Saturday, March 22, 2008

Say it Aint so Joe

Publications as mainstream as Time Magazine have begun referring to Senator Joe Lieberman as a possible running mate for Republican John McCain. Is it really true? Could Joe Lieberman really be considering shacking up in the White House with the conservative agenda's best bet for holding on to the presidency? In the immortal words once spoken to Shoeless Joe Jackson, "say it aint so Joe!"

Let's get this straight. John McCain believes (from his campaign website) that
"...Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned..."
"...the institution of marriage is a union between one man and one woman..."and that it should be "...a federal crime for researchers to use cells or fetal tissue from an embryo created for research purposes..."
And let's not forget that this is the guy that goes around singing "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."

The scary possibility is that Joe Lieberman with be the nadir this year, instead of Nader -- handing center of the road voters to the conservative coalition and dooming our country to at least four more years of horribly misguided policies, further damaging our reputation in the world, and further eroding our economy.

SAY IT AINT SO JOE

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

TED: Also a great conference

No the TED -- http://www.ted.com conference is not named after me, but instead stands for Technology Education and Design. For the past month I have been taking advantage of the incredible gift that TED has given all of humanity (or at least that portion that has Internet access and understands English) by making years and years of their conference talks available as podcasts.

To say that the speakers at TED are amazing wouldn't do justice to the incredible breadth of knowledge and depth of experience that these remarkable people have achieved and are able to share through engaging presentations. Must see TV for any curious person -- it almost doesn't matter which 20 minute talk you choose. They are all hidden treasure waiting to be discovered.

What I have been doing is downloading them to my iPhone and listening to a few each day during my morning run. Sometimes I have to stop and switch to the video, as the visual elements are often amazing -- but mostly I just listen. And then go on thinking about the ideas for days.

Highly recommended!