Sunday, October 22, 2006

NY Times: "Google sometimes operates in a way that almost seems to invite legal scrutiny." 

I've now had HD for about a month now, and it's a life-changer. I know it sounds weird, but you look at the world differently. The Discovery channel has really jumped on HD, they have a channel called HD Theater that is at least partly a travelogue, they sent crews around the world to take pictures in all kind of exotic places. And you sit there with your jaw on the floor, the pictures are so vivid, they're even more colorful than reality, and they take you places you could never go on on your own, to mountain tops, underwater in a manatee swamp in Florida. And even prosaic places are beautiful. Yesterday they had a camera on a cow farm in Vermont. No voice track, no narration, just the sounds of nature and cows grazing. Incredibly captivating. This is TV as a meditation medium. Very different and very interesting. 

Inside Google: "Ze Frank decided to help monetize his vlog by letting readers buy digital rubber duckies and other things on his pages, but Google did not approve." 

Highly recommend this Frontline report on Karl Rove from 2005. There's a very distinct pattern to a Rove campaign, and it's interesting to think how Rove is not in charge of the 2006 mid-term election, at least so far. It's possible that the Democrats watched this show too, it helps explain why the Foley scandal is a the perfect antidote to Rove. 

"Surrender and wave the white flag," is the Rove slogan for this election. George Stephanopoulos asked the President to name a single Democrat who wants to surrender and wave a white flag. Hemm and haw. Thanks, that's the right question. What a fucking coward. Why can't we have an election where we talk about something other than Karl Rove's marketing slogan. Bill Frist used the term on CNN later in the morning. Republicans are chicken.