Archive for: December, 2005

Anders Bylund: Out Of His Depth

Dec 29 2005 Published by under Politics, The Internet

Politics

Anyone who has spent a good deal of time working in politics will tell you how annoying it is that everyone else considers themselves an expert on politics. That doesn’t happen in other fields. I read about technology, but I don’t consider myself an engineer. I would never walk up to a guy that installs robotics units in semi-conductor plants and tell him what he’s doing wrong, or all the problems with robotics.

For some reason, though, nobody feels any compunction to remain silent on matters of politics when talking to professional campaign hacks. Suddenly they are experts on what it takes to organize and mobilize supporters around a cause. That’s where Anders Bylund comes in.

    In prehistoric times, i.e., before the Internet, getting a political movement off the ground meant getting your hands dirty. You had to go find your target audience and talk to them, find volunteers to go knocking on doors or cold-call people on the phone. There were letters to write and envelopes to stuff, and it was just a lot of work. Then along came the ‘Net, where you could publish one web page and the whole world could find it. Easy-to-use e-mail lists, and later on, instant messaging and blogs, also helped simplifying the process of drumming up support from your friends, neighbors, and countrymen.

The article goes on to quote the same Democrat stooges who believe that Internet activists represent some surge in civic involvement, rather than recognizing them for what they are – the grassroots of America’s political structure.

I wrote a piece for the e-Voter Institute’s book Crossing the River: The Coming of Age of the Internet in Politics and Advocacy on this very topic. Republicans, after the 2000 election, looked at their narrow loss and realized that they needed to reconnect with the grassroots – to do the hard work of organizing. Democrats failed to grasp that point and, instead, stumbled into 2004 under the same failed roadmap they had used in every election since Kennedy.

The Democrats did, however, get lucky. Howard Dean, in a fluke accident, reconnected with the grassroots of the party and began to get them moving – online. Unfortunately, the Democrats saw this not as the grassroots of their party (and a rabidly liberal grassroots at that) but as a social movement indicating that they would be swept into power in a Reagan-esque landslide.

When it all shook out, the GOP, who had spent their time doing the “hard work” that Ars Technica seems to believe is no longer necessary given the advent of the Internet, beat Kerry by nearly 4 million votes. The difference was a focus on organizing – rather than a belief that with Meetup organizing would take care of itself.

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Kong Makes Money

Dec 28 2005 Published by under Movies, Pop Culture

MoviesThank god for the international release…

Between it’s relatively weak showing domestically ($121 million so far) and it’s larger international release ($154 million so far), Kong has at least recouped it’s production budget ($207 million).

It remains to be seen whether the picture is actually profitable yet. After all, the $207 million is just production. I’ve heard estimates that the marketing budget puts the price tag of the picture close to $287 million. If that’s the case, Kong should break even this week.

If I were the folks at Universal, I’d be hard pressed to bank roll another one like this. If you’re going to remake tired, old turd burgers, at least make cheap, tired, old turd burgers.

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It’s Official. Country Music Kills!

Dec 28 2005 Published by under Country Music, Music, Pop Culture

MusicThis study is apparently thirteen years old, but it won an Ig Nobel Prize for Medicine last year and just came to my attention. It’s something we have known all along, but science has now confirmed it. Country music makes white people kill themselves.

Yup. It’s true. The study showed that in urban areas, higher levels of exposure to country music were related to higher levels of suicide.

    The results of a multiple regression analysis of 49 metropolitan areas show that the greater the airtime devoted to country music, the greater the white suicide rate. The effect is independent of divorce, southernness, poverty, and gun availability.

Now, I do feel compelled to play the devil’s advocate. First, let’s start with the fact that the study focuses on urban areas when it is people in the sticks that generally listen to country music on purpose. Those in urban areas generally only listen to country when every other channel is playing Jennifer Lopez tunes or anything by Metallica.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, the urban areas that play the most country music are generally those located closest to the sticks (for instance Oklahoma City and Little Rock, Arkansas). It’s quite likely that your tendency to commit suicide goes up dramatically just based on proximity to these cities, rather than as a direct result of the music on the radio. After all, you’re in Oklahoma or Arkansas. What else are you going to do but kill yourself?

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Disturbing

Dec 28 2005 Published by under Movies, Pop Culture, Technology, The Internet

MoviesI’m somewhat disturbed this morning. I just looked at my traffic stats and saw something that makes me uneasy.

A week ago, I posted some thoughts on the movies Hostel and Wolf Creek. In the post, there was a reference to the inspiration for Hostel and the fact that the director had seen a Thai website offering a “murder vacation”.

Since that time, my referrer reports indicate I have received a fair amount of traffic looking for that term. Apparently, there are a fair number of people searching out that website. Now either they’re trying to find it to verify the bullshit claims of Tarantino and Roth, or there are a lot of sick folks out there looking for a depraved kick.

I really hope it’s the former, rather than the latter.

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Bush Administration to Weigh in With Golddigger

Dec 27 2005 Published by under Politics, Republicans

PoliticsI really don’t understand what is going on with the Bush Administration. For a President who claims he is a huge fan and student of Reagan, he is doing a lot of things that ring hollow when compared to the Great Communicator. The latest example really leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

It seems the Administration wants to weigh in on the battle over J. Howard Marshall’s will. At issue for the ever atrocious Anna Nicole Smith is whether she’ll get $474 million dollars. At issue for the Administration is something much deeper, and something that would have had Reagan rolling over in his grave.

The Administration will ask the Supreme Court to reserve the Federal Government’s “right” to interfere with the state probate proceedings. After an appeals court vacated the ruling of a district court judge because they had no grounds to get involved in what amounts to a local issue, the Administration wants that decision reversed. They want to insinuate the federal government into cases that have traditionally been heard only by state and local courts.

Involving the fed in matters such as these is a slippery slope. It’s going to lead to more intrusion by the federal government into local matters. That’s something every Republican should oppose, and something that Reagan, with his view of limited federal government, would have been against.

Unfortunately, for all of his talk about Reagan and limited government, Bush continually fights for bigger, bloated federal government. It’s making me hope we can elect a real Republican in 2008.

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