the people vs the pundits

The Arena – Politico’s daily debate with policymakers and opinion shapers | Politico.com:

Is the McCain campaign’s decision to “suspend” campaigning and the Friday debate smart or not smart?

The comments are interesting, almost all amazed at such an obvious stunt, while the punditocracy (who I assume are looking for for jobs or favors from a McPalin administration) are heavily in his favor, citing boldness and leadership . . . .

Running from a fight is leadership? As noted, if Lincoln could campaign during the Civil War, why does McCain have to take a break?

got a minute?

make a phone call: it’s important.

I just called my Congressman and urged him to give Big Hank Paulson the finger on his insane $700 billion to buy worthless assets. I strongly urge you to do the same. Some of the general points I made include:

  • The administration is essentially arguing that the treasury secretary should have unchecked power to buy up garbage assets without any congressional oversight. This is completely unacceptable.
  • The panicked way this administration is pushing Congress to enact this godawful rescue plan is akin to how it bullied Congress into voting to authorize the use of force in Iraq. Do not let yourselves be bullied.
  • Given the bang-up job this administration has done in rebuilding both Iraq and the Gulf Coast, do you really want to give them $700 billion to play with? Could you please step back and think before you vote?
  • If these Wall Street a-holes are going to be unloading their shitty debt onto us, I want them under an iron fist of regulatory power. In particular, I want the CEOs of all participating firms to have their salaries and benefits slashed as punishment for making us pay to keep their sorry asses out of the local homeless shelter.

This is a very big deal, peeps. While it may not have the immediacy of opposing the Iraq war, it will have very serious consequences to our financial futures if it passes as proposed. You can find your congressman by entering in your zip code here.

[From Google Reader ]

little help here?

Hey, I need your help!

My TV show pilot called “History Hacker” airs this Friday September 26th at 8PM and Midnight on the History Channel. I’m the host of the show and I check out inventors in history and take a hands-on look at their inventions and then break it on down and hack the inventions together. I need your help to make the show go from a pilot to a real TV show.

The pilot is all about Nikola Tesla and the war of the currents between Tesla and Edison. In the show I learn how to blow a neon tube, explore wireless electricity and build an AC generator from a bike. I also go to Boston to visit an MIT space lab to see how the principles that Tesla pioneered are being applied to space propulsion.

The look of the show is awesome. The folks at History gave the producer, director, and director of photography permission to take my DIY style of making videos with lots of jump cuts and direct talking to the camera and push it forward into a longer format. It doesn’t look like anything else on TV.

There are four things you can do to help make the pilot a TV show.

1. Tell people. Please forward this email, write about it on your blog and help get the buzz going.

2.. Please tune in on a Tivo if you’ve got one to help boost Nielsen ratings. http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=365730

3. Once you’ve seen the show, send a feedback email telling the folks at History what you think. Email historyhackerfeedback@brepettis.com.

4. Also after the show has aired, please drop a note with what you think of the show in the History Forums at http://boards.historychannel.com/topic/History-Now/New-Pilot-This/520012982

You can also participate on Facebook, Flickr, Youtube and stay tuned to my Blog

Facebook: If you enjoy the show and want to participate more I’ve set up a facebook group that anyone can join at http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=25165214526.

Flickr: I’m also really curious about the people watching my show so i set up a flickr group. Please take a picture of yourself watching the show and upload it to the group at http://www.flickr.com/groups/historyhacker/. It will be really cool to see who’s watching the show!

Youtube: I’ve posted a teaser on youtube that gives you a feel for what the show will look like. Go check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe5DWyVrvlY. I’ll have at least one more teaser coming out soon on my youtube channel. You can click the yellow subscribe button to see them before anyone else. http://youtube.com/brepettis.

My Blog: I’m writing about the experience of starting up History Hacker and posting behind the scenes material at http://brepettis.com/blog. I’m actually going to put the content of this email on my blog too at http://brepettis.com/blog/2008/09/21/help-turn-the-history-hacker-pilot-into-a-tv-show/.

Thanks for your support! I can’t wait to see it on Television and I hope you get a chance to tune in and help me make this pilot into a TV show!

Bre Pettis
History Hacker

wish I had said this

Sadly, No! » It’s time to bring back the public stocks:

Just because you live in the middle of nowhere doesn’t make you more authentic than me. It just means you have a much longer drive to the airport.

Now, ever since Sarah Palin came along, this election has been falsely framed as a contest between salt-of-the-earth, small-time maverick westerners and snooty eastern elites. You know, there’s people who go to church on Sunday, and there’s people who go to brunch.

Even fast-talking, cross-dressing Rudy Giuliani – the former mayor of New York City – accused Obama of being too cosmopolitan. That’s like being called a douche-bag by Andy Dick.

And…and listen to Mitt Romney from the same convention. He said, “If America really wants change, it’s time to look for the sun in the west, because it’s about to rise and shine from Arizona and Alaska. Of course, if the sun actually did rise in the west, that would mean the earth is spinning backwards and we’d all fly into space. But, then Mormons were never big on science. As you well know.

But, what Mitt was getting at is that the East Coast is where all the liberals, with their bad ideas, come from. You know, bad ideas like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. As opposed to the brilliant ideas that have come out of the west like frontier justice and wearing cowboy boots with a suit.

The ideas this nation was founded on came from the most cosmopolitan people of their day, the founding fathers, who believed in science, who looked to Europe for wisdom, and who had no use for ignorant hicks like Bush and Palin.

Truth is – the truth is, as America moved west and got farther away from its birthing in Boston and Philadelphia, it became less American, not more. We keep hearing about small-town values, you know, like shooting wolves from an airplane or forcing your daughter into a doomed, loveless marriage.

Cities are about diversity of thought. Small towns are about…well, crystal meth. And, last year, police found 42 meth labs in Sarah Palin’s home county. Drug addiction is a terrible thing, but apparently it beats living in Wasilla sober.

There’s so much meth in this town, I’m surprised the Palins didn’t have a kid named “Tweaker.”

So, now I know what they mean when they talk about the Alaska spirit. Ah, yes, Alaska, where the townsfolk are jittery and the hockey players screw right through the condoms.

messaging

Exactly.

And so what makes Microsoft’s new “I’m a PC” commercials so jaw-droppingly bad is that they’re not countering Apple’s message, but instead they’re reinforcing it. That the spots themselves jump between dozens of different people who “are” PCs, that the spots make a point of emphasizing that there are a billion Windows-running PCs worldwide, this only emphasizes that “PC” is not a brand name but a generic.

This is what advertising is about — making you the consumer want the New Improved thing, with Whiter Whites/Scrubbing Bubbles/Moxie. All this campaign does is try to convince you that generic is OK, that wanting the common denominator is acceptable. What next? Airbrushing out Vista from product lineup shots? Have you seen Bob lately?