I came across a youtube video this morning that shows Sarah Palin (Sarah Heath) sporting a swimsuit in the 1984 Miss Alaska Pageant. The video was pulled shortly later, but in the meantime I contacted Waxy.org’s Andy Baio and he, having more foresight than me, made a copy and is now hosting it himself.
I downloaded the transcripts of all of Obama and McCain’s speeches from their respective official websites from March 25th, 2008 to the present and then put them each into Wordle.
Wordle gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.
I used 51 speeches by McCain and 61 by Obama.
McCain’s site only had transcripts from March 25th to the present and I figured that was plenty of data for my purposes.
Matt Damon condemns John McCain’s choice of hockey-mom Sarah Palin for Vice President. He compares the situation to a “really bad Disney movie” and says it’s crazy that this woman could become President.
Hit play or watch Damon Condemns Palin at YouTube.
It’s one of those situations that is funny because it’s true (albeit also frightening). The geniuses at CollegeHumor have taken the idea and run with it. Here is the fictional trailer to her, unbelievable, real life story:
[Sarah Palin Disney Trailer on YouTube]
I went to the Naomi Klien speech at the U of L last Monday and was entertained and enraged (both at the same time) as she talked about the situations and events unfolding in the world right now and the influence that free market ideology has on the world at large. She also emphasized that new policy applied after a crisis has often been waiting for the opportunity, for people too shocked by the event to stand up against bad laws.
Here she is on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher (September 19):
[Naomi Klien on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher – YouTube]
She wrote an article for the Guardian last week which contained many of the points she made in her speech.
A crash course on the amazing properties of super-conductors, the following video demonstrates what may be the future of transportation.
[MagLev Toy Train – Liveleak]
Popular Science published an article five years ago on the possibility of a trans-Atlantic maglev train that would travel in an airless underwater tunnel at 4,000 MPH and make the trip from New York to London in an hour.
A 4,000-mph magnetically levitated train could allow you to have lunch in Manhattan and still get to London in time for the theater, despite the 5-hour time difference. It’s not impossible: Norway has studied neutrally buoyant tunnels (concluding that they’re feasible, though expensive), and Shanghai is running maglev trains to its airport. But supersonic speeds require another critical step: eliminating the air — and therefore air friction — from the train’s path. A vacuum would also save the tunnel from the destructive effects of a sonic boom, which, unchecked, could potentially rip the tunnel apart.
(Via Waxy)
MyHope is an original song by sweetafton23. It’s lovely—I wonder what my future kids will think of this site.
[MyHope – YouTube]
A short time waster, Crappy Cat isn’t the kind of flash game that rewards dexterity and reflexes, but instead curiosity and morbidity.
(via)
See if you can figure out how psychology professor Richard Wiseman creates space for the missing piece. I have to admit, even though I’ve seen tricks like this before, it took me 3 or 4 times through to figure it out completely.
[The Missing Piece – YouTube]
Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, wondered why someone wasn’t doing something that would give American voters useful and unbiased information about which candidate has the best plans for the economy.
Then he realized that he was someone.
He commissioned a survey of over 500 economists, drawn from members of the American Economic Association, a nonpolitical group, that had previously agreed to be surveyed on economic questions.
The economists were asked to rank the most important economic issues and pick which candidate they thought would do the best job on those issues.
Here are the results:
| Rank | Issues | Obama | McCain | No Diff. |
| 1 | Education | 59% | 14% | 27% |
| 2 | Health care | 65% | 20% | 15% |
| 3 | International trade | 26% | 51% | 23% |
| 4 | Energy | 61% | 22% | 17% |
| 5 | Encouraging Technology/innovation | 43% | 23% | 34% |
| 6 | Wars and homeland security | 58% | 30% | 11% |
| 7 | Mortgage/housing crisis | 41% | 18% | 41% |
| 8 | Social Security | 40% | 24% | 35% |
| 9 | Environmental policy | 72% | 9% | 19% |
| 10 | Reducing the deficit | 37% | 29% | 33% |
| 11 | Immigration | 33% | 29% | 38% |
| 12 | Increasing taxes on wealthy | 79% | 14% | 7% |
| 13 | Reducing waste in government | 16% | 38% | 46% |
Adams is quick to point out that even though economists favour Obama in 11 of 13 of the most important issues (as decided by the survey) 48% of economists are Democrats and only 17% are Republicans.
It makes you wonder, are liberals more likely to go into economics, or are economists more likely to become liberals? Or is it just the simple fact that educated folks tend to be more progressive?
You can check out the full report (in Power Point format).
My friend Katy says:
My band, Ladysugar, made it to the final round of voting for the star 98.7 radio contest! The competition is extremely tight so EVERY vote counts. Voting is quick and easy and would really help us. Just go to http://www.987fm.com/pages/rockstar3/videos.html and find the Ladysugar video. Even if you’ve already voted you can vote again because that was round 1 but now it’s round 2 so voting starts all over! Voting started last Friday at noon and ends this Friday at noon. You can vote once a day from the same email address.
Here is the band in action:
Hit play or watch I Want What I Can’t Have at YouTube.
And here is the voting page.