Introducing Judge Sonia Sotomayor

President Obama's message:

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

Late-night, couchified thought: some people like Omelas just the way it is, thank you very much.

Am I really a PC?

Of all the wi-fi networks I've tried connecting to while waiting on Greta's door cable to get fixed, the "Apple Store" broadcast is the only one that actually works.

Go figure.

Mikiphone... portable phonograph

(h/t to Boing Boing)

Carlos on Tavis

for Carlos (haiku)

black magic shaman
eighteen inches mind to heart
journey of the soul

Haiku for a busy mind

white noise

pause white noise rewind

rules bending pulp to wood stand

wind filtering stone

Today in tech history...

From Wired:

1975: The pioneering computer-hobbyist group, The Homebrew Computer Club, holds its first meeting in a Silicon Valley garage. From its ranks will emerge industry pioneers like Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and hacker John Draper, aka Captain Crunch.

It started with a flyer just for geeks posted on bulletin boards (the cork kind). "Are you building your own computer? Terminal? TV Typewriter? I/O device? Or some other digital black-magic box? If so, you might like to come to a gathering."

Who knows - maybe some of this Facebook-friending or Twitter-following will revolutionize society years from now.

Guess I should update more often!

after commenting on PJ's blog...

...I really needed to check my memory against the video evidence.



Yep. Still holds up.

"Brand New Funk" is one of my suggestions for PJ's mixtape project. Go check out his post and leave suggestions in the comments.

Dr. King swats away 40-year prediction

We're ready now: BBC archive

It's been a long time...

An interesting article by Jay Rosen I stumbled upon while scrolling through Huff Post takes a look at journalism's soft underbelly.

Audience Atomization Overcome

It's helpful to see an alternate model to journalistic "objectivity" used to analyze the inherent politics of news-making.

(...I shouldn't have kept you)

Alec on the Internets

Marta's former colleague, our friend, and a father of 3... I present: Mr. Ross.


(Today's word - agita - makes an appearance at about 1:50).

Ballin' with the Best

In case you missed it, Marta's working on the Transition Team! Gettin' face-time on the change.gov website, too!

Trudat

I told some friends this weekend I'd have to buy Ebony magazine for the first time in my adult life.

Why?

Why ask why?

The Takeover!

(h/t to Ta-Nehisi Coates)

In Our Lifetime!!

President. Barack. Hussein. Obama.

No, no, I'm gonna vote!!

Easily the best form message I've ever received:

Dear Jomo,

You're in this video. Check it out!



Remember Florida in 2000--the election was decided by just over 500 votes. Imagine what it would feel like if you didn't vote, the election went the wrong way, and, well--it was actually your fault?

With the help of our friends at MoveOn.org, we've prepared a video that paints that picture, with you, Jomo, in it. It's a funny and scary reminder of how important voting is. After you watch, it's easy to send to your friends and family with their names in it, along with a simple email from you saying "hey, looks like you're in this video." They'll be surprised; they'll think it's funny, and most of all, it'll make them think twice about the importance of their vote.

Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Gabriel, Clarissa, Andre, Kai, and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org PAC team
October 27th, 2008

The Obama Effect?

As a subscriber to Modern Jackass, I'm glad to see the Bradley Effect explained and examined in this post by Daniel Okrent.

His five points seem reasonable enough to me. But racism confounds reason, so I guess we'll have to wait and see how this all plays out.

One more thing, Mr. Nutjob... about your paper's candidate

Setting aside for the moment who's to blame for this mess, what about getting us out of it? Your paper endorses the senior citizenSenator from Arizona. What's he doing these days to resolve the fiscal crisis? Let's check in on that real quick:

And so, a bailout proposal that once seemed likely to pass now is back to negotiations. In the process, Secretary Paulson was reduced to getting on his knees to beg House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to have her party members bail on the proposal; President Bush was forced to ponder a market meltdown on his watch; and Democrats were left fuming that in a bid for the leadership spotlight, John McCain may have simply gone and fouled things up.

"Bush is no diplomat," said a Democratic staffer, "but he's Cardinal freaking Richelieu compared to McCain. McCain couldn't negotiate an agreement on dinner among a family of four without making a big drama with himself at the heroic center of it. And then they'd all just leave to make themselves a sandwich."

Smooth move.

A wee bit of wonkery

On WTOP this morning, some nutjob from the Washington Times said the current fiscal crisis is the fault of overregulation, specifically the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977.

A primer:

The Community Reinvestment Act (or CRA, Pub.L. 95-128, title VIII, 91 Stat. 1147, 12 U.S.C. § 2901 et seq.) is a United States federal law that requires banks and thrifts to offer credit throughout their entire market area and prohibits them from targeting only wealthier neighborhoods with their services, a practice known as "redlining." The purpose of the CRA is to provide credit, including home ownership opportunities to underserved populations and commercial loans to small businesses. It has been subjected to important regulatory revisions.

Now, explain to me, Mr. Nutjob, how did a law to prohibit financial institutions from "redlining" force Wall Street whiz kids to create sophisticated credit default swaps and leverage themselves out of business? That's (CRA is, according to Mr. Nutjob) a magic bullet with an incredibly slow velocity, taking fully 31 years to pierce the heart of global finance. No less a personage than the estimable Warren Buffet criticizes these pieces of hokum as "financial weapons of mass destruction". But, again, Mr. Nutjob says it's not the whiz kids and their FWMDs, it's the poor folks who used CRA to get a house, that are to blame for this mess.

But that's not the point of this post. The point is when I pointed all this out to my wife, who was driving me to work, she asked why I don't do political work instead of political armchair quarterbacking.

Good question.

I holler at the TV a lot. Maybe one day I'll be on TV hollering instead. I dig this wonkery stuff.

Hanna who?

We thought Hanna was supposed to be some kind of storm. I actually bought a tarp, finagled it into the gap between our porch and the Nicholson's porch, and set up an elaborate system of towel rotation-to-spin cycle water damage prevention in our leaky basement.

For what? A little bit of a trickle? It's been an hour and my towels aren't soaked through. Hanna, you disappoint.

P.S.,
Not to disregard the very real damage done. It just didn't happen so much at our house.

P.P.S., The tally:
$ 5.97 >12 towels
$ 9.27 >200 'rags-in-a-box'
$22.98 >9'x12' tarp (flammable!)
$ 2.20 >sales tax
$40.42 >total earned by Home Depot #2583