Which one is the cartoon?

Foes Use Obama's Muslim Ties to Fuel Rumors About Him

In his speeches and often on the Internet, the part of Sen. Barack Obama's biography that gets the most attention is not his race but his connections to the Muslim world.

Since declaring his candidacy for president in February, Obama, a member of a congregation of the United Church of Christ in Chicago, has had to address assertions that he is a Muslim or that he had received training in Islam in Indonesia, where he lived from ages 6 to 10. While his father was an atheist and his mother did not practice religion, Obama's stepfather did occasionally attend services at a mosque there.

Despite his denials, rumors and e-mails circulating on the Internet continue to allege that Obama (D-Ill.) is a Muslim, a "Muslim plant" in a conspiracy against America, and that, if elected president, he would take the oath of office using a Koran, rather than a Bible, as did Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the only Muslim in Congress, when he was sworn in earlier this year.

In campaign appearances, Obama regularly mentions his time living and attending school in Indonesia, and the fact that his paternal grandfather, a Kenyan farmer, was a Muslim. Obama invokes these facts as part of his case that he is prepared to handle foreign policy, despite having been in the Senate for only three years, and that he would literally bring a new face to parts of the world where the United States is not popular.

The republican base

How they reacted to the republican debate

I attended Frank Luntz's dial group of 30 undecided--or sort of undecided--Republicans in St. Petersburg, Florida, last night...and it was a fairly astonishing evening.
...

In the next segment--the debate between Romney and Mike Huckabee over Huckabee's college scholarships for the deserving children of illegal immigrants--I noticed something really distressing: When Huckabee said, "After all, these are children of God," the dials plummeted. And that happened time and again through the evening: Any time any candidate proposed doing anything nice for anyone poor, the dials plummeted (30s). These Republicans were hard.

But there was worse to come: When John McCain started talking about torture--specifically, about waterboarding--the dials plummeted again. Lower even than for the illegal Children of God. Down to the low 20s, which, given the natural averaging of a focus group, is about as low as you can go. Afterwards, Luntz asked the group why they seemed to be in favor of torture. "I don't have any problem pouring water on the face of a man who killed 3000 Americans on 9/11," said John Shevlin, a retired federal law enforcement officer. The group applauded, appallingly.

I just can't relate to these people. Helping people bad, torture good. Oh what a wonderful world.

So who won? Romney walked in with 8 members of the group leaning his way and left with 14. The group thought he looked and sounded like a leader. Fred Thompson went from 3 supporters to 7--and I noticed a clever trick he used: he started almost every answer with a joke and the dials would go up and stay up as he meandered through his nondescript answers.

Giuliani lost. He came in with 12 supporters and left with 6. People thought he came off as too much of a ...New Yorker. McCain had one lonely supporter going in and coming out--but the group was just crazy livid about his stands on immigration and torture.

Mirth Day

The idea of a consumer-led environmental movement has pollution-belching multi-nationals rolling in the aisles — and the joke is on you.

Psychology: Trust Your Gut

According to a new book, most people think too much before they make important decisions

Trouble still ahead

Rising Rates to Worsen Subprime Mess

Kindle

I have been waiting for something like this, the Kindle from Amazon. They say it reads quite easily, as if it were ink on a page. I think after a few iterations it will be a must for me - apparently it isn't that easy to put your own stuff on it. But it does come with free internet access through the mobile phone network. This could potentially be a great technology for 'developing' countries (even better than the 100$ laptops, if you ask me) if they made it more adaptable to different content styles, made notation possible (or easier), and brought the cost down a bit, or course. But something like this - I can't imagine that it stays $399 for long. We'll see good e-readers for $50 soon, I'm hoping.

More details here

Give This Man a Pulitzer

A GQ feature on Josh Marshall from TPM

Interesting to see how they have used technology to take advantage of distributed cognition and knowledge to improve reporting.

Democracy

Georgia Police Turns Sonic Blaster on Demonstrators

Highfalutin journalism

Karl Rove Hired As Newsweek Contributor To ‘Balance’ Markos

Is Musharraf history?

U.S. Is Looking Past Musharraf in Case He Falls

I love fox

Pro-gressives

Its a good idea to start positive branding - and I like the choice of issues. It helps make clear what the loony libruls stand for.

Unravelling the sceptics

What do "climate sceptics" believe?

Climate scepticism: The top 10

Sub-Saharan African

growth rates catching up with rest of world

"Over the past decade, Africa has recorded an average growth rate of 5.4 percent which is at par with the rest of the world," said Obiageli Ezekwesili, World Bank vice-president for Africa.

"The ability to support, sustain and in fact diversify the sources of these growth indicators would be critical not to Africa's capacity to meet (UN poverty targets) but also to becoming an exciting investment destination for global capital."

The continent's overall economic performance was helped in large part by the rise in revenue from oil exporters such as Equatorial Guinea which saw Gross Domestic Product grow by 30.8 percent between 1996 and 2005, while Angola saw a rise of 8.5 percent during the same period.
...
While resource-rich countries were benefitting from a rise in global prices, countries that were not blessed with big reserves were also peforming well.

"Leading the way are the oil and mineral exporters, thanks to high prices," said Page. "But 18 non-mineral economies, with 36 percent of sub-Saharan people, have also been doing well."

Despotism

Happiness and social policy

All They Are Saying Is Give Happiness a Chance

Someday, this will catch on.

Whats the worst that can happen?

ICTs in Africa

Africa, Mostly Offline, Struggles to Get on the Internet

Four years ago, the firm Terracom signed a contract with the Rwandan government to provide 300 schools with internet access. Rwandan officials had planned on equipping schools with the internet as a way to modernize the rural economy. But as of mid-July, only one third of the schools had been connected. That rate is better than that for Africa as a whole, with only 4 percent of the continent connected, most in the very northern and southern regions. A major problem is lack of infrastructure, a result of ongoing conflict destroying communication networks and requiring that lines be routed through England or the US. Officials criticize Terracom for being more interested in tapping into the lucrative cell-phone market. According to Ron Nixon, the dispute is “emblematic of what can happen when good intentions run into the technical, political and business realities of Africa.”

Stiglitz

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush

The Next Steps For Burma

The international community, including ASEAN, must press for a contact group and a truth commission

Western nations have tightened economic sanctions and ASEAN has expressed "revulsion" at Myanmar's repression of non-violent protests. Concrete actions must now follow the outrage. UN efforts to encourage talks on the country's constitution and renew humanitarian poverty relief, while positive, do not go far enough, argues Amitav Acharya, professor of global governance. Such steps alone would fail to achieve the fundamental goal of fostering political openness, beginning with the freeing of all political prisoners. He suggests new institutions that could reduce violence as well as overcome the reluctance of Burma's neighbors to pressure the junta: First, a contact group of pertinent and prominent countries should engage in continuous dialogue with the regime, pushing greater freedom for the Burmese people. Second, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission should be organized, offering incentives for military officers in Myanmar to break with the junta and refrain from attacking their own people. The international community holds mechanisms for moving beyond the rhetoric to create a more peaceful and democratic Burma.

Bummer for us

Fulfillment Elusive for Young Altruists In the Crowded Field of Public Interest

Mirror neurons, Altruism, Neuroscience

New proof of 'mirror neurons': explains why we experience the grief and joy of others, and maybe why humans are altruistic.

Ramachandran goes further, explaining that mirror neurons help us understand the evolution of the self, the mysterious narrator that provides continuity in each of our life stories. The self, which Ramachandran calls the Holy Grail of neuroscience, may be an evolutionary innovation adopted not first to give each person a conscious foreman, but as a way to model others. In this theory, the self started as a kind of little program -- fed with data from the mirror system -- for understanding other people, a kind of algorithm for generating a mini-you in me. Once it evolved, this program swung around and began to apply its algorithmic investigations also to its host, the brain in which it resided. Self-consciousness was born.

"It was almost certainly a two-way street," Ramachandran adds, "with self-awareness and other-awareness enriching each other in an auto-catalytic cascade that culminated in the fully human sense of self. You say you are being 'self-conscious' when you really mean being conscious of someone else being conscious of you."

...

Dennett agrees that it is rash to draw profound conclusions about the role of mirror neurons so soon. "Some mirror neuron enthusiasts are saying that these are some kind of magic bullet, a giant leap by evolution that made language and empathy possible. I think that is much too strong."

Ramachandran and Dennett, who are friends, disagree on this point. Ramachandran thinks that mirror neurons will indeed bring about a revolution in the way we see the brain and the way we see ourselves and our relationship to one another. "Mirror neurons will do for psychology what the discovery of DNA did for biology," he wrote several years ago.

The other last resort of scoundrals

Kentucky GOP Pushing Anti-Gay Message In Final Days Of Gov Race

Going into the home stretch in in the Kentucky gubernatorial election, the Republicans appear to have brought out one last card: Paranoia against gays.

The state GOP is now sending a robo-call throughout the state featuring none other than Pat Boone, warning that as a Christian he is concerned that Democratic nominee Steve Beshear, who has been way ahead in the polls, will work for "every homosexual cause."

"Now do you want a governor who'd like Kentucky to be another San Francisco?" Boone asks. "Please re-elect Ernie Fletcher."

With all of the Republican officials being arrested for soliciting gay sex, I wonder if this attack really still works. It must poll well in Kentucky, or I guess they wouldn't do it.

Krugman

Fearing Fear Itself

Sometimes I think that Krugman reads some liberal blogs, takes the logical and good ideas, then turns them into his column. Anyway, its mostly a good thing.

Keepon

If this thing doesn't cheer you up, then nothing can.

A different Department of Education...

this one is hell-bent on making sure that poor kids don't get an education

a computer glitch prevents renewal of a 40-yr old program that gets poor kids into college.

Stephen Colbert campaigns in South Carolina

Relativity

I wonder what focus group this plays well with...

best comment:
"One man's shocking of the genitals is another man's electrolysis?"

and apparently she's Canadian and a bit out of her mind.

How the heck does this girl get on CNN?

ghoulish!!

i just learned how to do this. 19 structural mri scans of myself are averaged, and then the outer surface is rendered. my cheeks look squished because of the padding in the machine.

A good idea

Gun cameras

This is the perfect example of using technology to make the public sector more transparent - and given the one-to-one nature of the public sector performance in this area to the civil servant - direct accountability measures are possible. Me likey this one.

even scarier...

Hell House