The weoarld wide worb

Parity Party

2009-02-02T21:16:00.005-07:00

The NFL finds its dynastic days at an end, and births a number of real teams out of the ash-heaps of age-old joke squads.

The Steelers are not the dynasty of the '00s. Really, two in four is good, but not great. The Patriots are also not said dynasty. In an amazing twist of fate, the perennially disappointing Giants, who in the '90s did a turn as whipping-boys for much better Super Bowl teams, beat the indefatigable Pats in the eleventh hour. The dynasty of the decade--though other than for Ravens and for Buccaneers, it's a broken dynasty at best--is the underdog. Sixty percent of Super Bowls in the last ten years have included a first-time contender for the Lombardi. The teams that we used to make our little brothers control in Super Tecmo Bowl (and those Bucs '90s unis in 8-bit were glorious) now have trophies, and in some cases, rings.

These are the teams of our times--squads with tiny fanbases in towns where most people have either stuck with the next closest team or given up on football altogether.

I moved here to Phoenix in August and was happy to hear that our Cards were doing alright, even if they were in a crappy division. I was really excited that we made it into the playoffs, and elated to beat the Falcons. Then we advanced again. Then again...wait. The Arizona Cardinals were in the Super Bowl? This was the team you could count on being beaten by your horrible home team. Your one sure win. And suddenly I was a die-hard. I am an Arizona Cardinals fan.

The AP tells of 4,000 fans at the airport for the Cards' return home after losing the Super Bowl. Awesome. A man from Surprise (aptly-named!) called them "the big red band of brothers". Word up. I officially join all those crazy Titans, Ravens, Bucs, Seahawks, and Panthers fans in supporting a team whose best years are ahead of, not behind them. Let's hear it for the Big Red Band.

The Real Palin Effect

2008-09-11T12:11:00.005-06:00

I am sad to inform you that it's PAY-lin, not PAL-in. Or is it?

My wife and I were sitting in an undisclosed Arizona Motor Vehicles Department office, switching our licenses and registering our vehicle, when, of course, the dude at the window started talking politics. It makes sense--we registered to vote (except there was a problem with mine) and we were obviously Mormon and therefore conservatives, even though neither of us registered as a member of a party.

He said, "So, my brother-in-law is always watching Fox News--now everyone says Fox News is biased, but, you know, they're out there on their own, and you know, it's usually the lone wolf out there that's the one that's right--so, and I saw McCain's running mate, that Sarah ['pejlIn], and you know who she reminds me of?"

I was really hoping Elaine from Seinfeld. I really think she looks like Elaine.

"You know, Lynda Carter from the old Wonder Woman days? Yeah..."

"I always thought she looked like Elaine from Seinfeld."

"Hey, that's a good one, but I think she's way better-looking than Elaine from Seinfeld. So, you know, dress McCain up in his military uniform and ['pejlIn] up in the Wonder Woman outfit, and it's like Major [Steve Trevor] and Wonder Woman--"

"What a presidency!"

Yikes. a) Yikes. b) Cindy would transform into a thing that makes the Cloverfield monster look like Barney and eat Washington whole. And I wouldn't blame her.

Yes, my friends, this is the Palin Effect, other than torquing me royal 'cause I think it should be pronounced ['pælIn]. Comparisons to the girl next door, to Elaine, and to Wonder Woman. Life into people who were afraid to be Republicans. It's as if Bob Dole were to have been given Adam Sandler as his VP candidate instead of, wow I really have to look this up, Jack Kemp! Right! Kemp! All of a sudden, McCain's gone from boring old guy to boring old guy with cool running mate.

Anyhow, that's the Palin Effect--making Slate writers coach Biden in fear. Making the polls look neck-and-neck. Making "lipstick on a pig" comments inappropriate. Making DMV workers say really strange things. Is it "Star Power" or just a flash in the pan? The world will only know in November.

The New Numbers

2008-09-08T14:05:00.002-06:00

Why reports about national polling numbers can be safely ignored.

Big news! Polls taken after the Republican National Convention have John McCain up by as much as ten points! How can Barack Obama possibly recover from this? Is the election already wrapped up?

Hardly. Pundits tend to emphasize national polling numbers as a way of taking the pulse of the nation as a whole, but that's not the way presidents are elected. As we learned in high school civics class, the electoral college is responsible for choosing a new president, and those electors are chosen on a state-by-state basis. It's the individual state polls we need to look at, and those mask a significant advantage for the Barackstar.

Pollster.com is a great source for analyzing current numbers for any of the states. Using that as a guide, we see that Obama holds statistically significant leads (at least five points) in enough states to account for 243 electoral votes. That's huge, considering a candidate only needs 270 to win. John McCain, on the other hand, can only claim safe leads enough to pick up 179 votes. That leaves 116 votes in swing states, though it's telling that most of those states have been safely Republican in recent elections. Let's examine, shall we?

Traditionally Republican Swing States (90)

Montana (3)
Colorado (9)
North Dakota (3)
Virginia (13)
North Carolina (15)
Florida (27)
Ohio (20)

Traditionally Democratic Swing States (26)

Nevada (5)
Michigan (17)
New Hampshire (4)

We can read two things from this. First, it's possible that since so many more electoral votes are from traditionally Republican states, Johnny Mac stands to pick up more than the Barackstar. That's certainly possible. It's equally worrisome for McCain that so many traditionally Republican states are up in the air, though. When was the last time Montana's vote was in question? Or North Dakota? It's possible that the addition of Sarah "Frostbite" Palin could shore up the conservative vote in those states, but that still remains to be seen. My evaluation is that McCain is in worse shape than the mainstream media would like us to believe. Strange though it may sound, the MSM could be biased in favor of McCain rather than the Barackstar.

One last harrowing thought - if each set of swing states holds like we have laid them out here, then the electoral vote will be tied at 269, throwing the decision to the House of Representatives. Are you any happier than I am about the prospect of Nancy Pelosi choosing our nation's next president?

Pop Politics

2008-09-08T09:54:00.005-06:00

Is your party alignment really dependent upon what you call a carbonated beverage? Just a little bit.

While up late eating everything in our pantry, I realized this one thing: There's a cultural divide in America. What? you say. This is a big discovery, you say. I know, I know. I'm just brilliant like that. No, hear me out. There's a cultural divide in America, and it should be visible in American English. Cultural divides very often create language shifts. It seems cultural boundaries fit themselves to linguistic boundaries, and vice versa. Well, my friends, it seems that the "Pop vs. Soda" site is backing me up on this one. Note:

Places that use "soda" primarily are definitely blue (Democrat, not blue on the map, though this is the case).
Places that use "coke" primarily are definitely red (Republican, see above).
Places that use "pop" primarily are mostly red.
Places that are sparsely populated:
If they're mostly "pop" they're probably red.
If they're mostly soda, with a significant mix of either or both of the others, they're probably swing states.
Washington, Oregon, and Arizona are a little weird here, but that may be because it's an internet poll, and people like to prove their own points, inappropriately.
Indiana. What the crap?

Further, note that there's a divide, geographically between West Coast and East Coast Dems, but that there's the coke/pop divide between Red States, which corresponds mostly to the Western Republican/Southern (Christian) Republican divide apparent in U.S. Politics.

So, in the end, look at this nice county map of it all and wonder, why didn't we think of this before? I'm going to start calling Arizonans "soda Republicans" and that's that.

*Special thanks to David Bowie (not the rather more famous rock star of the same name) of University of Central Florida for apprising me of this map's existence.

Why the World Doesn't Need Google Chrome

2008-09-06T12:56:00.005-06:00

It's because Firefox still exists!

Man, I don't know that I need to say more than that. Yes, Chrome, Google's new browser, is designed to be faster. Yes, it is supposed to keep one site from crashing the whole app. The tab shuts down, but not the browser. Awesome. Now, does it have the open-source developer support that can block the wretched banners from appearing on facebook? Answer: hecks no. Mozdev is awesome. That is all. Bye.

P.S. I still think that Google is a good company, and not the demon some people make it out to be.

Wait, What Just Happened?

2008-09-05T12:39:00.005-06:00

Content notwithstanding, Mac's acceptable acceptance speech gets contradictory reports of review.

Id est, The Guardian, well known for reporting from the hip, claims that everyone though Mac's spiel was a one way ticket to Boresville, or more appropriately to the outlet, Borington Cross. The U.S. News and World Report says everyone liked it. Now, the USNWR is also known for being a one-way ticket to Dull County, but really, did everyone like it or everyone hate it? The Beeb says the reactions were mixed and Salon calls it empty (you can search for Salon yourself, I refuse to link to it).

Here's what he said: I'm a maverick. Let's stop spending so much. Obama, I shake hands with you before we go at it, octagon-style. It wasn't a bad speech. It wasn't a great speech. It was a decent speech, and what he mostly talked about was, strangely enough, change. It's interesting to note that Obama galvanized the primaries with Hope and Change and then switched to Explaining My Platform and Mac went from Explaining My Platform to Hope and Change. Funny things, these elections.

Obama. Biden. McCain. Sarah. None of these people is a demon.

This is what I learned from the RNC: Mac is not actually a doddering old fool. I thought he was, and I guess I listened to a lot of blue rhetoric there, but having defended Obama so hard in the past was wading through the same kind of crap, delivered by red-staters. I still don't think he's the man for the job, but if he [Mac] wins, I won't move to Canada. Necessarily. I might move to Canada anyway, but it won't be because I'm afraid of our president. It's 'cause Canada has awesome food.

Barrow

2008-09-04T13:04:00.000-06:00

Another in an increasingly oddly named series of worbticles about Sarah Palin's ability or inability to lead. Today, it's about why the Democrats' rhetoric is misplaced, why Sarah's rhetoric is misplaced, and why I prefer to call her Sarah.

So, I've only read the text of the speech--I didn't listen to Sarah's inflection--but I'll tell you this: I don't think McCain's selection was off the cuff or anything of the sort. Gut feelings vs. safe choices aside, I think that this was thought out by the Mac Camp. Perhaps they even knew about Bristol, although I bet the seventeen-year-old didn't tell her mommy until the nomination was in the bag. That's how teenagers think.

On, on to the economy, stupids. Sarah talks about drilling Alaska. Drill Alaska, she says. That was the whole idea, but she took a long time on it. In fact, despite that CNN labels her speech an Obama-bash, the oil economy is her primary focus. Let's not deny it, this is an ingenious move if this is why Mac chose her (and come on, I'm pretty sure this is). Americans want to be rid of foreign oil dependency. I want to be rid of oil in general, but America's not ready for that, at least on the right.

So, that's a good plan, if you've got one. But, in the end, what this proves is that we can't just throw away Sarah 'cause her daughter's pregnant, and we can't throw away Mac if his plan is to Drill the Heck out of the Great White American North.

Also, she doesn't really look like a VP, but she does look like someone you'd chat with at the PTA or whatnot. Hockey mom image accurate or not, I can't call her Palin anymore, and will reserve that for the Python of the same name.

Live from St. Paul...

2008-09-03T21:40:00.002-06:00

It's Wednesday night.

The Worb's coverage of the Republican National Convention has been a bit sparser than the DNC. My apologies - I was actually watching Home Alone tonight with my wife. In the few speeches I've taken in, however, I've noticed somewhat of a theme - national security. That's the watchword for the Republicans this year, and it's a good one. Most of America associates the Democratic Party with the phrase "soft on terror." Nearly every speaker has hit hard on the fact that if nothing else, President Bush has kept us safe, as evidenced by the fact that there have been no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001. (Personally, I don't know that he can claim such to his credit any more than he could claim credit for the attacks themselves, but that's neither here nor there.) Security, security, security. A vote for Obama is a vote for defeat. Vote for Obama and the terrorists win. It's repetitive, sure, but it's also effective. This is the party's strongest weapon, and you'd better believe they'll keep using it.

However, what you won't hear about here is the economy. As much as the Republicans would like to place the blame for the souring economy on the shoulders of the Democrat-led Congress, most of America associates the economic slowdown with the Republican Party. You heard a lot about the economy during the DNC. That's their strong point. So essentially, the election in November looks like it will come down to one issue: which do Americans value more, national security or the economy? If I'm a betting man, I'm picking the economy. After all, that's more or less how it turned out in 1992. Bush was a war hero and had successfully managed the Gulf War. People thought he was a shoo-in in November, until the economy turned south. And that's when the old catch phrase showed up: it's the economy, stupid. (Actually, if you follow that link and look at the three tenets of Clinton's campaign, you'll find that it could be Obama's campaign this year.)

In other news, the speakers at the RNC have been, more or less, stand up comedians. Everyone wants to take a jab at Obama. (Can you blame them? The DNC speakers did the same thing with McCain.) Rudy Giuliani got some nice zingers in tonight, such as, "I'm sorry that Barack Obama feels that [Sarah Palin's] hometown isn't cosmopolitan enough. ... Maybe they cling to religion there." Even Laura Bush got in on the action last night, saying that her husband's accomplishments were "change you can really believe in." Ooh dang! Here's looking forward to more zingers from the main man himself tomorrow night.

Nome

2008-09-02T18:39:00.002-06:00

More about - surprise - the Sarah Palin circus.

Ben, I hope I didn't come across as overtly criticizing Palin. I'm certainly not implying that the Obama camp should start criticizing her. In fact, she's about the one thing about the McCain campaign that they can't touch. The issue is that her inexperience and associated liabilities are very different than Obama's.

Having children in difficult life circumstances doesn't disqualify her from the vice presidency. Almost the opposite, actually - blue-collar Americans can identify with the situation she's in. I'm just worried that with all the emphasis she's put on her family lately, at some point she will choose family over duty, which is something I'd prefer not to see from our vice president. (The VP does do some important things, actually. Dick Cheney has made the position far more important and powerful than the "warm bucket of spit" the office used to be.) Obama has two young children as well, and so one could conceivably turn the tables, except that Obama hasn't made as big a deal of his family as Palin has. It's not quite the same thing.

The issue of inexperience is worth looking at, too. Both have had relatively little time in major political offices, but I'd have to give the experience edge to Obama. While he's only had four years on the national stage, his four years have come in the Senate. He knows the people he will have to work with in Congress should he become the president. He's had a chance to gain some foreign policy experience. While Palin has had experience actually governing in her two years over Alaska, one has to remember that it's Alaska. If Alaska were a metro area, it would be slightly larger than Knoxville, but slightly smaller than Akron. It's governing experience, yes, but on a far smaller stage than the national one. And while it's true that she'll only be the vice president, in McCain's case it's a real worry that she could have to take over for him, possibly even in the first term. (We all wish John McCain a long and healthy life, but you have to consider the possibilities.) Her inexperience is far more pronounced than Obama's.

Let's also apply the final smell test. Say each of these to yourself: "President Obama." "President Palin."

The real issue, though, is that this pick isn't so much about Palin's weaknesses and flaws as McCain's. This is the first big decision he's had to make as the Republican nominee, and there are some real worries about it. It's becoming increasingly clear that he made it very quickly, possibly in as little as two days. Sound a little like the Decider to anyone else? For a campaign that has been trying as hard as possible to convince people that a McCain term would not be a third term for Bush, the nominee has been more than a little off-message.

Day One of the RNC

2008-09-02T17:04:00.003-06:00

Nothing in this world scares me more than Cindy McCain.

I mean, John's oldest son, Douglas, is only five years younger than her. She is also creepy-looking, like a cheerleader for First Lady. Just go watch the First Lady Nominee Presumptive and the First Lady banter. Say what you will about Dubya, but I still think Laura is a classy lady. She makes me feel like she's America's Mom, even when Dad is going through a steady mental decay. It's sad really.

Either way, day one was mostly a bunch of governors talking about Gustav, which thankfully did not destroy New Orleans for good. Other than that, to recap: Laura = nice, Cindy = frightening.

Anchorage

2008-09-02T14:50:00.001-06:00

In defense of hockey mom vice presidents.

Note: Ben always has to start with "Now, I'm not really a Republican, but..."

I think my counterpart may have been a little too hard on Sarah Palin.

A couple of points: Sarah and Todd gave a great little speech about little Bristol's huge tiny mistake, which showed a) they're not afraid of this becoming public, and they were wise enough to bring the media to their backyard instead of getting invaded and b) they're nice folk whose daughters actually marry their baby daddies.

The joy of Palin for the GOP is that, like Optimistic said, they won't hit her hard over Bristolgate cause it alienates the single mother demographic. Also, if they want to avoid the "elitist" image O's trying so hard to shake, they won't say a thing. Or about her other kids, especially the one with Down's. Seriously, what are going to say? "Why did you birth a retard?" That's real nice.

Personally, I like Palin more than Biden, even though my conscience constrains me not to vote for Mac. Why? I like the hockey mom thing. I like that she's got kids at home. I like that she's like the rest of the flipping country, trying to make some sense out of their daughter getting pregnant at 17.

What does a Vice President do anyway? If Quayle can do it, anyone can.

Juneau

2008-09-01T17:01:00.003-06:00

Even more drama to the Sarah Palin pick.

As if the Sarah Palin pick wasn't already surprising enough, there's another fun little tidbit to think about now - Palin's 17-year old daughter Bristol was revealed today to be teen pregnant. (I really wish I could claim the title of this post as my own, but it's borrowed from Slate's XX Factor blog.) This is just the latest development in the Palin candidacy that is fast becoming a five-ring circus. Who is this woman? Is she even qualified to take office? What's the deal with the state trooper she fired who turned out to be her brother-in-law? What about her son she chose to deliver, even though he has Down syndrome?

This makes a sticky situation for the Democrats, who would love to tear this woman apart, yet are afraid to do so and risk alienating their already fragile base of women voters. Even still, this bears examination under a nonpartisan microscope. Is this someone we really want to be in the White House, even as a vice president? Consider the following things that could demand her attention in a meeting:

A young baby with Down syndrome.
News from her son in Iraq.
A teenage daughter with a child of her own and a teenage husband.
Her other two children, aged fourteen and seven.

Do you think that these might demand her attention away from her job at some point? I'm sure that she could have aides deal with her children sometimes, but she's made a point of saying that she's a "hockey mom" and how important her family is to her. Experience aside, it worries me that we could potentially have a vice president whose priorities are elsewhere.

The whole saga is starting to remind me of Tom Eagleton in 1972, who accepted the VP spot under George McGovern only to retract it 18 days later after reports surfaced that he had undergone electroshock therapy for physical and nervous exhaustion. Eagleton ended up on a ticket because he was only cursorily vetted, something that campaigns go to great pains to avoid today. One wonders if McCain's campaign may have made the same mistake. Palin was probably chosen to draw new attention to the McCain campaign, but this may have been more than they bargained for.

The RNC's Boisterous Force 3 Speaker

2008-08-31T18:23:00.003-06:00

Karma for McCain after breaking the Dead Week tradition of silence.

McCain announcing Palin right after the DNC is fair game, but his announcement mid-week that he'd made his veep selection was a little gauche. Apparently the Gulf of Mexico agrees. Gustav, the hurricane that may remove all hope of New Orleans' eventual recovery is making waves all the way in St. Paul. The GOP announced that Monday would be a reduced schedule for the convention--all business, no "rhetoric", according to reports that went in to CNN.

I personally think this is a very good move by the GOP, to try not to touch anything that involves Nawlins after the flap over the response to Katrina. The Worb will keep you updated as the RNC progresses.

Prolonging the Maverick

2008-08-30T08:51:00.004-06:00

Why McCain/Palin need to reinvent Republicanism, or put the heat on the donkey.

Here's a statement you don't want to make on the internet: I am a registered Republican. I'm registered in Colorado, where I haven't lived since 2006, but there you have it. I would have cared enough to do this in Utah, but registering Democrat would be hypocritical of me and Republican doesn't quite fit either. Now in Arizona ("McCainland"), I'm voting Obama. I see little hope for McCain getting into the White House much less doing a good job of it, especially given his recent bent toward bushleaguing and GOP kowtowing. He is a Republican and a conservative, but has always (whether deserved or not) had a reputation of a maverick in Washington, which given my lowly month of Arizonan-ness, makes tonnes of sense. The People of the Desert do things their own way, whether you like it or not. That edge was effectively circumsized from his platform, probably due to party pressures. He's been a funny-looking maverick since then, playing right into leftsiders' views of Republicans and not really offering anything interesting to anyone. He doesn't stand a chance as is. There are two options for him, it appears:

1.) Put the heat on the Democratic Party. Having been accused of fearmongering, the Mac Camp might do well to stop pandering to the ignorant ultra-right and play more to those who are painfully straddling the fence, unsure of Obama's Clinton-esque healthcare, or a little less hasty to pull the troops out of Iraq by tonight at dinnertime. This isn't done by impugning Obama's dignity--this is done by pointing out the difference between the parties. If Mac's going to pander to the party, he'd better do some better PR. The war hero card really only pulls soldiers and vets, who are already likely to go red in November. Obama's popular and cool, but the Democratic Party has pushed some fairly unpopular legislation in its day. Most people still oppose gay marriage and other moral/religious hot topics. Bringing out the godless side of the Left would do him well.

or

2.) With the youthful Palin at his side, he could stick it to the GOP again, and shed some of the more ignorant points of the party, and start rebranding. Issues like border control become less "They're criminals and have to go home" and more "We need to secure our borders, but the way we're doing it right now isn't helping. Let's sit down and talk about it." The more deliberate center-right that's up and coming might really appreciate some aisle-crossing even if you can't say that to Republicans outright.

We'll see in Minnesota whether either will take place. Personal opinion: McCain's groupies aren't smart enough to pull either off.

Campaign Trivia

2008-08-29T13:05:00.002-06:00

Combing through the annals of history.

With the pick of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate, much has been made of the historical nature of the event. Not only is she the first woman to be nominated to the Republican ticket, but only the second woman ever nominated to a major party ticket. She's also the first Alaskan to be nominated to a major party ticket. That got us here at the Worb thinking - what other states have yet to field a presidential or vice presidential nominee?

Since the 1788, fifteen of the fifty states have yet to be represented by a major party candidate. And for those of you with insatiable curiosity, here they are:

Colorado
Florida
Hawaii
Idaho
Mississppi
Montana
New Mexico
Nevada
North Dakota
Oklahoma
Rhode Island
Utah
Washington
Wisconsin
Wyoming

Some of those should come as no surprise; for instance, some the Mountain West states have been members of the union for only about a hundred years, limiting their chances. But some states (like Mississippi and Florida) caught me off guard. We've never had a Floridian on either party's ticket in 232 years? Really? Nor anyone from Vermont or Rhode Island?

One last note: while Barack Obama was born in Hawaii (contrary to some rumors), he is currently representing Illinois, so he is counted as being from Illinois.

Find any states or candidates I forgot? Leave a comment and set me straight!

Big, big surprise

2008-08-29T09:07:00.003-06:00

John McCain ensures that all eyes are on him following Barack Obama's big speech.

John McCain was set to announce his running mate today, and by all accounts, it was going to be a fairly traditional affair. He was likely to pick someone like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty or Mitt Romney, whose names had been floating around for months. Then, this morning, everything was turned on its head.

Pawlenty announced that he would not be in Dayton this morning, the site of McCain's scheduled rally. When asked if that meant he was not going to be the pick, he told reporters that they could "draw [their] own conclusion." Romney also announced that he would not be in Dayton, leaving pundits without any names to go on.

And then, the bomb dropped - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Who? Palin is actually a very savvy choice. She ousted the old guard in staunchly conservative Alaska. She's young - at age 44, she balances the 72-years old today McCain. And - get this - she's a woman. If there was any doubt before that McCain is doing all that he can to court disaffected Hillary supporters, there isn't now. After all the tough talk about McCain not actually being much of a maverick during the DNC, he pulls off a move out of nowhere that removes all doubt. Very, very impressive move.

The Main Event

2008-08-28T19:52:00.003-06:00

The thrilling conclusion to four days of political pageantry.

I'm pretty sure I found the song I want to be playing when Obama takes the stage: "Keep Hope Alive," by the Crystal Method. What could be more fitting than a song whose lyrics are taken from the Jesse Jackson speech of the same name?

Also, one thing I missed from the Gore speech. As expected, he invoked his own failed campaign of 2000, but he made an interesting point. He said that in that election, most people felt that the two were so similar on nearly every point that it didn't particularly matter which of them became president. (In retrospect, it mattered very much.) He warned voters of falling victim to the same line of thought. It's a point well received.

Senior Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is introducing Obama right now by reminding everyone that he did the same thing in 2004. What a difference four years make. I remember after the keynote address having a hard time remembering which of his names was his first name. ("Barack Obama? Obama Barack? Something like that, I forget.") Now he's easily one of the most famous names in American politics. The crowd is all fired up, but it's not for Durbin. I think just about anyone on earth could be speaking right now - Ben Stein, my landlord, the corpse of Grover Cleveland - and the crowd would be yelling and screaming with anticipation. He's got them all chanting "yes we can!", a phrase I haven't heard much of since the primaries. Why is that, anyway? Isn't this the phrase most associated with Obama? Where did it go?

Here comes the introductory video. They're playing up the single mother and hard-knock life aspect of him, which is in keeping with everything else in this convention. Make him a man of the people, a person just like everyone else, and people won't be so scared of him. People fear what they don't understand. By making Obama more approachable, they remove some of that fear. Even if it doesn't work like they hope, they still have the very personable Joe Biden. That said, they're doing all they can to play up this aspect of him.

Side note: while we aren't hearing much from the narrator this time (no Tom Hanks, friends), he really sounds to me like David Strathairn. No Morgan Freeman, who is in my mind, the quintessential narrator, but he's a great choice, if it is him.

I'm starting to wonder what the opening line of the speech will be. Is it going to be like in 2004, when Kerry walked out saying, "I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty?" I always thought that was a great line.

And here he is - and if I'm not mistaken, that was a song by Keane that he walked out to. That's an interesting choice of music. Also, it has to be deafening in Denver. 75,000 screaming Obama fans going crazy all at once. Somehow, it's just not the same over the internet.

Ooh - the crowd provided his opening line for him, chanting "yes we can!" at him. They beat him to the punch. His response, "I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States," wasn't nearly as good, but it still generated a cheer that sounded like an atom bomb went off at Mile High Stadium. He gets off right away by praising the candidate who "traveled farther than anyone else," Hillary Clinton (duh).

This was cute - when he mentioned Michelle, everyone jumped up to their feet, but one of his daughters (Sasha?) took a couple of seconds to figure it out. When she did, she looked at Michelle and said, "Hey, that's you!" I love stuff like that.

So far, he hasn't really said anything new. He's reminding people that we face tough times, economically and militarily, and that while the government isn't responsible for the problems, they certainly aren't responding or doing anything about them. His response, "We are a better country than this," is an interesting one, though. It's not just that he can do better than McCain. It's that we as a people can do better. That's a great way to make the argument. It's not about him (though it had better be eventually), but it's about us. We can do better. We must do better. Clever way to take the focus off himself, and therefore the negative image McCain has put on him.

"We love this country too much to let the next four years look like the last eight." "Eight is enough." That's a slogan that could go on a bumper sticker. In fact, the crowd is chanting it right now. This campaign could do with more simple statements like that. Lofty rhetoric is great and all - it inspires, and it's definitely a strength of Obama's - but simple things like that stick in people's minds more than great speeches do.

Here's another good one - "I'm not ready to take a ten percent chance on change," a great dig at McCain's 90% voting record with Bush. The word "maverick" is synonymous with McCain by now. Tearing that image apart is an interesting strategy. Actually, it's an awful lot like the GOP destroying Obama's image of hope and replacing it with fear.

Here he goes into taxes and the economy. "John McCain doesn't get it." I keep waiting for him to drop some specifics. I like the idea of fixing the economy, but I want to know how he's going to do it. Now would be a great time to dispense with some of that.

Here he goes again citing the Clinton presidency. Good comparison - after all, Clinton is one of only two Democratic presidents since 1968, and certainly the popular one. Reminding people what life was like during the 1990s is a great way to get them to vote for you. Times were good economically then. Times haven't been so great since them. It's the economy, stupid. Think that phrase is going to come back before November?

He just told the story of his grandmother working her way up through the ranks to middle management and all the while giving any spare money she had toward Obama's future. Boy, did that get a cheer. He then asked the audience (indirectly) if that was the sort of life celebrities lead. Very masterfully done. He doesn't look particularly elitist to me tonight.

Here's a thought - is the reason we think Obama is such a great speaker mostly because of his voice? If John McCain were to deliver the same speech, I don't think it would come off as nearly as powerful. The baritone voice that projects and inspires - that's where the power is.

"I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper." Words taken directly from the 2004 keynote speech. I was waiting for something like that. That's the way to bring back the glory of that earlier speech that launched his career.

Ooh, specifics! He's starting to say exactly what he wants to do to restart the economy - no tax raises for little people (95% of all working families), restoring domestic manufacturing jobs, eliminating the capital gains tax for small businesses, and a clear goal to eliminate our dependance for Middle East oil within 10 years. Wow, is that last one bold. If he can do that, he'd easily be the greatest president in recent history - probably at least since FDR. No idea how he can pull that off, but that's a tremendous promise. Good luck matching up to that. Also, good luck in preventing the GOP from eating that promise for breakfast. Expect to hear a lot about that line over the next two months.

Actually, he's doing a good job of explaining how he plans to get rid of foreign oil, and it sounds like a solid plan. Obama's been criticized for not providing specifics for months, and now he's finally proving everyone wrong. This is a big deal - it makes him more of a heavyweight on the political circuit. No more saying that Obama's just an empty suit with pretty words. This is serious, meaty stuff. Very impressive.

"If you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education." And there's the bit about health care, which has to be the focus of this campaign. He just promised lower premiums and the same coverage Congressmen get. Citing his mother arguing with insurance agents brought a huge cheer. You can't help but wonder what Hillary is thinking, though. This has been her thing since 1992. If it were up to me, I'd appoint her to head up the health care movement as soon as I took office. She clearly knows the most about it. Let her get it done.

He's going to go through the budget "line by line" to find ways to cut spending and make things more efficient. I know it's not what he's talking about, but does this make anyone else think of the movie Dave? You know, the bit where he brings Charles Grodin in to cut the fat out of the budget? "We cannot meet 21st century challenges with a 20th century bureaucracy."

That was a sharp dig at McCain's temper. He's accusing him of having too short a fuse to be an effective commander in chief. That's an argument we haven't heard for a while. I don't know how relevant it is, but it's interesting to hear it again.

More focus on the war in Afghanistan instead of Iraq. I agree that's more important, but I can't help but wonder if Afghanistan will turn into the new Iraq in a couple of years. Isn't that how it went for the Soviet Union? Isn't that how it went for us? We thought we beat them into the ground, but surprise surprise, the Taliban is back in power only a few years later. I don't know that it's going to be as simple as everyone makes it out to be.

Nice shot at the national security issue. "We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. Don't tell me the Democrats aren't going to keep this country safe."

This is another good one - he's pledging to restore the image of America as the world's "last, best hope." I kept hoping this was going to come up, and it finally did. I still think this is one of the biggest assets Obama has to offer. Just about the entire world wants to see Obama elected over McCain. Doesn't that affect our decision at all? Don't we want to restore American prestige?

Another chorus of "yes we can!" after he throws out the line about the country not being red states or blue states, but united states. He's talking about unity - lofty rhetoric, too - while offering specific issues for people to think about. Best of both worlds here. Obama supporters get what they want - a beautiful speech, and it's been impressive so far - and the McCain camp gets what they've been clamoring for, specifics. Let them chew on that for a while. You'd better believe we'll hear a lot about them next week.

"If you don't have any fresh ideas, then you run on stale tactics." Accusing the McCain camp of using fear rather than solving America's problems. That's a good point, too. I haven't heard a whole lot of ways McCain plans to solve the economic problems or anything else. Just that Obama will ruin the country if he's elected.

"What the naysayers have never understood is that this election is not about me. It's about you." Brilliant. Take the focus off himself and place it on the people. On the party. Is McCain going to attack the common people? He can attack Obama, but as long as he keeps the focus on the people, he's in good shape, I think.

Obama says he's seen the change coming. There has been a lot of change over the last year or so. He says it may not be easy, but it's on its way. Change again. That was the defining word of the primary season, and I've been waiting for a while for it to come back. Here it is, full force.

He's citing the "I Have a Dream" speech, which you had to know was coming, since it was delivered 45 years ago today. With all the references over the last few minutes, I almost expected him to say that he had a dream, too. It would have been impressive, but you have to believe there would have been plagiarism charges all over the place.

And that's it. Was it the prettiest speech he's ever given? No, I don't think so, but it might be the most important. He went a long way toward throwing out specifics and shaking the image of him as someone without substance. I think the GOP will be hard-pressed to outdo this convention. McCain can't match up to Obama in giving a speech. It's not even close. Look for a lot of demonizing and a lot of fearmongering, if you ask me. I'm not trying to color anyone's judgment of their tactics, but given how the campaign has gone so far, I don't expect anything different, unless they suddenly decide to reinvent the Republican brand.

Al Gore at the DNC

2008-08-28T18:44:00.002-06:00

The man everyone's been waiting to see.

Al Gore was one of the two big people everyone wanted to see tonight. (I don't think any of the party faithful would be all that disappointed if he announced he was actually accepting the nomination tonight. Even Obama would probably be okay with that.) He gets off to a quick start, asking, "Will we accept this opportunity for change?" He also reminded everyone who wasn't already aware (i.e., no one) that he was robbed of the presidency in 2000, and that if he were president today, boy, would things be different. (He's right, but it's pretty much moot right now.)

Sarah Vowell gave a great characterization of Gore in one of her books, calling him the nerd to George W. Bush's jock. He's certainly showing that here - he's laying out the facts and not apologizing for them. He's arguing that if you like the conditions as they are (and he goes into depth saying why they're awful), then John McCain is your man, but if you want a change, then you'd better vote for Barack Obama. He's getting a lot of time in for his pet issue of climate change, which you'd expect. (He even mentions that climate change could affect our national security, which is an interesting connection to make.) It makes sense, too, since the Democrats have been doing all that they can to tie the Republicans to big oil. He even reminds people that Thomas Edison was a big proponent of solar energy, saying that he hoped we didn't wait until coal and oil ran out to start tapping into it.

"Big oil has a 50-year lease on the Republican party, and they're drilling it for all they're worth." I like this metaphor here - by equating the GOP with big oil, that makes the election a fight between the little guy and big business. If you're trying to go after blue collar workers, that's a pretty good way to do it.

I'm really impressed with the very factual way that Gore is going about this speech. It almost sounds like he's delivering a report for his class in school. The crowd loves it, of course, but it's very different from what we heard over the last few days.

He's speaking right to younger voters now, reminding them that they get it. Of course Obama has a commanding lead among younger voters (what 19-year old would vote for McCain?), but he's doing well to emphasize that fact. Tapping into the youth vote could turn this tight election into a blowout.

And now he's comparing Obama to Lincoln, reminding them that Lincoln only had one term in Congress and that he too reached across the aisle and was known mostly as an orator. Nice comparison. The crowd's buying into it, but we'll see if the public does.

Almost 7.00 PM, and here we have the words "inconvenient truth." We all knew it was coming.

Here we are again focusing on Obama's blue-collar roots. Remember how he was raised by a single mother who depended on food stamps? Remember how he had to fight and scrimp and save to get to college? They're trying as hard as they can to get rid of that elitist tag.

Wow, Gore can still really inspire a crowd. They're all really fired up now. One more hour until the main man comes out to accept the nomination. Stay tuned.

Warmup to the Barackstar

2008-08-28T18:19:00.004-06:00

Passing the time before the main event.

I'm watching New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson speak to the crowd at Mile High Stadium (still can't bring myself to call it Invesco Field) as we wait for Barack Obama to take the stage around 8.00 PM local time. Richardson is a powerful speaker, but I accidentally found out that his speech is about a thousand times more exciting when Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out" is playing in the background. I look forward to listening to tonight's speeches with Modest Mouse, Interpol, and Hot Chip in the background.

As a serious side note, the venue is impressive. They've shown some cutaway shots, and it looks almost like an Olympic event. (Yeah, I stole that from NPR's Mara Liasson today. Fine.) There are nearly a hundred thousand people in the stadium, all of whom are waving American flags and yelling like crazy people. It's pretty heady. The Greek columns in the background that the McCain camp kept referring to as the "Temple of Obama" don't look pretentious at all, in my opinion. It almost looks like they're speaking in front of the White House, which I'm sure was the idea.

Last note - as Richardson started speaking in Spanish to excite the Latino crowd (to great effect), the Gorillaz' "Clint Eastwood" came up on my iTunes, and for a brief moment, I thought he was going to shoot someone. It felt like watching a cholo pumping up his gang. Weird, weird juxtaposition.

And now, I leave you at that until the big speeches tonight.

Wednesday at the DNC

2008-08-27T19:38:00.003-06:00

Live-blogging night three of the convention.

We're back live at the Democratic National Convention. I came in late and missed Bill Clinton's speech, so I'll just be providing highlights for that.

Many were worried that Clinton would provide a less than total endorsement of Barack Obama, but tonight's speech showed otherwise. During the primary season, he was a frequent critic of Obama's inexperience, but tonight, he declared Obama to be "ready to be president," praise that means more coming from a man who held the office himself than from anyone else. Referencing his wife's comments the night before, he said that there would be two of them backing the Illinois senator - "actually...18 million of us." Sounds like it was a good speech. When I get a chance, I'll watch tape of it and make comments.

Massachussetts senator John Kerry, 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, is speaking now, and he's offering a stirring rebuke of John McCain. He gave a comparison between "Senator McCain and Candidate McCain," describing all of the things McCain was against before becoming the Republican nominee. Flip-flop tactics, no doubt, but the crowd ate it up, especially when Kerry said, "Before [he] debates Barack Obama, [he'll] have to end the debate with himself." One poignant moment came when Kerry promised that Obama would end the tactics of swiftboating - poignant because Kerry's 2004 campaign took a well-publicized hit from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. You could tell the crowd caught the reference. Kerry has mostly faded into the background since his defeat in 2004, but he can still give a good speech.

While Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy speaks, let's get back to Bill Clinton's speech. Clinton made it very clear from the start why he was here: "first, to support Barack Obama, and second, to warm up the crowd for Joe Biden." (Both received wild applause.) There was a small dig at Obama when he said he was less than grateful to be speaking in the capacity he was (i.e., not a Hillary victory speech), but he said he'd do "the best [he] can." That was worrisome, but he got back on track quickly, saying he would do everything he could to get Obama elected.

This just in - retired Rear Admiral John Hutson, a "life-long Republican," is speaking and describing the Republican Party as a "failed brand." "Arrogance abroad and incompetence at home." "America can't afford more of the same." "This year a new leader has emerged who offers the change we so desperately need." If you were looking for someone to redefine the election, this guy might be it. He's a committed Republican who isn't convinced that John McCain is the answer. He's convinced that Obama can offer a fresh take on America's situation, and that this is the way we need to go. This speech reminds me of Zell Miller's speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention, where he famously all but defected from the Democratic Party in favor of George W. Bush. Pretty interesting.

Back to Bill, as we break away from a Texas Congressman. He spoke a lot about why McCain and the Republican Party have been destroying America over the last eight years. Predictably, he's focusing on the economy, since economic prosperity was one of the biggest successes of his term. I understand what he's doing, but I've been waiting for someone to speak about why Obama is a great candidate, not about why McCain is lousy. Maybe that's why I liked Hutson's speech so much - he focused on why Obama is a fresh take on America. "The third time is not the charm." Great lines from this speech. "America will have the national security leadership that we need." "Barack Obama is ready to lead." There's a couple of lines we've been waiting for. Maybe it's just me, but Bill's speech wasn't quite as inspiring as I was hoping. Granted, I was just watching highlights, but still, I wasn't as moved as I was by some of the speeches last night. Here's hoping there's better material ahead.

They're showing a video about U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. One of those videos that tug at the heartstrings. Soldiers crying for fallen comrades. Piano and string music. A narrator talking about strength in the face of fear. That sort of thing. The theme of the convention tonight is national security, and it sounds like they're trying to make the case that Obama will make the country safer by ending the wars in the Middle East.

Oh, I forgot to mention. The narrator is Tom Hanks. There's another celebrity endorsement for you, Barack.

Iraq War veteran Tammy Duckworth is speaking now. She ran for a House seat in Illinois in 2006, narrowly losing. She's notable as a famous soldier who was opposed to the Iraq War, and also famous for the loss of both of her legs. She's a compelling and articulate speaker, and she's not spending all of her speech saying why the war in Iraq was a bad idea. She's speaking out for veterans' care and medical reform, and it means a little more coming from her than from anyone else. Here's someone who had to go through the system (zing! there's another "mission accomplished" reference), and she doesn't want anyone else to have to go through it. She also went out of her way to mention that Obama visited her "and other wounded soldiers" at Walter Reed VA Hospital, a jab at those who accused him of skipping out on visiting wounded soldiers during his time in Europe. They're trying their best to build up Obama's credentials, but boy, they sure don't miss out on a chance to get a shot in at McCain.

As Duckworth left the stage, you had to notice two big things - first, she made a point of saying Obama would be the country's next "commander in chief" rather than president, and second, the cameras zoomed in as much as possible on her prosthetic legs.

Also, wow - John McCain just announced that he has chosen his vice presidential nominee. That's pretty bold, butting in on the opponent's convention like that. It used to be that convention time was sacred. You took a week off, and expected that he would do the same during yours.

One more thing - I've been noticing that all of the writing at the convention has been in the same typeface as the Obama campaign has been using since last year. Very nice way to subtly send the message of unity. I'm impressed.

In what may be the least surprising news of the century, Joe Biden was nominated unanimously as the Democratic vice presidential candidate. (Gosh, really?) They're showing a "salt of the earth" type video about him right now, clearly intended to balance out the image of Obama as an elitist. They're making a big show of mentioning the car accident Biden's family was in just as he was first elected to the Senate in 1972, costing him his first wife and daughter.

Maybe it's just me, but doesn't Biden have a great voice? I know he's famous for talking on and on endlessly, and I'll probably be sick of it in a week, but man, what a voice. It has just the right amount of gravel in it to sound not dominating, not forceful, not annoying, but stately. In an image that's been about image from the beginning, choosing someone who looks stately is inspired. Great job from this campaign.

And here he is, the man of the evening - Beau Biden! Okay, that's not who we were waiting for. Biden's son, the attorney general of Delaware, is here to introduce his dad and tell a bunch of stories about how devoted he is to his family. Apparently one of his earliest memories is of his father at the hospital after the accident refusing to take the oath of office (he was seriously just elected) until he knew that his boys were alright. Now Joe takes the train home to Wilmington every night to be with his family. Again, a great balance to the elitist tag Obama can't seem to get rid of. "Be there for my dad, like he was there for me." The crowd is just eating this up.

For some reason, John Kerry is on the stage, saying something to the two Bidens, who appear to be lost looking for the lectern. Maybe Biden will explain it, but for now, I'm just left scratching my head. What was that all about?

"Thank you, John Kerry!" Seriously, what were they talking about? Did he tell him that his fly was down or something?

He starts off (after saying he loves his family, aw) by praising the Clintons. He says that Bill "brought this country so far, I only hope that we can do it again," and says how honored he is to live in a country with some of the "bravest warriors in the world." Again, the focus is on bridging the gap between Obama and the Clintons. Both sides have done a bang-up job. If the campaign loses some embittered Hillary voters, it certainly won't be for lack of trying on their part.

Again with the family. He just introduced his elderly mother to America, and has spent a surprising amount of his speech talking about his family. They're really going out of their way to portray Biden as a family man. It makes sense, I suppose - America's already pretty familiar with who Barack Obama is, but this is Joe Biden's big chance to introduce himself to America. This does a lot to bring balance to the ticket. Joe just mentioned that his mother told him to "bloody the nose" of anyone who roughed him up so he could walk down the streets with his head held high. The camera cut to a shot of his mother, and she could clearly be seen mouthing the words, "It's true." This is gold for this campaign. And now he's transitioning from this picturesque scene to describing how the American dream is slipping away (thanks to who? those demons, the Republicans). Failed leadership, economic ruin, how are we going to survive?

Wow - Biden just misspoke and almost said the name "George McCain," and the crowd absolutely loved it. "Freudian slip, I guess," he shrugged. How does the campaign not use this every day until the general election?

Back to the American dream - Biden is describing Obama as the personification of that dream. Good call on this one, since that was the theme of Obama's keynote speech at the 2004 DNC. There wasn't a Democrat on earth who didn't like that speech, so anything they can do to bring back memories of that moment is a good thing.

My connection just died for a heartstopping second, but I came back to hear the word "change". That's a theme they ought to be bringing back some more. Obama won the primaries - he redefined the primaries - with that word. Why is he moving away from it now? Doesn't most of America agree that we're on the wrong track? Why promise more of the same if that's not what America wants, and if it's what America specifically voted you not to do? Biden's doing a good job of bringing this back - he has the crowd yelling "that's more of the same" along with him. Any time you can get the crowd talking along with you, it's a good thing. Brian Schweitzer had the crowd doing it last night, and he was a rollicking success. Biden's on that same track.

Whoa, a nice little dig there on the education system. He's talking about making college affordable and making education accessible for everyone. I was talking to my mother today about the election, and she said she'd vote for anyone willing to abolish No Child Left Behind. I don't think either side is quite that dedicated, but that's the closest I've heard anyone come to it for a while.

Also, nice shot at the administration for going after the wrong countries. He says we need to focus on the real threats in the world today - the economic threats, Russia, India, and China, rather than on Iraq. That's an interesting take on the national security issue. Secure the country to protecting us economically. I like it. Don't expect to hear anything like this at the RNC next week. Actually, he's doing a good job of pointing out that McCain's supposed strength - foreign policy - is actually a weakness. Remember when he kept mixing up Sunnis and Shi'ites, and thought that Iraq bordered Pakistan? What ever happened to that talk from the Democrats? I'm surprised they aren't hitting on this issue harder.

Here's another issue I've felt has been unfairly neglected. Joe says that if Obama is elected, America will regain trust on the international scene. I completely agree. That's one of Obama's biggest assets - scores of other countries would love to see him elected president. He improves America's image internationally. McCain wouldn't. How have they not said this every single day on the campaign trail? That's a huge asset that they've completely ignored.

Anyhow, that's it for Biden. He did a pretty good job introducing himself to America. I'm convinced he'd be a capable vice president, and it sounds like the people in the convention hall are, too. Now, we have tomorrow to look forward to - the Barackstar himself will speak at Mile High Stadium. This is a big chance for him to bring the campaign back to a message of hope and change rather than partisan mudslinging. We'll see how he handles it.

Speaking of which, there's the man now, entering the hall to thunderous applause. Not really the surprise they made it out to be, but it's exciting nonetheless. He's paying tribute to the four headline speakers - Michelle, Hillary, Bill, and Joe - and working up the crowd for tomorrow night. Pretty good way to end the night. Here's hoping tomorrow night lives up to it. (Who am I kidding? Of course it will!)

Live-blogging the DNC

2008-08-26T20:14:00.004-06:00

Live coverage of the second night of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.

I doubt many people are reading this anymore, but I'm always happy to write for writing's sake.

The big story here at the Democratic National Convention has been the continuing feud between supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Clinton's supporters are convinced that the Obama campaign has continuously disrespected the New York senator, to the point that more than a third of them have said that they refuse to vote for Obama and will instead either vote for John McCain or stay at home. Perhaps it's just me, but I can't quite figure out what the Obama campaign has done to defame Sen. Clinton other than defeat her in the primaries. It all seems like a lot of sour grapes to me. In fact, I'm surprised that so many Democrats would rather see a Republican in office to assuage a grudge. Of course, it's more than likely that the media has made this a bigger issue than it really is. In fact, my blogging on the subject is only making it worse. Let's move on.

Virginia governor Mark Warner delivered the keynote address tonight, something that has drawn particular attention this year because of Obama's stirring and now-famous keynote address in 2004. Warner was tapped as a likely Democratic nominee until he announced that he would not run in 2007, preferring to see his daughters graduate from high school first. After listening to his speech, I really wish he would reconsider. Warner is a terrific speaker and a centrist to boot. Rather than enshrine Obama and demonize McCain, he talked about reaching across the aisle and accepting good ideas no matter which side they come from. I'd love to see a President Warner someday. He seems like someone a lot of people could get behind. At the very least, he's not someone that people could forward emails about claiming all sorts of atrocities. (Not that we have anyone like that now.)

After Gov. Warner, a parade of lesser-known governors (Ohio's Ted Strickland, Massachussetts' Deval Patrick, and Montana's Brian Schweitzer) came out and did exactly what Warner didn't - demonize John McCain. That's their job, really, but it came as quite a contrast from Warner's speech. I'll summarize their speeches here:

"As you're aware, by electing Barack Obama as the next president of the United States, we will be able to create three billion new jobs - every month! It's absolutely amazing what we could accomplish! By contrast, if John McCain becomes president, we will literally be forced by law to brutally slaughter and consume our own children. Is that what we want to see happen in the future? No! Only Barack Obama can save us from the coming apocalpyse!"

(Actually, I really enjoyed Brian Schweitzer's speech. He played up the fact that he's a simple rancher from Montana, and he really seemed to be having fun. It's a rare thing to laugh out loud during a convention speech. I did several times during Schweitzer's speech. Here's hoping we see more of him in the future.)

While I'm waiting for Sen. Clinton to come on stage, I'll talk about Deval Patrick briefly. I thought it was interesting that they invited him to speak, considering the "just words?" flap earlier in the primary season. He was a good speaker, but I cringed a little bit when he started having the audience chant "yes, we can". It seems a little bold of him to invite plagiarism back into the campaign. The McCain campaign is doing a good enough job of shredding Obama's image without him adding more fuel to the fire.

(Schweitzer is still going, and he's shouting at each state's delegation individually to get up off their feet and shout for energy independence. Man, this guy is an electric speaker!)

Before Sen. Clinton took the stage, they played a montage of her speeches and people talking about her. It was pretty inspiring, and you'd better believe they put that "18 million cracks" line in there a couple of times. Chelsea Clinton narrated the video, and she introduced her mother to the crowd, who gave her a few minutes of a standing ovation and waved a ton of Hillary posters, which seemed to appear out of nowhere. The big question, though: can she convince her supporters to (enthusiastically) back Obama?

It sure looks like she's off to a good start - she mentioned the fact that she was a "proud supporter of Barack Obama" within the first 30 seconds of her speech. Statements like "we are all on the same side, and none of us can afford to stay on the sidelines" seemed like pointed remarks to her supporters to vote for Obama already.

She's doing a very good job of reminding Democrats what the real contest is - not Clinton vs. Obama, but Obama vs. McCain. She mentioned once that Obama was her candidate and was met with grumbles of disdain, but she kept talking and shouted them down. I'm convinced she's sincere. While she's certainly disappointed that she didn't win this round (who wouldn't be?), she really wants to see a Democrat in the White House.

(Personally, I think she'll be a more powerful agent for the Democratic Party as a senator than she could have been as a president. She'd meet with a lot of strong Republican opposition as a president, but in Congress, she can be a strong voice and push things through. This is probably the best situation the party could be in at this point, all things considered.)

It's interesting that all of these speakers have stayed away from personal attacks on John McCain in keeping with Obama's vision of post-partisan politics, but that it seems to be open season on attacking George W. Bush. His name is practically a four-letter word here at the convention, becoming synonymous with "failed leadership," "economic ruin," and "short-sighted."

Wow. Hillary's finishing this speech off with a bang. She's asking her supporters, "Were you in this campaign just for me, or were you in it for [a million stories that tug at the heartstrings]?" For someone whose public image is so much about me-first and selfishness, she's doing a good job of taking the spotlight off herself. I saw a lot of shots of tear-streaked faces of women who are still reluctant to let the dream go, but the message seems to be getting through. This is a really good speech.

Now she's implying that it's our duty as Americans to elect Barack Obama to ensure a brighter future. That's a powerful statement, and it's interesting that she was able to make the point without mentioning either Bush's or McCain's names. Very skillfully done.

That's it for the convention tonight. It looks like Hillary did all that she could to convince her renegade supporters to get behind Obama and the party in November. She wasn't wishy-washy in her support, either. She made it very clear that she doesn't want to sabotage her party's chances at the White House. Sure, you might argue that such was the politically expedient thing for her to do (could she really stand up and tell people to abandon Obama?), but the message really seemed sincere. I was impressed. But boy, would I be excited if Mark Warner were on top of the ticket. Especially if he had Brian Schweitzer as his VP. What a tremendous ticket that would be. Maybe someday in the future.

More Fun with Sports and Statistics

2008-07-09T15:11:00.003-06:00

Or, what to do with yourself now that the basketball season is over.

Now that the NBA season has ended and the Boston Celtics have been crowned champions, I find myself with little interest in pro sports. Baseball has long been my least favorite of the three major professional sports, even when my beloved Colorado Rockies came out of nowhere last year to claim the National League pennant. Their amazing win streak last year got me thinking, though - should we have seen this coming? Is there a way that we could have accurately predicted this?

Of course, the answer is yes. Just like I did for the NCAA tournament, I created a metric to gauge an MLB team's strength. And just like the SPI, I used scoring differential as the primary method of determining power. Like I argued before, scoring differential is a more reliable tool for determining a team's overall strength than wins and losses. A team winning a majority of its games by extremely slim margins isn't necessarily a good team. More likely, it's a lucky team having a lot of things go its way, which you'd expect to level off. A team with a high scoring margin - even over subpar teams - can be reasonably expected to be a quality team. Scoring differential also factors out two weaknesses that are hidden by a win-loss record - great offense and lousy defense, and vice versa. A team with great offense but no defense could score 12 runs a game, only to give up 11. That gives them a low scoring differential. Likewise, a team that has no offense but a fantastic defense maybe scores one run a game while giving up zero. Again, low scoring differential.

I compiled some data on the 30 MLB teams (home record, road record, and scoring differential) and created a simple formula. (I'm not telling you the coefficients I used. You want a formula, go make your own.) I then added 100 to each score to keep teams from going negative, and also because a score of 102.915 seems cooler than one of 2.915. ESPN.com keeps great records, so compiling all the data was pretty simple. And once I finished it, the results were, unsurprisingly, not what common wisdom would have told you.

The entire sports world has been crowing about how amazing the Tampa Bay Rays have been this year, and they're right. They've come off ten consecutive losing seasons to post the current best record in the league. That's pretty impressive. But I think it's wrong to crown them the best team in the league based on that alone. They've scored 70 more runs than they've allowed this year for an average margin of victory of 0.787 runs per game. That's pretty good - fifth in the league. But since four teams have a better differential, four teams find themselves above Tampa Bay in the standings - Philadelphia, Boston, and both Chicago teams. In fact, the Chicago Cubs have scored 36 more runs in their differential than Tampa, putting them easily in the top spot.

There's even more we can learn from this metric. Conventional wisdom holds that the American League is far better than the National League right now. A look at my metric (I hesitate to call this one the SPI as well, but I haven't got a better name for it) shows that seven of the top ten teams in the league are from the AL. Pretty compelling. We can also learn that there are some underachieving teams in the league, and some overachievers. By looking at the SPI, you can tell how many games a team should be expecting to win based on their scoring differential. (You can extrapolate that to see how many games they should win over an entire season, but that's not accurate, as it fails to take into account trades and injuries.) Based on that, we see teams like Atlanta (currently 43-48) sitting well beneath their ability. The SPI has them six games higher, with an expected win-loss record of 49-42 and cracking the top ten. (ESPN.com's Power Rankings have them currently at 21. At the same time, you have teams like the L.A. Angels, which ESPN lists at number 3. With a record of 52-36, they look like a strong contender. However, the SPI pegs them at 48-42, with a barely positive run differential of 24.

The difference, probably, is that the SPI measures a team's potential, while most commentators measure performance. And true, we ought to be concerned with what a team is actually doing rather than what they could be doing, but with half the season left, I think measuring a team's potential still has some use. And if you're complaining to yourself about my writing another sports statistics article, then too bad, because this is my blog and I can write whatever I want unless the editors fire me.

How Cell Phones Are Killing America

2008-07-01T11:16:00.003-06:00

It's not the phone. It's the attention span.

A law going into effect in California today prohibits the use of cell phones without hands-free headsets in cars. Violators will be fined $20 for their first offense and $50 for subsequent offenses. The law is even stricter for those under 18, who are prohibited from any cell phone usage at all while driving, including hands-free talking or text messaging. California is the first state to enact such a law, but it looks like many more states will follow suit, with legislation in the works in 33 more states. Legislators feel that cell phones cause a distraction to drivers and cause them to react more slowly to changing road conditions.

The question, however, is whether or not that's the major problem facing drivers today. Studies have been done proving that drivers talking on cell phones are as hazardous as drunk drivers. However, I'm willing to bet that slow to react drivers aren't nearly as dangerous as those who drive recklessly and impatiently, weaving in and out of traffic. And I'm equally willing to bet that increased cell phone usage has a strong correlation with such driving.

We live in a culture where nearly any information we want is at our fingertips. Want to know if your best friend really did kiss that cute boy in chemistry class? Why spend all that time dialing their number when you could just send them a text message? Tools like the internet, cell phones, text messaging, instant messengers, and others all us to get needed information quickly. But they also remove our need to wait. While patience was once a virtue, it's now an annoyance. I can be in a meeting and still check baseball scores. (Not that I'd want to, considering how this season has gone for my Colorado Rockies.) I can be having a conversation with someone while sending instant messages through Skype to someone else. We're always looking for ways to shave precious seconds from our schedule. Waiting is a thing of the past. You can see this in driving habits all the time. People fly around corners without looking. Drivers on the freeway blaze down the road darting between lanes. It doesn't save them much time - maybe a few seconds here and there - but it feels like they're going faster and more efficiently.

I dig some digging for statistics to back up my point. While I don't have exact statistics on reckless driving charges, I do have access to traffic fatalities from 1997-2005. During that time period, fatalities rose by about 250 per year, or a rate of about 0.6%. That rate seemed small to me, so I compared it to the rate of population increase over the same period. (Logically, if there are more drivers on the road, there will be more accidents.) The U.S. population increased nearly twice as quickly - just over 1% yearly. It would seem that the increase in population more than explains the rise in auto fatalities, until you see the spike between 2000 and 2001. Fatalities increased by over 1300 in one year, for a rise of 3.6%. That's six times the average over that nine-year period. However, cell phones were not released in 2001, but rather in 1999. That means that cell phones probably aren't responsible for causing the spike. Is it possible that habits associated with cell phones created the spike we see? It's difficult to say without more data, but my guess is yes.

That's not to say that California's anti-cell phone law won't have a positive effect. It probably will. But it does suggest that maybe we're treating the symptoms rather than the problem itself. Correcting the American short attention span may be more difficult than just a $20 fine.

The Democratic Primary, Take Two

2008-05-28T10:29:00.003-06:00

Yet another race for Hillary Clinton to lose.

Now that the presidential nomination has been all but sewn up by Barack Obama (he only needs 48 more delegates to win, which he should have by next Tuesday), it's time to turn our attention toward the vice presidential race. Like the Republican spot, the names most commonly heard for the Democratic spot are those of former presidential candidates, and like the Republican spot, you can bet that most of them aren't realistic. Let's consider.

Hillary Clinton. We've heard a lot about the "dream ticket" for months now, but the possibility wasn't ever much more than remote. Clinton stands for everything Obama wants to change about Washington politics. Adding her to the ticket would help to placate the Clinton voters, certainly, but it would alienate those whom he worked to hard to win over. Add all that to the fact that she just suggested that she's staying in the race in case Obama is shot and you can count her out.

Al Gore. Wishful thinking. He's already had the job once, so there's little chance he'd take it again. Plus, he's already said that he's not interested in the White House anymore. With an Oscar and a Nobel Prize, he could have had the presidency if he'd wanted it. Let's look elsewhere.

Jim Webb. Webb is the junior Senator from Virginia who narrowly won in 2006, giving Democrats control of the Senate. The fact that he comes from a traditionally Republican state makes him an attractive option for the VP spot. At age 62, he's still relatively young (well, younger than McCain, at least), and he has experience as the Secretary of the Navy (under Reagan), which could bolster Obama's anti-terrorism image. Webb would be a strong choice, and Intrade favors him above all other candidates by at least four points. (For more information on Intrade, see my article on the Republican VP spot.)

Bill Richardson. Since Richardson's withdrawal from the the presidential race, he's appeared to be angling for the VP spot with Obama. He's talked him up in public, given his superdelegate endorsement to him over Sen. Clinton (whom he has been a personal friend of for years), and has been loudly calling for Clinton to exit the race. And as if that's not good enough, here's the kicker - he's Hispanic. Not that race should be the main motivating factor, but a charismatic Hispanic governor from the West could be exactly what this ticket needs. He brings years of experience as well as a reason for Latino voters to go Democratic. Howard Dean has been saying that the key to the presidency lies in the West this year. Richardson could be the way in. He's way behind on the Intrade market, but I wouldn't be surprised if this the guy the Democrats go with, so long as they don't mind running two minority candidates on the same ticket. (If anti-Obama racism has been bad, imagine adding anti-immigrant sentiment to that.)

Wesley Clark. Clark is a retired four-star general from the Army who ran a failed campaign for the presidency in 2004. A general on the ticket would do wonders to doing away with Obama's image as inexperienced and naive, especially with regards to the military. A few months ago, Clark led the Intrade pack, but now he hovers around $5. That could be because he endorsed Clinton last year, but it's more likely due to his low name-recognition factor. Obama's star power could easily make up for that.

The other names being tossed around are either due to wishful thinking (think John Edwards) or would only make sense with Clinton at the top of the ticket (think Evan Bayh). If you're asking me, and you clearly are, or else you wouldn't be reading the article in the first place, my top three choices (in order) are Richardson, Clark, and Webb. You can congratulate me at the convention in August when I was right.

Nintendo? More like Repeat-o

2008-05-18T06:43:00.002-06:00

How many more times are we going to allow Nintendo to pull this kind of crap with just a couple of formulas.

Nintendo was once the leader in electronic gaming. During the days of the Nintendo, Super Nintendo and even Nintendo 64, they were on top of their game, but what happened? Well right around the Nintendo 64, something happened to Nintendo, they became self sustained and all of their developers jumped ship. This rose to two other companies joining the fray, first Sony and it's hugely successful Playstation lineup, and then Microsoft with it's XBox. Both of these systems have more then one developer working hard on different games available for either platform. Both have more content then one could ever get around to playing all of. They have regulars, and new comers. Old games and new games, these systems show no signs of slowing down. And what of Nintendo? They put out the Gamecube and then the Wii, both successful in their own right, however they have little to speak of in content, just reused formulas which work. Now most have said of these formulas, if you have them, use them, well I agree, use the formulas, make them work, but my problem with Nintendo is they only use the formulas and their systems become platforms for the next generation of the same formulas and nothing else.

Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Smash Brothers, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Mario DDR, Donkey Konga, etc... What games did everyone get excited about for the Wii? Well mostly it's been Zelda, Smash Brothers, Mario Galaxy and Mario Kart. Games in which we've seen for a while Zelda and Mario since day one, Mario Kart since the super, and Smash since 64. Can you think of any other game which doesn't star a character from Smash Brothers which has been anticipated for the Wii? I can't. But yet, what is Nintendo going to do? They're not going to have much content left, but they'll wait until the next system comes out, and redo all the games again and people will buy them. So then how long are we going to allow this? Wiis are expensive and hard to find, and people buy them for just a couple of games. The other two platforms are expensive but easy to find and the money is made up easily by the amount of content. I'm still buying games for my Playstation 2, I've had so much play out of that system and will continue to do so. I submit that unless Nintendo does something different soon, we'll find them staying only in handhelds and losing money until the other two eventually make them consolidate. They're living right now because people want to see upgrades of their favorite games, but once those die down, they're going to be out of the games, and out of the business.

Then maybe Mario will finally be able to sleep. He's been telling me he's been tired since Mario 64.

Four Dollars a Gallon?!

2008-05-16T11:13:00.003-06:00

Why oil prices are rising, and why they're unlikely to drop anytime soon.

Oil prices have been soaring for the last few years, and they're making themselves felt in nearly every facet of American life. Consumers feel it most at the gas pump, but higher gas prices translate to higher shipping costs, which makes nearly everything else go up. Understandably, people are angry and want answers, solutions, or at least someone to blame. Why are gas prices spiking so suddenly?

The answer actually has a lot to do with everyone's favorite fundamental law of economics: supply and demand. As Earth's population continues to rise, and as more and more countries become industrialized, demand for crude oil will go up. There's really no way around that. If supply doesn't increase to meet demand, then prices go up. American demand for oil hasn't risen particularly - in fact, considering the recent trend away from SUVs and other gas-guzzlers in favor of hybrid cars, oil demand is probably slightly lower than in recent years - but demand from rapidly growing countries, especially China and India, has. Essentially, the United States are seeing new competition in the global oil market from these new Asian powers, and they have to pay more for it.

Much has been made of OPEC's refusal to increase global oil supply, but unfortunately, it's not such a simple matter as turning on a faucet. OPEC's production is limited by the amount of drilling stations they have. They can't produce more oil than they can extract from the ground, and drilling new sites is extremely costly and time-consuming. Even if more drilling is profitable at over $120/barrel (and it probably is, even in difficult to refine areas like Canada), it will take time before the added supply can be felt in the global market. So we can effectively rule out increases in supply in the near future, all but guaranteeing increases in oil prices in the face of growing demand.

However, the global oil supply isn't actually static. In reality, it's been decreasing steadily over the last few years. Iraq, one of the world's largest oil producers, has seen its exports plummet since 2003 as it deals with massive civil unrest. In some cases, Iraqi oil exports have fallen over two million barrels of oil per day. That's a pretty significant drop. Nigerian unrest led to similar drops in production. Simply put, rising demand and slumping supply lead to vastly increased prices.

So why have prices gone so high lately? Average U.S. gas prices have risen about 39 cents per gallon over the last month, a rate higher than the conditions above would have dictated. The missing factor? Speculation. Investors (particularly those managing hedge funds) are buying up oil futures because they think the price of oil will continue to increase. As more and more investors buy up oil, the price goes up (think rising demand and static supply again). This creates a price bubble, similar to the recent housing bubble and the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. That provides hope for consumers, who yearn for the day that the oil bubble bursts and prices drop again. However, the housing and dot-com bubbles both burst because of an overabundance of supply. Too many nonprofitable houses and mortgages led to a sudden drop in price. The same thing happened with dot-com businesses. However, there's no reason to think that the same will happen with oil. Fossil fuels are a non-renewable resource. Sooner or later, supply will start to shrink as reserves run out. Some believe we've already hit that point; others think it will arrive within the next 20 years. Barring some unforeseen increase of supply or decrease in demand, high prices are here to stay, which is bad news for common people stuck paying four dollars a gallon at the pump.

The Revenge of Content

2008-05-07T16:25:00.005-06:00

We've all had enough of your yapping.

So, reading a non-personal blog that will remain nameless recently, I found that all the articles were, in fact, friggin huge. The world needs opinions, not epistles.

This is because there's so much content out here that we're finding that leisure time (unless you are very fortunate or lazy) is a prohibitive factor on consumption. That's never been a problem before--back before the internet was TV (you know, when TV was still TV), those in front of the Tube could not change the amount of content they got in an hour; it was an hour of TV in an hour of real time. Those in front of the Tubes, however, have a whole A/V multimedia freakshow smorgasbord in front of them: an hour of TV (real TV from Hulu or whatever) in 42 minutes, an hour of numbing user-created YouTube content in an hour + however much time you use to search it. Blogposts on your wpm reading, and webcomics in a flash. Flash comics: not in a flash, ironically, though still enjoyable.

Keep it simple, get to the point, and stop destroying the internet. Thanks.

The death knell

2008-05-07T14:41:00.002-06:00

Why Hillary is finished after last night's primaries.

For those unaware, Indiana and North Carolina each held primaries last night. Barack Obama had long been projected to win North Carolina, and Hillary Clinton was supposed to win Indiana. Then the recent Rev. Jeremiah Wright imbroglio started up again, and people thought Obama would do much worse than expected. Hooray for lowered expectations! Obama won North Carolina by 15 points (which is actually less than he was supposed to win it by a couple of weeks ago) and narrowly lost Indiana, effectively murdering any remaining spark of hope Clinton had of winning the race.

How can that be, you ask? Isn't Obama's lead only 150 or so delegates? Aren't there still several more contests to go? Actually, the primary season is very nearly over. (FINALLY.) There are only six more primaries to go, with a total of 217 delegates left. Obama's lead is roughly 150 delegates. Hillary would have to win something like 86 percent of the remaining delegates to get a lead in pledged delegates, and even then she has to convince about 70 percent of the superdelegates. (I'm not just pulling these numbers out of the air. You can see for yourself by using Slate's delegate calculator.) This isn't even close to realistic. Hillary has only won one blowout state, and that was her home state of Arkansas. She doesn't have a prayer anymore. In the next few days and weeks, you can expect to see superdelegates flocking to Obama in droves.

The moral of the story? Clinton can't win unless it comes out that Obama was caught having gay sex with Adolf Hitler's corpse while defecating on a lapel pin. Or something like that.

The Political Horse Race

2008-05-05T11:44:00.004-06:00

The queen mother of all bad omens.

The Kentucky Derby was run this weekend, and predictably, was made into a political metaphor. The field was packed full - 20 horses were entered - but was devoid of a clear favorite. Making headlines was filly Eight Belles, the first female horse to be entered in the Derby in nine years. Starting to sound like the Democratic primary season yet? It certainly did to Hillary Clinton, who announced before the race that she was endorsing Eight Belles to win. Eight Belles ran valiantly, making a big push through the home stretch to come in second. Pretty good for a filly.

And then disaster struck. Galloping through the second turn, Eight Belles broke both of her front ankles in a freak accident, collapsing to the track. Veteranians were summoned to the scene immediately, but there was nothing that could be done, as the filly was euthanized on the track. Eight Belles was the first horse in the history of the Kentucky Derby to die on the track.

That alone would be an awful political omen for Hillary Clinton. Watching the horse you endorsed to win become the first to DIE ON THE RACETRACK has to be sobering. It gets better, though. The winning horse was a largely untested young phenom named Big Brown. Wow. I'm not given to superstition usually, but this is pretty alarming.

Pre-race favorite Colonel John finished fifth.

AP Photo/Brian Bohannon

A Democratic Primer

2008-05-01T10:03:00.002-06:00

A refresher course on the Democratic primaries.

Are you confused on the situation of the Democratic primary race? How did we get to this point, anyway? Slate has put together a seven-minute video explaining how the whole race went down. It's interesting, entertaining, and a great way to catch up on the last few months. Even if you don't want to watch the entire thing, it's worth taking a look.

The Trouble With Elitism

2008-05-01T09:49:00.003-06:00

Elitists come out of every form of music culture. If you like a band, and you get to know them, you become and expert and eventually you become an elitist. Elitists tend to think they are the cock of the walk, that there are no elitists that came before them. Unfortunately for them, they are wrong, so if you're one of those current Elitists, enjoy it now because soon you'll be in the past.

We've all run into them, the person who thinks they are the expert on music. They've explored music and they know what's exciting. You ask them their music choices and they say a little bit of everything, so you decide to test them, and they've never heard of any of the bands you say. But then they tell you the bands they know, the ones within a particular genre of which they seem to be the expert on. That is when you've found an elitist. You can find elitists in almost every form of music, and some are more bearable then others. But the ones who are bearable are the ones who were once the newbies but now see they've grown up.

The New Kids on the Block, the newest Elitists forming, are those of the Indie generation. They think they know music, they're the big men on campus and they know all there is to know about music. But soon they'll be a thing of the past and go through what all past genres have done. Classical, Jazz, 50s Rock, Woodstock, Disco, The 80s, Grunge, Alternative, Pop/Punk. Each of these and many more have gone through being the elitist faction who comes into the music scene and thinks they are the only ones around. Now those who are still elitists of these groups look on the new kids and think, "If only you knew."

The funny thing is, and Indie person would look at this article and think, "ah, but those were all the popular genres, Indie isn't popular, Pop and Rap are. We're under the mainstream. We're the rebellious ones." But let's look at all these genres, all of them were created to be rebellious to what was currently popular. New Music is created when someone wants to go beyond what everyone else is listening to. Soon enough they are what everyone is listening to and the circle of life continues. Those in these other music cultures, the ones of the past, they don't even compare themselves to the current Pop and Rap scenes, they don't need to, they're in a different league. But Indie constantly has to remind us that they aren't the currently popular group while still maintaining they are better. Which soon enough will breed into popularity. Just you wait Indie fans, soon you'll have people becoming rebellious of you because you're too mainstream for them. It's already starting to happen, so live it up now, you don't have long left.

In which the author loses his mind

2008-04-29T13:47:00.002-06:00

Why this primary season is driving me insane.

(In this article, the author will replace his traditional style of summarizing news stories without editorial bias with RAW UNBRIDLED SARCASM. Please be forewarned that the following statements will be purely opinion and not meant to be construed as fact. Thank you. --ed.)

The dominant story in the headlines today was that Barack Obama all but officially cut ties with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his controversial pastor who has been causing problems for him on the campaign trail. (I've already documented my feelings on the Wright imbroglio previously; feel free to refresh yourself on them.) After laying the story to rest a few weeks ago, Wright has taken it upon himself to go on a speaking tour in an effort to clear his name. To his credit, he sounds much more polished and intelligent than the sound bites you hear on YouTube. And to his credit, Obama really didn't have any other political recourse than to once again publicly distance himself from Wright. That's all good and well. But why does this story have to be the top item on my Google News page? It's a story that's already been put to bed several weeks ago. It didn't affect the polls the first time around, and it won't affect the polls this time around. (Pro-Obama voters would love him even if he ate babies, anti-Obama voters would hate him even found a way to cure cancer and turn it into gold, and undecided voters will vote based on the economy.) Let it go already! It doesn't matter!

I know I sound like a broken record here, but the fact is that none of the election coverage over the past few months has really mattered. Almost without exception, each state has gone for the candidate projected to win there weeks and months earlier. The only exception has been Hillary Clinton's win in New Hampshire, which showed Obama leading on the day of the primary. Can we please skip to the end already? Clinton DOES NOT have a chance to win the nomination. She can take the race all the way to the convention, sure, but in the end, she's going to end up as close to winning the nomination as Dennis Kucinich. Taking second place isn't any different than taking twentieth. You still lose.

Don't believe me when I say she's not going to win? Take a look at Slate's Delegate Calculator, which shows how many delegates each candidate has and stands to win in each state. As I'm writing this article, Obama holds a 155 delegate lead. That may not sound like much when there are over 3100 delegates that have been awarded, but that's more delegates than there were at stake in Ohio. (Remember when Ohio was a big deal?) Obama's lead is huge, and Clinton isn't doing much to chip away at it. The major media outlets made a huge deal about her win in Pennsylvania last week, saying that she was back from the dead and that maybe Obama was the underdog now. This is lunacy. Absolutely ridiculous. She ended up with a net gain of 12 delegates from that primary. If she wanted to make a legitimate claim that she could win this race, she would have needed at least twice that to start making a dent in Obama's lead. As it stands, Clinton needs to win the remaining nine primaries by forty points each to even catch up to Obama. Forty points. That means she needs to get at least 70% of the vote in nine more contests if she wants to take the lead and start convincing superdelegates that the has the voice of the people.

Do we have any idea how utterly impossible it is to get 70% of the vote in any given state? Any??? It's only been done twice in this primary season. Obama did it in Hawaii (where he benefited from being a native son and the caucus format) and Clinton did it in Arkansas (again, with the native son). Obama couldn't do it in Illinois. Clinton couldn't do it in New York. John McCain is just barely pulling it off now, even though he's UNOPPOSED. Is this starting to make sense? HILLARY IS DEAD, PEOPLE. ACCEPT IT.

Seriously. Let's just agree to tune out all election coverage until June 4, when we wake up and see that Obama is STILL ahead after the Montana and South Dakota primaries. Clinton won't have a leg to stand on. She'll be completely finished and won't have anything else to fall back on. (Who am I kidding? Of course she'll come up with something else to justify staying in the race.) Anything else that happens between now and then can be safely ignored, unless we find out Obama is a convicted murderer, alligator rapist, or serial pope abuser. Almost every single primary (remember New Hampshire?) has gone according to the polls so far. There's really no reason to assume that it won't continue. Here, I'll even tell you who's going to win each of the remaining nine contests:

May 6: Indiana (Obama, close)
North Carolina (Obama, by a lot)

May 13: West Virginia (Clinton, by a lot)

May 20: Kentucky (Clinton, by a lot)
Oregon (Obama, close)

June 3: Montana (no polling data available, but probably Obama by a lot)
South Dakota (same thing)

There aren't any opinion polls taken for Guam and Puerto Rico, either. Even if we assume those to be virtual ties, there's no chance that Clinton will get 70% of the remaining vote. Even if she does, she still has to convince something like 80% of the remaining superdelegates to side with her. It's impossible.

Seriously. Come back and read this article on June 4 and see if I wasn't right.

Save Our Sonics

2008-04-14T13:35:00.005-06:00

Why NBA commissioner David Stern is killing basketball in Seattle.

For the vast majority of you who aren't die-hard sports fans like myself, I'm going to let you in on what might be one of the biggest outrages in professional sports in the last thirteen years. This is bigger than the current steroids scandal in Major League Baseball. Bigger than the brawl at the Palace at Auburn Hills in 2004. Bigger than anything.

Seattle SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett is relocating the team to Oklahoma City.

You're skeptical. I don't blame you. You can't see why a team being moved is such a big deal. Well, let me fill you in on the details, and you'll see why this is a tremendous outrage not only for committed Sonics fans, but for everyday people like yourself who don't follow basketball.

Some background: the Sonics play basketball at KeyArena, which was renovated in 1994. I've never actually been inside KeyArena myself (since I'm a solid Portland Trail Blazers fan), but I'm led to understand that it's a pretty solid arena. The Sonics have been in Seattle since 1967 and have won an NBA championship in that time. And then in 2006, Oklahoma City businessman Clay Bennett purchased the team from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. Fans were concerned that the team would be relocated from Seattle, but Bennett publicly promised that he was committed to the city.

He then asked for a $500 million tax bond to build a new arena since he felt KeyArena was "economically inviable." (His justification was that there wasn't enough space for bars and restaurants. The arena itself is just fine.) He submitted a plan for residents of Seattle to foot the bill through taxes. (Guess how much of Bennett's personal money he was willing to spend on a new arena? Zero.) Voters refused, having just approved bills to build Qwest Field (for the NFL Seahawks) and SafeCo Field (for the MLB Mariners), BOTH OF WHICH COST LESS THAN $500 MILLION DOLLARS. Bennett, upon hearing this, declared that Seattle was not committed to professional basketball and announced his intention to move the team to Oklahoma City.

This stirred up complete outrage in Seattle. ESPN.com's Bill Simmons asked fans to send him emails describing their plight, and he got over 3,000 of them within 24 hours. He lists an excellent sample of them here. It's informative, if time-consuming, reading. There are devoted fans who are shocked that anyone could call them unfaithful. One fan talks about being present during the 1996 NBA Finals and not being able to hear the announcer over the roar of the crowd...during the PREGAME INTRODUCTIONS! Seriously. What kind of dedication does it take to generate that kind of noise? This same group of fans filled KeyArena so they could watch Sonics playoff road games on the Jumbotron, and they were able to fill most of the arena on weekdays. That's dedication. And that's the sort of group Bennett is stealing a team from.

Did I say stealing? I meant it. There's no way you can call this a simple relocation. This is like someone coming to Wrigley Field, buying the Chicago Cubs, and saying fans aren't suitably dedicated to the sport and moving the team to Albuquerque. There aren't any words for how outraged I am.

But shouldn't there be someone who prevents crimes like these from happening? You're absolutely right. His name is David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA. And rather than step in and prevent such a travesty (which actually would have been a crime - part of his contract states that Bennett would not attempt to relocate the team), Stern chastised the city of Seattle for not being willing to support professional basketball. He said that if the Sonics left the city, there would never be another NBA team to take their place. Seriously. Here's his exact words:

"I'd love to find a way to keep the team there. Because if the team moves, there's not going to be another team there, not in any conceivable future plan that I could envision, and that would be too bad."

TOO BAD???? This is the man whose JOB it is to provide equality in the NBA and he says it would be TOO BAD if Seattle lost basketball??? This is ridiculous. This is unconscionable. This is reprehensible. And the worst part is that Bennett was a traitor from the start. Recent emails have come to light that state that Bennett bought the Sonics with the intention of taking them out of Seattle and into Oklahoma city. (I'm serious. I have documents.) The city of Seattle has started a motion against Bennett for breaking his contract, but it remains to be seen if that will affect the Sonics' pending move. You want to know how mad it makes me? Let me provide a comic to illustrate:

I want to find this ostrich and recruit him to kick Bennett in the groin until his eyes pop out.

Here's why this should matter to you.

Clay Bennett demanded $500 million to keep the Sonics in Seattle, an offer he knew would never be met. This is essentially the same as someone taking your child hostage and telling you they would shoot them in the head unless you paid an absolutely unpayable ransom. Bennett has shot Seattle basketball in the head, and he's still shooting. And kicking the corpse. And taking a leak on it. And in the future, someone could do the same thing to you. David Stern has set the precedent for the NBA. It's now perfectly acceptable to demand exorbitant amounts of money from your fan base for a new arena or else you can move the team. Do you know what they call that in the real world? BLACKMAIL. If this happened in any other business, Bennett would be facing trial right now. Instead, he's being vindicated by the very man who should be standing up to him.

In closing, let me provide you with an example of what will happen to Bennett if he successfully manages to steal the Sonics. In 1995, Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell announced his intentions to move his NFL team to Baltimore. He succeeded, but not before earning the absolute hatred of the city of Cleveland. He hasn't returned to the city in thirteen years. When Browns kicker Lou "The Toe" Groza died in 2000, Modell didn't attend the funeral, saying he feared for his life. Do you think the same thing might happen to Bennett? Let me put it this way. I doubt he walks on the streets of Seattle anymore. If the Sonics get stolen to Oklahoma City, don't be surprised if you hear that Bennett was found murdered in a gutter in Seattle.

Socializing with a Sidearm

2008-04-09T22:11:00.000-06:00

Love in the '00s from someone who's been desperate since 2002.

When I first returned to college after a two-year hiatus, I was ready and raring to go in the social scene. I was in a relationship pretty quickly after I came back, and neither of us had a cell phone. There were hours spent in the kitchen waiting for the phone to ring, and, living with other guys, nothing important was ever discussed on the line. There were a lot of missed connections, and a lot of late night walks-and-talks. I remember calling this girl on my class break from a courtesy phone on campus. We never conversed using email. We both had email addresses, sure, but neither of us even considered that as an avenue of real communication.

Some of my friends started getting cellphones around this time (summer of '02), but it still wasn't really the norm. (It wasn't odd either, though.) I moved to a more "with it" apartment complex--one with keycodes on the doors--and it seemed that it was way more important to have a cellphone there. I was finally convinced to join the Sprint network in the fall of '03 because a (mega-)crush was PCSing it up.

By now, I'm texting and emailing and google-talking with women. Those of us who fate has determined should remain ready, willing, and single, but who remember the halcyon days when one could finish a real conversation without a call or text interruption, the curve is steep: what communication is appropriate? How often can one use the cell, or text? Is it okay to friend someone on facebook after the first date? As far as this relative geezer can tell, there are only two generally accepted rules regarding technology and dating (and again, this may vary according to your region of residence), and they are:

1. Dates can only be requested using voice technology. Skype = okay. SMS = bad. Email = worse. Facebook = double plus ungood. Voicemail = sketchy. However, it is okay to propose using Twitter.

2. It is traditional for the person asked on the date to engage in the "Post-Date Text" (or PDT) immediately after the activities, as a way of circumventing the difficult doorstep line "we should do this again some time". The text may contain those words, or other gratitudes. It is not to be done if there is no interest in a next encounter.

Technically, the third is: "You should never take a phone call or respond to a text message while on a date unless it's an emergency", but that I think should be generalized rule about any preplanned conversation. Maybe some of you whippersnappers out there can help me out with any other rules.

Unfortunately for Gen X/Y border-dwellers like us, we're being put through what our parents are going through with web tech, and what our grandparents are doing with computers in general: flailing (and sometimes failing) to understand the cultural ramifications of technology. Funny how a little tech can pare a 27-year-old out of "30 is the new 20" young adulthood.

The Iraq Quagmire

2008-04-09T09:45:00.004-06:00

Why we're not getting out of Iraq in the foreseeable future, and what the next president can do to change that.

General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker testified before Congress yesterday on the situation in Iraq. Neither of them provided any surprises in their testimonies; Petraeus agreed that progress was evident militarily, but recommended a 45-day pause in troop reductions this summer. Neither he nor Crocker were willing to provide a timetable for withdrawal nor specify conditions under which troops might be permitted to come home. Also predictably, most of the coverage focused on Petraeus, who has become the most visible sign of the war other than President Bush.

The fact that Petraeus is the center of attention, however, should be cause for concern. America's involvement in Iraq reached the five-year mark last month, and it's becoming increasingly clear that a primarily military strategy isn't working. The last major positive development from Iraq was the surge, which at best merely delayed the problems we're seeing now. Sectarian conflict is as bad as ever. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is growing weaker daily. Al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn't appear to be losing strength. And yet the Bush administration is confident that their war strategy is working, and loudly insistent that we can't bring the troops home until we achieve success.

Here's the central problem: what exactly does "success" mean? The White House has provided several different definitions for us over the last five years. At first, "success" was toppling Saddam Hussein and establishing a stable democracy. When a stable democracy proved more difficult than we envisioned, "success" changed to helping the Iraqi government achieve certain benchmarks for progress. (Remember when benchmarks were all the rage?) In time that changed to battling down the insurgency. Currently, the goal is something vague like "creating a stable situation in Iraq where freedom can spread through the Middle East." As long as the goal is vague, it's going to remain unachievable, and as long as it's unachievable, our troops aren't coming home.

This is where our next president, whomever he or she is, can help. In order for the war to end, we need to have a clear goal of what we intend to accomplish. A primarily military strategy doesn't seem to be working. Our next president can change that by making Crocker the center of attention rather than Petraeus. Talking with the enemy and negotiating is more likely to have an effect than shooting him. Albert Einstein once defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." In essence, that's been the country's Iraq policy for the last five years. We sent in troops, and they became bogged down in sectarian conflict. When our military strategy wasn't working, we sent in more troops. Guess what? It's still not working.

It's clear that America doesn't want to become involved in a long-term conflict in Iraq - at least, not any longer-term than it is now. If our next president doesn't act to clear up the situation and our goals, we might find ourselves stuck there for longer than anyone wants to imagine. John McCain's "100 years" suddenly doesn't sound that unrealistic.

Image from Associated Press.

My Multi-Sensory Aesthetic Experience

2008-04-06T09:14:00.005-06:00

Mae redeems themselves in this hipster's eyes.

So when my friend Lady Ally called with the news, I was moved by her generosity, but not particularly nonplussed with the selection: we had missed Explosions in the Sky, and inexplicable pursuits and a friend's wedding reception kept us from Jose Gonzalez, so she had gotten us tickets to Mae. I was much more into Mae two years ago, when again unfortunate circumstances kept us from seeing the Virginia five-piece (now three with touring musicians). I've always associated their relationship to indie with the Gin Blossoms' relationship to alternative: not really part of the sound or the scene, but somehow always associated with it in some way. That being said, I like Mae still.

Their 2007 release, Singularity, was not much to speak of. A couple of single-worthy tracks, but like nearly everyone's first major-label release, something was lost in translation (see Death Cab's Plans). Aside: would that everyone would release R.E.M.'s Green rather than Death Cab's Plans on their first big-name at bat. Further, I had moved away from whatever you want to call Mae: indie pop, post-emo, power pop, whatever, and I'd really strayed into Sufjan Country: disgusted as mentioned by Plans, only accepting of new Decemberists work inasmuch as it was daring in the album-oriented sense, getting into mini-indie like Yeasayer and the Brobecks (and mega-mini-indie band Vampire Weekend), and like everyone else who owns a pair of Chuck Taylors, waiting for the second coming of The Postal Service. I thought the show was going to be tofu for the mind.

We got there as Between the Trees was starting their set. They sound like Taking Back Sunday. Then the Honorary Title. Bad name, boring tunes. Then Mae came on to wild accords. OK, fine, I'm excited too. A projector had gone on during setup. I was both excited and concerned. They opened with "Futuro" from the B-Sides album, and suddenly it was okay that we hadn't gone to see Explosions. The projector shone over all band members neo-retro-futurism, a cheesy mix of planets and binary--it was awesome. They cut the crap and went straight into "Embers and Envelopes" with the background now showing images from a night drive on the freeway. Post-emo, indeed. It was so good. The whole show consisted of five guys having fun. (And getting paid an obscene amount of cash, I guess.) It was as if, after three tours, they realized they'd finally made it. There were lots of singalongs, but in a very innocent way.

Also, frontman Dave Elkins is a nice boy. In this world of plug, chug, and bug concerts, Dave's talk to the crowd was full of gratitude and cordiality. He didn't bogart the mic, but he didn't ignore Salt Lake City either. If I were a grandfather, I'd ask him to marry my granddaughter. They played a lengthy set (not primarily from the new album), and two encores.

Ill will toward Singularity aside, my live experience with this exceptional group has gotten me back on the Mae train.

(Thanks to Lady Ally for the picture and the t-shirt.)

The Republican Primary, Take Two

2008-04-02T13:11:00.003-06:00

The vice presidential sweepstakes begins.

Now that John McCain has the Republican presidential nomination wrapped up, speculation has begun over who his running mate will be. Not only is this a logical thing to discuss now, but it doubles as a good strategic move, since the longer the battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton continues, the more McCain fades into the background. Let's review some of the names that have been thrown out and their likeliness of being accepted.

Mitt Romney. Hands down, the most commonly mentioned name. Romney has some considerable pluses, not least of which is his considerable personal fortune that could be used for campaign finance. That's also a liability, however, as McCain has made a crusade out of campaign finance reform over the last few years. Romney's only other real asset is his name-recognition factor, which helps to explain why he has attracted so much attention lately. Voters, even when serious matters of policy are on the line, tend to vote for the candidate who they have heard of the most, which explains why the front-runners last summer were Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton. Still, Romney's star power doesn't extend far past Idaho and Utah, two states that are already safe bets for the Republicans. Don't bank on Romney picking up the nod.

Mike Huckabee. Huckabee's appeal is similar to Romney's; people have heard of him because of his recent success in the primaries. He also has the advantage of appealing to evangelical voters, whose support McCain badly needs. He could also bring in Southern voters. Questions still arise concerning his conservative credentials, since he raised taxes while governor (legit) and didn't see through enough executions while in office (I still can't believe people actually think this). Moral of the story? Huckabee is more likely than Romney to make it on the ticket, but still far from a sure thing.

Condoleeza Rice. The Secretary of State only has one thing going for her, and that's her name recognition factor. Possibilities of breaking barriers aside (you're thinking about running a black or a woman? what about a BLACK WOMAN???), her service in the Bush administration is just too big a liability for her to be seriously considered as a vice president. Not a chance.

Colin Powell. Wishful thinking. He's publicly ended his political career, which is good, since his role in starting the war in Iraq (even if he was deceived by Bush and Rumsfeld) would effectively prevent him from ever being elected.

Dick Cheney. I've actually heard his name floated, although mostly in jest. Moving on.

Tim Pawlenty. Haven't heard of him? Pawlenty is the governor of Minnesota and looks like he'd be an excellent vice president. and might help to tilt his traditionally Democratic home state for the Republicans. Pawlenty has long been a McCain supporter and is a popular governor among his constituents. He's also young (just 48), which adds a nice counter-balance to McCain's age. There's a fair chance that he could get the nod.

Charlie Crist. This name might sound more familiar - he's the governor of Florida whose last-minute endorsement gave McCain the push he needed to take the state and the momentum heading into Super Tuesday. There's every reason to think that McCain might repay the favor by adding Crist to his ticket, especially since Florida is a major swing state. 27 electoral votes can make a big difference. Crist, too, is relatively young (52), though his gray hair could actually be the difference. (Pawlenty just looks younger than Crist. Like I keep saying, this election is all about image.)

Jon Huntsman, Jr. As the governor of Utah, you would Huntsman to be an ardent Romney supporter, but he's actually backed McCain from the early stages of the primary season. Like Pawlenty and Crist, he is young, charismatic, and energetic, all things McCain would love to have associated with his campaign. Unlike Pawlenty and Crist, however, he is not the governor of a swing state. A McCain-Huntsman ticket wouldn't be a big surprise, but I think it would be more likely to see him with a Cabinet position.

But even more likely to be accurate than my speculations, however, is the market on political futures - Intrade.com. Intrade allows you to buy and sell futures on politics. It's essentially like betting on who you think will end up as the nominee for either party. Mitt Romney leads the field in the vice presidential market, but Tim Pawlenty is close behind. When you factor out Romney's name recognition, Pawlenty looks like the likely candidate. Keep your eyes peeled.

Plan Z

2008-03-31T10:24:00.006-06:00

What's really going to happen when gas is priced out of the consumer market? The Omnibus!

With gas prices revving up to ride off in to the sunset of consumer intangibility, automotive engineers have unfortunately proven that economic forces are insufficient to produce the necessary product change on time. Despite the existence of hybrid and natural gas cars, as well as a handful of other alt-fuel models, and despite mileage-hoarding "hypermiler" techniques, we have failed to plan in time for this to affect us before we (or, those of us who haven't already) cross the threshold of "I can't buy gas anymore". City bus systems even in moderate-sized cities (I'm extrapolating this from my experience with (sub)urban Utah's UTA system) have been steadily growing.

You know where I'm going now, and I bet you're all so excited. We all get to ride the bus! Bus tickets will go up in price, sure, but I bet that after a short period of time, most major cities will privatize their fleets, creating competition, and bringing our little part of North America more in line with our Southern neighbors. This exciting transitional phase in American economic history will doubtless bring hearty tales of the everyman to otherwise calloused and naive suburbians, like the one I heard the other day: "All I do all day is smoke pot and watch TV with my dog." It'll be awesome.

Also, there are still bicycles.

I'm going to contribute to those alt-fuel groups, if I have anything left over after gas station tomorrow.

McClone

2008-03-31T09:50:00.003-06:00

Further proof that John McCain is the second coming of George W. Bush.

Criticism of John McCain has been varied, to say the least. Ultraconservative talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh have publicly announced that McCain is not conservative enough, stating that they would even vote for Hillary Clinton over him. Critics from the left - especially his likely November opponent, Barack Obama - have denounced him for being too conservative, saying that a McCain presidency only amounts to a third Bush term. Both sides have a legitimate beef, but accusations of McCain as Bush, Jr. are starting to look more accurate. Even more than his policy, McCain's speech is starting to sound downright Bushian of late.

Consider this. McCain, whose major strength is his understanding of the military, said the following at a press conference: "[I]t's common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and is receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran." Senator Joe Lieberman, who was standing at his side, quickly whispered into his ear, after which McCain said that he misspoke, and that Iran was not training al-Qaeda in Iraq forces. A simple mistake, right? Perhaps, except that he made the same misspeech a day earlier. The error is a small one - Iranians are training Iraqi extremists, not al-Qaeda forces - but one that hearkens back to the road to war in 2002. Bush was adamant that there were connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda, which ultimately proved to be false. It's far from clear that McCain is as gung-ho about war as Bush has been, but this sort of mistake from a professed military expert does raise some eyebrows.

Couple that with another recent statement, and things seem even more sketchy. When asked about the situation in Iraq now that the death toll for U.S. soldiers had risen above 4,000, McCain answered, "We're succeeding. I don't care what anybody says. I've seen the facts on the ground." That's a statement that sounds eerily like Bush. The war in Iraq, along with many other hallmarks of the Bush administration, were perpetuated due to the government's insistence on ignoring reality. That has been the most glaring criticism of George W. Bush. It's unnerving to think that the likely Republican nominee could already have the same thing going against him.

Issues of Wright and Wrong

2008-03-25T15:29:00.002-06:00

Parsing the Jeremiah Wright sermons.

I know I went on record a few weeks ago as saying that nothing between March 4 and April 22 would matter in the primary season, but since the craziness about Rev. Jeremiah Wright refuses to go away, I'll weigh in on the matter. I stand by my opinion that it doesn't matter in the slightest. More than anything else, I'm irritated by how distorted and skewed these sermons have become by major news outlets in an attempt not to discredit and smear Barack Obama, but to simply sell a story.

The phrase "God damn America" is ubiquitous now. A simple Google search on the phrase yields over a million hits. Pretty impressive stuff for a sermon delivered over five years ago on the south side of Chicago. Yet if you ask nearly any American what the speech was about, I doubt very much that any of them could tell you anything beyond "he hates America." That's troubling to me. My frustrations about the us versus them mentality of post-9/11 patriotism aside, I want to point out that Rev. Wright is not attacking America here. He's mourning. You can see that in the text of the speech. Amazingly, considering all of the YouTube videos in circulation containing sound clips from the speech, I wasn't able to find a complete text of the sermon. (If you can, mention it in a comment and I'll get it posted up here.) The title of the sermon is "Confusing God and Government." He spends his 40 minutes arguing that citizens look to their government for the things that only God can provide. Specifically, he makes the distinction between an good, benevolent, and merciful God and a petty, human, and flawed government. The comparison should surprise no one. No government, nor any other man-made institution, can claim to be perfect. He made several references to the American government, especially the war in Iraq, but didn't limit himself, also referencing the Egyptian, British, German, Russian, and Japanese governments.

The sound bite about America was what drew the most attention, though. Yet listen to the quote - the whole quote - and tell me if this is a sentiment you really disagree with:

"When it came to putting the citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters. Put them on auction blocks. Put them in cotton fields. Put them in inferior schools. Put them in substandard housing. Put them in scientific experiments. Put them in the lower paying jobs. Put them outside the equal protection of the law. Kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education, and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness.

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strike law and then wants us to sing God Bless America. Naw, naw, naw. Not God Bless America. God Damn America! That's in the Bible. For killing innocent people. God Damn America for treating us citizens as less than human. God Damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and she is supreme."

Admittedly, the quote has an air of conspiracy theory to it. But if you think of the government as the common man, then there's little disputing what he says. Blacks have been repressed for years. There's still a very real element of racism in America today. That's undeniable. Wright is denouncing the sin of pride in America for her sense of superiority, and that's something that's hard to argue with.

The other thing causing all of this flap is his argument that America is reaping the rewards of imperialism abroad with terrorism at home. Here's an excerpt from that speech, delivered days after the September 11 attacks:

"We took this country, by terror, away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism. We took Africans from their country to build our way ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism. We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians - babies, nonmilitary personnel. We bombed the black community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers, and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hardworking fathers. We bombed Khadafi, his home and killed his child. Blessed be they who bash your children's heads against the rocks.

"We bombed Iraq, we killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed the plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy - killed hundreds of hardworking people - mothers and fathers, who left home to go that day, not knowing they'd never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye. Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school - civilians, not soldiers. People just trying to make it day by day. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and South Africa and now we are indignant? Because the stuff we have done overseas is brought back into our own front yard.

"America's chickens are coming home, to roost. Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred, and terrorism begets terrorism."

Again, you can disagree with the idea that the American government has a secret agenda to systematically remove undesirables from within its borders or overseas. But there's little disputing America's foreign policy has created a powerfully anti-American feeling abroad. And it's in that sense that Rev. Wright said "God damn America." He's not angry. He's mournful, wishing that history could have led us to a different place. He's preaching accountability for transgression, saying that we need to be responsible for our actions and take our lumps. Above all, he's preaching repentance, coming back to the suffering of Jesus Christ as a way to redemption at the end of both of these sermons.

You can disagree with his choice of examples for his sermons. I don't think that politics has a place in religion. They'd do well to stay apart. But his points are completely valid, I think. They just need to be read in context. They also need to be read in a state of mind free of hyperpatriotism, remembering that America isn't the center of the world and that criticizing the government and the country isn't the grievous sin it's made out to be.

SPI Update, 23 March

2008-03-23T19:18:00.004-06:00

An exciting weekend, but not for this writer.

Weekends like this one are exciting to watch. Underdogs come up with big upsets, powerhouses are shocked, and endless buzz is created. It's a lot of fun. It's a little less fun, however, when you've trumpeted up your foolproof prediction method and get to watch it all fall to pieces. Let's review:

West Virginia 73, Duke 67. Duke was rated a full two and a half points higher in the SPI - high enough to earn them a spot in the finals in my bracket. West Virginia ruined my life again this year, knocking Duke out in the second round. They knocked off UConn a few years back in the second round as a 7 seed. I'm not too keen on those Mountaineers.

Stanford 82, Marquette 81. One point the other way and we aren't having this discussion. I went out of my way to talk about how overrated Stanford is and how underrated Marquette is. So much for that.

Realistically, those are the only two big upsets I had. I have 12 of the 16 remaining teams correct so far (only wrong on Washington State, Villanova, Stanford, and West Virginia), but the teams that I lost had a big impact. It's rough. It just goes to show you that there isn't a foolproof way to predict something as inherently chaotic as the NCAA basketball tournament. I'm still doing better than the wife (35-13 to her 33-15), but I'd be surprised if she doesn't end up outperforming me. Next year, when you see my article come up about my failsafe predictions for March Madness, cut straight to the chase and ask who my wife has winning it all. (She picked Tennessee, incidentally.)

AP Photo - Chuck Burton

SPI Update, 21 March

2008-03-21T22:58:00.002-06:00

Lots of upsets, and big ones, too.

This is the downside of going public with a bracket you think is really good - when it takes a nose dive, everyone finds out. There were four big upsets today, and my metric only got two of them right. And even that's debatable. Let's look at the numbers.

Western Kentucky 101, Drake 99. The SPI had #14 Western Kentucky (112.4489) narrowly beating #16 Drake (112.0300). It wasn't an easy choice. Still, it's hard to argue with a scoring differential of 14.8 over your last ten games, even if they come against Sun Belt competition. I had complete faith in the SPI for this one. (That means I spent the entire overtime glued to my computer, watching the score update every few seconds and screaming when Drake pulled ahead with seconds to play.)

San Diego 70, Connecticut 69. This one floored me. San Diego is one of the worst teams to make the field (104.4046, #59 SPI) and UConn is, while not top-tier, pretty solid (110.1566, #24 SPI). I thought this one was a no-brainer. And somehow, San Diego kept it close the whole time and pulled out a squeaker in overtime. Just goes to show you that no statistics-driven metric is perfect.

Siena 83, Vanderbilt 62. I liked Siena in this matchup and was so confident I didn't expect anything other than a Siena blowout. I got it, but a quick look at the SPI chart surprised me. Vanderbilt was ranked considerably higher than Siena in pretty much every category. Look at the numbers:

SPI Vanderbilt 108.0898 Siena 106.6667
SOS Vanderbilt .5644 Siena .5143
Scoring differential Vanderbilt 7.2 Siena 5.9

Not really sure why I was so confident there, but I picked the upset and got it. Weird.

Villanova 75, Clemson 69. Here's one where I was just dead wrong. Seriously. How could I have seen #25 Clemson (109.8635) losing to #58 Villanova (104.6078)? The mind boggles. I just don't get this one.

Overall, the SPI performed significantly worse today, only going 9-7 for a total of 24-8. Not a good day. For comparison, my wife's bracket is 25-9. Also, she wishes to inform the loyal readers of the Worb that her bracket was not solely determined by name recognition, but by an elaborate process consisting of looking at both the team's seed and their win-loss record. I thought you should know out of duty to accuracy (which means I had to tell you on penalty of no sex until I'm 75).

SPI Update, 20 March

2008-03-20T22:03:00.002-06:00

Only one significant upset on the first day of the tournament.

There were some nail-biters, but my bracket is nearly perfect after day one of play. Here's a rundown of the three misfires I had:

UNLV 71, Kent State 58. The SPI had this one right, actually. #41 UNLV rates 107.2224 compared to #43 Kent State's 106.7044. When the scores are that close, though, I look to the last ten games, and Kent State had a much higher scoring differential. I yielded, and I picked the upset. I paid for it, too.

Pittsburgh 82, Oral Roberts 63. Same problem here. #37 Pittsburgh rates 107.7219 to #39 Oral Roberts' 107.3852. That's even closer than the first matchup. Oral Roberts had nearly eight points higher in the scoring differential category, though, so I went with the big upset. Now I just have to hope Pitt doesn't go on a huge run. They shouldn't, though, since Michigan State (their next opponent) has an SPI of over 109.

Texas A&M 67, BYU 62. Anyone watching this game knows that it was close. #17 BYU had a much better SPI (111.7292 compared to 109.0498), but I forgot to apply the smell test here. BYU plays in the Mountain West Conference. Their biggest win was over Louisville, yes, but it was a team riddled with injuries. I should have known better. It's just hard to pick against your alma mater.

So through the first day, the SPI is 15-1. My bracket is 13-3, but that's just because I'm an idiot and ignored my own system. For the record, my wife, who more of less filled out her bracket on name recognition (I love you, honey), is standing at 14-2, only missing BYU-Texas A&M and USC-Kansas State. That's a little humbling.

SPI Update, 18 March

2008-03-18T21:28:00.003-06:00

Mount St. Mary's 69, Coppin State 60.

I promised regular updates, and I'm here to provide the first. The play-in game was tonight, and on Monday I said that I expected Mount St. Mary's to win over Coppin State. The score is in, and the Mountaineers won by nine points. It was pretty close for most of the contest, but Mount St. Mary's pulled away in the clutch. Aficionados of the SPI will remember that the Mountaineers have a significantly higher rating than the Eagles. Mount St. Mary's boasts an SPI rating of 103.8015 compared to Coppin State's 97.3570. A difference of six and a half points is not to be ignored. Thus far, things are looking good.

For the record, Mount St. Mary's next opponent, North Carolina, has an SPI rating of 117.2178. If a six and a half point difference is huge, then a thirteen and a half point difference is even more so. Stay tuned.

Lights Out in Florida

2008-03-18T13:43:00.003-06:00

Shockingly, an actual development on the campaign trail.

While I was adamant that nothing significant would happen with respect to the election until the Pennsylvania primary on April 22, I may be forced to eat my words a mere two weeks later. Something major is afoot, and it's not what you think it is. Barack Obama's speech on race today was stirring. It was impressive, and critics hailed it as a turning point in his candidacy. Some people said this was the moment that put him past the presidential threshold. It was impressive. It sounded fantastic, and certainly did a lot to improve his image, which is what this campaign is centered around. But it wasn't the most significant piece of election news today. The most significant news, actually, was something that came without a lot of fanfare, which is surprising, considering its implications. Florida Democratic Party chair Karen Thurman announced today that Florida will not hold a re-vote for the Democratic primary. The results are to stand as is.

This leaves three possibilities for the Florida Democratic delegates, none of which are particularly appealing to Hillary Clinton, who won there with 50% of the vote.

Situation 1: The delegates from Florida aren't seated at the Democratic National Convention in August, and Clinton's 17-point victory counts for nothing. The Florida delegates don't matter. Ouch.
Situation 2: Barack Obama, who will control who can and cannot be seated at the delegation since he has the most delegates, allows the Florida delegates to be seated, but only if he has enough of a lead that seating extra Clinton delegates isn't a threat to him. They don't matter in this situation, either. Ouch.
Situation 3: The Florida delegates are split 50-50 in a reallocation. Neither candidate earns a net gain from Florida. The delegates still don't matter. Ouch.

No matter how you slice it, Clinton stands to lose a lot from this decision. Florida could have offered up to 186 delegates. Even if she only won by ten points (which is a somewhat modest projection), she would have gained twenty delegates on Obama. That's a lot when you consider the gap between them is just over 140. Her chances of winning the popular vote shrink up without Florida, too. A re-vote in Florida would likely have been even more in her favor, pushing her closer to the popular vote and the claim to have the voice of the people. That doesn't look likely now. Superdelegates are trickling away from her, too. She's losing, and even a major victory in Pennsylvania probably won't be enough to stop the bleeding.

So that's the real news from the campaign trail. The news outlets will rave and swoon over Obama's big speech, but you'd better believe the announcement out of Florida has the Clinton campaign sweating a lot more.

The SPI, revisited

2008-03-17T14:22:00.004-06:00

Retooling the ratings metric of the future.

Since I last wrote, I've done a substantial retooling of the Sam Power Index (SPI). The previous metric was essentially a product of the team's RPI rating, their strength of schedule, and their scoring differential. I realized, however, that this isn't the best way to go about it. For one thing, the RPI is a metric determined by a team's strength of schedule. Including that factor twice doesn't make much sense. Second, I realized that I was unfairly punishing teams that did poorly earlier in the season, but came alive down the stretch. A team being outscored by an average of seven points throughout the season but winning their last ten games by an average of fifteen points will be a lot more dangerous than their original record might indicate.

So I overhauled the metric, and my Excel spreadsheet now has close to four times as much data on it. I weighted in each team's strength of schedule and scoring differential for the last ten games, and I found some remarkable differences in the rankings. Even better, now that the official seedings have been released, I can compare what the NCAA selection committee and the SPI came up with. Here are the major differences:

Davidson. The Wildcats went 26-6 this year, winning their last 22 games. They're outscoring their opponents by over fifteen points a game, and outscored their last ten opponents by nearly twenty points a game. Yet the NCAA dropped them to a 10 seed for playing in the fairly soft Southern Conference and for not finishing ambitious nonconference opponents like Duke. The SPI has them listed at #4. This is one of the teams that is going to surprise a lot of people.

Georgetown. They rolled through the incredibly deep Big East conference this year, only losing to Pittsburgh in the conference final. They have a scoring differential of 11.5 points and a record of 25-4, earning them the 2 seed in the Midwest region. The SPI puts them at #20 overall, however, since they slowed down in the stretch. Their scoring differential fell to 5.6 points during their last ten games against a schedule that was only marginally more difficult than the rest of their season. The Hoyas aren't a bad team, but they aren't the dominant force everyone thinks they are. They aren't even the top-rated team from the Big East - Marquette (10), Louisville (11), and West Virginia (15) all finished higher.

Western Kentucky. Remember how I said this was the team to watch last time? Their SPI actually rose when I retooled it. They're rated at #14, which, for comparison, is only just below Texas. This is a team that beat their (admittedly weak) last ten opponents by nearly 15 points a game. That's pretty impressive, even for the Sun Belt Conference. Their first two opponents are lower in the SPI (#16 Drake and #24 Connecticut), so don't be surprised if you see the 12th-seeded Hilltoppers in the Sweet Sixteen.

Marquette. Here's a team that hasn't generated much attention this year. The Golden Eagles play in the insanely talented Big East, so they've been overshadowed by teams like Georgetown, Notre Dame, and Louisville all year. Yet they have close to the top scoring differential in the conference at 12.7 on the season. That fell to 11.5 in their last ten games, but that was higher than anyone else in the conference came up with. Even though the NCAA stuck them with a 6 seed, they have the advantage of playing in a soft region. They draw #60 Kentucky (an 11 seed) in the first round and overrated Stanford in the second (3 seed, #27 SPI). They have the guns to get past #13 Texas and even #3 Memphis, I think. Marquette's SPI is nearly three and a half points lower than Memphis', but the benefits of playing in the Big East will have them ready for such a big game. Marquette will be the surprise of the tournament.

I'm ready to predict the play-in game, for those of you looking for proof that this metric will work. The opening round game pits 16a Mount Saint Mary's against 16b Coppin State. These games are usually a toss-up when filling out brackets, but I feel pretty comfortable going to Mount Saint Mary's. Coppin State has had an amazing comeback from a 4-19 start (they finished the season on a 15-1 run) and had a 9.2 scoring differential in their last ten games, but their SPI is only 97.3570 compared to Mount Saint Mary's 103.8015. The fact is that Mount Saint Mary's has been playing all season at the level Coppin State has over the last ten games, and against similar competition. Go ahead and fill that in your bracket in pen.

I'll be posting regular updates as the tournament progresses. Feel free be amazed when I correctly pick all 64 games or mock me mercilessly when I get them all wrong.

How to Cope With Language Death

2008-03-14T14:46:00.003-06:00

Write 'em down, let 'em go.

There's a lot of Wikistuff about language death. Go wiki it. (Someone put me in a stockade for my awful use of that word.) Attached are terms like "killer language", "language murder" and the laughably linguistics-scholarly "linguicide". I don't buy it. Hold on before we go any further: I am vehemently opposed to "English only" and like laws, but I do think that if we are going to make any judgments on the big E then we must also do the same to its colonial imperialist-dog killer language friends, which according to Wikipedia are Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, French, Hindi, Swedish, and Hausa. So, if you hate on English, you hate on Hausa. How could anyone hate on Hausa? It's like kicking a puppy.

People learn language mostly out of a) necessity or b) expectations or social norms or c) difficult to identify internal motivations. Note that a) is so much more important than any other possible reason. This is from personal experience, but I'm sure if you Google Scholared "motivation language acquisition", you'd find some real evidence. Languages die when people are no longer motivated to speak them. In those situations, it's usually best to do the same as when any other organism is dead: plan a funeral.

In this case, the undertakers of languages are usually dressed in tweed rather than black--they're the professors of strange ilk to be found in campuses across the world, and they wield the tape recorder to the great effect of saving what can be remembered of the formerly living form of communication. Let them do their thing. Artificially resuscitating linguistic patterns is likely to be more effective than doing the same to organisms, but is far less fulfilling, as what you usually get is less a living language and more an "undead" one, unfaithful to the original and inaccessible to whichever native populations still exist.

The Rosetta Project is the largest time capsule for the dead and dying. Check out their space-aged language recording project here.

In the meantime, don't freak out that Washo is done for.

The Dream Ticket?

2008-03-11T15:49:00.003-06:00

Sneaky tricks as the primary season continues to unfold.

Remember how I told you the next few weeks would be a lot of coverage about nothing? It's already underway. The insanity surrounding Eliot Spitzer aside, a "major" event has arisen on the campaign trail. Since her wins in Texas and Ohio rejuvenated her campaign, Hillary Clinton has been subtly floating the idea that Barack Obama could be her running mate in November. Crowds flew into a frenzy as she remarked, "A lot of people wish they didn't have to [choose between Clinton and Obama]. A lot of people say 'I wish I could vote for both of you.' Well, that might be possible someday."

The Obama response was predictable. He was quick to point out that he is "not running for vice president," and that the Clinton camp can't say both that he is too inexperienced to be president but suitably experienced to be vice president. And he's right, of course, but the real problem this poses for Obama is the one that lies under the surface. By suggesting that Obama could be her vice president, Clinton places herself as the front-runner. It's almost a condescending remark, as though it were something a mother might say to her well-intentioned but ultimately misguided child. She's implying that even though Obama is running in front right now, she will be the party nominee in the end, and that this is a good way to get his feet wet.

The genius of the whole thing is that the whole argument is implied. If she were to say all of this out loud, Obama could argue against it without too much difficulty. However, you can't argue against something that isn't said. Obama is trying to make the nonverbal argument into a verbal one by saying that Hillary isn't in a position to start choosing a vice president just yet since she's still behind. He's going to have to crack down a little harder. Clinton is getting into the voters' heads. There's no reason to think that she won't continue tactics like this one.

Bring on the Madness

2008-03-11T14:27:00.003-06:00

Dissecting America's most involved sporting event.

On Sunday, March 16, the NCAA will announce the field of 65 for the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament. You and I know it as March Madness. More worktime productivity is lost to this event than any other in the world of sports. Brackets are filled out, office pools formed, and millions of dollars are won and lost in bets. Teams like the George Mason Patriots pull off improbable upsets, delighting some fans and infuriating others. An incredible 32 games are played in the first two days of the tournament. It's insanity. It's chaotic. It's as close to perfection as we can get in sports.

In preparing to fill out my own bracket, I've been analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of teams likely to make it into the tournament. There are a number of statistics one can look at to get a sense of the strength of a team. The most readily available one is the Associated Press poll. Sportswriters across the nation rank the top 25 teams, and the final point totals are posted in the official poll. The rankings are used when publicizing a game (a recent game between #1 Memphis and #2 Tennessee comes to mind), but are in essence subjective. There aren't any solid statistics or data that go into the rankings. For a more precise measurement, some turn to the Ratings Percentage Index, which is calculated based on wins and strength of schedule. The RPI is used by the NCAA selection committee in determining which teams should be given at-large berths in the tournament. This gives us a better look at which teams are more likely to do well during March.

Yet this still fails to take into account a statistic I think is a better indicator of future performance than wins and losses - scoring differential. Simply put, this is a statistic that shows, on average, how much a given team is winning its games by. A team winning games by an average of ten points should be better than a team winning by only five points. However, you can't stake everything on scoring differential. There's a big difference between beating Duke by twenty points and beating 0-29 New Jersey Institute of Technology by that same margin. To account for that, I added both the team's RPI and their strength of schedule into the mix to arrive at a statistic I called (for lack of a better name) the Sam Power Index (SPI).

The SPI holds up pretty well with the projected seeding I got from ESPN's Joe Lunardi. Take a sample matchup between West Virginia and Baylor. Lunardi has the Mountaineers taking the higher seed, even though they've only won one more game than Baylor. A look at the SPI shows why: West Virginia has a scoring differential of 13.1, compared to Baylor's 7.4. This gives them an SPI of 4.279, nearly two points above Baylor. The seedings bear this out, putting West Virginia on top. (The Mountaineers actually have the 12th highest SPI, which would likely put them in Elite Eight territory, were it not for third-ranked North Carolina looming in the second round.)

I'm not going to claim that the SPI is perfect. Far from it, actually. According to the SPI, Ohio State should have won last year's finals. Comfortably. Ohio State had an SPI of 7.801, which is significantly higher than any teams's SPI this year. Florida had a paltry 6.406. A gap of over a point is cause for alarm. Yet Florida won by nine points. That's why I include a smell test. Occasionally, there will be predictions of one team beating another that don't seem quite right. An example is a projected third round matchup of 26-5 Xavier and 25-4 Georgetown. Xavier has the higher SPI at 5.119, nearly a full point above Georgetown. Seems like an easy win for the Musketeers. Yet Xavier has faltered down the stretch, while Georgetown has remained constant and won the Big East, the country's deepest conference. Even though the math has Xavier winning, I'm going to trust my gut and pick Georgetown. (And I'm still picking them to lose to North Carolina.)

Of course, anyone reading this column will be wondering who I've picked to win it all. I'm not going to spoil my advantage by giving that away, but I will give you my Final Four: Kansas, North Carolina, Duke, and UCLA. And lest you worry that I'm trying to dodge accountability by not posting my predictions publicly, rest assured that I'll provide updates throughout the tournament. I will say this, though: if you're looking for an upset pick, look no further than Western Kentucky. They're projected to land a 13 seed, but they have an SPI of 3.410. That's better than one of the 3 seeds. Look for them to do some damage this year.

Photo from Associated Press

Les vidéos «super-cool» de Chryde

2008-03-08T11:15:00.001-07:00

French über-vloggers force us to romanticize the indie we've come to take for granted.

Through Sam's personal blog I found a video of Beirut performing "Nantes" in a new and interesting way--Zach Condon, frontman, descending the stair singing the lyrics as strategically placed bandmembers meet him on landings, some following, some not. At first, I thought this was a homemade music video à la OK Go's dance classic. Turns out, however, that it is instead one of a treasure trove of indie vids, the brainchild of Vincent Moon and someone named "Chryde". Most of these "Take Away Shows" («Concerts à emporter») are shot somewhere in Paris--Montmartre seems to be a popular locale for the more prominent ones--and mostly by the same crew. There are some major exceptions, including everyone's favorite Argentine-Swede José González singing "Hints" in the back of a pickup in a Texas pitstop town, and Sufjan Stevens (and friends, including My Brightest Diamond) in a Civil War era concert hall in Cincinnati.

The videos are brilliant. The whole thing has the air of an art project, a collection of mostly indie performers doing their thing acoustically while the camera pulls in the surroundings. Some are brilliantly layed out, like the Beirut "Nantes" performance or the Shins' "Australia" in a Montmartre apartment, some are spontaneous and amazing, like Jason Mraz playing with a Bulgarian busker or Final Fantasy aka Owen Pallet taking off at an awkward gallop while playing "Your Light Is Spent". Some are just normal, some are a little disappointing. That's what makes it awesome. Also, everything's written up in French, so be warned. My French 202 skills paid off, but not quite enough.

There isn't an actual explanation of the reasons behind the project, and given the amount of time they've had to put one up, I wouldn't be expecting anything other than "lorem ipsum" anytime soon. Great indie videos are reason in themselves, says I.

Whole Lotta Nothing

2008-03-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

And why you can expect a whole lot more of it until the Pennsylvania primary.

Now that the much-ballyhooed Texas and Ohio primaries have officially settled nothing other than the fact that the Democratic primary race will continue, the American public gets to wait seven more weeks until another major primary. True, there is a caucus in Wyoming tomorrow and a primary in Mississippi on Tuesday (both of which should be easy Obama victories), but the Pennsylvania primary on April 22 has 158 delegates at stake, nearly three times the amount of Wyoming and Mississippi combined. So we should look forward to a month and a half of silence, right?

Wrong. The candidates want to keep themselves fresh in your mind (predictably), so they're going to do all they can to keep themselves in media coverage, and especially to make sure that their opponent looks as bad as possible. So we should look forward to engaging and intellectual debates about the various issues facing our country, right?

Wrong again. With a few exceptions, party primaries aren't really about issues. (The 2006 Senatorial primary in Connecticut between Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont, which was widely seen as a referendum on the Iraq War for the Democratic party, is a good example of this.) Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have differences when it comes to the issues, but for all intents and purposes, they're very minor issues. Both of them agree that we need a universal health care program. Both of them believe we should get our troops out of Iraq. Both of them believe we need to turn around the economy. Their only major policy difference is Obama's claim that he'll meet with leaders of countries such as Cuba, Iran, and North Korea without setting preconditions, but the fact that this hasn't received much attention in the media goes to show you that these elections aren't about issues.

I've argued before that this election is about image. If you want proof of that, you need look no further than the slogans for each candidate. Obama's is "change we can believe in," and Clinton's is "solutions for America." Could we have two less substantive themes? Obama has been famously vague about what sort of change he will enact as president, earning criticism from the Clinton camp, but she has been equally vague on what "solutions" she would provide. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, though. We already know what issues and policies the Democratic candidate will pursue in office, whichever of them is ultimately nominated. What we're voting for is an image. Do we want the candidate who has an image of hope and staying above the fray, or do we want the candidate promising experience and an ability to fight?

Once you accept the idea that the election has nothing to do with issues, the fact that stories such as Obama's traditional Somalian outfit or Clinton's dallying to release tax information are dominating news cycles comes as no surprise. They aren't trying to show that the other is weaker on the issues. They're working to destroy image, because ultimately, that's what voters are deciding this primary season. An interesting side note: for all the noise generated about McCain being a phony conservative, can you think of anyone who looks more like a Republican than him? He looked and acted the most like a conservative of any of the candidates, with the possible exception of Ron Paul. He's old, and he's cranky. Mitt Romney was his strongest competitor, but the image he gives off seems like he would have been more at home in the Democratic party. (Is it any surprise that he was elected as the governor of Massachusetts?)

So prepare for a lot of stories about nothing over the next seven weeks. They may sound important and critical to the election, but you'll find that even if it sounds like there are issues on the surface, it boils down to image, and that's what counts in the end.

A Middle East Primer

2008-03-07T10:01:00.000-07:00

Your guide to understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict.

On Thursday in Jerusalem, a Palestinian gunman entered a seminary and started shooting, leaving eight students dead and many more wounded. Hamas leaders claimed responsibility for the attack the next day, although Mahmoud Abbas was quick to condemn the attacks. Ehud Olmert was under pressure from his countrymen to respond quickly, although such a response was discouraged by President Bush and the United Nations. Peace talks between the two remain suspended.

Did you have any trouble following that? If you did, don't worry. You aren't alone in having trouble following the insanity in the Middle East. While no article could take on the daunting task of explaining the convoluted history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a simple glossary might be enough to help keep things in check. This list will help you sound more informed on the situation and impress your friends at the same time. In fact, armed with this knowledge, you might be able to successfully debate Barack Obama on the subject. (Ha! Only kidding!)

Mahmoud Abbas - Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority and chairman of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization). As head of the PNA, Abbas is effectively the face of Palestine and seen as a moderate. He is a member of the Fatah party.

Fatah - a reverse acronym from Harakat al-Tahrir al-Watani al-Filastini (Arabic, "Palestinian National Liberation Movement"). Fatah is the largest faction of the PLO and was the ruling party in the Palestinian National Authority until 2006. They are seen as more moderate than Hamas, though their militant wing is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

Gaza Strip - a small strip of land in the southwest of Israel (bordered by the Mediterranean Sea and Egypt) named for its principal city of Gaza. The Gaza Strip was administered by Israel until 2005, when the Palestinian National Authority assumed control. Hamas currently oversees the territory, which is home to about 1.4 million Palestinians. A major battle was fought for the territory in 2007.

Hamas - an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya (Arabic, "Islamic Resistance Movement"). Hamas is a militant movement dedicated to the destruction of Israel and replacing it with a Palestinian state. It is recognized as a terrorist organization by many major world powers. Hamas was elected as the government of the Palestinian Authority following elections in 2006. Like the PLO, Hamas is seen as the extremist wing of the Palestinian movement.

Ehud Olmert - Prime Minister of Israel. He had been Acting Prime Minister since his predecessor, Ariel Sharon, suffered a stroke. He has been involved in peace negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas, though those talks are currently suspended.

PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) - an organization dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel. Yasser Arafat headed this group from 1974 until his death in 2004, when Abbas succeeded him. The PLO has been designated as a terrorist organization and is often associated with the extremist image of Palestine.

Palestinian National Authority - Palestine does not currently exist as a country, but it does have an interim government administering parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Mahmoud Abbas is the Prime Minister of the Authority, though Hamas is the ruling party.

West Bank - an area currently occupied by Israel containing Jericho, Bethlehem, and East Jerusalem. Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan during the Six-Day War in 1967, though Jordan did not relinquish its claim to the area until 1988. Most of the West Bank's residents are Palestinian, though there are many Israeli settlements as well.

The Weird, Wild World of Misheard Lyrics Vids

2008-03-06T16:15:00.000-07:00

YouTube, which has given so much, continues to give with an MS-Paint induced phonetic craze.

Ever wonder what the lyrics of "Yellow Ledbetter" actually are? Well, you won't get any answers from the internet, but you might just get a couple exceptionally cheap laughs. Turns out a bunch of people with MS Paint and Movie Maker have decided that misinterpreting the classics is the wave of the future, unleashing a number of rebus-and-bad-pun laden vids online, interpreting the lyrics to everyone's pop favorites in strange, new and inappropriate ways.

My favorite? This one of Fall Out Boy's "Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner".

Awesome Culture

2008-03-05T16:03:00.000-07:00

In which Ben identifies the Awesome trend and derives the Equations of Radness.

Turns out you have to have a dictionary of 80's cartoon shows to communicate in our society. Totally ok with me--I watched Voltron 5 like any good American. It's just the tip of the iceberg in what I'm calling "Awesome Culture": the state of the art in social obfuscation in which the cheesy, obscure, and overblown are deified for the lack of truly inspiring messages. Or perhaps in spite of them. Allow me to digress (in this case, that request is like an H2 towering over your Camry with the blinker on being interpreted "Please let me into this lane."):

Iain Banks posited the eventual existence (well, actually, the current existence) of The Culture, an amalgam of minds, artificial and human, that exist in an anarchic and essentially hedonistic society where having fun is infinitely more important than being useful. Think of a cross between Star Trek's Federation and a frat party, and you've pretty much got it. Also think the Internet and you've still pretty much got it. Though we are definitely in state of economic scarcity, informationally we have a massive glut. Results? No, really, the results of having everything from Avogadro's number to DuckTales at our fingertips? DuckTales. And lots of it. It seems that the more we are allowed to look into the abyss, the more the abyss looks back into us and says, "By the power of Grayskull, I have the power!"

Note the following: Mystery Science Theater. Here's a precursor--Crow and Servo taking truly awesomely bad movies to task with verbal barbs. The beginnings of our Awesomeness, the show introduced a rising generation to rubbery monsters and bad dialogue. Awesome. All kinds of abominations are covered by this umbrella: Snakes on a Plane, a rekindled love for monster movies, and the general retro-desire we've come to accept as all-pervasive. And so, because I love you so much, Equations for these Radnesses:

Equation 1: Is this movie crap or adorable crap?

R = Monsters x Bad Dialogue x Kitsch x Oldness*

Note that Oldness is a value between 0 and 1. Anything 1969 and older is a 1.

Equation 2: How obscure is the right obscure?

R = Robots x Anthropomorphic Animals x Quotable Battlecries

Note that Voltron 5 is the highest possible score.

Equation 3: Can I use this word?

R = Have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles used it?

We've Only Just Begun

2008-03-05T10:16:00.000-07:00

Making sense of last night's primaries.

Hillary Clinton put a stop to the Obama freight train with victories in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island last night. Her campaign had made a big point of Texas and Ohio especially - Bill Clinton even suggested that if his wife did not win those two states, she would not be able to secure the nomination - and with last night's results, she publicly declared that her campaign has "turned a corner," even going so far as to hint at a Clinton-Obama ticket.

Should we go ahead and coronate Clinton, then? Or is Barack Obama's claim that Clinton's wins last night, though impressive, still aren't enough to make a dent in his delegate lead? And if you're a Democratic superdelegate, who should you vote for now? Which candidate is more likely to be successful in a general election?

Each side is quick to point out their electoral strengths and their opponent's weaknesses. Clinton reminds voters that she is consistently winning large states that serve as Democratic strongholds, and that nearly half of Obama's wins are in caucus states, where a much smaller percentage of the population is represented. Obama argues that he is winning smaller - but more - states, and many that traditionally fall into the Republican column, which gives him an advantage over John McCain in the general election. Both of them make a strong case for the nomination. Let's look at each in turn.

Clinton. She's right when she says that she's consistently winning the most populous - and traditionally Democratic - states. Of the ten most populous states in the Union, Clinton has won six (California, Texas, New York, Florida, Ohio, and Georgia) to Obama's two (Pennsylvania and North Carolina have yet to hold primaries). Those make a bigger difference in the electoral college than they do in the primary season. She's won eight fewer states than Obama has, but she's far ahead when it comes to electors. If the two candidates were fighting in a general election, Clinton would be ahead 263-189. 54 electors is a big deal when there are only 538 total. (That's a ten percent margin of victory. Nothing to sneer at.) Clinton's victories have also consistently come in primary states, which have the same election format as will be seen in November. All but one of her wins (Nevada) have come in primary states. Her margin of victory isn't great - she averages 54% of the vote in her wins - but in a general election, each state is winner-take-all. Proportional allocation of delegates has hurt her in this race, and that's something she wouldn't have to worry about if she were the party nominee.

Obama. While Obama hasn't won many large, delegate-rich states (his two biggest states have been his home state of Illinois and Georgia), he's done very well in smaller, traditionally red states. Over half of his primary wins have come in states that went for George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004. There's reason to think that he could siphon some of those away from McCain this year. Clinton's claims that his caucus wins are tainted don't quite hold up, either. It's true that his wins in those states (11 of 24) have represented a much smaller percentage of the population, he's done just fine in primaries, too. He's won nearly as many primaries as Clinton has (13 to her 15), and has done so with a higher average of four percent more of the vote.

So who should superdelegates side with? If you're looking to stick with the time-honored "two coasts" strategy of focusing on the Pacific west and the Northeast, Clinton might be your best bet. She's shown that she can easily win those states and probably be competitive in battleground states like Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. If you're looking to adopt the new "50 states" approach that Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean is pushing, though, Obama might be a more attractive option. Obama has made significant inroads into the mountain west and the South. He would probably be unable to win all of those states for the Democrats (do you really think Idaho and Utah are going to be blue states this year?), but if he could pick up Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, and Georgia, that would result in a 41-elector difference, and none of those states are out of the realm of possibility. Obama's command of the black vote could prove to be decisive in this election. Yet Clinton holds an equal sway over blue-collar workers in financial straits, and there are more and more of those every day with the current recession. Each candidate has powerful strengths. Superdelegates will have their hands full making their decision in the coming months.

Image vs. Issues

2008-03-04T08:24:00.000-07:00

What elections end up boiling down to.

I mentioned in an article last week that issues have taken a back seat to image in recent elections. Now, I'm aware of the folly of citing a webcomic as a definitive source in matters political, but today's Toothpaste for Dinner seemed to reinforce that point. Here it is:

If this is true (and remember, the artist lives in Columbus, Ohio) we have every reason to expect a resounding victory for Barack Obama. I don't think any reputable source on earth would tell you that Hillary Clinton was the cute candidate. (Case in point: a Google search for the phrase "hillary clinton cute" returns the message, "Did you mean "hillary clinton cut?") Searching for "barack obama cute" yields about the same amount of hits (465,000 to Clinton's 461,000), but most of Clinton's are about Obama's cuteness and her own lack thereof.

Today's primaries essentially amount to be a referendum on issues vs. image. Texas and Ohio look to be Clinton's Alamo. If she goes down, the issues candidacy goes down with her.

Out of the Frying Pan

2008-03-02T14:11:00.000-07:00

The situation in Iraq just got a whole lot worse.

A story that should have dominated the news on Wednesday was relegated to the back burner amidst growing talk of a recession. U.S.-backed Sunni Iraqi forces, sometimes referred to as Sunni Awakening forces, threatened to renege on their deal to fight alongside American troops against al-Qaeda in Iraq. These local militias are unhappy with the Shi'ite police chief in Diyala province and are trying to pressure the government to replace him. The news seems innocuous enough amongst repeated claims from the White House that "the surge is working," but the loss of a key ally like the Sunni Awakening squads could not only undo everything that has been achieved in the last year, but possibly even make things worse.

These Awakening squads are a large reason for the success of the surge in the first place. Having an extra 30,000 troops in the area is significant, certainly, but having fewer enemy combatants is perhaps more significant when it comes to explaining why fatalities have dropped so dramatically. Before the surge, Sunni Iraqis were actively fighting against U.S. troops, but in the beginning of 2007, they formed a temporary alliance in order to combat the growing influence of al-Qaeda in Iraq in Anbar Province. These soldiers, called "concerned local citizens" (CLCs) by the American military, are paid $10 a day to police combat areas. The military likes the idea because it allows the security of Iraq to be placed in the hands of Iraqis, which is the entire point of the war in Iraq. The sooner Iraq can stabilize itself, the sooner U.S. troops can come home.

That's all good and well, but Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is worried that these troops aren't loyal to Iraq. He has every reason to be. The CLCs are fighting against al-Qaeda in Iraq. They're being paid by the U.S. military. At no point does the
Iraqi government enter the picture. Maliki is worried that once the threat of al-Qaeda in Iraq disappears, they will resume fighting against the government, and after Wednesday's announcement, those fears are starting to be realized.

Which makes one wonder: is the surge really working? Increased troop levels provide an image of security at home, but on the battlefield, the CLCs seem to have actually been making the difference. With the threat of their disappearance, not only does the U.S. military lose a valuable ally, but it also potentially gains more enemy combatants. That mitigates the claims coming from the White House about the success of the surge. Most of these claims are centered around the argument that conditions in Iraq are better than they were before the surge. That sounds wonderful, but when you stop and think about it, the argument falls apart. Of course conditions are better now than they were in 2006. In 2006, the country was in the grip of a civil war. Now that Sunnis across the country have resolved to fight alongside U.S. troops instead of against them, the civil war has largely ended. It's no great stretch to say that conditions after a war are better than they were during it. It is a stretch, however, to connect that improvement to an increase of troop levels.

The end of the alliance between U.S. troops and CLCs makes things in Iraq worse. However, the prospect of armed and U.S.-trained CLCs potentially fighting against the government is far more dire. The Bush administration was livid when they suspected Iran and Syria of arming and funding Iraqi insurgents. If conditions continue as they are right now, they won't have anyone to blame for an increasingly deadly insurgency than themselves. While the situation in Iraq is grim for George W. Bush, it looks to be even more so for his successor.

Issues Schmissues

2008-02-27T17:09:00.000-07:00

Why issues are giving way to image.

I opened the Obama home page last night before the debate and found - surprise! - a fundraising drive. The Obama campaign has always been a grassroots one. They had recorded some 890,000 donors since the start of the campaign, and they were pushing toward one million. I'd considered donating for Obama before, but something about pushing for the one million mark was even more compelling. By the time I noticed the free T-shirt at the bottom of the page, I was pulling out my wallet.

Switching gears, my boss is naturally drawn to new toys and gadgets. One night, we were talking about motorcycles; the next day, he showed up to work on a brand new bike. Some months later, we were talking about the new MacBook Air and had to convince him not to buy it just because it was new and shiny.

These two stories aren't as disjointed as they seem on the surface. Today, image is king, and that transcends the world of gadgets and toys. Barack Obama has built a campaign founded on his image rather than his issues, and it's proven to be successful. A major criticism of the campaign has been that Obama is nothing more than pretty words and speeches. Many of his supporters can't name many of his policies beyond "change." Yet none of this has had a particular effect on his poll standings. In fact, it may be helpful to him. Obama has an image of a man in touch with the people. He's one of us. Hillary, by contrast, is seen as a Washington elitist. Spouting off facts and information isn't going to help her improve. She's not up against Obama's record of experience, but his image, and she's fighting a losing battle.

Case in point - I chose to make my donation last night because the campaign was shooting for one million donors. That's nothing more than an arbitrary number. The one millionth donor isn't any more important than the one before him, or the one after him. And yet I donated. I got caught up in the image and the feeling of the thing rather than the logic of it. I was doing the exact same thing as my boss who bought a motorcycle because it seemed cool. Donating for Obama last night was cool.

Lest we think this is a new innovation in politics, let's turn back the clock to 2000. Image was what killed the Gore campaign. If the election was on nothing more than issues and experience, Al Gore would have won in a blowout. He was vastly more experienced and knowledgeable on the issues. He was completely comfortable talking facts during the debates and his speeches. And yet, that same confidence was what did him in. His image was nerdy. People didn't want a brainiac in the Oval Office, even though history shows us that America would have turned out completely different had Gore been elected. Instead, America voted for George W. Bush, the candidate who polls consistently showed they'd rather sit down and have a beer with. Issues were nothing. They were actually less than nothing - a mastery of the issues was a liability for Gore.

This is part of the reason Obama is polling so well right now. He's an exciting, energetic candidate who people are naturally drawn to. The issues...well, we can worry about those later. For now, he looks and sounds cool, and that's why he's attracting voters in droves. We may be in for a rude awakening as to his actual governing ability come November, but then again, his image may be powerful enough to blind us to that, too.

Plugged In

2008-02-24T13:01:00.000-07:00

How multitasking actually reduces efficiency.

I stepped into a crosswalk yesterday only to nearly be run over by a car. The driver wasn't paying attention when the light turned green and assumed she could make a right turn without checking the crosswalk. She saw us and hit the brakes, but decided to plow along anyway. I caught a glimpse of her as she drove by and noticed she was - you guessed it - talking on a cell phone.

This isn't an uncommon story these days. Drivers talking on the phone are a dime a dozen. Rants against cell phone drivers are every bit as common. While evidence of the dangers of driving while talking on the phone is ubiquitous - a study done by the University of Utah shows that drivers on cell phones are as dangerous as drunk drivers, and 48 countries have partial or total bans on cell phone usage while driving - many cell phone users, when confronted with the issue, will tell you that they can drive "just fine" while on the phone.

This should be cause for alarm for every driver on the road. I don't know about you, but when I'm on the road, I'd prefer to be surrounded by drivers giving all of their attention to the task at hand rather than sixty or seventy percent. And lest you think that this is another crusade against cell phones, I assert that any distraction in the car is dangerous. This includes putting on makeup, flipping through CD booklets, shaving, or even changing your clothes in the car. (I wish I was making that last one up.) We have a motivation to accomplish as many things as possible in the smallest amount of time in our society, all in the name of "efficiency." When you stop and break it down, though, you find that quicker isn't always better.

Multitasking started as a corporate buzzword some time ago, but has since entered the common parlance. Younger people especially tend to fall into this trend with the advent of handheld electronics. It's not unheard of to see a high school student reading a textbook while listening to an iPod, watching TV, and texting a friend on their phone. When scolded for not doing their homework, the teen will insist, "I am doing my homework. Just because you can't do more than one thing at once doesn't mean I can't." Yet that same student will find that it takes them two hours to finish reading a ten page section of text. (You'll also go on to find that they'll complain that they never have enough time to finish their homework.) While multitasking may make a person feel as though they are getting more done, studies have shown that their efficiency drops substantially. Simply put, you might be able to get more tasks finished, but you might only do them seventy percent as well as you would have normally.

The shock is that this level of efficiency is acceptable in society. We find ourselves sacrificing quality of work in favor of convenience. This isn't limited to the corporate world. We find people insisting that they are listening to their spouse talk about their day while reading the newspaper or watching TV. We find children say they are listening to their parents while chatting with their friends online. It's the great irony of the information age that gadgets designed to increase our capability actually limit them.

After three years, my Pandora station is finally awesome.

2008-02-22T19:02:00.000-07:00

And, despite my better judgment, I think it was worth it.

So, a few years ago, I discovered Pandora. I'm not sure how I did it. I think it was a friend of mine emailing me. I loved it. Previous to that I was using LaunchCast, and it was really crappy. It didn't help that I was listening to primarily crappy music at the time, too (everyone has a Linkin Park phase, I'm just the only one man enough to admit it). Nonetheless, LaunchCast was crap, and there were too many commercials, and you could only listen to a certain number of songs a month, if I'm not mistaken.

Then Pandora helped me see the light of streamcasting. It was beautiful. Just one problem: the same thing as happened on LaunchCast was happening here--I only liked about half the songs that played. I learned of the thumb up and the thumb down, and sometimes I'd listen just to my station just to get more nuances of my preferences in there. It also was amazing because as my tastes were changing, so was my station. Then I knew it had come: it was time to start a new station with just my standard tastes (and a few curveballs thrown in there for fun). That was about a year and a half into my Pandora experience, and in that time, I've gradually shaved my "songs-I-hate" ratio down to a manageable 8% (I made that number up). I actually listen to my station for fun now, not just out of a duty to create something of it.

It's great! I'm stoked!

That might mean bad things for all of you who are just starting out, though. Remember to write your congressman and tell them to support the rights of internet radio.

My Pandora station can be found here.

Did Hillary Throw in the Towel?

2008-02-22T16:47:00.000-07:00

The results of the Texas debate.

Hillary Clinton has publicly staked her political fortunes on the results of the Texas and Ohio primaries. Having lost eleven straight contests, she was under pressure to perform well in this debate to re-energize her campaign. And instead of coming up big with her back to the wall, she seemed to shrink from the task.

Clinton's strategy to stop the Obamamentum has changed over the last few weeks. During the days leading up to Super Tuesday, she tried being friendly and polite, worrying that voters would be turned off by negativity. When that didn't work, she turned up the venom in the Wisconsin contest, accusing Obama of hiding from voters and being unwilling to engage in a debate. That didn't work, either. With two make-or-break states coming up, advisers have recommended a "scorched earth" policy for Clinton, ratcheting up criticism to as-yet-unseen levels. It doesn't seem like she went for it. She was presented time and time again with opportunities to attack Obama, and time and time again she opted to make the debate about issues. She presented the facts about her platform - ably, mind you - and tried to let them speak for themselves.

The problem is that the Democratic race is no longer about issues. For all intents and purposes, Obama and Clinton don't have many significant differences in policy. Either of them would accomplish similar things if elected. The fact is, however, that America is no longer voting based on issues. They're voting on electability. Obama has the momentum, he has the money, and he has the delegates. Now that the Republican race is (effectively) wrapped up, the Democrats want someone to unite around. It looks more and more like they're gravitating toward Obama. Clinton seemed to get a sense of that as the debate went on. Obama responded impressively to her cry of "let's get real" by saying that "the implication is that...the people who have been voting for me or involved in my campaign are somehow delusional," earning applause from the audience. She responded with a jab at the recent charges of his plagiarism, saying "lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches isn't change you can believe in; it's change you can Xerox." The comment actually drew boos from the audience, and seemed to catch her off guard.

The real stunner that made it seem as though Clinton was effectively conceding the race came at the end of the debate. While answering a question about a time in her life when she had been tested, she said that she was "honored to be here with Barack Obama." She went on to say that "whatever happens, we're going to be fine." Those words sounded ominously familiar - John Edwards used them in his concession speech on January 30. Clinton may or may not have been intending that same effect when using them, but the comparison is apt. It's unlikely she'll still be in the race after Texas and Ohio. It's possible that she wanted her campaign to go out gracefully rather than shrill and grating.

The Best and Worst of Reality Television

2008-02-21T17:11:00.001-07:00

Can Reality Television actually be any good?

Reality Television has burst onto the scene and has made television viewing like a trip to the zoo. People in their cages showing off and little to no need for writers and composition. So why did Reality TV become so popular? I mean we don't go to the zoo that often do we? But yet, being able to sit on your couch and watch humans in a zoo is somehow attractive to us. Reality Television has been around as early as 1948 when Candid Camera came onto the scene. A show in which weird things happened to regular people who were being filmed without their knowledge. After that a couple of shows appeared here and there including the widely popular COPS. But then the one which really changed the landscape of Reality TV and made way for the blow-up we have today is that of MTV's long running series "The Real World". The premise of which is to throw seven strangers into a house and see what they do with their lives. This simple yet riveting look into people's lives has spanned 19 seasons and has had twice that in spin off content. But it was such shows as Survivor and American Idol which really threw the the reality world into a frenzy and has created almost any type of show imaginable. So now that Reality Television is here and will probably be here for a while, what if any of the shows are actually worth watching and which should you when having the option between the show and the plague should you choose the plague? Well here's my picks on that. Note, I really don't watch that much reality tv, and many of these I have only seen once.

Good: American Idol (America's Got Talent, Last Comic Standing).

I don't actually watch American Idol, but I have watched the recent seasons of America's Got Talent and Last Comic Standing. The thing that is good about these shows and a couple more which could be considered like it, is it's truly a show which takes on a stand that the fans make the talent. The judges of course choose from the hopefuls but ultimately it's the mass public's decision on who will be the winner. That in itself, the ability to have an audience make lives is a very interesting concept. American Idol as I said I don't watch due to the fact that I'm not much for singers. America's Got Talent however can show america that such a thing as ventriloquism is something America still wants to see. Don't believe me? Go to youtube and type in Terry Fator. He was the winner of this year's competition and the only person I've ever voted for on one of these shows. Last Comic Standing is Stand Up Comedy and once the finals start, the judges go away and you get to vote just based on performance.

Bad: The Moment of Truth

This show is just a new one that came out within a couple of weeks of writing this article. Contestants are asked a series of questions hooked up to a polygraph machine. This part is not shown, but then the contestant is put in front of his family, his friends and the world, and wins money based on how many truthful answers he gives. The higher up in money the more deviant the questions. For instance one such question asked of a man, "Have you ever thought of cheating on your wife?" Now he's stuck. Only if he hasn't thought of it will his marriage not be ruined. For if he has, he can say yes, and move on, or no and it will reveal to be yes. Of course in terms of this show the one saving grace is that the contestants do know what they are getting into. So if they ruin their lives for money, they knew the possibility was there in the first place.

Good: Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew

This is a new reality show done by Dr. Drew Pinsky. A show in which celebrities with drug and alcohol addictions are filmed in the rehab process. This show is not for the faint of heart, as it is real people coming off addictions and showing what happens when they turn sour. What is good about the show is it is showing the real trouble that addictions do cause, and it makes you the audience cheer for these people in whom you would not normally cheer for, because they are going through very real and human problems. It is perhaps in my estimation, the best thing to have come out of reality television, in that it is a deterrent to using drugs and alcohol.

Worst: The X Effect

MTV has brought on a slew of awful reality tv, from Next, to Date My Mom to Parental Control and lastly to the worst reality television show ever. The X Effect. Imagine if you will that you dated some girl (Replace genders if appropriate) and you had a nice sexual relationship but for whatever reason you decided to break up. A couple of months later you started dating this other girl and found out that your ex-girlfriend also found a new boyfriend. Then one day due to one of these four people contacting MTV about being in some sort of reality tv program, MTV invites the four of you to have a weekend with the four of you at some really nice resort. When you get there the person in charge takes you and your ex-girlfriend into the resort but says your current lovers are going to a different part of the complex. You and your ex are ushered into the building and left alone to do whatever you want for two days. After two days of being with your ex, getting massages and hanging out in the pool, lots of alcohol and all that your current loves are brought back and you find out that they were put in a private bungalow and were able to watch and listen to your every move. Hope you were faithful in such temptation. So now you have to decide, do you want to stay with your current love, or go back to your ex? But choose carefully cause if you choose your ex but she doesn't you, well then you don't get either one. Wow. Sucks to be you. MTV just ruined your relationships! This is the most awful excuse for a television show. Somehow they decide it's okay to ruin people's lives by putting them in tempting situations. It's even worse then you might think, they put the two in a suite with only one bed, they give them opportunities to do chocolate massages on each other and lick it off. This is the ultimate drivel of reality television, but alas, people watch it, and people like it, and it'll forever be on television.

So here's to hoping you and your significant other, don't find yourself on the wrong side of "reality television".

Why Wrestling Vol. 1

2008-02-21T17:05:00.001-07:00

"Is Wrestling real or is Wrestling fake?" has been a question asked by almost every person who comes upon the sport of Professional Wrestling. In my nearly 18 years of following the sport, I can't give you exact percentages, but I can answer the question with one word. Both. Wrestling is real, and it's fake. But then most would ask, "why we should even care?" Well, wrestling is here, and it's infiltrated our modern society, it's dug roots into all forms of media and even other arenas such as family life and politics. It's here, and if you get past the initial disregard for it, it is interesting as well. So now I present to you, my first in a couple of installments on "Why Wrestling?"

Volume 1 -- The Fans

Many who read this column will remember their younger years when they watched a program of wrestling and saw the "Immortal" Hulk Hogan as he strode into the ring wearing his trademark Red and Yellow, his theme song blaring "I'm a real American, fight for the rights of every man." As kids we looked at him and we saw a hero. Someone who went into the ring and defeated bad guys. Those same people who remember that, also remember when they realized Wrestling was fake. Someone had told us that the punching wasn't real, that all they did was air kick. All those kids hated Wrestling from then on and still hate wrestling to this day because "Wrestling is Fake". But a select few slipped through the cracks, and still enjoyed it, and became fans into their teenage and adult years. The casual fan would watch the program and enjoy getting riled up as the bad guy berated your home town, and then the good guy came out and beat him up. Thus showing the bad guy he had no idea the kind of awesome people you'd find in City of State. But then there were the smarter fans, the ones who infiltrated the internet when it came onto the scene, and made themselves a part of the industry. They made and broke wrestlers, promoters and ideas which were being used in the industry. I've found myself becoming a part of that latter group.

When I look at wrestling as a whole, I don't just see the two hour programs you watch on television, I see everything else that goes on, the backstage stuff, the writing, the promotion and the ways in which people come and go like a light switch. many have called Wrestling a soap opera for guys. Yes, that is an accurate description to a point, however wrestling has something in which no other type of media has, the ability in which the fans have to change the landscape of the drama. For kids it was the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, the books in which you were presented with a situation and you could choose in which way to go. Wrestling has this ability more so then any other fan based media forms. Let's take some examples. First off the man I mentioned before, Hulk Hogan. Hulk Hogan came onto the scene of wrestling long before he became famous. Did you know that before he adopted Hulk Hogan he had been known as "The Super Destroyer" and "Terry Boulder"? Not many people do, because he wasn't famous. He had to take his time like anyone else. But in Wrestlemania III Hulk Hogan became a star when he body slammed Andre the Giant. The fans erupted. The fans told promoters that this was who they wanted to see. The fans made the difference for Hulk. Without the fans he wouldn't have gone anywhere. This was the greatness of the now defunct company WCW in a later incident--they took the ultimate hero and turned him into a villain, garnering people to flock in droves to spit on the ground Hulk walked on. For Hulk had betrayed America. The fans propelled him to super-stardom and now you can see him everywhere. Everyone knows his name.

One other example is one which the world at large has not heard of: the case of Mike Mizanin. Mike first appeared on the tenth season of MTV's The Real World. He would talk on the show of his desires to be a professional wrestler and how he even had a personality made called "The Miz". The fans wanted to see that so Mike went to the WWE and eventually became a wrestler on their show. However, even with his loyal MTV fans, most didn't trickle over to wrestling. Mike was fading into obscurity. That is until the WWE put a poll up on their website of who was to challenge for the ECW title against then champion CM Punk. What no one but the hardcore fans would know is that WWE corporate had plans to take the title from fan favorite CM Punk and give it to John Morrison. They expected the fans to vote for John Morrison. They put three men on the poll, Morrison, another big contender, and the fading into obscurity Miz. Well the fans knew that a vote for anyone but the Miz would be a vote against Punk. Because of this The Miz won the poll in a landslide decision. The fans fought back. They said they still wanted CM Punk to be champion, so they chose someone whom they knew the WWE would not allow to become champion. The one who benefited from all of this? The Miz. He suddenly was able to make a name for himself because from what the WWE saw, apparently the fans liked The Miz. Now he's a middle to top name in the company.

So in this we see, yes, for the most part, Wrestling is scripted, score one for fake. However, the fans have somewhat of a say in the outcome. Score one for Real.

Is Wrestling Real or Fake?

Real -- 1
Fake -- 1

Stay Tuned for Volume 2.

The Economics of the NBA

2008-02-21T16:28:00.000-07:00

Why NBA trades are so much more common than other sports.

Since February 1, five major, blockbuster-type trades have been finalized in the NBA. Big names like Pau Gasol, Shaquille O'Neal, Shawn Marion, Mike Bibby, Jason Kidd, Devon Harris, Ben Wallace, and Wally Szczerbiak have dominated the headlines as nearly an entire conference was shaken up. (Okay, so Szczerbiak isn't just a big name. I just wanted an excuse to write the name "Szczerbiak". Heh. Szczerbiak.) Mid-season trades seem to be the norm in the NBA; last year around this time, Allen Iverson headed to Denver in the middle of a blizzard that shut the city down for a week.

So why do these trades seem to happen so much more often in the NBA than in other professional sports leagues? Trades happen in football, but aren't common. The same is true for baseball. Is there something about the format of the NBA that makes it more conducive to trades than other leagues? Or is it just something about the game itself?

Actually, there are elements of both. Let's look at the setup of the league first. While it's not the only league to have a salary cap (the NFL has one as well), the unique setup of the NBA's cap makes trades commonplace. In the NFL, teams have the ability to waive players' rights, essentially removing them (and their salaries) from the team. NBA teams can't just waive players; if they want to cut a player from their roster, they have to buy out the rest of their contract. This isn't entirely uncommon (the New Jersey Nets actually planned to do this with Jerry Stackhouse as part of the Jason Kidd trade), but it's expensive. Most teams are hesitant to buy out a player if they aren't going to get anything in return. That means the most profitable way for a team to get rid of a player and avoid salary cap trouble is to trade them. Under this system, players in the last year of their contract are especially attractive. When players' contracts expire at the end of the season, they leave room under the salary cap for teams to sign new players. Without the option of waiving players, trading for expiring contracts is the only way some teams have of shaking up personnel.

The setup of NBA teams lends to more trading as well. NBA teams have between twelve and fifteen players filling five positions on the court. Five positions don't allow for very much specialization. Major League Baseball, by contrast, has nine positions, which rises to as many as thirteen when you allow for different pitching positions. The NFL has dozens. It's much more difficult to find a good outside linebacker than to find a power forward, for the simple reason that a higher percentage of NBA players are power forwards than NFL players are outside linebackers. Even supposed franchise players can be moved relatively quickly in the NBA. Players like O'Neal and Gasol were considered untouchable at the start of the season, but were traded within a week of each other. Yet you would never see a trade for players like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. Specialization keeps teams together in baseball and football. The relative lack of it keeps things fluid in the NBA.

The lack of continuity has actually been good for the sport. The NBA has suffered from image problems over the last decade (essentially since the retirement of Michael Jordan), and big trades do a lot to generate excitement. If you don't believe me, ask yourself this: when was the last time you heard about Tim Donaghy or Stephen Jackson's strip club confrontation? Big names moving around keep fans interested and the game exciting. Fluidity like this may be part of what makes basketball the most popular sport in America.

Photo by Alex Brandon (AP)

The Impeding Recession

2008-02-21T14:30:00.001-07:00

How film is dressed to depress in Summer '08.

Go through the list, everyone. It looks like this is going to be one long, dark summer of the sequels. Most of the nuclear-level franchises of the early '00s are done or not producing this summer--which means you get The Mummy and Harold and Kumar as your big names in repeat offenders. Oh yeah, and Indiana Jones and Narnia. That might be okay, but Narnia can only really get old (if not in this installment, in the next), and I'm not convinced that Lucas can actually perform in our day and age. Let us never speak of the Episodes in this publication again. Thank all that's holy he's only executive producing this.

For non-sequel offerings, we also have horror remakes. Dawn of the Dead and Prom Night. Hooray. Also, lots and lots of crappy teen- and college-age drama, including museless variations on the theme of "someone broke my heart" and/or "sexual tension resolves into a fulfilling relationship".

There's a bright spot to the season, and it's mid and late June. Perhaps Shyamalan's tense apocalypse The Happening will hearken back to the glory days, and one can only be excited for the two animated gems emerging: WALL-E from the eminently non-disappointing Pixar, and Miyazaki's Ponyo on a Cliff. Also, Get Smart. After proving his chops on the otherwise bland Dan in Real Life, Steve Carell seems a natural choice for Maxwell Smart, and Anne Hathaway as 99 is another intriguing casting selection.

The rest of the summer is sad, though, with the possible exceptions of Iron Man, Dark Knight, a new X-Files movie, and something in which Jackie Chan is a drunken immortal. Possible.

For your ease, the following is a list of what one can reasonably be expected to do with the films of this spring and summer:

Absolutely must see:

none

Probably actually watch in the real theater:

WALL-E
Ponyo on a Cliff
Get Smart
Dark Knight
Iron Man
The Happening

Maybe watch, probably in the discount theater:

Indiana Jones
X-Files
Narnia

Perhaps be shocked that they're not awful:

Speed Racer
Hancock
The Forbidden Kingdom

Pass:

everything else

Think they're especially eye-gouge-worthy:

Hulk (yes, again. They don't get it.)
Hellboy 2
Kung Fu Panda
You Don't Mess With the Zohan (Adam Sandler as a Mossad agent turned hairdresser)
Space Chimps
Dragonball (that is a live-action imagining of the manga/anime series!

A final note: there are no "thinkies" this time around. Sorry about that. I know they were all the rage a few years ago, but apparently the intelligence-pessimists took over again. There may be one exception, and we'll see how it is pulled off: Blindness, based on the novel by Portuguese author José Saramago, may in fact be awesome. I'm kind of concerned that Mark Ruffalo is the lead, but it might well be intelligent.

Otherwise, I may just go into estivation.

Obamamentum

2008-02-20T15:44:00.000-07:00

Does Hillary have a chance to stop Obama anymore?

Last night's wins in Wisconsin in Hawaii marked Barack Obama's tenth and eleventh straight primary wins since Super Tuesday. What's more, each of them came by double-digit margins - CNN has Obama winning by 17 points in Wisconsin and 52 points in Hawaii. Clinton's campaign maintains that while Obama's recent streak of wins has been impressive, she'll have the last laugh when Texas and Ohio come through for her on March 4. Obama's people have countered by saying she'll need at least double-digit wins in both states to make a dent in his now-sizable delegate lead.

It looks like they may be right. Delegate counts depend on the source you use, but most have the gap between 80 to 100 delegates. Texas has 228 delegates up for grabs, while Ohio has 161. Democratic primaries split up the delegates proportionally, but not by the overall vote. Instead, delegates are determined by the vote in each state senatorial district. The average district in Texas has four delegates. The cutoffs for the delegates are a little complicated. Obviously, if Hillary and Obama split the vote 50-50, each would receive two delegates. For one of them to take a third delegate, however, they need to end up with 63% of the vote. That's not just a double-digit margin of victory, that's over 25 points. We'd need to see a blowout for there to be any substantial change in how delegates are apportioned. That's why Clinton has stayed so close in the delegate count despite losing eleven consecutive contests. (You can simulate results of the primary and see how delegates are allocated here.)

That means that the districts most likely to make a difference are the ones that have an odd number of delegates, since one candidate has to come out at least a delegate ahead. Even a slim margin of victory (51-49, say) is enough to give the winner an extra delegate. Eleven of Texas' 31 districts have an odd number of delegates, so even if Clinton takes the state by a double-digit margin, she's only likely to move eleven delegates closer. She'll need a landslide victory to make up the ground she's lost so far.

That's not to say that Hillary is completely washed up. A couple of key victories could rejuvenate voters' enthusiasm for her, and it would certainly make a strong case for superdelegates to back her. It does mean, however, that she's going to need more support than the 50-48 edge she has in Texas right now to make up ground on Obama.

Hasta la Vista, Fidel

2008-02-19T15:19:00.000-07:00

What Castro's departure means for your weekend.

After nearly fifty years heading the Communist Party of Cuba, Fidel Castro announced in a letter today that he would no longer "aspire to nor accept the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief." The news came as no surprise; Castro, 81, hadn't been seen in public since he went in for abdominal surgery in July 2006, and his brother Raúl has been acting in his place since that time. What was unexpected was Castro's voluntary decision to step down. Many world leaders in similar situations have only relinquished power on their death or at gunpoint. Castro's move, while not unprecedented, was certainly unexpected, and leaves open to debate the question of what will happen next in Cuba.

That doesn't mean, however, that you should start investing in Havana cigars. Castro's departure isn't likely to usher in a new age of democracy and tolerance in Cuba. Raúl was instrumental in suppressing revolution in Cuba, ordering executions and purges as recently as 1996. A Cuba led by Raúl Castro will likely have the same human rights record as the current one, if not slightly more oppressive. While the political climate isn't likely to thaw, however, the economic climate could change. Raúl has expressed concerns about the economic state of the country and wants to bring Cuba into the modern world. Cuba doesn't have the necessary resources to pull that off on its own, though. Where will he turn for aid?

Conventional wisdom would dictate that Raúl would look to the United States for that aid, though he wouldn't do so until after the November elections. He has spoken out against Bush several times since taking power in 2006, calling him "crazy" and "a common braggart." Yet he has been open to the idea of opening diplomatic relations with Washington in an effort to air out their grievances and come to an understanding. This would suggest that Raúl would be more receptive to an Obama government than any of the other major candidates. Obama has said that as president, he would be willing to open relations with nations considered as enemies to America, and Cuba certainly fits the bill. But the subject of Cuba is still a touchy one. Floridians aren't keen on the idea of easing restrictions on Cuba, since it opens the floodgates of refugees to their shores. Neither he nor Hillary Clinton are likely to openly support the idea of easing restrictions on Cuba at the cost of losing a swing state like Florida. Yet Obama is open to the idea of incremental reforms, possibly going further after discussions with Raúl Castro. If nothing else, the situation makes the already-interesting Democratic race even more tantalizing.

What of Fidel, though? His health is failing, but his mind remains alert and sharp. In his letter, he said that his only wish was to "fight as a soldier in the battle of ideas." He plans to continue to write under the title of "Reflections of Comrade Fidel" in Granma, the Cuban equivalent of Pravda. His influence will still be considerable. Castro has been the embodiment of the Cuban revolution for the last fifty years. He will officially only write pieces as opinion, but in Cuba, Castro's opinion is as good as policy. (Picture George Washington retiring but still writing regular dispatches about how he thought the government was doing.)

Essentially, the situation will change in Cuba, but it won't be a dramatic change. We may have to wait until both Castros are out of power before we see any changes with any lasting impact. Those Cuban cigars may be a while yet in coming.

It's Deja Vu All Over Again

2008-02-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

Why 2008 could be just like 2004.

Near-nominee and Kennedy heir apparent Barack Obama has been riding a wave of popularity. He's come back from double-digit deficits in national polls to winning eight straight primary and caucus states. No longer the underdog in the Democratic race, he looks like a solid bet to win the nomination, although still not untouchable. (InTrade contracts for an Obama nomination are at 70.5, compared to just over 20 a month and a half ago.) The man's on a roll. Just ask any of his supporters.

So why is all this a bad thing? The problem is that all of this shares some uncanny similarities to John Kerry's 2004 run for the White House, which ended in defeat. Kerry was running a distant third in the polls until the Iowa caucuses, where he scored a dramatic come from behind win. That win propelled him to front-runner standing, prompting a landslide victory on Super Tuesday and the party nomination. Obama is following the same path, albeit with a few more twists and turns. Even if he doesn't win Texas or Ohio, if he stays close with Hillary, it will probably be enough to secure him the nomination, something that seemed impossible as recently as two months ago.

So what, you might ask. You'd be right to be skeptical; after all, plenty of candidates have won the presidency despite initial setbacks. (Just ask Harry Truman.) The similarities go quite a bit deeper, though, and the ones likely to come up soon are the most ominous. Kerry spent his whole campaign dogged by criticism about policy. Skeptics said he spent too much time on rhetoric (specifically anti-Iraq rhetoric) and not enough time saying what he intended to do if elected. Countless times in speeches and debates, he dismissed the claim by saying that if voters wanted to know what he stood for, they could visit his website to see specifics, none of which could be shared publicly due to time constraints. It got to the point that the phrase "I have a plan, and that plan can be found on my website" was commonplace among my friends and I in 2004.

Sound familiar? Obama has excelled at silver-tongued rhetoric so far. People from both parties leave his rallies in tears. His now famous music video, "Yes We Can", brings the rhetoric to the YouTube generation. People love it. But it won't be long before he will be asked to deliver specifics for his plan. Supporters are quick to point out that he's already doing this; he described a recent speech in Wisconsin as "a little more detailed, a little longer, with not as many applause lines." Sounds good, but at a forum at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an Obama staffer dodged questions about the specifics of the senator's research and science plan by referring attendees to the campaign website, saying readers could see how often they "really get into the weeds on an issue." Sounds like echoes of 2004 to me.

Perhaps even more ominously, Obama's and Kerry's opponents are strikingly similar. Kerry ran against George W. Bush, whose approval ratings had been steadily droppings since 9/11. A theme of "Anybody But Bush" ran through the campaign, and yet Kerry was unable to capitalize on it. Could Obama share the same fate? Anti-Bush sentiments run even higher now than they did in 2004, and yet, curiously, Republicans have decided to nominate John McCain, a candidate who inspires revulsion from the party base. If ever there was a year Democrats were destined to win the White House, it's this one. Yet they couldn't do it in 2004, and they may not be able to in 2008 for the same reasons.

Kerry, like many other Democrats, staked a lot of hope on the youth vote. Efforts to rock the vote attracted a lot of attention in the months before the election, yet paid off little. Obama seems to be energizing youth in America like no other candidate in history. Will they help carry him to the presidency, or will they discard him like an outdated 1GB iPod Nano? It's hard to say at this point, but history certainly gives us pause.

Kerry's image as a "flip-flopper" helped hurry along his political demise. (Doubters need look no further than the recent departure of Mitt Romney from the political scene.) Obama has avoided that characterization so far, but he could be in for a major pitfall. Other than the ethereal concept of "hope," Obama has built his campaign on the fact that he opposed the invasion of Iraq from the beginning, a fact most voters are aware of. You can be sure that McCain will bring up the fact that Obama has voted to continue funding for the war since his election to the Senate. It's a tenuous connection, admittedly, but it's one that is sure to come up if Obama secures the nomination. The label "flip-flopper" has become the new "liberal," a word almost guaranteed to sink any presidential ambitions. Don't be surprised if accusations of "idealism" give way to "flip-floppery" in a few months.

After two consecutive November defeats, the Democrats - and particularly Obama supporters - have high hope for 2008. They may be in for a rude awakening come November 4.

The Content Rush

2008-02-16T12:25:00.001-07:00

From a service-based economy to a content-based one?

I just watched Juno. The comedic coming-of-age and carrying-to-term story of a 16-year-old girl with a razor wit focuses around two driving forces: the touching story of Juno's trials, and one-liners. You might have to think about it as a teenage Garden State for the YouTube generation. By that I mean I'm using way too many buzzwords. Let's break it down, y'all:

This film is amazing. In essence, a string of well-crafted jokes sitting in the bed of an interesting plot. Its influences are obvious (the awkwardness-comedy of Wes Anderson and Jared Hess, 90's high-school dramas like TV's Freaks and Geeks, a little bit of School of Rock, and fast, verbally-driven comedy that reaches back into ancient times, but has also produced such shining moments as The Thin Man, the works of Groucho Marx, and M*A*S*H). Yes, we love the characters, and a million reviews have touched Juno with the Midas's finger of "real characters", but I'm talking about the jokes. There are lots of them, and some scenes seem to be made for the lines that are going to come out of them. In other words, besides characters, Juno sells us Content.

Content is a proto-buzzword on the Web 2.0 now, meaning: stuff you watch or listen to. Homestar Runner puts out content every week (I know the meme has passed, and it's all about the webcomics now, but H*R was magic for me, and still is), iTunes sells content at a buck a pop, and YouTube funds everything by giving free user-made (or, more often, ripped) content and selling ubiquitous (unless you have the firefox plugin) advertising. More and more, content is something that isn't produced by people with prerequisites--Diablo Cody, writer of Juno, was not trained in screenwriting, and the Chapmans weren't even familiar with Flash when they first drew their terrific athlete.

What does this mean? You can create content. I can create content. If either one of us is lucky, our content, whether it be art, comic strips, music, punditry, commentary, video, screenplay, instruction, education, fiction, or Other, will sell in some way, perhaps to a producer/director, to advertising, merchandising, donations, or on an online store.

What does this mean? A gold rush. The net is in the process of being inundated with new people trying to sell new stuff in new ways. Unfortunately, the majority of internet content is, well, crap. Comic strips without punchlines, terrible home videos, faulty information bases, and links deadened by the thud of the dollar.

Solutions. Stop producing crap and advertising it as gold. If you go through archives of webcomics, you'll find that the first year or so of them are poorly done. So, as you're beginning, don't try to oversell. There's a refining process that needs to happen first. Stop trying to "go big or go home". Maybe you are going to only have a small audience. Do you want to keep producing? I think the answer is yes. If your production of this media costs you less in time than the peanuts you're making in advertising, keep going. Maybe you'll make it big. Maybe you'll just have an enjoyable hobby that gets you a couple extra bucks. Stop copying jokes, visuals, etc. The joy of content is that it's fresh. Really new stuff is the best selling, and contributes to the community. If you're going to make a cultural reference, record a cover, or reveal your influences, do it in a tasteful and interesting way. Don't waste our precious little attention span bandwidth on something we've already seen and heard. That said, the situation or circumstance surrounding new content is only marginally important, and most people won't mind if you reuse a setting if you have something new to say in it.

I'm such a freaking expert about content 'cause I've produced so much of it! (This is sarcastic!) Note, this is an observation, a suggestion for everyone's benefit. Disregard it at the risk of proving me wrong.

Word.

2008-02-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

This...is...the closest thing any of us are getting to a webzine anytime soon: I tried to do some HTML and crap, but turns out I'm also writing a Masters' Thesis etc. so this is what we're getting. Welcome to a daily dose of opinions you probably don't agree with. Yay!