Al Gore goes there for the environment. But wouldn’t that be John Edwards’ baby?
Month: August 2008
Your Twitter Ears Are Burning
Introducing the SteamGraph, a new visual gizmo that tracks words resonating in the Twitterscape:
The StreamGraph shows the usage over time for the words most highly associated with the search word. One of these series together with a time period are in a selected state and coloured red. The tweets that contain this word in the given time period are shown below the graph. You can click on another word series or time period to see different matches. In the match list you click on any word to create a different graph with tweets containing that word. You can also click on the user or comment icons and any URL to see the appropriate content in another window.
So you plug in "Daily Dish" and get the following results:
Somehow, "Andrew" became "Andre." Put any random word in the mix and you get a visual representation of recent twitters. Kinda cool if you’ve got nothing else to do but listen to other people chatting.
Falwell Died Broke
That’s the take of a new book, at least. Money quote:
"He was a bold entrepreneur, but he was a bad businessman. I don’t think his wife even let him have a checkbook. He raised hundreds of millions for conservative causes, but didn’t raise much for himself."
Almost enough to think more highly of him. Almost.
Are We On The Same Planet?
Is this pure spin from Karl Rove? I mean: could any sane observer see this as true:
Mr. McCain is the most private person to run for president since Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s. He needs to share (or allow others to share) more about him, especially his faith. The McCain and Obama campaigns are mirror opposites. Mr. McCain offers little biography, while Mr. Obama is nothing but.
Update: thinking this through a little, maybe this is Rove’s way of signaling to the Christianists that McCain is one of them, just too discreet to say so. But it’s obvious that privately McCain could hardly be further from evangelical fervor.
Quote For The Day II
"It took seven years for the Bush administration’s military commissions system to get its first conviction for a crime that is regularly prosecuted in federal court. And when it did, it was a driver who even the administration acknowledges did not participate in the planning or execution of any terrorist attacks. Surely there is a better way to protect America and bring terrorists to justice while adhering to the constitutional values that have kept us safe and strong for 200 years," – Rand Beers, President of the National Security Network and retired counterterrorism official.
Quote For The Day
"[John Edwards] absolutely does have to [resolve it]. If it’s not true, he has to issue a stronger denial. It’s a very damaging thing. … The big media has tried to be responsible and handle this with kid gloves, but it’s clearly getting ready to bust out. If it’s not true, he’s got to stand up and say, ‘This is not true. That is not my child and I’m going to take legal action against the people who are spreading these lies.’ It’s not enough to say, ‘That’s tabloid trash,’ " – Gary Pearce, the Democratic strategist who ran John Edwards’ 1998 Senate race.
The Age Issue
I’ve tended to dismiss it in the past but a reader directs me to this medical article, Cognitive Impairment without Dementia in Older Adults. He writes:
The March 2008 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, the prestigious peer-reviewed journal published by the American College of Physicians, has an article by fourteen PhD’s and MD’s who do scientific and medical research at Duke University, University of Michigan, RAND Corporation, University of Southern California, and University of Iowa, entitled Prevalence of Cognitive Impairment without Dementia in the United States.
In this study which was conducted from July 2001 through March 2005, and initially included 1770 individuals, their results state: In 2002, an estimated 5.4 million people (22.2%) in the United States age 71 years or older had cognitive impairment without dementia. Furthermore, the Editors note the following: This study of 856 individuals from the national Health and Retirement Study found that 22% of adults age 71 or older had cognitive impairment that did not reach the threshold for dementia. Annually, about 8% of those with cognitive impairment without dementia died and about 12% progressed to dementia. Implication Cognitive impairment without dementia probably affects a large segment of the elderly population. —The Editors
McCain clearly falls in the population susceptible to this –
– not Alzheimers, but less pronounced cognitive impairment, described thus: Some older people may have mild cognitive problems without meeting criteria for dementia. Mild cognitive impairment might affect attention, language, judgment, memory, reading, or writing. It may be noticeable to the individual or to other people, but it does not severely impair activities of daily living. Few studies examine the frequency and course of mild cognitive impairment in older adults.But couuld it affect decison-making in highly complex areas where answers require strong mental skillls and swift assimilation of new facts. Under the pressure of a campaign or public office, this is not easy. Running a war with potential terror strikes imminent may be not a time when you hope your president isn’t having an off-day and a litte confused – Shiites? Sunni? Which are the bad guys?. Few doubt that Reagan suffered some mental decline in office – though not into subsequent Alzheimers till after office.
It seems to me a legitimate and not too rude a subject to bring up in the campaign.S here’s an opening challege: craft an ad that legitimately and fairly raises the issue of whether he is too old to lead; and one less high-minded one that strings clips of gaffes, stumbles, mental blocks in public, and mistakes to make the guy seem like Abraham Simpson on a bad day. put "YouTube ad contest" in the contents line.
(Photo: Republican presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) speaks at a town hall meeting at Reed High School on July 29, 2008 in Sparks, Nevada. By Max Whittaker/Getty.)
Rubber On The Road
Joe Klein has a smart take:
"Oh, so now McCain says it’s a good idea to inflate your tires. This is something new: He has taken to attacking Obama on positions where he agrees with Obama. Another example: he flayed Obama for his proposal to withdraw from Iraq, then said it was a "pretty good" timetable. Meanwhile, he also continues to attack Obama for positions Obama hasn’t taken or is no longer taking–like Obama’s position on offshore drilling, which has become a reluctant yes, in order to get a compromise piece of energy legislation through the Senate. McCain continues to say Obama is opposed. He also says Obama is opposed to nuclear power, which Obama never has been–a position he took some grief about during the Democratic primaries. It’s getting hard to keep all of McCain’s attacks–and his rules about when it’s ok to compromise and when not–straight."
The closer the two are on substantive matters, the more stinging the McCain attacks.
For Starters
Grandfathered into the contest: this ad about Dick Cheney and Dr Strangelove.
Neo-Soul
A reader writes:
A new meme? Stuff Educated Black People Like has been up for months; it’s hardly new. Always a funny, self-critical read. And you don’t know about "neo-soul" yet, brother? Man, are you in for a treat.
Go on iTunes and sample Jill Scott, Angie Stone, Musiq Soulchild, Anthony Hamilton, Kindred the Family Soul…or really, any of the artists listed here. And check the following videos:
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The Dish 