Welcome Blog Action Day listeners.  Thanks Eric, Dawn, and Easton for having me on the show.

Now, let’s back up our talk with action:

Breadlines and Battlecries – a call for you all to get involved in your society today.

A way to fight poverty in Los Angeles.

A way to prevent future poverty everywhere.

A way you might not have thought of to help fight urban poverty and despair: change our nation’s drug policies.

More on my agitate page.

I really want to push for everyone to feel that the Obama candidacy might be their best choice – Democrats, Republicans and independents – and that everyone should evaluate him regardless of their affiliation.  But it needs to be said that none have been betrayed by their “leaders” the way Republicans have.  Their party was hijacked by a few dozen neoconservative criminals, and our global reputation and economy are in tatters as a result.  The Republican party under Bush abandoned its ideals, and many Republicans are finding considerably more they like about Obama than they do about McCain.

I know more than a few smart Republicans – young and old school – who are supporting Obama.  But many of them don’t talk about it, or, if they do, not very loudly.  I hope that over the next couple of months they’ll speak a bit more loudly, because this is a candidacy that everyone should seriously consider.

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I’ve often whined in these pages about various modalities I enjoy online and, also, my frustrations with some of them.  A couple of years ago, right after the great big anorexia brouhaha of 2006, I remarked that folks seemed to be starving for conversation, and online tools hadn’t matured to the point where it could happen very well.

What I really love about blogging – other than getting my opinion out there and pissing people off – is curating.  I love finding cool, random things that inspire or touch me in some way and sharing them with all of you.  My hope is that you see, read, or feel things you would not have otherwise.

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Chief Bratton, who feels the Paparazzi Task Force is a waste of time (I agree with him), just said on MSNBC:

“Since Britney started wearing clothes and behaving, Paris is out of town not bothering anybody anymore – thank God – and evidently Lindsay Lohan has gone gay, we don’t seem to have much of an issue.”

Hey, man, don’t blame me for Linsday – I tried.

Robert Scoble suggested today that if he could make one rule about the Internet, it would be “no anonymity.”  I like Robert but I don’t like his idea.

Laura Fitton asked: “What one ‘rule’ would you make about the Internet?”, and in the thread that resulted, Robert replied that he’d eliminate anonymity. Read the rest of this entry »

Bryan Burrough has penned a riveting article in the August issue of Vanity Fair exploring the death of Bear Stearns.  Did CNBC reporter David Faber murder it?  (No, but what an interesting media angle the piece contains.)  Was it a hit job by shadowy speculators?  Or did it just die of exposure to years of toxic, high-leverage mortgage shenanigans?

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On McClellan, intellectual weakness, and loyalty.

A few months ago when excerpts of his book proposal had leaked, GW professor Jonathan Turley had some harsh words about the conspiracy surrounding Valerie Plame, and the subsequent cover-up.

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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.

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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.