Politics

Gregory Heller Profile Photo

Augmented State Of The Union

Tonight is President Obama's second State of the Union address before Congress and the American People.  There has been no shortage of talk about civility (as signified by Republicans and Democrats intermingling on the House floor), and speculation about what the President will talk about (jobs), and in just a few hours we will see what it amounts to.

NZ Software Patents; Meeting With Lianne Dalziel, Commerce Committee Chairperson & Labour MP

Today I had a long and very positive meeting about software patents and the NZ Patents Bill with Commerce Committee chairperson, Labour party's Lianne Dalziel, as well as Drupal-peers Dave Lane and Jonathan Hunt.  Dalziel, Christchurch East MP, was well-informed about the Patents Bill, the Ministry of Economic Development's Patent Review and the insufficient attention paid to software patents (thanks to our emails and exchange of documents beforehand).  She was not so well-informed about software patents and the harm that they cause – as would be expected given the complexity and obscurity of these issues for those who do not work in the software development.

URGENT: Unlimited Software Patents In New Zealand. Act Now!

Logo of End Software Patents website

NZ government is about to pass a new Patents Act.  In the 8-year review, they seemingly forgot to consider the impacts of patents on computer software!  Submissions on the bill are being accepted till 2 July, so we need to move fast.  Make a submission now

Henry Poole Profile Photo

Outsourcing Governance and Democratic Control to Aliens

I was fortunate to have a chance to see Paul Romer talk on Monday night, after a nice dinner at Greens with Jim Kiles. Paul Romer is very well known for his work in the field of "new-growth theory". We were in for a treat. At the Long Now event at Fort Mason in San Francisco, Romer unveiled his "Economic Theory of History" and talked of his upcoming Bridge Cities Institute.
Gregory Heller Profile Photo

Tweeting the Debate With Current TV

Four years ago at Telephone Bar in NYC, Noel Hidalgo and I talked about an idea to run an IRC back channel during the presidential debates. This morning I saw a tweet from him about remixing the debates and reminded him of our idea. He has now blogged about something very cool. Current TV and Twitter have teamed up and will be aggregating debate related tweets and displaying them on Current TV.
Fen Labalme Profile Photo from DCSF

Democrats and the Reality of the Political Mind

I've been wondering why Sarah Palin has been such a game changer as she's really a female McCain: anti-abortion, anti-environment, the list goes on. Why would people accept her, flock to her? Then I read this article by George Lakoff and it started to all fall into place. As with Bush, gut feelings are attracting people more than rational thought.
Ian Rhett speaking at the 2011 Nonprofit Technology Conference

Third Party W(r)ench - Paris Swipes McCain. (NSFW)

In May of last year, I wrote a blog entry called "Defending Paris" wherein I expressed compassion for her being locked up. I later wrote that I'd hoped that she'd see the light, have some kind of conversion experience and start speaking truth to power. (You could say I'm a dreamer...)

Well, today, Paris comes through - kinda. It's clearly a spoof and she definitely rehearsed the lines someone else wrote for her, but OMG - this was Hil-ARIOUS. But she responds to the McCain ad which tried to throw some mud on Obama's "celebrity" status. A ridiculous line of attack given McCain's own penchant for celebritizing.

(some strong language might not be suitable for a mindful workplace, not to mention, y'know... Paris in a swimsuit) (after the jump...)

Gregory Heller Profile Photo

Barack Obama, Al Gore and the Origins of the Internet

This morning Mirasol pointed out on our team mailing list that Al Gore had thrown his support behind Barack Obama. Like Mirasol, I too received Al's message in my in box this morning, and the image included in that message looked a little strange.
Henry Poole Profile Photo

Government's 'numbers racket' is about to blow up in our faces

At last, some mainstream coverage of our financial system that is worthy of attention. Marketwatch - Paul Farrell does a nice job of covering Kevin Phillip's new book "Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics & the Crisis of American Capitalism."
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