Fun with strange maps

I love maps, and this blog, Strange Maps, has lots of weird ones. Case in point, this map that "visually demonstrates the place of origin of France’s different local types of bread." Many other cool maps, too.

(Via Paul Music.)

I'm sure I'll regret this, part 1

Over breakfast yesterday, we were talking about politics, and speculating about what was going to happen on either side. Here's my take on the Republicans: John McCain is going to be the GOP nominee. Then I think he'll get his butt kicked by the eventual Democratic nominee.

I don't believe that Rudy Giuliani can survive the primaries; he's coasting on name recognition, and people aren't yet paying attention to how personally loathsome he is. But it's kind of like dating: common advice to women is "If you want to know how he'll treat you in the long run, watch how he treats waitresses (or his mother)." Rudy is a ruthless egomaniac who discards people like garbage if they get in his way. He publicly humiliated his wife and kids so he could dump the wife and take up with another woman. If he treats his own family this way, the people he's supposed to love and protect the most, why expect him to act any differently in other cases? He's arrogant, vindictive and has a raging temper. Have you noticed that so far his handlers haven't put him into situations where he has to deal with common citizens in an unscripted fashion? There's a reason for that.

Rudy's personal judgement is seriously flawed; he hung out with Bernie Kerik for years after Kerik was clearly shown to be crooked. He placed the NYC crisis command center in the World Trade Center, which had already been attacked once. And of course, Rudy's got lots of policy positions that are anathema to the conservative voters that make up the GOP primary electorate. Eventually, they will reject him. See this post over on Tapped for more.

Mitt Romney is not playing well. Sure, he's raised lots of money, but his poll numbers suck and aren't getting any better. Religious right-wingers don't trust him, no matter how much pandering he does. They don't like his flip-flopping on issues, and they don't like that he's a Mormon. He's a little creepy, too; he has that RoboCandidate vibe. He'll hang in there for quite a while, but he won't gain the traction he needs to win.

The rest of them are generally psycho-conservatives, and even if they could get the nomination, would lead the GOP to an Electoral College blowout by the Dems.

So that leaves us with McCain. Republicans are royalists at heart, and they always nominate the guy whose turn it is. McCain's having a rough patch now, but as people and donors get a clearer view of Rudy and Mitt's flaws, they'll anoint McCain.

Think I'm wrong? Tell me about it in the comments.

270towin.com

Hadn't seen this one before. 270toWin.com provides a 2008 Presidential Election Interactive Map and History of the Electoral College. You can view Electoral College maps back to 1789, and you can enter your own prognostications and what-ifs for the 2008 election by clicking states red or blue. There are other bells and whistles, too, making for an interesting tool. It's very well done; check it out.

ORM ToC conference

I just heard today about next month's O'Reilly Tools of Change (TOC) Conference for Publishing in San José. Some things about it surprised me:

• Number of Google-affiliated speakers: zero.

• Number of Amazon-affiliated speakers: zero.

• Number of session titles that mention Google: zero.

• Number of session titles that mention Amazon: zero.

The last bullet point in the conference description, btw, is "Best practices for working with Amazon, Google, Ingram and other big players". Possibly the speaker/session list isn't yet complete, but the conference is only six weeks off.

OTOH, possibly less surprising:

• Number of O'Reilly competitors speaking: zero.

Can you find the programmer in this picture?

Six years ago today, we were married here in Healdsburg. It was a great day (really hot, though), and one of the best days of my life. One of the best decisions of my life, too.

Happy anniversary, sweetie!

Photo credit: Morgen Benoit