Danny Puff

People attending an Amendment 64 watch party in a bar hug after a local television station announced the marijuana amendment's passage, in Denver, Colo., Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012. The amendment would make it legal in Colorado for individuals to possess and for businesses to sell marijuana for recreational use. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

DENVER — Marijuana for all adults has long been the goal of legalization backers in Colorado. They got their way when they added taxes and regulation to the mix.

On Tuesday, voters in the state handily supported marijuana without a doctor’s recommendation. Exit polls showed the measure was supported everywhere in the state — not just big cities — and by both genders.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, who opposed the measure, quickly cautioned that marijuana use is still illegal under federal law. On Wednesday, he asked federal officials whether they plan to prosecute Coloradans who use marijuana.

John Walsh, the U.S. attorney for Colorado, issued a brief statement saying the Justice Department was reviewing the measure.

Suthers said he would help state officials implement the new measure but repeated his belief that legalizing marijuana on the state level ‘‘is very bad public policy.’’

The vote came just six years after Coloradans rejected legalizing pot in a 2006 vote. The difference? A plan to regulate the drug and keep it away from children, said the lead proponent of both measures, Mason Tvert.

Even the 2012 measure’s name — the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol — underscored that marijuana would be legal, but limited.

‘‘This was the time to bring up a well thought-out, viable system,’’ Tvert said.

The voter-approved amendment directs state lawmakers to tax the drug up to 15 percent, with the first $40 million going to school construction. Ads promoting the measure showed teachers and schools. One used the tag line: ‘‘Jobs for our people, money for schools. Who could ask for more?’’

At several debates about marijuana, backers of the amendment stressed that the drug would be tightly controlled.

‘‘We will take it off the streets and (put it) behind the counter where responsible business owners will ask for IDs,’’ argued Betty Aldworth in one televised debate.

That selling point persuaded some voters, like Stacie Packard, a 42-year-old mother of two from the Denver suburb of Wheat Ridge. She preaches to her children to stay away from drugs, but ultimately supported it because the first $40 million raised in taxes on pot would go to public schools.

‘‘I guess it’s kind of a shame that it’s come to this,’’ she said about the education funding.

Though lawmakers must still agree on a pot tax, along with extensive regulations for commercial sales, officials said those would get done.

‘‘It’s incumbent on the Legislature to honor the will of the people on that issue,’’ said Democratic state Rep. Mark Ferrandino, the presumptive incoming House speaker.

After approval by the Legislature, the pot tax would face final approval by voters.

Even if lawmakers and voters agree how to regulate and tax pot, however, significant questions remain about whether marijuana will truly be treated like alcohol. Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and federal authorities have indicated no willingness to allow a state to experiment with pot outside of restricted medical uses.

Colorado’s governor gave a folksy prediction of the measure’s future.

‘‘Federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug, so don’t break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly,’’ Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat who opposed the measure, said in a statement.

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Veterans Day is an occasion to pause and do what we should do everyday -- remember those who have served and sacrificed. This year, coming on the heels of a national election, we also need to resolve to address some tasks ahead.

The president and Congress will need to determine just how to draw down our forces in Afghanistan. They must define the nation's military objectives for those forces who will serve there over the next two years. They must also do far more to support those who return.

This is also time to consider how the United States will remember those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and memorialize the now more than 6,600 who have died in those two wars. These veterans themselves and the families of those who were lost should have the primary voice in determining the form of national memory.

The form and voice of memorializing have varied significantly over the years. Following WW I there was a great emphasis on "living memory" -- public facilities and infrastructure. Since WW II the focus has been more on physical memorials -- but each of the three national memorials completed in this period has had a quite different theme.

This Veterans Day we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall. Today the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a national treasure, visited by over three million people annually. In 1979 Jan Scruggs, a Vietnam veteran, proposed a memorial honoring those who had sacrificed there. It moved forward remarkably quickly and in 1982 it was dedicated. But quickly does not mean it moved easily: 30 years ago critics found it somber and unheroic. Ross Perot led criticism of the memorial and Tom Wolfe wrote in the Washington Post that the memorial was "a tribute to Jane Fonda" and to antiwar activism.

The Vietnam Memorial broke from the iconic, heroic, memorial pattern by remembering the individual lives that were lost. Of course most local monuments dating from the 19th century featured the names of those who had been lost in the wars. For many in 1982 the model of the ideal memorial was the Marine Corps Memorial a few miles away in Arlington, a Felix de Weldon statue based upon the Joe Rosenthal photograph of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima in 1945.

This Marine Corps Memorial did not mention the 22,000 Marine casualties on the island -- including 6,000 dead. It did not indicate that three of the six men raising the flag later died on Iwo Jima. Critics of the Maya Lin design persuaded Secretary of the Interior James Watt to approve the Vietnam Memorial only upon the condition that the site would also include a statue and an American flag. Frederick Hart who created the "Three Infantrymen" statue had studied with de Weldon.

In the early 1980s some Korean War veterans proposed a memorial for their forgotten war. In 1986 Congress approved fundraising for a site on the Mall, across from the Vietnam Memorial. General Joseph Stillwell was the chair of the group of veterans who planned memorial. He did not live to participate in its dedication in 1995. The Korean War veterans sought to remember all who had served, as well as the 36,000 who had died in that theater. Col William Weber, a leader of the Koran Veterans group, said "It's not a memorial of grief. It's a memorial of pride." Black granite walls display sandblasted images of men serving in Korea. The memorial features nineteen figures walking through a field. Their expressions show the faces of men in combat. The wall at the end of this grouping memorializes those who died in that war. Currently there is sentiment on the part of many Korean War veterans to add the individual names of the fallen at the site.

The last of the three modern war memorials created is that of WWII. It is ironic that it was the last completed given that it was the first war -- and it was of a scale that finally engaged nearly all Americans and was concluded with a clear sense of victory. In 1987 Roger Durbin a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge proposed a memorial to the war. It took six years for Congress to authorize the memorial and 17 years to complete it. Durbin did not live to see the memorial. Neither did eleven million other WW II veterans. At the groundbreaking for the Memorial, war hero Senator Bob Dole said his generation was moving "from the shade to the shadows."

The WW II Memorial is more traditional than the other two post war memorials on the Mall. The Vietnam Memorial honors sacrifice and the Korean War Memorial evokes the experience of war. The WW II memorial records the triumph of democracy. It remembers successful campaigns and victories. Four thousand gold stars, each representing 1,000 Americans who died, symbolize the cost of those victories.

This Veterans Day is a good time to initiate a conversation about a memorial to those veterans who have fought our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our longest wars. We still do not have a monument to WWI and its 53,000 battle deaths. The last living veteran of WWI, Frank Buckles, hoped to see such a memorial. He died in February 2011. We can do better than this. Jan Scruggs and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund intend to honor these latest comrades in the interim in the new Education Center.

Iraq and Afghanistan veterans need to tell us how they want our nation to remember their wars and how to memorialize those who died in these conflicts. There is no clear model. And perhaps they will want to move beyond granite and marble. But the human face of these wars needs to become part of our nation's memory -- wars do have real human costs. Forgetting wars is bad history. Forgetting sacrifice is irresponsible history.

Source  : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-wright/veterans-day_b_2103624.html

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With few exceptions, Manziel was one step ahead of the Tide all day long in Tuscaloosa. (US Presswire)

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- The "Roll Tide" chants inside Bryant-Denny Stadium in the fourth quarter were loud enough to wake up Alabama football ghosts from Birmingham to Montgomery.

Surely Alabama was still going to win. Had to. It's science. SEC normalcy. As expected as grown men in jerseys and jeans in the stands on Saturdays.

Down with eight minutes left, no problem. AJ McCarron would orchestrate The Drive, Part Deux and the Tide defense would get a stop. This is the monster Nick Saban had created, after all.

But Texas A&M had something stronger, a potent concoction that flipped college football's most powerful league on its head for a day and left an elite defense wondering what the heck just happened.


It took a chameleon quarterback to get it done. Freshman Johnny Manziel is part unearthly skill set, part anonymous slinger (A&M freshmen can't talk to the media), part Halloween cartoon dog.

He's still scrambling right now -- all the way out of Bryant-Denny Stadium with Alabama's national championship hopes.

It took a team ready to flog anyone who says one more time that A&M isn't ready for the SEC in its first year in the league. "People doubted us," said receiver Ryan Swope, who broke off 111 yards of understatement on Saturday.

It took a team that bottled up all those second-half meltdowns under Mike Sherman last year, and got fed up with coughing up leads in recent struggles against Florida and LSU this year.

"We're a different team," said first-year coach Kevin Sumlin, the clubhouse leader for SEC coach of the year.

All at Alabama's expense. Texas A&M combined an opportunistic defense with an efficient no-huddle attack in a stunning turn of events in the SEC.

Just when it looked like A&M couldn't deliver the knockout punch (thanks in part to kicker Taylor Bertolet's missed field goal and extra point), A&M's defense forced two turnovers in the fourth, including cornerback Deshazor Everett's interception of McCarron on fourth-and-goal from the 2.

Not exactly typical Tide football.

After A&M's 20-0 first quarter (three more points than the Tide had given up in a game all season) and plenty of missed chances, Alabama still had a chance to win, preparing to suck the life out of A&M in the final minutes.

A wild third-down scramble by McCarron, stopped by corner Dustin Harris, left Alabama with one play left from the 2.

McCarron rolled to his right, threw to Kenny Bell toward the sideline and Everett jumped the route. McCarron had 201 passing yards in the fourth quarter, but he needed two more.

"Just go for it," Aggies linebacker Sean Porter recalls the message in the huddle before the play. "This is what we'll be remembered by."

These Aggies will be remembered. Manziel is making sure of it.

Shrugging off previous second-half struggles against LSU and Florida, Manziel waited until the biggest stage to orchestrate his masterpiece. Alabama hadn't given up more than 60 yards rushing to a quarterback in almost three years, but Manziel cleared 80 in the first half.

He completed 24 of 30 passes for 253 yards and two touchdowns, along with 92 rushing yards on 16 carries. But the numbers don't fully illustrate the creativity he wielded on this day, scooting across the field to buy time until he squeezed passes into closing passing lanes.

His video-game moves on A&M's second touchdown were worth double-takes -- running into his own offensive lineman, the ball popping out of his hands for a brief second, sprinting to his left before firing to a wide-open Swope in the back of the end zone.

Alabama had trouble containing Manziel in the pocket and making him one-dimensional. When the defensive end would rush too deep on the outside, Manziel would slip to his left or right for a sizable gain. When he had time in the pocket, he delivered seamless passes through tight windows.

Alabama came with more blitzes in the second half, to some success. Somehow Manziel was sacked four times. Should have been 12, if you count arm tackles that Manziel craftily escaped.

The nation was waiting for this performance. No, really. Ask South Carolina athletics director Eric Hyman, who said he got a call from a New York friend this week saying Manziel was a primary topic on NYC sports talk radio this week.

Saban paid Manziel the ultimate respect. He called him by his number, not his name.

"The best way to defend No. 2 is when he's not out there," Saban said.

No. 2 should also get familiar with No. 78, the number of years in the Heisman Trophy's existence -- all without a freshman winner.

Defense helped the Aggies preserve a lead they never relinquished. They caused a timely T.J. Yeldon fumble to set up Manziel's 24-yard touchdown strike to Malcome Kennedy in the corner of the end zone with 9:01 left that sealed it.

The run-heavy Tide offense only rushed 14 times for 35 yards in the second half.

Alabama didn't go away quietly after the Kennedy TD. The Tide responded with a 54-yard touchdown pass to Amari Cooper with 6:09 left and forced a three-and-out to get the ball back, down 29-25 in the final five minutes. But two of the Tide's final three drives resulted in a turnover.

The early 20-0 hole was far too cavernous. This was the Aggies' night, and they'll have plenty more of these. Manziel and standout receiver Mike Evans are both freshmen.

The road for Alabama seems clear-cut: It needs at least two of the three unbeatens (Oregon, Notre Dame, Kansas State) to lose to restore title chances.

Saban is holding out hope.

"Two of the three national championship teams I coached lost a game," Saban said. "There's still a lot for this team to play for."

As for A&M? The only chant they hear is their own.

"We just tried to make a statement," Swope said. "I think it showed we can compete with any team in the country."

Source : http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/blog/jeremy-fowler/20926415/johnny-manziel-texas-am-ride-perfect-storm-through-alabama-setting-sec-on-ear

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The Lakers let go of Coach Mike Brown on Friday, stunning the players who were informed by General Manager Mitch Kupchak at what was supposed to be the team's standard game-day shoot-around.

"I mean, it was just shocking to me," said forward Jordan Hill.  "I've never experienced anything like that.  I pulled into practice, and I saw coach.  We walked in together.  It was just a normal day."

"Then 20 minutes later we got the news," continued Hill.  "It was definitely unexpected."

Guard Jodie Meeks may benefit with the coaching change given he had fallen out of Brown's rotation.

"I had no idea so, just like everybody else," said Meeks. "We respected him and played hard for him."

Rookie center Robert Sacre addressed expectations that surround the team.

"We are the Lakers," said Sacre.  "We have that across our chest.  We are supposed to have 'Ws', and that's it."

Naturally Metta World Peace had a different take on his coach's firing, noting "every video person in America, in the world right now, would want to be like Mike Brown."

Brown started as a video coordinator before working his way up as an assistant and then head coach to both LeBron James (Cleveland Cavaliers) and the Lakers.

World Peace spoke about how blessed players and coaches are for the lives they have.

"I think it's a good life and it's a good job, at the end of the day," World Peace said.  "I get the chance to go out there and have fun."

As far as what happened to the Lakers this season, starting 1-4 before Friday night's victory over the Golden State Warriors, interim head coach Bernie Bickerstaff had a simple answer.

"Yeah, there was something missing . . . [Steve] Nash."

Point guard Nash is recovering from a non-displaced leg fracture that will keep him out at least another week, if not longer.
The big question is who will replace Brown permanently.  Phil Jackson may be the favorite but for now, it's Bickerstaff until it's officially resolved.

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The zombie apocalypse is officially on, and this first preview will show you how it starts.

After quite a long wait, we have finally set our eyes on at least some piece of the ginormous zombie flick, "World War Z," starring Brad Pitt. The only thing that might seem confusing about the teaser trailer is the "zombie" part.



The hordes of sprinting crazies are never identified as the undead, brain chompers that we've grown very familiar with in the last few years, but the teaser trailer curiously never even hints that the masses might be zombies. But as this is an adaptation of the book by famous zombie author Max Brooks and the "Z" stands for "zombie," you can rest assured that the undead will make an appearance in the movie.

Aside from that, what will certainly strike you about "World War Z" even from the trailer is the sheer scale of the thing. We start simply, as most of these movies do, with Brad Pitt as Gerry Lane, a U.N. employee, as he sits in his car with wife, played by "The Killing" star Mireille Enos, and two daughters. Soon, their guessing game in the car turns dark when helicopters begin to circle and the street ahead of them explodes.

From there, the war against the zombie horde begins, and Lane is asked to play a vital role in assault against the undead, having to leave his family behind. The scale on which "World War Z" is working is largely new for the genre, which tends to focus on a small group of survivors holed up in a shopping mall or country house. Here, we get a tower of bodies piling up to scale a wall instead.

"World War Z" comes from director Marc Forster, who previously directed "Quantum of Solace." Reports of extensive reshoots and a number of rewrites made headlines after the movie was pushed from its initial release in December of this year. It is now scheduled to open in theaters on June 21.

Source : http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1697067/world-war-z-trailer.jhtml

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Brad Pitt fights a horde of zombies in the new trailer for "World War Z," a film that had its fair share of conflict off-screen as well.

Paramout was originally set to release "World War Z," an adaptation of Max Brooks' novel about the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse on Earth, in December. The film was shifted to June of 2013 after "significant reshoots" were requested by the studio. In June, Damon Lindelof ("Lost," "Prometheus") was reportedly hired to work on the script -- with specific focus on the ending -- despite the fact that "World War Z" finished production in 2011. (In the end, it was never confirmed that Lindelof did work on the script.) Meanwhile, as Vulture reported, the messy post-production process was exacerbated further by the fact that Pitt and director Marc Forster ("Quantum of Solace") weren't on speaking terms.

Yet the first trailer looks strong, with Pitt trying to save his family from the zombie epidemic that's plaguing the world.

Watch the trailer below.



Source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/world-war-z-trailer-brad-pitt_n_2094292.html

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WASHINGTON — Paula Broadwell, whose affair with the nation’s C.I.A. director led to his resignation on Friday, was the valedictorian of her high school class and homecoming queen, a fitness champion at West Point with a graduate degree from Harvard, and a model for a machine gun manufacturer.


 It may have been those qualities — and a string of achievements that began in her native North Dakota, where she was state student council president, an all-state basketball player and orchestra concertmistress — that drew the attention of David H. Petraeus, the nation’s top spy and a four-star general, as the two spent hours together for a biography of Mr. Petraeus that Ms. Broadwell co-wrote.

Ms. Broadwell’s name burst into public view on Friday evening after Mr. Petraeus resigned abruptly amid an F.B.I. investigation that uncovered evidence of their relationship.

But Ms. Broadwell was hardly shy about her interactions with Mr. Petraeus as she promoted her book, “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus,” in media appearances earlier this year. She had unusual access, she noted in promotional appearances, taping many of her interviews for her book while running six-minute miles with Mr. Petraeus in the thin mountain air of the Afghan capital.

Ms. Broadwell said in an interview in February that Mr. Petraeus was enjoying his new civilian life at the C.I.A., where he became director in September 2011. “It was a huge growth period for him, because he realized he didn’t have to hide behind the shield of all those medals and stripes on his arm,” she said. Ms. Broadwell was 39 at the time.

Her biography on the Penguin Speakers Bureau Web site says that she is a research associate at Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. She received a master’s in public administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

A self-described “soccer mom” and an ironman triathlete, Ms. Broadwell became a fixture on the Washington media scene after the publication of her book about Mr. Petraeus, who is 60. In a Twitter message this summer, she bragged about appearing on a panel at the Aspen Institute, a policy group for deep thinkers.

“Heading 2 @AspenInstitute 4 the Security Forum tomorrow! Panel (media & terrorism) followed by a 1v1 run with Lance Armstrong,” she wrote. “Fired up!”

On her Twitter account, she often commented on the qualities of leadership. “Reason and calm judgment, the qualities specially belonging to a leader. Tacitus,” she wrote. In another message, she said: “A leader is a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do and like it. Truman.”

She also used her Twitter account to denounce speculation in the Drudge Report that Mr. Petraeus would be picked as a running mate by Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for president.

Married with two children, she was described in a biography on the Web site of Inspired Women Magazine as a high achiever since high school.

The biography says that Ms. Broadwell received a degree in political geography and systems engineering from West Point, where she was ranked No. 1 over all in fitness in her class. She benefited from a different ranking scale for women, she told a reporter this year. But “I was still in the top 5 percent if I’d been ranked as a male,” she said.

The official Web site for Ms. Broadwell’s book was taken down Friday, but comments from her echoed across the Internet.

“I was driven when I was younger,” she was quoted as saying on the Web site, noting her induction into her high school’s hall of fame. “Driven at West Point where it was much more competitive in that women were competing with men on many levels, and I was driven in the military and at Harvard, both competitive environments.”

“But now,” she is quoted as saying, “as a working mother of two, I realize it is more difficult to compete in certain areas. I think it is important for working moms to recognize that family is the most important.”

On “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart summed up Ms. Broadwell’s book by saying: “I would say the real controversy here is, is he awesome or incredibly awesome?”A short time later, Ms. Broadwell challenged Mr. Stewart to a push-up contest, which she won handily. Mr. Stewart had to pay $1,000 to a veterans’ support group for each push-up she did beyond his total. Ms. Broadwell said that he wrote a check for $20,000 on the spot.

On Friday evening, her house in the Dilworth neighborhood of Charlotte, N.C., was dark when a reporter rang the doorbell. Two cars were in the home’s carport and an American flag was flying out front.

Source : http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/us/linked-to-petraeus-paula-broadwell-is-lifelong-high-achiever.html

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Before there was 'Twilight' or 'True Blood,' there was Bram Stoker. Books like 'Dracula' defined the genre for a century to come.


The Google homepage on Thursday depicts a sinister-looking count, a castle on a lonely hill, and a fainting woman surrounded by concerned suitors. The doodle, of course, is an homage to the 1897 novel "Dracula," and its Irish author, Bram Stoker, who would have turned the ripe old age of 165 today. So who was Bram Stoker, exactly?

Only the progenitor of the modern vampire craze. Long before there was "True Blood," "Vampire Diaries," or "Twilight" – with its sophisticated "vegetarian vampires" – there was Stoker and his most famous creation: a long-toothed, blood-thirsty Transylvanian transplant.


Abraham Stoker was born on Nov. 8, 1847, in a suburb of Dublin called Clontarf. He was the third of seven children. Although he had struggled with illness as a kid, by the time he got to Trinity College, in Dublin, Stoker was a swaggering, flush-cheeked bon vivant – he joined the debating squad, became president of the University Philosophical Society, and apparently excelled at soccer and track and field.

After graduation, on the insistence of his father, he enrolled in the Civil Service, and took a job as a clerk. In his spare time, he wrote relentlessly, both short stories and theater reviews for The Dublin Evening Mail. Through his newspaper connections, he met Henry Irving, a famous actor and the owner of the Lyceum Theatre, in London. Irving and Stoker struck up a friendship.

In 1878, Stoker married Florence Balcombe, the beautiful daughter of a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army. Stoker and Balcombe eventually moved together to London, where Stoker helped manage operations at the Lyceum Theatre. He remained in that post for almost three decades.

Three years before getting married, while still in Dublin, Stoker published a novel called "The Primrose Path" (the main character is a carpenter for a theater in London). Once in England, he rededicated himself to his fiction writing. His second novel, "The Snake's Pass," appeared in 1890, and his third and fourth in 1895.

His fifth novel was "Dracula," the book that assured him a place in literary history.

With "Dracula," Stoker used journal and diary entries to tell the story of a powerful and vampiric count and his pursuers – Dr. John Seward, Arthur Holmwood, Quincey Morris, Professor Van Helsing, and Jonathan Harker. Dracula carts himself to London, wreaks havoc, and finally flees back to Transylvania, where he is killed.

"Dracula" was a hit among reviewers, and it sold well in both the UK and the US (where it was released in 1899), although the book was not an instantaneous, Stephen King-level success. In fact, what really solidified the place of "Dracula" in popular culture was not the novel itself, but the film adaptations – PBS estimates that there have more than a thousand.

Perhaps the most famous is the 1931 vehicle starring Bela Lugosi, although for our money, the 1992 version, with Gary Oldman as the dread count, wasn't half bad, either. At any rate, Stoker never lived to see the success of "Dracula" reach critical mass.

He died on April 20, 1912.

It remains unclear what he would have made of "Twilight."

Source : http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2012/1108/Bram-Stoker-books-How-Dracula-created-the-modern-vampire

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Google today is celebrating the 165th birthday of author Bram Stoker with a homepage doodle that pays homage to his literary contributions.

But the doodle also serves as a way for Google to show off an August update to its Knowledge Graph feature, which includes images in a scrollable format atop search results.

Clicking on the Stoker doodle will bring you to a search results page for "Bram Stoker books," which includes a carousel of Stoker's works on top of the normal search results. Click a book and the search results below the carousel will switch to that book ("dracula book," for example). A quick summary of each search term is featured in the Knowledge Graph box on the top right.

Stoker, of course, is best known for Dracula, but has a number of works under his belt. He was born in Ireland in 1847 and, according to a VictorianWeb.org biography, his interest in the supernatural and the occult trace back to a childhood illness that left him bed-ridden until age seven. He busied himself with Irish folklore, much of which included stories of scary characters that later popped up in his writing.

His first horror story, The Chain of Destiny, was published in 1875, while his first novel, The Snake's Pass came out in 1890. But it was not until 1897's Dracula that he really had a hit on his hands. The character of Dracula is as well known today as it was 100 years ago, and has inspired numerous films, TV shows, and other novels.

Some of Stoker's works are available for free on the Web via the Gutenberg Project, including Dracula, The Jewel of Seven Stars, The Lady of the Shroud, Lair of the White Worm, and The Man. A number of selections are also available for free via Apple's iBooks and Amazon's Kindle Store. Stoker died in 1906 in London.

For more of Google's doodles, see the slideshow below. Recently, the company has honored the cast of Star Trek, Amelia Earhart, jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé and Robert Moog, considered by many to be a pioneer in the electronic music space, as well as artist Keith Haring, zipper pioneer Gideon Sundback, and even commemorated its own 14th birthday with a birthday cake doodle.

Source : http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2411882,00.asp

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Relatives mourn during a funeral service for members of the Vasquez a family who were buried alive when their house collapsed during an earthquake in San Cristobal Cucho, Guatemala, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012. The family died when a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck on Wednesday, collapsing their home and burying 10 members of their family, including a 4-year-old child, in the rubble. The powerful quake killed at least 52 people and left dozens more missing. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo) Photo: Moises Castillo, Associated Press / SF

In this photo released by Guatemala's Presidential Press Office, rescue workers carry the body of a person who was killed during an earthquake in Barranca Grande, Guatemala, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012. A magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck on Wednesday, killing at least 52 people and leaving dozens more missing. (AP Photo/Guatemala's Presidential Press Office, Edwin Bercian) Photo: Edwin Bercian, Associated Press / SF

Firefighters with heavy equipment excavate searching people feared buried at a sand mine by an earthquake on the eve, in San Marcos, 260 km from Guatemala City, on November 8, 2012. A 7.4-magnitude earthquake rocked southwestern Guatemala on Wednesday, killing 48 people and injuring another 150 while more were missing as homes crumbled. The earthquake also rattled nerves in neighboring Mexico and El Salvador, sparking a tsunami alert on the Salvadoran coast and evacuations from offices, homes and schools as far north as Mexico City. AFP PHOTO/Johan ORDONEZJOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP/Getty Images Photo: Johan Ordonez, AFP/Getty Images / SF

Residents begin clearing quake rubble from a house in San Cristobal Cucho, Guatemala, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012. The magnitude 7.4 quake that struck Wednesday caused terror over an unusually wide area, with damage reported in all but one of Guatemala's 22 states and shaking felt as far away as Mexico City. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo) Photo: Moises Castillo, Associated Press / SF

Zoila Gomez grieves outside the room where the wake is taking place for members of the Vasquez family who were buried alive when their house collapsed in San Cristobal Cucho, Guatemala, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012. The family died when a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck on Wednesday, collapsing the home of the Vasquez family and burying 10 of them, including a 4-year-old child, in the rubble. The quake killed at least 52 people and left dozens more missing. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo) Photo: Moises Castillo, Associated Press / SF

A resident stands outside a home that partially collapse during an earthquake, which authorities declared unsafe to live in, in San Cristobal Cucho, Guatemala, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012. A magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck on Wednesday, killing at least 52 people and leaving dozens more missing. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo) Photo: Moises Castillo, Associated Press / SF

Guatemalan Jesus Ramirez remains in the hospital after having his leg amputated when a wall fell on him while trying to save his relatives in a earthquake, in San Marcos, 260 km from Guatemala City, on November 8, 2012. Guatemalan rescuers searched Thursday for people trapped in the ruins of homes after a powerful earthquake killed 52 people and left thousands spending the cold night outside. Twenty-two people were still missing a day after the 7.4-magnitude quake in the southwestern region of San Marcos toppled homes and cut off power in several towns. AFP PHOTO/Johan ORDONEZJOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP/Getty Images Photo: Johan Ordonez, AFP/Getty Images / SF

A girls looks inside a house damaged by an earthquake on the eve in San Marcos, 260 km from Guatemala City, on November 8, 2012. A 7.4-magnitude earthquake rocked southwestern Guatemala on Wednesday, killing 48 people and injuring another 150 while more were missing as homes crumbled. The earthquake also rattled nerves in neighboring Mexico and El Salvador, sparking a tsunami alert on the Salvadoran coast and evacuations from offices, homes and schools as far north as Mexico City. AFP PHOTO/Johan ORDONEZJOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP/Getty Images Photo: Johan Ordonez, AFP/Getty Images / SF

TOPSHOTS A relative cries over one out of ten coffins of members of the Vasquez family who died in the earthquake on the eve in the San Cristobal Cuchu municipality in San Marcos, 260 km from Guatemala City. A 7.4-magnitude earthquake rocked southwestern Guatemala on Wednesday, killing 48 people and injuring another 150 while more were missing as homes crumbled. The earthquake also rattled nerves in neighboring Mexico and El Salvador, sparking a tsunami alert on the Salvadoran coast and evacuations from offices, homes and schools as far north as Mexico City. TOPSHOTSAFP PHOTO/Johan ORDONEZJOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP/Getty Images Photo: Johan Ordonez, AFP/Getty Images / SF

Two men remove furniture from a house damaged by an earthquake on the eve in San Marcos, 260 km from Guatemala City, on November 8, 2012. A 7.4-magnitude earthquake rocked southwestern Guatemala on Wednesday, killing 48 people and injuring another 150 while more were missing as homes crumbled. The earthquake also rattled nerves in neighboring Mexico and El Salvador, sparking a tsunami alert on the Salvadoran coast and evacuations from offices, homes and schools as far north as Mexico City. AFP PHOTO/Johan ORDONEZJOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP/Getty Images Photo: Johan Ordonez, AFP/Getty Images / SF

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