Four posts for Mike Scott

I have been derelict in my blogging. The other night I had all these ideas for posts and I left Firefox open with something like 25 tabs open with interesting links to discuss sometime in the future. Ok, so I have finally gotten around to updating "the blog." Thanks to Mike Scott and an Anonymous Michigan State fan for reminding me that people actually read this blog sometimes.

At this point, my raison d'etre for this blog is a jumbly mix... on the one hand I want to be informative and capture the zeitgeist... on the other hand I just think something is brilliant or hilarious and therefore want to share the joy of discovery. So here goes:

1) David Brooks. I was talking with a friend of mine about one of my favorite syndicated columnists... David Brooks. He is really good about framing complex issues in understandable and apt ways. Sometimes his generalizations are too broad, and I disagree with some of his positions, but overall he makes me think and I appreciate his ability to boil down the issues. He is pithy. Check out his wikipedia article ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brooks_%28journalist%29 ) and his articles on NYT ( link ) if they ask you for a login name get somone else's at bugmenot

2) Videos. Two brilliant parody videos from collegehumor.com
--> Linkin Park cliche video parody... brilliant.
--> Minesweeper: the movie... also brilliant.

3) Presidential election 2008 Dash For Cash. I am closely following this election. My theory is that due to McCain-Feingold finance reform bill, small donations of money by "the little guy" like you and me have a lot of sway. The Federal limit that any one individual can give is $2300, so politicians are going to be depending on a lot more small donations. If one million people each gave $10 that's ten million dollars. Check out this news article for a (IMHO) well thought out opinion on the value of money to the POTUS 2008 election. Don't wait until October to start paying attention... even better, I recommend giving money to the candidate of your choice. Read this article for more ... http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23040314-26397,00.html

4) POTUS 2008 redux. see below for the websites and wikipedia articles on various candidates. Yes, I am a dork, but I think that having all this information in one place could be valuable

a. My Descriptions. (alpha order to convey neutrality)

--> Rudy Guiliani -- 911 Mayor, ruled NYC with an iron fist
--> Mike Huckabee -- Baptist Preacher, Populist Arkansas Governer, and Rock Bassist
--> John McCain -- War Hero Maverick
--> Mitt Romney -- Mormon Harvard MBA, Massachusetts Governor, Olympics savior from a Michigan political family
--> Fred Thompson -- Watergate Lawyer turned Actor turned Senator. Pithy/Lazy/Floppy-faced "Consistent Conservative"
--> Ron Paul -- Tech-savvy Libertarian Kook

--> Hillary Clinton - well-connected She-Bill, one term senator promotes universal health care
--> John Edwards - North Carolina populist with a passion for the poor; hates corporations
--> Barack Obama - Chicago union organizer, one-term senator, and optimist who thinks we can change if we do this together for the future.


b. Campaign Websites
--> Rudy Guiliani -- http://www.joinrudy2008.com/
--> Mike Huckabee -- http://www.mikehuckabee.com/
--> John McCain -- http://www.johnmccain.com/landing/?sid=gorganic
--> Mitt Romney -- http://www.mittromney.com/
--> Fred Thompson -- http://www.fred08.com/
--> Ron Paul -- http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

--> Hillary Clinton -- http://www.hillaryclinton.com/
--> John Edwards -- http://www.johnedwards.com/splash/
--> Barack Obama -- http://www.barackobama.com/

c. Wikipedia

--> Rudy Guiliani -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani
--> Mike Huckabee -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Huckabee
--> John McCain -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain
--> Mitt Romney -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney
--> Fred Thompson -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Thompson
--> Ron Paul -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul

--> Hillary Clinton -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Rodham_Clinton
--> John Edwards -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edwards
--> Barack Obama -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

Ok I know I said four posts but here is number five... who's counting?

5) Blogs, and the word Hustings. Virginia has a particularly strong political blogging community. ( http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4040). Also the word hustings is awesome. If you are cool, you will read this article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustings)

No Way to Filter all this

This news junkie is OD'ing.

From time to time I pause and realize that there's a lot going on the world, and that I have no clue how to process it all. Let me at least try to put it in list form to give you a sense of what I'm trying to process:
* Complete overthrow of the Pakistani Government -- all media is shut down and political dissidents are arrested and incarcerated
* Violent protests in the country of Georgia
* Massive Battle in the capital of Somalia
* US Dollar Values plummeting... imploding of the US mortgage industry
* A US presidential race that nobody really follows (Clinton? Obama? Thompson? Guiliani? Romney?)
* US Congress not passing a budget
* Following Catastophic fires in San Diego last week, this week a huge oil spill occurred as a barge hit the San Francisco Bay Bridge
* Writers strikes in NYC and LA that will completely shut down Late Night Talk Shows, Political satire (Daily Show, Colbert), and primetime shows. ... Complete shutdown of Broadway by stagehand strike.

That's just off the top of my head.

I have this lingering suspicion that I am supposed to have some sort of reaction to all these events. I don't know... I feel a bit catatonic since I cancelled my subscription to the RTD a couple weeks ago... I wasn't reading it... but I am starting to wonder if there is some other way to get a handle on all this news... and how I am supposed to respond, if at all.

I like to think I have pretty well-formed opinions on current events, but the volume of crises in recent weeks seem to have maxed out my reactive capabilities.

My new favorite Scrabble Word and Witty Tidbit

UT -- the syllable once generally used for the first tone or keynote of a scale and sometimes for the tone C: now commonly superseded by do. [Origin: 1275–1325; ME; see gamut]


GAMUT --
1.the entire scale or range: the gamut of dramatic emotion from grief to joy.
2. Music.
a. the whole series of recognized musical notes.
b. the major scale.
[Origin: 1425–75; late ME re, mi, fa, sol, la, si) being named from a Latin hymn to St. John the Baptist: Ut queant laxis resonare fibris. Mira gestorum famuli tuorum, Solve polluti labii reatum, Sancte Iohannes]

Party in my tummy

Speaking of morbid fascination... I feel a sense of horror and wonder as I watch this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9PqjMSNfkU

the good kind of evangelism?

I am always morbidly fascinated by evangelism videos... namely street evangelism, where you go up to people Ray-Comfort-style and engage them in a debate about what the Bible says about how they are going to hell without Jesus. Part of me thinks this is rude and the other part of me... agrees with the first part of me. This is totally rude evangelism.

Don't get me wrong... the Good News involves repentance from sin... and Jesus was rude and confrontational sometimes... but I have to admit I am just not comfortable with the idea that the way to introduce people to Christ is by videotaping yourself accusing them of murder. "Hey, there, S%&$head, want to meet my friend Jesus? By the way, I'm taping this to show my Christian friends."


Are there other forms of public evangelism? the good kind?


I don't know ...these guys are more my style...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKOnqy61ahA

On the one hand it seems like singing in public can be a public nuisance...

...but if you are a street performer, and you are really good at what you do, most people will appreciate that.

There's a deep thought in there somewhere.

I am proud of my sister

My sister is hanging out with people in Mali for a while. She is learning Bambara and helping them with their agriculture stuff (something to do with Shea trees or Shea Butter or something). Ok lets face it, I have no idea what she does all day but she is awesome. I think she is trying to feed the world or something. She just sent some pics to my parents. See if you can pick her out.

(hint: she smiles a lot)

First correct guess in the comment field gets you the shea butter product of your choice from Bath & Body Works.

An amazing New Technology??

Check it out... I got an invite today for this amazing technology that enables you to send messages, links, and files to a network of your friends... no, not email... silly...

... it's Pownce!!!

Pownce ( http://pownce.com/)



The only way I can think of this having value is if it stops the spammers and phishers.

Then again, it's a site that asks for your name, birthday, and financial information, so for all I know, it may be solely dedicated to phishing and spamming. Hmm... and it's called "pounce."

Ahh... who can you trust? Free Lunch goes to the best reponse (leave a comment)

More Richmondy Links

I just updated my Richmondy link farm (see right column). This post is for adding other Richmondy links that didn't make the cut.

* http://floricane.typepad.com/buttermilk/ -- He follows Richmondy stuff, but ... I don't really read this blog. Are there other bloggers I should be reading?

* A bunch of Richmondy N-blogs that I can't vouch for
** http://northrichmondnews.com/
** http://cjwn.net/ -- Carver&Jackson Ward News
** RVA Blogs
**Petersburg People's News
**Hills and Heights

* Food and Wine richmond wiki -- http://wiki.foodandwine.com/page/Richmond%2C+VA?t=anon

* There's a world of Flickr I don't yet understand... http://www.flickr.com/photos/murden/
etc