Friday, November 5, 2004
Be a whoa?
I guess blogging for dollars vs blogging for dollars is different in the same way that getting a blowjob on a street corner is different than using an outcall service.
There's a backstory here. I don't know where to start with it, so I offer the whole mess of threads as fodder for Bloggercon tomorrow.
Another excuse for a party
Wishing a pleasant Guy Fawkes night to friends in the U.K.
Getting over it, already
Percentage of U.S. total area, by county, won by Kerry: 22.6%
Or so I gather from this and this.
Bush won the election with a solid 4 million vote majority. How is that a sign of his or his supporters' stupidity? Republicans have been running the country, with one eight-year break, for most of my adult lifetime. Who are the dummies here, exactly? The morons who can convince a bunch of dummies to support them? Or the rocket scientists who can't figure out how to make the dummies behave?
You want to do something intelligent? Send Sen. Arlen Specter, a moderate, pro-choice Republican and likely head of the Senate Judiciary Committee $2,000 ($4,000 if you're a couple). Specter had a bruising primary against an conservative Republican who labeled him too liberal. He then had to turn around and fight a tough election. Specter could use the money to pay off his campaign debt, I'll bet. And right now, he's pretty much the only Republican in the Senate willing to say Roe V. Wade should remain the law of the land.
You folks are so smart, so honest, so knowing of the system? Then work it, babies.
I remember the "everybody got stupid" stuff when Reagan won, by a much bigger margin than Bush won on Tuesday. It was wrong then and it's wrong now. Understandable, sure; but wrong. I know lots of real smart people — much smarter than me, fersure — who voted for Bush.
It's not about smarts. It's about lots of other stuff, much of which we still don't understand. None of us. Not even Karl Rove.
Bonus links, all deep: Toward a Constructive Conversation about Giving and Speak Truth to Power, or An Ode to George Lakoff? And Andrew Sullivan's Email of the day.
Dept. of Paranoia
This creeps me out.
Thanks to Jim for the pointer.
[Later...] Getting emails telling me this has long been required by law. Nothing happening here. Move on...
RollGadget
I'm becoming addicted to Phillip and Lenn's Engadget podcasts, and want to thank them for their kind words about Cluetrain near the end of one of their recent ones (I forget which). Nice surprise. You guys rock.
TheirFi
This is cool, but it's in such a silo'd market. All these closed systems... XM, Sirius, iTunes/iPhoto/iPod, DishTV, DirecTV, Outlook, Exchange, AIM, MSN... feel to me like jails that compete with other jails on furnishings and amenities. Much as I do enjoy hanging out in some of them, it still galls me that they are, fundamentally, closed and private corporate dominions.
Sleep cheap and fast
While Dori and Dave stay at the very nice Hyatt Rickeys for excellent prices, I'm staying at my usual place for a price that's in the same range, if not lower. Dig Ramada Silicon Valley, just off the Moffett exit in Mountain view. The rooms are generic, but there's free high speed internet access in every room. Great people running the place, too.