SkaroffBlog

I’m giving Blogo, a blog post editor from Brainjuice a try.

This is just a test.

As if you needed another reason not to vote for John McCain

(h/t Atrios)

Imagine this: It’s August 28th, 2008 in Denver, Colorado and the Democratic Party is concluding its convention on the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech by nominating the first African American candidate of a major party in American history. The crowd is cheering, the balloons are falling, and across the country and the world there is a sense of history being made.

On to the stage steps the tall figure of Barack Obama beaming his megawatt smile and waving at the crowd. He is flanked by his wife Michelle, his running mate, and the running mate’s spouse. They’ve joined hands and lifted their arms in the air. It’s a new day and a new direction for the Democratic Party.

Can you really imagine the last person on that list to be former President Bill Clinton? Can President Clinton be the fourth most important person on the stage that night?

And come January, when it would become President Obama, could he truly run his administration with President Clinton advising Vice President Clinton across the street in the Old Executive Office Building? The man is undeniably brilliant but can he stand in the shadows?

I think Senator Hillary Clinton would be a great running mate and a great Vice President. It could be a 16 year ticket of progressive good governance. But I worry that Bill Clinton, the only Democratic president I have known in my lifetime could not handle his far less prestigious and powerful role.

I’m not sure this is a dream I want to have.

Cross-posted on DoubleSpeak.

For some reason, it seems like our fair city often finds itself at the top of top 10 lists. Unfortunately, we’re often peaking on lists that you wouldn’t necessarily want to find yourself on. Well, add another one to the list.

The Kryptonite lock company, maker of pretty much the best bike locks around, just published their “Top 10 Worst Cities for Bike Theft List.” Oh yeah, we’re #1.

1. Philadelphia, PA
2. Chicago, IL
3. New York City, NY
4. San Francisco, CA
5. Tucson, AZ (tie)
Portland, OR (tie)
7. Denver, CO
8. New Haven, CT
9. Cambridge, MA
10. Austin, TX

Yup, I’m shocked, but that’s what the data tells us. This list is compiled by our proprietary data….input from our regional managers, hundreds of shop visits, input from colleges and universities we talk with, our customer service interactions (both over the phone/email and at events) and data from police in various cities. When we did the compilation, there wasn’t even a city close to Philly. Not even close.

Yikes.

I carry at least one Kryptonite lock on me daily, the Evolution Mini. It’s small enough to easily carry in my bag, in a pocket, or on my Fabric Horse belt if I’ve got that on, but still plenty strong (and actually the smaller size makes it harder to break into). Combined with a cable that I loop through the front wheel and using the rear wheel through the triangle method, I generally feel comfortable locking up for relatively short periods. If it’s gonna be much more than an hour or two I’ll even bring along another Kryptonite U-Lock for added piece of mind.

But this makes me ever more paranoid. Leave my bike alone!

(h/t Cyclelicio.us)

It’s the morning after, and the show has now aired, but still, I think a reckoning is warranted.

Yesterday afternoon a friend offered me a ticket to the final taping of The Colbert Report in Philadelphia. It was the stunning conclusion of their “Dorito’s Spicy Sweet Pennsylvania Primary Coverage From Chili-Delphia - The City of Brotherly Crunch!” It would be quite an evening.

We queued up on Walnut Street, outside of Penn’s Annenberg Center to first wait in line for half an hour, and then pack the lobby of the Zellerbach Theater for at least another hour. This was after being scanned and patted down by the Secret Service. This time, I was smart enough to leave home the wrench that the Secret Service had taken from me while entering the Obama rally at the Convention Center last week. Finally, the velvet rope parted and we hurried down to grab seats in the third row, perhaps 20 feet from the giant C that forms Stephen’s anchor desk.

Now despite the fact that after fast-forwarding through the commercials, the Colbert Report is only barely more than 20 minutes, it takes quite a bit more than that to record an entire show, especially in a different theater and with a much larger production than normal. For this was no standard Report.

After learning of Benjamin Franklin’s invention of the toaster, Stephen began to introduce the segment on last night’s debate. Sadly his giant screen failed and who else showed up to fix it, but Sen. Hillary Clinton. She made a couple of jokes about how to fix it (none of which really landed in my opinion) before telling Stephen to call her any time he needed help. Her segment was actually edited down when broadcast to go a bit smoother.

With the screen fixed, next came a favorite of mine, Congressman Pat Murphy, a local boy, Iraq vet, and friend of DoubleSpeak. He mostly talked about Sen. Obama and the war in Iraq in his inimitable Philly accent. If you watch the clip below, you’ll see me right in the aisle reaching for Stephen’s hand during the segment intro in the bottom left of the screen.

The third act was even more of a surprise: John Edwards. He appeared on stage to a standing ovation and proceeded to take Colbert’s place with his version of the Word, the Ed-Words. Mostly jokes about jet skiis and two Americas. Though I never considered myself an Edwards supporter, I was somewhat sad to see him leave the race. His contributions in terms of pushing the debate to the left and focusing on important issues of health care and the environment were crucial to forming the agenda of the party in this cycle. In the midst of the joking, he still managed to hit on his issues, so crucial to the newly discovered “white male vote.”

And that I figured, was that. All that was left was a final thank you to Philly and a goodbye on the week. Except that as we waited for Act IV, a sound man came out and hooked up Stephen with an earpiece for a satellite hookup. Something big remained…Barack Obama himself. His segment was also not amazing (the satellite delay makes things tough) but concluded a pretty impressive show and week.

With the show over, Stephen threw Wrist Strong bracelets and spicy sweet Doritos into the crowd. Finally, he approached the edge of the stage and my hand touched Stephen’s hand. What a night.

All the clips after the jump:
Read the rest of this entry »

Just upgraded…Please let me know if you see any problems.

I attended an Obama volunteer rally last week at the Convention Center with the Senator himself. Haven’t had time to look at my photos yet, but if any came out well (I kinda doubt it with the light in the room and the lens I had) I’ll post them here soon.

Also finished the sleeve on my left arm. Photos to come.

Let me just say I have been a big fan of Paul Krugman’s for quite a while now. Even prior to September 11, Dr. Krugman had the Bush administration figured out for what they were. And in the insanity of 2002 and 2003 he was one of the very few mainstream voices that recognized the dangerous path we were pursuing. But this election season, Krugman has taken a turn away from economics (his specialty) and its intersection with politics. He’s repeatedly inserted himself into the race as an opponent of Barack Obama over his health care plan.

I understand his argument and even agree with parts of it, but Krugman has now crossed the line from Obama critic to Clinton shill. Witness his op-ed today about the Fed and financial markets. It’s full of interesting observations about the economy that help a layman like me understand this increasingly chaotic and complex element of our national debate. But he ends the whole thing with a non sequitur Clinton talking point:

But hope is not a plan.

At least we can now put all his past denials behind us and acknowledge that for all intents and purposes Paul Krugman is now a Clinton surrogate.

Cross-posted at DoubleSpeak

I swear, I didn’t take a day off of work to wait in line for an iPhone.

But I did buy one the day after it came out. And having carried it in my pocket every day since, looking at it every morning when I wake up and before I go to bed, using it for everything from weather to directions to email to playing Nintendo, I’ve gotta say: it’s a truly amazing device. Game changing you might say. Sure, I get a bit jealous of those more functional Blackberry keyboards, but these days when I have to suffer through using someone else’s phone I briefly wonder how I ever lived without my slim little iPhone.

What’s most impressive is when you hand your iPhone to someone who’s never used it before. Just watch them play with it and you see the future of software.

I’m not the first to say it by any means, but the announcement yesterday of Software Development Kit for the iPhone and iPod Touch is going to be huge. It’s not a phone or an mp3 player anymore, it’s a platform. It’s a way of building portable, useable, and revolutionary tools that are going to continue to change the way we interact with the world. Seriously, if you don’t have one now, you will have a touch-based and internet connected device in your hand in the next 10 years.

Now let’s just hope someone besides Apple and Steve Jobs can get their act together and build a true competitor.

And on a completely unrelated note, Star Wars according to a 3 year old.

Though I’ve spent the past five middle-of-June weekends in Manchester, TN at the Bonnaroo festival, I don’t expect to return this year. Simply put, the lineup isn’t good enough to justify the ever-increasing costs. Combined with the even more disappointing All Points West lineup, I don’t have high expectation for music this summer.

But in the meantime, a bit of housekeeping and memories from last year:

Yeah, I’ll miss My Morning Jacket, but hopefully get my Radiohead fix in Philly on August 4th.

In the meantime, if you’re in Brooklyn tomorrow (3/6), DC on Friday, or Baltimore on Saturday, you should definitely go see The Shalitas.