what can you find with google patent search?

check out this blog post on wired:

"Google's powerful patent search engine allows immediate access to the documents that have driven innovation for more than a century.

Pictured is Wilbur and Orville Wright's airplane, but other famous inventors are well-represented: Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison intrigue.

Looking for Sir Clive Sinclair's cool but commercially ruinous C5 electrical vehicle, my Google-fu failed me, though I did chance across his more successful foldable bicycle. In today's business era, it's all about companies. Apple Computer offers some interesting results, but IBM is boring: one could count dynamoelectric nonmagnetic laminates as a cure for sleeplessness.

Let's cut to the chase. Flying machines of every description take off, but perpetual motion machines stay grounded. Patent officials throw crazy patent claims in the trash nowadays, but try zero-point energy to get modern krankery, that being a code phrase which is to the old perpetuum mobile as Intelligent Design is to Creationism. World War II computers rule -- as do their earlier counterparts.

Makeblog found the original patents for the Transformers. Alas, no Gobots.

Of course, there is the inevitable focus on genitalia, male and female, ranging from sex toys to cleansing devices that no sane person would allow near their vitals. Don't miss the opportunities for improvement.

Last (and first), come innovations prior to 1850: magical, mystical devices ranging from terrifying coathangers to devices used to mercilessly torture vegetables.

So, what have you found?"

the emerald city?

According to the Washington Post, the D.C. city council is considering a measure that would require all new city construction to comply with "green" building standards:

"...within two years all new District-owned projects, including schools, would have to meet the green standards, and in 2009, any building receiving more than 20 percent public financing would have to do the same. By 2012, every new commercial building over 50,000 square feet -- about the size of a medium-size retail store -- would have to meet the guidelines. The rules would also apply to affordable housing."

Very cool.

Room to Read

From the Room to Read website:

"Room to Read partners with local communities throughout the developing world to establish schools, libraries, and other educational infrastructure. We seek to intervene early in the lives of children in the belief that education is a lifelong gift that empowers people to ultimately improve socioeconomic conditions for their families, communities, countries, and future generations. Through the opportunities that only an education can provide, we strive to break the cycle of poverty, one child at a time.
Results to Date

Since our inception in 2000, Room to Read has impacted the lives of over 1,134,000 children by:

* Constructing 221 schools
* Establishing over 3,374 libraries
* Publishing 99 new local language children's titles representing over 930,000 books
* Donating over 1.2 million English language children's books
* Funding 2,344 long-terms girls' scholarships
* Establishing 108 computer and language labs

Vision for the Future

Room to Read's vision is bold - to help 10 million children in the developing world gain the lifelong gift of education. Through our work, we will reach tens of thousands of communities in the developing world through Room to Read schools, scholarships, and libraries, and whole generations will have more opportunity and greater access to education than their parents. Through our work, many more children in the developing world will grow up to have jobs and be able to invest in the future of their own country. Through our work, Room to Read will be among the leaders in building, measuring, and evaluating education programs around the world. Our donors will be continually inspired because they be able to see a direct link between their investment and positive changes in the lives of children.

Strategic planning is core to the ongoing success and sustainability of Room to Read. In 2005 and 2006, the Management Team, Staff and Board of Directors of Room to Read worked diligently to create a plan that will direct our initiatives and energies for the next five years. Adopted in July 2006, the Strategic Plan provides a blueprint for a better world - a world in which millions of children throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America gain access to schools, libraries, books, teachers and computers; a world that is forever changed by the empowerment and self-sufficiency that only education can provide.

Our goals include:
Geographic Expansion

There are more than 770 million illiterate adults in the world - two-thirds of whom are women and girls. In addition, there are over 100 million children not currently enrolled in primary school and millions of others not currently in secondary school. The need for Room to Read's educational programs spans the globe. To respond to this worldwide demand for our programs, Room to Read is committed to expanding geographically. Our expansion plans include:

* Africa - In 2006, Room to Read is launching onto the continent of Africa by opening operations in South Africa. Our goal is to be in at least four countries in Africa by 2010.
* Latin America - Recognizing the need for educational infrastructure throughout the developing world, we plan to launch into Latin America in 2008. Although no countries have been selected yet, our goal is to be in a total of three Latin American countries by 2010.
* Continued Expansion within Asia - As we expand into Africa and Latin America, we will also maintain our commitment to expanding our reach within the countries we are currently operating in Asia. Additionally we will launch into two new countries in Asia by 2010.

Ensuring the Quality of Our Programs

Room to Read is dedicated to transparency, performance and innovation. As we expand into new geographies, it is critical that we ensure our programs are of the highest quality and are run effectively and efficiently. To this end, we will continue to develop and invest in systems to monitor and evaluate our work, while at the same time implement our programs in a flexible manner to best fit the local context. By using international tools that provide a standard monitoring system across the organization and hiring external evaluators to judge our results, Room to Read will continue to invest in the critical components needed to deliver excellent educational programs.

Building Our Capacity

A strong organizational foundation is critical to sustaining Room to Read's growth and impact. We are committed to creating well-codified business processes, ensuring we have the proper management structure and global staff in place to create world-class communications and technology infrastructure. In this way, we will be able to continue to offer quality programs to more children, in more countries, over many generations.

We hope you will join us in this bold new vision for the future of Room to Read!"

Simple software to help you get organized

37signals has created a new set of software designed to enhance your productivity while simplifying your life. Pretty cool.


“Basecamp and Backpack were awarded Best of the Web 2005 awards by the editors of BusinessWeek.”
-BusinessWeek

“37signals is the best little web company of 2005 (Yahoo was the best big web company of 2005)”
-Richard MacManus, Best Web Companies and Innovators of 2005

“37signals’ Basecamp and Backpack are the future of software on the web.”
-Farhad Manjoo, Salon.com Cover Story

“The best example [of online organizer tools] is a service called Backpack (which has been drawing attention among bloggers who focus on productivity tips).”
-Thomas Weber, Wall Street Journal story

Muammar el-Qaddafi buys into $100 laptops

The New York Times reports:

"The government of Libya reached an agreement on Tuesday with One Laptop Per Child, a nonprofit United States group developing an inexpensive, educational laptop computer, with the goal of supplying machines to all 1.2 million Libyan schoolchildren by June 2008."

I've been a fan of Nicholas Negroponte's since I started reading his column in Wired Magazine in the mid-1990s. Negroponte is the founder of the One Laptop Per Child Initiative. What I didn't realize is that United States Intelligence Director, John D. Negroponte, is his brother!

Maybe the Intelligence Director should solicit some of the advice of Nicholas' colleagues at the MIT Media Lab on how to streamline the cumbersome U.S. intelligence computer systems.

[Photo copyright Thomas A. Bass 1995]

the inner life of the cell

via information aesthetics

BumpTop ProtoType

"BumpTop aims to enrich the desktop metaphor with expressive, lightweight techniques found in the real world."

Strange Clouds

check them out

and The Cloud Appreciation Society

UNESCO and the Millennium Development Goals

"World leaders gathered at the Millennium summit agreed on these goals in 2000, and they were reaffirmed last year. They represent a major challenge for the nations of the world, and UNESCO is doing its part to help assure that they are met."

UNESCO In the Spotlight: Education and Culture

Check out the UNESCO website on its support for the MDGs.

Reading Between the Lines

I have been addicted to magazines since I was about twelve. I remember getting Consumer Reports for Kids and then they went bankrupt and I didn't understand how they could just stop sending me their magazine when I had already paid for it. Consumer Reports for Kids, boy that sounds exciting.

I've been a Wired reader for 12 years now. It's fascinating to go back and read issues from the mid-90s. You can also gauge the state of the "new economy" based on how thick the magazine is. In addition to Wired, I read the Economist, Shambala Sun, The Atlantic Monthly, Fast Company, Men's Health, Alternative Medicine, and many others.

There's just something about magazines that captivates me. I like that they're not outdated instantly like a newspaper, yet more easily digestable than a book.

There's also something to the cultural artifact that is the magazine rack. We all know that we could pay soooo much less if we'd just subscribe. Magazine publishers want to guarantee their advertisers a certian number of eyeballs and are willing to save us some cash if we will commit ahead of time, yet part of the fun of magazines is not just reading it, but the practice of selecting a particular magazine among a plethora of options. You walk into your local bookstore and pick out the issue that fits you.

Then again, there's the predictable comfort of knowing your magazine will arrive on a certain day. Your Sports Illustrated in the mailbox on Thursday or your Economist on the front steps on Friday--unless you live in my neighborhood where it's been known to appear anywhere from Friday to Monday. Ahh, the anticipation!

Jack Shafer writes about his relationship with magazines on Slate's site.

What magazines do you love?

Open the box

Pandora:

The Music Genome Project

"On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever.

Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.

Over the past 6 years, we've carefully listened to the songs of over 10,000 different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.

It has been quite an adventure, you could say a little crazy - but now that we've created this extraordinary collection of music analysis, we think we can help be your guide as you explore your favorite parts of the music universe.

We hope you enjoy the journey."

Tim Westergren
Founder
The Music Genome Project

Clinton Global Initiative

Watch webcasts, both live and archived, from the 2006 Clinton Global Initiative.

You should also check out the podcasts available.

Banned books

September 23-30 is banned book week.

Check out the books from the Radcliffe top 100 books of the 20th century that have been banned at one point or another.

Google's even getting into the action.

time is on your side

There's an interesting article on Fuzzy Signals discussing the overall level of violence in the world.

"According to the Human Security Report,
Without new superpower 'proxy wars' starting in the Third World, overall armed conflicts have fallen by more than 40 per cent, and extremely violent conflicts -- those with 1,000 or more battle deaths -- have dropped by 80 per cent... International arms transfers, defence budgets, armed forces personnel and refugee numbers have also all decreased."


"No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded." - Margaret Mead

"In some cases non-violence requires more militancy than violence." - Cesar Chavez

Going Global

Princeton has a remarkable website, Mapping Globalization, which provides several tools for visualizing this concept.



From their site:

"With all the talk of globalization it is easy to forget that at the very core of the concept is a notion of geographical location. Globalization involves connections between at least two places and the first step in our understanding must be an appreciation of what this means in a concrete sense of space."

Check it out.

time to move on

so i've taken a new job which has altered my relationship with supposedly.
if anything, i recognize the need for a skeptical mindset now more than ever.

i will do my best to continue to relate to this space on a more regular basis.

the council on foreign relations' site has a number of quality resources available.

in particular, i appreciate the backgrounders. they serve as a touching off point for familiarizing yourself with a particular issue. here's a discussion of the role of evangelical christians in american foreign policy.

Foiled again

Check out Fred Kaplan's article on Slate: "Looking for Intel in All the Wrong Places: What Washington can learn from Britain's foiled terror plot."

Alive in Baghdad

Alive in Baghdad is an attempt by 25 year old journalist and filmmaker, Brian Conley, to give voice to people living in and through the current Iraqi crisis. His idea is that instead of having Americans, or other westerners, in Iraq to tell us what is going on, why not empower Iraqis themselves to tell their stories. A key component of this is the use of sound and video. By seeing the day to day goings on first hand, we are able to remove some of the element of abstraction that is inevitable as a westerner trying to make sense of the current situation in Iraq.

You can access Alive in Baghdad's videos either through their website or the Democracy Player.

They also have a set of photos available through flickr.

Democracy Player

"Want to see the future of Net video? Download the open source Democracy Player"
Wired Magazine, May 2006

Stop squinting at tiny web video. Instead, download and watch all the best internet TV shows in one powerful application: any video RSS feed, video podcast, video blog, or BitTorrent file. Fullscreen, high resolution, 100% free and open source. New channels arrive daily in the built-in Channel Guide.

Gentle Ben

Time magazine profiles new fed chair Ben Bernanke...

"The shift is about more than clearer communication and punch lines. What's really at stake is a plan to make the Fed a more transparent and accessible institution. When Bernanke first showed up at the Fed as a governor in 2002, he started eating in the cafeteria, much to the surprise of younger economists, who weren't used to governors joining them for lunch and talking shop. When he returned as chairman in February after an eight-month stint as head of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, he resumed his lunchtime habits, not locking himself away in the Fed's private dining rooms. He plays pickup basketball at the Fed gym, posted his minivan for sale on the Fed's electronic bulletin board and showed up at the Fed's July 4 barbecue with his wife, who teaches Spanish, and one of his two children, home from college for the summer."

A strategy for resolving the conflict in Lebanon

Former U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk in today's Financial Times:

"Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, will visit the Middle East this week, raising hopes of an American initiative to end the Lebanese-Israeli imbroglio. On the surface, a surprising consensus is forming about the necessary elements of that initiative: a comprehensive ceasefire; the Lebanese government’s authority extended to southern Lebanon; an effective international force to help the Lebanese army keep peace on the border with Israel and prevent Hizbollah’s rearming; a return to the 1949 Israel-Lebanon armistice agreement with a joint border demarcation committee to deal with outstanding territorial disputes; prisoner exchange negotiations between the Israeli and Lebanese governments; an international fund for reconstructing Lebanon; and implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 on disbanding and disarming all militias.

Most of these elements were outlined in the Group of Eight communiqué and statements by the Lebanese and Israeli prime ministers. It would not take much US diplomatic muscle to secure agreement among these parties. Missing from this framework, however, is any way to get Hizbollah – instigator of the crisis – to accept it. Hizbollah has been bloodied but not yet bowed. Why should it agree to cede its suzerainty in southern Lebanon as the precursor to its disarmament?"

Fight Club

Robin Wright of the Washington Post reports:

"Israel, with U.S. support, intends to resist calls for a cease-fire and continue a longer-term strategy of punishing Hezbollah, which is likely to include several weeks of precision bombing in Lebanon, according to senior Israeli and U.S. officials.

"For the United States, the broader goal is to strangle the axis of Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran, which the Bush administration believes is pooling resources to change the strategic playing field in the Middle East, U.S. officials say.

"Whatever the outrage on the Arab streets, Washington believes it has strong behind-the-scenes support among key Arab leaders also nervous about the populist militants -- with a tacit agreement that the timing is right to strike."

Go Bloogle!

Google plans to open an advertising center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

[photo courtesy of AP]

Calls for an Explanation

Robert Wright interviews John Polkinghorne on the anthropic principle on Slate's Meaning of Life TV. (The video's two and a half minutes long.)

Here are some of the other offerings:

"John Maynard Smith, one of the great figures in modern evolutionary biology, died in April of 2004. He was a scientist who tackled very big questions and yet maintained his intellectual humility--appreciating, for example, how mysterious is the very existence of human consciousness. He was also a scientist who anticipated his own death with impressive equanimity.

Is mysticism an enemy of rationalism? Omid Safi, speaking from a Muslim point of view, says no. (If you're wondering how a Muslim got to be an authority on mysticism: Don't forget about the Muslims known as Sufis).

Is consciousness a mystery--so mysterious as to suggest some higher purpose in the universe? Yes and no, says psychologist Steven Pinker (who more definitively solves the mystery of his hair).

Why are the world's religions sometimes at each other's throats? Huston Smith, who wrote the book on them, has an answer, and it's inspiring yet depressing."

Lost in America

New America Foundation fellow, Douglas McGray:

Speak two languages and you’re bilingual. Speak one? You must be American. So goes the old joke. But globalization means that students can no longer remain blissfully unaware. Can Americans open the classroom door, or will today’s youth be unprepared to lead tomorrow’s world?"

in the May Foreign Policy.

take a look at this

I went to see the Outwin Boochever 2006 Portrait Competition with my girlfriend this past Sunday.

It was amazing. They received over 4000 entries from each of the fifty states. Needless to say, the 51 finalists were outstanding. The works here are the first prize winner Sam and the Perfect World by
David Lenz and My Father in the Living Room of Our 10th House by James Seward.

The National Potrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum just reopened as The Reynolds Center.

Check it out.

And now for something completely different...

Here's a little Radiohead update from green plastic:

"Whew! What a last few days. Radiohead played a marathon set of 28 songs in front of 80,000 people at Bonnaroo last Saturday. According to the reviews sent to us, it was an awesome time. Bonnaroo grossed over $15 million making it the top-grossing festival in the world.

After leaving Tennessee, the band traveled North to Chicago where they played two sold out shows at the Auditorium Theatre. Reviews for the June 19th gig can be found here while last night's reviews can be found here. Many thanks to everyone that submitted!

Now Radiohead are on their way to California to play the final three stops on their North American tour. First stop will be in our neck of the woods at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley this Friday and Saturday. Hope to see you there!"

And here are some more photos of Thom and the boys that I took at last Saturday's Radiohead Show at Bonnaroo...


If you'd like to see more photos, please let me know. If you'd add a link to my blog from yours I'd be more than happy to reciprocate.

I really enjoyed hearing Big Ideas (Don't Get Any), it has always been one of my favorites. I appreciated the crowd's silence during Exit Music (I never saw a lighter light vigile quite like that) and How to Disappear. House of Cards really blew me away. I enjoyed Thom's sing-a-long to "this is what you'll get" and the crowd's spontaneous glow band light show to Everything in its Right Place. I wasn't sure what to expect with 80,000 festival fans at an outdoor venue in Tennessee. It turned out to be a spectacular event.

I hope you enjoy the photos. I'd appreciate any feedback.

50 cent in talks with Apple over low-cost computers

Mr. Negroponte, I'm afraid you have company. According to Apple Insider, hip-hop star, 50 Cent is in talks with Apple's Steve Jobs to help put affordable computers in the hand of less wealthy inner city residents.

"I'm creating a foundation that will be around for a long time, because fame can come and go or get lost in the lifestyle and the splurging," 50 Cent told Forbes Magazine. "I never got into it for the music. I got into it for the business."

From Apple Insider:

"The negotiations between the rapper and Apple are for a 'branding deal.'

50 Cent ranks amongst the world's richest celebrities, raking in over $67 million in 2005 from record sales and branding deals that include a line of sneakers, a video game and his G-Unit clothing line.

'[Jobs] is setting a new standard in the music business,' said 50's manager, Chris Lighty. 'Let's just say we get each other.'"

It will be interesting to see how this effort, both domestic and using Apple computers, compares to Nicholas Negroponte's initiative to put $100 laptops in the hands of children in lesser developed countries.

I am fascinated by the similarities and differences between poverty in the U.S. and abroad, and by what I see as the artificial separation between efforts to improve lives within the U.S. and in other parts of the world. Now that we have two independent efforts to address the growing digital divide, we may gain a better understanding of which strategies are more promising. We may also gain insight into the complexities of poverty that are country specific and those that are prevalent throughout the world.

They Call It Life

Have you seen the energy industry's response to concerns about global warming?

Well at least they're creative.

You Don't Say

Here are three things I'd like to highlight today:

Check out the World Bank's Private Sector Development Blog

It quoted Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu as saying,

"I’m of the attitude that, like in politics, development is local. You can have the grand view but if you don’t infuse the people at a grass roots level you’re playing marbles. I think what this shows is you’ve got the people, and if you just have enough confidence in them people are almost always amazing. And they’re amazing also in their resilience."

Also the Inter-American Development Bank's Mapping the Majority is a powerful tool for graphically representing development related phenomena.

Finally, I'm a big fan of google's customizable homepage. Mine includes my Gmail inbox, calendar, weather, news, etc. I'm excited about the new World Cup add-on Google has created. I'll get updated scores, standings, and highlights right from my main page. I like the sound of that.

John Mackey: Not Your Average Grocer

Whole Foods Market on 60 Minutes.

"Can you find virtue in a grocery store? John Mackey, the CEO and founder of Whole Foods Market, is convinced you can."

Watch the video

Benson Marathon June 2006

"Saturday June 3 & Sunday June 4, 2006 6am June 3 thru 6am June 5
TV Land welcomes Benson this quarter with a 48 hour marathon. Starring Robert Guillaume, this spin-off from Soap, begins as Jessica Tate sends her butler, Benson, to live with her widowed cousin, Governor James Gatling. In addition to performing his butler duties, Benson guides the governor on personal and political decisions. Watch as Benson trades barbs with Miss Krause, the no-nonsense housekeeper and Clayton Endicott III, the political aide, while showing his sensitive side to Katie, the governor’s daughter."

Unity 08

Unity 08 presents an alternative to the current US political landscape.

From their website:

"What We Believe

Unity08 believes that neither of today’s major parties reflects the aspirations, fears or will of the majority of Americans. Both have polarized and alienated the people. Both are unduly influenced by single-issue groups. Both are excessively dominated by money.

For most of the 20th Century, the contest for the U.S. presidency was waged over those “in the middle.” Recent Presidential elections, however, have not been focused on the middle but on the turnout of each party’s special interest groups – with each party’s “base” representing barely ten percent of the American people.

We believe that, while the leaders of both major parties are well intentioned people, they are trapped in a flawed system – and that the two major parties are today simply neither relevant to the issues and challenges of the 21st Century nor effective in addressing them.

As a result, most Americans have not been enthusiastic about the choices for President in recent elections, the key issues they ran on, or the manner in which the campaigns were conducted.

Therefore Unity08 will act to assure that an alternative ticket is presented to the American voters in 2008.

Local Yokels

A NY Times article about the lives of the Clintons notes that the former president frequents a local restaurant:

"They decided later that dinner would not work, so Mr. Clinton did what he often does: He rounded up some familiar faces — former aides including Joe Lockhart and Mike McCurry — and went out for a late bite at Lauriol Plaza, the bustling Tex-Mex restaurant in Dupont Circle."

Dell drops exclusive chip deal with Intel

From the Financial Times:
"Dell Computer signalled a shift in alliances in the personal computer world yesterday, saying that it would end its exclusive use of Intel microprocessors and begin buying from Advanced Micro Devices."

Western civilization faces a stark choice

In today's Financial Times, Richard Koch and Chris Smith argue that five factors: Christianity, Optimism, Science, Growth, and Individualism have led to "enormous strides in economic, military, political, and social terms."

Yet, confidence in these concepts is diminishing in some respects. If western civilization is to continue on a successful path, they argue, society must reconcile its current difficulties with this foundation.

"We have stopped believing in the ideas that drove earlier generations to improve the world. Six main ideas made the west, century after century, progressively successful, powerful, and attractive - Christianity, optimism, science, economic growth, individualism and liberalism. Are these ideas past their sell-by date?"

In adversity lies opportunity

It seems to me that the public debates regarding immigration policy and the future of social security aren't mutually exclusive. Wouldn't a thoughtful approach to both dilemmas consider the ways a reformed immigration policy can help to address concerns about mass baby-boomer retirement and the strains this will put on the U.S. economy? For that matter, isn't the immigration issue also closely related to sky-rocketing health care costs?

Incorporating current illegal workers into the formal economy would expand the tax base, reduce corruption, and enhance accountability. It would also provide a path to sustained economic growth in the US for decades to come.

I wish I was special

From Joel Achenbach's column in yesterday's Washington Post:

"The Copernican Principle states that I should not be in a special position in regard to all the people who might or might not have a parking space. The likely fate of a human being is to be, in most respects, ordinary -- not as a matter of good or bad luck, but merely as a statistical probability in a universe that is deeply probabilistic."

Oh, Canada...

ESPN.com reports that San Jose fans booed the Canadian national anthem Sunday night before Game 5 of their team's second-round playoff series with the Edmonton Oilers.

It's kind of funny how they only play the national anthems of the teams participating. Most of the players--on both U.S. and Canadian teams--are from Canada and Europe. It must have been strange for the Canadians on the San Jose team who heard their own fans booing their national anthem.

Big Macs and Yoga

Fast Company's Danielle Sacks discusses the irony of fast-food chains pedalling wares for enhanced mindfulness and health. It's crazy enough it just might work. Sigh.

"The pristine white packaging engraved with shiny gold lettering was enough to make me suspicious. When I realized the gold lettering was actually Mickey D's iconic 'M' (with modern urban twist 'I'm lovin it') hanging above the phrase 'Yourself Fitness' I knew I was in trouble. The kicker was when I opened McDonald's latest PR schwag to discover burger-branded yoga and cardio videos. Ugh.

Okay, if fast food cattle houses want to peddle mandarin-accented salads and bottled water, great. But to try and spin your cause to health, the message is so unnatural it's like showing up at church to find out the priest is trying to convince you to convert to Judaism.

The new ploy is a cobranded effort with a videogame company that has created 'Maya,' an attractive Latino personal trainer who can be channeled through PlayStation2 and XBox consoles. Maya can take you through 'yoga for relaxation and rejuvination, cardio for burning calories and boosting metabolism, core for strengthening the abs and spine, and strength for toning and tightening.' All this inside the new 'Go Active! Happy Meal for Adults!'

Listen, I'm all for companies encouraging healthy living. But to come from the source of clogged arteries, heart attacks and the super-sizing of America is just plain disingenuious, if not insulting. I'm just waiting for the press release announcing that McDonald's and Krispy Kreme have partnered to launch a new chain of gyms...is there no shame -- or common sense -- in the branding world?"

Coming of age in America

Anthropologists Go Native in the Corporate Village

American companies are realizing that an anthropologist can provide useful insight into the strengths and weaknesses of their organizations. Maybe our government should consider such an approach.

"Briody is a pioneer in a growing and influential field -- corporate anthropology. What began as an experiment in a handful of companies such as GM has become an explosion. In recent years, some of the biggest names in business have recruited highly trained anthropologists to understand their workers and customers better, and to help design products that better reflect emerging cultural trends. These companies are convinced that the tools of ethnographic research -- minute observation, subtle interviewing, systematic documentation -- can answer questions about organizations and markets that traditional research tools can't."

Doha and Disparity

The Financial Times has two important editorials today.

The first one expresses the serious danger the world economy would face if the current Doha trade round fails. Recent stagnation in negotiations along with political calls for a more protectionist approach give cause for concern.

"Erosion of WTO principles and disciplines would replace the rule of law with the law of the jungle. Nations' use of trade policies as offensive political and economic weapons would no longer be restrained by multilateral rules, increasing the risk of economic conflict. And as rival trade deals proliferated, global markets would fragment.

The world has already been down that path: it led ultimately to economic depression, tyranny and war. It must not, and need not, risk repeating the same disastrous mistake. But avoiding it will take far stronger leadership and a much bigger commitment of political capital than has been apparent in the Doha talks so far."

The second editorial discusses increasing gap between America's super rich and the middle class.

"Since 1973, the income of the top 10 per cent of American earners has grown by 111 per cent, while the income of the middle fifth has grown by only 15 per cent. That trend has become more pronounced in the last few years. Between 1998 and 2004, the median income of American households fell by 3.8 per cent. This coincided with annual productivity growth in excess of 3 per cent in most of those years. You do not need to take a definitive stance on why America's high productivity growth has been so disproportionately captured by a small percentage of Americans to agree that it makes for a potentially volatile political scenario."

Also, Robert Rubin announced today the creation of the Hamilton Project, a new platform to develop market-based solutions to America's problems.

WTO warns US over protectionist sentiment

The Financial Times reports:

"The US needs to head off domestic protectionist sentiment that risks reducing the openness of the US economy and dampening growth," the World Trade Organisation warned on Wednesday.

In its latest report on US trade policies, written before the controversy over the sale of US port operations to a company based in the United Arab Emirates, the WTO secretariat says open US markets have helped fuel solid economic expansion by supporting a “continuous drive for change and efficiency”.

Death and Taxes

Check out this graphical representation of the U.S. budget on deviantart's website.

2004 Military Spending: 399 Billion
2004 Non-Military Spending: 383 Billion

Hanging out at Circuit City on the Weekends

Now here's an incredibly bizarre story:

Claude Allen's Mentor - Shoplifting and Bushonomics. By Jacob Weisberg

"Last week, Slate broke the news that Claude Allen, until recently the White House chief domestic-policy adviser, was arrested for theft in suburban Maryland. The president has expressed his shock and disappointment. How could one of his top appointees, a devout Christian who passed a series of FBI background checks, have been a common thief? But the more we hear about what Allen is accused of, the less it sounds like kleptomania and the more it sounds like an application of Bush economic policy.

"Allen's alleged scam was something called "refund fraud." According to the police in Montgomery County, he would purchase a home-theater system or a computer printer from a department store and put it in the trunk of his car. Then he would come back to the same store with his receipt, pull an identical item off the shelf, and take it to the return desk for a refund. Using this technique, a brazen perpetrator pays for the item once but derives value from it two times—he gets his money back and keeps the merch. Allen is alleged to have stolen more than $5,000 worth of merchandise over the past year in this way."

Cheney hunting mishap to be spoofed by hockey club

It has been a while since I posted something. Oops.

Enjoy the silence.

And maybe check this out from ESPN:

LAS VEGAS -- A minor league hockey team is spoofing Vice President Dick Cheney's recent hunting mishap with a plan to distribute bright orange hunting vests printed with the words, "Don't Shoot, I'm Human."

The Las Vegas Wranglers plan to distribute 1,000 vests to fans arriving for Friday's game as part of a promotion dubbed "Dick Cheney Hunting Vest Night" at the Orleans Arena.

"It was sort of too juicy not to do," said Billy Johnson, Wranglers president and chief operating officer. "It's one of those events in pop culture."

He referred to Cheney accidentally wounding a hunting partner while quail hunting Feb. 11 on a Texas ranch.

Cheney's office in Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond Monday to requests for comment.

The Wranglers, of the East Coast Hockey League, are scheduled to play the Alaska Aces on Friday. The 7,000-seat arena is at the Orleans hotel-casino.

The sheik behind the port deal

Here's a thoughtful take on the recent uproar surrounding the aquisition of several U.S. ports by a firm owned by the UAE.

"The anxiety is that America is losing its place at the forefront of the global economy. We're suffering, experts say, from a bad case of economic insecurity that is rooted in America's long-standing inclination toward isolationism."

Genius

Do yourself a favor and watch this trailer:
Brokeback to the Future

Don't Despair Over Hamas Gains

Forbes has a summary of a meeting held yesterday at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars with the Israeli and Egyptian Ambassadors as well as the PLO representative to the U.S.

To me, the central issue for the United States is how to reconcile support for "free and fair" elections in Palestine--observed by the U.N. and the National Democratice Institute--with the coming to power of a political group the U.S. has labeled a terrorist organization. How do we allow citizens to choose their own leaders and then reject the outcome? If the U.S. chooses to decrease or cutoff aid to Palestine, which is currently being discussed on Capitol Hill, we are sending a hypocritical message to the Palestinian people. It would seem to me that in so doing we would only be fostering further resentment toward the U.S. and its foreign policy.

This brings me to another point. For all of Bush's talk on bringing democracy too the Middle East and focusing on U.S. national security, Iran's position continues to get stronger. First we took out their religious and political opposition in Iraq, then we facilitated the coming to power in Palestine of an organization whose stated objective--the destruction of Israel--coincides directly with President Ahmadinejad's own interests. Obviously, U.S. government officials had no way to predict the outcome of Palestinian elections, yet it's hard for me to see how these recent developments have furthered U.S. interests in the region.

Will Globalization Make Hatred More Lethal?

An interesting essay by Robert Wright, Schwartz Senior Fellow, discusses the implications of new developments in technology on the ability of terrorists to plan and carry out attacks.

Here's an excerpt (italics added):

"Why has terrorism become public enemy number one? The most common answer--the rise of a brand of radical Islam that uses terror as its weapon—-is true insofar as it goes. But the reason this weapon is so scary is that something deeper has changed: technology now makes it possible for clusters of intensely hateful people to cause thousands, even millions, of deaths without using the political or military machinery of a state. Yes, the hateful people most likely to exploit this fact today are radical Muslims, but even if this threat subsides, the generic threat will remain: hatred is more lethal than it used to be. And the underlying technological trends will persist over the next three decades, making it more lethal still."

Here we go Steelers

Michael Imbroscio has a great article in today's Post:

"Because of its proximity to Pittsburgh -- four hours by car-- Washington and its suburbs are a hotbed of transplanted "Yinz-ers" -- a name derived from a quirk of the Pittsburgh dialect in which other people are referred to not as "you" or even as "you all," but as "yinz." Thousands of Yinz-ers, now in their thirties and forties -- such as myself -- call the Washington area home."

Project Implicit

Project Implicit is a fascinating method for associating an individual's preference between two concepts. The test I just took was between imprisonment and capital punishment for example. The results of the test are often surprising.

The project was recently discussed on Slate and in Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Securing the Middle East with a Nuclear Iran?

The Globalist's Thomas P.M. Barnett suggests that a nuclear armed Iran may be a stabilizing force in the region. His "Blueprint for Action" presents a number of interesting possibilities in a development that has so brought about few new perspectives.

In the recent increase in tensions between Iran and the West it is important to distinguish between the Iranian government and the Iranian people. With this in mind, one can better analyze Iranian political maneuvering from a domestic and international perspective.

Current efforts by U.S. and E.U. officials to seek a referral of Iran to the U.N. Security Council provides little hope for an acceptable outcome. China's tremendous thirst for energy makes an oil and gas embargo improbable. It also remains to be seen if such an embargo would damage Iran or the world economy more. It seems officials are seeking a Security Council referral without plans for a successful end-game. With this in mind, one must be willing to consider alternative perspectives.

"In many ways, the Shiite revolutionary spirit died a long time ago in Iran, leaving behind a cynical political order where the mullahs pretend to rule, the citizens pretend to obey and the government pretends to reform.

Iran is a frightfully young society, full of ambition for a better life and chafing under what the majority of the population consider to be the rather idiotic rule of the religious fundamentalists, one that offers them no future worth pursuing in an increasingly globalized world that demands far more rational rule sets."

Rice Reshaping USAID

Condoleezza Rice recently remarked on the creation of the position of director of Foreign Assistance within the State Department. This new director will also serve as the USAID administrator.

Rice believes this will allow for the better coordination of U.S. development efforts while others are concerned that this will allow State Department concerns to subsume USAID objectives.

The creation of the Department of Homeland Security was also heralded as an important effort to allow various government entities to work more closely with one another, yet the failure of the U.S. government to respond adequately to the Hurricane Katrina disaster called into question such logic. It remains to be seen whether aligning agencies into one organizational structure produces a more effective system.

Alexander the Great

The future of hockey is here and his name is Alexander Ovechkin

Build, therefore, your own world

Here's a quote by Emerson I recently encountered:

"So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, - What is truth? and of the affections,— What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. ... Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit."

Saving the world isn't easy

A new set of television ads by the Red Cross seems to suggest that since saving the world is so difficult we should just donate some blood instead. Curious.

Glenn Beck gets his own show on Headline News

FAIR reports that "CNN’s Headline News has hired radio talkshow host Glenn Beck to host a one-hour primetime show, according to a Daily Variety report (1/17/05). Variety quotes CNN Headline News president Ken Jautz's description of Beck: 'Glenn’s style is self-deprecating, cordial; he says he'd like to be able to disagree with guests and part as friends. It's conversational, not confrontational.'"

Beck's comments suggest a personality far more violent and incendiary than Jautz lets on.

In one instance, he explained his disdain for the relatives of the September 11 victims by saying, "'Oh shut up!' I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining. And we did our best for them."

He went on to vent his hatred for the victims of Hurricane Katrina:

"When you are rioting for these tickets, or these ATM cards, the second thing that came to mind was--and this is horrible to say, and I wonder if I'm alone in this--you know it took me about a year to start hating the 9/11 victims' families? Took me about a year.... But the second thought I had when I saw these people and they had to shut down the Astrodome and lock it down, I thought: I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9/11 victims.... And that's all we're hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones we're seeing on television are the scumbags--and again, it's not all the people in New Orleans. Most of the people in New Orleans got out! It's just a small percentage of those who were left in New Orleans, or who decided to stay in New Orleans, and they're getting all the attention."

He also fantasized about killing Michael Moore:

"I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out--is this wrong?"

I wonder if these recent attempts by MSNBC and Headline News to appeal to the Fox News crowd will actually cause a backlash among more mainstream (and sensible) Americans. Do they realize the level of vulgarity being spread in the name of conservatism?

Broadband in the U.S. sucks

Sorry I've been a bit slow on the posts lately. I promise to pick things up as the new year gets going in fully swing.

Lawrence Lessig provides an apt critique of U.S. broadband policy and conveys the daunting proposition that we are slowly falling behind the rest of the world in internet infrastructure. If only policymakers could set aside special interests and develop an innovative policy to ensure America's youth will have access to cutting edge internet technologies.

This is no time to be complacent.

You know, I thought our 5 mbs for $50 was a decent deal. We did get that introductory $19.95 rate from Comcast for the first three months, but that's long gone. But then I find out that in France you get 20 mbs (four times as fast!) for $36 a month. What the hell is going on here?

"Today, in the world where the duopoly increasingly talks about returning us to the world where innovation is as the network owners says, broadband in the US sucks."

Let There Be Wi-Fi

"Broadband is the electricity of the 21st century--and much of America is being left in the dark."

An article from the Washington Monthly encourages American policy makers to close the digital divide in the U.S. or risk falling behind Asian innovators in technological expertise.