January 20, 2009 at 7:47 PM · Filed under Cool, Politics
Today’s presidential inauguration has been covered thousands, possibly even millions of times in various ways, my own entry is but a blip in the media coverage. This blog entry is mostly for my own benefit, for my future self, the one that will look back and remember how much of a historic day this was in my lifetime. Our lifetimes.
If you haven’t seen President Obama’s inauguration acceptance speech, then thanks to YouTube and citizen journalists, here is but one version.
The lines that resonated with me the most were:
Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.
We will restore science to its rightful place.
We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth;
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.
January 20, 2009 at 1:12 PM · Filed under Internet
Google has apparently just started testing for bots against their search engine. Take a look at this screen shot of what I got when I searched for “wired brock pierce” from the search box in the upper right of Firefox 3. Wonder if my co-workers are searching for ‘bad’ things.
Ron Howard shares his view of the upcoming election by getting back into some very old TV characters and recruiting some of those shows’ stars. Nice mini-movie – take a look (4 mins).
I can hear the arguments now: they don’t live here, they’re not as educated or up on the facts, they don’t know better, etc. etc. But think about it for a minute. Think about the immediate impact on our standing in the world when President Obama is elected.
And let’s be honest, there’s a significant fraction of our electorate that is simply not any better informed than many others around the world.
October 17, 2008 at 7:43 PM · Filed under Politics
Blogger/Professor Sam Wang of Princeton University runs the Princeton Election Consortium blog which provides a scientific analysis of the current US presidential election. The blog (statistically) predicted the outcome of the 2004 election. I highly recommend it.
A week ago, Dr. Wang posted a very interesting article which essentially says that the writing is on the wall for the presidential election, and that if you’re on either side of the political fence (Republican or Democrat) and you’re still interested in supporting (via monetary contributions) your side that you should now consider supporting your party’s candidates in the House and Senate races.
Why? Because assuming that Obama wins the election, if the House and/or Senate majority tips in favor of the Democrats, then they will have a controlling influence over policy for at least the next 2 years and possibly longer. However, should Republicans hold onto their current or gain some additional seats, then they will at least have some leverage in directing policy their way.
