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Equal parts funny and painful (for being typical in my field):

history of the user agent in a nutshell

This is the best political message I’ve ever seen. I think the Obama campaign has correctly decided it is time to stop focusing on McCain/Palin — tempting as it is to hammer them on lies, ethics scandals, and the abysmal performance of their party in serving the country’s needs — and rather to get back to their core message of relevant, meaningful, positive change. Messages about *governing* rather than *politicking*. This kind of content-rich, intelligent, specific and positive message is exactly what we need more of, and I’m grateful to see it. Please watch:

Congrats Becca (and Jason)!!! I’m excited to be an uncle on the Weekly side for the first time. Can’t wait to meet my nephew, and in the meantime looking forward to photos and details from the proud mom. This is great.

UPDATE: She named my nephew “Samuel Gordon” and he was almost 8 lbs and over 20″ tall. w00t!

UPDATE 2: A photo! Great looking kid!

Samuel Gordon Koering, day one

The vote for change website makes it really easy to register. Despite how politically involved I’ve become recently, I’d actually neglected to re-register w/ my new address so I was grateful for the timely reminder. Don’t slack on this one, and pass it on!

CNET demo of Swype

This is really cool! It’s not often a new way of “typing” or interacting w/ a keyboard comes along, but I think this will catch on, esp. if an Apple deal happens.

According to Jon Taplin’s friend, an insurance broker,

“a 72 year old man with a history of cancer has a one in six chance of living to the age of 80. “

0_o

The prospect of a Palin presidency should make ANYONE think long and hard about their vote. Ethics scandals… blatant, petty abuse of power… threats of censorship… hypocrisy… anti-science creationism in the schools… anti-American support for 49 state Alaska separatism… experience consisting of a mere 20 months governing a state with 1/10th the population of NYC… I’m flabbergasted. How can anyone conceive of this person as a candidate to be a sick old man’s heartbeat away from holding the most powerful office in the world? How could any reasonable, thinking person in the 21st century think this could have any possible benefit to the United States? McCain’s cynicism and desperation are hardly to be believed. But the Rovian Republican schemers know how to win “by any means necessary” so as ridiculous, inappropriate and dangerous the prospect of this radically out-of-touch, ignorant 40’s throwback might be, it’s something that has to be taken seriously. The idea that some women will vote McCain/Palin because of her gender makes me doubly ill. She’s as anti-feminist as they come, regardless of chromosomes. I struggle for words, how can these people take these matters so lightly? How can such a person be considered remotely qualified?

http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/cranky-with-the-culture/ is one of my favorite discussion threads on one of my favorite blogs, read it if you haven’t!

“Obama and the Palin Effect”
by Deepak Chopra

http://www.chopra.com/wordsfromdeepak

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin’s pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.

She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and turning negativity into a cause for pride. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of “the other.” For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don’t want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.) I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin’s message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision

Look at what she stands for:

* Small town values — a nostaligic return to simpler times disguises a denial of America’s global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.
* Ignorance of world affairs — a repudiation of the need to repair America’s image abroad.
* Family values — a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don’t need to be needed.
* Rigid stands on guns and abortion — a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.
* Patriotism — the usual fallback in a failed war.
* ”Reform” — an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn’t fit your ideology.

Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from “us” pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of “I’m all right, Jack,” and “Why change? Everything’s OK as it is.”

The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness

Obama’s call for higher ideals in politics can’t be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow — we all do.

So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.”

Deepak Chopra (Hindi: born October 22, 1946) is an Indian medical doctor and writer. He has written extensively on spirituality and diverse topics in mind-body medicine. Chopra says that he has been influenced by the teachings of Vedanta and the Bhagavad Gita, as well as by Jiddu Krishnamurti,[1] and by the field of quantum physics. Deepak Chopra has had a profound influence on the New Thought Movement that has embraced him in America.

Chopra was born in New Delhi. His father, Dr. (Col) K. L. Chopra, was a cardiologist in Mool Chand K. R. Hospital, Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi (India) and served as a lieutenant in the British army. Chopra’s grandfather practiced Ayurveda.[2] He completed his primary education at St. Columba’s School in New Delhi and eventually graduated from the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Having graduated from AIIMS in 1969, Chopra emigrated to the U.S. in 1970 with his new bride, Rita, to do his clinical internship at a New Jersey hospital, followed by residency training for several more years at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts and at the University of Virginia Hospital. He became board-certified in internal medicine and endocrinology.

For those who might not know this about me, I spent much of my childhood and early adolescence hoping and even preparing, via flight lessons and study, to make a career of military aviation. This was simply for the chance to fly the world’s most amazing machines, rather than out of a desire for military life — far from it (more on that in a bit). But late in high school I was bitterly disappointed when my eyesight started to deteriorate, immediately precluding me from flight school and sending me on a completely different trajectory. In retrospect, I’m very, very glad that’s not the direction my life took — my passion for independent thought and action, and anti-establishment, anti-authority, anti-dogma outlook on life has only deepened with age and there is no way I could serve in any capacity in a Bush/Cheney military under any circumstances other than literal direct home defense… but my love of flight has never waned, and this kind of video will always resonate. To someone who hasn’t spent their formative years dreaming of piloting a supersonic aircraft this video may come across as merely cheesy propoganda… but for me, especially when coupled w/ the old-school poetry, it brought me way, way back. Thanks to Boing Boing and Dailymotion.com for stirring all those old emotions.

I am a long-time supporter of Amnesty International and am posting this to support their campaign to ensure one Troy Davis is not executed without further review of his case. There is no hard evidence against him, and 7 out of 9 witnesses in his case have recanted or changed their story since his trial — there are even indications that one of the remaining two witnesses may in fact be the guilty one. Whatever your feelings on capital punishment, I think we can all agree that no government has the right to execute a citizen without a fair trial, and in this case there is serious doubt about his guilt.

Please join me in taking action and send this link to your politically conscious friends.

The Amnesty USA site has more details and instructions for taking action.

Thanks.