stumbling through the post-blog world

Dear Paul Haggis,

This might come as a shock to me, so, read this letter sitting down. I used to be a fan. Sort of. I like Crash just fine and I was perplexed, but amused, but your showing on Casino Royale. Thanks for that. The charm, the wit - I’ll give you credit for that. I mean, that movie was great.  Period.  Not just for a Bond movie, but, for a real movie.  We all liked it.  I figured you’d be a welcome addition to the franchise.

Now Quantum of Solace.  Ho-hum.  Really, Haggis?  Really with the eco-terrorists and the thirsty Bolivians?  Really with the rapist coup leader?  Really with the Haitian Secret Service (they have one?)?
Sit the next one out, yeah?

Perplexed (and not amused),

-Ben

The Telegraph has a nice little piece called “The 50 facts you might not know about Barack Obama.“  Here’s a sampling:

- He is left-handed – the sixth post-war president to be left-handed

- He owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali

- He was known as “O’Bomber” at high school for his skill at basketball

- He applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee

- He uses an Apple Mac laptop

- He plans to install a basketball court in the White House grounds

So he uses a Mac?  Awesome!  For that sole reason, he will be the best President ever.

Well aren’t you, CBCNews, a giant bucket of suck?  You mean to tell me that the CNN Holograms were not actually holograms at all?  How dare you!  You… you, dang, insignificant, second-rate, stupid…

So I wasn’t watching the hologram of Will.I.Am (whoever that is?) and that other girl?  What’s that you say?  Tomograms?  Get nerdy!

Yellin explained that her image was being filmed in Chicago by 35 high-definition cameras set in a ring inside a special tent, which were processed and synchronized by 20 computers to the cameras in the New York studio.

The CNN anchors were not really speaking to three-dimensional projected images, but rather empty space, Kreuzer said. The images were simply added to what viewers saw on their screens at home, in much the same way computer-generated special effects are added to movies.

Kreuzer said the images were tomograms, which are images that are captured from all sides, reconstructed by computers, then displayed on screen.

Holograms, on the other hand, are projected into space.

CNN officials could not be reached for comment.

Ah, CNN, you tricky newsmen, you.  Lying to the American public about holograms being tomograms.  Elitist jerks, all of you.  Proof, I suppose, of your vast, liberal conspiracy.  Though, they were adept at speaking to empty space.  Almost, in fact, as adept as Fox News guests are at speaking to empty space (the empty space, however, being between the Fox hosts ears, and not were the dang hologram is supposed to be).  Snap!

(image courtesy Reuters)

On Tuesday night celebrations were expected in Chicago, and elsewhere, as America prepared to welcome the first black president-elect of a country born with the ugly birthmark of slavery. It is a remarkable, and historic, achievement.

-The Economist

I’m an election junkie.  I love them.  Even mid-term elections.  Voting may be my most favorite thing about America (well, save for Chipotle) and I always look forward to casting my ballot.  I walked to my local polling station at about 6:45am yesterday, chatted with my neighbors, then cast the vote that I’ve been looking forward to casting for a long time.  After that, it was off to a day full of interviews and business planning and coffees and the full extent of life’s miscellany.  And then it was on to Wolf and Anderson for about a million hours of election coverage.  I found a few things particularly interesting about how it all played out last night.

1. Where in the world can I get one of those turbo-cool touchscreens that all the networks are using?  And the holograph?  Awesome!

2. McCain’s speech was exceptionally gracious, mature and kind and showed his true character.  Great call on keeping Palin away from the mic (anyone remember Johnnie Edwards’ hell-raising from ‘04?).

3. Colbert, Stewart & Co. were great.  Did John Stewart get choked up when he delivered the news that Obama had won?

4. Obama.  The speech.  The venue.  The family.  The history.  It was almost overwhelming.  Yes we can.

12-1?  Crazy Brits.

Jason has rejoined the ranks of us who occasionally get knee-deep in bloggery.  Welcome back.

SNL absolutely killed Olbermann this weekend.  This is good television.  The bluster, the overstatement, the faux-gravitas.  Awesome.

The Economist, as usual, is right-on.  They’ve strongly endorsed Barack Obama and complained about the fading away of John McCain v1.0.  I love you, Economist, marry me.

For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead.

From the Economist:

The rise of the Obamacons is more than a reaction against Mr Bush’s remodelling of the Republican Party and Mr McCain’s desperation: there were plenty of disillusioned Republicans in 2004 who did not warm to John Kerry. It is also a positive verdict on Mr Obama. For many conservatives, Mr Obama embodies qualities that their party has abandoned: pragmatism, competence and respect for the head rather than the heart. Mr Obama’s calm and collected response to the turmoil on Wall Street contrasted sharply with Mr McCain’s grandstanding.

Much of Mr Obama’s rhetoric is strikingly conservative, even Reaganesque. He preaches the virtues of personal responsibility and family values, and practises them too. He talks in uplifting terms about the promise of American life. His story also appeals to conservatives: it holds the possibility of freeing America from its racial demons, proving that the country is a race-blind meritocracy and, in the process, bankrupting a race-grievance industry that has produced the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the interest of full-disclosure: My parents have already voted and I’m thinking about voting later on today.  That said, I’m still a little bit torn about voting early and I don’t know why.  I’ve already made an endorsement for President and I’m set on my Congressman (Sam Johnson, you rascal) and Senator (Cornyn, you, um, you really boring old, white person who likes free markets - precisely the type of Senator we need).  I’ve even done my homework on some of the local stuff on the ballot (being unemployed helps with this) and if could mail-in my vote on Cali Prop 8, (no, by the way) I would.

So why do I have a tinge of uncertainty about early voting?  Am I instinctively waiting until the final hour for news to break that could sway my vote?  Does it even matter?  Both campaigns have competent public relations spinners - indeed, it’s doubtful that anything will break in the next few days that would change my mind anyway.  But still…

Thoughts?

The New York Times has a great online interactive time line of their Presidential endorsements.

I found this posted on a message board I swing by from time to time.

The media is corrupt and the results of elections are directly attributable to the media’s lack of integrity.

What ever happened to ethics?

Incompetent Physicans, Lawyers, Athletes, Politicians are held to certain standards.

The media has absolutely NO accountable.

CNN, NBC, New York Times don’t care about fairness, accuracy, honesty are all out the window.

What kind of republic will we have with a corrupt American press?

The election is fixed. Obama will win, all because of a corrupt media and an ill informed populace.

And so it starts in earnest.  The complaints of bias now suddenly turn into full-throated cries of unfairness.  The fix is in - the media elites have picked their candidate and he will win. An important note: until recently, the media adored McCain - it carried his dead campaign through the early primary season (also of note: he used to call the media “his base”).

The interesting part about this is the incredible discipline with which members of the Republican party totally jettison reality in favor of this fiction. Rather than look at the fact that the party is run by far-right, cynical kooks who have squandered the chance of permanent majority left to them by Ronald Reagan, the party jettisoned the intellectuals (Buckley, Parker, et. al.) and the elites (Eisenhower & Powell) and the vast sea of moderate, pragmatic conservatives.  It’s amazing that the party leadership is too stupid and too arrogant to see that the Democrats have now become the party of America.

Amazing, isn’t it?  The party that is still beholden to radicalism and minority interest has the foresight to allow Obama to carve out his own space, and should, barring any huge development, handily win the Presidency.  A clear, pragmatic decision from the most unlikely of places: Democratic leadership.  More amazing is that the Republican leadership wouldn’t clear that sort of idealogical space for their truly exceptional candidate.  McCain is a member of, arguably, the highest elite order in this country: the Military Legacy.  That he tacked so hard away from all the things that made him a worthy seeker of the Highest Office is telling: rather than grow and adapt, Republicans chose to bury their heads in the sand and hope that the American public was stupid enough to believe that only looking to the past would work to write the future.

The Republicans deserve to lose - actually, the Republicans deserve to get their asses kicked.  I sincerely hope they do.  And I hope that out of the dust a new brand of Republican politics rises.

The Bryan/College Station Eagle Newspaper has endorsed Barack Obama for President.  I can’t believe it.  The Editorial Board writes:

In the past 50 years, The Eagle has never recommended a Democrat for president…

Barack Obama is such a leader. He doesn’t have all the answers, to be sure, but at least he is asking the right questions. While we would like more specificity on his plans as president, we are confident that he can lead us ever forward, casting aside the doubts and fears of recent years.

Also of great concern is McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. Like Obama, she has little experience in governing, but unlike the Illinois senator, she is a candidate of little intellectual curiosity who appears to be hopelessly unready to be president. The fact that people are confused by the difference between Palin and comedian Tina Fey’s caustic impersonation is clear evidence that Palin should not be, as they say, a heartbeat away from the presidency.

This from the home of Texas A&M University.  The Palin/Tina Fey line may be a bit much, but an otherwise wise endorsement.

So says the Oracle:

So … I’ve been buying American stocks. This is my personal account I’m talking about, in which I previously owned nothing but United States government bonds. (This description leaves aside my Berkshire Hathaway holdings, which are all committed to philanthropy.) If prices keep looking attractive, my non-Berkshire net worth will soon be 100 percent in United States equities.

Why?

A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. And most certainly, fear is now widespread, gripping even seasoned investors. To be sure, investors are right to be wary of highly leveraged entities or businesses in weak competitive positions. But fears regarding the long-term prosperity of the nation’s many sound companies make no sense. These businesses will indeed suffer earnings hiccups, as they always have. But most major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10 and 20 years from now.

Buffett is famously domestic in his equity holdings and for good reason - the stocks he’s purchasing are blue-chip companies whose fundamentals are good and whose prices have been beaten down in the last year.  I’d add that global and emerging markets are in the same place, save those prices are even more whipped.

Keith Novosel, a good friend, a great human being and an absolutely awesome photog, just got back from France where he was shooting a traveling band of vagabondishly cool surfers for an upcoming film called Picaresque.  Fluid Motion Photography is his handle.  Check it, then click “France.”  Enjoy.

Bonus: watch the film trailer.

EDIT: Keith also has a blog.  Love it.