RIP Doghouse Riley

I'm back on line but I have a new computer and I have to learn a new OS now that my trusty little Dell with my beloved XP is dead and gone. So blogging is still likely to be light today and I'm outsourcing the eulogy to Edroso who knew Doghouse Riley better than I did. Sadly, I had only recently discovered his blog.

It's a great loss to the internets and everyone who cares about saving what passes for democracy in our country. He was a fabulous writer. According to the obit, his death was unexpected and came tragically too soon. May his friends and family find peace.

Google Glass

Well if you don't find it annoying to have something permanently hanging in your peripheral vision, I guess Google's new glasses look pretty cool. Seems to be the general reaction on my social nets. Me, I'm creeped out by it. Feels like one step away from assimilation into the Borg. Very Three of Five. Call me Hugh...



[via TPM]

Entire internet critiques secret George Bush paintings

Some talented hacker with an hipsterish nym breached the Bush family's private emails. The big hit of his data dump was George W Bush's paintings. Not unexpectedly, this earthshaking expose caused the intertoobz to erupt into a virutal tsunami of snark. For the record, I thought his paintings were rather good. Looking at the work divorced from my feelings about the artist, it's not great art. It's not bad art either. Only saw two others who agreed all day. Atrios and Karen Tumulty.

Also, for the record, I appear to be the only one who finds the hackery more disturbing than amusing. Trying to figure out why I should be less concerned about the government invading my privacy than about a single talented hacker who can do the same and will publish my private life on the internet if he feels like it. Particularly put off by exposing the sister with the AOL account. She's not young. Guessing not that computer savvy much less aware of all internet traditions. The onslaught of on-line mockery will probably terrify her right off the internets. That feels mean.

I understand the urge to expose public figures who game the system. I see how an email from Brit Hume to Bush bemoaning the results of the election serves the public information. Some of the other stuff, not so much.

Of course, an investigation has been launched. No idea how that stuff works in real life but have a feeling the FBI will find this hacker hard to catch. Guessing it's not as easy as it looks on the teevee shows.

Rove's hackers prefer to remain Anonymous

[Original image via Crooks & Liars.]

I'm late to this but you know how much I love a conspiracy theory, so archiving for future historians just in case the Mayans are wrong. It seems someone claiming to be Anonymous says they simply hacked Orca. That being Miserable Mitt's simply marvelous, almost secret, magical internet apparatus which was destined to revolutionize the ground game. Said purpose of hack being to prevent Creepy Karl from hacking the Ohio results.

To be clear, I don't think this is real. Not convinced it's even the real Anonymous. Something about it feels off. But it's a great conspiracy theory. The plausibility factor is so deliciously high. At one point Orca was shut down because the host thought it was under a DOS attack. Rove's digital deceptions go back years. The missing Bush era White House emails. The possible Ohio hacking of 2004 was never fully investigated. Then there was the mysterious patches installed on the 2012 voting machines by Ohio SoS Husted, who could only be more obviously biased towards the GOP if he showed up to meetings wearing an elephant costume. Add to all of that, Mr. Rove's apparent panic at Fox News on election night. He looks like a guy who expected a different result.

Now, if this was my conspiracy theory, I'd guess Orca just crashed. They got fleeced by grifters. So Karl was faking the meltdown and planted that Anonymous message to cover his tracks with the investors.

Still, the alternate is more amusing. What if Rove really did think he had the fix in on Ohio and Anonymous really did stop him? As the Atriots used to say, "It would be irresponsible not to speculate."

Bits and pieces

My annual SAD episode is hitting me hard this year. Been virtually paralyzed for the last week or so. It's not that I can't follow the news, or that I have nothing to say; it's that I can't get focused enough to type it out. I sleep a lot until I get readjusted. But trying to break through so here's some stuff worth reading on a lazy Sunday that doesn't require a lot of comment.

Longish read but well worth the time, The Atlantic's profile of Obama's internet teams and how they built a digital election winning appartus that is the envy of every politician on earth today.

Speaking of elections, you all know I glaze over when confronted with math, but this analysis of electoral vote margins was fascinating. It's clear the massive turnout is what saved us from a Romney presidency and the lack of same is what saddled us with eight years of George W Bush. It raises the question, is it time to abolish the Electoral College?

And I didn't expect to sit through this whole segment, but found myself unexpectedly riveted by this whiz kid on CNBC. He was so sweet and genuine, I wanted to adopt him. And he's so smart. He may have invented a news aggregator that people would be willing to pay for, that benefits the aggregator and the news source. Amusing to watch the very important pundits fawning over him.

I predict the kid will be a great success at something. Sadly, I also see early onset cynicism in his future.

[Graphic created by Loren Kantor]

Why I love Charlie Pierce: Reason eleventy million

Sorry kids. Didn't plan to disappear for so long. Took the weekend off to drive a few hundred miles to go to a very long and really fun birthday party. Then the storm happened. And of course, our stupid politics never sleep. I'm on information overload, and it took a while to sort it all out.

Being mainly uninterested in internet spats I haven't closely followed the battle between Nate Silver and the very important pundits. I gather our leading media opinion makers are quite unhappy Nate is ruining their rosy scenarios of an exciting race to a photo finish with his tiresome scientific facts and mathematical equations. They're all, "Who the hell does he think he is, fking Harry Potter?" (not really an exact quote)

So what does this have to do with Charlie, you ask? Well, Charlie Pierce wrote about it at some length, but this is the line in his post that inspired the title.

2) I refuse to believe that the enjoyment of anything can be enhanced by the inclusion of math.

As someone who still refuses to accept the absolute value of numbers, those words resonate with me in various and inexplicable ways.

Oh, if you care about the roots of the spat, here's People Who Can't Do Math Are So Mad At Nate Silver. It explains everything.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

How to get to Sesame Street

We all knew this would become a thing as soon Mitt said it. I've seen dozens of Big Bird/Sesame Street memes on the internets since the debate. The Big Bird I posted earlier is still my favorite. The rest have been too gory for me, but I loved these two Sesame Street takes.

Muppets unite!

Bert and Ernie abide!

Seems to be slowing a bit at this point but still has potential to become one of the top ten enduring memes of the intertrons. Gotta love it.

RNC 2012: Old man shouts at empty chair

I watched way too much of the RNC last night. For a while I didn't think I was going to make it to Rmoney's speech. The parade of Mormons with their endless testimonials to "our wonderful, kindly savior Mitt" was putting me to sleep. Then I woke up at the end to a horrible nightmare. A doddering Clint Eastwood arguing with an empty chair. Empath that I am, I found it too painful to watch all at once. Literally had to leave the room. Even today, it's all I can think about. Can't get the tragic image out of my head.

If you wisely skipped the festivities of closing night, MoJo has the transcript and abbreviated video. Or if you can bear to watch the whole Eastwood debacle:



I think Brian Lehrer had the best summation on the twitter machine.

Ha! RT @jbouie "This is a perfect representation of the campaign: an old white man arguing with an imaginary Barack Obama." BL

Of course, within seconds there were several competing Invisible Obama/Empty Chair accounts opened on twitter and #Eastwooding became an instant internet meme.

Many more interpretations at the last two links.

Just because I can't stop laughing doesn't mean I'm not very sad for poor old Clint. The saddest part is the empty chair won the argument.

Also, I'd note in passing that the blogging delegates I've seen have mostly studiously ignored it or reported that he wowed the crowd. Which says a lot about the crowd... But you already knew that.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

When pigs fly away

A sad moment for me. Newshoggers is shutting down. I blogged there for a couple of years. My most viral posts were published there. I came to love my co-bloggers like family. It was a special place and hosted some of the best foreign policy analysis ever.

But times change. Everyone has now moved on to other ventures so they've archived the blog. Newshoggers isn't dead, but will join so many others in a sort of eternal rest. May it live in memory (and on google) forever.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Extreme

This the Facebook find of the day. Internet being what it is, a fountain of false quotes, have no idea if Bobby Kennedy really said this. But either way it's a damn cogent observation.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Young bloodsucker

This ungrateful parasite pisses me off. Eduardo Saverin, the co-founder of Facebook, renounced his US citizenship last week. He's moving to Singapore.

Saverin, who owns a roughly four percent stake of Facebook, announced that he was expatriating last week, just in time to avoid paying a federal capital gains tax on the fortune heading his way when the social site files its IPO.

Forbes Magazine, calls him an American hero for skipping out on contributing his fair share to our public commons. Then they throw up the old John Galt threat:

Saverin’s departure is also a reminder to politicians that while they can obnoxiously decree what percentage of our income we’ll hand them in taxes, what they vote for won’t necessarily reflect reality. Indeed, as evidenced by Saverin’s renunciation, tax rates and collection of monies on those rates are two different things. Assuming nosebleed rates of taxation were a driver of Saverin’s decision, politicians will hopefully see that if too greedy about collecting the money of others, they’ll eventually collect nothing.

Greedy? Forbes has the gall to call the government greedy for expecting this kid to contribute a relative pittance towards upkeep of the infrastructure which allowed him to make his obscene fortune? It's no stretch to say Saverin would be nothing without US government support that allowed Facebook to flourish and further allowed Saverin to cash in when his partners tried to cut him out. Indeed, it's possible he wouldn't be alive if not for his move to the US in the first place.

This little leech was lucky. He hit it big and now skips out on the tab he rightfully owes in return. He's no hero. He's the poster boy for the unbridled greed that, even now, is shredding the social fabric of America. [graphic via]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

When memes come true

And so, it's over. The Tumblr Texts from Hillary ends its run. The Texts from Hillary site will remain on the internets, but they're not going to add any new ones.

Can't blame them for wanting to go out on top. And really, after they were invited to meet with Secretary of State Clinton herself and she submitted a genuine text to the site anything else would be a bit anti-climatic. Besides, ending it this way, will only ensure its legendary status as one of the best internet memes ever.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Texts from Hillary

I resisted as long as I could, but I finally checked Texts from Hillary. It's good. Almost Hillarious.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Big Internet is watching you

This google ad preferences meme has been traveling the internets for a couple of days. If you haven't seen it, they target the popup ads you ignore according to some kind of algorithum that's gauged by the cookies they sleathily embed in your computer. People have been checking and sharing their results and they're hilariously inaccurate.

Google thinks I'm a 55-64 year old male who is interested in combat sports. Not even sure what that means but the only traditional sport I follow at all is baseball. And I'll also follow any link that has to do with aeronautics, including ballooning and skydiving but pretty sure those aren't considered combat. But to be fair, I've often been mistaken for a guy on the internets.

Apparently, google isn't the only one who tracks you this way. Lots of other websites collect your click info. I checked them all and only one was even close to capturing my true essence.

The good news is you can theoretically opt-out from these cookies on all the sites except google. Me, I don't bother opting out of anything. I've found over the years, the more you opt-out the more spam ends up in your in-box. If you ignore them, sometimes they go away on their own. Kind of the same way I deal with trolls.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Everything changes

I've been following him for nine of the ten years he's been blogging and never thought I would live to see the day when John Cole posted a photo of himself. Mixed reaction and not the world's most flattering pose, but my vote is adorable.

Meanwhile, my old pal, the blogger formerly known as Cernig of NEWSHOGGERS, who finally came out under his real name, Steve Hynd is moving to Editor In Chief of the Agonist.Org. Congrats to them both.

And my old friend Heretik has resurfaced at a new blog, Man Are We Screwed. Doesn't appear to be doing so many of the old photoshops we loved at his former blog, but he's still writing with a wit so sharp it could slice roast beef. Check out What Heretik learned at Sundance, in two parts.

The Great SOPA Blackout

Everybody is talking about the internet protest today. At least 7000 websites have blacked out their content or at least part of it. The most noticed has been Wikipedia's blackout since midnight, but the creativity award goes to The Oatmeal. (Fair warning, it's possibly NSFW.) And every geek's favorite cartoon site, xkcd has a good protest page. More here.

Meanwhile, the concerned citizens of the intertoobz have been bombarding Congress with phone calls, emails and tweets. It appears to be working. Congressional sponsors and proponents are dropping out at the speed of light. Interestingly, the GOPers are leading the retreat while I'm still seeing reports that some Dems are holding firm. Actually, maybe someone could explain to me why we have ostensibly progressive Dems like Al Franken and Pat Leahy sponsoring this crappy bill in the first place.

If you need a refresher on what the bill is about, this Barry Eisler interview, this informational page What is SOPA and Clay Shirky at the TED talks should get you up to speed.

In any event, while it appears the internets are winning right now, I feel relatively certain the bill is just withdrawn, it's not dead. I'd suggest you sign the Google petition anyway. Good to let the Congresscreatures know we're watching and we're pissed off. [image via]

Addendum: I'd note my own Dem Congresswoman, Kay Hagan is a sponsor of SOPA and apparently supports another bill that cheats tech workers out of overtime pay. I'd futher note, that I didn't vote for her in the primary and only reluctantly voted for her in the general election. I knew she was going to be trouble from the start. Be happy to see an actual liberal Dem challenge her when her term is up.

Addendum two: More photos.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Not The Onion - Updated

Apparently the actual cover of the next issue of Newsweek.

Update: It's the real cover for sure. Here's the article, Obama's long game. Getting good reviews in some quarters. In others, not so much. Andrew answers his critics here.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Don't care anymore

Maybe it's just because I'm still so sick, but I'm burned out on the Iowa caucuses. I mean, does it really matter who wins there? Not feeling it. And while I'm bitching about politics, I'm tired of the endless internet spats on the left. Sick of the perpetual outrage and mean spirited sniping. I'll probably get over it once I feel better, but today:

Jon Swift: Gone but not forgotten

There have been many times since his sudden death that I wished Al Weisel, a/k/a Jon Swift, was still with us to decipher the conservative narratives with his inimitable brand of gentle satire. In a world where gut-busting snark now rules the internets, I miss Al's subtle and oh so polite evisceration of Wingnuttia; so skillfully rendered that first time readers often thought he was a sovereign citizen of Wingnutistan himself.

But Al under his Swiftian persona was a real liberal and a true friend to the small bloggers of what was then known as Leftopia. His kind encouragement and generous linking policy inspired many B-Z listers to keep posting. Myself included.

Every year at this time he would undertake the Herculean task of publishing a huge "best post of the year list." He invited everyone to contribute. Sure you had to pick your own best post, but he assembled the list, embedded the links and promoted the post, sending much appreciated traffic spikes to those who rarely saw them.

But while Al Weisel is sadly lost to us, a million thanks to Batocchio, the Vagabond Scholar for keeping the spirit of our dear friend alive by continuing the tradition with the Jon Swift Memorial Round-up. I, for reasons too complicated to explain, unfortunately missed the deadline, but there's a wealth of fabulous posts at the link. Some names you'll recognize, and some you probably won't. But read them all. Jon would have wanted it that way.

Via the incomparable Lance Mannion who got inside my head this week. This virtual world, that was once called the blogosphere has changed so much since the days we started this crazy blogging thing. His thoughts on twitter fatigue mirror my own. Everything changes. [graphic credit]

Tweeting on the mock of the day, watching the time slip away

I trust you may have noticed, I finally installed my twitter ticker on the sidebar.

I mostly use my twitter account as a newswire. It's the fastest newswire on the internets now. News breaks there at least 20 minutes before it hits the traditional vendors. Unfortunately, it's also the most unreliable. As someone put it today, it's the best newswire for the first five minutes, and the worst for the next thirty. I call the latter, the hysteria factor.

But it's also a great social platform for direct communication. And I do have my days when I feel like haranguing big name tweeps. Those would often be the days when I don't post much here. Like today. I challenged the few big media tweeps I follow, and taunted random GOPers I don't follow, about the payroll tax bill standoff for hours this afternoon. And I encouraged the Dem leadership to stand firm and not pay the ransom this time. All of which may or may not help, but I find cathartic.

So, to make a long story longer, whatever its charms and flaws, I do check the tweetie regularly and often post good links that I'm reading but rarely end up blogging. Which is a really long way of saying, if I'm not posting, check the twitter ticker. There's likely to be something amusing there.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]