Google Goodness May 30, 2009

I’m confessing here to having a man-crush on Google.  They simply put out more great technology, in shorter periods of time, than I’ve ever witnessed.  In addition to my constant cheerleading for Gmail, Google Calendar, Picasa, and Google Docs, let me add a couple more amazing Google products to the list:

1. Google Voice -  Google Voice is simply designed to change everything about your interaction with phones: it provides you with a single point of interaction with all of your phones (home, work, cell).  Place calls for free (similar to Skype).  Take calls with any of your phones.  Access your voicemail from your phones, or from your computer, with standard playback features (for example: if you missed the phone number in a long message, just back up a few seconds and listen again).  Send, receive, and store text messages.  Screen calls.  Block calls (yourself, without the phone company’s help).  Have your voicemails transcribed to text and emailed to you.  Have a separate greeting for each caller.  Place conference calls from your regular phone.  Record calls.  I’m not even halfway done with features! Google Voice is not available to everyone just yet, but will be rolled out soon to anyone with a Google account.   Click this link to see a review of features.
2. Google Wave – Google Engineers sat down and asked themselves: what would I create if I were inventing email right now?  The result is still under development, but it appears to be part email, part instant messaging, fully aware of media, and 100% awesome.  Check out the announcement video.  (Warning: the whole video is over an hour long, but you can skip around to catch the drift.)

This is only a start, to be honest.  Were you aware that Google makes a 3-D modeling application?  (They do: Google SketchUp.)  That they make an awesome, superfast web browser?  (Google Chrome — can’t wait for the Mac version.)  That you can perform a search only on books, or on scholarly articles?  Or how about this: that if you dial 1-800-GOOG-411  (1-800-466-4411) you can get the same service you get from dialing 411 on your phone — only it’s FREE?

Yep.  It’s a man-crush.

Supreme Court Selection Logic May 27, 2009

I read today an article suggesting that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is “Obama’s Harriet Miers,” referring of course to President Bush’s disastrous and aborted selection of his old friend and then-White House Counsel to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court.

I’m not qualified to evaluate Justice Sotomayor, but I’m qualified to evaluate resumes:  Sonia Sotomayor was a summa cum laude graduate of Princeton, and then a graduate of Yale Law School, where she was editor of the Yale Law Review.  Harriett Miers was a graduate of Southern Methodist University for both her bachelor’s and juris doctor, neither with any noted academic distinction.

Justice Sotomayor has been a federal judge since 1991, and an appellate judge since 1998.  She would bring more experience in the federal judiciary to the position than any Supreme Court nominee in 100 years.  She was an adjunct professor at NYU’s law school for nine years, and has been a lecturer-in-law at Columbia Law School for ten.  Six universities have awarded her honorary degrees.

Miers clerked for a federal district judge in northern Texas after her graduation, and later served 27 years for various law firms in the Dallas area.  She was president of the Dallas Bar Association, and later headed the Texas Bar Association.

Can you see the difference?  I can.

Should the GOP “Moderate”? May 13, 2009

Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh, among others, have been strongly proclaiming that the Republican Party should not adjust its positions — a move to the center would be a “capitulation,” and would fail to draw the stark contrast between Democrats and Republicans.

It’s an interesting question, I think: is it time to move to the center, or time to “energize the base”?

I’ve said before that they should move to the center, but I don’t think I’ve addressed this issue particularly — this question of brand dilution that Cheney and Limbaugh are discussing on the airwaves.

Here is why I think they’re wrong: this is a game you play to win, not a game you play to express your position.  If you consistently fail to win, then you don’t have the opportunity to express your position anymore.  The Whigs and Federalists once had a voice and now do not, and current minor parties like the Green Party nominate candidates but have their voice drowned out to a faint whisper.  You have to win in order to have a significant voice.

Idealogical purity may sound attractive to “the base,” but it won’t win elections (except in certain states): Polls show that less than a third of the country now self-identify as Republican, and a significant portion of that third are not idealogically pure from a Republican standpoint.  I have myself made much of the fact that Limbaugh has 13 million listeners each week, but it is important in this context to remember that this is less than one in ten voters (presuming that his listeners are all voters).  This is not Italy: you can’t do anything significant with a third of the electorate behind you.  Republicans have to figure out how to capture another 18% to 20% from the undecideds, and their current base positions aren’t getting it done.

There will always be significant opportunity to draw important distinctions between the parties: if Republicans would embrace their thrifty, small-government roots, that would be a strong differentiator.  Republicans can be softer on abortion and gay rights without throwing in the towel, which would put them squarely in the middle of American opinion.  They could take a more reasoned tone on world policing without retreating altogether.  There are still important distinctions to draw, even with a move to the center.  It is still the case that Nancy Pelosi (in particular) and Pres. Obama hold positions that are to the left of most Americans.

There’s an argument that says that the country will swing back in the Republican direction, but I think that gravely underestimates the problem for the GOP.  See, I don’t think the problem is altogether new; I don’t think that the 2008 election is its genesis.  While Demo anger over the 2000 election is much ado about nothing at this point, it is nevertheless worth pointing out for this discussion that George Bush never held much of a mandate in this country: he won against a strong opponent in 2000, but only after the Supreme Court remanded Bush v. Gore back to the Florida court, which then determined that there was not sufficient time for a recount.  He then won against an impossibly weak opponent in 2004 with both the economy and national security on his side, and still he garnered only 50.7% of the vote.

This is not to beat up on George Bush: it’s simply to point out that it’s possible to argue that the country has been swinging away from the GOP for a long time, and only the exigencies of war and an unnaturally propped-up economy held it together for Republicans.

Either way: The center is the place to be.

Lies Limbaugh has Told May 12, 2009

I have some friends who have wondered why I seem so all over Rush Limbaugh.  It’s really simple, actually: if you are going to have a massive pulpit from which to move public opinion, then you have a moral responsibility to tell the truth.  Rush Limbaugh consistently fails to do that.  For example:

1. In June of 2008, Limbaugh stated that “Hamas has endorsed Obama. … Why do you think they’ve endorsed Obama? Because they want a very strong ally for Israel in the White House?”  In fact, Hamas said no such thing.
2. Taking the rhetoric even further, Limbaugh said that “every time I hear [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad speak, every time I hear a tape from [Al Qaeda leader] Ayman al Zawahiri or a so-called dispatch from [Osama] bin Laden, whenever I hear from any of these Middle East Al Qaeda terrorists, I think I’m hearing Democrat Party talking points.”  No comment is necessary, I think, on morality of the above.
3. Remarkably, when President Obama announced a plan to phase out vouchers for D.C. area schools, Limbaugh accused Obama of being racist, then stated that “they don’t want them (the kids) escaping the underclass regardless of race.”  This goes beyond lying and into some kind of Twilight Zone of illogic.
4. On his show in late April, Limbaugh quoted a friend of his (but did not say he disapproved of the message — quite the opposite, in fact) saying that “Obama is terrorist attack #2; Obama is the follow-up to 9/11.”
5. January 22, after taking heat (and not ever apologizing) for saying that he wanted Obama to fail, Limbaugh said that “we are being told that we have to hope he (Obama) succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles…because his father is black.”  No, decent people wish him well because they love the country and wish the best for it.  Decent Democrats would be hoping the same for Pres. McCain, if he had won.  Obama’s race has nothing to do with it…unless you’re a racist.
6. Failing, apparently, to have looked in the mirror, Limbaugh said that Obama is “one angry guy.  He’s a bad guy…his wife is angry as well.”  There would seem to be nothing that any of us have ever witnessed in Obama that supports this claim.

This, and so much more, is why I rail against Limbaugh.

Should Mormons Become Democrats? May 11, 2009

It probably won’t happen (too many are too committed), but there is something to think about: On Friday Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele responded to a radio listener’s question about Mitt Romney by suggesting that “it was the base that had issues with Mitt’s Mormonism.”  Should Mormons, a very strong majority of whom are Republicans, consider a switch?

I might accuse Steele of being bigoted or at least insensitive, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s right: the Republican base, in the primaries, really did reject Mitt Romney, and a lot of it had to do with his religion.  (Mormons would do well to remember that it wasn’t Democrats who rejected Mitt; it was their own beloved Republican party.)  “The Base,” you see, consists of a lot of evangelicals and others who simply do not hold Mormons in high regard — unless they need Mormons, in which case we’re super-nice people who share a lot of values with them.  (Witness the evangelical bear-hug offered to Mormons during both of California’s recent gay marriage battles; when the “crisis” ended, their hands simply moved upwards toward our necks.)

Put simply, fellow Mormons: y’all keep hanging out with people who simply don’t like Mormons.

It’s easy to suggest that the Democrats wouldn’t like Mormons any better, except that they’ve embraced (at least to some extent) Mormon Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid despite his relatively pro-life, anti-gay-marriage stances.  It just amounts to this: the party is more inclusive and requires fewer litmus tests.

I know, I know… it will never happen.  But I think that Mormons who choose to continue to support a party that essentially hates them, should think hard not just about whether they have any influence, but about when and why.  Only when they need you, is the answer.  You’re getting used.

How to Make Republicans Relevant Again May 7, 2009

Nobody benefits from a weak Republican party — our political process benefits as much as our government from a system of checks and balances.  You can expect that, with the addition of Sen. Specter to the Democratic side and thus the removal of filibuster as a minority tactic, we will see excesses from my own side of the fence.  It’s always dangerous when one party grabs too much power.

But let’s face it: Republicans are in a heap of trouble.  They are deeply the minority party, they’ve lost the White House, and they are adrift.  Who is the thought leader in the party today?  Is it Rush Limbaugh?  Sarah Palin?  Mitt Romney?  Who?

I think the party will remain adrift, unless they let go of some positions and adjust others.  I’ll try a sample here:

1. Get off the “we just don’t know about the whole global warming thing” bandwagon.  Just admit it, along with everyone else: we have a human-generated problem.  We can debate the edges of that problem (how bad will it be?  what is the right response?), but at minimum stop denying it altogether.  You look like idiots.
2. Go green, in fact.  Go ahead and do it the Republican way, though: massively incentivize green behavior (both at an individual and a corporate level).
3. You can still oppose gay marriage, but you’d better get strongly behind gay rights.
4. If you’re going to be the party of limited government, then go ahead and be the party of limited government.  Even Ronald Reagan, he of the “government is the problem” talk, oversaw a federal government that grew by 90%.  “Oh, but it was all for defense,” you reply, as though defense doesn’t count (and as though it were true — it is not –, and as though defense spending isn’t a critical part of what sunk the former Soviet Union).  It counts.  Everything counts.  If you’re going to talk the talk, then walk the walk.
5. Say yes to John Huntsman, Bobby Jindal, Charlie Crist and Tim Pawlenty.  Say maybe to Mitt Romney.  Say no to Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Newt Gingrich.
6. More of you have to repudiate the likes of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk.  Colin Powell did so the other day, suggesting (finally) that Limbaugh “diminishes the party and intrudes or inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without.”  Limbaugh’s response, typically childish, was that Powell, whom he reiterated supported Obama “solely based on race,” should “close the loop and become a Democrat.”  See what I mean?  Instead of bowing reverentially to this buffoon, every Republican public figure should be distancing themselves from him.
7. Get a little more uncomfortable about war.  Show that you have some second thoughts.  Admit that torture was a horrible chapter in our history.  Wonder whether we should be policing the Middle East.  I don’t think you have to absolutely turn your back on the military; just show us that you’re thinking.
8. You can be the Christian party without embracing the dopey, dinosaurs-and-humans-were-on-earth-together wing of Christianity.  Support science.
9. Steal money from the defense budget, and give it to the education budget.  Throw real weight behind education, and you suddenly have a vision of the future.

I know, I know…some of you are thinking, “You want us all to become Democrats.”  And I see your point.  But that’s not exactly it: I’m asking you to move to the center, which is a different thing entirely.  Let’s look at a few ways you’ll be differentiated:

1. You’ll move us hard in the direction of balanced budgets and limited government.  Seriously this time.
2. You’ll still oppose gay marriage and abortion.  But you’ll have moved a little bit on those issues.
3. You’ll still be the business party.  But you’ll realize that you don’t have to cave on every single item on Wall Street’s wish list.  All you have to do is: be somewhere to the right of the Democrats.  You can regulate Wall Street, and you definitely should.  Just regulate them less.

Boom!  You’re back in the game.

This Drove me NUTS May 4, 2009

Just do this:

1. Dangle your foot off the couch or the chair you’re sitting in.
2. Make clockwise circles with your foot.
3. Now draw the number 6 in the air with your hand.

Your foot WILL change directions!  You cannot frickin’ stop it!!  AAAARRRGGGHHH!!

(Of course, everyone who knows me, knows that I spent half an hour trying to beat this.)

More Hilarity May 4, 2009

I’m not a good Twitterer, but I use it once in a while.  I knew that the NBA MVP results were in today, and my phone was the only thing handy at the time, so I searched Twitter to see what the results were (correctly figuring that within seconds of the result, people would be Twittering about it).  The first thing that came up was this post from someone:

“NBA showing their racism again by voting Kobe second in the MVP vote.”

The winner?  LeBron James.