Conner's Blog

I’m back with two posts in a row. Today I present to you five things you should read before you head off to whatever you’re doing this weekend.

1. First, AP toughened it’s stance on copyright and linking to it’s stories.  This article explains AP’s stance and then I found this which is a great discussion by the NYT Co’s head counsel regarding his stance on copyright and fair use.
2. Bill Simmons is one of my favorite sports writers and he tends to drag his father into his articles frequently.  This week he wrote a piece about his father that rocked.  Read it and then call your dad.
3. The NY Times published an article this week about President Obama’s adviser Valerie Jarrett.  It’s not only a great look at our president and one of his closest advisers, but is also an interesting look at the workings of the West Wing.
4. Local site, The Heavy Table has a piece about a Wisconsin Cranberry farm.  As someone who grew up on a farm, I love stories about small farmers making it, especially when they don’t bow to the corporate bigwigs of whatever company dominates the processing of their crop.
5. A great article on the cost of cheap food from a site I had never heard of until this week.  Really well written and worth your time, especially if you don’t think our food system is broken.

And today’s bonus item is a photo(Warning: Photo is quite large) that will leave you pining for the 2010 MLB season.  Outdoor baseball in Minneapolis can’t come soon enough.

It’s Monday and I thought the day was going to go well, but every time I go to CNN or turn on the radio, I find more and more things frustrating me.

The US Congress is driving me up a ******* wall.  What is wrong with the Republican Party.  They want tax cuts for people who don’t have jobs and businesses that are failing.  Have any of these idiots read about this project called the New Deal.  It was successful if I remember my 8th grade history class at all.  In fact, Obama’s stimulus package reminds me of a few different things times this country has spent money to bring it back from a steep cliff.  The New Deal is of course a recent example, but the Reconstruction Era after the Civil war didn’t only focus on reestablishing Congressional representation and abolishing slavery.  It also required a large chunk of capital to rebuild the war ravaged South that was behind technologically before the war even started.

We gave Obama the largest winning percentage in recent history, yet our Republican representatives don’t seem to care one bit about the will of the people.  All they care about is pretending they are being fiscally sound and fighting the Democrats every step of the way.  My memory may be failing me but we tried using tax cuts to keep the economy going and that failed spectacularly.  We need to get people back to work so they can pay taxes.  It does not do any good to be fiscally conservative if every day that you don’t spend money your income slowly dries up.

I am not saying Democrats plan is perfect, but getting people back to work is the key to solving this problem.  Once the economy is back on track we can start chopping things off the budget, but until then paying people to work is the only solution that has a proven success rate.

Lots of great content around the intrawebs lately. Here is a list of links to keep you from working on this cold Friday.

• Bill reviews DeGidio’s in St. Paul.  His photos of the goat cheese appetizer had me drooling before breakfast.
• Art discovers that he is the number 1 result on Google for something a little different.
• South 12th rounds up the best method to clean your house.  I’ve been using this method for years.
• Paul gives Veet a shout out for their ad in an Australian paper.  Of course this would have been much to racy for the U.S.
• If you haven’t played the World of Goo yet, you should try it out. Kottke let’s us know the soundtrack (which is very cool) is for sale.
• Super Useless Super  Power of the week allows you to create a double of yourself.  There is a catch though.
• Paul sends us to this link at Harpers, a great photo roundup of the eight years of Bush
• Mike from the Rowdy Crowd informs us that Obama has not been flawless as president.
• Art describes the day’s television event
• I loved this photo
• Nicky is in Nicaragua and is writing about the experience.  She talks about her first week here.
• Another great photo, this time of the Minnesota version of Nessie.
• A few soup recipes from Katie.  They all look tasty.
• Emily and Stephanie do the unthinkable and create an alcoholic masterpiece with the name “Bacon Vodka”
• City Pages rounds up some great Tuesday night date spots.
• Bill Simmons writes a heart felt article about the loss of his dog.  Yes I got a little misty eyed.
• Obama’s staff hasn’t found the White house quite up the today’s technical standards.

That is it for today.  Hope you all have a wonderful Friday.  Stay warm out there everyone.

I wasn’t planning on writing about the inauguration.  The week before I was actually kind of annoyed at all the coverage the festivities were getting.  I was very excited that Bush was going to be gone and that Obama would be president, but the inauguration seemed kind of pointless. 

When I woke up yesterday, I did what I always do.  I flipped on my computer, checked the email, and then signed into Twitter and the NY Times.  Within a few minutes I realized this was special.  Everyone was talking about the inauguration.  I started looking at the photos being posted to Flickr and CNN and was absolutely astounded by the crows of people taking part in this day.

Unfortunately I had to work so I flipped on MPR in the car to listen to the coverage.  The more interviews I heard the more I came to realize that the day was something to be savored and remembered.  I finished my first meeting of the day and then found a place to park and just sat there listening to the coverage, following Twitter, and taking in any images that I could find.  I slowly came to realize that this wasn’t just a change in power, it was a change in the way this country thought about itself.  Election night started the process, but it wasn’t until yesterday that it was completed.

As a nation we went from a culture of fear to a culture of hope.  Our president the day before had once told us to go shopping(Google cache) when things were not going well.  Our new president had asked everyone who wasn’t working the day before to go volunteer somewhere.  The president from the day before had landed on a air craft carrier holding a sign proclaiming Mission Accomplished.  Our new president spoke eloquently about race while running for president.  The president from the day before had a citizen of another country throw a shoe at him.  Our new president attracted a crowd of thousands when he traveled to Europe while running for office.

I don’t believe that President Obama can fix everything.  There is a lot to fix and he would deserve a spot on Mount Rushmore if this country was put together in four years or even eight.  The only thing I know is that for the first time that I can remember we have a president worth looking up to.  He’s someone I would want my children to emulate, and because he’s in office I think that if I have children they will have a chance to do so.

I’m excited for the next 4 years, and glad that  I decided to witness history.  Of course it’s just the beginning.  As our new president said,” [o]ur journey has never been one … for those who prefer leisure over work,”  meaning it’s time to get to work.  We have four years to prove we made the right choice, let’s not put it all in his hands.

President-Elect Barack Obama.  I can’t believe I am able to say those words and not be presumptuous.  I am a mix of emotions.  I will admit that selfishly I am  happy that I was finally able to vote for a winner of a presidential election.  I’m excited for our country for so many reasons.  Having the successor to Bush elected is just the start.

The thing that excites me more than anything though is that our opinion across the world has just been dramatically improved.  The best story I’ve heard so far came from the morning show on KFAN here in Minneapolis.  If you do not listen to the show, their producer Chris Hockey is currently in France to run a marathon.  He called in this morning and told a story about his morning.  He said he got into his cab and the first thing the cabbie, who couldn’t speak English, said to him is “Go Obama.”  It’s wonderful to think others around the world think we made the right choice.

To John McCain’s supporters, you fought a good fight, and I understand you are disappointed.  But if you truly love this country you need to put down any anger you may have and stand with your country behind your new President.  We all need to work together to fix things.

To John McCain, you would have won this presidency had the Maverick on stage for your concession speech ran.  I’m glad you are back and am thankful you are going back to the Senate.  We need someone with your experience and leadership to work with President Obama to rebuild this country. Disagree with him whenever you can, it’s the debate between our leaders that will lead us back to greatness.

To Sarah Palin and her supporters.  I may not agree with you that Ms. Palin should have been Vice President, and I hope I’m wrong about who will get the blame for yesterday’s loss.  I may not want Sarah Palin in a high office in this country, but I do think she can get out and do good things for us if she wants to.

I said on Twitter last night that I was proud to be an American last night.  I got some responses that said they were always proud of America and their pride didn’t change based on elections.  I can’t say the same.  This country has made so much progress over the last 50 years.  I never thought I would see a black president, let along one with the name Barack Obama.  Race relations in this country will never be perfect, but I hope that my children will grow up and not think about the color of a persons skin.   When I say that I’m not talking about not judging based on the color of someone’s skin, but truly not noticing color at all.

We will never know if we made the best choice yesterday.   But I don’t think we made a wrong choice.  Watching our President-Elect speak in front of thousands of people in Grant Park was awesome.  Obama is an incredibly gifted speaker, but his speech wasn’t just about speaking style.  He knows and admits that nothing has changed yet, but he thinks that he can change things for the better.  He didn’t try to tell the American people that things will be better on January 20th, 2009.  He warned us that hard work is ahead and he will try to lead us through it the best he can.  It’s for that reason that I am confident that American did make the best choice last night and go to work today knowing that things will get better.

As things stand this morning, all signs are pointing to an Obama victory tomorrow.  I am hoping for this result.  One of the reasons I am hoping for an Obama win is the candidate’s tax proposals.  As the election reached the final stages, other than negative ads, the only argument McCain seemed to throw at Obama is that his tax policy is going to cost America jobs.  At first glance, the logic does seem to back up McCain. What McCain and other conservatives seem to ignore is that some of their own policies show Obama’s plan will be better for the economy.  

It is true that until recently, Bush’s tax plans seemed to be working.  Companies were profitable and other than post 9/11 the markets were growing.  This did not continue though, and for the last two or three years, economic indicators showed that the economy was slowing down.  

The fact that the economy slowed down is not an argument against Bush and McCain’s tax plan.  The argument is the economic stimulus plan that both Republicans and Democrats supported in an attempt to stop the slowdown. The economic stimulus plan gave the middle class extra income.  The hope was this extra income would go towards the purchase of goods and services in an attempt to jump-start the economy.  This is counter to the trickle down tax policies of Bush’s eight years.  If trickle down economics worked, the solution to the economic slowdown would have been to send the stimulus package to large companies so they could pay their employees more, or show more profit on their balance sheet.  One could argue that the reason this was not proposed is it sounds insane.  I say that Bush’s argument for trickle down economics sounded just as insane.  

Looking at the two presidential candidate’s tax plans in this context may not be 100% correct, but it is interesting.  In this context, Obama’s plan acts like an economic stimulus plan for anyone making less than $200,000.  Granted he will repeal Bush’s tax cuts, which will hurt some upper income tax payers.  This is not a problem if you believe as I do that everyone is better off if everyone who makes less money than them makes more money.  Why do I think this?  It is simple, for business to thrive it needs customers.  For people to be customers they need money to spend on goods and services.  If you run a business, chances are you can afford your product.  If everyone who bringing home less income than you has more disposable income, you have more potential customers.  More customers mean more opportunities to bring home a profit, which will trickle up to those hurt by Obama’s tax policies. 

Obama’s tax plan acts like an economic stimulus plan.  It gives the middle class extra take home income to the middle class that they can use to purchase goods and services.  If a $600 per person economic stimulus package is good for the economy, how can anyone say that Obama’s tax plan is going to kill job creation.  If that was the case then conservatives should have fought tooth and nail to keep the economic stimulus package from going through.

I don’t usually devote entire posts to a single link, but as November 4th approaches I think everyone should read Tim O’Reilly’s Endorsement of Barack Obama.  If you don’t know who Tim O’Reilly is, he is one of the most influencial people in the technology business.  His company, O’Reilly Media, is the most respected publisher of books on technology.   His endorsement reflects his interests, but is a wonderful argument as to why Barack Obama may not solve all of our problems but is the best choice to get us started in the right direction.

First two things I need to disclose,  I didn’t watch the second presidential debate as intently as I watched the first presidential debate or the VP debate.  I actually participated in a fantasy basketball draft at the start of the debate.  Still, I want to make a some observations.   Second, if you don’t read my blog, I am an Obama supporter.  I’m not overly happy with some of the things he’s done, but he has my support.

• Obama seemed to come off as much more presidential.  He was calm, thoughtful, while McCain seemed to rush into the answers he knew and stumbled through those he wasn’t 100% sure of.
• McCain didn’t seem nearly as comfortable in the town hall meeting as I expected.  On the other hand, I think he may have gained from Obama’s inability to stop talking.  The Obama supports on twitter were even getting annoyed with it.
• McCain’s new home plan sounds very similar to something Biden said in the VP debate that I very strongly disagree with.  Here is part of the quote from McCain. Source

Alan, I would order the secretary of the treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes — at the diminished value of those homes and let people be able to make those — be able to make those payments and stay in their homes.

• And here is Biden during the VP debate. Source

Number two, with regard to bankruptcy now, Gwen, what we should be doing now — and Barack Obama and I support it — we should be allowing bankruptcy courts to be able to re-adjust not just the interest rate you’re paying on your mortgage to be able to stay in your home, but be able to adjust the principal that you owe, the principal that you owe.

• I am in agreement that we should allow renegotiation of interest rates.  This would help everyone by allowing the banks to make some money on the loan instead of nothing when the home goes into foreclosure.  I completely disagree with the idea of changing the principle owed on a loan.  I would write more but this feels like a post itself.
• Anyone who pays attention to body language can tell that McCain has very little respect for Obama.  Obama doesn’t appear to greatly respect McCain either, but it doesn’t seem as though Obama considers McCain unworthy of his respect.
• Did I mention that Obama really needs to learn to stop talking once in a while.
• Obama gave two answers I really liked.  He stated that health care should be a right which I am in 100% agreement of.  He also commented that Americans are going to have to make sacrifices to get through the current crisis.   I was not alive during the Korean war or Vietnam and haven’t spent much time reading about that time period, but I know during both World Wars Americans went without a lot of things.  We are fighting two wars right now, maybe it’s time us  non-military families sacrificed something other than being able to drive 200 miles for $20.
• Tom Brokaw came across as a high school English teacher.  Yes, the candidates agreed to the rules, but I would have rather seen both of them go at each other for the entire 90 minutes on one issue then hear Brokaw cry when they didn’t listen to him.

I’m not going to spend hours tearing the debate apart, you can find that all over the web.  These are just a few things that I either thought about or noticed last night.  For a running tally of my thoughts, please visit my Twitter page.  I didn’t tweet a ton during the debate, but one tweet stood out to me.  I said Brokaw impressed me, he did at the time, but as I thought about it more I changed my opinion.

Please remember everything you read here are my opinions.  Please find out the facts before you make your decision on how to vote November 4th.  This election is too important to be uninformed.

The McCain campaign, it’s surrogates, and some media members enjoy prodding Barack Obama about his stance on the surge in Iraq.  They constantly attempt to force him to state he was wrong for opposing it.  The fact of the matter is that they being illogical.  They can state that Obama was wrong all they want, but the logic just doesn’t support their argument.

Their first statement is  the surge in troops worked.  This isn’t an easy thing to answer.  Defining “worked” is like trying to define “happy”, there are just too many variables.  Did the violence in Iraq go down once the surge began, yes is the obvious answer.  And I will assume that is the definition of “worked” in this case.

Can you really state that the entire decrease in violence was caused by our troops?  And that we wouldn’t have reached the current levels of violence without it?  For the argument in questions to work you have to be able to answer those questions.  To be honest though we could say that the Sunni Awakening is responsible.  I tend to come down on the side of our troops and state that they were a big part of the decrease in violence.  Obama has already stated that he agrees the troop surge was successful.  And the fact violence is down it’s easy to see.  The logic of the McCain camp fails though when they say he was wrong to oppose the surge because violence is now down.  To make that conclusion, they need to successfully state that without the surge, violence would not have decreased.  That is a failed assumption.  The only way to prove this is to be able to go back in time, not implement the surge and see the results.  If violence remained at the same levels or accelerated Obama would be proven wrong.  And inversely, if violence decrease Obama would be correct.

Unfortunately this is impossible.  It may be that without the surge the Sunni Awakening along with the existing US troop presence would have decreased the violence.  You could argue that it would have taken longer, but you could also argue that there would have been less US troop casualties without the surge.  So that is a double edged sword.

To make a sports comparison, the logic that Obama’s detractors are using is the same as stating that without that mid-season trade, a sport team would not have made the playoffs or won the championship.  Everyone can see that the trade was successful, but to state that without the trade they would be out of the playoffs is impossible.

Another comparison would be stating that without a book being chosen by Oprah for her book club the book wouldn’t be successful.  Once again,  Oprah choosing the book makes it a best seller, but who can say that without Oprah selecting it, that it wouldn’t have become a best seller on it’s merits alone.

Anyone who is willing to look at the logic can see stating Obama was wrong about the Surge is a fallacy.  Arguing that the supports of the surge were also wrong is illogical by the same token.  Obama hasn’t done this though, he has admitted that the surge worked, but to admit that he was initially wrong would be to state that without the surge we wouldn’t have seen progress, and you can’t prove that without a flux capacitor.

I have noticed a few things while driving around the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area, home of the 2008 Republican National Convention.  There do not appear to be any signs of support for the Republican candidate.  I think this is an indicator of a document trend, the “enthusiasm gap” between Barack Obama and John McCain.  Though the majority of polls have been showing Obama with a modest 5 point lead, msnbc reports:

But the most revealing numbers in the survey were the ones measuring voter enthusiasm: 61% of Democrats said they were more enthusiastic than usual about voting in this year’s election, while just 35% of Republicans said that.

What does that have to do with bumper stickers?  Well, my job sends me all over the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area. This was the route that I drove one day last week, driving over 100 miles.

View Larger Map
About 2 weeks ago I happened to notice an Obama ’08 bumper sticker.  For some reason it struck me and I decided to look for a bumper sticker for McCain.  I didn’t see any that day, but I vowed to start paying attention to bumper stickers on the highway.  To this date I have not seen a single bumper sticker supporting McCain.  On the other hand, since I started keeping track, I have noticed eight Obama bumper stickers.  This isn’t a significant statistic, as it’s one person’s observation, but I thought it was interesting.  In addition, I also have seen yard signs supporting Obama.  I haven’t kept track but I would guess I’ve seen five or more signs representing Obama.  Again I have yet to see a sign supporting McCain in a single yard.

Now many factors could come into play here.  I will state that I am an Obama supporter, so my bias could play some factor.  It could also be that McCain’s supports don’t want to stick anything on their cars, or feel that bumper stickers are a poor way to support their candidate.  In fact that was my thought at first, but then I started noticing several Bush/Cheney ’04 stickers.  Well to me that seemed to indicate that my initial thoughts were probably not the best explanation.  The more I think about it, the enthusiasm gap seems to be the most likely explanation.  It seems that Obama’s supports are willing to take the time to put a bumper sticker on, while McCain’s supporters don’t.

Here is another interesting indicator of enthusiasm.  Using Google trends, I compared the search volume of obama, mccain, barack obama, and john mccain.  These results were searches which originated in Minnesota and took place within the last 12 months.

Here are the results.

As you can see, obama has over three times the search volume of mccain, and full names yield a a similiar search disparity.   The odd thing I found in the results is that the spikes in search volume for obama correspond to the primaries.  Obama’s overseas trip results in no obvious increase in search volume.

The comparison seems to show that people who search using Google appear much more interested in Obama then McCain.  This could be the result of Obama being the lesser known of the two candidates.  It could also be that McCain supporters use bookmarks or just type in the websites they wish to go to, where Obama supports use google as their bookmarks.

Though neither of these observations can be taken as scientific, they are in some ways telling.  I think coupled with the enthusiasm gap that is evident from reliable polling numbers, it’s an interesting trend.  I did see one other Republican bumper sticker recently.  It might not mean a whole lot, but it may sum up many peoples feelings on the GOP as of late, and it was kind of humerous.