Archives for Asides

NYT: The strongly anti-Iraq-War Ron Paul told CNN just last week that it would “really confuse” his supporters if he endorsed Mr. McCain. In fact, Mr. Paul said, he liked Mr. Obama’s foreign policy more. (Mr. Paul has also been quoted saying he believes Mr. Obama will be the next President — not exactly helpful for his fellow Republican. Mr. Paul’s vote of confidence may not be that much of a boon to Mr. Obama either.)

Via the WSJ, a quote from an NYT article titled “A Candidate, His Minister and the Search for Faith,” published a year ago yesterday:
Mr. Wright, who has long prided himself on criticizing the establishment, said he knew that he may not play well in Mr. Obama’s audition for the ultimate establishment job. “If Barack gets past the primary, he might have to publicly distance himself from me,” Mr. Wright said with a shrug. “I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen.”

Speaking of personal transparency and salaries, according to the BCC, “There has been outrage in Italy after the outgoing government published every Italian’s declared earnings and tax contributions on the internet.” The website was put up without warning by the outgoing government and has been taken down after complaints. Said the deputy economy minister: “I can’t understand what the problem is. This already exists all around the world, you just have to watch any American soap to see that. We had the system ready by January but we delayed publication to avoid arguments during the election campaign.” (Hat tip Drew.)

Declan McCullagh reports that “FBI Director Robert Mueller told a House of Representatives committee that Internet service providers should be required to keep records of users’ activities for two years.” Not only is this a giant unfunded mandate that deputizes private companies, but it’s incredibly intrusive. How is this different from the Postal Service opening, photocopying, and archiving your mail before delivering it?

Those seeking to free the Jefferson 1 should take note: The NYT today has an article about a “silent rave” that took place Friday in Union Square in NYC: “More than a thousand people, most of them young, gathered for a dance party without audible music, known as a silent rave.” No one was arrested. The story also goes into the pedigree of such flash mobs.

New episode of In Conversation is up: Nerds in space.

Join me and the TLF gang for Alcohol Liberation Front 5 on Monday, April 21, at 5:30 at the 18th Street Lounge Science Club. Special guest first-world hero Brooke Oberwetter, the Jefferson 1.

“A 60-foot phallus created by vandals on the grassy slopes beneath the Idaho governor’s mansion has been fig-leafed over by work crews on their second try,” the Idaho Statesman reports. “The grassy graffiti appeared in July after someone applied extra-strength weed killer. Officials said at the time it was too late in the growing season to attempt to remove the image.” (Via Political Wire)

Prof. Philip Parker has developed computer algorithms that collect publicly available information on a given subject, turn them into books that are then printed on demand or delivered digitally. “Mr. Parker has generated more than 200,000 books, as an advanced search on Amazon.com under his publishing company shows, making him, in his own words, “the most published author in the history of the planet.” And he makes money doing it.”

Via Glenn Fleishman, here is the Wikipedia Talk page for Danah Boyd, which I will henceforth use as an example of all that’s right and wrong with Wikipedia.

Photos from my continuing Vegas adventure are up on flickr.

NYT: “To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. [However, we will publish a story about death by blogging anyway.]”

Friggin brilliant. Obama Organizing Fellows.

Via Gruber: Get Helvetica Off Our Money.

The annual report by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) of think tank citations in the press found a 17 percent decline in media mentions in 2007 over 2006. “The decline was felt across the board among centrist, conservative and progressive think tanks.” Also, this is also the third year in a row of declining citations, and “The decline was most precipitous among citations in major newspapers (down 19 percent) as opposed to [TV & Radio] transcripts (down 6 percent).” They can’t explain the change. Any ideas?

A testament to the insincerity of politics: John Edward’s Twitter status hasn’t been updated in 4 months. Not even a “dropping out of race” tweet.

Hillary Clinton in her “big economic speech” earlier this week:
So we need a president who can restore our confidence, a president who is ready to confront complex economic problems with comprehensive solutions, a president who will act at the first signs of trouble, working with experts to identify the problem, with agencies to adapt regulations, with Congress to pass necessary legislation, working to prevent crises rather than just reacting too little too late. We need a president who is ready on day one to be Commander-in-Chief of our economy.
I can see Gene one the ground, flopping like an epileptic and foaming at the mouth.

WaPo: “Some on the right agree that Obama does not entirely fit the liberal mold. Stuart Butler, at the Heritage Foundation, said Obama reminds him of the inner-city advocates Butler worked with in the 1980s on issues such as housing vouchers, who worried more about whether solutions were effective than what their ideological roots were.”

New episode of In Conversation featuring web enthusiast Tim Lee is now up.

Scoble argues that the “secret to Twitter isn’t how many followers you have, but how many people you are following.” I’m not sure there’s any secret to Twitter and I’m not sure it’s an either or proposition. Having lots of followers is valuable because you can crowdsource. Chek out Merlin asking for video help. Calacanis calls it “the world’s greatest focus group.” I get what Scoble means, but I’m afraid of the signal to noise ration would be weak. By his rationale he should give away an Air to get to top of this list.