Google has been trying to prohibit people from photographing their trade show booth at the Web 2.0 Expo. I’m getting really sick of all this. While this pales in comparison to the kind of photographer harassment I’ve whined about in the past, it does demonstrate a continuing odd attitude held by many toward photographers in public places. It’s one thing if you’re a badge-drunk sheriff’s deputy in San Antonio -but quite another for a forward-thinking technology company. It makes even less sense for a company that takes pictures of public streets and buildings and then makes them publicly available.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks, ABC, for an hour of “debate” that (unless I missed one) didn’t cover a single substantive issue. Thanks for asking about flag pins, people the candidates met 40 years ago, sniper fire, and favorite ice cream (or did I make that one up?)

It’s borderline criminal - and we wonder why good people don’t give a shit about politics. Thanks for the circus; you could at least have fed me during it.

You’d think by now the internet had everything.  You’d, of course, be wrong.  Tonight, I saw a teaser for SNL with Christopher Walken and (why is she sexy?) Kristen Wiig.

Read the rest of this entry »

A good piece from Noonan - choice quote:

“What, really, is Mrs. Clinton doing? She is having the worst case of cognitive dissonance in the history of modern politics.”

Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen pen a good article on Politico about the endless Clinton BS.

“The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe… Journalists, for instance, have become partners with the Clinton campaign in pretending that the contest is closer than it really is.”

I agree wholeheartedly - the media is accused of being in love with Obama - but, I ask: had he lost twelve contests in a row as Clinton did prior to Ohio, would he have been portrayed as still relevant?

Seth Godin asks, how many record label executives does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A great article by Glenn Greenwald on the American media, the disturbing results of its symbiosis with the political elite, and some comparisons with the British press. (The last video is the most painful, BTW.)

This study reminded me of the piece I wrote a while back about Myspace hysteria and the media.  Also, see Pogue’s piece.

A few years ago I used to opine that those faux-daredevil shows like “Fear Factor” were only interesting to see the gross (but undangerous) things people would do for small amounts of cash - and I joked that they’d only really be good when the people were actually in danger. Sure, it’s sickly fun to watch a cute 19 year old girl in a cutoff t-shirt struggle to eat a dozen plump, fresh bull testicles - but hardly is there any real risk involved. Those shows need real stakes, I thought.

However, having been exposed to FOX’s “Moment of Truth” show tonight, I see that we’re there, and in a much more tragic way than I had imagined. Read the rest of this entry »

Stay tuned for more about Zeno Media.

A couple Senate colleagues commented today that McCain was a little prickly in the Senate from time to time. Yawn. Tonight, MSNBC’s Olbermann brought it up with Eugene Robinson, associate editor of the Washington Post.

Olbermann: “The temper allegation that was made, is that one that’s actually of substance?”

Robinson: “Oh, I think that’s the one we gotta be concerned about. You don’t want the guy with his finger on The Button to have a temper problem. In fact, you don’t want The Button anywhere near him if he goes off..”

Are you fucking kidding me? That’s the one we gotta be concerned about? Is this really a mature, substantive, realistic piece of analysis? Setting aside for a moment that there is no fucking button (people know that, right?) - is the implication really that Senator McCain could just be feeling pissed and grumpy one day, and bring forth nuclear Armageddon? Can we please have some honest discussions about the issues, not this cartoony-horse-racey-bullshit that even MSNBC is caught up in? Please? Damn.. and when poor Ron Paul dares suggest we have an honest debate about American foreign policy, guys like Robinson are the first to laugh him off.

Anyway, I’m lucky that California’s Democratic Party lets independents like me vote in their primary. I’ll be doing just that tomorrow, enthusiastically and optimistically voting for Barack Obama. His servers are having a bit of trouble right now (can’t yet decide if that’s good or bad - I guess it’s OK if it lasts a few minutes, but pretty bad if they stay hosed all night.)

I encourage you all to do the same (get out and vote for Obama, not crash your servers.)

I love U2. But their manager, Paul McGuinness, is demonstrating that he not only has very little understanding about technology, but also that he’s quite ignorant about the forces actually responsible for killing the music industry - such as the industry’s own unwillingness to adapt to digital music and its obstructionist tactics over the past five years. If this is how the industry wants to behave, then good fucking riddance.

[h/t Lauren Weinstein]

Great piece by Anne Applebaum at Slate.  One of my faves, Natalia Vodianova, scores a mention.

The Center for Public Integrity has assembled an impressive dossier illustrating the lies bandied about by the Bush Administration leading up to the attack on Iraq.  The Center’s War Card project documents nearly 1,000 verifiably false statements.  Spend some time there, and while doing so, reflect on the civilian, military, and diplomatic damage caused by these lies.

In a surprise to just about everyone, Clinton eked out a win in New Hampshire overnight. I’ll let the other pundits speculate on why we were wrong, but New Hampshire delegates are split by vote. So, Obama and Clinton leave NH with the same number of delegates - nine. This makes for no clear front-runner on either the Democratic or Republican sides - admittedly how it should be when fewer than 1% of voters have made a peep. So, the next few weeks into “Super Duper Tuesday” are all the more significant. If you haven’t already, help Barack Obama.

Nice piece over at R/W/Web.

“The presidency is a bacterium. It finds the open wounds in the people who hold it. It infects them, and the resulting scandals infect the presidency and the country. The person with the fewest wounds usually does best in the White House, and is best for the country.”

Cool piece by David Brooks today.

She took all those pictures, and we don’t even get to see her fight the cop?  Awwww.

My friend David Gelles wrote contributes some lift to Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.

Former CIA agent and State Department counterterrorism official Larry Johnson told Bill Press today that he believes it’s “highly likely” that President Bush has seen at least one of these torture tapes.  Here, the audio.