randomwalks/dj

Bear with me. The intricacies of GOP dirty tricks in Pennsylvania take some unraveling. But this is too rich, and the best part comes at the end.

On Thursday the Pennsylvania GOP sent out an email to 75,000 Jewish voters in the state warning that electing Obama could lead to a second Holocaust, the AP reports:

"Jewish Americans cannot afford to make the wrong decision on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008," the e-mail reads. "Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake. Let's not make a similar one this year!"

A copy of the e-mail, provided by Democratic officials, says it was "Paid for by the Republican Federal Committee of PA - Victory 2008."

It warns "Fellow Jewish Voters" of the danger of a second Holocaust due to the threats to Israel from its neighbors and touts Republican presidential candidate John McCain's qualifications over those of Obama.

The state GOP is now running away from that email as fast as it can. The AP leads with the state GOP's disavowal of the email, but it seems a bit more complicated than that. There doesn't seem to be any dispute that the state party or one of its committees sent the email. The party's defense seems to be that the consultant who the party hired wasn't authorized to send that particular email and was fired.

Except the AP got in touch with the consultant and that's not quite the story he tells:

Political consultant Bryan Rudnick was identified as the person responsible for it. Rudnick, reached Saturday night, confirmed that he no longer works for the party, which employed him a few weeks ago as a consultant to do outreach to Jewish voters.

"I had authorization from party officials" to send the e-mail, Rudnick said, but he declined to say who had signed off on it. "I'm not looking to drag anyone else through the mud, so I'm not naming names right now," he said.

That's a pretty good story in its own right: Another under-the-radar GOP sleaze tactic exposed and yet another low- to mid-level GOP operative scapegoated because he got caught on the wrong side of the McCain campaign's shifting line between what is just sleazy and what is too sleazy (a line that seems to get drawn immediately after the GOP gets busted).

But it gets better.

Like the state GOP, the McCain camp is running away from this email, and the spokesperson doing the distancing is none other than Peter Feldman. That's the same guy who on Thursday, the day the email went out, was pushing the mugging hoax to reporters as a politically motivated attack by a black Obama supporter, playing to the worst of white fears and racial prejudices.

Speaking of the email to Jewish voters and without any apparent hint of irony, Feldman told the AP Saturday night that McCain "rejects politics that degrade our civics."

Amazing.

No word on whether the AP asked Feldman about his role in pushing the mugging hoax.

Originally posted by David Kurtz from Talking Points Memo, on October 25, 2008 8:02 PM

It took me a long time to find someone who wasn't a laughable buffoon or a stuck-up prig. While I do like the idea of marrying into wealth and aristocracy, all the male aristos had silly voices and I couldn't imagine myself married to any of them. The monks were actually the most appealing, but despite my best efforts -- playing music for them, giving them the thumbs up, dancing for them -- none of them would be seduced away from their chosen path of Light.

Then in the town square of Bowerstone I found him: Cyrus the Traveler. His facial hair is a bit odd, certainly, but he was solidly middle-class and had a pleasant speaking voice. His moral standards, too, are high -- perhaps annoyingly so since he refused to go to bed with me even after we were engaged. But I respected his decision.

I took him with me to Oakfield, where I had bought the charming Luminous House cottage, where I thought we could live. Alas, he was a bit too middle-class... he told me he didn't really care for the house and wanted something better. What could I do? I asked him to wait for me and took off to gather some more money to buy a nice townhouse in Bowerstone.

After a few adventures I thought I should return to spend some time with my fiancé fearing that he would be lonely and less in love with me. I hurried back to Oakfield, splurging 8 gold on a carriage to get there faster.

But he was nowhere to be found! I ran all over the place frantically. Perhaps he had gone back to Bowerstone? I raced back to the city and spent hours walking the streets. I even waited in the pub for a bit (where we first met) in case he should drop by for a pint.

But no. Cyrus had disappeared.

Has he run off with some floozy? If so, I can forgive him if only he'll come back. Is he on a trip? He is, after all, a "Traveler" and I'm afraid our conversations didn't really reveal much about his line of work. Has something -- god forbid -- horrible happened to him? Has he been murdered by bandits or devoured by balverines? Shall I ever find out his fate?

I've tried getting over him. I even proposed marriage to a new man, after a time. He's fun, romantic, bubbly; but he has a large mustache and a silly speaking voice and he is quite stout and... frankly, he's just not Cyrus. We're still engaged but I really ought to break it off. I just don't feel the same way about him as I did about Cyrus.

Besides, what if Cyrus comes back one day? What if he reappears next time I turn on my console, with the silver ring still there like a halo over his head, symbol of his faith and loyalty while I went off proposing marriage to some other, inferior, lesser man?

The life of a hero, I am finding, is hard in more ways than I could have imagined.

Originally posted by jane from game girl advance, on October 25, 2008 6:32 PM

To give you an idea of how tough my wife is, she delivered two of our sons via natural childbirth, skipping out on epidural anasthesia in the belief it's better for the baby. One son was 11 pounds and three ounces. When he hit the birth canal, her screams were so loud that I asked for a sedative to calm my nerves. Nurses stuck around after their shifts to find out how much he weighed.

To give you an idea of how tough I am, I researched vasectomies for five years before consenting to the procedure. You can't be too careful about these things. I wanted to give the medical community time to work out the kinks.

So it's last Friday, and I find myself at Planned Parenthood in Jacksonville, lying flat on my back with my pants around my ankles, trying to find my happy place. A urologist begins handling up on my junk, explaining each step in the process with the unabashed enthusiasm of Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Desperate to change the subject, I look away from my imperiled dingus and tell the doctor about a problem I had completing the online registration on his web site. The components of the web form disappear on Mozilla Firefox when you begin to input data. I had to switch to Internet Explorer to get it to work. He seems interested. We lament cross-platform browser incompatibilities and get into a debate about whether Safari or Firefox is the second most popular browser among users. He lays a surgical drape around my genitals. I let him win the argument.

I tell him that I publish sites, and when he asks which ones I am faced with a socially difficult decision: Do I tell the person approaching my wang with a cauterization tool that I publish a stridently liberal web site?

Keep in mind that we're in conservative North Florida, where doctors and just about everybody else are rock-ribbed Republicans and the presidential campaign's getting angrier by the day. Some of my neighbors in this right-wing community are finding it difficult to accept that a Democrat might win the White House. They thought a cure had been found for that disease years ago.

I bite the bullet and tell the doctor about the Drudge Retort. My wife, who's in the room observing the surgery without an ounce of squeamishness, visibly winces.

The doctor's Douglas G. Stein, a Tampa urologist who offers a no-scalpel, no-needle vasectomy procedure that's advertised throughout the state. His web site offers more reassurance to fearful patients than my wife was ever offered before childbirth. I'm not the only guy with a heightened sense of anxiety regarding my tallywacker.

How is vasectomy done without a scalpel?

No-scalpel vasectomy instruments, used in China since the mid-70's and introduced into the United States in 1989, are simply a very pointy hemostat, used initially to make a tiny opening into anesthetized skin of the scrotal wall, and a ring clamp, used initially to secure each vas tube in turn beneath this opening. The pointy hemostat is then used to spread all layers (the vas sheath) down to the vas tube itself and to then deliver a small loop of the vas through the opening as the ring clamp is released. In turn, the ring clamp is used to hold the vas, while the pointy hemostat spreads adherent tissue and blood vessels away from the vas under direct vision, so that the vas can then be divided with a fine surgical scissors and the upper end cauterized with a hand-held cautery unit so that it will seal closed.

How is vasectomy done without a needle?

Traditionally, a local anesthetic has been injected into the skin and alongside each vas tube with a very fine needle, as small as diabetics use to inject themselves with insulin. One could feel a tiny poke in the skin, then a bit of a squeeze as the anesthetic was applied to each vas tube. However, most people do not like needles of any size ... especially there!

A MadaJet is a spray applicator which delivers a fine stream of liquid anesthetic at a pressure great enough to penetrate the skin to a depth of about 3/16", deep enough to envelop the vas tube held snugly beneath the skin. Each vas is positioned in turn beneath the very middle of the front scrotal wall and given two or three squirts. That numbs the skin and both vas tubes adequately for 99% of men.

Stein becomes so animated talking politics that he doesn't announce the cauterization of my first vas tube. I figure it out when I spot a small wisp of smoke rising to the ceiling above my bits and pieces.

When I mention with excitement my recent Obama rally trip to Orlando, he asks if I saw the following billboard on my drive down Interstate 4.

I say that I did, still unsure whether the doctor -- who has one testicle to go -- leans left or right.

At this point, Stein offers a final bit of reassurance: "Those are my billboards."

As Florida blogger Jim White recently discovered, Stein replaced several of his vasectomy billboards across the state with the cutting message "Stop McSame." Stein tells me with great excitement the interest his effort has generated. White calls this campaign "preventing unwanted presidents."

I relax, to the extent that it's ever possible to relax while a stranger applies scissors to your mantackle.

Originally posted by Rogers Cadenhead from Workbench, on October 25, 2008 1:23 PM

It is time for the McCain campaign to come clean about what role any of its staffers may have had in hyping or pushing the press to hype the charges stemming from Ashley Todd's vicious and reprehensible hoax.

As Greg Sargent reported yesterday, McCain Pennsylvania communications director Peter Feldman pushed reporters on a highly incendiary version of Todd's hoax -- providing reporters with quotes from the fictitious attacker and telling them the the "B" scratched on Todd's face stood for "Barack." As the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson aptly put it, Feldman's actions showed "not just a willingness to believe it but an eagerness to incite a ... racial backlash against the Obama campaign."

Our reporting did not find any direct evidence that the McCain campaign's national headquarters played a role pushing the story.

However, the national campaign has now come forward and lied about what happened in Pennsylvania. McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers has now told NBC that alleged quotes from the McCain campaign in early reports of the story were actually the product of "sloppy reporting" and that they were actually quotes from the Pittsburgh police.

This is simply not credible.

Initial reports specifically quote the McCain campaign. And at least two sources involved in the contemporaneous reporting have come forward and said on the record that the quotes came directly from the McCain campaign. To believe that two separate local news organizations made the identical mistake with the same quotes and are now both covering it up is simply not credible. But that is what Rogers is now claiming.

The McCain campaign's after-the-fact lie about its role in this hoax makes it essential that it provide a complete and honest account of both the local and national campaign's role. As I said above, we did not find direct evidence of the national McCain campaign pushing this story. But Gov. Palin did call Todd after the purported attack, as did Sen. McCain. And news of these calls was provided to the press.

The involvement of the candidates and specifically the release of such information -- which was clearly intended to bump up interest in the story -- shows some level of involvement by the national campaign.

Perhaps it is simply that the national campaign heard a staffer had been mugged and had the principals call the purported victim. One might further speculate that it was only the Pennsylvania communications director who heard about the calls and took it upon himself to push these out to the media.

Possible, but certainly a generous interpretation. And now that we see the national McCain campaign making false statements about what happened, its credibility on the whole story is simply too damaged to allow such a benefit of the doubt.

Reporters who the McCain camp cannot stonewall need to push for a clear accounting of what happened -- starting by coming clean on Feldman's role. If this were simply some other minor campaign mystery, the sort that is routinely tossed off late in a hard-fought campaign, it might not matter. But the awfulness of what was attempted here makes nothing less than a full accounting necessary.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on October 25, 2008 9:49 AM

Caption: The first meal we made on our trip, at the childhood home of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

By Stephanie Pierce

In my most recent guest post I wrote about how my husband and I managed to find honest-to-goodness real food on the road across 31 states this past summer. Our journey was partly about adventure (if it’s no fun, why bother?), but it was also about taking a break from normal routines to figure out how we wanted to reconfigure our lives. We felt like we had to stop the motion of those routines so that we could think about what it was we wanted to be working toward; for example, we knew we needed to evaluate the way we had structured our work, and for us it was very difficult to think about that while still working every day.

So, we left aside, or got rid of, most of the trappings of our lives. We packed all our belongings up and gave some away, and then let the lease expire on our apartment. We saved money so that we could quit any and all work entirely. We reduced cell phone plans, put a vehicle in storage, and made a budget to live on for the trip that was approximately 60% less than our usual budget.

The one place we knew we didn’t want to cut corners was on food. If part of our trip was about learning how our lives could be healthier and fuller, it would have been paradoxical to eat badly.

We had heard repeatedly from friends and news articles that eating well - and by “well” I generally mean eating as much fresh, organically and/or locally grown food as one can find - is more expensive than the convenient mainstream alternative of fast and/or prepackaged food. After several people asked me skeptically how we were planning to eat the way we wanted without any money coming in, I felt like the challenge was on.

Before I continue, I do have to say that we are avid budgeters who live pretty small. We planned and saved for this trip and had the benefit of two solidly middle-class incomes before we left; thus, I don’t feel like we can say that we were eating on a truly shoestring budget. But we did drastically reduce our overall food budget, and I think we are proof that even though governmental food policy doesn’t work for the health of the citizenry right now, if you are thoughtful and creative, you can eat well and be healthy for less than you currently spend. Here are some of the things that we did that worked well for us:

We ate less. That may sound Spartan or overly sacrificial, but it cut down how much money we spent and we didn’t suffer for it - on the contrary, we both trimmed up a bit. We didn’t have seconds at any meal because we only cooked enough for firsts. When that food was gone, the meal was over.

We didn’t buy any prepackaged food. OK, we did buy some Clif Bars for snack attacks, but after reading a recent Ethicurean post, I feel pretty vindicated in this decision. Even on the road, we made our own spaghetti sauce, our own hot cereal, our own version of a pizza, our own soups, our own salad dressing. When you add up the costs of these ingredients and then the cost of buying these items in the store - organic or otherwise - the savings almost slap you in the face. We even made our own bread at times. It ended up being a strange loaf that we used as a booster in sauces. That aside, when not on the road, we only buy bread as a special treat; otherwise, we always make our own.

[Photo, right: I was having a chocolate attack, so made these weird fudgie cookie things by mixing stuff we had on hand, like peanut butter, honey, cocoa powder. They were pretty good!]

We ate cabbage and other non-lettuce greens. Cabbage has somehow acquired a bit of a bad reputation, but it’s good and pretty inexpensive on the scale of produce prices. We also shifted around the salads we would have eaten, for greens such as collards, Swiss chard, and kale. I did not grow up eating any of these things and have had to learn how to make them for myself. Combined with a few other ingredients, greens can make an entire meal. “Nourishing Traditions,” a favorite book of mine, has a list of nourishing but less expensive vegetables that I looked at while I was writing this post: potatoes, cabbage, carrots, zucchini, onions, broccoli, chard, beets, and kale make the list and are pretty easy to find. In fact, the book has an entire section in the back entitled “Limited Time, Limited Budget Guidelines.” For you would-be budgeters, make sure to check your library before you head over to Amazon! (Editor’s note: Or check Better World Books, the “socially conscious online used bookseller,” which funds literacy groups worldwide.)

We didn’t eat much meat. We still got animal protein in the form of eggs and the occasional meat product here and there, but we cut back on meat quite a bit. Now that we’re back home, we have started working for trade on a farm near us for meat and eggs. That will be a real cost saver for us — plus it’s fun.

We sprinkled rather than smothered. At first, it was hard for me to go easy on the cheese, but we stopped using as much of it in certain dishes. It saved us money, saved us cheese, and we didn’t suffer inordinately.

We reduced our dependence on oils. I admit that I love having a plethora of oils in my cupboard, but on the road and on a budget it can get very expensive to be buying sesame oil, coconut oil, safflower oil, butter, olive oil…you get my gist. I learned to get over being a purist and used whatever oil I had for whatever I was cooking. We ended up using butter and olive oil for the most part. Now that we’re home, we also save and use our bacon grease. I know this is not a very popular practice any more, but we get great bacon from great pigs and I don’t feel a bit bad about it.

As I revisit these tactics to write this post, I find it sad and frustrating that these very simple home-economizing strategies are things that I had to learn on my own rather than them being part of my formal or informal education. All the Wendell Berry essays I’ve read are trickling into my brain, insistently reminding me that understanding how to run a home economy is of vital importance - not an old-fashioned idea for times gone by. Especially now, as we watch our government muddle through a giant mess of high-risk gambles and credit spending gone bad, it seems to me that as a nation we should prioritize relearning the languishing art of thrift, and at the same time really look at what foods are worth spending money on.

Stephanie Pierce spends part of her working time teaming up with Fourth Sector Consulting, a for-benefit company that works only with mission-driven organizations. As she settles back into life after six months of travel, she is looking to spend another part of her working time away from the computer getting her hands dirty. She works for trade on a farm in her area, putters in the kitchen and writes while on long walks. A native of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Stephanie can tell you why she believes Lake Superior is better than Lake Michigan and how to correctly pronounce “sauna.”

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Originally posted by Guest from The Ethicurean: Chew the right thing., on October 25, 2008 9:35 AM

This showed up briefly on FiveThirtyEight the other day:

Not only is this bad advertising (all the McCain people are doing is reinforcing the Obama brand identity), it’s also a potential legal problem. If that “speak out” button goes to a donation link, then the McCain people are using the distinctive Obama logo and design commercially, as trademarks. Under the circumstances, it’s pretty easy to make out an argument that some people are likely to click on the link thinking that it’s an Obama ad, and we should all go support his campaign to make sure that this election does turn out the way the 2004 election did. That’s consumer confusion, and trademark law doesn’t like it one bit.

I can’t say more without seeing where that button actually took people. This may not have been about money at all, in which case the free-speech defenses are much stronger. Still, that this ad ran at all, however briefly, is yet another sign of how oddly amateurish the McCain campaign has become. It really is like they just don’t have enough competent people to pay attention to everything, with the result that a lot boneheaded stuff makes it out the door. Contrast this with, say, the Obama camp’s astonishing typographical consistency.

Originally posted by James Grimmelmann from The Laboratorium, on October 25, 2008 9:02 AM

Remote island communities have always fascinated me. From the independent nature of the people who call them home, rugged scenery that often graces the landscape, the animals that live there- they can really spark the imagination. The Faroe Islands, located about halfway between Scotland and Iceland are one of those places, and provide a stunning backdrop for Flickr members who live and visit there.

    

    

Photos from Rune Johnsson, Felix van de Gein, erik_porkeri, Niquinho and g.norðoy.
View more in the Faroe Islands pool, or search by tag.

      

Originally posted by Kevin Collins from Flickr Blog, on October 25, 2008 8:53 AM

Shared by mathowie
I'm sharing this because Sippey used fuelly as a datasource. Also I'd want this car.

I'm sure this has been covered to death on the autoblogs, but I learned about it via Mini USA's email list: they're looking for 500 drivers in Southern California, New York and New Jersey to participate in a field trial of the MINI E, "a 100% electric, zero-emission premium vehicle ready for every-day driver use."

• Lithium-ion batteries
• Two-seater only; what's normally the backseat in a Mini is now full of batteries
• Zero to 60 in about 8.5 seconds; top speed electronically limited to about 95mph
• Range of about 150 miles
• Full recharge draws 28 kilowatt hours, which equates to 5.4 miles / kwh
• If you pay $0.15 / kwh, that equates to about about $0.03 per mile, which is about one-third the cost per mile of Mini Cooper.[1]

Of course, next to the Pious there couldn't be a more latte-sippin' blue state car than an electric Mini, and this one's only a pilot program, but I'm hopeful we'll see car makers push more hybrid and electric options...

[1] Spreadsheet here, based on an eyeballed average 30mpg for Coopers on Fuelly buying gas at $3.00 per gallon, which is about where the national average is right now.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from this is sippey.typepad.com, on October 24, 2008 5:15 PM

Ashley makes her perp walk ...

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on October 24, 2008 4:37 PM

Mike Brant was an Israeli singer who became a pop sensation in France.  He sang in French for the most part but apparently learned the language along the way.  In a French documentary that I came across on YouTube (and can no longer locate), I learned that Brant used to have French songs transliterated into Hebrew to aid his pronunciation.  Here are two screen shots that illustrate how this was done:

Originally posted by Adriana from Stingy Kids, on October 24, 2008 2:30 PM

“Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.”

- Apple Hot News (via John Gruber)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Marco.org, on October 24, 2008 10:51 AM

A collection of photos of signs located in NYC from 14th St to 42nd St in Manhattan. Many of the photos were taken in the 80s and 90s and the signs they depict are already gone. The photos are extensively annotated...this is a real history lesson.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on October 24, 2008 10:48 AM

Movable Type has proven time and time again that it can help some of the Internet's most influential and most innovative blogs become some of the largest as well. Not every content management system is up to the task of publishing sites on this scale, but Movable Type is. One reason for that is that its publishing engine has tremendous flexibility in regards to how it can be deployed, allowing every site to fine tune its performance independently across as many machines as is necessary.

One critical component often used by these large sites is the "Movable Type Publishing Queue" - a simple publishing service to which the system can offload the task of keeping a web site up to date. This in turn dramatically increases performance, and improves the stability of the entire system by distributing much of the work a content management system must perform to a set of dedicated and distributed resources.

To give users the transparency and visibility into this critical system, we have begun work on a new plugin called Publish Queue Manager. This free and open source plugin provides its users with the following features:

• view a list of all the jobs in their publishing queue.
• see which jobs on the queue are currently being worked on.
• change the priority of any of the jobs on the queue.
• delete jobs off the queue.

Of course, not every Movable Type user has a need to use Publish Queue, but those that do have come to rely upon the benefits it provides a great deal, which is why this plugin can be so useful to those users. So how do you know if you should be using Publish Queue?

1. It seems to take Movable Type a long time to publish a single entry or new comment.

2. Your readers leave a lot of comments, or your site tends to get a lot of comments submitted all at once.

3. You utilize a lot of archive maps on your site, like Comment Feeds, Author Archives, Category Archives, Category-Monthly Archives, etc.

4. You have one template on your site, like a large Google Sitemap, or a large archive listing that by itself takes a long time to publish.

5. Your system is often publishing multiple comments or entries at the same time.

If you feel any of these apply to you, consider consulting our documentation on how to get started using Publish Queue.

Help us test the Publish Queue Manager Beta now by downloading it, installing it and letting us know what you think!

Originally posted by Byrne Reese from MovableType.org - Home for the MT Community, on October 24, 2008 10:36 AM

It's that time of year.

TPM brings on a new class of interns each season. And we're now taking applications for our Winter 2008/2009 cycle. TPM interns are probably as intimately and rapidly involved in the preparation and production of news coverage as interns at any other news organization. And that ranges from work on the news section of the front page to research for our news blogs to video editing to bylined articles. Winter cycle interns will work closely on stories relating to the presidential transition and the start of the new Congress. The application deadline is November 7th. To find out details for how to apply, click here.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on October 24, 2008 10:33 AM

On November 7 & 8, 2008, the University of California, Berkeley will hold a symposium on appropriation rights in the digital era. This event will bring together artists, lawyers, art historians, and representatives from the information technology community to discuss the changing field of appropriation art in the wake of the emergence of new digital media technologies that have radically altered access to and manipulation of information.

 Bookmark this on Delicious - Saved by yatta to copyright conferences creativecommons unmediated - More about this bookmark

Originally posted by yatta from Delicious/subscriptions/djacobs, on October 24, 2008 10:29 AM

Well, for everyone who had eyes to see, this thing stunk to high heaven. But now we have official word that that McCain volunteer who had the straight-out-of- the-trash-novel story about being assaulted by a mugger-cum-Obama-activist has confessed that the whole thing was a hoax. It is the classic story that is so perfect for certain malevolent actors that if it hadn't happened they'd have to make it up. As indeed they did.

To say this is a dark moment does not do justice to the deep awfulness of this stunt. It's the metaphoric pedal-to-the-metal for the sleazy sub-rosa campaign of racial fear-mongering that so far has failed to derail Obama's candidacy.

There are many questions to be asked about who pushed this story yesterday afternoon and last night. A lot of explaining.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on October 24, 2008 9:44 AM

Great interview with Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men. Gender roles are a big focus of the show, something that wasn't necessarily apparent in the first two shows when I thought it was going to be some sort of lopsided misogyny-fest.

And the big intellectual skirmish going on was "Is it great that we're so different, men and women, or is there no difference at all?" No difference at all is where is started. Let's have equality and legistlate it like that. And then it became so much more complicated when you added sex to it and biologically the relationship is always sexist in some way. What's sexist in the office is fuel in the bedroom. We're wired that way to some extent. Women become more aggressive and it becomes strange for men.

(via fimoculous)

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on October 24, 2008 8:16 AM

This is an independent interview I did a few days ago, which has been uploaded to Current. Thanks to Kyanna for a great interview, it was a pleasure talking to you. Be sure to go over to Current and "Vote Up".

Originally posted by Adam Brickley, aka "ElephantMan" from Draft Sarah Palin For Vice President, on October 24, 2008 8:08 AM

This off-season, I intend to do interviews with players, executives, reporters, bloggers, fans, etc., on the subject of blogging and baseball – as I try to learn more about the medium.

Today, I talk with Nelson Figueroa, not only because he pitched for the Mets in 2008, but because he also has a blog of his own, which he writes with his wife, Alisa, titled The Figueroas.

By the way, Nelson and his wife also help with the blog Rally for Recovery, which is currently running an impressive sports memorabilia auction that will benefit former Major League Baseball player Ricky Stone, who was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in August 2008.

Matthew Cerrone, from MetsBlog.com: So, to what extent are you guys, as players, aware of blogging and aware of new media? I know that the newspapers are dominant, but are you aware of these other communication tools?

Nelson Figueroa: Absolutely. I think that it’s the kind of media that is so instant and current and there are so many inside tips that you read about. I was in Triple-A and I heard about things that were happening with the Mets organization through different blogs…They can voice their opinions and other things on blogs. So, it’s a new medium that people are taking advantage of and I think a lot of fans use well.

Matthew Cerrone: At the same time, what used to just be facts and then reporting has now become a lot of opinion. Even myself, a lot of times I feel awkward being here, at the stadium, around players, because, you know, I might have said something about somebody and I get paranoid about that. How do you guys deal with that added element now?

Nelson Figueroa: Well, we can’t change it, that’s the thing. That’s the downside to it, because all of a sudden everybody thinks that because they can write a blog they are an expert. You know, they feel they can judge you based upon the fact that they’ve seen two years of baseball, they know everything about the game and what went into the game…

Although it’s a great medium for people to get some inside information, it’s also, in a lot of ways, it hurts some people because there are things that come out that there is no validity to.

You know, you can hear about things, like where a guy ate dinner last night to where they saw him out at a club. There is no way to back us up because if you refute that kind of story, then obviously you must have done it or you must be guilty. So, it makes it tough as a professional athlete to be out and about anywhere…

Because, if one video of you out some place, or one little clip comes out on YouTube, you know, all of a sudden, that gets blogged about more than anything and anything that you have done up to that point. So, it makes it, it is a little tougher to be a professional athlete especially in a city like New York. You know, where there are a lot of eyes on you.

Matthew Cerrone: Does that make you guys want to be more distant, or be a bit more guarded than you would like?

Nelson Figueroa: I think that’s a downside, you know, the superstar, the David Wright, the Pedro Martinez, the Johan Santana, it’s harder for them to go out anywhere. You know, just to go out to the mall, because you never know what somebody is going to write about you – especially in a blog. Or, if someone is going to take a photo of you doing something and it might come out. I think for the superstars, they need to worry about that. Even some guys, up-and-coming rookies who don’t know any better, they go out to a bar and have a shot or two, and there will be a picture of them doing a shot. So, it makes it tough, but then again it’s part of being a professional athlete, so it’s the dual-edged sword.

Matthew Cerrone: At the same time, technically, a player could write his own blog, like Curt Schilling. I mean, you could almost circumvent the media by taking control of the dialogue. Does that ever cross anybody’s mind?

Nelson Figueroa: It does, but, again, because of the various things, whether they are good, bad or indifferent, if your opinion is different than management, different than the manager, different than your follow teammate, you don’t want it to be misconstrued in a certain way. Even though you might be talking about one instance, if it gets taken the wrong way it could affect the chemistry in the ball club and people don’t want to be around you, they don’t want to be near you, people don’t want to go out with you because they think, ‘Hey, this might come out on his blog.’ So, it’s very hard during the season to write a blog.

In the off season, you know, it’s a little different, I could write about my travels all over the world, I’ve blogged about that. I’ve blogged about my experiences with my family life in my downtime. That is something that is really important to me and a lot of people don’t get to share in. So, being that I was in Taiwan and Japan last year, I had an opportunity for everybody to know how I was doing on a daily basis – and people kept up with it… But, it is hard to do it during the season; it is something that is kind of frowned upon just because of that fact.

Matthew Cerrone: Especially here in New York.

Nelson Figueroa: Oh, absolutely. I mean, if you look at Wikipedia, if you go on and read something about yourself you can go on and erase it. But, other than that, somebody can put whatever they want about you. I mean, my sister’s name has changed three different times. It said in 2003 that I converted to Judaism. So, if I don’t stay on top of that and if I don’t stay on top of what is out there about myself and just checking whether it is photos or this or that…

My wife reads the blogs all the time and there was a blog where someone was like, “There are three people on this earth that I would like to kill,’ and my name came up as one of them and my wife just wanted to know why he would say that.

Matthew Cerrone: For the record, I’m pretty sure that was not me. At least, I hope it wasn’t me (laughing).

Nelson Figueroa: I’m almost sure it was not you (laughing).

It was just one of those things that it is a scary world and, again, with the Internet and people having access to the Internet, you know it is hard to police that sort of thing. At the same time, we are fortunate enough that we have MLB securities so that if something like that does turn up, they handle it and that website is probably taken down very quickly.

Matthew Cerrone: Thank you very much, Nelson.

Nelson Figueroa: No problem. Thank you.

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on October 24, 2008 7:30 AM

So my daily delicious chron doesn't seem to be working. Just as well really as this blog had degraded into just a link log. That said here are a few links I've made tasty over the past few days.

Susan sez: Social media must haves for the recently laid off - Susan Mernit has some great advice for the recently laid off like me. I'm looking forward to her next post about how to save money.

John Borthwick on the coming changes and opportunities that this lovely market is bringing us - great and inspiring post. And even though I was recently one of the 10% I hope to be back in action soon.

Mark Crispin Miller on Bill Moyers Journal  - My favorite propaganda Professor and political watchdog hits the big time or at least what I consider the big time.

Barack o'lanterns -  Gallery of pumpkins carved in support of Obama. They also have stencils. We are getting one for our house.

Originally posted by joshua mack from Joshua Mack, on October 24, 2008 7:14 AM

We've been listening to a John Lithgow children's CD in our house lately and the words from Pick Myself Up, are inspiring. We are also listening to a lot of Dan Zanes and his depression era songs are also heartening but those for another post.

"Nothing's impossible I have found,
For when my chin is on the ground,
I pick myself up,
Dust myself off,
Start All over again.

Don't lose your confidence if you slip,
Be grateful for a pleasant trip,
And pick yourself up,
Dust yourself off,
Start all over again.

Work like a soul inspired,
Till the battle of the day is won.
You may be sick and tired,
But you'll be a man, my son!

Will you remember the famous men,
Who had to fall to rise again?
So take a deep breath,
Pick yourself up,
Dust yourself off,
Start all over again.

Originally posted by joshua mack from Joshua Mack, on October 24, 2008 7:13 AM

Filed under: Friday Favorite

Welcome to Friday Favorites! Every Friday, one of us will get all sloppy over an app, web service, or Mac feature that makes us grin like an idiot every time we use it. This week, Robert tells us about his favorite Web development tools.

It's no secret that I heart Coda. I've been in love with the one-window web development app since the day it came out. It turns out, though, that I was just scratching the surface of using Coda until I signed up for my new favorite web service: Beanstalk.

Beanstalk is a service that hosts your version control repositories remotely. This is great for far-flung team members with firewalls and other networking hurdles between them. Having a zero-configuration Subversion repository available no matter where you're working is hot stuff.

Best of all, Beanstalk publishes items committed to the repository to my team's development server automatically. It's just like it lives on our network.

To make Beanstalk work with Coda, I first had to check out a copy of the repository with Versions. Versions is still in beta (and Christina has written about it before), but its ease of use is unparalleled. In fact, it has Beanstalk in mind, with shortcuts to help you connect with your Beanstalk repositories.

With the repo downloaded, it's just a matter of setting it up as a site in Coda, and entering my username and password for Beanstalk. Coda does all the heavy lifting from then on. Committing changes and adding files is as easy as clicking an icon in the same position as if I was uploading it (and not using Subversion). I love that it keeps my muscle memory working for me, and not against me.

Coda is $99, Versions is free (while it's in beta), and Beanstalk starts at $15 per month (which is the plan I have). Put together, though, it's a million-dollar solution.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Originally posted by Robert Palmer from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on October 24, 2008 6:00 AM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from the real janelle, on October 24, 2008 5:56 AM

a scrabble board made from more than 30,000 SWAROVSKI crystals and thought to be valued at 20,000 dollars
is currently being auctioned off on e-bay, to mark 60 years of success for the popular word-building game.
the classic board game was developed by an unemployed american architect, alfred mosher butts during
the depression. it was originally named 'criss-cross', but after many failed attempts, changed the rules and
renamed it scrabble.

the one-of-a-kind board was commissioned by hasbro inc. each of the crystals have been matched with the
original colors of the board game and applied by hand. the board itself is made from glass with colored and clear
SWAROVSKI crystals embedded in the squares in which players can place their tiles. the auction closes
october 30th, so you still have a chance to make a bid. all of the proceeds will go to st. jude children's research
hospital based in tennessee.

related

designboom's SWAROVSKI 'crystal vision' book

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Designboom - Weblog, on October 24, 2008 12:45 AM

At work, I’m working on a project where we’re modeling newspaper content in a relational database. We’ve got newspaper titles, issues, pages, institutions, places and some other fun stuff. It’s a django app, and the db schema currently looks something like:

Anyhow, if you look at the schema you’ll notice that we have a Page model, and that attached to that is an OCR model. If you haven’t heard of it before OCR is an acronym for optical character recognition. For each newspaper page we have, we have a TIF image for the original page, and we have rectangle coordinates for the position of every word on the page. Basically it’s xml that looks something like this (warning your browser may choke on this, you might want to right-click-download).

So there are roughly around 2500 words on a page of newspaper text, and there can sometimes be 350 occurrences of a particular word on a page…and we’re looking to model 1,000,000 pages soon … so if we got really prissy with normalization we could soon be looking at (worst case) 875,000,000,000 rows in a table. While I am interested in getting a handle on how to manage large databases like this, we just don’t need the fine grained queries into the word coordinates. But we do need to be able to look up the coordinates for a particular word on a particular page to do hit highlighting in search results.

So let me get to the interesting part already. To avoid having to think about databases with billions of rows, I radically denormalized the data and stored the word coordinates as a blob of JSON in the database. So we just have a word_coordinates_json column in the OCR table, and when we need to look up the coordinates for a page we just load up the JSON dictionary and we’re good to go. JSON is nice with django, since django’s ORM doesn’t seem to support storing blobs in the database, and JSON is just text. This worked just fine on single page views, but we also do hit highlighting on pages where there are 10 pages being viewed at the same time. So we started noticing large lags on these page views — because it was taking a while to load the JSON (sometimes 327K * 10 of JSON).

As I mentioned we’re using Django, so it was easy to use django.utils.simplejson for the parsing. When we noticed slowdowns I decided to compare django.utils.simplejson to the latest simplejson. And just for grins I figured it couldn’t hurt to see if using pickle or cPickle would prove to be faster than using JSON. So I wrote a little benchmark script that timed the loading of a 327K JSON and a 507K pickle file 100 times using each technique. Here are the results:

method	total seconds	avg seconds
django.util.simplejson.loads	97.619314	0.976193
simplejson.loads	3.31	0.033183
pickle.loads	36.118291	0.361183
cPickle.loads	5.982417	0.059824

Yeah, that’s right. The real simplejson is 29.5 times faster than django.utils.simplejson! Even more surprising simplejson seems to be faster than even cPickle!! This is good news for our search results page that has 10 newspaper pages to highlight on it, since it’ll take 10 * 0.033183 = .3 seconds to parse all the JSON instead of the totally unacceptable 10 * 0.976193 = 9.7 seconds. I guess in some circles .3 seconds might be unacceptable, we’ll have to see how it pans out. If you want, please try out my benchmarks yourself on your own platform. I’d be curious if you see the same ranking.

Here are the versions for various bits I used:

• python v2.5.2
• django trunk: r9231 2008-10-13 15:38:18 -0400
• simplejson 2.0.3

Makes me that much happier that simplesjson aka json is now cooked into the Python 2.6 standard library.

Originally posted by ed from inkdroid, on October 23, 2008 11:09 PM

Penelope and Sand, originally uploaded by mgtrott.

Today was Penelope's first trip to a beach, courtesy of a warm October day in San Francisco.

She's a very generous little person and will pick up things and bring them over to people. Then, she makes a little sound that sort of means "here." She started doing that with grains of sand. She'd pick up a pinch of sand and then bring it to me. What totally delights me is how she would take time to pick just the right grains out of the billions out there.

I'm sure that there is some lesson to be learned from this baby's action and that it would make some great sort of Zen parable.

Originally posted by Mena from Dollarshort, on October 23, 2008 10:47 PM

Sarah Palin on $150k blingfest: "That is not who we are."

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on October 23, 2008 6:58 PM

Literary Schadenfreude (via Gothamist)

Poet Clive James wrote a poem in which he gloated over finding a competitor's book in a remainder bin.  Honestly, though, the best place to find contemporary poetry books is the 50% off stacks at The Strand.  The last time I was there I found a number of fantastic and current books of poetry but I'll resist naming names just in case being remaindered or discounted hurts anyone's feelings.  One book was dedicated by a young author to a Major Poet.  Even more devastating was the discovery of a personal letter penned by the author (in blue-tinted calligraphy) nestled within the pages of this book.

 

Nobel to Salinger?  Nah, He's American.  (via Gothamist)

Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which administers the Nobel Prize in Literature, got a lot of flack for stating that U.S. Literature was "too isolated, too insular."  He then went on to say that "[t]hey don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature."  That much is true.  Translated literature makes up a pathetically small percentage of book sales in the United States.  U.S. literature, on the other hand, is widely translated into other languages.  I think that next year's prize should go to a translator.   

A Conversation with Shirley Kaufman by Eve Grubin

"I began to know Hebrew poets through my work in translation. A small group of English speakers—writers, translators, and teachers at the Hebrew University—met together twice a month to read the work of John Ashbery.

There was also an Israeli poet who was translating Ashbery's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror into Hebrew, and he needed some help. We all wanted to keep up with what was happening in English and in translation, as well. That group went on meeting and reading for years."

First OSU Ph.D. in Yiddish studies a trailblazer in field by Jennifer Hambrick

I came across a very interesting profile on Colleen McCallum-Bonar, a scholar of Yiddish literature and possibly the only African-American working in this field.  In the article, she discusses her research interests and also addresses the issues of race that pervade this field of study.

Her doctoral dissertation, “Black Ashkenaz and the Almost Promised Land: Yiddish Literature and the Harlem Renaissance,” compares the Yiddish-language poetry of Jewish immigrants to America and the poetry of African-American writers between 1915 and 1935....

Some of the themes that recur in the Yiddish-language writings of authors of the period, such as Jacob Glatstein and Leivick Halpern, include the idea that African-Americans and Jews in America have a mutual understanding of their histories of oppression at the hands of a white majority.

“Authors say that blacks are our brothers in arms essentially, that we have this kind of shared experience in terms of being in the U.S., being poor in the U.S., being minorities in the U.S. and being mistreated in the U.S.,” McCallum-Bonar said.

Silent Story: One Process for the narrative arc in chapbooks

Poet Justin Evans on narrative arcs in poetry collections:

[A] narrative arc is more than a hook upon which to hang your poems. Poetry at its very center must remain, as my friend and mentor Dave Lee has said, a participation sport. It is not, as the Moderns would suggest, art for art’s sake. The audience is not superfluous. Poetry must be shared, and in that sharing, a story is the poet’s best bet. As each poem tells a story, it only makes sense that a chapbook consisting of a small suite of poems be more than a gathering of good poems. There must be a reason all of these poems are in one place.

To accomplish a successful narrative arc, I advocate the hidden narrative--- the story only the poet knows....use it during the writing of poems for a chapbook and then destroy it, revealing only that information you the poet deems absolutely necessary. So construct a narrative just for you. Don’t draft the narrative because that is prose, but always have the entire story in your conscious thought while writing the poems.

And saving the best for last---

Diagramming Sarah Palin (via Slate)

Originally posted by Adriana from Stingy Kids, on October 23, 2008 6:05 PM

The musician Tricky talks about Englishness in this interview.

We've always been violent, but now it's stupidity, people kicking heads in for no reason. When I was a kid we used to fight or rob the people we wanted to fight or rob, we didn't walk along the street, kick someone's head in, and film it on a mobile phone. Now you've got a guy stood at the bus stop, minding his own business, and eight guys jump him and beat the fuck out of him, or stab him to fuck for no reason. It's like these video games, you can go on a video game, shoot someone twenty times and they get back up again. I don't want to sound like an old man, but when I was growing up we had films like Get Carter and Scarface. Scarface was one of the best gangster films ever. But those films were more about the threat of violence that makes it a violent. Now people use violence as a marketing tool, that's the problem we're having right now.

Tricky also rightly defends English food; I've never had anything bad to eat there, at least in London.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on October 23, 2008 2:45 PM

(This piece originally ran at SI.com earlier today.) 

The Rays find themselves in a situation similar to what they faced in the ALCS. Having lost Game One at home, there’s a need to take the second game, lest they fall behind 2-0 before going on the road for three games. It’s not exactly the same; they were expected to lose to Hamels, for one. For another, the pitching matchup in Game Three favors them, as opposed to having Jon Lester looming. (Yes, they beat Lester, but his presence loomed over Game Two of that series the way Hamels does this one.)

The gap between being tied at one and being down 2-0 is massive. By definition, teams that are 1-1 win the Series half the time and lose half the time. However, losing the first two games of the series puts you not just behind the eight-ball, but the entire rack: Caleb Peiffer points out that teams starting the World Series by dropping the first two games at home are 3-13 overall. The last team to win the Series that was was the 1996 Yankees.

So if the Phillies needed last night’s game, with their ace on the mound, the Rays need tonight’s contest to keep from falling into the abyss. Fortunately for them, they send their best starter in 2008, James Shields, to the mound. Better still, they send Shields to the mound at Tropicana Dome, where he notably had an ERA two runs lower (2.59) than he did away from home (4.82), That split, while not quite as pronounced, was present in his numbers in 2006 and 2007 as well.

When you look into that split, though, what you find is that Shields is pitching about the same at home as he is on the road. The following numbers are for Shields’ career, and reflect the times he gets each result as a percentage of batters faced:

       Home    Road
K%     20.1    18.3
BB%     4.8     4.6
HR%     2.7     3.4
ERA    3.23    4.82

There’s a small degradation in Shields’ performance on the road, one that is consistent with the established idea that players do perform slightly better at home. Shields strikes out a few extra hitters at home and allows fewer home runs. The gap in his rate stats, however, doesn’t warrant an ERA gap of more than a run and a half per nine innings. No, Shields’ ERA is higher on the road not because he’s pitched less effectively, but because of everyone’s favorite gremlin, his batting average allowed on balls in play. That number is .285 at home, and .311 on the road, a 26-point difference that has little to do with his own work. Pitchers can influence their BABIP via their groundball/flyball rate, but by and large, it’s a number that is defense-dependent, and out of their control.

Shields isn’t a much better pitcher at home. Shields has the home-field advantage everyone else does, but has gotten less support from his defense, over what is still a fairly small sample, on the road. The biggest gap in his numbers, by far, is that BABIP. Look at 2008:

       Home    Road
K%     19.1    17.2
BB%     4.6     4.5
HR%     1.9     3.7
BABIP  .276    .306
ERA    2.59    4.82

The home-run rate is much worse on the road-doubled, basically-but Shields is one again on the wrong side of variance when it comes to his BABIP. The difference comes to about one hit oer start, which is enough to send your ERA skyrocketing. If Shields had only the higher home-run rate and an even BABIP split, we wouldn’t be talking about his big home/road split, because it wouldn’t exists. Shields’ big ERA gap doesn’t exist because he’s a much better pitcher at home; it exists because of a statistical fluke.

This is important. Joe Maddon may have pushed Shields back to Game Six on the ALCS in part because of his big home/road split. Because he was pushed back, he was unavailable to start last night against Hamels. Scott Kazmir provided a quality start, but the Rays needed a higher-quality one…the kind Shields produces more often. Had Maddon stuck with his original rotation, rather than been influenced by the surface appearance of Shields’ stats (and Kazmir’s small-sample success in Boston), the World Series might look quite different now. Instead, the Rays find themselves needing tonight’s game desperately.

Originally posted by Joe Sheehan from Baseball Prospectus: Unfiltered, on October 23, 2008 1:26 PM

This is pretty impressive: Hillary's political action committee has now donated a half-million bucks to House and Senate Dem candidates across the country, a Hillary aide tells us.

The Hillary aide adds that Hillary and her PAC, which is called HillPac, has donated the $500,000 in cash to over 75 Dem candidates in over 30 states across the country.

HillPac had largely been out of business while she ran for President. But late last month, Hillary reactivated the PAC with an initial round of donations of about $75,000 in checks to 14 candidates across the country.

Now that Hillary has hit the half-million mark in donations, it's yet another sign that Hillary, after being temporarily sidelined by her loss to Obama, has returned to electoral politics in a big way.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on October 23, 2008 1:24 PM

Upper Deck Update, the 200 card set only release that came with the 1000 box to store your entire set has been cancelled.  Sorry Griffey and White Sox fans, but this card may never see the light of day. 

One card shop I called confirmed the cancellation, as shown on their website here. He said reasons are never given for cancelled product by the company, but usually it’s due to lack of interest. 

I called a second card shop as well, but they weren’t carrying the Update release and had no information on it. The guy I spoke with did, however, tell me that five products in basketball and football had been cancelled, including Topps Sterling Football and Topps Predictor Basketball. He, too, suggested a lack of interest, and said it’s unusual to see so many products get pulled back. 

He also mentioned a lack of movement and value the on secondary markets as a secondary reason, implying that collectors are becoming hand shy after getting bitten by numerous overpriced products with little value return.  This couple with the current financial troubles makes a lot of sense.  

It’s one thing I’ve argued could change the hobby - people refusing to spend money on boxes that don’t give them their money’s worth - but we’ll have to see if any long term change actually comes about.

      

Originally posted by handcollated from Hand Collated, on October 23, 2008 12:47 PM

Hey, cool

 Bookmark this on Delicious - Saved by stamen to globes factory mov - More about this bookmark

Originally posted by stamen from Delicious/stamen, on October 23, 2008 12:41 PM

"I have to tell you, one of the benefits of running this 22-month gauntlet is that ... you start realizing that what seems important or clever or in need of some dramatic moment a lot of times just needs reflection and care." - Barack Obama. it would be wild if I could add a sitting President of the United States as someone who I admire enough to quote when it comes to Stamen.

 Bookmark this on Delicious - Saved by stamen to stamen quote barackobama - More about this bookmark

Originally posted by stamen from Delicious/stamen, on October 23, 2008 11:21 AM

‘villa 1’ by powerhouse company is located in a forest in the netherlands. the contemporary home may look
very different from the country’s traditional windmills, but its plan is actually very similar.   the home consists
of two wings which are anchored by a central garage. because of its rural location, the architects needed to
meet above ground volume codes. their plan was to invert the traditional house plan by putting the bedrooms
underground while the living area remains on top. the interior is very open thanks to full walls of glass
windows and central hubs, which condense all storage and service into one unit. the 3 hubs on the main
floor each use different materials, wood to the north, slate to the east and concrete to the south. this helps
give each room its own personality and atmosphere.

http://www.powerhouse-company.com















via archdaily

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Designboom - Weblog, on October 23, 2008 10:41 AM

Tweet, tweet, free tacos? Kottke writes: in game one of the World Series tonight, someone stole a base and every single person in the United States won a free taco from Taco Bell. Instant tweetalanche. Feels like Twitter is about to get a lot less interesting.

Originally posted by David Jacobs from hello, typepad, on October 23, 2008 8:47 AM

I can't take much more of this. Two weeks to go, and I'm at the end of my rope. I can't work. I can eat, but mostly standing up. I'm anxious all the time and taking it out on my ex-wife, which, ironically, I'm finding enjoyable. This is like waiting for the results of a biopsy. Actually, it's worse. Biopsies only take a few days, maybe a week at the most, and if the biopsy comes back positive, there's still a potential cure. With this, there's no cure. The result is final. Like death.

Five times a day I'll still say to someone, "I don't know what I'm going to do if McCain wins." Of course, the reality is I'm probably not going to do anything. What can I do? I'm not going to kill myself. If I didn't kill myself when I became impotent for two months in 1979, I'm certainly not going to do it if McCain and Palin are elected, even if it's by nefarious means. If Obama loses, it would be easier to live with it if it's due to racism rather than if it's stolen. If it's racism, I can say, "Okay, we lost, but at least it's a democracy. Sure, it's a democracy inhabited by a majority of disgusting, reprehensible turds, but at least it's a democracy." If he loses because it's stolen, that will be much worse. Call me crazy, but I'd rather live in a democratic racist country than a non-democratic non-racist one. (It's not exactly a Hobson's choice, but it's close, and I think Hobson would compliment me on how close I've actually come to giving him no choice. He'd love that!)

The one concession I've made to maintain some form of sanity is that I've taken to censoring my news, just like the old Soviet Union. The citizenry (me) only gets to read and listen to what I deem appropriate for its health and well-being. Sure, there are times when the system breaks down. Michele Bachmann got through my radar this week, right before bedtime. That's not supposed to happen. That was a lapse in security, and I've had to make some adjustments. The debates were particularly challenging for me to monitor. First I tried running in and out of the room so I would only hear my guy. This worked until I knocked over a tray of hors d'oeuvres. "Sit down or get out!" my host demanded. "Okay," I said, and took a seat, but I was more fidgety than a ten-year-old at temple. I just couldn't watch without saying anything, and my running commentary, which mostly consisted of "Shut up, you prick!" or "You're a fucking liar!!!" or "Go to hell, you cocksucker!" was way too distracting for the attendees, and finally I was asked to leave.

Assuming November 4th ever comes, my big decision won't be where I'll be watching the returns, but if I'll be watching. I believe I have big jinx potential and may have actually cost the Dems the last two elections. I know I've jinxed sporting events. When my teams are losing and I want them to make a comeback, all I have to do is leave the room. Works every time. So if I do watch, I'll do it alone. I can't subject other people to me in my current condition. I just don't like what I've turned into -- and frankly I wasn't that crazy about me even before the turn. This election is having the same effect on me as marijuana. All of my worst qualities have been exacerbated. I'm paranoid, obsessive, nervous, and totally mental. It's one long, intense, bad trip. I need to come down. Soon.

Originally posted by Andrea from Andrea Harner, on October 23, 2008 7:52 AM

Infoworld blogger Neil McAllister referred to Perl 6 as having "graduated to vaporware", and chromatic dissented. McAllester prints a lot of chromatic's letter and adds his own commentary, and it's a good read.

I'm glad chromatic wrote it, and McAllister ran the article, but the fact still stands that Perl 6 is vapor enough for most organizations wanting to do anything useful. The fact is that most organizations and users are going to wait for Rakudo Perl 1.0, or maybe Rakudo Perl 1.0 beta 1, before they start sniffing at it.

I wonder how we can merge these two concerns. How can we let people know about the Perl 6 that is usable here and now, such as the November wiki package written in Perl 6, and the features that people can use today and rely on not changing, while still acknowledging that Perl 6 isn't at the state that people will want to count on?

Does there need to be Rakudo Perl Early Adopter Edition, for example? I understand that any given Rakudo build could be Early Adopter Edition, but I'm talking about releasing and publicizing something that is specifically called that.

(Also, please don't bother explaining WHY Perl 6 is at the state it's in. I know why, and the people who are waiting for 1.0 don't care why. That's not the point of my question.)

Originally posted by Andy Lester from Perl Buzz, on October 23, 2008 6:26 AM

[Image: The Large Hadron Collider photographed by Claudia Marcelloni, ©CERN, via The Big Picture].

One of the most interesting engineering details from the construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the fact that they had to freeze an underground river in place, using liquid nitrogen, in order to assemble the detector. This allowed them "to create a permafrost medium through which they could drill out the massive underground caverns" in which the LHC would then sit, the Independent reported back in 2003.
But London's got some underground rivers; they should do this there and create a subterranean skating rink.
A huge cube of ice beneath Los Angeles that's then melted slowly, over four decades, to form the city's water supply.
Meanwhile, the actual magnets of the collider itself "must be cooled to within a couple of degrees of 'absolute zero,'" we read, "the theoretical limit for how cold anything can get. This requires a constant supply of liquid helium pumped down from eight over-ground refrigeration plants – about 400,000 liters per year in total."
This temporary refrigeration of the planet reminds me of at least two things: 1) the so-called "freeze wall," no less than 30-feet thick, being constructed by Shell underground in the American Rockies as a way to access oil shale deposits, and 2) the constantly refrigerated underground mines of South Africa.
A crazed billionaire installs a pipework labyrinth of liquid helium pumps beneath his home in Barcelona – and he proceeds to create a subterranean glacier inside the faults of the earth itself, freezing the soil down to a depth of six miles and altering the local climate, before carving a spectacular series of show caves out of the permafrost, wearing Antarctic expedition gear, armed with remote control micro-tunneling machines.

Originally posted by Geoff Manaugh from BLDGBLOG, on October 23, 2008 6:17 AM

A Proud India Launches Its First Mission To the Moon - washingtonpost.com The probe launched Wednesday will not land on the moon but will orbit it. The mission will create a three-dimensional map of the lunar surface, looking for traces of water, uranium and minerals. Government to Take Over Airline Passenger Vetting - washingtonpost.com The Department of Homeland Security will require travelers for the first time to provide their full name, birth date and gender as a condition for boarding commercial flights, U.S. officials said Wednesday. eMusic Q&A: Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes - eMusic Spotlight I really felt this freedom to take chances and go somewhere that would have been more insecure in the past, and let it all out there. Part of that is the soul influence, the freedom that people Sly and Prince had. People that are basically — I don’t even know if this is a term, but “freak-funk.” Bracing for a Storm - washingtonpost.com Several stalwarts of American business said their profits fell over the late summer months as the financial crisis heated up. Many are now bracing for the likelihood that the world is spinning into a prolonged recession.

Originally posted by Adam from randomWalks, on October 23, 2008 5:23 AM

To: Tips@Fashionista.com

From: Huffing@postearrings.com

Spotted (everywhere): Sarah Palin's daughter carrying a fake Speedy.

I can only assume the girl was just hanging onto her mother's purse for her, but either way, this means Sarah Palin doesn't care about American designers (think that bag was made in Alaska?) or counterfeit goods (what would Bush's new copyright czar say to her? Or the judge that just awarded LV $3.5 M?).

At least it couldn't have been too big a chunk from her $150,000 allowance..

Think it's too late for her to carry a FEED bag?

xo

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Fashionista, on October 23, 2008 5:05 AM

The following video, sent in from a reader of MetsBlog.com, is of the scoreboard at Shea Stadium being knocked to the ground, and, I will not lie, it is sad and surreal to see:

Ouch…now that is a collapse.

Anyway, to move forward, and get a look at the infield, seats, locker room, among other places, in Citi Field, click here.

…thanks to the great Metsiac for the link…

ShareThis

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on October 23, 2008 4:28 AM

The wait is over, I finally pulled my first Kosuke Fukudome card from a Topps product yesterday.

For those who were counting, I pulled 16 Fukudome cards from Upper Deck across five different sets before pulling this one from U&H.


On the plus side, it's an error card! THE WHOLE THING IS UPSIDE DOWN!!!

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on October 23, 2008 3:54 AM

I think the Jay Bruce and Kosuke Fukudome inverted cards on eBay are bunk and here's why:


First here are the two Bruces that have popped up so far:

first one:
second one:

Ok look closely at the foil on the inverted ones.

Now here's a Jay Bruce highlights card I pulled from a pack today:

Notice that the foil on my scan is dark and flat. Same with the right side up Bruce in the top scan. The other two have a more silvery look to them like actual foil. I've seen this effect before, in the Topps Sell Sheets:



There's two from a sell sheet and the second Bruce. Notice how the gradation makes it look sort of shiny? Like real foil? The official Topps sell sheet images are a little more slick, but the Bruce seems to use the same principle. But while it looks good on a sell sheet, foil doesn't scan like that. It scans flat and black. Even in a photo, it usually shows up black unless there is a light source directly hitting the foil and even then it can end up looking like this:

The two inverted Bruces don't look like photos anyway, they're too flat. The other thing I find strange is how both the cards seem to have the same highlights on the foil. Look closely at the darkest part of the foil: The shading is darkest in the RU of Bruce, at the very top of the T in Topps and the lower left corner of that T. If you ask me, the second Bruce is simply a copy of the image from the first auction.

Until I see a photo or a video of one of these buggers, I'm calling it a hoax. I'm not saying Topps wouldn't do a gimmick like this as they quite clearly have in the past, but the fact that the foil doesn't look right combined with the sheer goofiness of the error (seriously, having a reverse negative slip by is a common mistake, but inverted?? that only happens with stamps) makes me think Topps is in the clear on this one. I will likely be proven wrong (Hell, they might be printing a mess of 'em now to cash in!) but I say these aren't real.

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on October 22, 2008 4:15 PM

brownpau:

Polar Bears for Obama

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Tim Murtaugh’s Excuse for a Blog, on October 22, 2008 3:37 PM

It’s a bit more than two hours before the first pitch of the World Series at Tropicana Dome, and I’m pretty sure there are already as many fans in the building as there were for the actual game the last time I was here.

That was September 5, 2007. Will Carroll set up a Ballpark Feed, I came down from New York, and we spent most of the day at the Dome. Before the game, Tampa Bay’s Robbie Artz gave Will and I a tour of the place. Artz, who’d helped coordinate the Feed, emphasized the team’s efforts to enhance the fan experience, to make the park a fun place to spend a night, even if the team wasn’t much to watch. We circled the park on each level, Artz pointing out this change and that improvement and the other e to bring people out the ballpark. I thought the presence of the party deck in the upper level of left field was a little amusing, because I couldn’t fathom why people would sit so far away when so many good seats closer to the action were empty.

Will and I did a Q&A before the game with a group of season ticket holders before turning the show over to Rays’ GM Andrew Friedman. Look, I’m human, and as snarky as the next guy, but I was honestly taken by how passionate these people were. All the jokes about “Devil Rays fans” rang pretty hollow after spending a couple of hours listening to these people, many of whom had been watching losing baseball for a decade. They were informed, they were intent, and they grilled the three of us mercilessly. I wouldn’t say this was a group of baseball fans, necessarily; it was a group of Devil Rays fans, and they wanted to see this team, this organization, succeed.

After the session, Will and I dined with a couple members of the team’s front office, BP alumni James Click and Chaim Bloom, and we talked about the future. This dinner is best remembered as the moment when Dioner Navarro gained the nickname “Bandwagon!” for my insistence that everyone would be jumping on his pretty soon. Following that, Will and I watched the game-a Rays’ blowout of the Orioles-from seats a few rows up from home plate, with plenty of room to spread out. After the Orioles batted in the seventh, Will and I were handed microphones, placed in front of a camera wearing home jerseys and encouraged to sing.

As enthusiastic as the group before the game was, as impressive a show Robbie put on, as much as Chaim and James talked about the team’s change in direction, it wasn’t easy to see past a sea of blue seats, or the airplane-hanger feel of the park during the game, or the fact that the Rays had an opening for “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” wide enough to fit Carroll and Sheehan through. There were baseball reasons to have hope, but it wasn’t clear whether or when the Devil Rays would ever really be relevant.

Thirteen months later, I’m in that party deck I derided, and I’m watching the American League Champion Tampa Bay Rays. I’m no threat to sing-the franchise has graduated from the vocal stylings of Two Bald Boys to the likes of the Backstreet Boys and Los Lonely Boys-and Dioner Navarro is an All-Star. Quicker than anyone-even the BP alumni with Kool-Aid stains on their shirts-could possibly have imagined, the Rays put together a 97-win season, seven more victories in October, and stand on the brink of one of the best baseball stories of my lifetime.

And I can’t stop thinking about those people, showing up two hours before gametime to sit in a small, windowless room and fire questions at two random guys and the new GM. Those people are in this park tonight, having sweated out a decade in which they saw more losing baseball than any other fans in the world. Tonight, they walk into the Dome, and they take their seats, and that world watches, a little jealous, as the World Series comes to them.

Originally posted by Joe Sheehan from Baseball Prospectus: Unfiltered, on October 22, 2008 2:58 PM

A few moments ago, the Brooklyn Bridge Development Corporation announced that Phase 1 of the park's development had formally been contracted for and would begin next month. The $47 million deal with Skanska will cover 2.5 acres of lawn at the foot of Old Fulton Street, 1,300 feet of waterfront promenade and a portion of the Brooklyn Greenway.

Originally posted by Brownstoner from Brownstoner, on October 22, 2008 12:00 PM

John Legend: I'm Your Puppet
From Soul Men Soundtrack (Stax, 2008)

Seal: Change Gonna Come
From Soul (Warner Bros, 2008)

Soul Men has a dubious history behind it considering that it stars both Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes. Plus, judging from the trailer, it looks like the Black version of Blues Brothers...but not necessarily destined to be a classic. For the film, Stax commissioned a slew of folks to record both new songs and covers of classic soul tunes, including "I'm Your Puppet" by the Purify brothers.

And coincidentally, Seal is currently touting the lead video to his new album of soul covers: a cover of Sam Cooke's "Change Gonna Come." (You'll have to pardon the thin, mono mix but that's all that's available for it right now).

So what's the verdict?

I'm on the fence with Seal's song. It begins fairly close to Cooke's original but then shifts towards the end but either way, this comes up a bit short for me. I can't really pinpoint to anything technically wrong - Seal has a great voice and he executes this well - but with a song like "Change Gonna Come"; it is such a definitive song in the soul canon that it's very hard to effectively cover without simply reminding people how good the original was. There are very few artists who have managed to even approach the power of the original - that includes Aretha Franklin's take - but we're talking rarefied company and while I think Seal has the vocal chops, the song still doesn't achieve that transcendent moment you're hoping for. I'd rather hear him tackle something a bit more obscure. I'll reserve final judgment until I hear the album; I'm curious to hear him do "I Can't Stand the Rain" (Ann Peebles).

As for John Legend taking on the Purifys...I was more open to this, partially because it doesn't hide that it's a contemporary cover - this was clearly recorded now and not back in the '60s. Also, "I'm Your Puppet" is a more forgiving song to cover - what makes it such a classic has more to do with its signature melody than the Purifys' original vocals. So in essence, as long as you keep that melody intact, you can come at this song any number of ways and generally, it'll sound good (check out Jimmy London's reggae version for example. There's also Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's duet version.) My point being: I think Legend does a fine job here - he puts his own vocal spin on it but sustains the main musical appeal of the composition.

---

Elsewhere, if you haven't checked in on Side Dishes lately, here's what you've missed:

My take on the new Menahan Street Band album.

A longer tribute to Alton Ellis.

Reviews of new albums by Robin Thicke and Solange Knowles.

Originally posted by O.W. from soul sides, on October 22, 2008 11:49 AM

I've long been a fan of playing the dozens, as is to be expected from anyone who loves language. Last night, in a fit of my usual insanity, I thought it'd be fun to throw out some "Yo mama" snaps themed around this year's election on my Twitter account:

• Yo moms such a ho they set up robocalls for all her booty calls.
• Yo moms so fat Russia can see her from their house.

Things took off pretty quickly from there. Lore Sjoberg (you remember him from Brunching Shuttlecocks and his writing for Wired) picked up the meme and ran with it. His were some of the first, and funniest responses:

• Yo mama so fat, McCain refers to her as "Those Ones."
• Yo mama so fat, she got an endorsement from General Mills. (I would have gone with Colonel Sanders here; That's why Lore is a genius!)
• Yo mama so fat, her other biography is called "The Audacity of Hardee's

Around the same time, a number of other fantastically funny folks joined in the fun:

• Fernando Rizo offers up "yo mama's such a ho, she said she'd sit ON Ahmedinejad with no preconditions"
• Matt Haughey added "yo mama so ugly, the RNC spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup"
• One of my personal favorites, Guillermo Esteves absolutely slayed me with "yo momma’s so fat, John McCain looked into her eyes and saw three letters: KFC." Absurd, obscure, specific — perfect!

As these were taking off, Xeni Jardin, who was dropping some snaps of her own, featured the thread in progress in a post on BoingBoing. Fun! The comments there have lit up with more suggestions, and a Twitter search for other replies now offers up, well, dozens more. I've marked a lot of the best as my favorites on Twitter.

While this is all in good fun, what's startling to me is that none of the jokes I've seen mention, or even allude to, race. Playing the dozens is a uniquely and explicitly African American tradition, and we obviously have an African American candidate favored in the race for the first time ever, and yet it hasn't come up.

Some of this, of course, is selection bias due to the audience that Twitter reaches. (At least so far.) But as these jokes from last night are already making their way around online as email forwards and apparently getting quoted in offices across the country, it seems to me like the playfulness of the language and the absurdity of the medium may have masked something timely and fitting. This obviously and instrinsically black tradition has been adopted by a community like Twitter that is, frankly, disproportionately not black. You could see it as the deracination of the tradition, or even worse as a deliberate omission of cultural context in its appropriation. But I actually see it as something positive.

A running joke on Twitter is all in good fun, but I find the unselfconsciousness of this little political gag to be a comforting reflection of the way that the larger trend around this election is moving as well. Like Barack Obama, playing the dozens is obviously black but we're able to just include that implicitly in our participation without having denying or diminish it. That feels like progress.

And best of all, even if it is just a bunch of jokes on Twitter, making these jokes is something that anyone can take a turn with. Just like your mama.

Originally posted by Anil from Anil Dash, on October 22, 2008 11:36 AM

Learning to cook changed my life—it didn't save it.  I've had it good.  But the tools I learned and the changes I made in order not to humiliate myself on a hotline, made me a better writer and a more effective, efficient creature outside the kitchen.  It also gave me entree into a whole new world, it gave me a new language.  It wasn’t easy, and I took some serious risks in order to do achieve what I did, but … relatively speaking, it was easy  because I’ve had every advantage.  Great parents who adored me but held me to their standards of honesty and hard work, a solid middle class home in my favorite city on earth to live, the best education, etc., and because of this good fortune, I had all the tools to make use of the cooking advantage when it came my way.  Nevertheless, learning to cook gave me yet another boost up, a huge boost up, from where I was.  What I'm trying to say here is that learning to cook helped in huge and unforeseen ways even one of the most privileged.
                                                                                                Photo courtesy of The Food Network

Which is why I was thrilled to watch the first episode of “The Chef Jeff Project,” in which a convicted felon, Jeff Henderson, who learned to cook in prison and made a career for himself in the kitchen after his release throws six inner-city kids, most of them with prison or drugs in their own past, onto the line, into the fire. 

What was true for me in the kitchen is true for them in the kitchen, is true for everyone in exactly the same colorblind, socialblind way: you can’t lie in a kitchen.  To yourself, to your colleagues.  You are either on time or you are not there, you are either in the shit, or you are organized and on top of it, your food is cooked and ready to go or it is not.  It is plain and inarguable.  There aren’t many occupations where you can’t lie to yourself.   And the humiliation for one of these kids who gets booted off the line at a real restaurant in the second episode—the humiliation is just as deep for him as it is for any trained cook who gets their ass handed to them.  You’re not good enough.

Chef Jeff wrote an excellent memoir about his life, Cooked—it’s available on CD (and audio download) in which he gives a compelling, visceral reading.  What’s fascinating about his story is that he was successful as a drug dealer—very organized, didn’t do drugs himself, ambitious—in the same way that he would became successful as cook—organized, diligent, driven, ambitious.  The thing is, fresh out of prison, he was lucky to get a job as dishwasher.  From prison to dishwasher to this.  Great story.  He has a cookbook that’s just out.  He was ABC Nightly News’s person of the week last week.

I have to admit I approached his show  skeptically—is this going to be another ordinary chef looking for extraordinary celebrity because of his unusual story, cleverly devising a vehicle that will make him look altruistic when he’s really just promoting himself and his business?

The show, on Food Network on Sunday nights, is everything that culinary documentary and reality television ought to be (favorable NYTimes review here).  There is no quick fire challenge, and no one gets kicked off after each show, yet it’s dramatic, and more, genuinely moving.  It’s moving to me in that the first episode reminded me how powerful learning to cook can be, what a transformative force it is.  And it reminded me that the power of learning to cook, the opportunities it can give to anyone, anyone at all willing to do the work, are relative to how much they need that advantage.   Learning to cook moved me up another rung or two. Learning to cook for one of these hoodlums could possibly be other-worldy in terms of its impact on their lives  It’s fascinating to watch.

Chef Jeff is smart, he’s good, an excellent leader (which is what chef really means), he’s clearly inspirational to these neophyte cooks.  A couple years ago I wrote an article exploring reasons for the dearth of black chefs in a chef obsessed culture.  I wish I’d interviewed him.   His inspiration is genuine and goes far beyond race.

Originally posted by michael ruhlman from ruhlman.com, on October 22, 2008 11:23 AM

In 1996, an editor from Rolling Stone named David Lipsky spent a lot of time with David Foster Wallace and wrote a biographical piece that was eventually not published in the magazine. When Wallace died last month, RS sent Lipsky to interview his family and friends. The resulting piece, The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace, is a unique combination of a look at a writer at the top of his game and a man at the end of his life. It was very difficult for me to read, for reasons which I may never really understand. Wallace meant a lot to me, full stop.

Here are some bits from the article that resonated with me. On the about-face that happened with his professors a University of Arizona after The Broom of the System¹ was published:

Viking won the auction for the novel, "with something like a handful of trading stamps." Word spread; professors turned nice. "I went from borderline ready-to-get-kicked-out to all these tight-smiled guys being, 'Glad to see you, we're proud of you, you'll have to come over for dinner.' It was so delicious: I felt kind of embarrassed for them, they didn't even have integrity about their hatred."

On expectations:

The five-year clock was ticking again. He'd played football for five years. He'd played high-level tennis for five years. Now he'd been writing for five years. "What I saw was, 'Jesus, it's the same thing all over again.' I'd started late, showed tremendous promise -- and the minute I felt the implications of that promise, it caved in. Because see, by this time, my ego's all invested in the writing. It's the only thing I've gotten food pellets from the universe for. So I feel trapped: 'Uh-oh, my five years is up, I've gotta move on.' But I didn't want to move on."

On self-consciousness:

"I remember this being a frequent topic of conversation," Franzen says, "his notion of not having an authentic self. Of being just quikc enough to construct a pleasing self for whomever he was talking to. I see now he wasn't just being funny -- there was something genuinely compromised in David. At the time I thought, 'Wow, he's even more self-conscious than I am.'"

On fame:

At the end of his book tour, I spent a week with David. He talked about the "greasy thrill of fame" and what it might mean to his writing. "When I was 25, I would've given a couple of digits off my non-use hand for this," he said. "I feel good, because I want to be doing this for 40 more years, you know? So I've got to find some way to enjoy this that doesn't involve getting eaten by it."

On shyness:

He talked about a kind of shyness that turned social life impossibly complicated. "I think being shy basically means self-absorbed to the point that it makes it difficult to be around other people. For instance, if I'm hanging out with you, I can't even tell whether I like you or not because I'm too worried about whether you like me."

And I don't even know what this is all about:

"I go through a loop in which I notice all the ways I am self-centered and careerist and not true to standards and values that transcend my own petty interests, and feel like I'm not one of the good ones. But then I countenance the fact that at least here I am worrying about it, noticing all the ways I fall short of integrity, and I imagine that maybe people without any integrity at all don't notice or worry about it; so then I feel better about myself. It's all very confusing. I think I'm very honest and candid, but I'm also proud of how honest and candid I am -- so where does that put me?"

You have to get the magazine to read the whole thing; it's worth it. Rolling Stone also has an interview with Lipsky about the article.

[1] Oh to have been wrong about the prediction I made here. ↩

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on October 22, 2008 10:41 AM

McCain's chief robocaller is the one who actually bought Palin the clothes. More in a moment.

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on October 22, 2008 10:33 AM

One of my favorite blogs, Photoshop Disasters, found this photo from the Sept. 2008 issue of Marie Claire, and compared the faces of the people in the photo with their reflections in the glass table.

Marie Claire: On reflection, perhaps not

Originally posted by Mark Frauenfelder from Boing Boing, on October 22, 2008 10:02 AM

Designed in the 18th century, the Parc de Bruxelles, located in the center of Brussels, allegedly contains a hidden symbol in its layout, visible only from the air: a Masonic compass, signified by a circle atop a triangle. For GEO GOO (Info Park), currently on view at iMAL with elements online, Internet art trailblazers JODI have created a series of their own arcane symbols by employing 21st century geographic technology, leveraging Google Maps' innate functions in the service of graphic expression. Manipulating a variety of default icons, some of JODI's animations use maps of the Parc de Bruxelles itself: one places a crowd of tiny green explorers on the Parc, hiking the Masonic compass; another iteration generates new symbols on the Parc's layout each time it loads -- including euros, yen, houses, touristy cameras and red crosses -- obliquely evoking semi-random political significance when layered atop the center of the EU. Other examples utilize global maps, pushing the limits of Google's service to create jittering compositions, while some avoid the land altogether to enable exercises in a more pure abstraction. GEO GOO harkens back to a 2007 work by JODI, GEO GEO, in which they traced words and whole sentences onto the maps of various cities (chosen for having lent their names to fonts). Both projects continue the Dutch-Belgian duo's intricate and obsessive drive to derange the Internet from inside out, taking advantage of innate quirks and loopholes in available systems in the service of a punked-out creative jujitsu. - Ed Halter

Image: JODI, GEO GOO (Info Park), 2008

Link »

Originally posted by Ed Halter from Rhizome News, on October 22, 2008 9:20 AM

Apple wouldn't specify how many iPhones were sold in the US versus other countries, but AT&T's own quarterly report reveals that 2.4 million iPhone 3Gs were activated since its launch in July.

Read More...

Originally posted by chris.foresman@arstechnica.com (Chris Foresman) from Infinite Loop, on October 22, 2008 9:14 AM

On Monday, Michael Pollan appeared on NPR's Fresh Air to talk about avoiding the coming food crisis. (Listen to the podcast.) Earlier this month, in a open letter to the next president, he warned that "the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close." Fresh Air host Terry Gross asks him for details.

Watch Michael Pollan's TEDTalk below -- and maybe, draw some perspective from James Howard Kunstler's TEDTalk on the coming oil crisis. (Thanks for the tip, GR!)

Originally posted by (author unknown) from TED | TEDBlog, on October 22, 2008 9:00 AM

Apparently Flash 10 isn’t much better than the previous versions of Flash in terms of performance on OS X. Anyone ever read a decent technical explanation of why that’s the case? Is it that Adobe just doesn’t put the effort into optimizing the Flash player on OS X that they do into optimizing it under Windows? Is it that there are APIs that Adobe takes advantage of under Windows that aren’t available in OS X?

I’ve never seen a really good explanation for the disparity.

The reason why I wonder if it’s something endemic to the Mac is that I’ve seen similar complaints about World of Warcraft performance. For example, here’s a comparison of World of Warcraft performance between the game running under OS X and on the same computer running Windows via Boot Camp. The performance is substantially better under Windows.

Originally posted by Rafe from rc3.org, on October 22, 2008 8:45 AM

If you didn't see it yesterday, Gov. Palin turned in a fine performance in a one-on-one interview with CNN's Drew Griffin. I guess they only publicize these things when they think they use them to damage the governor. Oh, well.

On a more personal note, the current issue of The New Yorker has an article on the rise of Sarah Palin...and yes, I'm part of it. It was a real pleasure to be interviewed by Jane Mayer, and I think that the final article came out very well.

Originally posted by Adam Brickley, aka "ElephantMan" from Draft Sarah Palin For Vice President, on October 22, 2008 8:43 AM

zachklein:

OperaOggiNY, a production company is going to be reopening a theater on Berry Street between South 2nd and 3rd streets (two blocks from my place).

It’s a 600 seat, “theater” complete with 50 foot proscenium arch raked stage and a balcony, plenty of fly space with classic brick and wood and plaster construction has been found and is about to be opened to the public by a collaboration between OperaOggiNY and the St. Peter and Paul parish.

i love this building. one of my favorites in williamsburg.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from the real janelle, on October 22, 2008 8:34 AM

siberia’s wooden windows

Originally posted by (author unknown) from the real janelle, on October 22, 2008 8:06 AM

1. Download the free POLADROID application and launch it
2. Drag & Drop your photos
3. Wait... wait.... wait again... or shake the picture. Then look at or print your POLADROID picture.

www.poladroid.net

How cool is this? How incredibly cool? It's only 9.40am and I am already having a "I love you internet moment!"

Originally posted by swissmiss from swissmiss, on October 22, 2008 6:44 AM

The Heart of the Matter

Thanks to the more than 300 people who sent in their answers to the identify the s’s competition. The winner is announced below. Another big thank you to all those who regularly send in links and nice emails. Today’s is a big one, so buckle up and enjoy the ride.

First up is a new limited edition A2 poster from Seb Lester.

Beautiful metallic gold lettering printed on Plike. For pricing and availibility, please email Seb directly. Stay tuned for an upcoming interview with Seb.

Nice type treatment from the British Heart Foundation:

Via. Reminds me of Tsang Kin-wah’s work.

Another new screen print from ISO50. Introducing Terrabyte 3:

Free fonts

From Joshua Darden, the man behind the wonderful Freight and Freight Sans, a free font by the name of Birra Stout:

Thanks, Dan.

For the Müller-Brockmann fans out there, the grid systems t-shirt:

Competition winner

Over 300 entries for the guess the s’s competition. Interestingly, just about everyone correctly identified the s on the left as H&FJ’s Archer (hairline); but a number misidentified the s on the right as Sauna, when it is in fact Mark Simonson’s Snicker (bold).

Thanks to everyone who took part. The winner—picked at random—is José Miguel Vieira Batista. Congratulations, José.

Sunday links

The Greek font society
Ubiquitous web-font embedding
Great yype blog for Italian readers
The Hardcopy project—Jannis Gundermann
Wood type wall decoration
Graffiti from sal-one
Hand Made Font
Tom Joad Was Here—street art project
H&FJ’s smallest type ever:

Triso by Ric Bell:

Described by Ric as “A conceptual typeface based around the isometric grid and form of a cube, designed to link together to create bigger modular patterns.”

See Typotheque’s type in use:

And get the fold-out poster here.

A little disorganised in the presentation (like this post really), but nonetheless an interesting collection of articles and images, from Face the Nation, How national identity shaped modern typeface design:

The Timeless Clock designed by Pascal Tarabay:

Thanks, Anton.

And some more apartment therapy in the form of this type-inspired lamp:

Bolda Display from Morten Iveland looks fun:

Not yet available as a font, but Morten is working on that. Will let you know when it’s done.

Some lovely hand-drawn lettering from Christophe Badani on Flickr:

Be sure to check out Christophe’s Typophage web site too (French). Thanks, Jean François.

Love this kind of experiment. Garamond powerlines from Daniel Adolph:

See visual evasion for the other caps. The above Q is my favourite. How about you?
Be sure to join the my favourite letters Flickr group

This lettering is simply wonderful. I’m sure you can name the type, but do you know the poem (I have no idea):

Via gentle pure space.

Start them early. This from 4-year old Mr Collins:

Now it’s your turn.

The beauty of the big 5:

Via swissmiss. Anyone recommend a good printer for this size poster?

Don’t forget to join the my favourite letters Flickr Group. here’s one submitted by splorp:

I’ll hold off publishing the Combining Type article, as I have an interview to publish this week. Thanks for reading, and for supporting iLT. Have a great week.

FF Netto, new from FontFont.

Originally posted by johno from i love typography, the typography and fonts blog, on October 22, 2008 4:56 AM

Joba Chamberlain


and.........


BATBOY

(A grand for a sketch card?? Holy Schnikeys!)

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on October 22, 2008 4:20 AM

'elephant cart' by nam june paik (1999-2001)

jump now

at: nam june paik art center, yongin, gyeonggi province, korea

from: october 9th, 2008 - february 5th, 2009

nam june paik art center just opened this month in the yongin, geyonggi province of korea. the center,
is dedicated to the much celebrated video and installation artist who passed away two years ago. the first
exhibition to take place will be 'jump now'. a small-scale biennale, the exhibition will not only display projects
by paik, but will include the works of 113 artists from 19 countries, a generation of artists which paik influenced.


'three elements' by nam june paik (1997-2000)


nam june paik art center in yongin, gyeonggi province, korea
all images © nam june paik art center

more

nam june paik: http://www.paikstudios.com
nam june paik art center: http://www.njpartcenter.kr
---
via the korea times

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Designboom - Weblog, on October 21, 2008 11:56 PM

A fantastic series of photos from Time photographer Callie Shell of Barack Obama. Shell has been photographing Obama since 2004.

Obama listens from a back stairwell as he is introduced in Muscatine, Iowa. It was his second or third speech of the day. Unlike many of the politicians I have photographed in the past, I find it is easy to get a photograph of Obama alone. He lets his staff do their jobs and not fuss over him.

I loved that he cleaned up after himself before leaving an ice cream shop in Wapello, Iowa. He didn't have to. The event was over and the press had left. He is used to taking care of things himself and I think this is one of the qualities that makes Obama different from so many other political candidates I've encountered.

Two staffers had just passed this site and done two pull-ups. Not to be outdone, Obama did three with ease, dropped and walked out to make a speech.

It's always the little things.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on October 21, 2008 7:15 PM

Originally posted in The Quantified Self

The second official Quantified Self Show and Tell will take place this Thursday evening, Oct 23. 

Our first meeting last month exceeded our expectations, both in the number of people who came and the sophistication of the self-tracking projects that were shared and discussed. It was a real blast. Almost 30 folks showed up. So we decided to do it again. Since the last meeting maxed out the capacity of the location in my studio, with people sitting on the stairs, we are holding this month's Show&Tell, appropriately, at The Institute for the Future, in Palo Alto, where there is room enough for all. (The Institute for the Future is a general purpose consultancy built around future studies.)

The format will be simple. We will have some extremely brief introductions, list some of the areas of interest, and move on to the Show&Tell. If you are self-tracking in any way - biometrics, mood monitoring, life-logging, DNA sequencing, etc. etc. - please come and considering sharing your methods and results. We've got some new things to show also.

For details go to the Quantified Self Meetup page.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from KK Lifestream, on October 21, 2008 6:47 PM

A couple of news stories about Sarah Palin and her family get me thinking a bit about how differently our culture--or at least the media and the people who parrot it--treat men and women in the same job. Politico reports that the Republican National Committee spent nearly $150,000 on hairdressing, makeup, and "campaign accessories" in September, expenses which did not appear in earlier months. It's all attributed, it seems, the expense of outfitting Sarah Palin and her family with clothing from "Real America": Nieman Marcus ($75,000), Saks ($49,000), Bloomingdale's ($5,100) and Barney's ($789, which doesn't get you very much at Barney's, frankly). There's also $4900 at a Minneapolis menswear store, presumably getting some suits to make Todd Palin and baby daddy-to-be Levi Johnson more presentable.

The entries also show a few purchases at Pacifier, a top notch baby store, and Steiniauf & Stroller Inc., suggesting $295 was spent to accommodate the littlest Palin to join the campaign trail.

Uh, perhaps. Pacifier is well-known as an industry leader in Bugaboo cupholder-stocking, but I think "Steiniauf & Stroller" is actually an inaccurate OCR scan of Steinlauf & Stoller, a sewing supply store in NYC. I can't find the exact RNC disclosure form these expenses are listed in, but it seems pretty clear. The article points out that the Obama campaign has no comparable wardrobe expenses, and no apparent family outfitting-related expenses. But while it could be interesting to discuss the different standards male and female candidates are held to, the vast extent of the RNC's imagemaking and the wingnut pundits' selective condemnations drown out most of the argument. Palin's hairstyling bill was $4,700 last month, which works out to around twelve times the $400 stylist's bill the Democratic campaign paid for John Edwards to make a 2004 TV appearance. That $400 haircut has become the rightwing media's talisman for Edwards and his frivolity ever since ["and also with you--and your $400 haircut"]. I last heard Sean Hannity cite it a couple of months ago to prove that Edwards' freshly revealed marital infidelity was obviously morally different than John McCain cheating on and then dumping his first wife for Cindy. What's more interesting to me, and the reason I'm posting any of this here [besides the cheap buzz I get from factchecking the Stroller/Stoller thing] is the way the clothing expenses resonate with how the Palins treat their professional and personal spheres, work and family, as totally inseparable. And here, I do think there is a significant gender gap. An AP investigation shows that Sarah Palin regularly expensed her children's travel, both for out-of-state trips and as the kids shuttle between Wasilla and Juneau. So far, they've been reimbursed for $21,000 worth of children's airfare and hotel rooms. Palin amended her past expense reports to state that the kids were always "conducting official state business," a legal requirement for reimbursement. The only other Alaska governor to have had school-age children while in office was Tony Knowles [1994-2002]. He is quoted saying, "There was no valid reason for the children to be along on state business...I cannot recall any instance during my eight years as governor where it would have been appropriate to claim they performed state business." Now Knowles lost an election to Palin in 2006; he's a Democrat, and an Obama supporter. But I can't help but think that Palin faces additional scrutiny because she's a working mother. Clearly, no one but the governor would be able to get away with expensing so much family travel. But would a male governor even have tried? Isn't the default setting just to leave the wife and kids at home? I'm pretty sure Sarah Palin is corrupt, dishonest, dangerous, and disastrously unprepared to be president. And from what little we know--crackhead son forced into the army, daughter knocked up by high school dropout, extensive use of children as political props--the Palins don't seem to be particularly admirable parents. But I can still appreciate her apparent determination to not let her job keep her from her kids. RNC appears to shell out $150K for Palin fashion [politico] AP INVESTIGATION: Alaska Funded Palin Kids' Travel [ap/yahoo]

Originally posted by greg from Daddy Types, on October 21, 2008 5:16 PM

The latest edition of Tiny Showcase comes out today, so I clicked over to the site to see if I could catch it right when it went up.  Instead of the new edition, I caught last week's edition which I had somehow missed!  It's by San Francisco's own Jay Howell, it was printed by Providence letterpress artist Dan Wood and it's awesome.  Too bad the limited run is already sold out. 

It's called "Here's Some Dogs":




I'm sad I was unable to purchase one of these.  I need some cheering up:

Originally posted by Krissy from art is the new religion, on October 21, 2008 3:59 PM

Ever been at a restaurant or market about to order/buy fish, and wondered if that fish was over-fished or farmed in a polluting manner? The Blue Ocean Institute has a guide, and they are about to release a guide for sustainable sushi. But best of all, they have a FishPhone service:

To find out about your seafood choice, text 30644 with the message FISH and the name of the fish in question. We'll text you back with our assessment and better alternatives to fish with significant environmental concerns.

Very cool!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Kokochi, on October 21, 2008 3:10 PM

Sun Microsystems’s market cap is down to $3.6 billion. Doesn’t seem like anyone is interesting in buying them, though.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on October 21, 2008 2:44 PM

Where do you keep your birth certificate? Passport? Maybe you are finding it harder to trust the bank with anything these days, and even have your cash stuffed in the mattress. However, there are still plenty of good reasons to keep some of your most vital documents locked up under the watchful eye of the bank.

There are some drawbacks, of course, to having your access to important items and papers somewhat restricted and only accessible during bank hours, so you need to know which things to keep close to home and which ones you can manage without for a few days.

Some are quick to point out other problems that can arise when you don’t take matters into your own hands, but we will help you make your own choice and decide if a safe deposit box at least beats the mattress and a plastic filing cabinet for security, or at least point you to some basics for safer storage within your home.

Opening a Safe Deposit Box

(source)

Most banks and credit unions offer the service, and may even give discounts to existing customers, so start with your current bank. It is really important to plan ahead and give permission to someone you trust to access the safe deposit box or at least have an executed power of attorney that allows them to easily get to the contents.

This is especially important in case of death so that important papers and heirlooms can be accessed without delays. Consult with an attorney to determine state laws that affect the ability of your loved ones to gain access if you have reasons for not granting them access while you are alive.

The typical cost will typically range anywhere from $30 to $75 and you should also contact your insurance agent because the contents are not covered by the generous new $250,000 in FDIC coverage that you get, and most causes for loss within the bank will not be deemed to be the bank’s responsibility. Because neither the bank nor the insurance company will likely cover flood damage, make sure to put all contents in sealed plastic bags.

What You Should Put in the Safe Deposit Box

(source)

A good rule of thumb to keep in mind that is grounded in common sense is to view your safe deposit box as the repository for stuff that you really need, but will not likely ever need on a moment’s notice. Items that are a pain to get replaced such as birth certificates and other family records definitely belong here.

Another important item to remember for insurance purposes is a videotape of your home’s content for insurance purposes, and a copy of this video definitely belongs in your safe deposit box. Contracts, stocks, bonds, certificates of deposit, original deeds to property, collectibles and rare jewels are also commonly kept in safe deposit boxes. If your grandmother gave you a pouch of diamonds or if you have negatives from your honeymoon that aren’t safe for the film lab then lock it all up at the bank! For that matter, you can put just about anything you want in the box.

What Does Not Go in My Safe Deposit Box?

(source)

There are plenty of things that obviously do not belong in the safe deposit box that we do not need to go into for the sake of brevity i.e. food, pets and cash you are hiding to dodge paying taxes, although the latter is certainly a common but unethical choice.

You certainly can place copies but should never put originals or your only copy of medical care instructions, burial preferences or original Power of Attorney documents. Further, if you live your life like you are starring in Bourne Supremacy (or simply have friends and family overseas that you would visit in an emergency), you definitely don’t want your passport locked up overnight, let alone a three-day weekend.

You Don’t Understand Me…There Is No Way I Am Keeping My Valuables at the Bank

(source)

Would you rather just bury it all in the backyard? If the thought of a bank robbery or putting your great-grandfather’s watch in a dark box somewhere makes you simply too uncomfortable, then it is time to shop for a fireproof safe and make sure that you get adequate insurance coverage to keep these items in your home. If you purchase an inexpensive safe, you might end up regretting the move as many of these safes only withstand an hour in a fire - not good if your videotape of the home’s contents gets melted in a fire in said home.

However, there are some heavy duty safes that can only be hacked into by Tom Cruise that will also give you the necessary levels of protection (UL125) to protect your computer data. You can check here and here for more information on choosing a fireproof safe, and make sure that you don’t buy a safe that is too small to contain any gold bars you plan on purchasing in the next few years.

If you already have a safe deposit box, but haven’t visited your safe deposit box in awhile, go check it out in person to make sure it looks like the one in the photo at the top and not like this one:

(source)

So, remember to either get the safe deposit box along with a separate insurance policy, or do some research and get a fireproof safe that will protect digital information and film negatives (not just your paperwork) and insure the contents. Make sure that you are protected - this is not an item to put on the “vague list of important stuff to eventually take care of down the road.”

Originally posted by Jason Lankow from Personal Finance Blog, Online Money Management, Budget Planner and Financial Planning - Mint.com, on October 21, 2008 2:38 PM

Some must-watch video: Joe Biden positively erupts on the campaign trail in Colorado today, hammering away at John McCain over robo-slime-gate and demanding that McCain "bring down those robocalls!"...

"If he's really serious when he said this morning on one of the shows that this election is all about the economy, then I say, `John, stop your ads. Bring down those robocalls,'" Biden bellowed. "If it's about the economy, argue the economy!"

Biden built to his climax: "John, stop these calls!"

Thus using McCain's robo-slime to reinforce the Obama camp's chosen frame for the final month of the race: Anytime McCain steers the discussion towards Obama's bio or character, it's only because he's afraid to debate the economy. It's a frame that shows no signs of cracking or weakening.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on October 21, 2008 2:22 PM

zaha hadid may be known for her architecture, but the london based designer is building quite reputation in
the show industry. the french fashion company lacoste recently announced they would be collaborating with
hadid on a new show design. this project will be the second show designed by the architect (designboom
featured her first shoe design here). the lacoste shoes were unveiled at the frieze art fair in london earlier
this month and should be available in 2009. hadid designed the shoes based on lacoste iconic crocodile
logo, digitizing this and using to play with repeating patterns.

http://www.lacoste.com
http://www.zaha-hadid.com

photos courtesy of lacoste

via new york magazine

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Designboom - Weblog, on October 21, 2008 1:51 PM

From Serious Eats

Faraway look at the broccoli bag (bottom right). So easy to miss the faces.

Upon closer inspection of a Cascadian Farm bag of frozen broccoli florets, blogger Alicia Carrier of bread & honey noticed tiny freakish faces popping out. She needed her macro lens to confirm such weirdness. Talk about a real-life scene from Honey I Shrunk the Kids! Remember when the kids are drowning in a bowl of Cheerios and daddy Rick Moranis almost swallows them?

Tiny things are cute by nature, but when they have faces that are ecstatic to a disturbing degree, they instantly become terrifying.

Originally posted by Erin Zimmer from Serious Eats, on October 21, 2008 1:15 PM

For some kids in the less diverse areas of the country, any black stranger is Obama.

I've heard from 2 different friends with very young children being raised in, ahem, more homogeneous areas of the country who have taken to calling any black strangers Obama.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on October 21, 2008 12:41 PM

Upcoming: paper plane contest in NYC on November 1. (via cory (nice portal!))

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on October 21, 2008 12:27 PM

years ago i promised myself i would vacation here. i need to make more progress.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from the real janelle, on October 21, 2008 11:41 AM

John Hodgman tells a story of aliens, love, Enrico Fermi, and people who are both sexy and deformed.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on October 21, 2008 11:31 AM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from the real janelle, on October 21, 2008 11:16 AM

An interview with the North London Turk, who was one of the biggest heroin dealers in Europe.

Me, my former brother-in-law Yilmaz Kaya, and an Istanbul babas [godfather] named the Vulcan founded the Turkish Connection -- that's a network that smuggles heroin from Afghanistan across Turkey into Europe. Up until the early 90s, Turks had been bringing it in piecemeal. An immigrant would bring in ten keys, sell it, buy a shop in Green Lane and pack it in. We were the first to start bringing it in 100-kilo loads. Stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap...

(via gulfstream)

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on October 21, 2008 9:56 AM

While most street artists dream of a big flat surface for their spray cans, Haze brought out the shape of the Lotus Exige with his painting.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from NYT > NYTimes.com Home, on October 21, 2008 9:44 AM

Examiner column for October 22.

    I have taught through eight presidential elections and am always surprised that students who are too young to vote pay scant attention to political campaigns and their issues.

    That changes in high school. In government class, they are often provided the opportunity to register to vote, a privilege especially welcome every four years during the presidential campaign. This year the primaries seized the imaginations of seniors at Oakton High School in record-breaking numbers. Nearly every student who was eligible to vote took advantage of that basic tenet of our democracy.

    But that leaves out most of the students who attend school daily and hear on the news, at the dinner table, and on Saturday Night Live lots of talk about the election. What are they learning from an election that will affect their future but in which they have no vote?

    Because there is no way to avoid campaign commercials, they are learning about how politicians present themselves and their opponents. They are also learning how to use words to distort another’s position.

    At the last debate when Barack Obama declared that John McCain’s ads “have been 100% negative,” the truth of that claim depended on how far back the “have been” reached. Recently Obama’s ads have been so much more numerous than McCain’s that the actual number of negative ads is probably about equal for the two, but Obama has money to run additional ads without a negative message. Obama’s campaign is not without negativity, but it occupies a smaller proportion of his on-air time.

    And since when is “eloquence” a dirty word?  It worries me when McCain decries Obama’s eloquence in debates and campaign speeches, implying that eloquence and duplicity are one and the same. Both candidates were also ridiculed by the press for civility during the debates—Obama for saying that “John is right…” several times, and McCain for repeatedly calling his audience “my friends.” Don’t we want to encourage eloquence and civility among young people?

    Students absorb these messages. Pollsters tell us that negative tactics work, yet it seems that being negative about negative ads makes a candidate look good. (Is that a double negative?) Will students learn to distort one another’s words to make themselves look good or will they avoid negativity?

    My favorite moments of the campaign have been conciliatory ones, and I hope students also pay attention to those. When McCain defends Obama against attacks by his audience in a town hall meeting, we approve. When Obama acknowledges that McCain is a genuine hero, we nod our heads. Both candidates are authors of fine memoirs that expose their own doubts and weaknesses as well as strengths. In those complex portraits we see what I’d like students to remember instead of the nightly barrage of 30-second sound bites.

    Both candidates champion public service and self-sacrifice, and contribute a major legacy regardless of the election’s outcome. Will students remember that, or the fact that each has called the other a liar? Will they remember Joe the Plumber longer than the losing candidate? This is more than an election—it’s a lesson for our youth, and I only wish that lesson contained fewer mixed messages.

Originally posted by Erica Jacobs from TeacherTalk, on October 21, 2008 9:42 AM

There are terrifying little happy faces hidden on the package of Cascadian Farms frozen broccoli. Be aware.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Jessica Coen, on October 21, 2008 8:56 AM

According to Andrew Marchand of ESPN 1050, citing an executive with knowledge of the team’s thinking, the Mets plan to pursue free-agent RHP Francisco Rodriguez, but are ‘unlikely’ to bid on CC Sabathia.

…this could not have timed out any better for this kid…not only is he the best free-agent closer on the market, and one of the best pitchers in the game, but, at the same time, one of the wealthiest teams in the league, the Mets, who need to overhaul their bullpen, just happen to also need a closer…so, if these two are not at least linked in rumors this off-season, something is very, very wrong with the Hot Stove…

Last week at SI.com, Jon Heyman wrote that the Mets are ‘hesitant,’ with regards to giving Rodriguez a five-year deal.

Heyman also writes, “The Angels don’t seem as gung-ho to retain Rodriguez as one might think,” a notion that also written by the team’s beat reporter, Mark Whicker, in the OC Register.

…as i wrote last week, this is a bit of a red flag to me, since the Angels have the money to bring him back…and so, when a team with money turns its back on one of its own a player, a player they know better than any other team in the league, it raises my eyebrows…or, they’re just playing coy with the market…

Nevertheless, according to a recent report in the New York Post, the Angels continue to be Rodriguez’s first choice.

ShareThis

Originally posted by Matthew Cerrone from MetsBlog.com, on October 21, 2008 8:07 AM

-Photo by Getty Images-
"I hope I don't faint. I'm wearing a corset which is difficult enough, but then to have to wear a corset and be short-breathed around Johnny Depp. It might be my hardest role to date - to keep my cool."

--- Anne Hathaway, on co-starring with Johnny Depp in the upcoming film Alice in Wonderland.

 

Originally posted by Tracy Pepey from iVillage - Daily Blabber, on October 21, 2008 7:41 AM

According to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, the biggest Wall Street banks now getting money from the government are just "too big to fail.” Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke uses a different euphemism – he calls them “systemically critical.” The point is that if any of them goes down, it could take the whole financial system with it. So we taxpayers have to keep them up.

We’re hearing the same argument elsewhere in Washington for saving General Motors. It’s just “too big to fail.” So Congress is considering a bailout that would keep GM afloat and sweeten a merger between GM and Chrysler.

Pardon me for asking, but if a company is too big to fail, maybe – just maybe – it’s too big, period.

We used to have public policies to prevent companies from getting too big. Does anyone remember antitrust laws? Somewhere along the line policymakers decided that antitrust would only be used where there was evidence a company had so much market power it could keep prices higher than otherwise.

We seem to have forgotten that the original purpose of antitrust law was also to prevent companies from becoming too powerful. Too powerful in that so many other companies depended on them, so many jobs turned on them, and so many consumers or investors or depositors needed them – that the economy as a whole would be endangered if they failed. Too powerful in that they could wield inordinate political influence – of a sort that might gain them extra favors from Washington.

Maybe the biggest irony today is that Washington policymakers who are funneling taxpayer dollars to these too-big-to-fail companies are simultaneously pushing them to consolidate into even bigger companies. They’ve prodded Bank of America to take over Merrill-Lynch and Countrywide. JP Morgan to acquire Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns. And now they’re urging General Motors to absorb Chrysler.

So we’re ending up with even bigger giants, with even more power over the economy and politics, subsidized by taxpayers, and guaranteed never to fail because they’re just ... too big.

Originally posted by Robert Reich from Robert Reich's Blog, on October 21, 2008 7:17 AM

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Odds and ends, Apple, Macbook Pro, MacBook

With the introduction of EPEAT Gold rated MacBooks and MacBook Pros last week, Apple has definitely been warming up to the environmental movement lately. So, it was only fitting that they would change a small part of System Preferences to reflect the EPEAT rating.

That's right, the Energy Saver icon has changed from an old incandescent bulb to a newer, more energy-efficient fluorescent bulb. Now you will only have to change the energy saver icon every 7 years, but be careful when you dispose of the old icons because they contain mercury (just kidding).

This change has only shown up on the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Do you think Apple will eventually update their entire line to have this new icon (and, of course, be EPA Gold rated)? We definitely hope so!

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Originally posted by Cory Bohon from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), on October 21, 2008 7:00 AM

I can't remember when I bought this pattern, but it was recently, and I was so excited about it ... the simple bodice plus the pocketed skirt seemed PERFECT. I even made a special trip to Vogue Fabrics to buy black denim! But what I got was this:



Unfortunately, the neck is too low, and the soft pleats, when made in denim, stick out in a bunchy and annoying way.

And here's the back, with more bunchy pleats:



The pockets are edged with metal zipper (and now I'm not so upset that the waist seam didn't match exactly when I put in the side zipper):



And I used the last of my Futura-font fabric to make the neck facing (I figured it pops up every once in a while [yes, even with tacking it at the side seams and understitching] so I might as well make it fun):




I'm calling this an interesting failure, because, well, when you get right down to it, all failures are interesting. I love to know the "why" when things go wrong. This dress *should* have been a success: pockets, black denim, scoop neck, zippers ... no construction issues, no fitting issues ... and yet, when I tried it on, I went "Ugh!"

I think this may be salvageable, though. I can take the waist apart (another ugh) and change the pleats to darts. Not much I can do about the low neckline for this version, but I could make a note to bring it up an inch the next time (remembering to make a new facing pattern). I could also (again for next time) use a slightly lighter-weight fabric (this denim is just a bit too heavy). So perhaps this is not a total failure, but instead a very, very detailed (and possibly someday wearable) muslin ...

Originally posted by Erin from A Dress A Day, on October 21, 2008 5:45 AM

Humorist John Hodgman rambles through a new story about aliens, physics, time, space and the way all of these somehow contribute to a sweet, perfect memory of falling in love. (Recorded February 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 16:39.)

Watch John Hodgman's 2008 talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 300+ TEDTalks -- including much more love.

Get TED delivered:
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Embed this video: Use this code to run the video on your own site:

Originally posted by (author unknown) from TED | TEDBlog, on October 21, 2008 5:00 AM

The Paper Politics show is currently hanging at the Dowd Gallery at SUNY-Cortland in Upstate New York. Andrew Mount, the director at the Dowd sent me these great photos of the show installed. Seems like it's made some ripples up there, upsetting some students who actually asked the administration to remove some of the prints! I'm heading up to Cortland to do a curator's talk on October 28th. Info and directions will be on their website.

Originally posted by Josh M. from Just Seeds: Blog, on October 21, 2008 4:20 AM

This week's spotlight music video is ID Engager by Of Montreal.

Straight out of Athens, Georgia (no, not Montreal), Of Montreal dropped on the scene over a decade ago with their debut album Cherry Peel.

Fronted by the eclectic Kevin Barnes, Of Montreal's sound has been described as a transformation from lo-fi, psychedelic indie-rock to a fuller multi-layered sound with funk, reggae and afro-beat influences.

» This article continues

Originally posted by (author unknown) from EPIC FU blog, on October 21, 2008 3:38 AM

I might make some, I might not. Before I do anything rash, I'm going to float the idea by you guys first. There aren't going to be any major upheavals on this blog at least, so don't worry about that. Let's start with ideas for this blog and go from there.

Part 1 - Possible tweaks to this blog:

Like I said, no massive changes. No new templates, no new logos, no changing formats to a comic blog or something. Same ol' weird card blog as before. I'm looking at most to make some slight cosmetic changes. Many of you (41 at the writing of this post, to be exact) noticed the poll on the upper right corner of the blog. What should I add to the blog, if anything? it says. I'm going to be honest and say that the results were not what I expected. Here are the current results:

Slideshow of card images	9 (21%)
Sell out with AdSense	7 (17%)
Personal stuff that doesn't have anything to do with cards, like favorite music and movies	7 (17%)
The "Follow This Blog" gadget	5 (12%)
A list of the Labels used on the posts	2 (4%)
The Newsreel gadget so you can stay informed	3 (7%)
A Video Bar for when the posts get boring	3 (7%)
Don't change anything, stay mired in the past	23 (56%)

Basically, there were a couple of things I wanted to try, I added a few more options from the new Blogger gadgets that looked interesting and mixed them all up to see if the stuff I wanted to add was actually wanted or not. Over half the votes went to "Don't change anything" which I didn't see coming at all. In fact the first couple of days, it was a complete landslide for stagnation. It also seemed like people were voting for only one thing, when you could check as many as you wanted. Ok so the hardline traditionalists, would only need to check one thing, but the rest of you could choose all of 'em if you liked. There's only 59 votes among 41 ballots which is under 2 per person even if you take out the "don't change votes.

Maybe this is the perfect blog, I don't know, but it seems to me that my not explaining the poll I caused the results to get buggered up. So here's what I'm gonna do: I'm redoing the poll and explaining a) that you can vote more than once and b) what each of the options ultimately means right here. I've got the results from the first one saved up above, and if they correlate the second time I'll follow them and do nothing. Let me make my case for the changes first:

Slideshow of card images - I have about 250 meg worth of images in my Picasa account, I may as well do something with 'em. You can see what it looks like on Shoebox Legends. Not every picture I used was a card, so there will be some interesting weirdness popping up from time to time.

Sell out with AdSense - Ok, this was pretty much a joke and it ended up the second most popular change. C'mon, people. No one ever clicks on those ads anyway.

Personal stuff that doesn't have anything to do with cards, like favorite music and movies - Basically what it says, I'll put up lists of whatever tidbits from my life you want to know about. Last movie watched (Caddyshack), Cd in the player (Mojo Ska compilation), Book I'm reading (um... nothing actually) etc. Nothing too personal, this isn't Livejournal.

The "Follow This Blog" gadget - You can see this in action on Dinged Corners, among others. This has popped up on a bunch of blogs recently and I'm intrigued by it. I really want to know how 6 people are following the blog even though I haven't started using the gadget. I'll follow other blogs if I see the gadget but I haven't figured out if people like it or not.

A list of the Labels used on the posts - This is a big list of the labels I use on the posts put over on the sidebar. You can see this in action on A Pack A Day. It's pretty useful for searching, but with the huge number I've used so far - many of them being really random - it may end up slowing down the load time for the blog.

The Newsreel gadget so you can stay informed - This could be interesting for card, sports and Braves news. Dinged Corners used to have it, but it's gone now. Might slow down the age load, or it might not.

A Video Bar for when the posts get boring - There are scads of box breaks on Youtube, I could try to post a few on the sidebar for fun. I know for a fact that videos = slow though, but it could be worth it.

Don't change anything, stay mired in the past - This again, was half joke, half giving you a way to express resistance to change. If this is what you really want, I'll respect it though.

Recent Comments - Here's one I missed on the first poll. White Sox Cards, Tribe Cards and quite a few Wordpress blogs have this feature and I like it. It's fun seeing what the last few comments have to say.

Last time I randomized the options on the poll, this time not so much. Pick as many options as you like, I'll use your input on any changes I make. Also, feel free to make comments if you want to see anything not listed in the poll, or if you want to make a case for stability.

Part 2 - Things I changed already or will change:

I've shuffled the sidebar slightly to move the Daily Reading list up to the top and shuffled around some of the lesser seen/defunct features to the middle. Right now the Daily Reading list shows the 25 blogs in my blogroll with the most recent posts. I can bump that up to all blogs, BUT... There's 108 blogs on the list right now so you're looking at 4 times the size of that list. I'll probably prune anyone who hasn't updated their blog in over three months as well if I go that option. Anyone with an opinion on this, leave a comment.

The profile image is going to change, I'm retiring the 07 A&G card I made of myself. Blogger keeps chopping the top of my head off and I'm getting a headache. I'm not sure what it's going to be yet, but it will be changed soon. If you love that card and have to have it, it's time to download it now. The goofy title bar and the obscure movie reference logo will stay the same until further notice.

Video - I'm attempting it. Failing miserably so far, but I'm working on it. Expect to see something, sometime, maybe soon, or not. Possibly.

Part 3 - Content

Is there anything you want to see on here that I'm not doing? Anything I used to do but don't anymore that you want back? My focus has gone off the rails recently and I've very susceptible to the power of suggestion right now. Use this power wisely, all you readers who have actually read this far in this insanely long post.

Part 4 - Facebook

Ok, I have no interest in this, but my wife and my best friend have both been pestering me to sign up. One comment from one reader who wants me to do it so I'll friend them will probably push me over the edge. Again, please use your power responsibly.

Part 5 - Auto-Matic For The People

In case you haven't noticed, after a strong start, posting on that blog has been extremely erratic lately. I haven't run out of autographs, it's more a combination of lack of time and lack of interest. There are four options I can see going forward:

Keep everything the same and post when the autograph Muse strikes - The sensible position. No changes, no making waves, quite possibly no posts 'till Thanksgiving.

Add relic, vintage or insert cards to the mix - Kinda do what Bad Wax used to do with Bad Hits, and does now with Tales from the Bargain Bin. Adding some jersey cards might get me out of the rut and back to posting regularly.

Dump it, migrate everything over here and focus on this blog - Let's face it, I haven't even done a title image for the blog yet. It's kind of a distraction from this blog as well. I wouldn't delete it outright, just copy the posts over here one by one and post all future autographs here.

Add new writers to post their own autographs - I could open it up to new blood to keep the posts coming on a more regular basis. I would have several conditions for doing this including strictly sticking to the current format and adding a tag for each writer so I could keep my posts seperate from theirs. It could be doable, if you're interested leave a comment or send an e-mail.

These are my thoughts for now, I'm pretty sure something will be happening here soon, but rest assured there will be no major changes without the reader's approval.

Originally posted by dayf from Cardboard Junkie, on October 21, 2008 3:38 AM

My friend, Adam Zucker, is the director of Greensboro: Closer to the Truth, a documentary, which is playing at Brooklyn College on November 3rd for one day.

November 3rd happens to the 29th anniversary of the Greensboro massacre, when  members of the Communist Workers Party were holding a Death to the Klan rally in Greensboro, North Carolina. Suddenly a caravan rounded the corner, scattering the protesters. Klansmen and Nazis emerged from the cars, unloaded an arsenal of guns and began firing. Five people were killed.

It turns out that a professor and chairperson at Brooklyn College has a profoundly close connection to the event.

Sally Bermanzohn, professor and chairperson of the Political Science Department at Brooklyn College, was a labor organizer in the Duke Hospital cafeteria when her husband Paul was critically wounded in the Greensboro Massacre. 

At present, she is researching and teaching courses on the international phenomenon of truth and reconciliation commissions.  Bermanzohn is the author of Through Survivors’ Eyes: From the
Sixties to the Greensboro Massacre (2003), for which she received the Brooklyn College Award for Excellence in Creative Achievement. 

She also co-edited Violence and Politics: Globalization’s Paradox (2002),which includes her chapter on Violence, Non-violence and the US Civil Rights Movement.

She will be present at the screening of the film,Greensboro: Closer to the Truth, which reconnect many of the players in this tragedy—widowed and wounded survivors, along with their attackers—and chronicles how their lives have evolved in the aftermath of the killings. All converge at the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission ever held in the United States in Greensboro from 2004- 2006 to investigate the Massacre.

The Where and When

Monday, November 3rd at 6:30 p.m.
Greensboro: Closer to the Truth
Brooklyn College
Woody Tanger Auditorium

Originally posted by louise crawford from Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, on October 21, 2008 12:30 AM

Here's a handy top 40 list of street artists to know besides legal installationist and public paint outsourcer Banksy. |Streetsy|

John McCain and Sarah Palin's attacks on Obama are reminiscent of McCarthy era witch hunting. |TheJedReport|

Kanye West naked model video includes clueless racist. |AFC|

Make your own prank robocalls with these virtual soundboards. |Pranks|

Maya Hayuk's art book is "Just Good Vibes." |Modart|

Dr. Doom is way too honest an image for a recruitment poster. |SuperPunch|

Originally posted by ANIMAL from ANIMAL New York, on October 20, 2008 5:40 PM

PhotoSwap is a simple iPhone app: you take a photo, the app sends it to another user at random, and you get a random one in return. Check out a review and a bunch of photos people have received through the app. (thx, david)

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on October 20, 2008 4:39 PM

NY Times editorial: don't bother with bottled water, drink tap instead.

While a lot of bottled water may be as pure as promised in those alluring commercials, the real problem is telling which is which. Public water supplies are regulated by the federal government. Not so for bottled water. The Food and Drug Administration does have some oversight, but bottled water is not very high on their long list of priorities.

(link)

Originally posted by jason@kottke.org from kottke.org, on October 20, 2008 3:14 PM

Interesting report by Arnold Kim, suggesting that the new MacBook lineup offers hardware-accelerated H.264 decoding. In particular, 1080p playback uses now consumes far less CPU time. I presume that the iPhone has done this all along for H.264 playback, but, if true, this would be the first time Macs have used hardware acceleration for H.264. More on this from David Chartier at Ars Technica.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on October 20, 2008 2:12 PM

A year and a half after its initial debut, the deathwatched (and almost shitshow) Wakiya, sweet, sweet, Wakiya, is closing its doors. According to a release today, Ian Schrager and chef Yuji Wakiya's failed project will close on December 21 due to Chef Wakiya's "longstanding commitments in Japan." The Gramercy Park Hotel will open a new restaurant in its place in Spring '09 with a new theme, decor, and kitchen.

We've heard rumblings over the past few weeks that Ian Schrager wasn't happy with the performance of Wakiya and planned on ending the contract at the end of the year, but the flacks have been consistently tight-lipped. They figured out a good way to spin the story below:

"We have been extremely pleased with the excitement and interest that the Wakiya Restaurant and its innovative food generated. It proves that the Gramercy Park Hotel is a tremendous venue for world class dining. Unfortunately, Chef Wakiya has determined that due to longstanding commitments in Japan, he cannot personally devote the time on site that he feels is necessary to operating the restaurant at the highest level. We have decided therefore to close the restaurant on December 21. We wish Chef Wakiya much success in his endeavors in Japan.

As for the Gramercy Park Hotel, we are committed to opening a new restaurant in the spring, featuring new decor and a new kitchen. It will be designed to add even more distinction to the hotel and to appeal both to our guests and the many New Yorkers who have embraced the Gramercy Park for its unique brand of hospitality and style."
Please call me if you have any questions."

· Shitshows: Wakiya [~E~]
· Former Employee Sues Wakiya for $5 Million! [~E~]

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater, on October 20, 2008 1:01 PM

Toni and Aesha invited Michelle and Sofia, and Tesla and I on a girls only pumpkin picking outing to Half Moon Bay. We thought we'd hang out at the Half Moon Bay street festival, but it was way too crowded with no where to sit, so us mamas with 3 babies left pretty quickly. Instead, we stopped at a pumpkin patch, then went on a hay ride. We shared sushi rolls and wine during a break.

We had a blast although were exhausted by afternoon, but it was so worth it to see our gals playing together. For a while, Tesla couldn't get used to the fact that now she was a big girl and Aesha got the special treatment, but she and Fia had great adventures being outdoor together. I can totally see them as sisters!

Originally posted by (author unknown) from Kokochi, on October 20, 2008 12:54 PM

Originally posted by (author unknown) from the real janelle, on October 20, 2008 12:16 PM

Why did Rep. John Lewis have to go and make the honorable John McCain start race-baiting?

Originally posted by Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, on October 20, 2008 11:27 AM

Shared by Jake Dobkin
holy shit-- the day kottke tries to sell me a rotisserie grill is the day i say this tech economy has finally bottomed out. hooray!

With the economy heavy on everyone's mind, analyzing your finances becomes a high priority. Loan Shark, from FoggyNoggin Software, is a beautifully designed, full-featured loan calculator for the iPhone to help do just that. Calculate loan values such as payment, interest rate, and down payment, then view the amortization table for the resulting loan. Or, use Loan Shark to compare various loan scenarios side-by-side so you don't get in over your head with a bad loan. With fantastic customer support and an eye for detail, you can't go wrong with Loan Shark. It's available now for only $4.99 at the App Store.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from kottke.org, on October 20, 2008 11:24 AM

New ADC article introducing MacRuby, Apple’s in-progress project for writing Cocoa applications in Ruby. What makes MacRuby different than the RubyCocoa bridge is that MacRuby is an implementation of the Ruby language built on the existing Cocoa runtime:

More specifically, MacRuby’s fundamental data types such as String, Array, and Hash are re-implemented on top of their CoreFoundation counterparts (CFString, CFArray and CFDictionary, respectively). All strings created in MacRuby are native Cocoa strings and can be passed to underlying C or Objective-C APIs that expect a Cocoa object, no conversion occurs. This implementation detail also implies that strings in MacRuby are UTF-16 compliant by default.

 ★ 

Originally posted by John Gruber from Daring Fireball, on October 20, 2008 10:58 AM

Brad Fitzpatrick is writing Android apps.

My main Android app I care about is my garage door opener. I have a webserver hooked up [to] my garage door opener, so I can open my garage over the network. Combined with a background process doing wifi scanning, the idea's that when I'm on my way home, I pull up to my house on my motorcycle and the garage door magically opens and I back into my garage without taking off my helmet/gloves/etc.

If you've already hooked up a webserver to your garage door opener you're waaaaay down the path to madness, so you know, why the hell not build a mobile app to control it?

Originally posted by Michael Sippey from this is sippey.typepad.com, on October 20, 2008 10:09 AM

Obama, speaking a short time ago on McCain's sleazy robocalls: "You really have to work hard to violate Governor Palin's standards on negative campaigning."

Originally posted by David Kurtz from Talking Points Memo, on October 20, 2008 9:39 AM

In remarks he's delivering right now in Florida, Barack Obama directly takes on John McCain over his robo-slime campaign, an effort to elevate something that might have otherwise remained a process-y obsession of insiders into a genuinely damaging story.

Here's what he said moments ago:

Obama:

In the final days of campaigns, the say-anything, do-anything politics too often takes over. We've seen it before. And we're seeing it again today. The ugly phone calls. The misleading mail and TV ads. The careless, outrageous comments. All aimed at keeping us from working together, all aimed at stopping change.

It's getting so bad that even Senator McCain's running mate denounced his tactics last night. As you know, you really have to work hard to violate Governor Palin's standards on negative campaigning.

That last line is brutal -- isolating McCain even from his running mate -- as is this one a bit later in the speech:

"That's what you do when you're out of ideas, out of touch, and running out of time."

Full speech after the jump.

Late Update: Video added above.

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama--as prepared for delivery

Tampa Bay, Florida

Monday, October 20th, 2008

Hello, Tampa! And congratulations to your Rays! It's great to be back in the Sunshine state. And in just 15 days, you and I can begin to bring some badly-needed sunshine to Washington DC. That's the good news. But we're going to have to work, and struggle, and fight for every single one of those 15 days to bring our country the change we need.

I am hopeful about the outcome. We were thrilled yesterday when a great American statesman, General Colin Powell, joined our cause. But we cannot let up. And we won't.

Because one thing we know is that change never comes without a fight. In the final days of campaigns, the say-anything, do-anything politics too often takes over. We've seen it before. And we're seeing it again today. The ugly phone calls. The misleading mail and TV ads. The careless, outrageous comments. All aimed at keeping us from working together, all aimed at stopping change.

It's getting so bad that even Senator McCain's running mate denounced his tactics last night. As you know, you really have to work hard to violate Governor Palin's standards on negative campaigning.

But we're not going to be distracted. We're not going to be diverted. Not this time. Not this year. Our challenges are too great for a politics that's so small.

Now, more than ever, this campaign has to be about the problems facing the American people - because this is a moment of great uncertainty for America. The economic crisis we face is the worst since the Great Depression. Businesses large and small are finding it impossible to get loans, which means they can't buy new equipment, or hire new workers, or even make payroll for the workers they have.

115,000 workers lost their jobs in Florida this year, more than any other state in this country. Wages are lower than they've been in a decade, at a time when the cost of health care and college have never been higher. It's getting harder and harder to make the mortgage, or fill up your gas tank, or even keep the electricity on at the end of the month. At this rate, the question isn't just "are you better off than you were four years ago?", it's "are you better off than you were four weeks ago?"

So I know these are difficult times. I know folks are worried. But I believe that we can steer ourselves out of this crisis because I believe in this country. Because I believe in you. I believe in the American people.

We are the United States of America. We are a nation that's faced down war and depression; great challenges and great threats. And at each and every moment, we have risen to meet these challenges - not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but as Americans. With resolve. With confidence. With that fundamental belief that here in America, our destiny is not written for us, but by us. That's who we are, and that's the country we need to be right now.

But Florida, I know this. It will take a new direction. It will take new leadership in Washington. It will take a real change in the policies and politics of the last eight years. And that's what this election is all about.

Now, my opponent has made his choice. Senator McCain's campaign actually said a couple of weeks ago that they were going to launch a series of attacks on my character because, they said, "if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose." And that's a promise John McCain has kept. He's been on the attack. That's what you do when you are out of ideas, out of touch, and running out of time. Well, I can take a few more weeks of John McCain's attacks, but the American people can't take four more years of the same failed policies and the same failed politics. That's why I'm running for President of the United States.

We have tried it John McCain's way. We have tried it George Bush's way. It hasn't worked. It's time for something new. It is time to turn the page on eight years of economic policies that put Wall Street before Main Street but ended up hurting both. We need policies that grow our economy from the bottom-up, so that every American, everywhere, has the chance to get ahead. Not just the person who owns the factory, but the men and women who work on its floor. Because if we've learned anything from this economic crisis, it's that we're all connected; we're all in this together; and we will rise or fall as one nation - as one people.

The rescue plan that passed Congress was a necessary first step to easing this credit crisis, but if we're going to rebuild this economy from the bottom up, we need an immediate rescue plan for the middle-class - and that's what I'll offer as President of the United States.

Last week, I laid out a plan that will jumpstart job creation, provide relief to families, and rebuild our financial system. It's a plan that will also help struggling homeowners stay in their homes - something that's particularly important here in Florida, where foreclosures are up 30% over the last year. All across this state, there are families who've done everything right, but who are now facing foreclosure or seeing their home values decline because of bad decisions on Wall Street and in Washington.

The other week, Senator McCain came out with a proposal that he said would help ease the burden on homeowners by buying up bad mortgages at face value, even though they're not worth that much anymore. But here's the thing, Florida. His plan would amount to a $300 billion bailout for Wall Street banks. And guess what? It would all be paid for by you, the American taxpayer. That might sound like a good idea to the former bank lobbyists running my opponent's campaign. But that's not the change America needs.

Look, we must act quickly to end this housing crisis. That's why last March, I was calling for us to help innocent home buyers. And that's why I fought to make sure the recent rescue package gives Treasury the responsibility and authority to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. But we should not put your tax dollars at unnecessary risk. We should not let banks and lenders off the hook when it was their greed and irresponsibility that got us into this mess. We should not be bailing out Wall Street - we should be restoring opportunity on Main Street. And that's what I'll do when I'm President of the United States.

If the American people are going to put up $700 billion to rescue our financial institutions, we should make sure those institutions are doing their part for the American people. That's why I've called for a three-month moratorium on foreclosures. If you are a bank or lender that is getting money from the rescue plan, and your customers are making a good-faith effort to make their mortgage payments and re-negotiate their mortgages, you will not be able to foreclose on their home for three months. Now, we've also put in place long-term measures to restore our credit markets and help families refinance their mortgages, but until those measures start working, we need to help homeowners stay in their homes, and that's what this foreclosure freeze will do.

And while we're at it, there's another step we can take to help innocent homeowners that won't cost taxpayers a dime. Right now, if you own only one home, you're not allowed to write down your mortgage in bankruptcy court. But if you own more than one home - if you own, say, six or seven homes like my opponent - you are allowed to write down your mortgage. That might help Senator McCain sleep easier at night. But it isn't right, and it will change when I'm President of the United States.

But understand, if we're serious about restoring opportunity for our middle class, it's not enough to help people refinance their mortgages. It's not enough to protect your homes from foreclosure. We have to help the hardworking families who are living in those homes with shrinking paychecks and rising costs.

That starts with tax relief. There's been a lot of talk about taxes in this campaign. And the truth is, my opponent and I are both proposing tax cuts. The difference is, he wants to give a $700,000 tax cut to Fortune 500 CEOs. I want to put a $1,000 tax cut in the pockets of 95% of American workers. That's right - 95%. My opponent doesn't want you to know this, but under my plan, tax rates will actually be less than they were under Ronald Reagan.

It's true that I want to roll back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans and go back to the rate they paid under Bill Clinton. John McCain calls that socialism. What he forgets is that just a few years ago, he himself said those Bush tax cuts were irresponsible. He said he couldn't "in good conscience" support a tax cut where the benefits went to the wealthy at the expense of "middle class Americans who most need tax relief." Well, he was right then, and I am right now.

And let me be crystal clear: If you make less than a quarter of a million dollars a year - which includes 98% of small business owners - you won't see your taxes increase one single dime. Not your payroll taxes, not your income taxes, not your capital gains taxes - nothing. That is my commitment to you.

To create more American jobs, I've proposed a tax credit for each new employee that companies hire here in the United States over the next two years. And I'll stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas and invest in companies that create good jobs right here in Florida.

I'll help small businesses get back on their feet by eliminating capital gains taxes and giving them emergency loans to keep their doors open and hire workers. And I will create a Jobs and Growth fund to help states and local governments save one million jobs and pay for health care and education without having to raise your taxes.

These are the steps that we must take - right now - to start getting our economy back on track. But we also need a new set of priorities to grow our economy and create jobs over the long-term.

If I am President, I will invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy to create five million new, green jobs over the next decade - jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced; jobs building solar panels and wind turbines and fuel-efficient cars; jobs that will help us end our dependence on oil from Middle East dictators.

I'll also put two million more Americans to work rebuilding our crumbling roads, schools, and bridges - because it is time to build an American infrastructure for the 21st century. And if people ask how we're going to pay for this, you tell them that if we can spend $10 billion a month in Iraq, we can spend some money to rebuild America.

If I am President, I will finally fix the problems in our health care system that we've been talking about for too long. This issue is personal for me. My mother died of ovarian cancer at the age of 53, and I'll never forget how she spent the final months of her life lying in a hospital bed, fighting with her insurance company because they claimed that her cancer was a pre-existing condition and didn't want to pay for treatment. If I am President, I will make sure those insurance companies can never do that again.

My health care plan will make sure insurance companies can't discriminate against those who are sick and need care most. If you have health insurance, the only thing that will change under my plan is that we will lower premiums. If you don't have health insurance, you'll be able to get the same kind of health insurance that Members of Congress get for themselves. And we'll invest in preventative care and new technology to finally lower the cost of health care for families, businesses, and the entire economy. That's the change we need.

And if I'm President, we'll give every child, everywhere the skills and the knowledge they need to compete with any worker, anywhere in the world. I will not allow countries to out-teach us today so they can out-compete us tomorrow. It is time to provide every American with a world-class education. That means investing in early childhood education. That means recruiting an army of new teachers, and paying them better, and giving them more support in exchange for higher standards and more accountability.

And it means making a deal with every American who has the drive and the will but not the money to go to college. My opponent's top economic advisor actually said that they have no plan to invest in college affordability because we can't have a giveaway to every special interest. Well I don't think the young people of America are a special interest - they are the future of this country. That's why I'll make this deal with you: if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford your tuition. No ifs, ands or buts. You invest in America, America will invest in you, and together, we will move this country forward.

Florida, it's time for a change. I know it, you know it, and the American people know it. The other week, I was in Ohio, and I went to this small town called Georgetown. Now, I was hungry and I needed a snack. So I asked where I could find the best pie in town. And folks pointed to this diner. So I went there, and as I'm waiting for a pie, some of the employees said, "Senator, can you please take a picture with us because the owner is a die-hard Republican and we want to poke him a little."

And just then, the owner comes out. And I said, "Sir, I understand you're a die-hard Republican." He said yes. And I said, "Well, how's business?" He said, "Not so good because my customers can't afford to eat out right now." So I said, "Well, who do you think has been running the economy for the last eight years?" And he said, "The Republicans." Well, I said, "If you keep hitting your head against a wall and it starts to hurt, at some point don't you stop hitting it against the wall?"

Maybe you should try the Democrats for a change.

Now, make no mistake: the change we need won't come easy or without cost. We will all need to tighten our belts, we will all need to sacrifice and we will all need to pull our weight because now more than ever, we are all in this together.

At a defining moment like this, we don't have the luxury of relying on the same political games and the same political tactics that are used every election to divide us from one another and make us afraid of one another. With the challenges and crises we face right now, we cannot afford to divide this country by class or region; by who we are or what policies we support.

There are no real or fake parts of this country. We are not separated by the pro-America and anti-America parts of this nation - we all love this country, no matter where we live or where we come from. There are patriots who supported this war in Iraq and patriots who opposed it; patriots who believe in Democratic policies and those who believe in Republican policies. The men and women from Florida and all across America who serve on our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America - they have served the United States of America.

We have always been at our best when we've had leadership that called us to look past our differences and come together as one nation, as one people; leadership that rallied this entire country to a common purpose - to a higher purpose. And I am running for President of the United States of America because that is the country we need to be right now.

This country and the dream it represents are being tested in a way that we haven't seen in nearly a century. And future generations will judge ours by how we respond to this test. Will they say that this was a time when America lost its way and its purpose? When we allowed the same divisions and fear tactics and our own petty differences to plunge this country into a dark and painful recession?

Or will they say that this was another one of those moments when America overcame? When we battled back from adversity by recognizing that common stake that we have in each other's success?

This is one of those moments. I realize you're cynical and fed up with politics. I understand that you're disappointed and even angry with your leaders. You have every right to be. But despite all of this, I ask of you what's been asked of the American people in times of trial and turmoil throughout our history. I ask you to believe - to believe in yourselves, in each other, and in the future we can build together.

Together, we cannot fail. Not now. Not when we have a crisis to solve and an economy to save. Not when there are so many Americans without jobs and without homes. Not when there are families who can't afford to see a doctor, or send their child to college, or pay their bills at the end of the month. Not when there is a generation that is counting on us to give them the same opportunities and the same chances that we had for ourselves.

We can do this. Americans have done this before. Some of us had grandparents or parents who said maybe I can't go to college but my child can; maybe I can't have my own business but my child can. I may have to rent, but maybe my children will have a home they can call their own. I may not have a lot of money but maybe my child will run for Senate. I might live in a small village but maybe someday my son can be president of the United States of America.

Now it falls to us. Together, we cannot fail. And I need you to make it happen. If you want the next four years looking like the last eight, then I am not your candidate. But if you want real change - if you want an economy that rewards work, and that works for Main Street and Wall Street; if you want tax relief for the middle class and millions of new jobs; if you want health care you can afford and education that helps your kids compete; then I ask you to knock on some doors, make some calls, talk to your neighbors, and give me your vote. In Florida, starting today, you can vote early right here, and right now. To find out how, just go to voteforchange.com. And if you stand with me, I promise you - we will win Florida, we will win this election, and then you and I - together - will change this country and change this world. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless America.

Originally posted by Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central, on October 20, 2008 9:28 AM

From the tipline: "I live in Kensington and we've got this new coffee shop/restaurant out there called the Oak and the Iris. Last week, they gave out free coffee to people going into the Fort Hamilton Parkway F train stop. This week, another coffee shop in the area, the Crossroads Cafe, was there with a full-on coffee cart. Like the kinds you see in Manhattan. Then the Oak and the Iris had a man giving out some kind of free cake. No coffee, just cake. So, in Kensington, it seems we have a coffee shop war brewing." [EaterWire]

Originally posted by Amanda from Eater, on October 20, 2008 9:16 AM

Originally posted in Cool Tools

The uber dream: to live aboard a boat. This book's job is to wise you up about the reality of that fantasy. It will equip you with essential facts for this grand adventure, or else it will graciously eliminate the notion from your head forever. In either case it deserves a medal. This kind of clarity and sound advice is in short supply. Marina bookstores overflow with practical memoirs by salty authors, few of them with a view wider than their own hulls. This one is based on the experience of many liveaboard practicioners in many styles, and is the most useful way to answer the persistent question: "What is really involved living full time on a boat?" To clarify: The Essentials of Living Aboard is concerned with life on a boat that spends the bulk of its time docked, and only cruises occasionally. Your neighborhood will be other boats instead of open water. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say this lifestyle is less about living on a boat and more about living in a marina.

Living Aboard Magazine, still printed on paper, is devoted to the concerns and needs of liveaboards. It's a pretty cozy subculture, in part because the cost of mistakes on water are very expensive and possibly dangerous. Think of this as an old fashioned newsletter for liveaboard users; all material is generated by readers.

Start with the Essentials book and proceed to the magazine if you are not dissuaded.

-- KK

The Essentials of Living Aboard a Boat
Mark Nicholas
2005, 284 pages
$13
Available from Amazon

Living Aboard Magazine

Sample Issue PDF

Sample excerpts from The Essentials of Living Aboard a Boat:

Speaking of investments, in general, boats are not good ones. Not only do boats depreciate in value, but the difference in value between a boat that is 19 years old and 20 years old may be significant, because many financing companies will not lend money for a boat that is 20 or more years old. You may find that you own a boat you cannot one day sell, which makes your boat virtually worthless.

Even adding electronics and fancy gear to your boat won't help much in maintaining value. Once installed, the electronics will immediately depreciate. This isn't like a house (on real land) in which a $15,000 kitchen renovation might bring about $35,000 in increased market value. On a boat, a $2,000 radar system might bring an increased market value to the boat of $500-$1,000. That's an immediate net loss of 50-75 percent. Then, after just a couple of years, the electronics, valuable if separated from the boat, will bring no market value increase at all to the boat.

*
A better deal will always come along, even if that deal does not exist today. When you think that a great deal is passing you by, don't be nervous, because there is another one coming. ... So be patient, my liveaboard brothers and sisters. Relax and enjoy the ride. Don't panic. A better boat is right around the corner. If you remember that, and learn to believe it, this process will be less stressful and more fun; you will be a much better negotiator knowing that you can walk away and still have terrific options. And you will be more emotionally willing to take the time necessary to choose for yourself the best possible boat.

*
We already talked about how accessories are not worth their original prices once installed. Good accessories do not make for a good boat. A good boat is a good boat whether or not it has a good radar system. Unfortunately, a bad boat does not become anything other than a bad boat just because it has a $2,000 chartplotter.

*
Power vs. Sail. Most of the time, your preference is in your heart. Sailors want sailboats. Powerboaters or fishermen want powerboats. The decision is often part of the personality.

Sailboats are slow and quiet, with unlimited range under sail, provided there is wind. They require manual labor to operate. A sailboat that is the same weight as a powerboat will typically have a lower center of gravity because of the keel and ballast; the counterbalancing between the keel and the mast will often give the sailboat greater stability under difficult conditions, both at dock and at sea, than a powerboat of similar displacement. While the rigging and sails can be expensive to maintain, a sailboat in good overall condition has much less operating expense than a powerboat.

*
So the question is: Who in his right mind would want to buy a wooden boat?

The advantage to wooden boats is that they are cheap. An old wooden boat can be purchased for far less than a comparably sized fiberglass boat. Consequently, you get more space for the money. Wooden boats also tend to look and smell nice, and even an inoperable boat might be an excellent choice for someone who does not want to leave the dock or perform much maintenance.

If you don't plan on operating the boat, but have enough cash to buy the boat outright and want to avoid insurance payments, an old wooden boat might provide you with the perfect floating house for a fraction of the money.

As another word of caution, many marinas require that their tenants carry insurance, which might be difficult to acquire for a wooden boat.

*
If logic dictated, very few new boats would be produced. But lots of new boats are produced -- lots and lots, despite the fact that there must be a million used boats for sale at any one time.

*
Almost universally, liveaboards seem to agree that no one should subject himself to living in a boat smaller than 30 feet (this may be the only thing that liveaboards can agree on). ... When you think about how large a boat you should acquire, it is best to at least heed the sentiments of my friend and trusted boat technician Chris Birch, who advises liveaboards to acquire the smallest boat they possibly can fit in, and take the money saved, which is significant, and invest in a landside facility for storage.

*
There is an upside that I truly enjoyed: it is impossible to buy anything else. Spending sprees are no more. There is no room for furniture or wall space for artwork. And since everything on board must be properly secured/stowed before cruising, there is an incentive to limit unsecured possessions. My relatives and friends were all told that gifts should be limited to beer (in cans) and wine, trips to restaurants, and other things that do not take up any space. For everything that is added, something must be removed.

*
Yet another person at a well-known publication told me that the reluctance to discuss costs was tied to an internal policy of trying to avoid discussion of specific topics that could scare people away from boating, and thus, the purchase of the publication.

*
Boats make noise. Noises aboard your boat will be magnified and will reverberate throughout your boat; noises aboard other boats and upon land will be heard, depending on how far away and how soundproof your boat is. Noise travels well over the water (they--I don't know who they are--said that one of the biggest tortures of being a prisoner in Alcatraz Prison in the middle of San Francisco Bay was that one could so clearly hear parties in the city, more than a mile away over the water).

*
Care to guess how much insulation a boat has? None. ... Lack of insulation means that (in addition to added noise) when cold water surrounds the boat, the interior hull and surfaces will chill. We will talk about this in the "Climate" chapter. When there's cool or cold air, the boat's topsides will chill. When it is cold and damp/rainy outside, everything will chill. This is not only uncomfortable, but it also results in condensation.

*
Boats are hard work, and while having a team of people participating in the chores sounds like a blessing for most liveaboards, having less than a team effort is sure to add resentment to the already tight space. Throughout this book, we've talked about how small a boat can be for just one person; add another and the space diminishes substantially. Add a few more and you create a wonderful system of communal living... in a fraction of the space of a commune.

*
Dogs present other challenges. One family in my marina has trained their dog to use the foredeck as his bathroom. I have always found this to be a bit off-putting, but since this family did some extensive cruising, this was the only acceptable location for this activity. The family would clean the waste whenever they noticed it and hose the urine off daily.

*

Tarps provide protection from the sun, wind, and rain.

Sample excerpts from Living Aboard Magazine:

Living aboard is a dream many share and more and more are achieving. As jobs become more flexible, home offices become more powerful, and people demand more from their lives, the trend is on the rise. Many thousands of people from all walks of life live on all kinds of boats, forming a diverse community with a wide range of personal interests and experience. It is a lifestyle that transcends economic and social boundaries. A sailor in Seattle described the liveaboard community in his marina as comprised of engineers, nurses, mechanics, naval architects, entrepreneurs and salespeople. There are families with young children who live aboard, there are retired couples, single men and women, college students, and nine-to-five professionals. They live wherever there is water on all kinds of boats - of all sizes and makes. They live on lakes and rivers and oceans, north and south, east and west, in all kinds of climates. Some live in marinas, some live on the hook, some cruise, some stay put, leading different lives in different places. What they hold in common is a fierce independence, love of the water and a spirit of adventure. They are a community, albeit a diverse one, bound by their unique lifestyle.

*
We gradually realized that what had started out to be a vacation or a lark, a mid-life dalliance, had become something more. In our 50s, when most of the daily tasks ashore demanded only that we repeat what we already knew how to do, we learned new skills and rejoiced in knowing we could. At a stage when we had come to rely on a circle of old friends and family, we constantly met new people whose friendship we now prize.

*
Moving aboard a small sailboat meant leaving behind the accumulation of stuff that had clung to us over the years. I disposed of former treasures at a series of yard sales and rented a storage unit for the bits of furniture, ski equipment, winter clothes and memorabilia that we would use to jump-start our lives when we stopped wandering. I enrolled in classes called "Medicine at Sea" and "The Offshore Cook." We took part in a weekend seminar demonstrating rescue-at-sea techniques. I took scuba diving classes and Ham radio license exams. Finally, we sold our home in the suburbs, quit our jobs, and closed the bank account. It took six years from the time we decided to "live differently" until we were ready to go.

*
Among all the lessons learned, the most lasting and important was neither how to safely negotiate a lock on the Erie Canal nor how to navigate through a Maine fog. It was an appreciation for time; the realization that what time we squander today will not be available tomorrow.

*
How much does it cost?

Once the dream of living aboard begins to take shape, reality intrudes with the question, "What will it cost?" One answer is, "How much do you have?" It can cost as much to live on a boat as it does to live on land - it all depends on your lifestyle. Some people cheerfully eat macaroni and cheese, others won't leave the dock without a pasta maker. Some live for a month on what it takes another to pay the cell phone bill. Living Aboard surveys show that most fulltime liveaboards have retirement or investment income; others, however, choose to begin enjoying their boats while still working, keeping their jobs on land and commuting from their boat. A select few move their office or business aboard. And some take their retirement in pieces, cruising until the money runs low and then dropping anchor and obtaining temporary jobs to refill the cruising kitty.

Originally posted by (author unknown) from KK Lifestream, on October 20, 2008 9:05 AM

On a conference call with reporters just now, the McCain campaign rolled out its grand new push-back against Obama's smashing $150 million September in fundraising: There's something fishy going on here.

The root of their argument is that about $300 million of Obama's total fundraising to date has come from donors whose amounts were lower than the $200 threshold at which the campaign would legally be required to itemize and disclose the donors' identities -- and there are so many of them that the Obama camp has said it would be unfeasible to itemize them all voluntarily.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis rolled out a new term for these donations: "Secret Donations."

"And I only say secret because I have no doubt that there are sort of -- the vast majority of those are probably legitimate," Davis explained. "But they're being kept secret by the Obama campaign, for no good reason."

Davis later made a direction accusation that Obama "gets away with raising illegitimate money and spending it," and questioned the campaign's honesty when they say they've been returning bad donations that have been flagged.

Late Update: Here's the audio of the call:

Click To Play

Originally posted by Eric Kleefeld from TPM Election Central, on October 20, 2008 8:38 AM

Penelope's a good sport, and she's adorable even dressed as Gallagher:

Originally posted by Benjamin Trott from Stupidfool.org, on October 20, 2008 7:18 AM

Updated 10:15 a.m. By Juliet Eilperin COLORADO SPRINGS -- GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin last night criticized the automated calls the Republican National Committee and her own campaign have put out linking Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama to former Weather Underground member William Ayers, even though she did not call for a halt to the controversial practice. "If I called all the shots, and if I could wave a magic wand," Palin told her...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Originally posted by The Trail from The Trail, on October 20, 2008 6:52 AM

The Ol’ Perfesser from Ballet in the Dirt

(via

radar

)

Originally posted by finn from Modcult, on October 20, 2008 5:51 AM

From Serious Eats

Here's a question for all you serious eaters: Where do you take El Bulli's Ferran Adrià, the Spanish toque god, molecular gastronomy master, who closes his restaurant in Spain for half the year just to come up with new dishes and new gastronomic ideas, to eat in New York City? Where do I take the man who is generally considered to be the greatest, most influential and innovative chef in the world, for a late breakfast or brunch in Gotham? Not an easy question, is it?

According to Wikipedia, Adrià's stated goal is to "provide unexpected contrasts of flavor, temperature, and texture. Nothing is what it seems. The idea is to provoke, surprise and delight the diner." So I decided I had to take Adrià somewhere that would provoke, surprise, and delight him.

I thought about one of David Chang's places, because Chang often cites Adrià as one of his heroes, but his restaurants are not open at 10:30 a.m. Same with Wylie Dufresne's Adrià-influenced WD-50. Plus, Adrià doesn't need to come to New York to see what he has wrought. Ferran Adrià can find that anywhere, in virtually any city in the world. That's how pervasive his influence has become. He needs provocation and surprise and delight, and I was determined to find it for him somewhere in New York's food culture.

So where do you take the man who has cooked everything? Somewhere he can taste food and experience something and someplace for the very first time, somewhere that will resonate in his heart, soul, and palate. That's how I found myself at Katz's Deli on the Lower East Side eating a pastrami sandwich, a hot dog, a knoblewurst, and washing it all down with New York City's own contribution to the food foam culture, the egg cream. And just to complete the experience we headed over to Russ & Daughters for a bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese.

Did he like it? He lurved it all. Well, not quite all. It turns out there are limits to his tolerance for foam, especially foam done badly.

Adrià was in town to promote his new book, A Day at El Bulli. I figured that when in Rome (New York) he should eat like a New Yorker. That's how we ended up at Katz's.

Adrià smiled knowingly as we walked into Katz's. Though he had never been to a Jewish deli, he understood the feelings of generous bounty evoked by Katz's. What he didn't understand was the ticket billing system. I suggested to him through his translator that he give a punch ticket to every patron at El Bulli. Each time one of the thirty courses comes he could punch the ticket. Somehow I don't think that's going to happen at El Bulli, a place that receives two million requests a year for one of its 2,000 coveted spots available nightly from May through September (next year the restaurant is not going to open until June 20).

We sidled up to the sandwich line and ordered two pastrami sandwiches, one on club and one on rye. When our Dominican sandwich maker overheard Adrià speaking Spanish to both his translator and his American colleague Jose Andres (who was along for the meal) he immediately started a conversation with him. Now who didn't understand what was being said? Me of course.

Adrià may have never been to a deli or eaten pastrami before, but on some primal level he understood why Katz's is important. He said the following through a translator: "Places like these have soul, that the food it serves obviously connects very deeply to its customers. I understand this pastrami, these pickles, the sausage. I can connect them to things we eat in Spain. Believe it or not, that's what we try to do at El Bulli, try to connect what we serve to our guests in the same fashion. We just do it in a different way."

While there's no Katz's-like kibitizing with your server at El Bulli, Adrià finds other ways to connect with his customers: "When you walk into El Bulli, the first thing you see, you experience, is the kitchen. That way we get people to feel at ease, to help them relax before all the surprises come. It's like when you have people over to dinner at your house and you invite them to open your fridge. It makes everyone relaxed and not uptight. It makes them feel more confident. It makes them feel more at home."

What Adrià couldn't connect to is the egg cream: "I must say I don't really understand this thing you call an egg cream. It doesn't seem to go well with the pastrami, and doesn't have much flavor. And there doesn't seem to be any egg in it."

He was right. Katz's made Ferran Adrià a truly awful egg cream, in a plasticized paper cup no less, and here's the ultimate shame, no foamy head. I obviously hadn't sufficiently explained Adrià's importance to the egg cream maker.

The bad ice cream didn't stop Ferran. He tore into the pastrami and the knoblewurst with gusto:"What I love to do is create something unique, something like this, and share it with my guests. That creating, that sharing, is what it's all about for all chefs, I do believe."

He understood the magic of Katz's: "Food and the experience of eating it should be magical. Eating this food is magical in its own way. It is special, it makes people feel good to eat here."

We walked down the street to Russ & Daughters, where Nikki Federman shared the 100 year-old history of her family's business. Adrià sampled a bagel with cream cheese with smoked salmon and pronounced it delicious. But it was more than deliciousness that he recognized at both Russ & Daughters and Katz's.

As we were leaving Russ & Daughters, Adrià smiled knowingly and said, "You can feel the souls of these places. That's what I want people to feel at El Bulli."

He thanked me and turned to get into his car. Looking over his shoulder he said, "You should come to eat at El Bulli."

I hope I get to take him up on his offer. Until then I'm working on my own molecular gastronomy (or deconstuctivist cooking as Adrià likes to call his food) equation:

Pastrami plus bagels and lox minus a bad egg cream=heart and soul and serious deliciousness.

Originally posted by Ed Levine from Serious Eats, on October 20, 2008 4:30 AM

From Serious Eats

Here's a question for all you serious eaters: Where do you take El Bulli's Ferran Adrià, the Spanish toque god, molecular gastronomy master, who closes his restaurant in Spain for half the year just to come up with new dishes and new gastronomic ideas, to eat in New York City? Where do I take the man who is generally considered to be the greatest, most influential and innovative chef in the world, for a late breakfast or brunch in Gotham? Not an easy question, is it?

According to Wikipedia, Adrià's stated goal is to "provide unexpected contrasts of flavor, temperature, and texture. Nothing is what it seems. The idea is to provoke, surprise and delight the diner." So I decided I had to take Adrià somewhere that would provoke, surprise, and delight him.

I thought about one of David Chang's places, because Chang often cites Adrià as one of his heroes,