So, after yesterday’s post which talked separately about Arianna Huffington and Howard Stern, I was amused to hear Arianna as a guest on Howard’s show this morning. Politics really really makes the strangest bedfellows. They commiserated about the idiocy of Bush especially after the robotic press conference last night, before Stern got distracted by inquiring […]

First of all, George Lakoff’s ideas are exemplified once again by this Arianna Huffington column, where she is talking to the 11-year-old son of a friend of hers: “Arianna,” he said with the enchanting optimism of a Greek-American boy, “I’m going to convince you that you should support Bush in November. Here are two questions […]

A friend sent me a link to this article over at Yahoo, describing how Bush has scored points by defining John Kerry with a series of negative ads since the end of the primaries. We then saw this article where Ralph Nader, of all people, tells Kerry to loosen up and be himself. As usual, […]

I mentioned George Lakoff in my list of links a month ago, but somebody recently forwarded me a link to this interview with him, where I got a better sense of his thinking. That page also links to this other interview, which has some really great bits. Lakoff was the guy who said frames trump […]

So I wanted to get one more entry in on politics before the Democratic primary race totally collapses this Tuesday when it looks like Kerry will take 5 of the 7 contested states. One of the things that I previously observed about this race is that it’s all about perception. In particular, I said a […]

Somehow the topic of unions came up at work yesterday, and, in particular, why unions have totally failed to become a force in the high-tech economy of the Bay Area. I had put some thought into this a few months ago when I made the mistake of deriding unions in front of a friend whose […]

I’m on Michael Moore’s mailing list, and this morning he sent out his endorsement of Clark over Dean. Michael Moore, who most people know from his “documentaries” such as Roger and Me and Bowling for Columbine, is a bit of a wacko, but I think he does genuinely care about this country and its people. […]

After writing my post about the perils of extremism a few weeks ago, I just have to link to John Perry Barlow’s thoughts on the subject. Despite being the author of the much ballyhooed Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, Barlow only recently started a weblog of his own. After one of his posts evangelizing […]

In light of my speculation as to Dean’s chances in the presidential election, I thought I should put up a link to the political cartoon, This Modern World, which published a cartoon this week, ridiculing the idea that Dean can’t win. I’m still torn on Dean. I like his position on several of the issues. […]

Last month, I was chatting with somebody who, upon finding out that I went to MIT, asked me if I had ever taken a class with Noam Chomsky. I said that I hadn’t, but I’d read a couple of his books, so he asked me what I thought of them. I said something like “I […]