Friday, November 30, 2007

Red Sox Poltics

Is it that everyone loves a winner, or that New Hampshire gets Boston media and has lots of Sox fans.

This was in a political newsletter I get:

"Jumping on the Red Sox Bandwagon

First we had Gov. Bill Richardson claiming to like the Red Sox and Yankees -- something any baseball fan knows is impossible.

Then, while stomping for votes in New England, Yankee fan Rudy Giuliani was mocked for saying he would actually root for the Red Sox in the World Series. Now, we have "lifelong Red Sox fan" Mitt Romney not knowing how long it had been since the Red Sox won a World Series when they finally got there in 2004. As ABC News notes, "It is a number that millions of Red Sox fans know by heart. It is a number that many kids in Massachusetts know before they can even count." With my beloved Red Sox the World champs again this year, it's funny watching so many politicians trying to become citizens of Red Sox Nation. "

These People Are Crazy

Calls in Sudan for execution of Briton

News http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071130/ap_on_re_af/sudan_british_teacher

What kind of people would think there religion would be endangered by a teddy bear?

Thursday, November 29, 2007

My Putin Dream

I don't usually remember my dreams and I have no idea what this one means. As you may know, one of the ways Putin is thinking about maintaining power -- he is term limited as President -- is to get a stand in to be President while he exercises real control. In my dream, I was that stand-in. I remember thinking that one of the reasons he had picked me was that because I wasn't Russian and didn't even speak the language I would never be able to develop an independent power base to challenge him.

I was supposed to give my first speech and my friend Dave (who teaches Russian History and speaks Russian) was transliterating it so I could give it.

Again, no idea what this means and I certainly have no desire to move to Moscow. In fact, everything that is happening there makes me so glad that my ancestors left when they did.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Fired for Being Funny

The announcer on the London Tube (their Metro) was fired for including funny stuff in her announcements:

*We would like to remind our American tourist friends that you are almost certainly talking too loudly."

* "Would the passenger in the red shirt pretending to read the paper but who is actually staring at that woman's chest please stop. You are not fooling anyone, you filthy pervert."

* "Would passengers filling in answers on their Sudokus please accept that they are just crosswords for the unimaginative and are not in any way more impressive just because they contain numbers."

* "Here we are crammed again into a sweaty Tube carriage ... If you're female smile at the bloke next to you and make his day. He's probably not had sex for months."

All the recordings are at: www.emmaclarke.com/fun/mind-the-gap/spoof-london-underground-announcements.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

NGO v. Non-Profit

I was presenting in Berlin last week about what we are doing in Internet politics here. I realized that one of the concepts I was translating was that what we referred to as non-profit organizations they called NGOs -- non-governmental organizations. In many cases -- Greenpeace, etc, it is actually the same organization. As I pondered it, it is interesting that the assumed actor in our society is a profit making corporation, while over there it is government.