This is an old page from Rod Begbie's blog.
It only exists in an attempt to prevent linkrot. No new content will be added to this site, and links and images are liable to be broken. Check out begbie.com to find where I'm posting stuff these days.
Outstanding interview with Barney Frank. Massachusetts and the Democratic Party are going to miss him.
If the Republicans win everything in November, then we’re in for a very bleak period, because they’ll take it as ratification of this anti-government attitude. I think it’s going the other way. I have a bumper sticker for us: “We’re Not Perfect, But They’re Nuts.” And I think the public buys that.
“Romney has won every state that boasts at least one Williams-Sonoma store for every 1 million residents. If the correlation holds, Romney will take the Williams-Sonoma-heavy states of California, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island.”
This year’s GOP primary clusterfuck? Deliberately engineered to make the race more exciting.
Several friends posted this to Facebook with the message, “Please watch this. It’s important.” They are not lying. Please watch this. It’s important.
Probably the most interesting measure on next week’s ballot. I’m hoping it passes, despite not having had a puff in years.
“If the current ruling survives [the Supreme Court], same-sex marriage will essentially become legal in every state. There was nothing to limit this holding to Prop. 8.”
The one email I’ve received this week from my current house representative, Nancy Pelosi: Pelosi Update
Two emails I’ve received this week from my former house representative, Mike Capuano: March 16th, 2010, March 20th, 2010
I wish Mike Capuano was still my congressman. Cambridge & Somerville: You’re lucky to have him.
Redditors collaborated and voted on questions, Barney Frank answers them. His answer to the question about the GLBT march is essential viewing.
NPR piece on Mike Capuano, my old House representative in Somerville, running for Ted Kennedy’s senate seat. MA residents: Please give him your consideration. “He’s not afraid of being seen as a Washington insider. In fact, he tells the crowd of about 70 people, that’s exactly what they should be looking for in a senator.”
Back catalogue of Mike Capuano’s e-update newsletters. Incredibly open, especially in comparison to the PR dreck I get from my current representative, Nancy Pelosi.
This makes me very happy. Mike Capuano was my representative when I lived in Somerville, and always impressed me. I still subscribe to his constituent’s email list, where he openly discusses the way he has voted on House issues. I’d encourage any of my friends in MA to seriously consider him if they vote in the Democratic primary.
Now at five stars.
A beautiful essay by a friend about how important same-sex marriage has proven to be when faced with the unexpected death of his husband.
This is exactly my attitude (which I refer to as “left-wing capitalism”). People should be free to earn as much money as they can, but an increasing amount of it should be taxed.
A scorecard for tracking President Obama’s campaign promises. A great idea.
Portraits of Obama’s transition team. Someone should make a map of these portraits to their fictional “The West Wing” counterpart.
Yes, I know it’s still the honeymoon period, and Obama isn’t even president yet, but still… His appointment of a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who has been researching renewable energy to the post of Secretary of Energy is such a great sign. Really excited for the next four years.
Remoulding the US electoral map based upon population, rather than geographic, size.
A genuinely gracious and powerful speech. “I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises, to bridge our differences, and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.”
How the electoral college of “the world” would vote. Unlike most of the other online polls, this at least has an ounce of statistical rigour to it. Also interesting: Which countries think the US presidential choice will have an effect on them.
“This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus.” I love Hitchens.
The engineers who “designed” these machines, and the civil servants who approved their use, should be named, shamed and banned from ever being involved in electoral process again. Love the way the guy is trying to argue “Well, this would only happen if the machine is misconfigured”, then configures it correctly and it STILL fucks up.
Feeling oddly patriotic that the combination of easy access to video cameras and internet video distribution mean a fifth-grader can score an interview with a VP candidate and share it with the world!
I mostly enjoy FiveThirtyEight for the statistical geekery, but some of the blogessays posted are great too. I really enjoyed this one by Sean Quinn on “The Three Ashleys”
Op-Ed piece encouraging taking “Moneyball” approach to healthcare. Hands up anyone who ever thought they’d see the NYTimes run an article with the byline “By BILLY BEANE, NEWT GINGRICH and JOHN KERRY”.
WHY was I not aware of this sooner‽ A *THOROUGHLY* splendid satirical weekly podcast featuring John Oliver (off of The Daily Show) and the man who I described as his “erstwhile” UK comedy partner (until I discovered they were doing this podcast together), Andy Zaltzman. Absofuckinglutely fantastic.
All manner of interesting statistics and visualizations drawn out of the presidential debate transcripts.
Great profile in New York Magazine of Nate Silver and the sterling work he’s been doing at fivethirtyeight.com. Got to love anyone who can make a living from a combination of baseball, politics and obsessive number-crunching.
Unashamed racist waiting in line outside a Sarah Palin rally. McCain/Palin may not be being outwardly racist themselves, but they’re certainly creating an atmosphere where racists feel comfortable sharing their abhorent views.
“30 graphic designers create 30 posters and give you their 30 reasons to vote for Barack Obama on November 4th.”
Another focused attack site funded by the Obama campaign. I wonder how the return-on-investment compares between these and running 30 second commercials.
Another “attack” site from the Obama campaign. Wish there was a bit more hyperlinkage for sources.
The Obama campaign aren’t resting on their current lead in the polls. This shows promise that they intend to keep fighting all the way to election day.
The US political “system” in a nutshell: “According to an eye-opening report released Tuesday, 60 million people whom you would never talk to, would never be in a position to talk to, and wouldn’t even be able to talk to if you tried will be voting for the other candidate in this year’s presidential election, and there is nothing you can do about it.”
A little project that’s been going on here at Current Towers - During the presidential debates, we’ll be diving into Twitter and putting the *real* debate up on national TV in real(ish) time. (And who’s that handsome avatar halfway through the promo…?)
“Years from now presidential historians will look back on Sept. 9 as the day the 2008 campaign got completely and utterly stupid.” I felt massively depressed on Wednesday, as the pig/lipstick and kiddie-sex-ed trains swiftboated on.
The Daily Show digs out the clips proving politicians’ hypocrisy so the grown-up media doesn’t have to.
“Barack Obama will cut taxes for over 95% of American families.”
Taken from a comments thread on Current.com:
I agree, this site is supposed to be in the hands of the people, but it seems to be serving as a liberal propaganda machine. I am liberal but I still think there should be some sort of equality in the way news is reported. I do realize the majority of the people on this site have liberal views and therefore the site would have more liberal stories, but I would still like to see some conservative reporting and then discussed by the rest of the viewers. Also, has anyone noticed the conservatives on this site are borderline retarded?
It’s the last sentence that really gets to the root of the problem, IMO.
Sean Tevis’s xkcd-style request for campaign funds for his attempt at the Kansas legislature ended up bringing in almost $100k. It’ll be interesting to see how he fares in November.
An information architect explains his reasons for running for state office in Kansas, in an xkcd stylee. Worth sending $8.34 to.
TheyWorkForYou has a crowdsourcing project matching the Hansard transcripts of parliamentary debates to BBC video. It’s pretty easy work if you keep going through one debate (and you get to watch a little bit of politics in action). Fancy taking a half hour to help them out?
The state of Alaska, the polio vaccine, and both of Barack Obama’s parents are younger than John McCain.
I have to admit, this commercial made my jaw drop a little. Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson side by side, in a spot for climate change prevention.
Most gloriously offensive Onion headline in a while? Perhaps.
“The path to a more perfect union […] requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.”
The Obama campaign responds to a Clinton press release in a format which highly resembles a snarky follow-up on USENET.
“What’s the picture that emerges from these four impressions?
Smart, normal, curious, not radical, and post-Boomer.
If you were asking me to write a capsule description of what I would look for in the next President of the United States, that would be it.”
Obama t-shirts in a baseball-logo stylee. (Notably lacking in any donation to the campaign, though)
Photos of some of the delightful treats on sale this week at the “Conservative Political Action Conference”. Mmmm… misogynriffic!
Please vote for Barack Obama.
As you may have noticed from my links and tweets, I’m supporting Obama this year. The reasons are many, but primarily it’s because we’ve had eight years of a horribly divisive presidency, and I believe this country (and the world) needs a leader who can bring people together, rather than split them further apart. (Hillary Clinton is a fine person and a skilled politician, and I will support her if she gets the Democratic nomination, but she gathers as much loathing from some people in this country as I feel towards Bush and Cheney)
Every vote counts. All Democratic primaries tomorrow are assigning delegates through proportional-ish representation (unlike the Republicans, whose primaries are mostly first-past-the-post winner-takes-all affairs).
I’m still disenfranchised in the US, despite having lived here since 1998. All I can do is ask others to vote. If you have any reservations about voting for Obama, email or IM me—I’ll see if I can do anything to change your mind.
My application for citizenship is in the mail, and there’s a decent chance that I might be a US citizen in November. Nothing would make me prouder than getting to vote for Obama in my first presidential election.
Thank you.
Song and video by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas (plus a bunch of other artists), based upon Obama’s stump speech. I cannot imagine anyone doing this with a Romney speech.
The Economist has an outstanding US Politics blog. In depth, funny and required reading.
Caroline Kennedy endorses Obama. “I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.”
Been putting off joining the EFF? Now might be a bloody good time to break out your chequebook. Anyone know of a link to the original New Yorker article on which this scare-story is based?
Jimmy Carter op-ed piece from The Onion. “You better get down on your hands and knees and kiss Jimmy Carter’s rosy-red Georgia-peach-picking ass and beg me to run your fucking country again, because there’s no way I’m ever gonna come to you fuck-knobs and politely ask you if I might please be a presidential candidate in your precious fuckin’ election.”
electoral-vote.com is back up and running, and tracking polls prior to the primaries. I’m now following it with approximately the intensity I was tracking the AL East in September!
Excellent and timely curmudgeoning by Christopher Hitchens.
“We’ve gone from a country that could not imagine having a black president, to one where people compete to prove their candidate is blacker than the other. Amazing.”
Danny outlines the achievements of the Open Rights Group in the political and media spheres in the UK. I’ve been proudly sending them my £5-a-month since they started, and consider it a bargain. You should join them too.
Analyzing the design details of the 2008 political campaign logos.
Cunning — Amazon.com has been told it must start collecting sales tax from New York residents, because it has “salespeople” in NY. Those salespeople? New Yorkers with Amazon affiliate links on their website. Wonder if this will hold…
Highlighting the best of the right-wing hystericals who post to the BBC News “Have Your Say” boards.
“The person responsible for administering Copyright law in the US doesn’t own a computer.” This explains a *lot*.
“When writer Elena Lappin flew to LA, she dreamed of a sunkissed, laid-back city. But that was before airport officials decided to detain her as a threat to security”
Supreme Court judge Justice Antonin Scalia: “Are you going to convict Jack Bauer? Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don’t think so.” No, really. Frightening.
Who would have thought that having three different voting systems (First past the post, regional list, and STV) on one ballot paper would cause confusion? Gah!
Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA): “Maybe mash-ups are transformative new art that expands the consumers experience and doesn’t compete with what an artist has made available on iTunes or at the CD store. And, I don’t think Sir Paul [McCartney] asked for permission to borrow that bass line, but every time I listen to that song, I’m a little better off for him having done so.”
John Edwards’s campaign is Twittering his campaign stops.
“Federal prosecutors counted immigration violations, marriage fraud and drug trafficking among anti-terror cases in the four years after 9/11 even though no evidence linked them to terror activity, a Justice Department audit said Tuesday.”
Al Franken’s announced his senate run for 2008. I’d vote for him.
Even funnier than “Fake Steve”. “Great. Liz Taylor is endorsing me. Can someone please find a way to shut this old bag up? I mean who’s next? Michael Jackson?”
Heh. He’s probably the only person who’d have a chance at being a Republican senator for Massachusetts.
Our Attorney General: “The Constitution doesn’t say, ‘Every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas.’ It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended”
The UK goverment has started posting public responses to petitions filed using their “Petition the Prime Minister” site. They’re mostly your standard “don’t worry your sweet head” brush-off you’d get from writing to your MP, but it’s good to see, nonetheless.
About 10% of British citizens live outside the UK. /me waves from the U.S. of Stateside.
Alarmingly prescient story from January 2001. “Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there’s much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation’s hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it.”
Proof that Massachusetts don’t need no stinking electronic voting machines to disenfranchise its citizens. We can disenfranchise them the good ol’ fashioned way: with paper.
Could this year’s election result in a hanging-chad-like farrago which convinces the general public that electronic-voting-without-paper-trail is A Bad Thing? I don’t know whether I should hope it does or doesn’t happen.
“the idea that ever fewer Americans are showing up at the polls should be put to rest. What’s really happening is that the number of people not eligible to vote is rising — making it seem as though turnout is dropping.”
“His campaign style is so completely unhinged that political observers openly speculated in 2004 that the then-73-year-old was suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s … To scotch the rumors, Bunning was forced to hold a press conference and offer up doctor’s reports.”
To protest against the stupid law that prevents “unlawful demonstrations” near the the UK Houses of Parliament, Mark Thomas stages 21 licensed one-man demonstrations in one day. “10.45am, Hungerford Bridge: Demonstration to demand Trolls for London Bridges”
Sizable chunks of Question Time are being made available as a podcast. Hooray for Auntie Beeb and her new media tendencies. Grumpy arguing politicians is hawt.
The Boston Globe has endorsed Deval Patrick for the gubernatorial primaries in MA. Patrick is one of those rare politicians who, the more I read and hear about him, the more impressed I am with him.
“By reporting this entirely true information, we hope to sap America’s fighting spirit”
Dems suggest that medical malpractice suits can be avoided by… hey! Reducing the number of times doctors or nurses screw up. That’s just crazy enough to work.
I’ve been impressed with Bjorn Lomborg since reading an article he wrote in The Economist on the Kyoto agreement five years ago. Here, he argues that, while global warming is a problem, it should be a fantastically low priority for funding compared to AIDS or Malaria.
Fascinating bitchfest on the BBC discussion site around Scottish folks not supporting England in international sporting events. Interestingly, most of the kneejerk racist comments are from the English, accusing Scots, amongst other things, of being “bitter miserable idiots”.
State funeral for the old bag? NFW! My mum was riled enough by this to write to Tony Blair and complain!
Tom DeLay’s legal fund uses a Colbert mock interview to “discredit” anti-Delay filmmaker.
Tax preparation companies in California are lobbying against simple tax forms. Unbe-fucking-lievable.
“Overall, the findings … show that for young people, no other news source drives cynicism toward the candidates and the political system more than The Daily Show.”
Damnit! Why didn’t I find out about this until I was already at my desk? I could totally have done with pulling a sickie, and pretending it was a political statement.
Stephen Colbert performs a superbly scathing speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner. President? Not laughing. “When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no matter what happened Tuesday.”
British citizens — Renew your passport in May to guarantee yourself ten years before being forced onto the National ID database.
“Simply pour in your coffee or any hot beverage and watch the painstaking work of the founding fathers vanish before your eyes.” Genius!
The 139-page ruling. My favourite bit starts on page 31, and explains how “Of Pandas And People” (the “textbook” that kids in Dover were supposed to read as part of their biology class) had the word “creationism” search-n-replaced to “intelligent design” after the 1987 ruling saying teaching “creationism” was unconstitutional. These fundamentalist fuckwits are shameless.
Politicians’ claims that police need to hold terror suspects for 90 days because of the time taken to decrypt files. Ross Anderson refutes it, saying “You find the key lying around, or you give up.” Tsk, those pesky experts ruining Tony Blair’s day.
“Sign up to hear from your MP about local issues, and to discuss them with other constituents”. Fantastic idea. Build up a captive audience for your MP, effectively forcing them to speak to you, then giving you a forum to discuss.
Tube station shut down because of man “acting suspicously” (wearing an overcoat and sending text messages, apparently). Police arrest him and confiscate lots of computer/electronics equipment from his house. They eventually drop charges (although they don’t return his property). Unfortunately for them, said man has the skill and contacts to get his story told on the front page of The Guardian. Feeling safer, Britain?
Excellent article by Malcolm Gladwell explaining just how horrendously fucked-up the US health industry is. “Because the uninsured are sicker than the rest of us, they can’t get better jobs, and because they can’t get better jobs they can’t afford health insurance, and because they can’t afford health insurance they get even sicker.”
This is an archive of groovmother.com, the old blog run by Rod Begbie — A Scottish geek who lives in San Francisco, CA.
I'm the co-founder of Sōsh, your handy-dandy guide for things to do in San Francisco this weekend.
