Scott Yates

Greatest Day of Sco.tt's Life!

I'm spending much of the day at the DemoGala event in downtown Denver. I'll be reporting on it for the Examiner soon enough, but I first have to say that this is the greatest day in the life of Sco.tt.

No, not my life, my domain's life. 

You see, I have a card with the domain on it, and that's it. The picture you see above is the whole image on the card. Kind of a minimalist thing that I thought was kind of cool. Turns out that for most people... not so much. They just look at it, and then look at me. Some people are genuinely annoyed.

But not the people at this all-technical event today. They all love it.

The best reaction so far came from the incomparable Adeo Ressi. He's the guy behind two of the great ideas of the last few years: TheFunded and the Founder Institute. He and I have communicated about another potential project a few times, but today was the first time we'd met in person. When he had to go off to speak, he asked for my card. I handed it to him and he said it was the greatest card he'd ever seen. "This makes it worth the trip to Denver!"

Then he went to speak and I went off to a different session hosted by Examiner COO Dave Schafer. Why? Because I said I would, and because Schafer and I long ago toiled side-by-side at an actual newspaper printed on real paper. It was actually an excellent panel with Matt Cohen of OneSpot, Boulder and BDNT's own Robert Reich from OneRiot and the very impressive Lisa Stone of BlogHer. (I'm a sucker for journalists turned entrepreneurs.)

Anyway, one of my spies (I have them everywhere!) told me that Adeo held up my card during his speech, and said it was great, and then he called me a jack-ass because I didn't come to his speech.

To be called a jack-ass by Ressi. Man, if that's not awesome I don't know what is.

Second Saturday Science is on the air

I'm very excited to announce that an idea I've been thinking about forever, and got a little traction when Mark Cuban got a little bit interested in it back in February, has finally turned into something that is happening.

If you have kids ages 6-12 and live in Denver, I hope you'll stop by this Saturday.

All the details are on the new site: Second Saturday Science.

Check it out, and I hope we'll see you there!

Google Wave Scams, Why can't we all just get along?

There's a lot of interest in something, so there the scammers go. Can't they just stick to photos of pop stars?

Anyway, here's a complete guide to the Google Wave scams.

As so often happens, there's a quote from Casablanca that's perfectly apropos.

"This place is full of vultures. Vultures everywhere."

(That link may not work for everyone just yet, it's from a startup called AnyClip that I'm trying. It's pretty great.)

Drudge Goes Down an Ugly Path

OK, I've gone on and on about Drudge, but it needs to be said: The guy has turned almost pathologically against President Obama.

Nobody anywhere was connecting that Chicago crime -- which by big-city standards was really only notable because of the nearby cameras, to the effort to bring the Olympics to Chicago.

Nobody but Drudge.

Now, Drudge has been out in front on stories before, and then quickly gets followed by lots of other media outlets. The guy had a nose for big stories.

But now he's just getting mean, connecting dots that just aren't there.

Maybe he knows, as some smart guys do, that getting the Olympics in Obama's adopted home town could be huge for the Democratic party. And if he does know that, maybe he wants to prevent that from happening.

I had a hunch that Drudge was losing it earlier in the summer. Check out this screen grab:

Somehow he's trying to make the case that you can't possibly grow lettuce in three months. That's the kind of thinking that comes from someone who used to be the night manager of a convenience store.

But I still read Drudge, and I still keep the DrudgeWidget on my blog. What Drudge needs to hear, however, is that he's in danger of becoming the worst thing of all in the web world: Boring.

Google is going to catch up, don't worry

Now that I'm writing about technology over on Examiner.com, I probably won't be writing about it as much over here.

It just has bothered me how some journalists have been counting Google out of the realtime fight.

Today I posted a Guide to the Google Wave Hype.

In short, it's not hype. I think this is the real deal.

The New New New Technology Examiner, Peaches and Crowdsourcing. Confused Yet?

Sometimes I just can't help myself...

This morning I'm cruising through my blogs, and I read a great post by Nate Silver about some very fishy survey results about Oklahoma students.

I've been meaning to write in this space about how I'm now the new "new technology" Examiner over on Examiner.com, but I haven't.

So, do I compose a nice post here, introducing my work over there? No, I gotta go mixing things up and helping Nate solve the problem of not having enough data to show that the survey results are bogus. How? Using crowdsourcing, something I've been reading a lot about lately.

Totally confused? Yes, sorry, I understand. I'd sit down and write a post explaining it all, but I really want to get to the Farmer's Market before they run out of peaches. I'll have much more in the coming days, but at least now you have some explanation of why I wrote on Examiner.com this morning that we could use Crowdsourcing to prove that Oklahomans are not that dumb.

Gibbs Needs to Grow Up

Robert Gibbs is the first male presidential spokesman who is younger than me, so naturally I resent the hell out of him. (For some reason the lack of years of George W. Bush's Dana Perino never bothered me, maybe because she's a Colorado native.)

I've finally figured out why Gibbs rubs me the wrong way: He doesn't know when to shut up. Watch this to see what I mean...

You see that? Secretary Sebelius made a funny, appropriate joke. Gibbs should have just shut up, but instead he drains the humor out of the joke by explaining it, and making the whole matter seem snide and patronizing.

Typical mistake by young punks like Gibbs. He's got "spokesman" in his title, but sometimes the best thing to do is just shut up. President Obama would be better served if Gibbs talked half as much.

The "You Lie!" Guy is also a wimp who sends his wife to do his dirty work.

This video is very good, and she does a very good job, but if his wife is so much better than him, well, then why aren't the good people of South Carolina sending her to congress instead of him?

Just asking.

No, Scott Baio is not a Gen Xer

I disagree completely with this guy's assertion that the Original Gen Xers actually started being born in 1954.

Poppycock.

If he had started in 1961, the year that Barack Obama, Douglas Rushkoff, Chris Anderson and Douglas Coupland were born, then he might have had a case. I mean Coupland literally wrote the book on Generation X.

But in the same year were born 

• Julia Louis-Dreyfus -- famous only because of the completely boomer-centric Seinfeld 
• George Stephanopoulos -- famous because of one of the first Boomer president, the appropriately narcissistic Bill Clinton
• Meg Ryan
• Randy Jackson and 
• child stars Scott Baio and Ralph Macchio. 

That is not a group of Xers by any stretch.

Thanks, but No Thanks

Well, the results were quite clear: Nobody wants a tool to keep track of job prospects.

Yesterday I launched a survey to try to gauge the interest in a new tool that would help job seekers keep track of all the jobs they are applying for.

I wanted to keep the survey small, so I only posted it to my Facebook friends and here, asking that if someone was working, to just send it on to friends who may be looking for work.

Nobody did.

Either I have really rotten friends, or something else is going on. I think now I understand it.

What friend would send an unemployed friend this tracking tool? I mean, what would you say?

Hey friend! 

I just found this great new tool for people who are out of work, and may be for months and months to come! People just like you!!!

Isn't it great that I thought about you when I thought about this crappy economy and how super duper hard it will be for you to find a job!!

Well, see you later.

Your friend.

I don't know why I didn't think that through before.

I was a bit bummed about this, thinking about how quickly dashed was my idea to create a great tool that would be widely used and much appreciated. My wife, always the clever one, took this as great news.

Better to find out after a few hours of work that the idea won't fly. Imagine if you'd spent a few months working on it, she said.

She's right, of course, so on to the next thing.

Are Job Opportunities Falling Through the Cracks?

I haven't written much about this, but I'm looking for a job. Somehow it seems difficult to say that in public because of the general shame that goes along with that, even in this crazy global economic head cold that we are all suffering.

There are job opportunities that pop up, and I diligently apply for them. The ones I really want I make a point of following up on.

But lots of others just seem to fade away.

Also, not all jobs are created equal. Sometimes a job isn't a job, it's just a chance of possibly doing some consulting. I want to keep track of that, too, but there's no "job" for me to track.

I've been trying lots of different systems to keep it all straight, but none of them is ideal. There are plenty of to-do list tools, contact-management tools and online or offline spreadsheets. There are also tools associated with the big job boards, but there is lot's of spammy stuff associated with those. There is also a handful of tools built for job seekers, but they charge too much, have way too much junk associated with them, or just don't really do it for me for some reason or another.

So, am I all alone here? Am I the only one who sees this as a huge need? Especially these days?

Let me know. I've built a very quick and easy one-page survey.

Click here to take the survey.

If you are not actively looking for a job, pass this on to someone who is. You can take the survey if you want, but it's really designed for those who are actively looking.

I'll report back here with the results, and with whatever plans I make based on those results.

Thanks!

We are all the press now

So it appears that Gannett and the AP are having trouble with some of the restrictions of the press passes issued by the SEC to cover college football games.

This fight seems almost quaint.

On one side you have the SEC, which is saying that to get a press credential you have to agree not to blog about the game. On the other side you have the press, including the AP -- which has shown nothing but animus toward bloggers -- declaring that it has the right to blog whatever it wants to.

So, let's say that the SEC doesn't back down and the AP is forced to cover the game by buying a ticket or watching on TV. What would that look like?

Well... it would look like what the world looks like. Zillions of fans will be going to games or watching them, and blogging about what they are doing in real time. They don't need no stinking credentials.

The whole idea of the press credential already seems retro.

We are all the press now.

Irony Alert: Bezos Apologizes for Big Brother-like Removal of 1984

The word "irony" is so often misused that it's almost refreshing when it is used properly.

Sure enough, the opportunity presents itself beautifully when Amazon removed the book 1984 from Kindles through a secret back door that most people didn't know existed. They thought that when you bought a book, well, that you owned it, just like with a book printed on paper. Not so.

So the moment comes, but unfortunately the US press didn't jump on the chance to call the situation ironic. Maybe they never read the book?

The British press, as we might expect, was all over the irony angle.

God save the Queen.

Unemployment is Helping Apple?

There's been a ton of analysis of why it is Apple is doing so well in the middle of the rotten economy, but there's one bit I haven't seen anywhere: Unemployment is helping Apple. A lot.

Here's why:

Just among close friends, I know a couple people who have been laid off. When they go, they have to turn in their corporate-mandated Blackberry. 

They have gotten used to having a smartphone, however, so they use a bit of their severance and go shopping for a new phone. They head to an Apple store. They may know full well that AT&T is a Big, Steaming Heap of Failure, but they also realize that if they are going to be unemployed, or turn into consultants, or whatever, that at least they don't want to hate their phone.

So, they get a phone that makes them smile. There's only one phone that does that.

I don't think that accounts for all of the 5.2 million iPhones Apple sold in the quarter, but I bet it was a lot of them.

When is it OK to Lie?

Never. It's never OK to tell a lie.

But I do think I've found one situation where it would be awfully tempting.

Gawker has the inside scoop on how members of the White House Press Corps were all totally willing to give up on what they do -- reporting -- just to get a ticket to watch fireworks at the White House.

Here is what the email from the White House to about 30 of the White House press corps read:

"You are being invited to attend this event as a guest. Blogging, Twittering or otherwise reporting on this event is not permitted. If you feel that you cannot agree to abide by these ground rules, please don't claim a ticket."

Every single one of them agreed to this rule.

Now here's the thing: I have immense respect for President Obama, and for his desire to keep his family out of the media spotlight. If I was invited, I would certainly not report that Malia spilled mustard on her shirt, or whatever.

But I absolutely would report about the other reporters there, what the general talk was, etc. I would just spill it all as if I was anywhere else in my life. Everybody else is reporting on everything else, how is this somehow different?

Why not lie, take the ticket, then report away?

I'm reminded of two analogous situations. 

First, of course, is Sharon Stone, saying, "What are you going to do? Arrest me for smoking?"

Second is Mike Arrington, who runs TechCrunch, announcing that he will agree to all embargoes (when PR companies give you the news early but insist you don't run with it until an agreed-on time) but then he will break that agreement and run the news whenever he damn well feels like it.

Now I realize that by taking the ticket and the reporting on the fireworks party I would be urinating in the punch bowl, and then the press office might decide not to invite any media to the private affairs. Well, that's OK with me, too. If the Obamas want private family time, they can do it without 30 reporters hanging around. If they want to make the reporters feel special, they are just going to have to find some other way to do it.

The world is changing, and those 30 people just aren't as special as they used to be. The White House Press Office needs to figure that out.

Don't Name That Trend... Be The Trend!

I've seen three different "Blegs" from people casting about for a new name for three different big picture phenomena.

(As they taught me in my magazine writing class back in the day, three makes a trend!)

One is looking for a name for the movement toward more technology and openness in government. This is a topic I'm endlessly fascinated with, but I don't think it will ever have a name because this is just the march of history.

A second is looking for a name for the flow of status updates that come in through Twitter, Facebook, and all the rest. This one may get a name, but I'm not sure what it will be. All the ones suggested, even by me, pretty much stink. 

I think this is becoming a real issue. People are really grappling with how to deal with this stream. It took a long time for people to deal with e-mail, and now people just don't know how to deal with a flow of blogs, status updates, tweets and all of it.

It helps me to think of that stream as my "published lifestream." My private stream is, of course, email and phone calls, but my published stream is the collection of published status reports that I want to read, and then there is the stream of what I publish both here on this blog, on my twitter account and my Facebook page.

In my mind the solution uses RSS, which right now works just the way I want it to work for blogs, but doesn't work for the others and even though the difference between a Facebook status update and a blog entry is one that is very difficult to explain because they are essentially the same thing at heart.

There are no good solutions for ways to deal with that stream. Even turning tweets into an RSS feed just doesn't work yet. There's much more to say on this, but I'll save it so I don't get too far off topic.

The third (and therefore trend-making) trend looking for a name is the hunt for a name for the Denver-Boulder high-tech scene. This one absolutely positively will fail, and here's why: The Silicon Valley needed a name because it didn't really have any name before. It was, and is, really, the suburbs of Oakland, which is the original place where there was no there there. The Silicon Valley is the outskirts of the place with nothing there. 

There's absolutely nothing interesting about the Silicon Valley outside of the fact that a whole bunch of revolutionary high-tech companies have done very well there. It's amazing for that one aspect, and completely free of any other attributes that make for an interesting society.

Denver is an actual place. There IS a there there. Same goes for Boulder. Coming up with a name for one aspect of a place that is interesting on it's own won't work because people are already familiar with Denver and Colorado, and do not need a new moniker to help understand it. 

And, by the way, having a name for one aspect of the economy here also won't do anything to make it super-dooper-fabulous, as I have a hunch some of the boosters are hoping.

All three attempts at naming, however, I think come from something of a Baby Boomer mindset. It's important for people who were part of "The Summer of Love" or "Watergate" or "Getting Fat and Lazy and Moving to the Suburbs" to name things to show to the world how different they are, how much they really are "Changing the World, Man."

As Jeff Gordinier points out in his excellent: X Saves the World, it's Boomers that really want to label how they are changing the world. It's the Gen-X crowd that first of all eschews the Gen-X label, and then eschews any other labels before going out and actually changing the world.

I don't know if you noticed, but the people behind the aforementioned revolutionary changes in governing and in publishing of status details are not the ones trying to put a name on it. They are too busy doing what they do.

Good for them! Long live the Name-Free Trend!

Fourth of July Duds

OK, I know this is sacrilege, but I just don't get why fireworks are so popular.

When I see that the economy forced the cancellation of a bunch of shows, well, I have trouble getting upset about it.

It's not that I don't like fireworks, it's just that I can't see why everyone else does like them.

I mean, they are kind of cool from the perspective of fire and explosions and pretty colors, etc. And nobody has more love for our country than me of the history of the Declaration of Independence, the patriots at Fort McHenry, and all of the others before that and since.

But after that... meh.

I mean, even the most boring baseball game still has its unknowns, its surprise endings, its character development.

Fireworks have no narrative arc, no plot twists, nothing.

Last evening we went to the fireworks Rockies game, and got discounted tickets because they had an obstructed view of the fireworks. During the singing of the National Anthem, the crews cleverly shot off one firework that exploded just as we all sung "Bombs bursting in air."

That was perfect. I enjoyed the fireworks as a form of punctuation.

So when my son said he wanted to go home after we sang the song about the peanuts and cracker jacks, I said, "You bet, I think we've seen enough fireworks already this evening."

Maybe even Jefferson had a bit too much time on his hands?

I'm a big fan of Jefferson, I enjoy reading the Declaration of Independence every year. It's hard to imagine writing anything that could have such an influence on the world, and still be so easy to read and enjoyable.

But after the US was independent, and after Jefferson became president, I get the feeling that if he had solitaire on his computer, he might have been playing that some.

He didn't, so instead he invented ciphers, one of which didn't get cracked until this week. Amazing.

Be Nice To Reporters

I always try to be helpful to reporters. I used to be one, so there's that. There's also the whole dying-industry thing, which I did NOT bring up when they called.

But I felt a bit useless today with them on the phone. They called to get my reaction to Amendment 50 in Colorado, which passed last November.

I was a leader of the opposition, such as it was. Truth be told it was one other guy and me. We created a blog, and sort of assembled a rag-tag coalition of people that never met but came out against it. The "coalition" was the strangest of bedfellows, as the Boulder County Democrats came out against it, as did Focus on the Family. Nearly a million people voted no, but a bit more than a million voted yes.

So the election was last November, and tomorrow the changes kick into place. I think the reporters were hoping that I'd be organizing some kind of mass sit-in, maybe chaining myself to a slot machine or something.

Truth is I'd mostly forgotten about it. I'm not a big anti-gambling activist. I just thought Amendment 50 went too far, and that it would create little Las Vegas zones in those three mountain towns. I was also worried about the sociological problems associated with the Indian Casinos near Durango, where I lived and worked as a reporter, often detailing very sad stories from the reservations there, the Ute Mountain Utes and the Souther Utes.

But elections have consequences. The Nevada gambling corporations wanted to change the Colorado Constitution, so they spent $7 million to tailor it to their liking. They got what they wanted. I don't like it, but the election is over so now I'll just continue to avoid those towns.

And if any more reporters call, I'll try to come up with some better quotes.

Drudge, Hypochondria, and the President

I'm convinced that Drudge is a total hypochondriac. He's got about 20 stories about the swine flu up right now.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but he is leaning a bit too far in the panic direction.

On the other side is TechCrunch, which has a story up, saying that "panic" is being spread over the web. 

I disagree. I think these types of flu are a bit scary, and with the federal government now working on it, it's a legitimate news story.

(I bet we find, eventually, that like the last big scare of the bird flu, that this is not just some random thing, that there is a big-picture story that caused this. It turns out the avian flu was caused by chicken farmers in China giving Tamiflu and other antivirals to their chickens. It didn't work, surprise surprise, but what did happen is that they helped create a flu bug that did not get better when you took Tamiflu. This is something I learned about from a doctor because it hurt me directly: I got the flu and couldn't take Tamiflu to get better.)

The thing that worries, me, however, is that Drudge has such animus toward Obama.

I don't know if there's anything to the story that Obama met and shook hands with a man in Mexico City who died the next day from the swine flu, but I do know that if it happened to President Bush that Drudge would have had that story front and center.

Denver's Altitude claims another

Harry Kalas died today, the day after leaving the Mile High City.

For those of you who don't know him, you probably know his voice. He was the announcer for the Phillies forever, and was also the voice behind those great NFL films, the ones that looked so great because they were shot on real film instead of video. They always seemed to show two rows of huge men with steam coming out of their snouts on some frozen turf. The voice just boomed out. I have a few of the choice ones on my iPhone that always make me smile when they come up in the random cue.

I got to meet Kalas, when Denver hosted the All Star game. I went with a pal to the Wynkoop back when Hickenlooper was still just a barkeep, before he went into politics.

Kalas was there on the patio with Hickenlooper, one of the world's biggest Phillies fans, and Hick was just soaking up every moment with this small, chain-smoking man. I didn't know who it was because when he was speaking in the group he just sounded like a regular guy. He was very slight, and was wearing a polyester suit. I figured maybe he was an uncle of Hickenlooper or something, the way he looked at Kalas with such reverence. Then I figured it couldn't be a relative because Hickenlooper must have been a foot or more taller than Kalas.

So I whispered to my buddy, trying to figure out who it was, and then learned it was Harry the K, the original "Outa Here!" guy. He had some amazing stories, very fun to listen to, but he was not at all boastful about any of it, he was just a very polite guy telling funny stories and then trying to deflect as much attention away from himself as he could.

And smoking non stop. 

I wonder how much of his amazingly deep and powerful voice for such a small guy was actually just created by the damage of all that smoke.

Poor guy. Threw out the first pitch a week ago. Flies up to Denver because he's not the kind of guy who takes days off during the baseball season. Has some trouble breathing here but doesn't make a fuss. Goes with the team to the next stop and dies while writing out the lineup for that day's game. 

This very well done story of his death doesn't specifically blame Denver, but it's hard not to make a connection when we've seen it so many times before here. You just need all the lung capacity you can get here.

You will be missed, Harry.

Don Baylor is da man

Look, I just want to be the first to say it. Don Baylor is the man.

Pitching will always be an issue in Denver, but I'm convinced that the reason the ball hasn't been "popping" off the bat the way it did when Baylor was the manager has less to do with the "humidor" than it does with the fact that Don Baylor wasn't around.

Now that he's back, hitters are listening to him and the ball is leaving the yard a lot.

Yes, yes, we are only three games into the season, but the Rockies have not yet played in Denver, and already they are second in the league in hitting and second in homers.

Tulo is on pace to hit 120 home runs this season! Helton hasn't hit one yet, but you know spigot will open up soon enough.

So you read it here first: If the Rockies do well this season, Don Baylor deserves a LOT of the credit, and by the way it will be a lot of fun to watch and listen this year.

Gay Marriage, Marijuana, and the march of time...

Several quick odds and ends before my next post, which will be a big and very positive review of The Unlikely Disciple...

• Two excellent posts in a row from the FiveThirtyEight guys, showing how gay marriage and marijuana are on an almost inevitable march toward legalization. Those guys nailed it during the election, and they are still finding their footing now with no election to talk about, but with those two posts I expect to learn a lot from them in the coming years.

• In the marijuana post, it points out -- without comment -- that my generation (X) smoked less pot than either the boomers or the millennials. Doesn't really surprise me... even at NYU in the 80s, I saw very little pot smoking. Maybe I just ran with a nerdier crowd. I'm not advocating for or against legalization here, but I will say that I think smoking pot in general is somewhat narcissistic, which is why it makes so much sense that both the boomers and the millennials toke up. 

• My post from April Fool's Day was, mostly, a joke. I am not crowdsourceing my life. I have to say, however, the idea was posted as a joke but the more I thought about it the more it grew on me. I guess I want it both ways: I don't want to do it right now, but I do want to be thought of as the first person to ever crowdsource his own life. Hmmmmm.

• Baseball is back. Ahhhhhhhhh.

First Person to Crowdsource My Entire Life

I am announcing here that I will become the first human being to crowdsource my life.

That's right: All decisions about my life will be subject to the whims of the Internet. 

I've been reading with interest how excellent crowds have been at designing T-Shirts, fixing the patent system, guessing the weight of a pig and much much more.

Basically there are lots of ways for companies to save money and make money by using the wisdom of the crowds to solve problems, come up with new ideas, and spread the word. That's great for companies, so why can't it be great for a person?

Here are the ground rules: You, the internet, can tell me anything that I will do, as long as it is not against the law. Also, my family is off limits, so if you tell me that I need to go have an affair with Chuck's sister, well, I'm not going to do it, even if she totally does look like Wonder Woman.

So, by this time next year I'll make a full report on what you, the Internet, has told me to do.

Be gentle!

Geronimo!

Sam Cassidy for House District 3 in Colorado

I grew up just about a mile or so from where I live now, and I actually remember our state representative coming to our door, and chatting with him for a while. He was very nice, very engaging, a bit nerdy.

His name was Wayne Knox, and he was the representative there forever, and did a great job.

After he retired Jennifer Veiga was elected. I didn't live in the district while she was there, but she's done well for herself, moving up into the Senate where she is highly regarded. When she was in the House, I was a reporter, and we talked several times about where I grew up. House members always know their neighborhoods very well.

Now we have another representative who is leaving, but doesn't want to wait until her term is up. My hunch is she wants to run for something bigger, and wants to be able to raise money now. Whatever. I'm horribly parochial about these matters, and I'm looking forward to our next representative in the Colorado House.

So, I just about choked on my breakfast cereal when I read one of the names floated to fill in the position: Sam Cassidy. The reporter gave some identification to a few of the other candidates, but just left his name alone in the story.

(Are there no good reporters left? The writer couldn't have somehow spent a few seconds to figure out that the candidate was none other than a former Lt. Governor of Colorado???)

I covered Sam when he lived in Pagosa Springs, down in Southwestern Colorado. We've stayed in touch through the years, and I knew he was a neighbor of mine, having pretty much created the Ethics in Business program at DU, bringing it up to be one of the best in the nation.

But I had no idea he would think about running. Anyway, he is. I hope some members of the vacancy committee read this, and contact me to ask me about him. Be prepared, though, for me to go on and on. 

Sam would instantly turn HD3 into a district that has real influence in Colorado. If you are on that committee, vote for someone who can make the biggest splash in the shortest amount of time.

The Smell of the Press Room

As a former Rocky reporter and book reviewer, I was brokenhearted about the Rocky closing. I haven't been able to blog about it, so sad is the news.

I attended the wake, and the hardest part was talking to people who came up to me, knowing that I've made a living -- more or less -- online for the last half-dozen or so years, and they looked to me for hope that they will be able to do the same. I don't know what my own future holds, so...

They still have their heads held high, though, and they should. They produced an amazing product under the most difficult of circumstances.

And now today comes news of the next domino falling: They are closing the press at the Coloradoan. This is also horrible news.

It won't quiet the voice of the newsroom up there, but the 48 people losing their job were, I'm sure, doing as good of job at their jobs as the 250 or so people who were putting out the Rocky every day. They aren't as familiar to us, but they had respectable jobs doing honest work.

(Old fogey alert!) This saddens me especially because of my first regular journalism job at the Durango Herald. It was an afternoon paper then, and every day I would get to work early, read the official police blotter and turn it into the one we put in the paper and then write up whatever other stories were going on that day. We had to have all the words on the page so it could be pasted up by hand by 11:45 a.m. If we missed that, dozens of paper boys would be delivering the paper after dark, so we never missed it.

After gathering around the front page and the back page of the front section as the layout guy calmly finished his job with all of us yelling about the indignity of an editor moving a comma, or whatever, we reporters would mosey off for lunch. By the time we got back the presses were rolling, and I'd go watch every day, and grab a freshly printed paper and just breathe in the smell of it and flip through the pages.

At first, it was a thrill seeing my story on the front page, but that faded fast.

After that, it was just the joy of seeing something that actually got printed. The guys in the press room cared about the quality of the product, and it was an honor working side-by-side with them. We had different jobs, but we had the same goal every day: making something real.

We don't make much in this country any more. We buy a lot of plastic crap made by underage workers in countries that we just can't understand. Newspapers were one thing that we still physically produced.

We still do, barely. Now it's all done overnight in far away places and the papers are so thin that they can print, for example, the Denver Post, the Boulder Camera and the Fort Collins Coloradoan all on the same night on the same press. 

My son will probably never understand what it means to work someplace where people actually make something. Too bad, because for my couple of years in Durango, I was a part of making something, and I got to see the whole process from reporting the news to seeing it delivered in the course of a day, and it happened every single weekday.

And I loved it so much.

Goodbye, press room. You will be missed.

In These Frugal Times: The Fruugalist

This is going to be huge.

A good friend just started a new email newsletter and site called The Frugalist.

The idea is simple: A daily email to help those who used to have plenty of money with a new resource to help them save some money.

But it's more than that. As it says on the gorgeous site, it's about "Less Spending. More Living." You can tell from the first issue that came out today that the idea is more about helping people deal with this new reality;  not just saving money but figuring life all out without much money.

I've been honored to volunteer helping the amazing site designer Evelyn Wilder get her idea for this thing going, along with the ever-talented Kathy Yates and "the other" Scott.

If there was ever a right time and a right place for something, it's The Fruugalist right now.

Sign up now so you can tell people that you were one of the first to be on the list when Oprah is talking about it and there are zillions of subscribers.

Nobody Messes with Joe?

President Obama made it clear that he has great trust that the recovery money will be spent wisely, and he believes that because he has his vice president watching over the money. "Nobody messes with Joe," he says.

And then Joe himself goes on the tee vee the next morning and makes it totally clear that he has an iron grip on the details of what's going on.

"Do you know the website number?" he asks.

OK, so basically nobody messes with Joe, unless they happen to know the website number when he doesn't.

Suuuuuuuper. Just great. Awesome. I feel so safe now.

Screaming for a Joke

Sometimes you trip over a story, and it just screams out to get a joke written about it.

Like this one:

Prehistoric fish pioneered sex

Sex has been a fact of life for at least 380 million years, longer than previously thought. Internal fertilization was widespread among prehistoric fish living on ancient tropical coral reefs in the Devonian period, research published in the journal Nature on Wednesday showed.

So, if I was Conan O'Lenoman, I think I might use this:

Scientists today announced that all jawed vertebrates had sex much earlier than previously believed. That's right, it was 380 million years ago that animals with mouths were having sex. They found the key piece of evidence in the back of Larry King's dressing room.

DPS Has Been Driving Me Crazy for Decades and Still Is!

The DPS board waited an eternity to do two things it should have done long, long ago.

First, the board finally dropped the racist symbol of South High School, the Rebels. I suppose given that the Klan essentially ran Denver in the early 1900s, it shouldn't be a surprise that the school board back then would ever allow the not-at-all subtle mascot of a soldier fighting to protect slavery -- but it's shocking how long it took to get rid of it.

As a student there in the latter half of the last century, I remember that we had petitions, discussion, requests and official letters written to try to dump the mascot. In further proof that the students really have no say over what happens in the school, the effort went nowhere.

Well, a new group of students has come along and asked for a change. Good for them. And now that the administration is made up of people, well, around my age, those students actually got somewhere.

The new superintendent said he could hear this dog whistle. "I grew up on the Mason-Dixon Line," he said. "I understand the power and the meaning of these symbols."

(Those of us who grew up far from the Mason-Dixon Line understood it, too, but it was still good of him to recognize it for what it is.)

I wonder what the administration is denying now that will be granted decades from now.

DPS Calendar

The second thing that the board waited until way too late to approve was next year's school calendar. Admittedly this is a much more parochial concern, but many summer camps require deposits and a commitment in January, but the board waited until February 19th to decide on the first day of school for next year.  

And the proposed calendars were different by a huge swing; there was three weeks difference in the first day of school!

Well, at least I can do something about my other, related, complaint: The undecipherable format they publish the DPS calendar in. I went and made one for myself, and then -- using technology that is just not that hard -- made the calendar available to all.

Here you are: the Denver Public Schools (DPS) Calendar in several handy formats. Enjoy.

Back on the Tee Vee

Well, the interview is done, and now it is on the air, so you can see this story about me and Mark Cuban here. (Unfortunately I can't embed it here, but click the link. It's short.

It was a fine story, and I'm probably the only one who will look at it and say, "Gee, why does he move his head around so much????"

By the way, the Second Saturday Science idea is getting some traction, and we'll have more about that here soon. I was interviewed by a national newspaper today, I'll have a link to that when it comes out.

So, I was feeling rotten about my interview, well, I was until I watched this:

Mark and Me

I created the category of "Fantasy Business League" so that I could comment about big business decisions in the way that others like to talk about sports. That is, I could comment and dable in the world that I follow, but not have any real interaction with those who actually play in the big leagues.

Well, today the fantasy business league got to go into the dugout for a visit.

I’ve followed Mark Cuban’s blog for years. This is a guy who is in the big leagues for sure. He started Broadcast.com and sold it to Yahoo back when that was a good thing. He’s gone on to other huge successes, including buying the Dallas Mavericks and appearing as himself on the Simpsons. It doesn’t get much better than that, unless he buys the Cubs, which would be just fine with me.

So today he decided in what is his classic style to get into the whole “stimulus” thing by trying a completely open source method of soliciting business ideas and then giving the criteria to fund them. The ideas were to be submitted right on his blog.

Many people reacted, as so often happens, with fear, saying that they didn’t want their precious idea to be distributed to the public. I’ve been there, but then I learned the reality is that there are plenty of great ideas out there, and unless it involves some kind of hard science, it is exceedingly rare that the idea on it’s own is worth 10 cents. Actually doing the work -- usually called “executing” in today’s parlance -- is the only way to succeed.

So I took an idea that I’ve had for more than a year and posted it. I worked hard to follow the rules that he put out there, something that very few of the others did.

And he responded. In length. Twice. So far.

His response to my idea (Second Saturday Science is what it’s called, more on that in another post) was so genuine, so engaged, and so, well, out there, that a reporter was inspired to do a story.

The stories about the crappy economy have moved way past depressing and are now downright annoying. It is, however, the biggest story going on right now, so this reporter, Craig Civale, to his credit wanted to do a story about a stimulus plan that might actually pay off, you know, this year.

His station, WFAA, is in Cuban’s town of Dallas, so it was a natural for him to do the story. He called me, and I actually answered the phone -- something that doesn’t seem to happen much these days. He asked a few questions, and then called back a few minutes later and asked if I’d go down to the ABC station in Denver to tape an interview.

No problem! If Second Saturday Science is going to take off, it’s going to need some publicity, so I hustled my arse down there and answered some questions. I understand it’s already been on the air in Dallas, and should be on the interwebs soon enough.

So, will this be my new “job”? I don’t know. If Cuban signs on to be a part of it, than for sure yes. He will be able to help me draw attention to it and open doors in ways few others could.

If not, well... stay tuned!

I'm baaaaaack

I consider myself a data-driven person. If something is working, do more of that. If not, then stop.

I was not having luck finding a job, and I was blogging a lot.

I had an inkling that my blog posts were a part of me not finding a job. I knew the economy had a lot more to do with it, but I couldn't control the economy. I could control my blog, so I basically just stopped.

And then, well, I STILL didn't get a job.

So I was going to, this month, switch over to a different blogging platform, Wordpress, which I used in my volunteer fight against the expansion of gambling in Colorado. I liked it a lot, so I thought I would switch before I started blogging again.

But as Rick says, destiny has taken a hand.

Later today I'll be blogging about me and Mark Cuban. Yes, that Mark Cuban.

 

Drudge Report let's me down... Again

The whole story of the Drudge Report is such a great American story. Here's a guy who was a night manager at a convenience store, and in his spare time he starts a site that is crude even by the standards of the 1990s.

And the site has a huge part to play in the impeachment of a president.

Ever since then I have gotten slightly itchy if I go more than about eight hours without checking Drudge. He just seems to have a nose for the stories that are going to have legs, and he always gets them first. I don't know how he did it so well for so long.

I love that site so much that a friend and I created the Drudge Widget, which you can see on the right side of my site if you are looking at the http and not the rss.

Earlier this year, Drudge let me down in an understandable way, getting the wrong name for Obama's VP.

Then Drudge spent a bunch of time trying to make it seem like McCain has a shot of winning, and anyone who's watched the race closely knows that just isn't true. The most reliable site for polling has had to spend a post nearly every day debunking Drudge.

Here's the problem with a huge ideological bias in breaking news: It's boring. I have to say I now go for days without reading Drudge, and then I don't find much new when I get there. Maybe it's because I'm using my RSS reader (NetNewsWire) so efficiently either on my machine or on my iPhone, but I don't think that's it.

I think it's just that Drudge has lost his edge, and seems to be flailing a bit. I'm hoping that after the election he'll get back to normal.

And maybe by next year he'll stop putting the wrong year in his title tag, and maybe he'll finally getting around to making a favicon (the little icon in the URL window of the browser). If I can make one, Drudge can certainly make one.

Come back, Drudge! We need you!

This game may last forever!

We are in day three of what might just be the last baseball game of the year.

I just did a blog search, and I can't believe I'm the first person to make this connection: This game might go on for months, just like that great game in the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. 

In that book, the game went on for 2,000 innings.

This game between the amazing Rays and the Phillies may not go on for that long, but it's so delicious that there's a game that seems to be saying to the world that we don't quite want summer to be over.

It certainly feels that way here in Denver right now, it's been one of the most amazing falls ever, with blue skies and warm temps every day. Just like baseball, it's the summer that nobody wants to end.

I'm glad it will end, though, and that we'll have winter. It sharpens the senses, makes us feel our fragility.

Of course, the other great thing about this crazy World Series game is the great writing about it. There have been plenty of great columns, but for me this one stands out.

Pulling on their last World Series breath, watching their brilliant season circle the dugout drain with expectorated sunflower shells and Skoal drool, and falling obediently to postseason force Cole Hamels, the Tampa Bay Rays had a single hope:

Havoc.

Skies had to open. Gods had to roar. Pitching staffs had to be blown into confusion. Third base had to become lake-front property.

The Philadelphia Phillies had to be knocked off what had been a downhill run since the series moved north. And not just the Phillies. The whole series.

Something, you know, apocalyptic.

Then Evan Longoria and Carlos Pena got hits in the same inning.

And that wasn’t even it.

It rolled in on winds cold and sure. It rose up over Citizens Bank Park, over the neon Liberty Bell, over giddy, expectant fans covered in red hoodies and trash bags.

Dressed in swirling curtains of rain, cloaked in a howling northwest breeze, it stopped the World Series at 80 minutes before midnight, the middle of the sixth inning, Game 5.

Havoc.

Ahhhhh. Love it.

McCain in Durango. Uh-Oh.

Many people have their equivalent of Paris in the '20s. I actually have two: New York in the '80s and Durango in the '90s.

Durango was my first real journalism job. The pay was rotten, but I made a bunch of great, lifelong friends and did some outstanding journalism for a paper with a circulation under 10,000.

I was there during the '92 campaign, Clinton-Gore vs. Bush-Quayle. Dan Quayle himself made an appearance in Durango at the airport, and then got in a motorcade and drove down to Farmington, N.M. Both states were in play, much like this year.

Through a combination of dogged pursuit and dumb luck, I was able to get an exclusive interview with the sitting vice-president of the United States while he drove from Durango to Farmington. It was a lot of fun, and he was a gracious host in the back of his limo for more than half an hour.

But it was clear in his eyes and in his tone that he knew that if he was spending time in towns like Durango and Farmington, the effort to stay in office must be in trouble. It was.

So here we are in 2008 and McCain himself made a campaign stop in Durango before heading to New Mexico.

Uh-oh.

Well, I hope the people in Durango enjoyed it. People in Durango seem to enjoy just about everything, so I bet they did.

Obamacon watch does not include President Bush

I've been writing about and telling friends about the Obamacons for months, those conservatives who support Senator Obama.

I haven't written about it lately because, well, it's not even interesting any more there are so many. It was shameful that Christopher Buckley got fired from the magazine his dad started.

But when I saw this story, "Bush Not an Obamacon!" I had to pause.

Somehow "Obamacon" has become so popular of a word that it's losing it's original meaning. The "con" part is for "conservative."

I'm not one of those who takes part in the whole Bush Hatred, but I take exception to the notion that President Bush is somehow conservative. I'm not sure what word history will assign to his particular style of governing, but it for sure won't be "conservative."

EBA - That's me!

I've been having a lot of lunches and coffees lately, trying to figure out the next adventure in my professional life. Typically at some point the person on the other side of the coffee cup will say, "So, what is it that you do?"

I hate that question, and generally mumble something about having started as a writer/reporter/editor and that morphed into an entrepreneur/consultant/strategist and then the person looks for a waiter and begs for more coffee. Who can blame them?

Well today I'm sitting there over a bowl of cereal and I read in black and white what it is that I do!

"But the most active opponents of (Colorado Amendment) 50 may be Denver lawyer Jon Anderson and entrepreneur-blogger-activist Scott Yates."

Even though I used to write for the papers, seeing myself described in that way was a little jarring, but it grew on me pretty quickly.

Maybe I'll have business cards made up: Scott Yates, EBA.

Maybe I'll start an EBA club on a social network. I mean, there's one of those for everything else, right?

Or maybe I'll just clip Blake's column and send it to a certain third-grade teacher who once told me that my unchecked narcissism and smug self-righteousness would never get me anywhere. IN YOUR FACE, SISTER MARGARET!

Anyway, thanks to Peter Blake I now know who I am. All the people I'm having coffee with will appreciate this very much.

More Sco.tt on tee vee right here in Denver, Colorado

Here's another clip of me exercising my democratic privilege.

Ahhhh. Exercise.

I would just put this on the Colorado Amendment 50 site, but that is on a free-hosted site because that campaign has no money, and the free site doesn't let me embed videos. 

That's right, while I may look good on TV (OK, even that is a stretch), the entire campaign consists of a lawyer working pro-bono, a free-bee blog, my volunteer time and the truth. We are up against $7 million, lots of slick advertising, and some of the best in political consultants and lobbyists in the state.

I don't know what our odds are; I'm not the gambling type. 

That said, I do like being an underdog. While I didn't run guns to Ethiopia, and I didn't fight with the Loyalists, I think of myself as having a bit of Rick in me. While it's true that the other side pays much better, I'm enjoying my time, meeting a lot of great people, and if I can do anything to stop the expansion of government into the regressive taxation of gambling, then it will all be for the good.

Cure Cancer with the Internet

OK, now that the election is essentially over we can get back to using the Internet for worthwhile stuff, like trying to cure cancer.

I'm not joking. Right now there's a guy who has perhaps hours to live and there's a drug that may help him, but the company that makes the drug isn't releasing it for use on that one person.

I first read about it here, and the letter from the guy's son is here, complete with ways that you can send a note and help.

(OK, the whole election isn't over, it's just boring. Except if you are one of those who want to "Say Yes On 50"  Yech. I hope not!)

Drudge let's me down a second time

The first time Drudge let me down, I figured he just had a bad source. He announced to the world that Evan Bayh would be Obama's Veep.

This time, though, he's really shooting himself in the foot.

Through headlines and pictures, he's trying to create the illusion that McCain is making a big comeback. He's not. 

(And remember, I like Drudge. With a friend, I invented the Drudge Widget!)

There's also some noise that he may or may not come out with a big new plan to help the economy.

The problem is that McCain is in a trap that Obama has laid down. He did this with the Clintons, which was masterful. Now he's done it with McCain without even breaking a sweat.

The trap? He's made the case that McCain is "erratic." So, now if McCain sticks to his same (losing) strategy he'll lose, and if he tries to make a big change, well, he'll just be more erratic. McCain really may never know what hit him.

I'm certainly glad to see, by the way, that McCain has started in small ways to tamp down some of the anger out there. I've been banned from talking on this blog about anything that could be perceived as a threat by anyone against any potential new president. I'm not allowed to talk about it, but let's just say that I'm really really glad that McCain is saying that Obama is a good, decent, family man and a citizen.

Hey, speaking of family man, I think all those people that are so afraid of Obama are mostly older, and they have a lot of fear about the economy, and just change in general. Change is scary! All of those who are scared should look to none other than the heartthrob of Wasilla, Levi Johnston. There's a guy who should be scared. He's a high school drop-out with a pregnant girlfriend, and a mother-in-law-to-be who is a lifelong NRA member and has a lot of guns and may, in fact, be crazy. (She certainly is delusional.)

But is he afraid? Doesn't sound like it to me:

"We're up for it. I'm excited to have my first kid. It's going to be a lot of hard work but we can handle it."...

What about Johnston's politics?

The young man said he wasn't an expert on politics by any stretch. Asked about Barack Obama, he replied: "I don't know anything about him. He seems like a good guy. I like him."

Sure, he says he will be voting for the Republicans. I would be to, if I was him; having the Palins several thousand miles away probably sounds like a good idea!

What happened to Palin's hand?

Just Askin'

Palin's Hand

Fat Lady is warming up

I've been telling conservative friends of mine since about June that they need to mentally prepare themselves for the fact that we are going to have a Democrat as president in January.

Most of them have been in some form of denial about this, and a few still are.

I knew back during the crazy days of the summer that it was over for one reason: Anyone who can beat the Clinton's is unstoppable. The way that he won that race will be studied for decades. The way that Obama will beat McCain is unremarkable, and will go down in history as a repeating of what's happened several times in the past: throwing out a war-time president's party.

A true conservative might have had a chance. Someone who didn't start off a debate, as McCain did last night, by promising a new program so immense and liberal that even solidly conservative journalists called it "insane."

So, McCain is not a conservative, and is really just not that good of a guy. This bit of reporting for me seems to ring awfully true. This is part of a story about McCain quoting one of McCain's fellow POWs, and recounts a story from after the war:

On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the scion of four-star admirals and the son of a prizefighter turns to their academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the globe.

"I'm going to the Middle East," Dramesi says. "Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran."

"Why are you going to the Middle East?" McCain asks, dismissively.

"It's a place we're probably going to have some problems," Dramesi says.

"Why? Where are you going to, John?"

"Oh, I'm going to Rio."

"What the hell are you going to Rio for?"

McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.

"I got a better chance of getting laid."

Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. "McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man," Dramesi says today. "But he's still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in."

For me, the final nail in the coffin about McCain was this exchange of letters between Obama and McCain from before either of them announced for president.

I won't even try to quote from them, you have to read the three of them to get the idea. I've gotten some similarly bizarre, mean and counter-productive letters in my life, and I wish I'd had the grace that Obama had in responding.

So, now in my mind the presidential race is boring. It's over. The best analysis of polls is actually now wondering if it's possible for Obama to get any higher in the polls. So, now there are two questions, one big and one smaller but still important. The first big question is starting to get talked about more loudly, for instance here: What will conservatism do now.

This is something Sullivan has been exploring a lot out loud, and the rest of the pundits on the right will be catching up soon enough.

The second question for me is less well known. Will Colorado Amendment 50 die the horrible death it deserves?

I don't have answers for either, but I'll enjoy agitating against Amendment 50 for the next couple of weeks, and for true conservatism in the months and years to come. Can't wait!

Centurians

Somehow I really thought the Cubs would pull off the once-a-century championship only because I live in Denver.

Wait, how does that make sense?

You see, Denver hosted the DNC this year for the first time in 100 years, so I figured it was one of those century things. The big events from 1908 would get repeated here in 2008.

Well, Manny Ramirez ruined things for Denver back in 2007, so I guess he figured he might as well ruin it for Chicago in 2008.

It will be really interesting to see if he ruins it for the Red Sox in the World Series, especially since it is the 'Sox that are still paying his salary.

That's got to hurt.

Is the media fair to Sarah Palin?

Watching this clip, that question comes to mind:

I mean, when you ask one person if they disagree with any SCOTUS opinions and that person tells you about the law that he wrote that got overturned, well, it's just not fair to expect the same level of response from someone who's only been a governor.

On the other hand, even I, who am not an elected official -- even if I do play like one on TV -- can think of a few opinions that I disagree with. I've even blogged about one in which I thought the court should have taken a stronger stand for freedom of speech. Sitting there with the pressure on, would I have remembered the name of the case? (Probably not, but I would have remembered the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" sign that sparked the case.) 

But would I have remembered any case? Even one? I'd like to think that I would have, and I sure like to think that in my preparations for interviews I would have gone over a couple just so that I could speak about it in ways that don't inspire people to make a video comparing me to the pride of South Carolina.

But is it a fair question? Yes, it is. This is not gotcha journalism, this is journalism. At this point anyone saying that Palin isn't getting a fair shake is just grasping at straws.

Behind the scenes video from Treasury of how they came up with $700 billion

You think I'm kidding, right?

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number." - Forbes.com

I think this is a slightly different take on the old saying. In this case, the first time was comedy, the second is tragedy.

Sco.tt TV is On The Air

For those of you who just can't get enough sco.tt goodness on this blog, there are now some ways to catch up on the Tee-Vee.

As Chief Strategist for the Vote No On Amendment 50, I've taped a few interviews and discussions about why Amendment 50 would be such a bad idea for Colorado. Starting tonight, September 25, at 9 p.m. MDT on Comcast channel 25 or on DirectTV channel 681, the Altitude network will be airing a series on all the ballot initiatives. I don't know what order they will do them in, I'm hoping it's just numeric so that we will be on earlier. That show should be rebroadcast a couple of times.

Then on Monday, September 29, I'll be on Channel 12, the PBS station, at 8:30 p.m. MDT. That one may be on the internet after, and if so it will be posted on the Amendment 50 blog.

I've also been interviewed by the local Fox outlet, and have one set with the Channel 7, but I don't yet know when those will be on the air. If you see it, let me know how bad my hair looks. There have also been some great print interviews, and the Denver Post just endorsed the idea of Colorado saying No to Amendment 50, so with barely a week of volunteering for the side of truth and justice, I'm feeling pretty good about our progress!

OK, the self promotion is getting a little thick around here...

Road to the White House

I don't know if it makes me happy or sad that the Road to the White House is through David Letterman.

But it clearly is.

I got this email today

I can never tell if these are legitimate. This one seems like it might be real.

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a
transfer of funds of great magnitude.
I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had
crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion
dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most
profitable to you.
I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my
replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may
know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the
1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.
This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds
as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names
of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family
lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person
who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.
Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account
numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to
wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for
this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with
detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the
funds.
Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

On The Road

Like any political junky, I've been watching the polls. My new favorite poll watching site is put together by a couple of baseball stat freaks who have turned into political stat freaks. (They are liberal, and want Obama to be elected but they treat politics like baseball in that they have favorite teams, but they really just love the game and the stats.)

They do lots of great analysis of all the polls, having recently helped debunk the whole myth of the Bradley Effect. I love a blog that's not afraid to use terms like "regression analysis."

One of the writers has started doing something that big newspapers used to do back when they had decent size reporting staffs and travel budgets. He's hit the road.

In true blogger style, he's doing it while quoting Jack Kerouac plenty. I read yesterday that he was going to be in Denver, so after doing some politicking of my own last night (more on that later) I went over to the bar where Kerouac would go to celebrate stealing cars with Neal Cassady, My Brother's Bar. 

(You know, I never thought about this, but the bar is called My Brother's Bar and it was Cassady's brother who was a bartender there. Did the bar have the same name then? I better head back there and ask!)

So I figured that if the 538 guy is in Denver, and he's a Kerouac fan, he's gotta be there, right? Well, if he was, I missed him. I did run into an old friend I hadn't seen in years, though, so that made it a great night. 

Photo credit: Phil Roman