Obviously, the AIG situation is bad. This isn’t about that. It’s about hypocrisy.

It occurs to me that a person believing that others should take full responsibility for their actions might want to do that himself. Instead, Grassley seems to believe that it is reasonable to backtrack on his inhumane comment and put it in another context.

It was a stupid comment. Take responsibility.

The year for me featured a lot of new albums from old (as well as recent) favorites. In addition to those in my list, solid return albums that I enjoyed included REM - Accelerate, Weezer (Red Album), and Coldplay - Viva La Vida. The year also saw a number of acclaimed albums that I just couldn’t get in to (Girl Talk, Dr. Dog, Blitzen Trapper).

Anyway, here’s where I landed…

10. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

No, this isn’t here to prove that I do like some lighter stuff. It’s an excellent album from an extremely talented group…even if they fall outside of my usual tastes. And by the way, their performance at The Terrace this summer was fantastic.

9. Kings of Leon - Only by the Night

It isn’t quite up to the high standard set by “Because of the Times”, but it is a solid follow-up from a group that has become one of my favorites.

8. The Toadies - No Deliverance

Speaking of favorites, one of my high school favorites is back! Nostalgia contributed, but I thoroughly enjoyed this album. And to see them close-up at The Annex the night before Lollapalooza (along with The Whigs) was an unbelievable start to 72 hours of nearly non-stop shows.

7. The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely

This band doesn’t seem to get much love. Perhaps it’s the “supergroup” label…with some folks still preferring the original works of The White Stripes, The Greenhornes, and Brendan Benson solo. However, I have thoroughly enjoyed two albums and two Lollapalooza performance from these guys.

6. Supergrass - Diamond Hoo Ha

Maybe I’m missing it, but why is nobody else talking about this album? OK, maybe it doesn’t have anything musically “revolutionary”…but this is just an all-around “fun” album.

5. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

Now well-known, catch stuff. And how could the whitest band on the planet (hilarious) not make my list?

4. Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs

Just another all-around good album. If you like Death Cab, you like this album.

3. The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

I am staying positive…that these guys are still the best live band on the planet! Ok…sorry about that. Stay Positive contains more trademark Hold Steady songs about partying, drugs, and girls. It’s such a simple recipe, but they’ve absolutely mastered it. Like The Kings of Leon effort, The Hold Steady wasn’t quite able to live up to the extremely high standard set by the last album (Boys and Girls in America), but this is still one of my favs of the year.

2. The Whigs - Mission Control

I realize that these guys have been around a little bit, but The Whigs were definitely MY new band of the year. After seeing them live a couple times (and never hearing the album), I found myself humming songs like “Hot Bed,” “Right Hand on My Heart,” and “Mission Control.” The album still grows on me each time I listen to it.

1. The Black Keys - Attack & Release

If The Hold Steady weren’t around, these guys would certainly be my favorite live band. No doubt. They were fantastic at Lollapalooza again this year, and they were the definitely the highlight of Madison’s SoCo Music Experience. Regarding their albums, I’ve enjoyed nearly all of their stuff. I didn’t really think they’d ever top Thickfreakness (my previous fav), but Attack & Release has done just that.

26 days and counting…

http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2008/12/17/how-can-gop-help-pres-elect-obama/

The fact of the matter is that the parties should focus on moving the country forward. Concentrating on nothing but smearing the other side does nothing but set the country back.

The lack of an end to the finger pointing from this guy is amazing. It’s unfortunate for him that winning an election is no longer as simple as spreading fear.

Anyway…off to find a tissue to dry my tears from hearing his sob story about not being accepted.

Twitter’s routing structure + it’s abundant downtime = These Results in the Firefox Smart Location Bar

To put it in historical perspective, check out the chart tab. The article is actually kind of kind by just noting that no other president has crossed the 70% mark. In reality, no president has ever been within ten percentage points of that 76% level…and the president who reached the 66% level was Nixon (at the height of Watergate and at the point of his resignation).

Good riddance.

• Some (inexplicably) think that the GOP has lost independents because they aren’t conservative enough
• Some think it was because McCain’s strategy centered on baseless attacks (i.e. calling Obama a socialist, communist, terrorist)
• Or was it because McCain tried to attack Obama for being inexperienced while pushing a VP candidate who was mayor of a town of less than 10,00 people two years ago
• Or is it because Obama’s campaign is better with this crazy Internet thing
• Or maybe because some conservatives couldn’t decide if Obama is more like Karl Marx or Dwight Eisenhower

It’s time to take a step back and realize what THE PRIMARY CAUSE is: incompetencehttp://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/06/bush.legacy/index.html?eref=rss_politics. For the last eight years, you have given incompetence a face.

…and when you suggested the country elect the oldest president in history with a laughably unqualified running mate, perhaps the final nail was that many realized you were likely to continue to lead us down our spiral.

In my mind, there shouldn’t be much of an argument about economic policy between the parties. Those of us who are interested/educated in economics can argue the real effects of the differing fiscal policies. However, all you really need to do is look at statistics or public experience of the economy over the past 30 years:

1981: Reagan administration takes over and implements Trickle-Down Economics. The rich get richer and the economy slows. However, Reagan is an pretty adequate leader, so confidence and economic performance dwindle relatively slowly.

1989: George H. W. Bush takes over and continues the same flawed economic policies. However, he is a less adequate leader in general, so we dive into recession. We then invade Iraq (justifiably) which stimulates the economy, but it is short-lived. The economy is bad enough to be a primary reason Bush is not reelected in 1992.

1993: Bill Clinton takes over and implements economic and fiscal policies that most of recognize as Democratic policies. We gradually come out of recession. The huge deficit is converted into a surplus. The budget is balanced. Economic times are good.

2001: George W. Bush takes over and reverses economic policy. The surplus turns into the largest deficit in American history. Our national debt grows to dangerous levels. The administration faces some tough challenges (9/11, Katrina, etc.), but the leadership largely proves to be incompetent. We invade Iraq (unjustifiably this time). We dwindle into recession, bank failures, and what is largely viewed as the most serious economic crisis since The Great Depression.

2009: Obama will take power. My guess (and hope): we once again have a competent leader with solid economic & fiscal policy who will clean up the latest Bush-directed mess.

I can’t imagine this gaining MSFT much market share. The key, early personnel at startups are going to have strong opinions about the tech stack…and aren’t going to be swayed by what is essentially a period of deferred license feeds.

My personal opinion is that there are still two huge problems with this:

1. Their suite is still inferior to almost all alternatives
2. It’s obvious that taking them on up this program will lock you into the Microsoft platform for the long haul, meaning you’re going to start paying those hefty fees as soon as you hit your 3rd birthday or $1M in revenue.

No thanks.

The transition team is continuing their great work in this area by launching Change.gov. The site gives you simple, to-the-point information about the Agenda, is already promoting “Open Government”, encourages people to share their ideas.

I think this is the first candidate/campaign who has REALLY started to understand the power of the web…and how important it is to generations X & Y.

Good stuff, and it just really helps reaffirm my believe that Obama really is in touch.

Did she think that Africa was a country?

Did Fox News willingly hold back information about Palin and the infighting on the McCain-Palin campaign until after the election?

Interesting stuff:

I also remember attending a Pearl Jam concert in Chicago a few months before the election and having Eddie Vedder encourage the full arena to chant “Let Ralph debate, let Ralph debate” (a reference to the fact that he wasn’t allowed to participate in Presidential debates despite polling relatively high).

Yet while much of the country is celebrating, and enjoying a new feeling of hope and unity, this is how Ralph feels…

I think most would agree that the deliberate deceit in the ad is pretty absurd. However, the part that gets me…how is religion even an issue? It is even less relevant to the issues in 2008 than it has been in past elections.

The majority of voters don’t (and/or can’t) stay very well informed about the details of political issues year-round. Most sort of reeducate themselves before election time…and therefore many have a difficult time seeing the forest for the trees. It’s unfortunate that scare tactics and misconception just continue to be used more and more to confuse voters and skew their judgement.

Here in Wisconsin, Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman is facing scrutiny for allegedly running an ad about his opponent that he knew was false. However, he’s only facing charges because this would violate the code of judicial conduct…not any campaign laws. As far as I know, Senator Dole doesn’t have to worry about any consequence for her tactic.

We NEED campaign reform…and perhaps the first front should be should be in the area of ethics instead of financing.

Rolling Stone published “Block the Vote”. It is a must read.

I’m not here to claim every word is true. BUT…if you don’t believe that any of it is true, then PLEASE check out what J.B. Von Hollen tried to pull right here in Wisconsin right before this year’s election. All tactics aside, this was bullshit and there’s zero chance the suit would have been filed if McCain were ahead in the WI polls.

Regardless, facts and allegations from the article include:

• Policies to protect against “fraudulent” voters cleared 1/9 of Democrats from registered voter lists in New Mexico
• Voters cleared from the list have no choice but to cast provisional ballots, which can be thrown out by (partisan) election officials without explanation
• Hundreds of thousands of voters could be affected this November
• If this year’s election is as close the previous two, the result could be flipped because of the voters blocked
• At least 1.6 million votes were not counted in 2004
• One US attorney fired by the Bush Administration for not prosecuting voter fraud cases claims to have examined 100 cases over two years, but did not find one legitimate claim
• Recent university analysis showed that only 24 voters were proven guilty of fraud between 2002 and 2005, a period when hundreds of millions of votes were cast
• Due to absurd penalties on voter registration programs for administrative errors (imposed by the Bush Administration and Republican legislature of the early 2000s), the number of annual low-income voter registrations in Florida dropped to about 10,000 per year. That number was about 120,000 per year during the Clinton administration.
• States were encouraged to deny registration to voters whose information doesn’t perfectly match other government records, and some states obliged. Hyphenated name? Different abbreviation for “Drive” in your street address on some of your records…you guessed it, no registration for you.
• The above policy caused over 15,000 voters to be rejected in Florida in 2006 & 2007 (over 11,000 of which were Black or Hispanic). Estimates show that number could be 50,000 this year
• Prior to the 2000 election, Katherine Harris attempted to purge 57,000 voters (mostly African American) from the Florida registration lists because their names resembled those of persons convicted of a crime. The purge was thrown out, but it took two years.
• Two consecutive secretaries of state in Colorado managed to purge one in six voters from the registration lists during their tenure. The latter was rewarded with a federal job on the Election Assistance Commission buy President Bush.
• One of the most crucial demographics in elections is becoming “Americans who have been denied the right to vote.”

All partisan politics aside, its the 21st century. Seriously, it’s time for a new system that can help eliminate these problems.

Went to Chicago a couple of weeks ago to see Weezer (with Angels & Airwaves, and Tokyo Police Club). What made it super cool was the chance to meet Brian Bell (and briefly Scott Shriner) because Brian happens to be my lovely girlfriend’s cousin.

Need proof beeootches? Here’s Brian, Christin, and me…

And I’ll be saving this puppy…

Anyway, it was obviously a cool night for a music junkie like me…particularly one who’s been a fan of Weezer since the mid 90s. Great show too. They played a lot of the new stuff (Red Album), but it was largely a “greatest hits” type show featuring much of the Blue Album and old favorites like El Scorcho, Pink Triangle, Dope Nose, Hash Pipe, etc, etc, etc. Oh yeah, and a cool-ass cover of Sliver as well.

Kudos to Relevance for releasing a tool that looks cool. Vasco is billed as a route explorer for rails, but is basically an out-of-the-box tool to manually test REST APIs in Rails apps.

I have to admit, I still wonder why REST was made such a mainstream direction for Rails…but I’m past that. I can already think of some situations where this will come in handy as it evolves.

Yes, I’m a liberal…but it seems their in far worse shape than normal. I hope there is some serious self-examination after November 4th.