Obama Supporters - Stay On Target

Stay on target - go vote on (or before) Nov 4. Don't let this happen to us!

Eight Year Old Girl Tells It Like It Is

You know you have a good show going when an eight year old girl takes on Bill O'Reilly. I think she does a great job of explaining why people like Bill do more harm than rap music and video games. Would like to put in a personal request that everyone who views her video (below) go to YouTube and vote on the video (links at the bottom). Eight Year Old Girl Tells It Like It Is If anyone knows Bill O'Reilly, beat his stupid ass for me. I really can't stand this *explicative deleted* idiot. Bill O'Reilly Responds If you know this girl's parents and family, tell them they did a great job raising her. They should not be shamed - they should be congratulated for raising a well informed child who has valid (and valued) opinions. YouTube - The Coolest 8 Year Old In The World Talks About O'Reilly

Who Is American?

There’s quite a lot that Colin Powell said during his endorsement of Barack Obama that spoke to me, but in particular his mention of the current attempt on the Republican side of things to equate being Muslim with not being American got my attention. On the attempt to suggest Obama is a Muslim — or the tacit acceptance on the GOP side when such a suggestion occurs — Powell said that the right answer was that the suggestion is wrong, and that Obama is a Christian. But then he said: “The really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being Muslim in America? No, that’s not America.” And then he talked about Specialist Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, Muslim, born in New Jersey, who was killed serving in Iraq, and how he saw a photo of Khan’s mother at her son’s grave, feeling the grief mothers feel when their children are lost at war, and how the grave of Spec. Khan showed not a cross or a star of David but the crescent and star of Islam. Spec. Khan, who had received a bronze star, is buried with full honors at Arlington. “He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he could go serve his country, and he gave his life,” Powell said. “Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourselves in this way.” Yes. Reprinted from John Scalzi's Whatever.

YouTube and PBS Want You to Video Your Vote

Online-video site YouTube and PBS have teamed up to create Video Your Vote, an election day project that asks you to record and submit your experience at the polls on election day. Want to participate? Better make sure polling place photography is legal in your state.

Don't Mess With Scientists

If there's one rule in election-year politics, it's this: Don't mess with the science crowd. OK, labor unions and the NRA matter too, but John McCain may want to brush up on his stars and planets after Tuesday night's debate.

In the debate, McCain portrayed Barack Obama as an excessive spender, and he punctuated his attack (twice) with this example:

"[Obama] voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork barrel earmark projects, including, by the way, $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?"

Turns out, a lot of people think we do. This is no ordinary overhead projector from your 5th grade classroom. The blog Cosmic Variance sums it up:

"If you've ever had the pleasure of visiting the Adler Planetarium, you'd probably guess that the 'overhead projector' he's talking about is the spectacular 'Sky Theater' -- one of the most engrossing, gorgeous venues for displaying visuals about space."

The science community is notoriously tight-knit, especially when rallying to a cause, and boy are they are rallying to this one. Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log has a great summary of the uproar:

-"For McCain to use this as a political zinger is insulting..." (Bad Astronomy)

-"Planetariums are Bridges to the Future, and America would be a much better place if all the congressional earmarks went to projects like them." (The Perfect Silence)

-"The logo for Senator John McCain's campaign has a star in the middle. I wonder what his guide star is? It can't be the same one that ten million children have seen at the Adler Planetarium.

Why should anyone want their star to dim?" (Discovery Space)

The Adler Planetarium even issued a statement, noting that the request, ironically, was not even funded:

"To clarify, the Adler Planetarium requested federal support -- which was not funded -- to replace the projector in its historic Sky Theater, the first planetarium theater in the Western Hemisphere.... To remain competitive and ensure national security, it is vital that we educate and inspire the next generation of explorers to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math."

Linking a planetarium to national security may be a bit of a stretch, but the point is clear: McCain probably shouldn't count on the "science vote" this year.

The Advantages of Absentee Voting

In a previous post, I discussed how absentee voting can save you time. I have now found a new benefit of absentee voting - the internet. I received my absentee ballot a few days ago. Over the weekend, I opened the packet, went through all the contents, and prepared to vote. There were several elections for judges which I had no information about. I had never heard of some of the judges on the ballot, so I decided to do some research. Googling each judge's name (for example - judge sandra day o'connor) took me to political and non-political pages on wikipedia, the elections board, and other websites with detailed information about the judges' voting histories, interests, and stances on issues that are important to me. For several elections, this made a huge difference in my decision of who to vote for. If I had been in a voting booth, I would not have been able to do this research. I would have been forced to either abstain from voting for that particular election, or potentially vote for a judge with whom I disagree. One more reason to vote absentee.

Barack Obama - The American Promise

Barack Obama's American Promise

The Best of Late Night

During the debate, John McCain sparked a controversy when he referred to Barack Obama as "that one." Afterwards, McCain said, "What — like I’m supposed to remember everyone's name now?” -Conan O'Brien I don’t want to say the debate was boring, but I didn’t think a political event could be that dull without the help of Al Gore. -Jay Leno Because of all the international focus on the election, the debate was broadcast in foreign countries all across Europe, Asia, and South America. Or as Sarah Palin calls them — "Russia.” -Conan O'Brien I did take exception to McCain calling Obama “that one.” I can’t think of anytime it would be appropriate to call a United States senator “that one.” Well, maybe if you had to pick a senator out of a lineup. -Craig Ferguson "Possible controversy for the Obama campaign. Republicans are now accusing Barack Obama's campaign of voter fraud, because some of the people they've registered sound like they have fake names. Apparently, the fakest-sounding name is Barack Obama." -Conan O'Brien "Yeah, the economy is going to hell, but at least we're getting leadership from the White House. That's the important thing, ladies and gentlemen. Thank God for that." -David Letterman "Nation, what a debate last Thursday. Both candidates surpassed expectations. Sarah Palin proved she could speak, and Joe Biden proved he could stop speaking." -Stephen Colbert "John McCain has pulled out of Michigan. I guess the surge wasn't working. Yup, this is stunning to me. John McCain blew off Michigan. Well, I know how they feel. Maybe you noticed that all of John McCain's problems began when he bailed out on this show? Were you aware of that? The road to the White House runs right through here." -David Letterman "The second presidential debate is tonight. And beforehand, I don't know if you heard this, John McCain said, 'The gloves are coming off.' That's what he said, yeah. Yeah, then McCain said, 'but don't worry, the diaper is staying on.'" -Conan O'Brien

Government: Data mining doesn't work

The most extensive government report to date on whether terrorists can be identified through data mining has yielded an important conclusion: It doesn't really work.

A National Research Council report, years in the making and scheduled to be released Tuesday, concludes that automated identification of terrorists through data mining or any other mechanism "is neither feasible as an objective nor desirable as a goal of technology development efforts." Inevitable false positives will result in "ordinary, law-abiding citizens and businesses" being incorrectly flagged as suspects.

The whopping 352-page report, called "Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists," amounts to at least a partial repudiation of the Defense Department's controversial data-mining program called Total Information Awareness, which was limited by Congress in 2003.

The report was written by a committee whose members include William Perry, a professor at Stanford University; Charles Vest, the former president of MIT; W. Earl Boebert, a retired senior scientist at Sandia National Laboratories; Cynthia Dwork of Microsoft Research; R. Gil Kerlikowske, Seattle's police chief; and Daryl Pregibon, a research scientist at Google.

But the authors conclude the type of data mining that government bureaucrats would like to do--perhaps inspired by watching too many episodes of the Fox series 24--can't work. "If it were possible to automatically find the digital tracks of terrorists and automatically monitor only the communications of terrorists, public policy choices in this domain would be much simpler. But it is not possible to do so."

By itself, of course, this is merely a report with non-binding recommendations that Congress and the executive branch could ignore. But NRC reports are not radical treatises written by an advocacy group; they tend to represent a working consensus of technologists and lawyers.

The great encryption debate of the 1990s was one example. The NRC's so-called CRISIS report on encryption in 1996 concluded export controls--that treated software like Web browsers and PGP as munitions--were a failure and should be relaxed. That eventually happened two years later.

A Plan to Save the Country

During the much-anticipated (and, I'm guessing, soon forgotten) debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin last week, there was a small kerfuffle after Palin accused Biden of saying that raising taxes is patriotic. Turned out that what Biden really said was that paying taxes is patriotic, a view so heavily endorsed by all parties that it's actually illegal not to pay them - unless you maintain a post-office box in the Cayman Islands or find write-offs that offset what you owe.

That's probably not you, though, so it would be a good idea for you to keep paying your taxes unless you want to pay lawyers later. I understand that's something of a bummer, but then so is an irregularly shaped mole on your neck.

But the thing is, see, if Biden had said what Palin said he said (which he didn't), he would have been right. Raising taxes is patriotic. Raising taxes is what we can do to make our country, our patria, stronger.

It is amazing to watch the political discourse. Here we are about $10 trillion in debt, not counting whatever this latest bailout is going to cost; social services are being cut all over the place; entitlements are rising with no plan about how to cap them or pay for them; veterans services, national parks, NASA, the EPA, pick your own favorite - underfunded, decaying, not doing whatever it is we want them to do.

Oh, and where are we going to get the money? Oh, we will cut wasteful spending, that's what we'll do. Even better, we'll give people a tax break, so that will stimulate spending and we will grow the economy and then finally people will owe taxes and the government will get more money. Like that worked.

There is a different way that doesn't depend on some elaborate and discredited triple flip off the high board of economic theory - raise taxes. The American people have a whole lot of wealth. Is it excess wealth? That depends. When the fire truck that is paid for by the government comes and puts out a fire in your house, were the higher municipal taxes you paid extra wealth? Or were they a sound investment?

Oh, but suppose it's your neighbor's house that is burning down. You don't get anything from a rapid response, do you? No, but see, we are social creatures and we live in a society, and that means we help each other. I help you for selfish reasons, because I believe you will help me when the tables are turned. That's why, say, we help out the indigent, because one day we (or, say, our mothers) might be indigent; we help sick people because one day we might be sick, and so forth. It's almost like a contract, a social contract.

I wish once, just once, a politician would say, "You know, given how messed up everything is, probably we should raise taxes." Of course, all the other politicians would make little o's with their mouths, because the unspeakable had been spoken, but maybe a few people who've actually been paying attention would say, yeah, OK, I could kick in an extra $5 a month if my brother is suffering, if my sister is jobless, if my water is dirty and my son is dying on a desert far from home - yes, I could do that.

Then that politician would get demagogued to death by the power-drunk plutocrats, but it would be a nice effort.

So here's my plan: Instead of cutting taxes for the rich or for the middle class, how about we raise them for everybody? Why? Because we need the money!

Source: Jon Carrol - A Modest Like Proposal

Bailout Bill Stuffed With Pork Apparently More Palatable

TechDirt says it better than I can, so here you go:

In my post about the financial crisis earlier this week, I explained the rationales both for and against the so-called "bailout bill." With some of the important indicators getting seriously scary, it was becoming increasingly important that something be done to keep money flowing, but this bill isn't it. Who would have thought that after the House rejected the bill earlier this week, that they would come back and approve something much worse. Rather than address the fundamental problems of the bill (and, well, the economy), what Congress did was stuff the bill full of pork, adding in every little personal favor to local industries they could dig up. Basically, all of the politicians added in little "gifts" to local industries, as a way of calming public dissent against the bill. And, of course, apparently that was all it took to get the House to approve the bill. Now they can go back home and say that they fought to "protect" their local constituents in the bill, when all they really did was put some pork in to bribe them. While there's still a chance that this plan works out -- and, at this point, it's entirely based on who will control the fund -- the bill has done little, if anything to actually address the real issues that created this economic mess, and uses a sledge hammer where a scalpel would have made more sense. If it ends up succeeding, it will be in spite of the bill, rather than because of it.

So How Will The Financial Crisis Impact The Wider Economy?

Once again, TechDirt has a very lengthy article discussing how the current financial crisis affects the wider economy. I encourage you to read the full article, as it is very well written and thought out. An abridged reprint is below: Getting beyond Wall Street I discussed some of that in the original post, but many people are still having trouble seeing how this crisis spreads beyond Wall Street financial firms (or, in some cases, their own stock portfolios). There are still plenty of people screaming out that these financial firms need to be punished or done away with completely, without any recognition of how that might flow through the rest of the economy. The New York Times has an excellent writeup, noting that people said the same thing as the Great Depression was happening, as well -- again, not realizing that destruction on Wall Street can flow through the rest of the economy. The basic problem is the fear that the credit markets will simply dry up. If no one will lend money (or it simply becomes ridiculously expensive to borrow money), then some very basic economic functions cease to work. This may start out at a high level with bank to bank loans and bank to business loans, but it can also filter down to things like your mortgage (if you thought things were bad before, wait until adjustable rate mortgages reset with even higher interest rates, contributing to this spiral), car loans and even credit card payments. At the top of the chain, banks are increasingly afraid to lend to each other fearing that whoever they lend to (even for very short term loans) may default before the money can be paid back. Already, some companies are seeing the direct impact. For example, Caterpillar, the maker of construction equipment is a company you would think would be separate from the financial mess on Wall Street. It has great credit and a long history of being good for paying up any debt. Yet, in a matter of days, the interest that Caterpillar has to pay to borrow has shot up. Debt isn't a bad thing Now, there are those who will say that any "borrowing" or "debt" is somehow bad (we had a few such comments on the first post), but that shows a fundamental (and, somewhat dangerous) misunderstanding of basic economics. Borrowing money and taking on debt is not, by itself, a bad thing. In fact, it's a very, very good thing. If you can borrow money at one rate, and invest it more profitably, you can contribute to economic growth and provide important goods and services. It's at the very core of a functioning economy. Money moves around so that it can be invested in more profitable endeavors, and that benefits all of society, by making sure that the money is more efficiently put to work. However, the fear of various banks defaulting at the top of the pyramid is increasing the risk down the entire chain, even to the point that relatively "safe" investments are suddenly being seen as risky. Part of that is due to uncertainty about how the crisis will impact others (sort of a self-fulfilling fear) and part of it is due to a still murky understanding of the risk involved in the assets at the heart of all of this mess: the various mortgage backed securities you keep hearing about. So what happens if things get worse? Well, it won't be pretty. Credit is such an important part of the entire economy that it's almost impossible to figure out all of the ramifications of a near total credit crunch. Plenty of companies rely on commercial paper and short-term, low risk loans to finance certain operations, while others use it to get a small, but safe, return themselves. If that were to completely collapse, money would have a lot of trouble moving from where it is to where it would be most efficiently put to work for the economy. Effectively, important projects would get starved of necessary cash and die. That may happen to some projects all the time -- and it's a natural part of the market -- but if it happens across the board, a lot of companies could go bankrupt. A lot of useful investments would go to waste, and (more importantly) the next set of important projects that require investment wouldn't be able to get the necessary money. It would shrink the economy and harm pretty much everyone. So, what does it all mean for a small business operator? Well, that really depends on what sort of business you're in. If you're a venture-backed startup, it's probably not as big a problem, immediately. As we originally noted, top tier VCs are pretty secure with the funds they have, and as we saw after the dot com bubble, the big institutional investors still can't resist allocating a segment of their cash to VC funds. That money is pretty safe. A good venture capitalist should help its portfolio weather the storm. By the way, that doesn't mean showering them with too much cash. Companies that have raised a ton of cash aren't necessarily better off, contrary to popular opinion. A lot depends on what business they're in, how focused they are on an actual business model and how much they're actually burning. As we saw after the last dot com bubble burst, it was some of the most heavily funded companies that went belly up first -- because they had focused too much on raising money and not on building a business. But, of course, venture backed high growth companies are a tiny, tiny segment of the small business arena. Most small businesses will face a different set of challenges. While they may not rely so heavily on regularly tapping into borrowed money, that doesn't mean they're not exposed in many ways. Any sort of expansion capital will be much harder and much more expensive to get. That will make it more difficult for some of those small businesses to make the investments necessary to become big businesses. More importantly, their own customers may be exposed as well. Many small businesses effectively provide "loans" to their customers, in giving terms of payment, such as net 30 or net 60 (allowing the customer to pay within 30 or 60 days, rather than upfront). Unlike constantly fluctuating interest rates, small businesses generally don't change those sorts of terms with any regularity. So, many small businesses actually become a lot more exposed: they're "lending" money at the same rates as before, while the rest of the money flowing around the economy has become more expensive. With that happening, more customers can be expected to default, putting more pressure on the cash flow of the business. And hiccups in the cash flow will be harder to overcome in the usual way: it will be more difficult and expensive to get a small business loan or a line of credit. Thus, it becomes more difficult to meet payroll and could result in layoffs. Companies may also try to tighten up their payment terms, but that effective "raising" of the interest rate can scare off customers, as well. Already, we're seeing small businesses being advised to push for early payment and change the terms of payment they offer customers. Most of this won't happen immediately for most businesses. It certainly will impact some in the very near future (and a few companies are already experiencing problems). The real worry is the cascade effect of this happening to more and more small businesses, putting even more pressure on the overall economy. More companies having cash flow problems means fewer customers for other companies, as well, accelerating the whole cycle. So what do you do? If you're a small business: focusing on cash becomes king (it should always be, but even more so at this point). Companies won't be able to rely on lines of credit as much as they have in the past, and should see what can be done to lock in any kind of line of credit or opportunity for a decent loan if they can get it. Basically, companies need to prepare themselves for the possibility of money not flowing, customers not paying and additional economic hardship.

Things Sarah Palin Can Name

That's right, there are a few things Sarah Palin can actually name, such as her favorite characters from "Top Gun" - Maverick. My favorite list: VP Candidates I Could Beat in a Debate

• Carrot Top
• Trig
• Ms. Teen South Carolina
• Stephen Hawking in a power outage
• Dan Quayle
• Joe Biden

Find these lists and more at Things Sarah Palin Can Name

I'm Confused...

Ah, now I'm not confused :D

House Follows Senate In Giving The President A Copyright Czar

From TechDirt: While failing to do much of anything (other than fingerpointing) to deal with the economic crisis we're facing, the folks in the House did spend some time easily passing the ProIP bill that the Senate passed last week. So, now we just have to wait for the President to sign it, and the entertainment industry gets their own person in the White House whose job it is to prop up their business model. Hell, if Wall St. gets one of those, why not the entertainment industry?

Take A Deep Breath: Some Perspective On The Financial Crisis

TechDirt has a very long article on the current financial crisis, explaining how we got into this financial mess in the first place. The article is worth a read, and I encourage you to read the entire article on their site - TechDirt. First off: this situation is complicated. The deeper you dig into it, the more you can begin to sketch out a picture of what's really happening, but no one (no one!) can accurately understand all the different variables at play here. Anyone claiming to have all the answers is wrong. They're either ignorant or lying. Also, the blame game isn't just pointless, wrong and silly, it's dangerous. I've been seeing too many folks on both sides of the political aisle trying to use this crisis as a political football, and all that's doing is making it that much more difficult to come up with real solutions. If you see anyone focus on playing the "blame game," ignore them. They're not worth listening to and they'll only be misleading. Finally, any explanation you read that isn't multiple-book-length will probably be greatly simplified -- including this one. But I'm hoping that it at least kicks off an interesting discussion. So, what happened? The basic summary is that a chain of events all resulted in more and more money being put into riskier and riskier mortgages, where much of the risk was hidden away by computer models and the repackaging of those risky mortgages in bulk. Normally speaking, the idea of bundling up a bunch of risky projects into one actually does make some sense -- because you're figuring that while some will fail, the successes will greatly outweigh the failures. And, in many cases, that's true (it's basic diversification). But the problem was that very few, if any, of the models seemed to take into account the fact that these weren't independently risky items, but that many were very dependent on each other. Thus, rather than a small group of risky deals going south, outweighed by the success stories, people started to realize that you could have a domino effect, where a large portion of the risky stuff going bad could actually lead to even more of it going bad. That's just what you get for creating bad models that don't take dependencies into account. What made this even worse, however, is that a bunch of the risk was eventually pawned off to the least knowledgeable investor: the public markets. We had a long chain of players, who effectively kept "laundering" the risk through various ways until it ended up being held by people who simply had no clue how risky the products were that they owned. Then, once stuff started to go bad, the dependencies started to snowball and make everything worse -- and the confusion over how bad and how risky things were made those who actually had money on hand reasonably afraid to keep lending it to those who couldn't accurately express the risk. That resulted in a lack of liquidity -- effectively the oil in the economy's engine. Without liquidity, a lot of stuff freezes up pretty quickly and dangerously. That's what caused Treasury boss Paulson and Fed chair Bernanke to ask for the "bailout" plan. Why are we "bailing out" those who created this mess? Actually, while almost everyone is calling it a "bailout," it's not quite a true bailout, and it's not clear that it really "rewards" those who created the mess. Like everything else, it's quite complicated. Personally, I like Fred Wilson's use of the phrase "The Splurge" to describe it, because in many ways it's more accurate than a bailout. Basically, the government is asking for $700 billion to try to buy up distressed assets. The details suggest that it's starting out with $350 billion, with another $350 billion to be handed out later, if necessary. There are plenty who believe that $700 billion is just the tip of the iceberg, and eventually that number will grow to be much higher. So, why isn't this a full "bailout"? Well, because the government would be getting equity back as well, and there are plenty of smart folks who believe that this could lead to the government making a profit. Indeed, buying up distressed assets historically isn't a bad way to make a profit -- if you know what you're doing. Lots of folks tend to shy away from distressed assets, and a good fund manager can buy up distressed assets for pennies on the dollar and figure out ways to sell them down the road for nickels or dimes on the dollar. It's a perfectly reasonable business proposition, and historically, there are plenty of stories of folks who made out like bandits buying distressed assets following bursting bubbles. So, if the government can drive a hard bargain and buy up these assets at a reasonable price, it could work. So, the good news is that there's a chance that the "splurge" could result in a best case scenario: it pumps liquidity into the market, stabilizes things, gets the economy moving again and lets the government profit. But that's the best case scenario. Others are a lot less sure, noting that the upside pales compared to the downside risk, and even if an upside scenario may seem a lot more likely, the cost of the downside is much, much bigger (at least $700 billion at this point, and perhaps more). In fact, there are those who suggest that a poorly done splurge will almost certainly make things even worse. And, plenty are pointing out that the smart money seems to be betting that the government is entering the game as the "last sucker" we were discussing earlier. Given that there's still confusion over how the gov't will value these assets, it seems reasonable to worry. But isn't this just about Wall Street? There's a common refrain among many, many people, that this is just the result of greedy Wall Street bankers, and the proper thing to do here is to just let them all fail. It's not that easy. The ripple effects here would be pretty serious -- and while I don't think the economy would fully seize up, it would be really painful across the board. The lack of liquidity in the commercial paper world (short term lending, mostly) would impact a lot of businesses that you might not think have such exposure to Wall Street. And that, in turn, could create an ongoing spiral. It would stop somewhere, but where is anybody's guess at this point, and it may be pretty far down a hole, with a pretty massive destruction of wealth in the meantime. Some may believe this is the best way to get through things (the rip the band-aid off quickly belief), but the overall damage could be significant, and not so easy to come back from. Ripping the band-aid off quickly doesn't always yield the best result if it rips the scab with it, causing more damage. So, simply letting everything fail, while an option, could have serious long term consequences. To sum it all up It is a huge mess, no doubt. The splurge is quite risky -- and while I can appreciate the upside potential, if done right, that "if" scares me a lot. I'd be much more comfortable with it if it wasn't being pushed through in its entirely in such a quick manner, with partisan players on both sides going on the news yelling at the other side each night. Instead, focus on a smaller initial package and spend a bit more time working out the bigger deal later, with a lot more input. In the short term, there's still going to be a fair amount of bloodshed, and the downside will impact companies outside of the financial sector, but for those in tech, the good news is that we're probably more isolated than other industries, though certainly not completely isolated. And, since everything is changing so rapidly, you never know what shoe might drop next.

Homeland Security Gets Closer To Minority Report-Style Crime Predictor

TechDirt reports:

Ever since the film Minority Report came out, we've seen a series of stories about efforts to predict future crimes before they happen. Most of these are more about data mining to predict high crime areas and times -- but some are going much further. Slashdot points us to a story about Homeland Security apparently making progress on a "pre-crime detector." It was originally called "Project Hostile Intent," but after some folks figured that the name was a bit... ominous, it seems to have been renamed as "Future Attribute Screening Technologies" (FAST). Basically the system is designed to spot "shifty" people who may be getting ready to commit a crime of some sort. The researchers behind it say that the early tests are incredibly effective: "We are running at about 78% accuracy on mal-intent detection, and 80% on deception." Of course, there are tons of questions about privacy violations and how long it will take criminals to figure out ways to "beat the system."

Obama's Magic

Jon Carroll recently wrote an interesting article about Obama and Palin. I couldn't agree more with what Jon has to say. I'm copy/pasting about half of the article here for ease of reading, but your can find the entire article at: Now the Fun Begins.

Yes, we're a polarized country. We're a bipolar country. Republicans seem bewildered by the appeal of Barack Obama. He has "some sort of magic," in the words of one local pundit. Well, yeah. Part of the magic is called oratory. It's been a known brain-clouder since at least ancient Greek times. Look, cadences and rhetorical devices designed to persuade the masses! What kind of witchcraft is this?

Republicans tend not to care about oratory - certainly their choices of presidential candidates indicate that. They seem to think it's cheating. I know it's a cheap shot, but let me mention the first Republican president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. They've come a long way since then, and not in the right direction.

And the other part of the Barack Obama magic, and I know we're not supposed to say this out loud, but: He's African American. Actually, half African, half Scottish American, which makes him really, truly American, a land where increasingly people are a little bit of everything, and they identify themselves according to preference, not according to genetic markers.

I think it would be really good if the United States had an African American president. There, I said it; call me a racist. I think it would be good if he was an African American president who gave really good speeches and had sensible ideas and a commitment to social justice. Sure, I disagree with him about stuff - can we say FISA? But his candidacy is basically a great idea. You know that whole slavery thing? This might go a way toward mitigating that.

Not that this counts as an endorsement. I could still vote for Barney Frank. But everywhere I look in this race, I see coded racial statements, and I hear the whispers that a black man can never get elected president no way no how. And I want to think better of my country than that, no matter what the country thinks of itself.

Look at it this way. I actually don't care about Sarah Palin's private life, any of it. In fact, she sounds like the kind of woman I might meet when I'm traveling in the West: small-town gal; nutty political ideas, but hey, it's the West; kind of mixed-up family life but a nice six-point buck over the fireplace. And I don't think the fact that her daughter is pregnant and not married has anything to do with her qualifications for public office. She's plenty disqualified on other grounds.

(OK, a small part of me does want to say, "That abstinence education thing; how's it working out for you?")

And yet ... imagine if it had been one of Barack Obama's daughters who was pregnant out of wedlock. (Imagine them a lot older, too.) Imagine the pundits going nuts. Imagine talk of the crumbling of the black family, the absent father, the culture of irresponsibility, the role of the churches, blah blah blah. Endless. Oh, we'd have a conversation about race, all right, and it would be just like the previous 812 conversations.

But does Sarah Palin represent the crumbling of the white family? Was the father's constant absences at sporting events the reason her daughter didn't get the attention she needed? Where was the church? Where ... oh, no, we're not having that conversation, because Sarah Palin is white and white families are doing just fine. Thank you, pundits. Take another week off.

I understand the Republicans had a something. I'm sure they ate well and drank well and agreed with each other. I'm happy for them.

YouTube To Ban Terrorist Videos

Recent Article on TechDirt - YouTube Bans Terrorism Videos; Don't You Feel Much Safer?

Back in May we wrote about Senator Joseph Lieberman demanding that YouTube remove a bunch of videos of terrorists. At the time, YouTube reviewed the videos in question, and took down the ones that violated the site's terms of service, but left most of them up, noting that the ones they left up did not promote hate speech nor show violence. As we pointed out at the time, trying to ban terrorists from posting videos to YouTube seems incredibly short-sighted. First, it won't work. Those videos will quickly pop back up on other sites that won't take them down. Second, most of those videos are preaching to the choir. It's unlikely that very many people are being recruited to the terrorists' causes by a grainy video on YouTube. Third, letting terrorists post their videos to a mainstream site like YouTube should help authorities figure out who's posting the videos and where they're coming from. Fourth, and most important, one of the key founding principles of this country is the right to free speech, no matter how much one might disagree with that speech. But, part of that principle is that it allows people to respond. So, yes, the videos may be pure propaganda, but there's no reason that people can't respond to the videos and show why they're propaganda and wrong. Confronting your critics is a reasonable stance. Demanding that they cannot speak is not. Yet, a bunch of folks have been sending in links to a story claiming that Google has now caved to Sen. Lieberman, and will now ban terrorist videos on YouTube. The article says that YouTube's new terms of service will ban footage that "advertises" terrorism or "extremist causes," which seems pretty broad, and certainly open to abuse. The article describes some videos that show how to commit violent acts -- but those were already banned by YouTube, so that's rather misleading. These new terms are more disturbing. It's not going to stop the videos, it's just going to make it harder to keep track of them, harder to counter them -- all while making the terrorists feel more legitimate. Terrorists should be tracked down and stopped -- absolutely. But we should be dealing with the actual problem of terrorists, not some videos they made.

A Message From John Scalzi

Dear Democrats, liberals and the like:

(tough love comments hidden behind the cut)

I know it’s a lot to ask at the moment, but could you possibly please stop publicly losing your shit all over the goddamn place? Honestly, it’s embarrassing. Did you really not know that coming out of the GOP convention, the GOP candidate might have a poll bounce? Likewise, were you somehow surprised that the GOP might try very hard to make this campaign about something other than actual issues? Did you expect them to try to run on the last eight years, or even pretend that they own them? What the fuck is wrong with you?

No, seriously: What the fuck is wrong with you? The GOP picks a woman VP 24 years after you do, for the same goddamn reason you did (a contentless call to shore up a shrinking base), and you act like you’ve never seen this movie before? I just don’t know what to say to you about that. Also: squirting yourself messy over a vice presidential candidate. Good fucking gravy, how off the fucking script can you possibly get. For God’s sake, she’s scandal-plagued Atwater spawn from a state with the population of Fort Worth, Texas, whose job it will be to work the lights of the Naval Observatory for four years. She’s a walking, taking advertisement for how easily placated religious conservatives are at this moment in history. She doesn’t walk on water, unless it’s frozen and the moose she’s hunting has wandered out on it. So will you please focus.

Read the full entry at: A Previous Message Repeated, Slightly More Forcefully