i.justrealized

Back in September, McCain’s top economic advisor, Holtz-Eakin, held up a Blackberry and announced that the device won’t be around if not for John McCain. “He did this,” Holtz-Eakin flashed the Blackberry. The internet (represented by Digg, Reddit and 4chan) ridiculed the statement. The McCain camp then clarifies the senator’s involvement in Blackberry.

This reminds me of Civilization IV where the internet upgrade icon as Al Gore’s head which I thought is just brilliant.

Carly Fiorina, a McCain advisor, was asked if she thinks Sarah Palin is ready to lead a company like HP. To which Fiorina responded, “No, I don’t, but you know what? That’s not what she’s running for.” Fiorina then clarifies that running a company is different from running a country.

It’s okay, ahem, the fundamentals of our economy are strong.

I love to see what the McCain camp has to say about technology. They haven’t exactly been the tech guys in politics and, if anything, they’re rather anti-Internet. McCain himself confessed he couldn’t do these techie stuff.

Then, oops, yesterday morning, a couple hours before the event began, the McCain camp emailed to say that, actually, no, sorry, Holtz-Eakin can’t make it for the 12:30 debate. Apparently he had very important meetings to attend. Right. Apparently, though, he stepped out in the middle. At 1pm he was on MSNBC attacking Obama, trying to tie him to George Bush’s economic policies. Meanwhile, Reed Hundt ended up talking about complicated tech issues alone. The event was still fascinating (and you can see video here) but a huge opportunity was lost.

In short: the McCain camp chickened out. Spinning is easy; debating is hard. And defending John McCain’s record on broadband deployment, spectrum issues, and net neutrality is particularly hard. “If I was voting on technology issues only, even I wouldn’t support McCain,” said one Republican who I interviewed while researching the scorecard. (Source: Wired)

But no. McCain camp won’t be doing tech talks. Gobama 2008.

This is a brilliant ad by the Obama campaign. For those of you who ain’t familiar with what’s going on, American politics is really interesting. McCain-Palin (Republicans) brought in phrases into American newspapers such as “hockey moms”, “Joe Six Pack” and “Joe the plumber”. These phrases are used to stereotype the typical American.

The thing that got me interested in politics is not the results the politicians are going to deliver. After all, staying thousands of miles away from the USA makes little difference on who’s elected anyway. What made me look at politics is the speeches, or more precisely, the ingenious use of the English language to reach people emotionally.

Introducing characters is just one way of doing so. As stupid as these phrases sound, people actually remember them. You can laugh at time but as long as you talk about it (even in a negative way), you are spreading the point of the politicians indirectly.

I think of these characters as stock characters (in the theater arts way) as they’re recycled time and again for every election. And politicians would just rebrand them in some little ways to make them sound new again.

McCain-Palin campaign has numerous such characters. I’m sick of them but I still laugh at them (alone, since no one bothers about US in Singapore). Anyway, here’s one endorsed by the Obama campaign:

Obama campaign introduces Al the shoesalesman

Find out your tax cut under Barack’s plan at http://taxcut.barackobama.com whether you’re single or married with children.

Previously John McCain repeated mentioned Joe the Plumber during his speeches, claiming he is a concern citizen who prefers the McCain tax plans.

Just to digress

For those people who knows the location of my other blog, it’s a tough decision if I want to put this post in this blog or that which is rather US. In the end I figured I should put it here since I want this blog to have more of my opinion. The other blog is visited by McCain supporters and they blast me even when I post a video that’s pro-Obama. That’s freedom of expression for me I guess.

And speaking of “plumber”, Uzyn corrected me on my pronunciation. I had always been pronouncing it as “plumb-ber”. Read it wrong for many years. “Plum-er,” he corrected me.

It’s funny that after Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama, Powell is less talked about as a war criminal. He played a key role in the invasion of Iraq after all. His endorsement of Barack Obama appeared to have gained him some karma points or something. The internet loves him again.

To the question whether Obama is a Muslim, Powell stressed that Obama is not, but highlighted the real answer to the question is - so what if he is. Powell then publically endorsing Obama and expresses discontent toward the Republican party, that is his Republican party.

It is courageous of him to be able to stand up for what he believes in (and that meant the opposition). Unfortunately much of these were not shown back then when he presented the case for the invasion of Iraq. Powell later claims he spent 2 hours convincing Bush not to invade Iraq but what’s done been done.

Bill Maher on The View 9/30/08 (September 30th, 2008) with Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

In Part 1 He calls Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin a bimbo and makes fun of religion, Dan Quayle, and the bible (specifically the story of Noah’s Ark). Bill Maher promoting his new film “Religulous”. Mocking Sarah Palin on The View. Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin has come under fire recently for a series of interview she gave Katie Couric which were then parodied on Saturday Night Live by Tina Fey.

In Part 2 Bill Maher Talks about his new movie “Religulous” and talks about his views on religion with the hosts.

Bill Maher on The View 9/30 (HQ) Mocking Sarah Palin and Religion - Bill Maher Calls Sarah Palin a Bimbo - Bill Maher On The View Promoting Religulous Part 1

Bill Maher on The View 9/30 (HQ) Talking Religion & His New Movie “Religulous” - Bill Maher On The View Part 2

[Okay, I really should do proper posts more than just posting videos.]

I think that’s a MacBook Pro:

(Anwar uses Mac Book.)

Anwar Ibrahim chooses Apple.

[Source: Anwaribrahimblog, via Uzyn)

John McCain’s botched attempt yesterday to say “Ahmadinejad”. BBC says you supposed to say it this way:

“Today’s pronunciation is Iranian President Mahmoud AHMADINEJAD (sometimes also spelt AHMADINEZHAD). Our recommendation is mah-MOOD ah-mad-in-uh-ZHAAD (-h is pronounced in ‘Mahmoud’ and in ‘Ahmadinejad’) based on the advice of the BBC Persian Monitoring team.”

(BBC via Chicago Tribune)

What? Who’s Wen Jia-Bao? He is is the Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China. He serves as a member of its Leading Party Members’ Group and Secretary of the Financial Work Committee of the CPC Central Committee. Since taking office in 2003, Wen, ranked third in the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China hierarchy, has been a key part of the fourth generation of leadership in the Communist Party of China. Wen, having been dubbed “the people’s premier” [1], has a commoner image with the public that separates him from the rest of China’s power elite, and his modesty and more approachable personality are held to contrast with the enigmatic and serious Hu Jintao[citation needed]. (I love it when Wikipedia slaps that with citation needed.)

Saw two of my friends went supporting him.

Wen Jia Bao Chinese politician invades Facebook. Honestly, before 30 minutes ago, I had no idea who is Wen JiaBao.