Not exactly tales of Gettysburg or the Louisiana Purchase, but let Justin and Jimmy take you through history as WE know it.

Not too many things are more awkward than Jimmy Fallon doing "the hump." And shocker, he's laughing through most of it.

In February Bob Dylan and a few other artists performed for Barack Obama as part of a celebration of music from the Civil Rights era. In the new Rolling Stone interview Obama describes his experience with Dylan:

Here’s what I love about Dylan: He was exactly as you’d expect he would be. He wouldn’t come to the rehearsal; usually, all these guys are practicing before the set in the evening. He didn’t want to take a picture with me; usually all the talent is dying to take a picture with me and Michelle before the show, but he didn’t show up to that. He came in and played “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” A beautiful rendition. The guy is so steeped in this stuff that he can just come up with some new arrangement, and the song sounds completely different. Finishes the song, steps off the stage… comes up, shakes my hand, sort of tips his head, gives me just a little grin, and then leaves… That was our only interaction with him. And I thought: That’s how you want Bob Dylan, right? You don’t want him to be all cheesin’ and grinnin’ with you. You want him to be a little skeptical about the whole enterprise.

It's great to see that Dylan acted so cool in this situation, and also good to know the President respects the demeanor of such an iconic musician.

Check out the video of the performance below...

A rally to “Restore Sanity?" Have we as a nation really gone so mad that we need a mass movement to bring us back to reality? Jon Stewart and company politely say "yes." Stewart’s call to action, or rather, his "slightly louder than a whisper" to action, is titled the "Rally to Restore Sanity" and will take place on October 30 in Washington DC, in the same location as and two months after Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally. Beck recently told Bill O'Reilly that he was "totally cool" with Stewart's upcoming DC rally. Stewart's approach will be slightly different from Beck's, and his message is clear:

“ We're looking for the people who think shouting is annoying, counterproductive, and terrible for your throat; who feel that the loudest voices shouldn't be the only ones that get heard;... not so much the Silent Majority as the Busy Majority.”

In the world of the 24 hour news cycle where the loudest and often most extreme opinions seem to dominate news media, the idea of rational voices getting a little airtime is promising. It may be that Stewart is right and it is time for those who fall somewhere between "apathetic" and “aggressive” to be heard.

Stewart's is a rally for those who don’t care if new solutions are from the left or right, from a Republican, a Democrat or a Libertarian.

As of Sunday night there were over 160,000 people "attending" the event, based on its Facebook page. Some irony is found in that Stewart's invitation is directed toward those too busy to ordinarily participate, yet these "busy" individuals are apparently traveling from as far as Oklahoma to be a part of this sanity restoring event.

Even more exciting than the number of  people planning to go to DC are the multiple satellite rallies around the nation that have  popped up organically on Facebook. Some of these impromptu local rallies have attracted attention in the news. While not an exhaustive list, there will be satellite rallies in Austin, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Eugene, Lansing, Los Angeles, Portland, and San Francisco.

For those not as enamored with the idea of reasonable discourse, there's always Steven Colbert's tongue-and-cheek counter rally: "The March to Keep Fear Alive."

Midterm elections historically attract lackluster voter turnout. But Obama's hoping that this trend won't translate to the young people moved to action by his 2008 campaign. After all, with his presidential win, the talk of the town was the youth vote. Credited with superb social media and grassroots organizing, the Obama campaign's attra came out on top.

But according to the Washington Post, this year young people aren't feeling it. The article relays stories of college students who voted and even campaigned for Barack Obama in 2008 but admit that this year they intend to sit out during the election. One student described: "the euphoria has dimmed down."

To counter that, President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are hitting college campuses nationwide this week, in an effort to drum up the support of those young people for their party's candidates in various states.

Today,  Obama himself will visit the University of Wisconsin in Madison, employing a technique we at HeadCount know gets the attention of young potential voters: getting popular musicians involved.

The President is scheduled to speak and will have both Ben Harper and The National in tow.

The speech and any live tunes will be broadcast live on Obama's website today at 6:30 EST.

Illinois voters who can't be bothered with getting dressed and leaving the house finally have an option for having their voices heard in the November 2010 general election.

For the first time ever, all Illinois voters have the option of casting their vote via absentee ballot. With the burden of putting on underwear and physically going to a polling place lifted, Illinois voters can now rejoice in their ability to vote naked!

Illinois voters can request an absentee ballot and then mail in their votes for the 2010 election, all without leaving the house (or putting on pants).

The voter registration deadline in Illinois and other states is October 6, so whether you're voting clothed or not, be sure to register to vote at your current address.

Name: Tim Johnson

Location:  Boulder, CO

School: University of Massachusetts

Favorite HeadCount Band: Phish

Best HeadCount Experience: STS9 at the Boulder Theater.  Everything about this show was great from the volunteers to the show itself.  Overall it was just a great night

What's Your Issue? Public Education

Why do you like volunteering for HeadCount? I like volunteering for HeadCount because I'm a people person and I love music.  You can't beat hearing great music and meeting some cool people,  from the people registering to vote, to the volunteers, to my awesome CO Team Leaders Emily, Tim, and Ryan and of course Lizzy Lightning.

While supporters of same-sex marriage are still glowing over the decision that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, the gay rights movement has tasted both victory and defeat concerning the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. As the mid-term election nears in California, the campaign to legalize marijuana is gaining steam and even has former Reagan administration members changing their tune from Just Say No to Just Say Now. Oh yeah, and Chuck Norris is going to kick your ass if you don't vote in those midterm elections.

• Unlike HeadCount volunteers, Chuck Norris doesn't ask if you're registered to vote. He threatens you with a karate chop. And to draw attention to 2nd Amendment issues and the concerns of gun owners around the nation, Chuck and rocker Ted Nugent have teamed up with the National Rifle Association for Trigger the Vote, a Get Out the Vote effort aimed at getting gun owners and enthusiasts to the polls.
• Hot on the heels of the decision to repeal Proposition 8 in California, Senate Democrats fell short of mustering the 60 votes needed to move legislation repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", the law that prevents gays from openly serving in the military, out of the Senate. Senate Republicans blocked debate on the bill with the threat of filibuster by Sen. John McCain, even though the bill also would have authorized $726 billion in defense spending. The move was election politicking at it's finest, stalling the possibility of DADT repeal until after the midterm election during the lame-duck session of Congress. Some feel that despite this outcome, like a ban on gay marriage before it, "DADT is on its last unconstitutional leg."  -- Lady Gaga went to Maine just before the vote hoping to sway the support of Maine's Republican Senators Susan Collins or Olympia Snowe to no avail.  Repeal supporters are furious over the White House's lack of action despite President Obama's promise to fully repeal DADT.
• Many eyes are on California's Proposition 19, which would legalize recreational marijuana use for adults over 21. It's currently polling at about 50% support and if the initiative passes on November 2, it will be the first state in the U.S. to ever legalize and allow for sale and taxation of cannabis. While Prop 19 has drawn opposition from politicians like Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who serves as co-chair of the No on 19 campaign, it has been endorsed by the California NAACP, California Young Democrats, and the SEIU.
• Just Say Now, a campaign calling on President Obama to end marijuana prohibition, was launched by the political blog Firedoglake in partnership with Students for Sensible Drug Policy. The group started a petition to the President and is mobilizing a large Get Out the Vote drive to support marijuana reform efforts on the ballot in states like California, Arizona, South Dakota and Oregon. Opponents of Just Say Now are calling it a distasteful twist on the Nancy Reagan's infamous Just Say No campaign, despite the fact that the Just Say Now advisory board features two members of the Reagan administration.
• Social media giant Facebook pulled ads run by Just Say Now that promoted Prop. 19 because of the image of a marijuana leaf (after the ads ran over 30 million times). That's funny when it turns out that the Yes on 19 Facebook page has more fans than any politician in California. Then things got hilarious when Conde Nast, the parent company of social news site Reddit, told Reddit admins it "didn't want to benefit financially" from running ads in favor of marijuana legalization. That didn't stop Reddit from running the ads though; they just ran them for free instead! Google, on the other hand, had no problem running the pro legalization ads.

Feeling liberated? I hope so.

As an organization that blends politics with pop culture, we spend a lot of time thinking about social media. Some of our affiliated artists like Dave Matthews Band, Kings of Leon and Jack Johnson have millions of Facebook fans. Questlove, who will be ringing up voters to remind them about the election in November (pledge to vote now and you’ll get a call from him too) has another million followers on Twitter.

So we thought it would be interesting to check out what the Midterm Election candidates are doing online, and what we found kind of made our heads spin...

Republicans have about four times as many Facebook Fans as their Democratic counterparts, and five times as many Twitter followers. It’s a social media landslide.

The disparity was so shocking, we put together this report, so that media, political strategists, and all readers of the HeadCount blog could get their eyes on some pretty amazing information. It lists the Facebook and Twitter numbers for all the U.S. Senate candidates, as well as some other political figures and musicians.

VIEW REPORT

It may not come as a real surprise that Republicans are out in front. The "enthusiasm gap" between the parties is well documented, and social media activity is a great barometer of people's passions. But four or five times bigger?

Republican candidates for the Senate have amassed 1.43 million Fans on Facebook, compared to just under 300,000 for Democrats. The differential on Twitter is even more striking, where Repubican Senatorial candidates collectively have close to 520,000 Followers, and Democrats are just below 90,000.

Even when eliminating Arizona Republican Senator John McCain and California Senate hopeful Carly Fiorina, who respectively have the largest number of Facebook fans and Twitter followers, Republicans are clearly making larger inroads with social media. Without McCain and Fiorina, Republican Senate candidates average 20,985 Facebook fans and 5,892 Twitter Followers. Democrats average 8,260 and 2,591, respectively.

One thing that didn't surprise us though - social media activity is still oriented around music a lot more than politics. That's why we still believe music is the best tool to reach young Americans and create a national conversation around the election.

Check out these two lists. One is the number of Facebook fans of the top 25 artists HeadCount has worked with to encourage voter participation. The other is of some of the largest political-oriented people, organizations and TV pundits. Other than Barack Obama himself, it's musicians who have the stronger hold. Our 10th-ranked band, Death Cab for Cutie, has nearly four times as many Facebook fans as social media "rock star" Ron Paul.

Lupe Fiasco fans announced earlier this week that they would rally outside Atlantic Records' New York headquarters October 15 in an effort to speed the release of the rapper's much anticipated third album, Lasers. Fiasco Friday, the website coordinating the effort, has posted this statement:

"Musical expression, especially conscious music, is imperative to a truly free society. There's a fraction of people who don't want Lupe to put out music because the controversial things discussed in his music exposes the truth for what it is. In a world and time where everyone plays it safe, Lupe Fiasco is a shining light that challenges the system, dismantles the status-quo, and spreads peace and love."

The website says that Fiasco will be attending the protest,  in a recent interview Fiasco said "I’m already past it. I’m not sitting around, 'Oh man, I want Lasers. Why don’t they put out my songs?' Crying. For what? You go in and put out another record. And that’s what I did." As of yet there is no expected release date for Food and Liquor II, the album Fiasco has been working on the meantime, either.

Lasers is an acronym for "Love Always Shines Everytime Remember 2 Smile."

Lupe also stopped by the United Nations yesterday to discuss his Pakistan NOW initiative and how musicians are using social media for social good. A brief writeup and a full video of the panel discussion can be viewed here.

With the Senate prepared to vote on a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” military policy later this afternoon, an unexpected Twitter dialogue has emerged between New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand, and pop superstar Lady Gaga.

Gaga has been working frantically for weeks to raise awareness and to urge the Senate to repeal what she calls a discriminatory military policy. Earlier in the week Gaga suited up for a rally in Portland, Maine, and recorded a lengthy message to the Senate. Addressing straight soldiers uncomfortable with homosexuals serving among them, Gaga suggested a new policy entitled “If you don’t like it, go home!”

Gaga’s passionate advocacy attracted the attention of the New York Senators, who took the time to Tweet about the impending vote and speak to Gaga personally about gay rights and their shared hope of repealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” this afternoon.

Since its inception in 1993, the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” law has resulted in the discharge of approximately 13,000 homosexual soldiers in the United States Armed Forces.

Update: The Senate vote failed to advance the bill that would repeal  "Don't Ask Don't Tell."