Republicans, #caprimary Approaches

The Sacramento Bee thinks Romney will win:

Mitt Romney has money. Conservative endorsements. A popular anti-illegal immigration platform.

He also has a California primary closed to independent voters who could otherwise help leading rival John McCain.

Add it up, and supporters say Romney has a perfect opportunity to win Feb. 5 in California....

CNN thinks otherwise:

A new survey indicates that presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has made dramatic gains with California Republicans.

Sen. John McCain is leading in California, according to a CNN poll out Monday.

The Arizona senator is 13 points ahead of his closest rival in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Monday: Thirty-nine percent of likely California Republican primary voters back McCain, while 26 percent support former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

But those are only two of the eleven Republican candidates on our ballot.

Which media organization is pulling for John H. Cox?

Actually, he did appear on CNBC. Once.

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Giving, Part Two

I read a tweet from Jeremiah Owyang which led me to this post from Andrew Cafourek. Here's a piece of it:

A few weeks ago, I was reading Jeremiah Owyang’s blog and saw a post on people who were “on the move” in the social media industry. I thought, well what is wrong with a little bit of self-promotion? So I left a comment...basically saying “Hey, I haven’t been on the move…but I would like to be!” And as a result of this, Lisa Young from Outrider reached out to me with some information about the company and the industry as a whole..then I spent a day and a half pouring through Google and every other internet tool I could think of to absorb as much information as I could about the company. Well over the past few weeks, about 97.4 emails, and dozens of hours spent researching different aspects of the company and industry I decided that I really wanted to come on board with the firm and so…here I go!

Here's a little bit about Lisa Young:

Lisa Young is Manager of Organic Search for Outrider. She provides organic search support to staff, is responsible for serving as a strategy resource for client accounts and new business opportunities, providing point of view and thought leadership on organic search, providing support and training for all organic search tracking tools and technologies. She will be working closely with Outrider’s Director of Search Operations.

Now we'll have to see if social media can help Andrew conquer his next challenge:

@tannerhobin Thanks!Now I just need to get a place. If you know anyone renting a room or has a sublease avail for 6 [months] or so let me know!

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Giving

I've wanted to blog about these two tweets for a while, but I couldn't figure out what great wisdom to pontificate as an accompaniment. In the end, I've decided to let the tweets speak for themselves.

Here's my tweet:

oemperor i have to get my wife on twitter. she'll understand the camera terminology that @scobleizer is using. 08:24 PM January 01, 2008 from web

Here's the reply I received:

Scobleizer @oemperor: if there's something that you want to know more, just ask. 08:25 PM January 01, 2008 from im in reply to oemperor

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Fun in Democrat Land

Did you hear that Barack Obama won the South Carolina primary? Or, more to the point, that Hillary Clinton lost?

Dave Winer heard:

It was an interesting election until the Clintons started calling Obama the nice young African-American candidate. Yeah, I lived in the south long enough to understand what that means. When I went to Tulane I was often explained as soandso's Jewish friend Dave. It meant that I could come over for dinner, but there would never be a marriage.

I should say The Old South. The problem for the Clintons is that the country has changed, as recently as the generation that's now in its early 20s. Because of my experience at Harvard, I know quite a few of them, and I promise you, race doesn't mean to them what it meant when I was their age.

And Antonio Villaraigosa may have problems when he leaves the campaign trail, when you think about the ramifications of this article for Villaraigosa's city:

Sen. Hillary Clinton is relying on the big Latino vote as her firewall to prevent losing the California Democratic primary Feb. 5, the most important of 22 states contested on Mega Tuesday. But that reliance, say both pro-Clinton and anti-Clinton Democrats, is fraught with peril for the Democratic Party's coalition by threatening to alienate its essential African-American component.

OK, I'll grant that Robert Novak may be gleeful at the possibility, but it is a real possibility.

But I'll note that Jon Swift had the best line in his post this morning about all of Kennedydom (even Ted) flocking to Obama:

Kennedy's speech writer Ted Sorenson asked what he could do for Obama last year, hoping no doubt that after the election Obama will ask what he can do for Sorenson.

But Swift has a theory.

But it is not just that Obama reminds them of Kennedy, it is also that the Clintons remind them of Lyndon Johnson. And if there is anything that the Kennedys don't like, it's a bunch of hillbillies in the White House, which is being kept in trust until a competent Kennedy can be groomed to take it back for its rightful owners. Until that time Obama will do.

As for dirty tricks:

Like Johnson, the Clintons play politics like it was mud wrestling or the roller derby, while the Kennedys have always believed that politics should be like a friendly game of touch football or beanbag. They never had to get down in the dirt with their opponents. Their father and his friends always took care of that for them.

But Jon Swift wasn't the only one having fun with this endorsement. Check out Eye of Polyphemus:

Sen. Kennedy: "Obama Inspires Me"

Even more than Wild Turkey? I am impressed, Sen. Kennedy.

But then Jamie looks at Obama's opponent. I mean, opponents.

The endorsement is a definite slap against Hillary Clinton. [Kennedy] specifically said he believe Obama was the candidate who would transcend race and other traditional barriers to untie the country in a common cause....I am certain the mention of race was a direct reference to Bill Clinton’s statements in South Carolina last week.

But ponder the irony of this line:

Kennedy is making it clear the Clintons are stuck in the past. Obama is the future.

In 1992, could anyone have predicted that the sage from Camelot would one day seem more futuristic than the man from Hope?

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One point in his favor - he didn't love Jodie Foster

I heard about the death of Gordon B. Hinckley via Twitter. Louis Gray (whose tweet I read) also blogged about this:

Hinckley presided over the church in a time of significant growth, missionary outreach, and temple building world-wide. He also was easily the most visible Mormon prophet to date, showing incredible media poise, appearing on CNN's Larry King Live several times during his presidency.

Of course, there are dissenting voices:

Now would be a good time to remind your Mormon neighbors of the Gospel. No accolades of men, no meritorious works in addition to faith can save a man's soul. God is not an embodied, exhalted man. Men do not become gods. Christ is not Lucifer's "spirit brother."

Concerning both media poise and belief, there is this famous TIME Magazine article from August 4, 1997:

In an interview with TIME, President Hinckley seemed intent on downplaying his faith's distinctiveness. The church's message, he explained, "is a message of Christ. Our church is Christ-centered. He's our leader. He's our head. His name is the name of our church." At first, Hinckley seemed to qualify the idea that men could become gods, suggesting that "it's of course an ideal. It's a hope for a wishful thing," but later affirmed that "yes, of course they can." (He added that women could too, "as companions to their husbands. They can't conceive a king without a queen.") On whether his church still holds that God the Father was once a man, he sounded uncertain, "I don't know that we teach it. I don't know that we emphasize it... I understand the philosophical background behind it, but I don't know a lot about it, and I don't think others know a lot about it."

The Institute for Religious Research requested clarification, and this is what they received:

Dear Mr. Wilson:

I have been asked to acknowledge your letter of August 27, 1997, with regard to statements reported as made by President Gordon B. Hinckley on the topic of eternal progression in the August 4, 1997, issue of Time magazine.

The quotation you reference was taken out of context. The statement was made in response to a question about the actual circumstances and background surrounding remarks given during the funeral services of a man named King Follet, not the doctrine of exaltation and the blessings that await those who will inherit the celestial kingdom.

The Brethren appreciate your interest in this matter and have asked me to extend their best wishes to you.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
F. Michael Watson
Secretary to the First Presidency

But whatever one may say about Hinckley's beliefs (which, I guess, could be allowed to "progress" under LDS theology), his influence was significant, and was felt even before he headed the church:

Starting in 1981, Hinckley shouldered much of the work for three aging Mormon presidents (Spencer W. Kimball, Ezra Taft Benson and Howard W. Hunter) who became unable to fulfill everyday duties. But he had to be careful not to act as if he were usurping the prophet's place.

During Benson's decline, Hinckley constantly reassured the faithful that the prophet - though not appearing in public or going to the office - ratified every major decision. At the same time, Hinckley was clearly helping members to re-think their assumptions about church leadership.

In 1992, he described the hierarchy's "back-up system," which allowed the other men to step up.

"When a man is ordained to the apostleship and set apart as a member of the Council of the Twelve, he is given the keys of the priesthood of God," Hinckley said. "Each has the keys but is authorized to use them only to the degree granted him by the prophet of the Lord."

But Hinckley never declined.

His mind was clear to the end. He was at work on Friday, doing what he had done for the past seven decades - making decisions and directing affairs for the church he loved and to which he had devoted his whole life.

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Another Opportunity for Self-Referentialism

I read this from Scott Karp in the post "The Only Way For Journalists To Understand The Web Is To Use It":

Print publishing is easy to explain and understand. Web publishing, in contrast, is counter-intuitive — it’s multi-faceted and complex.

The only way to really understand web publishing intuitively is to DO IT.

I submit that it's easier for some journalists to do this than others.

Take David Allen, columnist for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. He has had a blog since September 2007. Here's part of what Allen said when he started blogging:

Why do a blog AND three columns a week? Because overkill is underrated. Also, it's an experiment on my part.

I find more material than I can always get into print in a timely way, I get entertaining comments from readers (especially reminiscences about the recent past) there's no room for and I notice things around the valley, such as business closures, that I can't think of much to elaborate on but that ought to be put on the record.

Moreover, I try new restaurants and almost never write about them, and I journey outside the valley to places you might like to read about -- for instance, I was at the Rialto Theater in South Pasadena for its closing weekend -- but that my column isn't really set up to chronicle.

Thus, this blog.

But it's not just an outlet for extra stuff.

Your readership and comments are encouraged and will help this experiment succeed.

And this goes to why someone like David Allen is better suited to blogging. Allen has always been an interactive columnist, taking cues from his readership. How interactive, you may ask? Well, as I have noted more than once (see item 4), Allen actually quoted me in one of his Daily Bulletin columns nearly ten years ago (September 13, 1998, to be exact).

So if he could put up with my ravings in the twentieth century, I think David Allen can interact on a web 2.0 level in the twenty-first.

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The difference between gifts and talents

Locusts & Honey links to David Wayne, who points out that what we sometimes think of as "spiritual gifts" are technically not "spiritual gifts":

"Mark Dever said a lot of things that stuck in [Ben Arment's] ribs last week over lunch. One of them is how much he detests spiritual gift inventories. He said their whole focus is on what "I want to do" rather than serving in the true spirit of selflessness... helping where we're most needed."...

What they said is true. I have seen it most commonly in people who fancy themselves to have the gift of prophecy. On more than one occasion I have heard such a person say "well, I guess I just don't have the gift of mercy" after they have emotionally run over someone.

On a deeper level most spiritual gift inventories are just spiritualized versions of temperament tests. Actually, in their place I find temperament tests very helpful and recommend them as good helps for people seeking to identify their strengths, weaknesses and best ways of working with others.

If we could leave spiritual gift inventories on that level - as helpful but not determinative, then I would be fine. The trouble is, spiritual gift inventories are often accompanied with teaching that says that each one of us is given one particular gift by God and we must identify it and use it. Thus, spiritual gift inventories rise to the level of "thus saith the Lord."

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I am not a brat. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not.

Francine Hardaway recently posted an item on continuous partial attention. Because of the high-minded nature of this blog, I won't even mention her story of Bill Clinton talking on the telephone while Monica Lewinsky was...um...nearby. But I'll let Francine tell on herself.

I was laying in bed, petting a dog, watching "Meet the Press," and reading an article from the new Atlantic website.

The article, of course, was on continuous partial attention. And Francine decried the ill effects of this phenomenon:

I suspect we will have to get used to blog posts with typos and near misses at intersections. I post with typos all the time, and I used to be an English professor. If anyone would have told me I would ever hit "publish" without proofreading, because I was watching TV while writing, I would have fiercely denied it. The same way I would have denied that I would ever talk on a telephone in a ladies' room. Or read ANYTHING while driving. But we live in a new world, and I don't think novelists or neuroscience will be able to drag us back to the time when people looked into each others' eyes when they spoke, rather than at their Blackberries.

Naturally, I had to tweet:

@hardaway i was eating lunch while reading your blog post. good. (the post) :)

If that isn't a testimony for the ill effects of CPA, I don't know what is.

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Yo! Your Packs Rule!

I'm still digesting the meaning of the word "pack," but it's very clear that packs can be large.

Let's talk cancer. At my work location (roughly 200 people in this building), I know of four people who have been diagnosed with cancer over the last few years. All four of them have recovered fully, by the way.

There are also several people among my Twitter followers/following who have had cancer, so naturally the "pack" is sensitive to cancer stories. So when Queen of Spain (and probably others) tweeted the news of @whymommy's surgery, I responded.

As did a lot of other people, apparently, which is why @whymommy entitled a recent blog post "Overcome":

Are you convinced of the power of bloggers to touch people’s lives in “real life” in general? Perhaps you will be, after you see the list of mommies and bloggers who supported me this week, in addition to the hundreds and hundreds of supportive comments that appeared on this blog, the real-time tweets and messages, and all the email that has come in from friends and family....I’m going to make it through this, with your love and support.

Hugs and gratitude and love this week to Canape, Mamma Loves, DC Metro Moms, Stimeyland, Lawyer Mama, Queen of Spain, Slouching Mom, Motherhood Uncensored, I Can’t Complain Anymore Than Usual, Two Is Now Three, Two Lines on a Stick, It’s Not About That Anyway, Around the Island, A Decent Bookmark, A Mother’s Musings, The Dairy Wife, Dirty Laundry, All Things Angela, Anderson Family, Kim at BabyCenter, Baby Makes Family, Bubba’s Sis, Bubblewench, Coming to a Nursery Near You, Crazy Bananas, Do You Not Know What Causes That?, Pretty Babies, I Can Fly, Just Not Up, The Further Adventures of SpaceMom, GoodyBlog, Harmony in Motion, Hotfessional, Jen Lemen, Useless Ramblings, Tumble Dry, House of H, Fertile Mertile, What Works for Us, Mountain Momma, Coffee, Shoes, and Ramblings, Dirty Laundry, My Five Little Monkies, My Life As It Is, My Collective Life, Crib Chronicles, Karaoke Diva, Live from the Wang of America, Mom 2 2 Teens, A Bead a Day, Blonde Mom Blog, The Estrogen Files, The Farm House Kids, The Dana Files, The Fourth k h, Growing a Pair, Her Bad Mother, Hormone Colored Days, Just Another Mommy Blog, Just Enjoy Him, Lead Baby, Playgroups Are No Place for Children, Petroville, Phoenix Says, Pundit Mom, Daily Verses, Little Buggas, Sarah and the Goon Squad, So D.C., Chicken and Cheese, Zone Family, Life with Our Little Ladies, Andria and Co., “That” Psycho Family, Sassafrass, Ladybug & Lizards, Parentopia, Plans2Match, Marie Millard, Miss Zoot, Mrs. Fussypants, The Magpie Files, Make Mine a Quad, Nervous Girl, Mommy Needs a Cocktail, Mom, Ma’am, Me, Mommy and the Marine, Monkey Business, Monkeys and Marbles, The Mummy Chronicles, Never Too Late, Okay, Fine, D’it, Ontario Emperor, It’s My Life, Laugh if you Must, Mommy Dance, Slacker-moms-r-us, The Blogs of Life, Midwestern Mommy, Mommy to the Snugglebunnies, PediaScribe, The Pile I’m Standing In, The Ramblings of a Woman, Reality Testing, The Road to Home, TechMamas, Ten Minutes to Naptime, Tiny Mantras, Hearts Wide Open, Baby Cubed, The Butrfly Garden, Reflecting, Sunrays and Saturdays, Amy and Chris, Useless Ramblings, Veritable Life, Mayberry Mom, The Musing Mommy, Wheels on the Bus, Working Mama 24/7, Mommy Needs Coffee writing at BlogHer ... BabyMinding, Life with Hannah and Lilly, Mommy ... etc., Kat and Rob, My Collective Life, ...

I am overcome.

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Mixed messages

Perhaps I only noticed this because I post under an alias, but it was interesting, especially since I don't know if the stated prohibition (see below) applies to me.

I found this post in Google Reader, which reads in part:

I'd love some of my readers to leave a comment of where they're from, what they do, and their general interests.

Hopefully such a request will receive a couple of responses otherwise I'm going to look a little lonely ;)

But when you open up the comment window, the tone is slightly different:

I reject anonymous and unidentifiable author comments out of hand. If you're not brave enough to put your name on your work, don't comment.

I'm not picking on Chris Muir, but I find the contrast interesting. (And if my comment doesn't appear in his blog post, perhaps he finds my comment uninteresting.)

P.S. For some of the background regarding why I post under an alias, read this post. Or just the title of it. :)

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You say PREH mier, I say pre MEERE, let's call the whole thing off

While tweeting last night, I made several references to this post in EPL Talk but didn't link to it at the time (I was on mobile Twitter). Better late than never.

You would think that if you were in charge of a soccer TV network that your on-air personalities would know how to correctly pronounce the name of the flagship league that your channel carries....

The league name in question is the “Premier League.” Watching Fox Soccer Channel, it’s appalling how many times the on-air personalities mispronounce the name of the league. Obviously, no one is correcting them behind-the-scenes, so the problem gets worse. It sets a poor example for those viewers who don’t realize the league name is being pronounced incorrectly, and the issue perpetuates itself.

FSC on-air personalities pronounce the name of the league as if it’s spelled “Premiere League.” Instead, it should be pronounced “Prem-ier League” with an emphasis on “Prem.”

I actually ended up monitoring the Fox Soccer Report yesterday evening to see what the Winnipeg-based Derek and Carlos said, but it was an FA Cup weekend so I only heard a couple of references to "Premiership" (first syllable emphasis) before I fell asleep.

But gstew was paying attention:

The guys on the Fox Soccer Report say it the correct English way all the time but there are a few others that don’t....If all of the guys on Fox Soccer Report can pronounce it the English way then they should all be doing it. When they say “Serie A” they pronounce it like an Italian would so why shouldn’t they do the same for this.

Of course, my wife yells at me for pronouncing "pasta" like "faster," so I'm obviously not the authority on this. Especially since I misspelled the name of the league while tweeting last night.

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My latest plan for Twitter monetization

(Note: this is my second post on Twitter monetization. I've written about this before, but that was in 2007 and this is 2008, where everything is new and different. So there.)

For some time I was playing around with an admittedly ridiculous idea, but then I decided to drop it.

Should have stuck with my original idea.

Shel Israel started the latest round of discussion. Cutting to the chase, this is what he said in an open letter to Evan Williams and Biz Stone:

You two are on a fast track, moving at a breath taking pace, but you've just come around a sharp turn and discovered you've hit a tough patch of mud. It can slow you down, cause you to slip and fall on your butts or even get you stuck. The patch is more dangerous than you think and it requires your immediate attention.

Social media people are a fickle lot. We are more loyal [to] each other than we are to the sites we visit. If some of us leave and find somewhere else to hang out there can be unexpected stampedes of friends. The good news, is that will ease the obvious strain on your current system. The bad news is you can very rapidly become yesterday's news.

Ev/Biz, people are talking. This last "scheduled maintenance schedule for prime time i your prime market, got moved and when you finally did it, the end result was that things were more of a mess than they were before. Tweeters are talking mostly about Twitter and they are not singing praise. Some folks say you should be bought, bring in adult supervisors to manage things or that maybe a circle of friends should go give Pownce a try. I do know of such a case, but I'll wager that somewhere this week a couple of young entrepreneurs started working on a business plan to replace you.

Israel suggested four action plans. This is the second:

Reveal monetization plan. If you have it, share it. We users need to understand how it will impact us. Biz, I loved the time we shared in Spain, but it disturbed me when you smiled and said, "there's so many things that we can do." Silicon Valley graveyards are filled with startup corpses, whose founders uttered the same words. My 25 years of consulting companies taught me the #1 cause of death is not lack of financing. Its lack of focus. I have heard so many gushes of what a startup COULD do. The trick is to figure out what you SHOULD do.

People read Shel Israel. Jeremiah Owyang built upon what Israel wrote. Here's part of what Jeremiah said:

The time for fun and games is over, Twitter needs to step and be the robust communication platform [its] fans are expecting it to be or users may end up leaving. The cracks are starting to show.

Jeremiah links to something that Allan Stern wrote on January 2:

As Twitter usage has grown, have they f'ed themselves out of a real, sustainable business model? And has Pownce done something right by launching with a business model?...

Pownce launched with a basic business model -- charging for premium messages and injecting them into a user's stream. I like their idea.

For the record, Biz Stone responded to Shel Israel's original post. Here is part of Biz's response:

With regard to revealing our monetization plans I can tell you honestly that we are far more focused on growth and reliability in 2008....[We are] adding great ideas to a list of revenue solutions which we will visit in earnest when we are ready.

I happen to agree with Allan Stern on this one. The monetization plan should be worked on hand in hand with the growth/reliability plan, if for no other reason than the fact that the monetization plan can affect the growth plan. Basically, a "$15/month/user monetization plan" will create a different growth curve than an "inject advertising" monetization plan.

Or my plan. I'll grant that I was being silly, but probably Walter Frederick Morrison (inventor of the Frisbee) was being silly too.

Think about associations such as the American Automobile Association and the American Association of Retired People. Now we tend to think of them as membership and lobbying organizations, but what are they really?

They're insurance companies.

Both the AAA and AARP offer insurance services to their members that are tailored to the organizational missions, with AAA offering car insurance (and other insurances besides) while AARP offers health insurance.

[1844 PST - MADE CORRECTION BELOW - "IDENTITY" DOES NOT HAVE AN "F"]

So I was going to propose that Twitter become an insurance company. But what type of insurance would microgeeks need? While carpal tunnel insurance seems promising, the one that appealed to me most was identity theft insurance. People who are online, revealing information about themselves, need to be especially concerned about identity theft, so the sales pitch would be a natural.

OK, let's hear it for LifeLock Twitter Incorporated. If they act on my wise suggestion, you may be seeing the following:

Hello, my name is Biz Stone. My social security number is...

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Then again, I could be wrong

I can't remember if I posted this publicly, but a couple of weeks ago I predicted that both major party presidential nominations could be sewn up after Super Tuesday.

Why? Because Super Tuesday is Super.

David Shribman does not concur:

This column was written before South Carolina's Democrats completed their Saturday balloting, but even if Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton were to roll to victory, that won't mean that the struggle for the Democratic presidential nomination is over. Far from it.

The same goes on the Republican side, where a party that likes order and believes in the hierarchical nature of society can't bring any order or hierarchy to its nomination fight. There hasn't been a Republican nomination fight like this one since ... forever.

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Sorry, Mrs. Loquacious, but you have poor timing

Mrs. Loquacious, who lives way up north way, has a mad desire:

[Friday] I awoke with a very cheesy, very immature, gut-wrenching desire....to go to Disneyland. Yes, where all things are artificial, expensive, and their staff walk around in full make-up and wigs. Where there is no such thing as "excess," and where commercialism is shamelessly and unapologetically celebrated. THAT Disneyland.

Unfortunately, we're still in #calstorm08 mode down here, and the rains are a comin', which makes the Happiest Place on Earth become the Wettest Place on Earth.

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Security, Election Markup Language, and a President Supporting Free Long Distance

InfoWorld links to a new XML-based standard, Election Markup Language (EML) Version 5.0.

There was a related press announcement:

Boston, MA, USA; 24 January 2008 — OASIS, the international open standards consortium, today announced that its members have approved the Election Markup Language (EML) version 5.0 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. Developed through an open process by the OASIS Election and Voter Services Technical Committee, EML supports information exchange through the complete election process, including candidate nomination, voter registration and authentication, ballot information, vote casting and confirmation, tabulation, auditing, and more.

"In the election industry today, there are many different election systems and a wide variety of components used for many different functions, so the need for easier integration of different system components has never been greater," said Dr. Ron Rivest, professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). "EML is an example of the kind of consensus-based, publicly available common format that enables the exchange of electronic records between different components in election systems."

Fair enough, provided that the vendors elect to use the standard. But this statement was a little interesting.

"By providing a uniform, secure, and verifiable way for voting systems to interact, EML safeguards voter confidence in the election process," said Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS.

Hmm...secure? InfoWorld's Jason Snyder notes that there is a security hole:

Focusing on the interfaces between components of election systems, what the standard doesn't answer for is the security of the systems themselves.

Per the document: "References to security within EML are not to be taken as comprehensive requirements for all election systems in all election scenarios, nor as recommendations or sufficiency of approach when addressing all the security aspects of election system design, implementation or evaluation. In fact, the data security mechanisms described in this document are all optional, enabling compliance with EML without regard for system security at all."

Not exactly a rousing vote of confidence for the standard's ability to ensure the integrity of election results.

In fact, there's another security issue involved in the standard - the nature of XML itself.

One of the primary benefits of XML is that it is easily readable.

One of the primary detriments of XML is that it is easily readable. This not only leads to larger files (I have given technical presentations which compare the length of the new proposed XML-based biometric exchange standard vs. the previous standard), but it also makes it somewhat easier for people to see data that perhaps they shouldn't see.

And, if the security options are not implemented, it makes it easier for people to modify data that perhaps they shouldn't modify.

As I may have mentioned in Twitter a time or two, the California primary (#caprimary) is coming up pretty soon. And there's a heck of a lot of people in California who know XML.

So if Woz gets all of the electoral votes from every party, don't be surprised.

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You Only Need One Good Eye

Eye of Polyphemus printed the following earlier today:

I took a shot at predicting last week's primary in South Carolina and the caucus in Nevada. I got both wrong, but that never stops me from sticking my nose up in the air and spouting my next opinion authoritatively. Therefore, I predict:

1. Barack Obama will win overall.
2. John Edwards will come in second.
3. Hillary Clinton will come in third.
4. The results will be irrelevant because Clinton will become the nominee eventually regardless.

Personally, I thought that he was way off base. Yes, South Carolina is Edwards' home state, but would he really come in second?

Perhaps I'd better pay attention to Jamie from now on. Here's what the New York Times is saying at the moment:

Senator Barack Obama appeared to sprint to a lopsided victory in the South Carolina primary, the first Southern contest of the presidential campaign.

The Associated Press and CNN called the race for Mr. Obama immediately after the polls closed at 7:00 p.m., suggesting a large margin of victory.

Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards were in a close race for second-place as returns began to trickle in from the state’s precincts.

Woah. If Clinton comes in third in South Carolina...she might cry.

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How do you say "third" in Suomitalk?

According to AFP, Laura Lepisto maintained her position and took third place.

Italy's Carolina Kostner retained her European figure skating title on Saturday with a flawless performance played out to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantasia.

Kostner kept the trophy she won in Warsaw in 2007 with 171.28 points while Switzerland's Sarah Meier, finished runner-up for the second season in succession with 169.44 points. Finland's Laura Lepisto, on 165.65, took bronze.

Meier had been fourth after Friday's short programme but saved her best until last with an error-free performance to Tokuhide Niimi's La Folia in Black and Red Autumn....

The bronze medal place was a closely-fought tussle between Lepisto and Finnish compatriot Kiira Korpi, who was third in Warsaw.

Korpi had been second after the short programme, one place ahead of her teammate, but Lepisto put in an ambitious performance to the theme from Don Juan de Marco and edged the bronze despite a fall on her triple toe-loop.

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Resuming my FM broadcasting career?

At Wal Mart in Upland, musing about the ten buck way to hear http://last.fm/ in the family room. (Home computer in office has no Bluetooth.)

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Now, on to sports...or sport...or whatever you call it

Followup, but this time in English. American English (it's from USA Today).

ZAGREB, Croatia — Carolina Kostner overcame a shaky start to lead after the short program at the European Figure Skating Championships on Friday.
The Italian opened with a huge triple flip-triple toe loop combination to "Riders on the Storm" by The Doors. But Kostner then made mistakes in her next two jumps, scaling down to a double lutz before a wobbly landing on a relatively simple double axel.

Still, the defending champion's spins and a big score on the triple-triple gave her an overall total of 59.31 points.

"I had two small mistakes, but I think and I hope I will do better tomorrow," Kostner said of Saturday's free skate to end the competition.

Kostner was followed by two 19-year-old Finns.

Kiira Korpi, last year's bronze medalist, didn't make any mistakes but appeared too robotic to overtake Kostner and totaled 58.60 points. Laura Lepisto, the Finnish national champion, was third with 56.96.

"We really have a tough national competition," Korpi said. "We have some good young talent, good working conditions with a good working attitude."

The Canadian Press also quoted Laura:

Lepisto, also 19, is making her European Championship debut.

"I thought I would be more nervous," she said. "I was relieved, relaxed, very confident and I had fun out there."

But was it as much fun as a monster truck rally?

More than likely.

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Why there will not be a European Century (Korpi-Lepistö babel)

The wise old owl, and the wise old frog, and the wise old newspaper all agree that the American Century is over because we are cowboy fascists or whatever.

However, no matter how much EU integration takes place, this century won't be the European Century. (Sorry to deflate the hopes of the end-times folks.)

Why do I say this? Because they can't talk to each other.

For example, take a look at this:

Suomen naiset varmistivat itselleen taitoluistelun EM-kisoissa kutkuttavat hyökkäysasemat ennen huomisen lauantain vapaaohjelmaa. Kiira Korpi ja Laura Lepistö luistelivat perjantain lyhytohjelmassa Italian Carolina Kostnerin jälkeen sijoille kaksi ja kolme.
Lyhytohjelman ennätyspisteensä 58,60 Astor Piazzollan tangon tahdissa luistellut Korpi on Euroopan mestaruutta puolustavaa Kostneria jäljessä 0,71 pistettä. Teknisestä osaamisestaan joukon toiseksi parhaan arvion saanut Lepistö kokosi yhteensä 56,96 pistettä.
Korpi esitti ohjelmansa alkupuolella yhdistelmähyppynä suunnitelmien mukaisen kolmoislutz-kaksoistulpin. Myös soolohyppy kolmoisflippi onnistui hyvin.
- Hypyissä ei ollut ongelmia, mutta liukusarja jäi ykköstasolle ja pari piruettia nelostasosta kolmoselle. Kaiken kaikkiaan olen tosi iloinen ja helpottunut, Zagrebista puhelimitse tavoitettu Korpi kertoi STT:lle.
- Koko päivän on ollut ihanan vapautunut olo. Ajattelin jo, onko liiankin hyvä fiilis, viime EM-kisojen pronssimitalisti Korpi hymyili.

Or this:

Det är mycket tätt i toppen av fältet, regerande europamästarinnan Carolina Kostner från Italien leder knappt före finskorna Kiira Korpi och Laura Lepistö. Det som avgjorde till Kostners fördel var en fantastisk hoppkombination och en lysande stegsekvens.

Or this:

Дейтсвующая Чемпионка Европы Каролина Костнер после короткой программы лидирует, хотя не так бесспорно, как в прошлом году. Она чуть ли не единственная исполнила сегодня каскад из двух тройных прыжков, но ошиблась на лутце, который получился только двойным. Немножко закачалась в конце программы на вращении, но в итоге, еще и с учетом оценки за компоненты (самой высокой), все-таки первая.
Киира Корпи практически чисто выполнила прыжковые элементы - каскад 3-2, тройной ритбергер и двойной аксель. Она вторая с отставанием в 70 сотых.
Удивила новая чемпионка Финлянлии и дебютантка Чемпионата Европы - самые высокие оценки за технику, но в итоге она пока третья, что можно считать блистательным дебютом на взрослом Чемпионате Европы.
1 Carolina KOSTNER ITA 59.31
2 Kiira KORPI FIN 58.60
3 Laura LEPISTO FIN 56.96
4 Sarah MEIER SUI 56.44

10. Ксения Доронина 50.91
19. Нина Петушкова 42.58

Ironically, the Russian one was the easiest to understand - at least for the important stuff.

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