I've been slacking in the posting department, mainly because I'm swamped over here, but I couldn't resist spreading some RFK, Jr. love.
I saw him speak at NeoCon in June and had goosebumps the entire time. The guy's mind. It leaves me breathless. And this piece about Obama's "green gold rush" is pretty good, despite the fact that Kennedy, Jr. originally supported HRC.
My Kennedy Crush
We Could Do This
A gym in Oregon will power its facility in part with electricity generated by members peddling away on exercise bikes. We have an exercise bike in the gym downstairs. On occasion people must use it. Imagination could be riding the crest of the green revolution!
Just think: We could implement a system where power generated on the equipment downstairs was redistributed back into the employee's paycheck, thus reducing our carbon footprint while simultaneously encouraging employee fitness.
(And by 'we' I obviously mean 'people with more authority than Joel'.)
Then we could put some content on our website talking about how environmentally conscious we are and about our revolutionary employee fitness/energy program. Bing, bang, boom.
UPDATE: Information on the exercise bikes can be found here. They go on sale 9/1 @ $1450 and they are only building 50 initially.
What The Convention Means
Marc Ambinder has a smart post on what Obama needs to accomplish at the DNC Convention: get Democrats to vote for him. Those are the voters McCain is targeting right now and those are the voters Obama would like to solidfy as his supporters.
As has been pointed out to me by Rene countless times, during this voting cycle more people identify as Democrats than as Republicans. This is why Obama leads in the polls even though he is doing worse among Democrats than McCain is among Republicans (80% vs 85%). The cleanest path to the White House for Obama is to get them to vote against John McCain because he's a Republican and they are Democrats. So Obama and the DNC will be trumpeting Obama's Democratness during the convention and reminding voters at every turn that McCain is a Republican.
SmartBike Chicago?
Washington DC has just become home to an interesting new community bike sharing program called BikeShare DC. You register, pay a fee, and then have access to bikes you can use to get around the city. It's a pretty great idea. I wonder if it would work in Chicago. Rene would probably be better able to answer this, but my feeling is that Chicago is not biker friendly. Along the lake there are ample bike paths, but the farther you move in the less suited to biking Chicago becomes. Which is both unfortunate and odd. For a city with robust neighborhoods those neighborhoods are awfully cramped with cars and are laid out in one direction (north). Getting from many popular neighborhoods to downtown requires a litte ride.
Awesome, Hillary!
"I will be telling my delegates that I will vote for Barack Obama. How they vote is a more personal decision. They want to have their chance to vote for me. That is what traditionally happens ... some people are having to make up their minds because there are arguments pulling them both ways."
HRC, this morning.
She's planting the seeds for 2012. The woman knows no loyalty to anything but her obsessive sense of entitlement.
TNR: Best Coverage of Campaign
The New Republic lists what they think have been the highlights in campaign coverage thus far.
Pathetic New Obama Ad
Who is he targeting here? This ad stinks. Someone should be fired.
UPDATE: Koppelman likes the ad. I'm at a loss.
Something that would have been helpful Friday.
Could organic booze really quell a hangover? One NY Daily news writer attempts an experiment.
Finding His Stride?
The liberal blogosphere is buzzing -- buzzing! -- about Obama's addition to his stump speech today. It's on the economy.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Yup
"This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," - Brian Rogers, McCain spokesman.
Straight Talk Express Off Rails...Again, Again
I'm about 10 hours late to this story so you all might have seen it already, but if not it's another instance of John McCain, who was once a prisoner of war, embellishing facts to make a better story.
The skinny: In 1991, Cindy McCain rescued two Bangladeshi girls at the behest of Mother Theresa, one of whom, Bridget, the McCains subsequently adopted. Or at least that's what the McCains, part of whom was once a prisoner of war, would have us believe. Turns out, it's not true.
Mother Theresa was not at the orphanage. She did not urge the McCains to rescue or adopt the children. In fact, it's not even clear if Cindy McCain met Mother Theresa on her trip. But that didn't stop McCain, POW, from saying just that on his website. When the CSM contacted the campaign about the story they revised the site to reflect the truth.
Final word from John Hawkins from Right Wing News:
People will add a little detail here or there to make a story better, but it doesn't look good when a politician does it -- and since John McCain has repeated the story, it looks like Mr. "Straight Talk" is going to end up having to explain on the campaign trail why he and his wife fudged a story about something as intimate as the circumstances under which they came to adopt their own daughter. They should know better than that.
Our National Intelligence Questioned
Poland is building a missile defense system. Why? Russia. Duh. But don't let Condi tell you that:
This is an agreement that, of course, will establish a missile defense site here in Poland, a missile defense site that will help us to deal with the new threat to the 21st century of long-range missile threats from countries like Iran or from North Korea,” Rice said yesterday at the Polish presidential palace in Warsaw.Take it away, Spencer!
Just just just just stop right there. That stillness you hear is your natural tranquility returning to you. Breathe deeply, exhaling the lie. Tell yourself, as a calming mechanism, North Korean missiles cannot hit Poland; even if they someday could, they never never would; and Iranian antipathy to the Poles does not exist. It's kind of adorable that Rice expects you to believe this. You will miss her when she's gone, and you promise to visit her in the Hague.
Why I Like Sports, vol 2
From the SI article about the death of Hank Gathers:
The first full practice came two days after a campus memorial service for their friend and teammate. Yet even with the finality of that ceremony, Loyola Marymount 's basketball players found it hard to remember that Hank Gathers was really gone...It was only four days earlier that Gathers had collapsed and died of heart failure during a West Coast Conference tournament game against Portland on Loyola's home floor in Los Angeles . Says Loyola forward Bo Kimble , who had been a friend of Gathers 's for the past 10 years, "We had a lot to deal with quickly. It was hard on everyone. But we knew Hank would have wanted us to play in the NCAAs . At the memorial service [in Loyola's Gersten Pavilion] I looked over and saw his coffin was in the paint. I knew then we would have to find a way to win for him."
And, perhaps astonishingly, they did. Playing in the West Regional in Long Beach , Calif. , the 11th-seeded Lions beat No. 6-seed New Mexico State last Friday 111-92. Kimble scored 45 points and grabbed 18 rebounds, despite playing the entire second half with four fouls.To be sure, Kimble also had down moments last week. He didn't sleep for three days after Gathers died, and he began to realize that he was placing too much pressure on himself with his vow to make "something happen" every time he touched the ball. But he stuck to his promise to shoot his first free throw in every game lefthanded, in honor of Gathers , who had struggled so much with his foul shots this season that he had taken to shooting them lefty. "It may sound corny," says Kimble, who leads the nation in scoring with a 35.7 average, "but it makes me believe I've got a little bit of Hank inside me. I feel his strength."
Kimble's first lefthanded attempt didn't come until the second half of the New Mexico State game. The two teams had been tied at intermission, but Loyola had just blitzed the Aggies with a 18-4 spurt to start the half when Kimble was fouled in the act of shooting. As he approached the line, the partisan crowd, many wearing HANK armbands, began to buzz and then went quiet. Kimble shook his left arm, took the ball from the official and calmly made the shot. His teammates and coaches leaped in the air, many of them near tears.
Apple vs ... Jerry Seinfeld?
Microsoft is launching a new ad campaign, apparently to combat the awesome "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads. Jerry Seinfeld is their man. I guess that makes sense since he's so hip and cool and no one's seen him for like, 10 years.
Swift Reax From Obama
Yesterday John McCain, who was once a prisoner of war, admitted he couldn't remember how many homes he owned. This morning the Obama campaign jumped on the gaff with an effective new television spot.
I'll leave you with what Thomas Schaller had to say about this:
Obviously, there is but one logical conclusion we can draw from this: Barack Obama is an out-of-touch elitist.
Inspired Marketing
Gamer finds glitch in EA's Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 that allows Woods to walk on water. He uploads a video of the glitch to YouTube. EA responds with their own YouTube video of Tiger Woods walking on water with the tagline "It's Not A Glitch. He's Just That Good."
Awards! Get Your Awards!
Want an Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator? Don't worry if you don't own a restaurant or wine bar. You can have one regardless.
Some of our (potential) clients are only interested in awards. We should totally sell them with this.
Yippie
(I'm cribbing this from Andrew Sullivan.)
Think of how much happier people would be if they encountered stuff like this throughout the city.
From the artist's statement:
This project is a study into different ways of bringing play back into public space. It focuses on ways of incorporating incidental play in the public realm by not so much as having separate play equipment that dictates the users but by using existing furniture and architectural elements that indicate playful behaviour for all.
Darwin Award Nominee
Sticking with the theme of natural selection I present this video of a dude kite surfing during a hurricane. Or a tropical storm. Whatever that thing was that just hit Florida, this guy thought it would be a good idea to kite surf. Which is probably a double dose of idiocy. I mean kite surfing? Hate to say it, but dude had it coming.