hundreds of CC community members who are participating in the campaign — your support is greatly appreciated.

There is a set of very interesting charts with this Wall Street Journal article (should be free access via Google News) about investor expectations of the likelihood that EU countries could default on their debt.  The shocker: for Ireland, the probability is 10%.  That’s huge for a rich country.  We’re joined at that level by Greece, with Italy, Spain, and Austria in the chasing pack.  So despite our surge to the top of the EU per capita income tables that seemed to have us on a par with Germany, France, and the UK, the debt markets look now and see a fragile economy sitting outside the safety of the EU core.   The good news is that it’s not yet reflected in public sector funding costs (see the chart on the left).  Instead, the default expectation reflects the banking system liability guarantee.    Sarah Carey has an interesting quote from Brendan Keenan in which, amongst other things, he expresses amazement that the guarantee has kept the banking show on the road as long as it has.   Hopefully our luck has some time to go.

We recently caught wind of some inspiring news - unbeknown to us, a very active CC Salon has been happening in the Boulder/Denver CO area through Slice of Lime, a design and development firm. They are on their 8th installment, an impressive feat we haven’t even matched ourselves in certain locations. If you live in the area, be sure to check them out next month on 11/19 for discussions of CC over “beer, chips, and cupcakes.”

It seems a good time then to feature our recently revamped Salon wiki page. Borrowing heavily from our good friends at dorkbot, we are hoping to make the process for starting CC Salons in your area (if one doesn’t already exist) simple and straight forward. Simiarly, we hope that we can explain realistically what making a successful Salon entails. 

More than anything, a successful Salon boils down to the interests of your specific geographical community - each city and area has its own identity and it is important to approach the Salon format from that perspective. What issues are important to you and the people in your area, and how does CC relate?The Salons are meant to address the belief that, while CC exists primarily as a digital tool, it is nothing without the actual people who use it. 

The Salons are a great way to meet people who are using CC and open tools, and remains one of our best methods to help people understand exactly what CC does and how they can use it in their own lives. Check out Salon page for details on cities that have featured Salons, both currently and in the past - we currently curate Salons in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City but there are a slew of other cities that have shown active interest in the past.

If you read only one blog post between now and Election Day, please make it this one at HillBuzz. These guys (or gals, or whoever they are) have seen Obama's mind games in the primaries, and they know the tricks he and his drones are trying to play on us:

(1) Calls for McCain to just give up and quit, because the race is over.

(2) Wild claims of Obama winning states that shock and surprise you.

(3) Repeated insistence that blacks and young people will decide this election, and they are all going to vote in record numbers for Obama.

They explain why you shouldn't believe these things, or believe in their importance, just because Obama desperately wants you to believe them. If he can't get you to vote for him, he's trying to get you to stay home Nov. 4. If you let him tell you what to do, then you'd better get used to it.

As HillBuzz says:

If you, collectively, can keep Republicans and other McCain voters from falling for these, we believe there's nothing Obama can do to win this election. The ONLY way McCain loses is if you Eeyores allow the media to keep you from the polls.

Pass it on.

If you read only one blog post between now and Election Day, please make it this one at HillBuzz. These guys (or gals, or whoever they are) have seen Obama's mind games in the primaries, and they know the tricks he and his drones are trying to play on us:

(1) Calls for McCain to just give up and quit, because the race is over.

(2) Wild claims of Obama winning states that shock and surprise you.

(3) Repeated insistence that blacks and young people will decide this election, and they are all going to vote in record numbers for Obama.

They explain why you shouldn't believe these things, or believe in their importance, just because Obama desperately wants you to believe them. If he can't get you to vote for him, he's trying to get you to stay home Nov. 4. If you let him tell you what to do, then you'd better get used to it.

As HillBuzz says:

If you, collectively, can keep Republicans and other McCain voters from falling for these, we believe there's nothing Obama can do to win this election. The ONLY way McCain loses is if you Eeyores allow the media to keep you from the polls.

Pass it on.

... these remarks show that Obama's new style of politics is a sham. But from the very beginning the real meaning of Obama's inspirational rhetoric about 'bringing us all together' was that those who opposed Obama and the Democrats were the enemies of "unity" and "hope." In his 2004 convention speech, right after he proclaimed that "we are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America," he framed the election between Bush and Kerry as a choice between "a politics of cynicism" and "a politics of hope." It's not very surprising that Obama and his running mate have now called those same cynics unpatriotic and selfish.

... these remarks show that Obama's new style of politics is a sham. But from the very beginning the real meaning of Obama's inspirational rhetoric about 'bringing us all together' was that those who opposed Obama and the Democrats were the enemies of "unity" and "hope." In his 2004 convention speech, right after he proclaimed that "we are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America," he framed the election between Bush and Kerry as a choice between "a politics of cynicism" and "a politics of hope." It's not very surprising that Obama and his running mate have now called those same cynics unpatriotic and selfish.

Photo: Dennis Stefani, (c) Mrs. Me, Inc., 2008, made available under a CC BY-NC-ND license

Pop star Gwen Stefani and her husband, rocker Gavin Rossdale recently welcomed a baby, Zuma Nesta Rock Rossdale, into the world. Many celebrities contract with a magazine to arrange an exclusive photo session that debuts mother with newborn. But Stefani and Rossdale took a different approach and hired their own photographer and put the photo online for the public under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license, along with some additional terms that allow all print magazines, newspapers, and blogs to use the photo - even commercially, with some restrictions. You can download a high-res version of the photo (and check out the additional terms the photo is available under) at Stefani’s site.

Although they first had announced a November 18 release date, Rockstar now postponed the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV to December 2. Reasons for the delay of the PC port were not given. GTA IV came out in April this year for both Xbox 360 and PS3. A little consolation? Rockstar gave further details on the PC specification for their action driving game.<!--break-->

Minimum System Requirements:

1. OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3
2. Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz, AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4Ghz
3. Memory: 1.5GB, 16GB Free Hard Drive Space
4. Video Card: 256MB NVIDIA 7900 / 256MB ATI X1900

Recommended System Requirements:

1. OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3
2. Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz, AMD Phenom X3 2.1Ghz
3. Memory: 2 GB (Windows XP) 2.5 GB (Windows Vista)
4. 18 GB Free Hard Drive Space
5. Video Card: 512MB NVIDIA 8600 / 512MB ATI 3870

If you haven't played the console version of GTA IV by now--and there was plenty of time for that--the delay doesn't strike you this hard, does it?

Journalists from three major newspapers that endorsed John McCain have reportedly been booted from Barack Obama's campaign plane for the final leg of the presidential race.

The Washington Times reported Friday that it was notified of the Obama campaign's decision Thursday evening -- even though the paper has covered Obama from the start.

Executive Editor John Solomon told FOXNews.com that the Obama campaign said it didn't have enough seats on the plane, but "I don't think the explanation makes sense to us."

"We've been traveling since 2007 with him. ... We're a relevant newspaper -- every day we break news," Solomon said. "And to suddenly be kicked off the plane for people who haven't covered it as aggressively or thoroughly as we are ... it sort of feels unfair."

He said the newspaper protested but was turned down again by the campaign.

"I can only hope that the candidate who describes himself as wanting to unite the nation doesn't have some sort of litmus test for who he decides gets to cover the campaign," Solomon said, noting that the Obama campaign's decision came just two days after the paper endorsed McCain.

The New York Post and Dallas Morning News also have been kicked off Obama's plane, according to the Web site The Drudge Report. It said the three reporters were told to find alternative transportation by Sunday so that the plane could accommodate "network bigwigs" and reporters from two black magazines, Essence and Jet.