And now, to bed

Chapter n of n has left the building, and now it's time to get a real night's sleep. Although there may possibly be some alcohol first.

Born to Run

At first, I just chuckled at the idea of Springsteen for US Senate from NJ. And then I thought, "Y'know, it just might work."

Up till now, the Republicans and Independents have had a lock on celebrity politicians. I think the Dems need one as well.

Feeling Good After an Election (for a change)

Now we remember what it feels like to be happy the day after an election. Here in California, all of the propositions in Arnold's foolish, wasteful special election went down to defeat, as detailed in this article from the SF Chron: Californians Say No to Schwarzenegger. It's near-criminal that the election, which could have easily been postponed until next year's primary elections, cost the state 50 million badly-needed dollars. And the overall campaign for all the measures cost nearly $300 million, money which certainly did not need to have been spent. We've paid the price for Arnold's arrogance. Now let's get rid of him next year, if he even bothers to run for reelection. Here in Sonoma County, Measure M, the ban on genetically engineered organisms, failed as well.

Smackdown, baby!

Kathy Sierra writes about how she is:

doing a panel at SXSW with Dori Smith, Shelley Powers, and Virginia DeBolt on "Why are women invisible on the web: whose butts should we be kicking?" As many of you know, I don't even agree with the premise of the title (I'm a woman, I certainly am not invisible on the web), and I have intense disagreements about this with the other women on the panel, so... it should be a rather festive panel ; ) (I'm thinking smackdown)

Shelley responds:

Smackdown! Love it.

A smackdown sounds perfect to me. One of my favorite things in life is to passionately argue with smart people (hey, Tom and I didn't get together by accident!). This session is going to be a blast. I'm sick and tired of the stereotypical "women's panel" at conferences turning into a whiny, we're so downtrodden, the solution is to make more teenage girls miserable, singin' it to the choir fests. Let's have a good old-fashioned debate and disagreement, and maybe, if we're lucky, we'll all have learned a little something by the end. Me, I can't imagine being in a room listening to people this sharp (of whatever gender) and not ending up smarter when it's over.

Kathy ends up saying:

I have to hand it to Dori, of whom I'm a big fan, for putting together a panel that offers differing perspectives.

This is actually something I learned from Tom. Years ago, at Macworld Expo, I was moderating a "Java on the Mac" panel, and I had a pre-session lunch with my panelists. It turned out that two of them disagreed passionately about whether or not Java development on the Mac was even possible. I was freaking out over my panelists arguing with each other, when Tom leaned over from the next table and said, "Guys, this is great stuff—but save it for the session. Don't use up all that energy now."

I went from dreading the two guys fighting to looking forward to seeing the sparks. It was educational all around, I thought, and a hell of a lot more interesting than most of the dreadful four-people-on-stage-all-saying-the-same-thing snoozefests that you usually hear. The minute I got a chance to organize this panel, I knew I wanted to get smart and witty women with strong opinions, and to hell with whether or not we presented a united front.

Be there: Austin, TX. Sunday, March 12, from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm. I've already been told by Hugh that lunch follows, so we're allowed to run over our time slot if necessary. I'll bet we do.

We voted

Or, as Tom said as we walked in, "How many times do we have to vote against Arnold?"

Audiophile Insanity

I don't consider myself to be an audiophile or a videophile. Now, Dori may look at the gear that I have in the living room and disagree, but that's just because she doesn't know how insane that world can get. I'm pretty aggressively mid-fi; I like stuff that is decent, but nowhere near excessive. It's not even in the same time zone as excessive. I have a Denon A/V receiver, a 5 year-old 53" Sony rear projection TV, five NHT speakers, a nice subwoofer, a cheap Zenith DVD player (which upconverts to HD via the component outputs, which is why I bought it), and the SLiMP3 box that allows me to share the iTunes library through the system. Oh, and the ReplayTV, of course.

I've seen some of the snake oil sold into the high-end audiophile market, and I'm telling you, some of it is just nuts. Speaker cables that cost thousands of dollars. Devices that lift your speaker cables off your carpet, because your carpet apparently interferes with the electrons flowing through the cable in some way. A $1,500 power cord. Yes, you read that right. These absurdities and more are collected on this page. Great for a laugh.

(Via Paul Music.)

Reason enough to write McCain off

Via Political Wire and US News:

"Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) 'is taking action to make it hard for conservatives to write him off in the 2008 presidential race,' Washington Whispers reports. 'His office confirms that the maverick moderate recently met with the Rev. Jerry Falwell, a conservative icon who is influential with voters on the right.'"

There was a time when I respected John McCain. But his craven support for Dubya in the 2004 campaign, his tireless stumping for really bad, unprincipled GOP candidates, and now this sucking up to Falwell puts McCain clearly in the camp with all the other Republicans who are willing to wink at intolerance and bigotry to get elected. Back in 2000, McCain seemed to be different from his fellow Republicans. Clearly, he isn't. Sure, he talks a good game, but watch what he actually does, and you'll see his true colors.

"Maverick moderate"? Puh-leeze. Try "Just another right-wing whore."

The Onslaught Continues

As the special election nears, there have been lots more direct mail, robo-calls, and robo-call push polls. Surprisingly little contact from real people, though.

One exception was a visit from a terribly earnest young woman who was stumping in favor of Measure M, a local Sonoma County measure that would place a 10-year moratorium on genetically-modified organisms in farming. Most county farmers oppose it; the farmers in favor appear to run some of the small local organic farms. It's being pushed by the local we're-afraid-of-science ecological groups (they're also afraid of business, and perhaps of capitalism, though I didn't specifically ask). I note that the anti-Measure M signs are, for the most part, appearing in agricultural fields, and the pro-Measure M signs are appearing on suburban lawns. As I expected, the Measure M worker was big on scare tactics and spooky anecdotes, and very thin on actual science to back up her claims. Her approach was that, when faced with opposition, you can get your point across and convince the other person if you just repeat your talking points, only louder. I suggested to her that passion was not a substitute for thoughtfulness when it comes to discussing scientific matters, and a lively discussion ensued, which ended in neither of us changing our views. After she left, I Googled a couple of her anti-GMO anecdotes, and found that they appear only on anti-GMO Web sites, often on personal pages in places like Geocities. Needless to say, I did not find that convincing.

In my opinion, Measure M is cut from the same renewable hemp cloth as claptrap like the "precautionary principle"; it's a measure designed to let people who are afraid of technology feel that they're doing something about it. I'm not willing to vote for a measure that I believe will have little to no practical benefit, and that could impose needless regulation on a major sector of the local economy, just so some local Luddites can feel better about their lives. I'm voting no on Measure M.