Comment war - it's on.

OK. So. As a blogger, I must admit that I'm a total failure. I haven't posted to this thing in like a year, and before that nobody was reading anyway.

But here's the thing: I am growing increasingly dismayed at way the Presidential race is being covered. The Dems are rarely on message, and all kinds of crazies on both sides pollute the debate with stupidity of all sorts. (Today's "lipstick on a pig" spectacle put me over the edge.)

So I'm trying to be part of the solution. Here's the gist:

The GOP will inevitably be inventing new outrages each day between now and November 4th. My friend Jason over at the Huffington Post has explained to me that this is a strategy of "winning the news cycle", and well, he's a professional so I believe it. Regular Americans need to stay focused on the real issues that matter, and the Democratic party is not doing a great job staying on task.

So whenever I see anything in the media that allows comments - blogs, opinion columns, online stories, newspapers that allow letters to the editor, etc. - I am going to post the same freakin' message. Over and over again. I invite you to copy and paste it as well (assuming you agree with it, of course). Please propose revisions too - this is just a start - and I'll update the post with the best ones.

(Insert whatever the fake issue du jour is where it says [ISSUE X].)

Feel free to reproduce this wherever it makes sense.

We have real, serious issues in this country that demand attention. A struggling economy that limits opportunities to the rich. An endless war on a country that posed no threat to us, making us less able to confront the real dangers posed by terrorism. The most expensive health care in the civilized world. So why are we talking about [ISSUE X]?

This is just the latest campaign non-issue to come out of the Republican camp as they try to distract us from the problems they have caused in the eight years they’ve been in power. John McCain is part of the problem, not the solution – he’s as far inside the Bush machine as you can get. And his pick of Sarah Palin for VP, a fundamentalist he met once for 15 minutes and didn’t vet, shows just the kind of leader he would be – willing to appease the right wing just to get elected and put this country at risk without even the pretense of thinking things through or choosing a candidate based on qualifications for leadership.

This is an insult to the intelligence of every hard-working American. We can do better. We should demand it.

This Just In: Jim Woolsey not as famous as Gore, DiCaprio

Mike Boyer over at Foreign Policy takes on a reasonable proposition: That the environmental movement just might be a wee bit partisan. You know, he just might be right about that.

His evidence, though, is that environmental web sites cover people like Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio over, say, James Woolsey - a legitimate Republican environmentalist, by the looks of it. He's ignoring at least three big things:

1. Al Gore and Leo DiCaprio are not necessarily famous for being green; they're famous for being advocates for green-ness. I guess it sucks a little that they can be considered hypocrites, but their role in this little drama is popularizing enviromentalism and calling attention to it. It would be hard to do that bicycling from city to city.
   
2. Gore and DiCaprio are indisputably "famous people". Woolsey is a former CIA Director - to be sure, an important person, but not exactly on par with Vice President in terms of Q rating. To wit: Who is the current CIA Director? So why should we be surprised they receive more coverage?
   
3. That Woolsey himself is an environmentalist doesn't change the fact that his party's policies have contributed significantly to degradation of the environment. It's easy to say "this isn't a partisan issue because there are environmentalist Republicans," but hey, there are Log Cabin Republicans, too. Does that mean that the next Republican presidential candidate will support gay rights? (Hint: No.)

At the risk of sounding like a wild-eyed extremist, I think it's fair at this point in our history to say that in most races, if you vote for a Republican, you simply don't take global warming seriously. That's not to say that the Democrats are paragons of environmental virtue... but at a national level, the choice seems fairly clear.

Indians with WASPy names

(Apologies for a rant coming on...)

So, I've been on the phone with United for a few hours over the last day or two. I'm trying to use a promotional certificate to take my daughters to meet their great-grandparents in Chicago. As you can guess, the whole thing is a royal clusterf*ck. But here's the thought that occurred to me:

Every single call I've made (between 7 and 10 at this point) has been answered by somebody who is clearly in India. Unlike a lot of people, I don't have a particular problem with that. Many people in India are articulate, well-educated, polite, and good English speakers, and the labor is much cheaper.

What I do have a problem with is the fact that names of the people I've spoken with, at least the times I've been able to hear them clearly, have been:

• Jean Johnson
• Jennifer Jones
• Peter Jones

This is just incredibly insulting. The tone of the conversation is set: United has no qualms whatsoever about lying to you, and they think you're a stupid enough person to be upset that the person you're talking to isn't an American. Even though that really couldn't be more obvious. (I mean, they're so polite!)

Now, I suppose there's another possibility: That these people have legally changed their names to get the job. In that case, the big cities of India must be teeming with freshly minted Ashleys and Stevens. Of all the things that America has spread through globalization, I never thought it would be our lame-ass names. Ugh.

Staying 'fired up' for 18 months

So Bloomberg is leaving the GOP to, you know, totally NOT run for President. Just like Thompson isn't and McCain wasn't. (On the other hand, I may be the only one, but for some reason I totally believe Al Gore when he says he isn't. He just seems so happy these days...)

Anyway, the question that comes to mind is not whether it's a good idea for Bloomberg to go all Perot on the country. Sure it is. The question is: Is he way too early? By starting the signaling now, he'll likely be a bona fide candidate by October or so. Think about the breathless hype back in January about Obama and Edwards and Giuliani... and look at them now. Old news. Boring.

Honestly, if you didn't have to win a primary, why would you bother getting involved and being a target before January 2008? For that matter, why would you visit New Hampshire? According to this article in the Post:

"But he has refused to rule out a run for the presidency, even discussing the possibility privately with close advisers and beginning to travel around the country, including a trip to the home of the nation's first primary, New Hampshire."

Sure, they have an early primary, but... um... is there some "independent candidate primary" that I'm not aware of? Or is he just dead set on getting those four electoral votes squared away?

ReverbNation - finally, a credible MySpace killer

MySpace's popularity has always been a bit baffling to most geeks I know. It pointedly breaks just about every rule of a good online application: It's unreliable, crashes often, is horribly designed, allows most users very limited customization (the customization that is available is really just hacking)... but it's always had the power of numbers and momentum behind it.

I tried getting away once by starting a band site on Tagworld, but it never took off - all the fancy widgets and customizations were too slow and, well, geeky. And its reliability was also pretty iffy.

This weekend, though, I set up some space on ReverbNation, and it looks like we have a winner. In a nutshell, there are two reasons why it looks like it will become the site of choice for bands:

1. It just works. Music uploaded there plays brilliantly with little to no startup delay. It knows the names of venues and finishes them, and fills in the addresses. It automatically gives you a choice of ways to scale your pictures. The features are thoughtful and laid out well. and,
2. It allows you to take its pieces and use them everywhere.

This latter point is important. The people behind it have basically admitted that they're not going to just pull people away from myspace or facebook or friendster... so, you bring your ReverbNation tools to those spots and let 'em rip. For example, here are three working widgets (and by the way, feel free to use them to listen or sign up while you're here):

















These pop into your MySpace profile, your blog, etc... and all stay updated if you make changes back at the mother ship. In other words, it's going to beat MySpace by taking advantage of the one thing MySpace does well - maintain scale. Bravo.

New blog

My history as a blogger has been a bit uneven, and I can't promise that's going to end. However, I am pretty excited about my new venture... you'll notice the redesign here. I've started a new blog devoted to creativity in business and other theoretically stuffed-shirt, white-collar worlds, called creativiste. As of Monday, you can find it at www.creativiste.com, but for now you can check out creativiste.wordpress.com where it's being hosted.

Of course, you can still find quasi-political, George Constanza-style rants here, and bite-sized links and cell phone pics over at my Tumble blog (iafn.tumblr.com). Shoot me a message and let me know what you think.

Thanks!

Perfect for Ambushes!

So, in Geneva last week, I walked by a gun shop near my hotel. Few Americans realize this, but the Swiss really like their guns. Every man is supposed to own one by law, in case the country gets invaded and their... um... neutrality is threatened, I guess. They must defend their right to not pick a side.

Anyway. This particular gun shop is close to the hotels I stay in normally when I go there, and I've walked by it before. But this time, I noticed that they were selling several "A47" model assault rifles (obviously knockoffs of the infamous AK-47), which are in my limited knowledge illegal in the US. And these guns were in printed cardboard boxes with helpful marketing information and specifications on the outside, just like the boxes in which you'd buy DVD players or Cuisinarts or whatever other household object or assault weapon you can find at your typical Macy's.

On the boxes, there was a quote in French that I didn't quite understand, except for one word. It read:

"blah blah blah AMBUSH!"

I imagine it said something like, "Great for AMBUSH!" or "Now you can avoid AMBUSH!" Switzerland may seem like a safe country, but you really never know when you're going to need your assault rifle to either execute or fend off an ambush. In the meantime, I'd recommend not invading the country, as they are neutral and clearly aim to stay that way.