TV Guide asked presidential candidates about their favorite TV showsBarack Obama's all-time favorite is The Wire (alongside M*A*S*H), which I find impressive. Now that I think of it, it's the only show that would impress me to hear a candidate talk about. I think that should be required watching for anyone in public office ( Read more... )

This is ridiculous:

"Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson announced the decision Wednesday, refusing [California]'s request for a waiver that would have allowed it to cut emissions faster than a new federal plan the president signed into law Wednesday."

California will sue the federal government over this, which is good to hear ( Read more... )

This is rather amusing:
Ron Paul has decided to keep a $500 donation from Don Black of West Palm Beach who runs a website called Stormfront whose slogan is "White Pride World Wide."

As Paul's campaign explained, it plans to keep the money because that will reduce the cash Black has to spend on spreading his controversial ideology by $500.

(from ( Read more... )

My 20% project is a tool that allows people to publish HTML commentaries that play alongside youtube videos. Commentaries could be informational cross-referencing, opinionated point/counterpoints, or whatever. For now, we've been working with the Des Moines Register to use the first version of this tool for there presidential debates. The first ( Read more... )

One other thing that struck me at the Republican debate was the support for Ron Paul. His performance at the debate was typical, but his supporters definitely stood out. They were certainly the loudest in the debate hall (cheering and heckling from the back corner). More impressive was the Ron Paul fan presence outside the debate ( Read more... )

Lots of posts coming, in random order ( Read more... )

If you think that waterboarding is some type of surfing or you're nominated for US Attorney General (or both), check out http://waterboarding.org/. It has a good description of what waterboarding is, along with interesting commentary and stories. The common description "simulated drowning" ( Read more... )

Lawrence Lessig's "alpha version" talk about corruption is well worth watching:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2171306322262202538Read more... )

South Carolina has a 54% high school graduation rate, the lowest in the country. I wish they had talked more about that during the debate in Charleston. All they did was discuss really vague things, such as not liking No Child Left Behind and needing better teachers. Also, the way CNN showed the question was atrocious, but I think they learned ( Read more... )

Going into Monday's CNN/YouTube Democratic Presidential Debate, I was worried that it would seem gimmicky. To some (though nobody I've talked to), it did, but I was actually quite impressed with the event ( Read more... )