Per Ardua Ad Astra

Andrew Sullivan - Ten Years of Excellent Journalism

2010-10-11T08:15:00.000-04:00

"......So better to say, perhaps, that, in the end, it is possible to sustain this day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, for ten years, because of the sheer exhilaration that this kind of freedom provides, and its potential for good as well as evil, and the knowledge that as long as we live and breathe in the West as we know it, this freedom is ours for the taking.

So I took it."

He reflects on 9/11, the Catholic Church, Bush and Obama, and why after all the trials of the past decade he remains a conservative.

Damn, should have taken Latin...

2010-10-10T11:53:00.001-04:00

WASHINGTON—A group of leading historians held a press conference Monday at the National Geographic Society to announce they had "entirely fabricated" ancient Greece, a culture long thought to be the intellectual basis of Western civilization.

The group acknowledged that the idea of a sophisticated, flourishing society existing in Greece more than two millennia ago was a complete fiction created by a team of some two dozen historians, anthropologists, and classicists who worked nonstop between 1971 and 1974 to forge "Greek" documents and artifacts....

Complete article here, courtesy of The Onion (strange name for a news site....?)

Where Your Taxes Go

2010-10-01T07:38:00.002-04:00

An excellent suggestion from David Kendall and Jim Kessler of Third Way; to give taxpayers a receipt detailing how their tax dollars are spent.

For a median tax filer in America who in 2009 had an adjusted gross income of $34,140 and paid $5.400 in federal income taxes and FICA, a receipt would look like this:

Product Of The Year?

2010-09-30T16:02:00.000-04:00

A best seller at Cost Plus World Market... great concept (Applewood smoked bacon, milk chocolate, sea salt...) Oddly squishy texture, however. $7.50 a bar direct from Vosges.... cheaper at Cost Plus!

Pom.... no longer wonderful, now persecuted!

2010-09-27T18:28:00.001-04:00

Quoting Gawker, quoting the FTC..... "The FTC has filed suit against POM, the overpriced juice that looks a lot like blood. Apparently pomegranate juice does not have 'super health powers,' nor does it contribute to the 'fight against cardiovascular, prostate, and erectile health.' Bummer."

Pom's response: the government is "wasting taxpayer resources to persecute the pomegranate."

No further comment necessary.

UPDATE: words of wisdom from Marion Nestle.... "I love using POM research as an example of how easy it is to design studies to give you the answer you want. POM research demonstrates that pomegranate juice has antioxidant activity and acts as an antioxidant in the body. Of course it does.

But so does every other fruit and vegetable..." Her full posting is here.

Overconfidence Pays

2010-09-14T06:30:00.000-04:00

Excellent post from Stumbling & Mumbling about overconfident executives here. Shades of Nassim Taleb's "Fooled By Randomness"...

Islamophobia and other stupidity

2010-09-10T16:09:00.000-04:00

Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post nails it.... here.

".....Yesterday afternoon, the leader of a microscopic cult of idiots who announced plans to stage an "international" day of Quran burning in Gainesville, Florida held a press conference, for a rapt media which decided that his moronic plans were the single most important thing going on in America. At that press conference, in front of "9/11 Truther" signs, this cult leader lied to everyone who was watching, telling them that he was going to call off his 9/11 book burning festival because he had successfully reached a deal with the people behind the Park51 community center in Lower Manhattan, in which they would move their facility away from the site of the World Trade Center.

Not a word of this was true, but it was amazing, all the same -- at one fell swoop, we had finally knit up the strands of a season of irrationality into one big, shiny, synergized knot....."

An American Islam

2010-08-16T08:18:00.002-04:00

Sense from Ross Douthat in the New York Times... Extracts below, full editorial here.

".....There’s an America where it doesn’t matter what language you speak, what god you worship, or how deep your New World roots run. An America where allegiance to the Constitution trumps ethnic differences, language barriers and religious divides. An America where the newest arrival to our shores is no less American than the ever-so-great granddaughter of the Pilgrims...."

"......But there’s another America as well, one that understands itself as a distinctive culture, rather than just a set of political propositions. This America speaks English, not Spanish or Chinese or Arabic. It looks back to a particular religious heritage: Protestantism originally, and then a Judeo-Christian consensus that accommodated Jews and Catholics as well. It draws its social norms from the mores of the Anglo-Saxon diaspora — and it expects new arrivals to assimilate themselves to these norms, and quickly...."

He concludes.... [moderate Muslims will] "need leaders, in other words, who understand that while the ideals of the first America protect the e pluribus, it’s the demands the second America makes of new arrivals that help create the unum."

It Gets Better!

2010-07-19T13:19:00.001-04:00

So Palin's comparing herself to Shakespeare now?

To Good To Be True....

2010-07-19T13:18:00.003-04:00

Where do I start?

A. It's 2 blocks away from Ground Zero

B. The mosque will be in a community center that will also include a swimming pool

C. What's up with this "Heartland" reference? Us city dwellers aren't real Americans?

D. Refudiate?

God Save The Queen!

2010-04-08T18:31:00.001-04:00

RIP, Malcolm McLaren.

Sanity in Food Labeling

2010-03-06T13:31:00.000-05:00

Sanity from the CSPI: download the report here.

How to make selling superfluous....

2010-03-02T17:26:00.000-05:00

From The Essential Peter Drucker (Part 1):

“…the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself.”

Burger Wars

2010-03-02T17:07:00.002-05:00

Density is the key to market domination; no surprises, there....

Larger graphics here, and here, courtesy of the Weather Sealed web site...

Separated At Birth

2010-01-08T13:43:00.000-05:00

Other than 10 million miles, what does he have that I haven't?

Here We Go Again...

2010-01-08T10:58:00.002-05:00

Flying season commences....

RIP, Chip, 1996 (we think) - 2010

2010-01-06T18:14:00.004-05:00

(pictured) Chip doing what came naturally. Gentleman to the last, he died today. From the Chicago outer burbs to Greenwich, CT, he had a feisty and hairy life.

Hmm... thinking about it...

2010-01-04T11:23:00.001-05:00

Courtesy of TechCrunch.... "Are you tired of living in public, sick of all the privacy theater the social networks are putting on, and just want to end it all online? Now you can wipe the slate clean with the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine. (Warning: This will really delete your online presence and is irrevocable). Just put in your credentials for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or LinkedIn and it will delete all your friends and messages, and change your username, password, and photo so that you cannot log back in...."

Up In The Air

2009-12-15T09:55:00.014-05:00

Hmmm.... American Airlines elite flyer.... Hertz cars.... Hilton hotels... interesting, challenging and well paid job.... martini drinker... what's not to like? Movie trailer here....

2009 ARC Rally Starts Today

2009-11-22T16:04:00.000-05:00

In honor of the participants in the 2009 ARC Rally from Las Palmas Gran Canaria to St Lucia, which set sail earlier today Safe travels. This video is from our 2006 crossing.

A Complete Con

2009-11-02T16:08:00.022-05:00

The marketers at Kellogg's should be ashamed of themselves. Oh wait, I forgot, shame isn't taught at business school...

UPDATE: November 5th: Kellogg's withdraws the pack. Sanity prevails. Well done, among others, Marion Nestle.

RIP (So-Called) Smart Choices....

2009-10-29T14:56:00.002-04:00

Oct 23rd, 2009 - American Society of Nutritionist's release...

Dear ASN Member,

Today the Smart Choices Program announced the decision to voluntarily postpone active operations and not encourage wider use of the Smart Choices Program logo. This move follows an announcement by FDA Commissioner, Margaret Hamburg, M.D. on Oct. 20, 2009, which said that the agency intends to develop standardized criteria on which future front-of-package (FOP) nutrition or shelf labeling will be based. In a letter captioned, “Guidance for Industry” and posted on its website, the FDA stated: “We want to work with the food industry − retailers and manufacturers alike − as well as nutrition and design experts and the Institute of Medicine, to develop an optimal, common approach to nutrition-related FOP and shelf labeling that all Americans can trust and use to build better diets and improve their health.”

ASN commends the FDA on its announcement of intent to develop standardized criteria on which front-of-pack nutrition and shelf labeling could be based. In addition, ASN fully supports the decision of the Smart Choices Program Board of Directors to postpone their active operations as FDA works to address both front-of-pack and on shelf labeling. “ASN will continue to provide nutrition science expertise within the dialogue on front-of-pack labeling in order to best serve the interests of the health of Americans,” said ASN President Jim Hill in a statement to media.

Sincerely,

ASN Executive Board

RIP, Gourmet Magazine

2009-10-05T17:08:00.000-04:00

Carr's Brand Extension

2009-10-04T12:04:00.002-04:00

A (failed) brand extension from the 80s...

Soda Taxes: The Best Idea Yet

2009-09-17T16:19:00.002-04:00

Soda taxes: the new frontier

Shared via AddThis

How to Make Great, Superb, Incredible, Awesome Presentations....

2009-09-17T10:38:00.002-04:00

This Seems Like a Good Idea...

2009-09-16T10:05:00.003-04:00

The perfect antidote to corporate ennui.

American Health Care

2009-09-08T09:18:00.003-04:00

The best article yet on the complexities of reforming the US health care system. Written by David Goldhill, published in the September issue of the Atlantic.

How American Health Care Killed My Father - The Atlantic
(September 2009)

Shared via AddThis

The West Coast Response

2009-09-08T08:56:00.002-04:00

Buffy defects... but she'll be back.

In Memory of Dr Sharon Kaufman

2009-09-07T21:54:00.000-04:00

Dr Sharon J. Kaufman, Chiropractor
November 3rd, 1959 to September 7th, 2009
Gave me chiropractic care with grace, good humor and skill for 5 years.

A Greenwich Labor Day Weekend...

2009-09-07T13:16:00.010-04:00

WASP Pride...from the marketers of Smirnoff Ice.... 21 Lincoln is 12 seconds in...

American Exceptionalism - The Health Debate

2009-08-16T14:10:00.006-04:00

So the US spends far more per capita on health care than 31 other OECD countries... and gets what, precisely? A lot of waste, most likely.

No wonder the US health system is the biggest component of the economy.

More here ....

My Fellow Americans...

2009-08-14T14:22:00.003-04:00

New Haven, CT courthouse, 9am Friday August 14th. 53 people from 20 countries, renouncing allegiance to foreign flags. Including me.

Waiting for the iTablet....

2009-08-02T14:23:00.005-04:00

From the inimitable Steve Jobs....

:.....Anyway, just like Orpheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to the world, my gift to the world is iTablet -- a device that incorporates not just chips and software, but magic. Special secret powers from Mount Olympus, stuff that turns you into a kind of man-god, a semi-divine being with a magic tablet so light that you can't even feel it in your backpack or briefcase but with the ability to connect you to the Internet and enable you to buy anything you want as long as it comes from Apple. In other words, you're a superhero. With super powers. All this for only $899!

If you doubt the power of this hero's journey myth to sell products, well, I urge you to check out some of the organizations that have used it in the past. Like there's this product called Christianity. Have you heard of it? Pretty big deal. I mean they've been selling that stuff for two thousand years -- to be sure, with updates and upgrades, and a lot of forking of the code -- but it's still throwing off huge amounts of positive cash flow. All based on this amazing marketing narrative about a dude who dies, goes down into Hades, and comes back to the ordinary world with something to tell. You spiff that story up a bit and tell it just right, and people send you their money. Not just once, but over and over and over again, throughout their entire lives. Brilliant! It's the greatest marketing campaign ever invented...."

Misspent Youth

2009-06-22T13:19:00.004-04:00

The sad state of the Lord Cecil... where I crammed for LSE Finals back in 1981... Median Road, Hackney, E5 (aka Mediocre Road).

RIP - Neda Soltan. Murdered in Iran, aged 27

2009-06-21T13:30:00.009-04:00

Facebook page here.

As Momentous as the Fall of the Berlin Wall

2009-06-15T15:12:00.002-04:00

Democracy for Iran

2009-06-15T08:00:00.001-04:00

“All books about revolutions begin with a chapter that describes the decay of tottering authority or the misery and sufferings of the people. They should begin with a psychological chapter, one that shows how a harassed and terrified man suddenly breaks his terror, stops being afraid. This unusual process, sometimes accomplished in an instant, like a shock or lustration, demands illuminating. Man gets rid of fear and feels free. Without that there would be no revolution,” - Ryszard Kapuscinski, in Iran during the 1979 revolution.

Quote courtesy of Andrew Sullivan.

Schweppes Advertising...

2009-05-17T13:15:00.001-04:00

An interesting new creative direction for Schweppes...

An English Eccentric

2009-05-10T10:57:00.009-04:00

John Michell, a self-styled Merlin of the 1960s English counterculture who inspired disciples like the Rolling Stones with a deluge of writings about U.F.O.’s, prehistoric architecture and fairies — when he was not describing fascinating eccentrics or the perils of the metric system — died on April 24 in Poole, England. He was 76.

Seaver Leslie

John Michell in 1981.

The cause was cancer, Jason Goodwin, his son, said.

Mr. Michell’s intellectual idiosyncrasies were paralleled by his deep and decidedly nonjudgmental fascination with the quirks of others.

His 1984 book, “Eccentric Lives and Peculiar Notions,” told of one man who devoted his life to proving the world was flat, and another to proving it was concave. He told of a couple who drilled holes in their own heads to feel better, then fought to have the government pay for the operation.

In other books he wrote about living frogs found inside lumps of coal and a talking ghost that insisted it was the spirit of a dead mongoose.

“My own chosen attitude is total confusion,” he wrote in a book of impressively quirky essays in 2006....

.....Three years ago, Mr. Michell surprised friends and family by marrying Denise Price, the archdruidess of the Glastonbury Order of Druids, after a courtship of less than a month. Mr. Goodwin said that two months later, “she threw him out.”

In the Observer interview, Mr. Michell summed up his life: “My pursuits are a joke in that the universe is a joke. One has to reflect the universe faithfully.”

The complete obituary here, courtesy of the New York Times.

Step Aside, Dude

2009-03-30T08:17:00.010-04:00

FOR RELEASE: 2009-03-30: GM Message From Rick Wagoner

".....On Friday I was in Washington for a meeting with Administration officials. In the course of that meeting, they requested that I “step aside” as CEO of GM, and so I have.

Translation: I got fired.

Fritz Henderson is an excellent choice to be the next CEO of GM. Having worked closely with Fritz for many years, I know that he is the ideal person to lead the company through the completion of our restructuring efforts. His knowledge of the global industry and the company are exceptional, and he has the intellect, energy, and support among GM’ers worldwide to succeed. I wish him well, and I stand ready to support him, and interim Non-Executive Chairman Kent Kresa, in every way possible.

Translation: I got fired. That Kresa dude had a hand in it.

I also want to extend my sincerest thanks to everyone who supported GM and me during my time as CEO. I deeply appreciate the excellent counsel and commitment of the GM Board and the strong support of our many partners including our terrific dealers, suppliers, and community leaders. I am grateful as well to the union leaders with whom I have had the chance to work closely to implement numerous tough but necessary restructuring agreements.

Translation: I got fired. But unlike my union friends, I should never have to work again.

Most important of all I want to express my deepest appreciation to the extraordinary team of GM employees around the world. You have been a tremendous source of inspiration and pride to me, and I will be forever grateful for the courage and commitment you have shown as we have confronted the unprecedented challenges of the past few years. GM is a great company with a storied history. Ignore the doubters because I know it is also a company with a great future....."

Translation: I'm buying an Audi. Would have been a Saab, but you know we like, uh, royally screwed up that brand.

Eight years of "managing decline".... Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

No Shock & Awe Today...

2009-03-28T12:20:00.005-04:00

Hardly a weapon of mass destruction.

Saturday: Won 2, lost 2.

But cheap, at $65.

Sunday update: me 2. David Baines 1.

You Talkin' to Me?

2009-03-24T17:39:00.004-04:00

Not A Lost Generation

2009-03-23T16:16:00.000-04:00

Run, Lindsay, Run

2009-03-14T14:41:00.004-04:00

Deathless prose from Gawker.

"....She is embroiled in perhaps the most important and tempestuous love affair of our time. Do you think Gertrude Stein paid all her parking tickets? Do you reckon Vita Sackville-West paid her library dues? Our advice to Lohan: Run. Just Run. Run and Love. Love a lot. Never stop. Run...."

Alter Ego #7

2009-02-07T12:56:00.000-05:00

Steve Dawson, of Sax-Tiedemann Funeral Home and Crematorium in Franklin Park, IL offers green burial caskets.

Stay Young, Stay Foolish

2009-01-01T09:16:00.000-05:00

"….Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

"….Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement address, June 2005

Ah, Paris

2008-12-31T09:37:00.003-05:00

Client dinner, Tante Louise, Paris, October 2008.

Immigration to US, 1820-2007

2008-12-17T13:57:00.001-05:00

Immigration to the US, 1820-2007 v2 from Ian Stevenson on Vimeo.

More Travel...

2008-11-30T18:25:00.007-05:00

More travel beckons: Bentonville this week (4th visit in 08); London w.o Dec 8; Annapolis Dec 18th. Per ardua...

See this eternally fascinating global traffic movie (lo-res web animation) here.... And here's the original Quicktime movie.

Palin Lives...

2008-11-12T08:35:00.004-05:00

Seen in a Chicago Trader Joe's....

Yes We Did

2008-11-05T08:20:00.000-05:00

Manhattan, November 2nd

2008-11-02T17:47:00.002-05:00

Go, Paula!
Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

Chicago, 1996

2008-10-14T15:43:00.004-04:00

Navy Pier, Chicago

Alter Ego #6

2008-10-14T15:35:00.002-04:00

Yeah, I wish...

Generations

2008-10-11T12:48:00.003-04:00

Depression Movies...

2008-10-10T13:39:00.003-04:00

Weekend viewing...

Who Said This?

2008-09-26T07:40:00.003-04:00

" . . . where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh -- it's got to be all about job creation too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that."

and....

"We have trade missions back and forth....... We, we do, it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to, to our state."

More details here.

Seattle

2008-09-25T12:02:00.009-04:00

Seattle road trip - Costco, Starbucks, Amazon.
Pictured: view of Seattle from the Bellingham Island Ferry; sunset view from Edgewater Hotel window.

Found - Weapons of Mass Destruction

2008-09-19T09:30:00.010-04:00

Warren Buffett has been proven right about the downside risks of derivatives and other financial instruments too complex for even their inventors to fully understand. From his 2002 Annual Report to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway:

"....Even experienced investors and analysts encounter major problems in analyzing the financial condition of firms that are heavily involved with derivatives contracts. When Charlie and I finish reading the long footnotes detailing the derivatives activities of major banks, the only thing we understand is that we don’t understand how much risk the institution is running.

The derivatives genie is now well out of the bottle, and these instruments will almost certainly multiply in variety and number until some event makes their toxicity clear. Knowledge of how dangerous they are has already permeated the electricity and gas businesses, in which the eruption of major troubles caused the use of derivatives to diminish dramatically. Elsewhere, however, the derivatives business continues to expand unchecked. Central banks and governments have so far found no effective way to control, or even monitor, the risks posed by these contracts.

Charlie and I believe Berkshire should be a fortress of financial strength – for the sake of our owners, creditors, policyholders and employees. We try to be alert to any sort of megacatastrophe risk, and that posture may make us unduly apprehensive about the burgeoning quantities of long-term derivatives contracts and the massive amount of uncollateralized receivables that are growing alongside. In our view, however, derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal."

Full text here ....

Palin Vlog Update #9

2008-09-18T17:54:00.006-04:00

More here....

Alas, Poor Nader...

2008-09-18T17:54:00.001-04:00

The End of the World As We Know It

2008-09-18T09:19:00.003-04:00

McCain-Unsafe At Any Speed

2008-09-01T08:51:00.005-04:00

Joe Klein, quoted by Andrew Sullivan.

"...the Palin pick reflects the most dangerous tendencies in McCain's foreign policy--the tendency to react, to overreact, to crises, without thinking it through. It also reflects a defiant, adolescent "screw you" attitude toward governance. I always thought McCain's best choice for vice president was Rob Portman--the former Congressman and Office of Management and Budget director from Ohio. Portman is smooth, attractive, extremely smart, reliably conservative, but he also knows how the federal government works. His experience as OMB director would have enabled McCain to say, "I've picked a guy who knows where all the bodies are buried, where all the waste is." The Ohio part of the program wouldn't have hurt McCain in locking down that crucial state, either. But the pick would have been seen as safe, unexciting--and John McCain doesn't like safe. Which is a real problem in a President."

A Triumph

2008-08-31T10:09:00.005-04:00

Watch the acceptance speech here.

Soulac Sur Mer, August 25th

2008-08-26T10:38:00.000-04:00

A beautiful day in Soulac Sur Mer.

Eastbound

2008-08-17T19:53:00.002-04:00

Man overboard...

Evolution

2008-08-17T19:44:00.007-04:00

The history of Olympic torches, courtesy of the New York Times..... Great interactive graphics.

Olympics Shame

2008-08-16T20:01:00.001-04:00

No squash, to the eternal shame of the Olympics... Won today 3-2, btw. Go me.

Obamanation Book Review

2008-08-14T20:10:00.006-04:00

Creative, but fiction nontheless.

The First Cyber War

2008-08-12T21:14:00.001-04:00

State proxies in Russia wage the first cyber war against Georgia.

Now Playing... Nine Inch Nails

2008-08-05T16:25:00.005-04:00

Download The Slip from Nine Inch Nails (legally) here.

RIP, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1918-2008

2008-08-03T18:23:00.003-04:00

Patriot, writer, gulag survivor and a 20th Century icon.

The Growth of Walmart

2008-08-03T11:41:00.005-04:00

Watch 45 years of growth in this data-mapping video from Flowing Data's Nathan Yau.

Tokyo, Paris & the Namibian Coast?

2008-08-02T11:29:00.000-04:00

Global location desirability, provided by arenamontanus, a Flickr user.
"...Simple estimation of "desirability" of locations as the sum of factors (each normalized to be in [0,1]) corresponding to level of precipitation, deviation from 15 degrees temperature, closeness to the sea and local economy. The most desirale location was Tokyo. Other high-scoring places were California, Chile, south Australia, Osaka, Paris and the Namibian coast..."

Alter Ego #5

2008-07-27T09:39:00.005-04:00

Some 80s dude...

Now Playing....

2008-07-22T21:02:00.002-04:00

Flashback.... My City Was Gone....

Alter Ego #4

2008-07-22T20:22:00.007-04:00

OMG, I just have to, like, uh, totally buy a house from this dude in Walnut Creek, California.

More Cartoons...

2008-07-22T19:52:00.005-04:00

Face of the Day

2008-07-22T19:41:00.004-04:00

Never did believe in alternative medicine... Europe's most wanted war criminal found at last.

An Absolute Classic...

2008-07-14T14:05:00.005-04:00

Hats off to The New Yorker magazine. Proof that any publicity is good publicity? And newsstand sales soared from 43,000 to 75,000, according to the New York Post.....

Travels...

2008-07-10T14:35:00.001-04:00

Happy 4th of July

2008-07-04T11:58:00.006-04:00

My last July 4th weekend as a Brit, I hope...

From the inimitable Andrew Sullivan .....

".....I believe in life. I believe in treasuring it as a mystery that will never be fully understood, as a sanctity that should never be destroyed, as an invitation to experience now what can only be remembered tomorrow.......

.....I believe in liberty. I believe that within every soul lies the capacity to reach for its own good, that within every physical body there endures an unalienable right to be free from coercion. I believe in a system of government that places that liberty at the center of its concerns, that enforces the law solely to protect that freedom, that sides with the individual against the claims of family and tribe and church and nation, that sees innocence before guilt and dignity before stigma.

I believe in the right to own property, to maintain it against the benign suffocation of a government that would tax more and more of it away. I believe in freedom of speech and of contract, the right to offend and blaspheme, as well as the right to convert and bear witness. I believe that these freedoms are connected -- the freedom of the fundamentalist and the atheist, the female and the male, the black and the Asian, the gay and the straight.

I believe in the pursuit of happiness. Not its attainment, nor its final definition, but its pursuit.

I believe in the journey, not the arrival; in conversation, not monologues; in multiple questions rather than any single answer. I believe in the struggle to remake ourselves and challenge each other in the spirit of eternal forgiveness, in the awareness that none of us knows for sure what happiness truly is, but each of us knows the imperative to keep searching. I believe in the possibility of surprising joy, of serenity through pain, of homecoming through exile.

And I believe in a country that enshrines each of these three things, a country that promises nothing but the promise of being more fully human, and never guarantees its success.

In that constant failure to arrive -- implied at the very beginning -- lies the possibility of a permanently fresh start, an old newness, a way of revitalizing ourselves and our civilization in ways few foresaw and one day many will forget. But the point is now.

And the place is America."

Vero Possumus?

2008-06-24T06:41:00.004-04:00

Guess it seemed like a good idea at the time... ("Yes We Can" in Latin).

You say soda, I say fizzy drink...

2008-06-16T20:56:00.003-04:00

Details here .... "Soda" in New England and California, "Coke" in the south east, "Pop" elsewhere...

Graph Heaven

2008-06-13T06:17:00.002-04:00

More creative graphical interpretations of reality here ...

Beijing Olympics Preview

2008-06-08T13:30:00.004-04:00

More great moments in Lego history here ....

An American Story...

2008-06-04T06:41:00.003-04:00

Channelling Andrew Sullivan... "If I needed reassurance that this man is the most formidable force in American politics today, his speech tonight confirmed it. It was shrewd - with an artful positioning on Iraq. It was graceful - with respect for McCain's service and Clinton's tenacity. It was brutal - in turning around McCain's Iraq visit meme to domestic economic woes. It was patriotic - in its evocation of Gettysburg and the Second World War. It was outer-directed: not for Obama the recourse to self-satisfied identity politics of the kind used by the Clintons because they often have nothing else. It was moving. I thought I even saw some suggestions of tears as he remembered his grandmother. It was also rhetorically more powerful than McCain - not by a small amount but by a mile. Put McCain's speech against Obama's - and this was a wipe-out. Not a victory. A wipe-out. Rhetorically, they are simply not in the same league. And if the contrast tonight between McCain and Obama holds for the rest of the campaign, McCain is facing a defeat of historic proportions.
One more thing: with McCain's and Clinton's speeches, you could not forget the politics of it. With Obama, you forgot about that at times. You actually lifted your eyes a little and believed a little and hoped a little.
Yes, he can. And anyone who under-estimates that will regret it."

Alter Ego #3

2008-06-01T18:39:00.007-04:00

Dude, don't understand it, but I'm impressed. (Lyman Alpha Emitting Galaxies at High Redshift, anyone?) If so, buy his dissertation here.

Alter Ego #2

2008-06-01T18:30:00.007-04:00

Now this guy has talent....

Alter Ego #1....

2008-06-01T18:15:00.010-04:00

Hmmm... social networking plus affiliate marketing inspires a somewhat dubious business plan....

$175 for a burger...

2008-05-20T19:50:00.006-04:00

The $175 burger, created by Wall Street Burger Shoppe chef and co-owner Kevin O'Connell, seeks to justify its price with a Kobe beef patty, lots of black truffles, seared foie gras, aged Gruyere cheese, wild mushrooms and flecks of gold leaf on a brioche bun.... Yumm!

Voting Decision Tree - No Comment Necessary

2008-05-10T08:47:00.004-04:00

Elitist, moi?

New Economy-Speak

2008-05-03T06:11:00.003-04:00

Who said this about his company's poor quarterly performance?

".....We're confident that we're on the right path with our strategy of continuing to build expensive vertically integrated high-end computers using our own proprietary processors while giving away software at no cost. Customers have told us they really like the price of our free programs and have indicated that these free programs may or may not induce them to purchase our hardware at some point in the future. Our ticker symbol change and 1-for-4 reverse stock split have delivered great results. My groundbreaking CEO blog and constant public speaking engagements are boosting Sun's reputation for transparency and possibly or possibly not winning us new customers every day. Our $1 billion MySQL acquisition is delivering higher operating costs and a charge to earnings, as well as bringing in loads of new customers who are downloading the free version of MySQL and may or may not be converted into paying customers at some point in the future. More important, the MySQL deal has demonstrated our commitment to the open source community and gained us huge amounts of good will from people who don't like to pay for things, which for a company in our dire situation is absolutely invaluable. Overall we're just really excited about how things are going. And my hair is so shiny and soft. If only we could straighten out this darn economy, right? Well you can't have everything."

Courtesy of the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs....

The Force is With Us...

2008-05-02T19:48:00.000-04:00

Liberation...

2008-05-02T19:37:00.001-04:00

Taking the Low Road

2008-04-23T06:55:00.002-04:00

From Andrew Sullivan....
".....But she won't leave. She will never leave. Ceding to someone younger is unthinkable to her. It's a form of death for her.
But here's what she does have: total shamelessness, and an absolute belief that she is the rightful nominee. Shamelessness: the appropriation of the message and even the words of her opponent; the portrayal of one of the most privileged and advantaged candidates in memory as an insurgent underdog; the eager embrace of the tactics - and message! - of the Rove right if it could help in any way; the picture of a candidate who saw a 20 - 25 point lead dissipate into single figures as a candidate for momentum. What sustains her is this deep, deep sense of entitlement and an absolute refusal to let the next generation take over. She will take this to the last day of the convention if necessary."

From the New York Times Opinion page...
'.....On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11. A Clinton television ad — torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook — evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” the narrator intoned."

The first European President?

2008-04-21T07:06:00.002-04:00

Eddie Izzard has announced he is running for the Presidency of the EU....

Heathered!

2008-04-06T11:27:00.007-04:00

Heather-ex Chris Terrill speaks - prophetically, candidly and hilariously - in this May 2006 article in the London Sunday Times.

In A Perfect World...

2008-04-05T15:23:00.011-04:00

Hats off to the crack marketing team at Absolut Vodka.

"..I think the Absolut ad campaign is terrific. For Mexican eyes only, that is," said Manny Gonzalez, vice president and managing director of Hill Holliday Hispanic/abece a Miami-based ad agency specializing in the Latino market.

"This advertising basically taps into a very painful episode of Mexico's history, so the cultural code for understanding that [for Mexicans] is 'We were robbed,' " said Eduardo Caccia, vice president of Mindcode, a Mexico City advertising consultancy. "For the U.S. it's different. The understanding for that episode is 'We bought some land. We made a deal.' The same event, but with different meanings."

Source: LA Times, April 5th, 2008