Speculative Bubble Blog

Hillary is Mom Jeans

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Not sure if you've caught these websites but they are very clever:

First one is Barack Obama is your new bicycle
[hit refresh once you're there]

What is cooler than your new bicycle? Nothing. Every phrase on the site is an example of what a cool person is:

Barack Obama took off when he heard you weren't coming
Barack Obama picked you up at the airport
Barack Obama helped you move a sofa
Barack Obama remembered your birthday

The exact opposite of cool is mom jeans.
[hit refresh once you're there]

What is less cool than your mom's jeans? Nothing. Every phrase on the site is an example of what an uncool person is:

HILLARY BLOCKED YOUR CAR IN THE DRIVEWAY
HILLARY KEEPS INTERRUPTING THE MOVIE SAYING "WHAT DID HE SAY?"
HILLARY FOLDED THE MAP WRONG
HILLARY LEFT ONE SPOONFUL IN THE ICE CREAM CARTON

These sites are user generated content so they keep getting better and better and better the more people submit. hillaryismomjeans has something like 10,000 random phrases submitted so far so you have to at least see it once (and reload it a few times...).

Nice Job Fenway Park

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The Politics of Planting - CNN

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Republican National Convention Logo Photoshopped

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=3112814

The United States Presidency on Ebay

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320157866712

Political ad from Argentina

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

It's about 5 years old and has been translated to English - clever stuff

The Tonkin Gulf Incident

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

from NPR:

On Sunday Aug. 2, 1964, three North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked the American destroyer the USS Maddox in Southeast Asia's Gulf of Tonkin.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara told President Lyndon B. Johnson that a covert strike against North Vietnam two days earlier likely provoked the attack upon the Maddox.

Left, an oil painting depicting the attack.

Right, the three attacking North Vietnamese torpedo boats, as seen from the Maddox.

The U.S. destroyer damaged two of the boats and sank the third. Retaliation by the Americans was limited to attacking those boats that day. The Maddox and another destroyer, the Turner Joy, were then deliberately positioned to draw a second attack.

Two days later, on Aug. 4, McNamara, left, reported to Johnson that an American destroyer in the region was under torpedo attack by the North Vietnamese. That brief conversation was the tipping point for the entire Vietnam War.

Johnson ordered American forces to openly attack the North, and he asked Congress to pass a resolution pre-approving any military actions the president would take.

Johnson on Aug. 4, 1964, announcing that the U.S. will retaliate against North Vietnam for two attacks on American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Later, Johnson and others would learn the second attack, which propelled the president and Congress to enter the Vietnam War, never happened.

So if I get this right:

A United States covert strike against North Vietnam by an American Destroyer ship (the Maddox) provokes 3 North Vietnamese torpedo boats to attack back at the Maddox.

During their attack, the Maddox completely sinks one and damages the other two NV torpedo boats and never even gets hit.

Then the Maddox, as well as another American destroyer (the Turner Joy) are deliberately positioned to draw a second attack

The Defense Secretary (assuming that those two ships would be attacked) tells the President that they were under torpedo attack by the North Vietnamese.

Johnson orders American forces to attack North Vietnam
(and gets Congress to pre-approve further military actions)

America assumes that this is a retaliation so the Vietnam war begins - but it turns out that the second attack never even happened and the first attack was provoked...

But that is what justified the beginning of the Vietnam War?

Global Gasoline Consumption

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The United States consumes more Gas than 20 other countries combined...

From Economist.com

Republican Comparison

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

You have to click on it for the full size:

Via Digg

Subprime Derivatives Explained

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to Housing Crash TV and HP

Big Mac Index

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

from the economist

Third Debate Transcripts Sorted by Candidate - Democratic

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The transcript of tonight's PBS Democratic primary debates broken out by individual candidate:

Joe Biden
Hillary Clinton
Christopher Dodd
John Edwards
Mike Gravel
Dennis Kucinich
Barack Obama
Bill Richardson

Full transcript of the debate here

check out DC Shuffle's breakdown:

Three interesting things of note:
-The general evasiveness was much higher than the last time they got together
-Hillary won the reviled DC Shuffle award a second time in a row
-They all got equal air time because Tavis did a great job


Direct Questions answered clearly	5	4	6	6	6	5	4	5
Additional questions answered clearly	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Questions discussed but not answered	4	4	3	3	1	4	4	3
Questions avoided entirely	1	2	1	1	2	1	1	2


Responds clearly to direct question ratio	50%	40%	60%	60%	67%	50%	44%	50%
Responds clearly to all questions ratio	50%	40%	60%	60%	67%	50%	44%	50%
Empty answer ratio	40%	40%	30%	30%	11%	40%	44%	30%
Question avoidance ratio	10%	20%	10%	10%	22%	10%	11%	20%

Official 2008 presidential campaign blogs

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Every candidate with an actual blog (meaning a blog with an RSS feed) is on here and gets checked a few times a day for their new posts:

Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Giulianai, Huckabee, Kucinich, McCain, Obama, Paul, Richardson, Romney, Tancredo, F Thompson

Click here to check it out

To the rest of the candidates without RSS:
One would think that Internet literacy would be a pre-requisite for a Presidential campaign staffer to build your website - guess not - good luck convincing others of your ability to lead the country with the obvious knack you have for picking the right person for the job: Welcome to the Internet.

Giuliani's website sucks

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

So I'm in the process of building a page for each of the candidates and thought it would be nice to have their latest official campaign blog post included. So after a bit of coding, I added a little box at the top of each candidate's page that links directly to their blog's most recent post - slick! I'm trying to be cool about it and link to every single candidate and I picked Rudy's candidate page here as a test to double check my mad programming skillz:

So I double check that the link to his latest blog post works. It says Weekly Wrap - Why Rudy and has a URL that looks like this: ( http://www.joinrudy2008.com/index.php?section=6&id=126 ). I click on it but then get completely redirected away to some huge sign up splash page that fills the screen (this one is shrunk way down):

What's this? That's not the article - How do I get out of this and to the article?

Oh I found it - There is only one way out without giving up an email address: so I click on
">> Skip to Main Site"

Then what happens - you guessed it, I did skip to the MAIN SITE ( http://www.joinrudy2008.com/index.php ) - THE MAIN SITE - not to the article I wanted ( http://www.joinrudy2008.com/index.php?section=6&id=126 ). All kinds of stuff to click on his homepage, fiscal discipline - that looks interesting. Hey wait, why am I on Rudy's webpage again? What was that headline I clicked on again? Wasn't there something that I wanted to read about? - Oh well, I'm already here - might as well click on that polished picture of Rudy maybe - or hold it, look - a shiny red button what does that do I wonder?

Giuliani's website redirects their visitors to a splash page and then forces them from there to Giuliani's homepage. Not caring where the visitor was even going on the site, not caring what even brought the visitor there! This is how ecommerce webmasters increase their conversion numbers in the SHORT TERM because they don't give a shiat if the visitors ever return again - just force each web visitor onto the mailing list and then email blast them until they buy something or get so mad they opt-out. Yikes Rudy!

Not sure what I'm talking about? Go try it: See if you can read their recent article titled Mayor Curt Pringle: Why I Am Supporting Rudy Giuliani for President - Notice the URL for it: http://www.joinrudy2008.com/index.php?section=6&id=17 and watch where they take you in the location bar and see what I'm talking about - how many clicks and how long did it take you to read the article? - Did you EVER find it? I couldn't.
That Pringle article is their most recent post on this feed: http://www.joinrudy2008.com/rss/thebuzz.xml which I guess is their blog? Not sure? If I can't figure it out I wonder who can?

This is exactly why I never link to any article from forbes.com - forbes is always 90% pop-ups, splash screens and ads - whatever their short article is about is not even worth the hassle - they've turned into a spam site. Learn from forbes mistakes Giuliani staff.

If it was just some sort of typo in the code I really doubt it; I think it was much more about greed than building a visitor base - a rookie mistake made a zillion times by web masters 5 years ago. I'll give them a bit to fix it but I think I'll have to remove the links to them eventually. If a hyper link does not go to where it is pointing to, then that is intentionally deceiving - SPAM. No one wants to be permanently redirected off to some junk sign up page and then to a start page like that - I don't care what website it is.

That said, still have to give team Rudy props for at least trying - Hunter, Brownback, Tommy Thompson and Gravel don't even have RSS Feeds ( Needed to automatically figure out what their latest blog post was )

UPDATE JUNE 23: Whoa - now it properly redirects you to the article after the email sign up spash page. Better; much much better - well done whoever fixed it - it would still be best without the redirect to the splash page but at least now it eventually goes to the article.

UPDATE JUNE 23: Not so fast hold short... it seems that only links to their /news/pr/ pages work - so the jury is still out on this one..

UPDATE JULY 12: I can no longer stand them doing that - I deleted Giuliani's website from the aggregated candidate feeds page and will no longer update the Giuliani page here with his new content. If they fix it I'll put them back in ASAP. I hated to do it and I went back and forth on it but decided there is no point in linking to an article that redirects somewhere else then somewhere else with no way to get to where you intended and just frustrates the visitor ... That being the case, what point is there linking to them? Why even bother?

Hillary Clinton Sopranos Parody

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

If you don't watch the Sopranos you won't get this - but it's a replica of the final scene - with Hillary instead of Tony. Funny that the best song she could pick is written and sung by Canadians

The Money Race (1st quarter)

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

CANDIDATE	HOME	RAISED	SPENT	CASH ON HAND	DEBTS
Democratic Candidates
Clinton, Hillary	NY	$36,054,568	$5,079,789	$30,974,779	$1,582,639
Obama, Barack	IL	$25,797,721	$6,605,200	$19,192,520	$190,560
Edwards, John	NC	$14,031,662	$3,299,781	$10,733,641	$0
Dodd, Chris	CT	$8,795,706	$1,313,239	$7,482,467	$0
Richardson, Bill	NM	$6,249,354	$1,226,881	$5,022,473	$19,579
Biden, Joe	DE	$4,013,089	$1,174,174	$2,838,915	$0
Kucinich, Dennis	OH	$344,891	$194,217	$163,887	$0
Gravel, Mike	AK	$15,534	$18,304	$498	$88,516

CANDIDATE	HOME	RAISED	SPENT	CASH ON HAND	DEBTS
Republican Candidates
Romney, Mitt	MA	$23,434,634	$11,570,981	$11,863,652	$2,350,000
Giuliani, Rudy	NY	$16,623,410	$5,688,207	$11,949,734	$88,862
McCain, John	AZ	$13,087,559	$8,379,214	$5,180,799	$1,812,636
Brownback, Sam	KS	$1,871,057	$1,064,431	$806,626	$0
Tancredo, Tom	CO	$1,256,090	$711,012	$575,078	$15,000
Paul, Ron	TX	$639,989	$115,070	$524,919	$0
Huckabee, Mike	AR	$544,157	$170,239	$373,918	$52,502
Hunter, Duncan	CA	$538,524	$265,971	$272,552	$0
Thompson, Tommy	WI	$391,628	$252,404	$139,723	$129,194
Gilmore, Jim	VA	$203,896	$113,789	$90,107	$88,013

Source and a lot more details

Where does all this money come from so very early in the campaign?? I don't understand how the so called top three favorites of each party have all this 10++ million dollars campaign money to start with right off?

What makes them a top three favorite in the first place - the money? Who makes them the favorite? - The media? Why? Because they are going to be a big ad spender - or did someone in their party make the call?

Does more money = more sold political favors?

Not sure...

BTW this is old first quarter data but I wanted to get the first quarter snapshot of it in the archives here to compare changes / rankings quarter by quarter

Ron Paul on Morton Downey Jr Show 1988

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Presidential Elections: A Purple America

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Full size here

Female Gamers

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Transcripts of the third GOP debate sorted by candidate

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Ability to answer direct questions:

Who among them was most likely to answer the question asked, who preferred giving hollow answers by speaking about a question but never actually answering it, and who avoided the question altogether.
The merits of the answers were not evaluated - that's a value judgment for each voter to make:

Here is a 'who gave a straight answer breakdown' thanks to DC Shuffle's analysis:

The Buck Stops Here award:	Paul			(Zero question avoidance)
Straight Talk award	Tancredo	McCain	Paul	(highest clear answer ratio)
Where's the Beef award	Gilmore	Romney		(most empty answers provided)
Moderator's Pet award	Giuliani	Romney		(received the most direct questions)
Good Boy Award	Thompson	Huckabee		(only answers questions directed at them)
The DC Shuffle award	Gilmore	Romney		(Most likely to not clearly answer a question)
Put up or Shut up award	Tancredo			(Zero empty answers)


	Direct Questions answered clearly	9	6	7	7	11	6	7	4	11	9
	Additional questions answered clearly	1	0	1	1	3	0	2	0	1	2
	Questions discussed but not answered	0	2	2	7	1	3	1	6	2	5
	Questions avoided entirely	1	2	2	3	1	2	2	1	0	2

Q1	Introduce yourself	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
Q2	Was it a mistake to invade iraq?				2					3	4
Q3	Did you read the NIE?			0		4		3
Q4	Was it appropriate for Congress to auth war w/o reading NIE?								2
Q5	If no prog in Iraq by Sept, what then?	3	4			4
Q6	If no prog in Iraq by Sept, how much longer should the US stay?							2		4
Q7	Do you have confidence in Iraqi govt?	0					0
Q8	Did Pres Bush make the right call to open dialogue w/ Iran			4
Q9	Would you authorize a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran?				2			4	2		2
Q10	What are the consequences if immigration bill becomes law? Discuss.	4	4	3	4	4		3		4	4
Q11	What would you do w/ the illegals in the country now?				2
Q12	If illegals leave the country, who will fill the jobs they vacate?							4
Q13	Under what circumstances would you let them begin that path?			4
Q14	Did you vote for the 700 mi fence on mexican border?									4
Q15	Is there a need for a fence on Canada border?									4
Q16	Do you believe that English should be official language	Question was unclear, muddled and poorly phrased. How Ironic!!

Q17	Is Fred Thompson conservative enough for America?		2						2
Q18	How do you feel when words like that from a Bishop?										2
Q19	Why should conservatives believe you oppose abortion?				2
Q20	Do you believe in creation as described in the Bible? Where do you stand on evolution?				0		2
Q21	Do you believe creationism should be taught in schools?					0
Q22	What do you want to say about your fait, yourself, and God?				4
Q23	What do you say about the separation of church and state?									4
Q24	Is science wrong on Global warming?				3	3					4
Q25	what steps if any would you take to address climate change?				1						2
Q26	What do you say to those who say there's too much alliance between big oil & Republicans?				0
Q27	Do you have a problem with big oil making huge profits?				.	4
Q28	Do you believe that big oil needs tax breaks from the govt?									4
Q29	Do you agree with previous question?								2
Q30	Is it time to end dont ask/tell in the military?				4	4	2			2
Q31	Was it appropriate to dismiss military linguists who were gay?										0
Q32	Speak up if you believe gays should serve openly?	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
Q33	How would you use GW Bush?	4	4	4


Q34	What happened to the GOP (that they are losing seats around the country)?						4
Q35	Is it appropriate for Bush to pardon Libby?							0
Q36	Would you pardon Libby?	4	2	4	2	2	2		4		2
Q37	what would you do to bring the troops home?			2		3		4
Q38	Is dividing Iraq into three federated states a good idea?					4
Q39	What do we do to strengthen Iraqi govt so we can pull out?									4	2
Q40	Can a conservative platform have a conservationist agenda?	4							4
Q41	What would you do about drug /health care costs?		4					4			4
Q42	Would you support a govt single payer system?		0
Q43	What do you say to critics of how you did healthcare in MA				4
Q44	What is the most pressing moral issue?			4			4			4	4
Q45	How would you address the previous?						0			1
Q46	Could you support Giuliani?			2
Q47	Why air ads in Spanish?				4
Q48	Would you air ads in Spanish?	4
Q49	How does your position differ from Bush/ His biggest Mistake?	4	0	0	0	4	4	0	0	4	4
Q50	What does it mean to be an American as it relates to immigration?	4				3			1		3
Q51	Should we effectively end most legal immigration?					4	4				4
Q52	What would you do to bring back moderates and independents?				2	4			2		3
Q53	Shouldn't GOP follow CA Gov example?							4			0


	Direct Questions answered clearly	9	6	7	7	11	6	7	4	11	9
	Additional questions answered clearly	1	0	1	1	3	0	2	0	1	2
	Questions discussed but not answered	0	2	2	7	1	3	1	6	2	5
	Questions avoided entirely	1	2	2	3	1	2	2	1	0	2

	Questions asked directly	10	10	11	15	13	11	10	10	12	16
	Questions responded to	11	10	12	18	16	11	12	11	14	18



	Responds clearly to direct question ratio	90%	60%	64%	47%	85%	55%	70%	40%	92%	56%
	Responds clearly to all questions ratio	91%	60%	67%	44%	88%	55%	75%	36%	86%	61%
	Empty answer ratio	0%	20%	17%	39%	6%	27%	8%	55%	14%	28%
	Question avoidance ratio	10%	20%	18%	20%	8%	18%	20%	10%	0%	13%

The Talk Clock:

June 5th debate transcript by candidate:

Sam Brownback
Jim Gilmore
Rudy Giuliani
Mike Huckabee
Duncan Hunter
John McCain
Ron Paul
Mitt Romney
Tom Tancredo
Tommy Thompson

Full unsorted transcript here