Iyow - in your own words

Cary Tennis’ words make me feel better for spending half my time at the student daily, while I was supposed to be at class at a highly expensive institution. (Although the ongoing banner ads for cash for eggs from fertile young women on the online site kind of puts it all in perspective again.)

Mostly though I feel like the most valuable gift from that time was getting truly engaged with something and plying the limits of your skills against your ambition. And the relationships you develop in that endeavour.

Now that all the excitement from the historic 2008 U.S. Presidential election has died down, Yuval Levin’s ‘The Meaning of Sarah Palin’ is the best analysis I’ve read yet on Sarah Palin and her symbolism, and why people reacted as they did to her. (And I’ve read a lot of them.)

It’s a fair and sober piece that understands the depth of Palin’s strengths – a stubborn belief in the importance of ethical government and the redeeming virtues of fair competition – as well as her (and more centrally McCain’s) electorally fatal deficiency in painting a full vision of why their beliefs would make Americans better off: “Palin’s potent combination of cultural populism and social conservatism might provide the roadmap a Republican politician will need in the future to make headway against the Democratic tide. But that roadmap will only take that Republican politician so far. The rest of the journey requires the articulation of a broader vision for American families, American prosperity and freedom, and American security; a vision of conservatism, not only a nimbus of populism.”

September 18th, 2008.

“It’s going down!” my buddy Chardmo yells.

I am awake.

“What’s going down?”

“The shit is hitting the fan!”

“When?” I mumble.

“Right fucking now! Let’s go! Move, Bitch! NYC for life!!”

I arise from my single bed that I have been sharing with Chardmo. My body comes alive. I can hear CNN rolling on our hotel’s Samsung TV set. I have no idea what the reporter is talking about. However, I can tell by his tone that the economic
excitement that kicked off this week is still in full effect.

“Let’s move!”

“Jesus. Alright. What’s the rush?” I mutter walking to the shower.

“Lehman Brothers. Wall Street. Now.”

...

Lehman Brothers was the same as the days before. Police barriers, reporters, camera crews littered the entrance of their corporate lobby. We walked by, making stupid comments, “Nice one guys.” We stood there for a minute; it felt a little strange. I thought maybe we should lay down some flowers.

Just off the Rue Yvonne-le-Tac, and no less unsettling, is the Fondue Refuge. ‘Fondue’ and ‘Refuge’ are two words not often seen together, and—even independently—a cause for mild concern when used in the name of restaurant….

Down along the wall from us was an American ski bum with his new girlfriend, trying to look swarthy while latched onto a nipple. No adult looks cool sucking on a nipple. Quite the opposite: It can be quite uncomfortable watching your aging friends across the table sucking rapturously on a bottle.

It’s especially hard to quantify feelings and conversations in social science, but kudos to Pew Excellence in Journalism for taking an excellent stab at it. Full article here.

The current presidential election is on OpenSecrets.org, this election has already surpassed the entire 2004 presidential cycle in total money raised—$895 million compared to $864 million. And we’re just getting started.

Barack Obama has raised a whopping $235 million to date. Hillary Clinton has pulled in $189 million and Republican John McCain has surged to nearly $100 million since becoming the nominee. The vast majority of these contributions have come from individuals like you and me. And so, my question for those thousands of generous and passionate donors out there is this: Which part of the election have you liked best so far?

Was it the fact that the Democratic primary gave us our first televised debate in history that treated name calling and character assassination as virtually the only worthy topic of conversation? Maybe it was Hillary Clinton’s revival of the infamous Southern Strategy, relying on not-so-veiled appeals to racial prejudice to win. Or maybe it was the spectacle of an Obama adviser whispering in the ear of a concerned Canadian official something to the effect of, “Don’t worry about the anti-NAFTA rhetoric. That’s just the stuff we have to say to win elections.” Or maybe it’s McCain’s public delousing to remove evangelists that somehow got embedded in the skin of his campaign, including Texan John Hagee, author of the notion that God sent Hitler to help the Jews reach the promise land.

Hee hee, if I could do it over again, I would want to be Tina Fey when I grew up… though it seems I’m already grown up.

Oh well.

This sort of stuff sent me straight to the Land of Nod in college, but it looks like political markets may be more accurate predictors than the entertaining-but-often-wrong talking heads on TV.

Justin Wolfers at the Wall Street Journal
reminds readers that the political markets figured out the Democratic takeover of Congress during the midterm elections an hour before the talking heads assimilated all the data coming.

Some fun ones to watch:

Hillary Clinton’s going price/chances for the 2008 Democratic nomination.
Barack Obama’s for same.

Hillary’s chances of winning the CA Democratic primary.
Obama’s for same.

WASHINGTON – Super secret satellite photos taken in September of this year reveal greatly increased activity at the Putin Soul Simulator site in Northern Siberia, Pentagon sources revealed today.

The news comes after repeated claims by Kremlin spokesmen that Russia is abiding by the new anti-soul-simulator proliferation treaty signed last year in Chennai, India.

“Obviously, we now have to view those Russian statements with a high degree of skepticism,” said U.S. Air Force Captain Rick Pego. “At about 0600 on the date in question, that place was lit up like a friggin’ Christmas tree.”

Tim Wu of Slate says that Google is trying to take over the world with its Android Gphone, but its really just another front in its war against closed, proprietary systems. Taking over the world may just be a side effect.

Who cares? In short, everyone should care – the results of Google trying to take on the big bell companies could have major benefits for consumers, small entrepreneurs, and every kid curious enough to try to make something work a little better.

Viva Net Neutrality! – for as long as we can make it last.