First-Hand with US Troops Returning to Iraq

DSBPI was in the DFW airport today and met a large group of US soldiers returning to Iraq after two weeks of R&R. The soldiers were from different units, serving in different parts of the country, but all had a unanimous message: the media aren't giving their work in Iraq a fair shake. Tragedy is unfairly trumping everyday triumph, they claim. And while one can be skeptical that the forces are trained to unite behind a common talking point, there was no spin in play near gate B29 today. These folks were talking from the heart, upset that what they see and what they do overseas is not accurately being seen at home. One engineer spoke about the rebuilding of a sewage systems, another soldier spoke about the Iraqi civilians cheering for the US troops after the Al-Sadr mosque operation. There was pride on display. There may be hope down the road.

Channel 9: A look at the Portable Media Center

A video demo of the new Microsoft Portable Media Center here.

Catch -- catch.com -- Jamming a grand square into a smoldering round hole

From Catch.com blog: "Richard Perle said the following at an American Enterprise Institute conference on September 22, 2003:
'A year from now I'd be surprised if there's not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush.'"

How Blogs Are Like the Talmud

Blogs cite source material and then debate and comment on meaning, putting in writing an oral tradition of discourse while crossreferencing a web of earlier insights.

What if someone started a Talmud blog project, mapping ancient texts to blog format? R. Tarfun commenting on R. Akivah's blog, et. al.

Make Our Big Flat Panel Our Computer

If the DSBPI's tiny iPod can hold 40gb of music, why cant our giant flat panel TV hold 400gb of movies? (Note: DSBPI has a 20gb iPod and no flat panel TV, but you get our point.) If Apple can fit a whole computer behind the screen of an iMac, why doesn't that computer (but with a 42" monitor) just become our home theater? If Microsoft is developing a portable media-center that can hold hours of TV in one tiny package, why don't we have that on a much larger scale -- in one package?

We want our data, traveling over cable, and our audio/video traveling over cable to terminate in one place. Namely, we want our iTunes and Movielink and HBO-On-Demand in one place (well, actually in many places, but also in this place). We want it on our big, flat screen.

Vernon Jordan Back on the Scene

Yet another Clintonite has made his way into the Kerry campaign as Reuters reports: "Negotiations over the debates have largely been handled by Bush's lead representative, former Secretary of State James Baker, and Kerry's top debate negotiator, Washington lawyer Vernon Jordan."

Colorado: The Hidden Swing State

Much has been made about the election-deciding power of swing states such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. But Colorado, with nine electoral votes (one more than in 2000) is currently tracking as a toss-up (47% Bush, 47% Kerry) with a heated campaign around an open Senate seat. The Senate race pits Ken Salazar (D) against Peter Coors (R) -- and Salazar has the potential to draw additional Hispanic voters to the polls, voters who will likely also pull the Kerry lever. A bit of history:

In 1992, Colorado's 8 electoral votes went to Clinton over Bush Sr., but approximately 23% of the vote in the state went for Perot (probably close to Perot's overall popular vote average). Clinton pulled in 40% (or 629, 681 votes) versus Bush's (562, 850 votes).

In 1996, Colorado went narrowly for Dole with close to 46% of the vote (691,848) going Dole versus 44% of the vote (671,152) for Clinton. Perot captured 6.6% of the vote.

In 2000, Colorado gave close to 51% of its vote (883,748) to Bush and 42% (738,227) to Gore. Nader pulled in 5.3% of the vote.

It seems that the presidential candidates are belatedly waking up to the swing-ability of Colorado. Bush routed through yesterday for a rally with John Elway and Edwards motorcaded around town last week. The question remains come election day, though: will Colorado stay true to its name and go red?

Goldman in a Bad Trade

NYPOST: Goldman Sachs is close to dumping the final piece of its American Stock Exchange stock options trading business for between $4 million and $6 million. Stuart Sternberg, who is leading the group that will buy the trading books, is a former partner at Spear Leeds Kellogg, the firm Goldman acquired in 2000 for $7 billion to be the core of its trading business.

Kerry hires former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry

DSBPI is a tremendous fan of McCurry and is happy to see him back in play.

Powerful Quote on Today's Baghdad Bombing

From The NYT: At the bomb scene, a woman in black robes knelt down by a pool of blood and began wailing, almost collapsing to the ground.
"Where are our sons?' she said. 'What have the Americans done to us? What have our sons done to the Americans?'"

Webber Customer Service Shines

Fired up the new Webber grill this evening and wasn't sure if all was working properly (didn't see massive flames). The machine had come with a toll-free number pasted to the lid with a promise to answer any call in under 30-seconds. Well, the folks at Webber delivered on that promise: we weren't routed through a touch-tone or voice-activated labyrinth, we didn't have to hit zero nine thousand times just to be put on hold, we simply got right through to a helpful agent that had us grilling in no time (uh, there aren't supposed to be massive flames it seems). Webber: please don't outsource your call center.

Al Gore: What the Market Can't Price

Al Gore: "One consequence is that there is an emergent triumphalism among market fundamentalists that has assumed an attitude of infallibility and arrogance that has led its adherents to be dismissive and contemptuous of values that are not monetized if they don't fit into their ideology ... Abraham Maslow, best known for his hierarchy of needs, had a dictum that if the only tool you use is a hammer, then every problem begins to look like a nail. Translating that into this discussion: If the only tool you use for measuring value is a price tag or monetization, then those values that are not easily monetized begin to look like they have no value."

Steve Jurvetson on Exponential Change

Steve Jurvetson: "Exponential progress perpetually pierces the linear presumptions of our intuition. “Future Shock” is no longer on an inter-generational time-scale. How will society absorb an accelerating pace of externalized change? What does it mean for our education systems, career paths, and forecast horizons?"

Is Ken Jennings the new Charles Van Doren?

It is amazing to watch how on-message W's team is in branding nearly anything Kerry says a flip-flop. Kerry is cornered in his rhetoric by this attack. He should fight back with:

"George W. Bush accuses me of a flip-flop on Iraq. Well, Mr. President, the American people will take a flip-flop over a belly flop any day of the week. Mr. President, your Iraq policy is just that: a total belly flop: it was the wrong war, at the wrong time, for the wrong reason."

Edited to add: This "belly flop" theme can be carried through economy, healthcare, etc. Something the dems can chant.

What do you think?

RFID: Track My Skiing, Please

DSBPI was in Vail, Colorado this weekend. We'd like to see the following technology implemented for the ski season: RFID tags (maybe, would that work?) embedded in each lift ticket and tied into a virtual trail map of the mountain. At the end of the day, skiers (for a fee) could receive a print-out of every trail they hit. Meanwhile, the mountain operator could get an excellent picture of how the mountain is being utilized -- where the bottlenecks are, where the lift lines are too long, etc. Eventually this info can also be integrated real-time into digital on-mountain displays routing skiers/riders to shorter lines, more powder, etc.

The Kerry camp should counter the Bush "two new democracies" Olympics spot with a "two new nuclear powers" ad. Bush's claim is that during his term, and because of his will, the world welcomed Iraq and Afghanistan to the community of democracies. Kerry's counter should posit that during Bush's term, the world welcomed Iran and North Korea to the community of nuclear states.

There is an approximate $80 arbitrage gap per ticket between StubHub's Beastie Boys Tickets for the Red Rocks Amphitheatre and Ebay's price. In theory this gap should close over time (concert is Sept. 9) as there is perfect information for this market. In the meanwhile, the trade is to buy on Ebay, sell on StubHub.

At the Democratic convention Barak Obama spoke self-referentially about the:

"... hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. "

At the Republican convention Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke self-referentially about the dream-turned-reality that:

"... a once scrawny boy from Austria could grow up to become governor of California and stand in Madison Square Garden to speak on behalf of the president of the United States."

Good to see that there is bi-partisan acknowledgement of the challenges and opportunities facing 98-pound weaklings.

DSBPI was in Las Vegas and used an amazing Tablet PC application at the restaurant Aureole (at Mandalay Bay) which excited us about the potential for this technology.

Aureole has over 9,000 bottles of wine in its 42-foot high, glass enclosed wine cellar. When we asked for a wine list, we received a tablet PC connected wirelessly to a local network and running a piece of custom software that was both incredibly easy to use and perhaps the only way to effectively capture the breadth of the collection. We were able to search wines by type (red, white, Pinot, Merlot, etc.) country/region, food pairings, featured wines, producer name and so forth. The tool also has a streaming video feed from the wine cellar itself where you can watch the attendant rappel down the glass tower ala Mission Impossible with your bottle in hand.

The software enables you to bookmark wines as you go through the list and then view a "shopping cart" of your selections to be discussed with the sommelier. We imagine that from the sommelier's perspective, keeping his inventory updated on the Tablet saves hours of work.

Everyone at our table was in love with the HP device (very light, excellent handwriting recognition when searching for instance "Sea Smoke Pinot Noir") and those previously skeptical of the Tablet PC concept ("When would I use it?") were brainstorming new applications.

Note: A fun thing to do with the wine list is to sort by price so you can ogle the $38,000 bottles.