I’ve been seeing a lot of polls stating that both Clinton and Obama are below McCain nationally lately. Now I’m not a well known or respected pundit but I am a voter and I have a thought on this that has not seemed to occur to the Democrats in charge. McCain is ahead in the [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Politics’
Obama on Race in America
Today, Barack Obama made an amazing speech on Race in America today (3/18/08) though it was far more personal to him and to anyone who reads it (see the link above) or anyone who watches it (youtube). I find it hard to say anything about this speech that I haven’t already read. It is worth [...]
More Presidential Race Comments
After yesterday’s comments on Hillary Clinton’s actions and directions, I wanted to add some additional comments to make clear that not everything either candidate in the Democratic party has done has been right or wrong. I’m not a big believer in negative campaigning but I also don’t want a candidate to be weak. A negative [...]
Hillary Clinton’s Campaign
I’ve seen a lot of posts recently regarding a variety of topics that make me question the integrity of Hillary Clinton and her campaign. My political leanings could be called fiscally conservative yet socially liberal. This tends to put me in the Democratic camp. With the current candidates, I certainly favor Obama but until recently [...]
Olbermann on Ferraro
I’m a pretty big fan of Keith Olbermann. His show format is not my favorite but he is a straight shooter and doesn’t put his foot in his mouth as often as other new commentators (they all do it eventually so that’s about the highest praise I can give them – heck, it’s about the [...]
Obama’s ’02 Speech
In following the Democratic Presidential Primaries, I’ve decided to support Barack Obama. That being said, I’m sure I’ll support the ultimate Democratic nominee as that there is no way I’ll support John McCain. During the race though, I’ve heard Hillary Clinton say that she has years of experience (which I would contest because I don’t [...]
Obama v Clinton
I haven’t talked about politics in quite a while. This Presidential race has been quite interesting for even the most casual political watcher. First you have Hillary Clinton who started the race as the nearly pre-ordained candidate but who has lost all momentum. I think it is not because she wouldn’t make a good President [...]
Copyright continues to be misunderstood/misused
About a week or so ago, a video called “Richter Scales” was put out and then soon after taken down because of take down notices. Unfortunately, the take down notice from photographer, Lane Hartwell, seems to be a bullying tactic. Read the post from the link (which still had the video in it too) for [...]
Is Comcast the first evil of many?
Well, here goes the first company, Comcast with the first barage against any sense of internet neutrality or fairness. According to all accounts, Comcast has been killing packets of BitTorrent traffic. At this point they are unwilling to discuss their actions too. It’s obvious that the actions are not going over well with the internet [...]
RIAA get a victory
I know I’m reporting on this very late. In Virgin v Thomas, the RIAA wins a verdict of $222,000 against Jammie Thomas, a single Mom who makes under $40,000/year for 24 songs with a value of $.99/each for a total real world value of $23.76. As an outsider, it is nearly unfathomable at how a [...]
History versus Religion
Ok, my family and I were in Church this morning and I couldn’t help but think of a series of podcasts that I have been listening to lately. The podcasts are available from Stanford University (see iTunesU at the iTunes Store for free downloads) and are called the Historical Jesus by Professor Thomas Sheehan (he’s [...]
Violate copyright? $150,000. Violate free speech? $0.
I’ve taken this headline directly from a Hyperorg post on penalties that come from the DMCA. This post talks about penalties for both infringers – meaning those who post material that is in violation of copyright and have a cease and desist against them but fail to comply – and those who post a cease [...]
RIAA thinks it can do anything?!?!
When I first heard this via a podcast (I heard it on several and can’t remember which one I heard it on first otherwise I would give some attribution), I just couldn’t believe the audacity of the RIAA. More over, remember that the RIAA is made up of companies like EMI, Sony, and such and [...]
Some Stats and Analysis
I read a lot of blogs regularly. One of them is Freakonomics which is an interesting blog about economics and related geekery about statistics, economics, data and such. It’s written in an easy to understand style rather than a boring text book style. I came across this post on Vanishing Mailboxes, Underperforming Schools, and Global [...]
Teaching – some thoughts
Recently, Steve Jobs spoke on education and what’s wrong with it. Steve is quite a pontificator but in my observations, he over simplifies. I think he does this because at heart, he’s a marketing guy and it’s all about bullet points, key messages and sound bytes. In this instance, this over simplification is more than [...]