Worth Reading

Two long-ish pieces from the New York Times Magazine. Very interesting going into the home stretch. ("long-ish" shouldn't be scary...don't let 'Google make you stupid')

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/magazine/26mccain-t.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/magazine/31bush-t.html

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It Just Makes You Happy

So, you might have seen Matt a few years ago in a (bad) dancing video...but not like this. More people joined in, and it's just that much better.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

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A Musical Road!

This is awesome:

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Krauthammer, Never One to Mince Words

He's voting for this guy.

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Obama a BMW, McCain a Ford

http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/e3ib59b5b9afcb9854b9f74892e8678d8c6

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Patio Man - David Brooks

Sound familiar?

He is the quintessential suburban American, the service economy worker, the guy who wears khakis to work each day, with the security badge on the belt clip around his waist.

He lives in northern Virginia, along the I-4 corridor near Orlando, Fla., in or near Columbus, Ohio, along the Front Range of Colorado, in the converging megalopolis between Albuquerque and Santa Fe and in many other places.

He has a house — worth less and less — in a relatively new development. He’s holding off on the new car. He’s trying not to look at his retirement account balance. But he’s happy with the new street-scape shopping area where he and his family can stroll before a movie.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/opinion/21brooks.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

(I've been alerted that "some" may have a hard time getting to the NY Times articles on this blog. As a free-market capitalist, I believe it is the God-given right of every man and woman to have a FREE NYTimes.com subscription. Sign up today, it's "all the news that's fit to print.")

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Palin and Poehler

These are just hilarious:

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Coca-Cola: Building a Better Design Machine?

Pretty cool article about Coke's "Design Machine" that has increased efficiency in creating localized ad collateral and reduced overall expenses by over 30%.  This will likely become a hot trend and we will see lots of ad agencies and consulting firms offering to create these systems for other large mega-brands in the next few years....

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When the Oracle Speaks, One Should Listen

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html?th&emc=th

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What Can Happen In 19 Days?

Politico Playbook : 19 Days - Debate Reaction

Politico Playback:

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Third and Final (thankfully) Debate

Wouldn't it be nice if a moderator said "Excuse me, I was looking for a little more depth when I asked that question. I believe you recited that exact same answer last week..."

- Borrowing money from China to give to Saudi Arabia.

- I will go line by line through the federal budget.

- We've got to get spending under control. I'll take a hatchet, then a scalpel. This guy got an earmark for an overhead projector. Did you hear that? An OVERHEAD PROJECTOR.

Name that candidate.....then name which debate the line appeared in. Hint: they can all be found in more than one!





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Watch This

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Why How Matters

“UBS bank’s motto is: ‘You and us.’ But the world we created was actually ‘You and nobody’ — nobody was really connected in value terms,” said Seidman. “Parts of Wall Street got disconnected from investing in human endeavor — helping business to scale and take up new ideas.” Instead, they started to just engineer money from money. “So some of the smartest C.E.O.’s did not know what some of their smartest people were doing.”

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/opinion/15friedman.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

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Big Government Ahead

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/opinion/14brooks.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

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Morning Reading 10.13.08 : On (government-observed) Columbus Day

ESSENTIAL READING - From the cover of Newsweek - There Is A Silver Lining

All the more reason to pick up The Snowball

Playbook Monday : 22 Days

DRIVING THE DAY – John McCain will unveil a new, Salteresque stump speech today designed to get voters and reporters to give him one more look. The campaign provided this excerpt: 'Let me give you the state of the race today. We have 22 days to go. We're six points down. The national media has written us off. Senator Obama is measuring the drapes, and planning with Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid to raise taxes, increase spending, take away your right to vote by secret ballot in labor elections, and concede defeat in Iraq. But they forgot to let you decide. My friends, we've got them just where we want them.

'What America needs in this hour is a fighter; someone who puts all his cards on the table and trusts the judgment of the American people. I come from a long line of McCains who believed that to love America is to fight for her. I have fought for you most of my life. There are other ways to love this country, but I've never been the kind to do it from the sidelines.'

Maybe 3 weeks too late...

Kristol in yesterday's NY Times with what might be the best advice for John McCain: be yourself...again.

Freidman on A Post-Binge World:

“I have no idea what the stock market is going to do next month or six months from now,” Warren Buffett told CNBC on Friday. “I do know that the American economy, over a period of time, will do very well, and people who own a piece of it will do well.”

And another recommendation for David Smick's The World is Curved.

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One Number....For Life

I signed up for Grand Central a while back and the features are great.  The general concept is that you get a number assigned from Grand Central and based on your phonebook settings, you set which lines you want to ring when certain people call.  So, if my buddy calls, I want it to go ring my cell phone.  If my boss calls during business hours, I want it to ring my office phone and cell phone, etc.  

In addition, there are great features like call recording, a visual voicemail inbox, and the ability to keep your number forever.  If you get a new cell number or change jobs, but have your personal business contacts using your grand central number, you just adjust your grandcentral settings and you are good to go.   

Neat product......recently acquired by Google.  I'll go ahead and predict they do some promotion of this service when the Google phone is released.

Visit Grand Central

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The Scandal of the Conservative Mind

Brooks, the voice of reason, on both the loss of conservative intellectualism and the class warfare being stoked by Palin.

And Noonan, the weekly touchpoint of sanity: 'Winning campaigns are built on love. This is the time for "McCain is the answer," not "The other guy is questionable."'

It is asking a lot to ask a political animal to be thoughtful, because they find meaning in action. They are propelled through life by the force of their hunger. But now and then you want to see them think. You want to see them speak the truth. This is one of those times.

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Remembering the Free Market

John Stossel....the David Hasselhoff of intellectuals.....thank you,  thank you very much!!  Your burly mustache....impressive.  Your thoughts on Free enterprise in light of all the bailouts...utterly refreshing.  It's amazing how quickly so many are turning their backs on the core economic principle that has made this nation great.

A fantastic article entitled "Try Free enterprise" by the Stoss.

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Mad Money on Colbert

Always funny with Colbert.....but a credible (and slightly insane) explanation of the cause of all this economic unrest....enjoy

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Blist

A few months back I found this Technology company that has a pretty cool product.  As a heavy Microsoft excel user i've often wanted the ability to easily push an excel based form or dataset into an online application....an online Access/Excel hybrid so to speak.  Blist is the closest thing I've found and has some pretty cool features....it's aesthetically appealing as well. Check out the demo for what Blist can do.  

Try it for free at www.blist.com

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The Real Problem

Go read this article about Alan Greenspan at nytimes.com.

I may be reading too much into this, but I'm sensing a growing trend toward "See this is why free-market capitalism doesn't work" thinking. The challenges ahead will require some hard thinking about what works and what doesn't, but it will be tragic for this present crisis to cause public opinion to shift against the free-market.

Now go read this article about how the Australians are looking to....... China(!) to save capitalism.
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O, To Be A You Tube Star

A rousing introduction for Joe Biden...way to go Tampa!

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Zombies vs Democrats?!?!?

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"The Worst Debate Ever"

A brutally good article on last night's debate. Two candidates that started with such promise...

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Morning Reading 10.08.08

Playbook Wednesday : 27 Days

Politico's Jim VandeHei, on WJLA ABC 7: "What was really extraordinary about this is they really didn't seem to be grappling with the severity of the problems around us. ... We see a meltdown of the markets globally, and you see two candidates saying, 'You know what, we're really not going to change ANYTHING about our plans. And we think we can do health care, we can do energy, we can do this, we can do that.' There was no realization; it seemed, of really the severity of the problems."

Palin just had to survive. Obama just had to duck a good punch by McCain. When did the standards drop so low?

Really, there's not that much interesting news other than the markets. Brings me back to Noonan's question a couple weeks ago, "What if neither of them are up to the current challenges?" Maybe this is just a simple reminder that no election, let alone politician, is the answer.

Regardless, I'm completely astounded that Obama's average lead on McCain is less than 5 pts.

We need something funny...how about Colbert in rare form:

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On the debate

Did anyone else notice the jab Obama took last night at Delaware's corporate-friendly tax and legal environment?

Hey Senator Obama, I'd like for you to meet your running mate, Senator Biden. It would be good for you guys to get to know one another. Find out important facts about each other's lives. For instance, Senator Biden is from Delaware. And he's been one of Delaware's senators for 36 years.

Nothing like unintentional infighting. I for one think Delaware is a great state, with intelligent laws....not necessarily because of Biden, but more likely in spite of him. Still, on the surface, it's fun to note inconsistencies like Obama making a negative example of his running mate's state policies.

Morning Reading 10.07.08

Playbook Tuesday : 28 Days

The Testing Time by David Brooks

This is the test. This is the problem that will consume the next president. Meanwhile, the two candidates for that office are talking about Bill Ayers and Charles Keating.

He also has a book recommendation: The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy by David M. Smick

Swedish Spoken Here by Thomas Freidman

Making history is not simply about the will to do so. It’s also about the way — the resources you have to achieve your ends. Whatever wills the next American president comes to office with, he is going to find that his ways have been diminished and restricted — until we roll up our sleeves and work our way out of this mess.

In the category of random, useless information: The Measure of a President. The crazy thing is that on a number of these, you might actually be able to guess who they are without seeing their names - just the recognition of stature. Be sure to see Teddy's glowing eyes, Carter's smile, and then length of Dukakis' pants.

An initial review of "W."

If you haven't seen this, you should:

Politico Playback:

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Change You Can Believe In!

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Trash-out

A view at "Foreclosure Alley". Perhaps the most disturbing part is this company's inability to work with charities (around 5:30).

Seth Godin: Profile of a Marketing Guru

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/sep2008/id20080924_140114.htm?link_position=link1

Straightening out the facts...

One of my favorite new non-partisan sites, factcheck.org, with some "corrections" from last nights VP debate.

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_biden-palin_debate.html

Kierkegaard and the future of capitalism...

Deep and interesting article on economy / bailout....



An excerpt:

So much of the health of a capitalist economy resides in a seemingly intangible but obviously very real commodity: confidence, the psychological enabler of risk. The financial news has been full of stories about the “flight to safety” on the part of individuals and institutions. The irony, of course, is that the flight is only a time-buying maneuver. The “safety” sought is ultimately dependent on the dynamism of the whole, which means that today’s safe investment is tomorrow’s prelude to financial uncertainty if not, indeed, financial panic. Simple prudence may have dictated the initial flight to safety. But hoarding is both an unattractive personal quality and, ultimately, an imprudent financial strategy. There is a lot of cash sloshing around the world’s economy now. It’s time to put it back to work.

I mentioned the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard in my title. I had in mind a passage from his anatomy of despair, The Sickness Unto Death–not, I have to admit, one of the world’s cheeriest volumes. But in his description of a certain form of defiant despair, Kierkegaard says something that I think has pertinence to our current situation. The species of despair he has in mind here (for despair, like most human follies, comes in manifold varieties) shows itself as a revolt “against the whole of existence.” “It is,” says Kierkegaard,

as if an author were to make a slip of the pen, and that this clerical error became conscious of being an error . . . . [I]t is then as if this clerical error would revolt against the author, out of hatred for him were to forbid him to correct it, and were to say, “No, I will not be erased, I will stand as a witness against thee, that thou art a very poor writer.”

An unproductive attitude, I think you will agree. But does it not illuminate something about the emotional weather on Wall Street?

Feel the Love

From the party that brought you peace, love, and tolerance, comes this:

Colorado Democrats initiate "Educate the Idiots" campaign, target minorities.

Which party suffers the most from hubris? Y-report, you decide.

Colbert and theYreport

Could this be a shot at theYreport from Colbert? Watch the part beginning at :53

Maybe in Ohio, but not in America!

Google's Energy Plan

http://blog.google.org/2008/10/clean-energy-2030.html

The energy team at Google has been crunching the numbers to see how we could greatly reduce fossil fuel use by 2030. Our analysis, led by Jeffery Greenblatt, suggests a potential path to weaning the U.S. off of coal and oil for electricity generation by 2030 (with some remaining use of natural gas as well as nuclear), and cutting oil use for cars by 40%. Al Gore has issued a challenge that is even more ambitious, getting us to carbon-free electricity even sooner. We hope the American public pushes our leaders to embrace it. T. Boone Pickens has weighed in with an interesting plan of his own to massively deploy wind energy, among other things. Other plans have also been developed in recent years that merit attention.

The FDIC Measure Everyone Suddenly Supports

Deposit Plan will Cost Banks More

William M. Isaac, who was the chairman of the F.D.I.C. between 1981 and 1985, said that lifting the limit to $250,000 is “all show, no substance.” “It doesn’t do what needs to be done,” he said. “It might make somebody’s grandmother feel good, but that is not the problem that we have in the financial world: banks won’t lend to other banks.”

The third place

Hope lies not with the expert or the official but with those who use the environment built for them and find it wanting. (Oldenburg,xxx)

...is a term used in the concept of community building to refer to social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace. In his book The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg argues that third places are important for civil society, democracy, civic engagement and establishing a sense of place.

Third places, then, are "anchors" of community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction. All societies already have informal meeting places; what is new in modern times is the intentionality of seeking them out as vital to current societal needs. Oldenburg suggests these hallmarks of a true "third place": free or inexpensive; food and drink, while not essential, are important; highly accessible: proximate for many (walking distance); involve regulars-those who habitually congregate there; welcoming and comfortable; both new friends and old should be found there.

This theme is played out in many different TV shows and movies. For example in the TV show "Cheers", which is set in urban Boston, sets nearly all of its episodes in the front room of the Cheers bar.

A friend mentioned the other day the idea of church becoming our third place. Yet another friend mentioned becoming a regular at multiple venues where we have spent time recently.

What is your third place?

I Need a Decision Tree

Just thinking....I need a new car....given the current state of affairs, should I: a) go buy a new car and get great manufacturer rebates; b) go buy a used car and stick with my philosophy of never buying new; or, c) wait until next Christmas and see what Santa Obama leaves me under the tree?

Lyla, Tom and the Fascist

Friday Night Lights returns, but sadly only on DirectTV. If you haven't seen it, that means you haven't been introduced to Lyla Garrity...a crying shame for any man. Just ask about Season 1 DVDs...

A good Friedman column, less the partisan sentence containing "on Monday, when the House Republicans brought down the bipartisan rescue package." And yes, I let him know my thoughts. Should he respond, it will be posted.

What is it like to still have fans after killing 20 million people? Just ask Stalin.

The benefits of looking eerily like the former dictator, he boasts, include free meals, free car repairs — and free passage through Russian checkpoints.

“Looking like Stalin is like having a visa in Georgia...All Georgians respect Stalin, because he was a great leader who created a great empire — and of course, he was the most famous Georgian who ever lived,” Mr. Ziyadaliev said.

(all links included in sentences in order to appease YBS)

Best Mugshot

Busted......

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0930082cow1.html

Religulous

There is no arguing with faith. As the comedian and outspoken nonbeliever Bill Maher travels the world, interviewing Christians, Jews and Muslims in the facetiously funny documentary “Religulous,” you begin to wonder if there might be two subspecies of humans.