A Whole Lotta Nothing

Search as an election predictor

Adam Mathes has a series of posts at MLKSHK (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) showing searches from Iowa users for each candidate in the last month as well as the 2008 search results for a similar time period (and search was a good predictor for final results in the Iowa caucus).

Long story short: Adam predicts Ron Paul will win in Iowa but not much after and spoil the election for any other Republican candidate. I don't know if Adam is right or wrong, but it's an interesting approach and I could see it coming true.

The Banality of Evildoers

Though it was initially called a mansion, Osama Bin Laden’s safe house décor might better be described as Meth Lab Chic. (Not that I’m all that familiar with meth lab interiors, natch.) Rather than a set from 24, it's more the kind of place only Vibe magazine would choose for a shoot, no pun intended. His particleboard furniture looks like it was salvaged from a rural roadside free pile; a power strip is bolted arbitrarily to the wall; wires are strung higgledy-piggledy as if by an adolescent hobbyist; and this former heir to a multimillion Saudi fortune gets relegated to watching standard def video on a TV you couldn’t get $5 for on Craigslist. It seems only a matter of time before we’re told they found porn on his computer.All kidding aside: Our mythologies about the superpowerful and insanely devious OBL stem from the trauma of the 9/11 attacks. It just wouldn’t do for the culprits to be mere mortal miscreants; we had to build them up into a hydra-headed syndicate.

via www.sampratt.com

This is the smartest take on OBL and Al-Queda I've seen, and mirrors how I've thought of these guys for the past ten years. (via Sippey)

Bush Years summed up on twitter

Seeing how the inauguration is just around the bend, I thought maybe it'd be good to hear a bunch of short pithy summaries of the last eight years of Bush. I read this thing on Salon showing how the economy has slid under him and figured instead of me ranting for thousands of words on how things are worse than when he started, I might as well use twitter instead.

You can too, just tag your posts in twitter with #bushyears

Some favorites in just the first few minutes:

• "Didn't fuck an intern, but raped the Constitution" -- roomerholmes
• "The utter lethality of incuriosity" -- Vidiot
• "With an 'average guy' in charge, things are guaranteed to be below average." -- 75th
• "With the money flooding to abstinence-only education, the only thing you were allowed to tap was citizens' phones." -- torontonto
  

Name that leader

Reading these quotes tonight:

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.

[...]

In little more than two decades we've gone from a position of energy independence to one in which almost half the oil we use comes from foreign countries, at prices that are going through the roof. Our excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous toll on our economy and our people.

[...]

This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation.

I was surprised to find this speech wasn't given in the past few weeks but almost 30 years ago. Read the whole speech and wonder what the world would be like if we followed half the recommendations he outlined that night.

President Obama

After watching McCain's concession speech last night, I realized it was John McCain's election to lose. From a mile up, the race was between a guy with tons of experience and some pretty hardcore wartime stories going up against another guy that was new to the senate and was basically unknown before 2004 to most voters.

I really liked John McCain in 2000, and wanted him to win the republican primaries. I probably would have voted for him as well (if I ignored some of his social conservative tendencies) because he seemed like such a centrist (or at least not too far from center on most issues, especially compared to Bush) and I found Gore totally and completely unexciting (I ended up voting for Nader).

When the republican primaries began in 2008 I was pulling for McCain as well, since I remembered the guy I loved on all those talk show appearances over the last several years. I was also pulling for Obama for the past year and was happy when both my early picks ended up on top.

Then the campaign happened. It didn't come on quickly, but I'd say definitely after the GOP convention, the old McCain I loved was gone. I don't recall much of any talk from McCain from the last two months about his detailed plans or reasons why someone should vote for McCain, instead all I heard about was why I should against Obama. That's never a good path to take -- when you don't accentuate your positives and instead focus on negatives, even if you convince others to avoid the opponent you end up with followers that don't have much to be proud of.

To this day I can't tell if it was McCain's choosing to do what he did at the end of the summer of if it was his true personality finally coming out. I like to think he became a slave to the GOP election machine that likely told him playing it straight with Obama and fighting on the issues wasn't going to rile his voting base as much as attacks and fear mongering could.

McCain's concession speech was eloquent, impressive, and left me with the admiration I remembered in the McCain from 2000 that I used to like. That the crowd surrounding him boo'd every time Obama's name was uttered makes me think maybe the McCain I used to like might be the guy still at the core but unfortunately let others run the controls during the election.

Anyway, for the first time since 1992 I was truly ecstatic on an election night. I knew the polls were looking good but I didn't want to be disappointed and a big part of me never thought Obama would actually win, but he did it. I'm glad my daughter gets to grow up and will remember her first president being an inspirational guy that proves anyone can still make it in America.

Of course, we've left Obama with a pretty tough nut to crack and I imagine once he gets in office all the crazy "socialist!" and "marxist!" talk will quickly go out the window as he'll move to the center and make some tough choices. I predict we'll see people on both extremes displeased with some choices but I find that a mark of a good leader. Bill Clinton made a heck of a lot of choices I disagreed with, but at the end of his term he turned a recession into a boom and kept us out of war and I hope Obama can do the same (obviously, without the intern thing).

You get what you pay for

Contributions from Oil & Gas industry to Bush 2000 campaign: $1,889,206
Contributions from Oil & Gas industry to Bush 2004 campaign: $2,596,725

Price of a barrel of crude oil at the beginning of 2001: about $23
Price of a barrel of crude oil at the end of April, 2008: nearly $120

$1 trillion profits to OPEC nations predicted for 2008

A Message to Pennsylvanians from Bill Clinton

Super Tuesday

I didn't know half the delegates are voted on in less than a week. I mean, I knew a lot of races were happening at once, but half the delegates? That's a quasi-election day right there. This video should help you decide:

Impassioned plea

I open my email this morning and there's a long message from a vaguely familiar name. It's dozen paragraphs long but I start to read it.

The first couple paragraphs explain that I've connected with this person in the past either through some hipster activities in the DC area or through blogging, and the author was going through their gmail address book and writing to everyone. It sounds extremely important; they sound honest and this sounds urgent, so I read on.

They apologize for the mass mail, but explain further that even though the author knows not everyone is politically involved, there's a bit of a crisis in Washington that they felt was important to share at this tumultuous time. The anxiety in the author's voice is palpable and I'm right there with him. "What is it he needs us to do? How can we help?" I ask myself as I continue reading.

The call to action comes in the last paragraph. The culmination of the email is that we friends of the author should check out a few youtube videos that will explain everything. I'm dying to know what they are about.

Genital Mutilation story from Africa?

Doctors Without Borders plea?!

Environmental disasters in China?!

I push play on the first video.

Ron Paul campaign ad. It's fucking Ron Paul. 12 paragraphs to spam every single person the author knows, all for a fucking Ron Paul ad. I look up at the To: line and see about 100 names, all starting with M, like mine. This douchebag sat here and did this by hand all day with his stupid Gmail address book. I've heard Ron Paul fans described as "crazies" and now I know why.

Patton Oswalt's Dukes of Hazzard

Patton Oswalt has a new album coming out and I got to listen to the whole thing today and I enjoyed it. I'm going to do something unusual here and post one of the 22 tracks. It's a two minute riff on the crazy scandals that continue to hit the Bush Administration and it's the best description I've heard for the uncanny talent the White House has for averting one disaster after another.

[audio:http://images.metafilter.com/TheDukesOfHazzard.mp3]

Yay!

I have voted in very race since 1990, back when I turned 18, but this is the first year where almost everything I voted for won. Even local races went the way I wanted, and across the country races fell as I wished.

I can't begin to describe how happy I am that Rick Santorum is out of the Senate now.

Let's begin the healing

Dear Phone Companies,

I see you've violated the privacy policies I signed onto your service with, by giving away data about all my calls placed, who they were placed to, and how long I talked. The third party you gave them to in this instance was the US Government, who did it in an "ends justify the means so we can break the law if we have to" way. I understand your hands were tied and you had to give up the goods. But we can make this right.

I live in a state where one area code covers a great deal of the residents, but I'm required to dial ten digits to local numbers, add a 1 for long distance. The funny thing is, even if it's the same area code, I as a consumer have no idea if I should add a one, but your helpful service blocks my calls and tells me when to redial, with or without a 1. On top of that, if someone with a different area code lives nearby, I might not have to dial a 1, even though I always do on different area codes. It's really a mysterious system to us end users.

Lemme change gears for a second; in the last decade I've enjoyed using a cellphone that is smart enough to add a 1 or take it away as it sees fit. I just dial ten numbers and whether it's across the street or across the country, the call goes through. It's amazingly handy.

So here is how you can get in my good graces again: you're the phone company and you know when I need to dial a 1 or not, because you tell me to. But here's the thing -- and I know it might sound crazy -- why don't you automatically resubmit the number with the appropriate change instead of making me key it all in again?

That's the deal. Handle dialed phone numbers with the same technology a cellphone in 1995 had, and I'll overlook your end of the breach-of-privacy deal. I'll take my issues with that violation to the government.

Reader politics quiz

Question: Name a controversy in politics in the last five years where the outrage of Democrats affected real change. My hypothesis: the only Republicans I've seen removed from positions did so only after independent courts or Republicans themselves agreed with Democrats and allowed it to happen (like Trent Lott).

I've been suffering from outrage fatigue for years now and every week it seems like some flaggrant lawbreaking on the part of the President or his party is going to have consequences, but it never does. Nothing ever seems to come out of anything except some quips on the Daily Show.

Dear readers, I ask you for some success stories. What change have the Democrats actually acheived on their own in the past five years?

Not exactly a surprise

law.com on Supreme Court nom Roberts:

Yet those who know Roberts say he, unlike Souter, is a reliable conservative who can be counted on to undermine if not immediately overturn liberal landmarks like abortion rights and affirmative action. Indicators of his true stripes cited by friends include: clerking for Rehnquist, membership in the Federalist Society, laboring in the Ronald Reagan White House counsel's office and at the Justice Department into the Bush years, working with Kenneth Starr among others, and even his lunchtime conversations at Hogan & Hartson. "He is as conservative as you can get," one friend puts it. In short, Roberts may combine the stealth appeal of Souter with the unwavering ideology of Scalia and Thomas.

I'd hate to see Roe v. Wade overturned with this guy on the bench. Also, he's only 50, so we'd be living with him on the bench for a very long time.

Feds monitor Flickr

Frightening news from Salon:

Meanwhile, Jeremy Lassen, the publisher of a small book imprint in Portland, Oregon, responded to the news of the Chicago incident by creating a series of photo collages entitled "Bush and Guns," and posted them to the photo-sharing site, Flikr.

Last week, he says, he himself was paid a visit by the Secret Service. "On June 7th, two Secret Service agents showed up at my place of employment and asked to speak with me," Lassen wrote on his blog on Sunday. "One agent said they wanted to talk about something I posted online. I asked what, [and] one responded 'You post a lot of stuff online, don't you?' and then showed me some color printouts of my 'Bush and Guns' pictures. I was as helpful as possible, and explained to them the about the incident in Chicago, and the context of those pictures."

Blog entry about the visit from the Feds (The Flickr set mentioned in the post seems to be gone)

Uninsured

Today I've been getting a steady stream of church-based spam about Cover The Uninsured Week, so I was skeptical about a site using those means to advertise, but it really seems on the up and up. There seems to be bipartisan support in all the leaders they've chosen to represent them, and all the messages seem to be based on common sense instead of money or politics. So despite the spams, it looks like a good cause, and while I have little hope we'll ever see any level of universal healthcare for all, it would be nice if the "culture of life" included covering medical expenses for the 8.4 million children that are uninsured. I bet it doesn't take a freakonomist to realize covering children today will reap huge rewards 15 years down the line.

I've also long believed if we could offer healthcare for all in the US, the explosion of creativity and entrepreneurism could have the potential to pay for it. I know many smart, motivated people filled with ideas that work boring jobs just so they can have healthcare for their family. Who knows how many business ideas, technology applications, and clever inventions are going to never see the light of day because their creators waste away at a desk somewhere. In that respect I see universal healthcare as good for business, since small business owners are off the hook for paying for it and everyone with a good idea won't be terrified of leaving their job behind to pursue their dreams.

YHBT

I've been on Declan McCullagh's mailing list for the past 3-4 years and when I saw him pimping his article about a possible blogging crackdown from the FEC, I had a strong feeling everyone was being played. The title and lead-in are finely crafted to rile most any blogger, be they right or left in political persuassion. The concept of blogs as regulated speech also seemed a stretch and I had to keep in mind that Declan, though I like him for the most part and love his mailing list, is a libertarian that wants to see completely unregulated speech and spending. Every six months or so Declan sticks his neck out and is shown to be incorrect. Then a few months pass and people forget, then another crazy headline shows up one of his articles. He's really good at writing headlines that make people talk, it's just that accuracy doesn't always follow.

I'm glad to hear from James that my first impression was likely right, and this is much ado about nothing.

Blogosphere, you have been trolled.

Needs more liberty bell

So I grabbed a drum loop and took the audio from my previous post to make this: libertybell.mp3 (600kb, 30 seconds long)

The scary part is that while I added drums behind it, I didn't edit any of the speech. He actually said those phrases over and over and over again in a single speech.

Freedom. Liberty. Liberty. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. Liberty

If you missed last night's daily show, here's the very best segment (17Mb mpeg)

I need to extract the audio and provide it for remixes. If anyone figures out how to get a mp3 from the mpeg2 file, post it somewhere and I'll point some DJs at it.

update: Victor was nice enough to turn out a mp3

George Tenet, l33t haxx0r

Tenet calls for Internet security:

Access to networks like the World Wide Web might need to be limited to those who can show they take security seriously, he said

Awesome idea, and should keep just about every single Windows user off the Internets. Who knew Tenet was such a big fan of OS X and Linux?

Like podcasting, only more depressing

I was testing out the new MSN search engine tonight and found an old interview I did last summer that I completely forgot about. It was recorded in July of 2003 and after I spent 10 minutes or so rambling (and from the sound of it, drowsy on several hits of Nyquil) about MetaFilter and online communities, Greg (the host) asks me what I'm excited about online in the coming future.

I talk optimistically about the internet's impact on the election that is over a year away. How the internet will be a place where you can truly engage constituents, where it "won't just be people streaming commercials," and that the net will "make it feel like a democracy again."

In other words, I expected something great and basically was wrong on all counts, as my memories of this year's election were mostly people yelling past each other and streaming commericals towards each other. I really wish we could use the tools properly and get away from all the Terry McAuliffe/Karl Rove bullshit we seem to end up with.

Ugh.

Listen for yourself, my optimism is worth a laugh: election.mp3 (1Mb 65 seconds total)

The system works

Kottke collected hundreds of reports from folks on how their voting went. But what I want to point out is this: Go to this comment and do an in-page search for the word "Oregon" and find all the rest. Half a dozen pleasant voter experiences from Oregon, all saying pretty much what I said a couple weeks back.

Voting by mail rocks, and I'd love to see it move beyond just Oregon.

LazyLawyer Request

Given that Traditional Non-Traditional Weddings are no longer legal in 11 states, I'm wondering why enterprising lawyers in every state aren't clamoring to produce what basically amounts to "near-marriage in a box." I know there are over a thousand rights you can't have as a committed couple that isn't legally married, but you can certainly turn over the power of attorney to someone special and hopefully get at most of those 1,049 rights with a series of contracts.

So that's what I'm wondering. Why isn't there a lawyer out there compiling all the necessary contracts together to make this as simple as possible for a committed couple? I'm sure there are thousands of couples that would gladly pay $500-1,000 for some package that would ensure their partner can make emergency room decisions, visit them in the ICU, and other less traumatic things.

It can't be an impossible thing to do, it doesn't require "activist judges" and would hopefully weather any legal challenge even if a constitutional ammendment bans the act. Seems like lawyers are missing out on millions of dollars by not streamlining this kind of service.

As Dick Cheney said, "People ought to be free to choose any arrangement they want."

Bring on the art

heh. Your Reaction to the 2004 Presidential Election

A Democratic Iraq

From an amazing New Yorker slideshow, this is a cool looking shirt for a noble sounding cause. Here's the only info I could find about the group.

Stages

1. Denial

No! Noooooooooo! No way, that can't be right? WTF?

2. Bargaining

It's not that bad, is it? Can we forge a working relationship in Congress to undo the division?

3. Anger

Crap! Crap damn crap! I hate ____ they are so _____ I wish they would _____. Crap!

4. Despair

Hello, Canada? Yeah, do you take reservations? No? Ok. Dang.

5. Acceptance

Oh man. At least I'm not gay, right? Oh man.

On a likely Bush win

I never would have thought Karl Rove's plan to campaign in the churches and get all the anti-gay provisions you could onto the ballots would win the election in the end, versus all the focus on "new voters" and "young people" who didn't really vote in record numbers.

All these newly registered voters, voters that everyone said would side with Kerry 2-to-1 seemed to go mostly Bush, if he's still got a ~3.5 million vote lead by next morning. Who would have thought the GOP could get the vote out in the churches better than all of Hollywood and the music industry trying to get college kids to speak up and vote?

Fucking stoned slackers. You can never depend on them for anything.

Still wanting to believe it's not over...

I see green states