At least Bill Clinton's new group Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) isn't biting off more than they can chew. CGI's goals: wiping out poverty, ending conflict, rolling back climate change and promoting better governance worldwide.

(If you're going to take a cut, swing for the fences)

Hat tip, daily kos The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published this legal guide for bloggers.

The Dutch are going to create a database that stores information on ever citizen from the time they are born until they leave this earth. Privacy concerns notwithstanding, I actually am supportive of this idea.

The rabid-right enjoyed such success going after Dan Rather during memogate it looks like they're trying it again with the entire "potty photo" issue. Reuters explains how the photo came to be taken, the process of getting it on the wires, etc. They also mention that they used Photoshop to balance the colors in the photo. A process, according to the article, that is common and clearly legitimate. So what headline does Drudge run the article under?

"REUTERS has acknowledged Bush 'Potty Note' photo was enhanced via photoshop..."

Bottom line, don't let the so-called conservative cabal mislead with the headline. The note wasn't altered in any significant way by the press. Nice try guys, but if you're going to go after the "liberal media" try toning down your bias.

'Liberal Comedian Sues Blogger' So reads the headline as Garrison Keillor sues a blogger. Horrible PR move Mr. Keillor. Keillor jeopardizes whatever catchet he might have had.

Arianna Huffington is interviewed in Wired about her new blogging venture The Huffington Post. She too has gotten religion when it comes to blogs, especially in constrast to the MSM:

The problem isn't that the stories I care about aren't being covered, it's that they aren't being covered in the obsessive way that breaks through the din of our 500-channel universe. Because those 500 channels don't mean we get 500 times the examination and investigation of worthy news stories. It often means we get the same narrow, conventional-wisdom wrap-ups repeated 500 times. Paradoxically, in these days of instant communication and 24-hour news channels, it's actually easier to miss information we might otherwise pay attention to. That's why we need stories to be covered and re-covered and re-re-covered and covered again -- until they filter up enough to become part of the cultural bloodstream. As for improving the quality of journalism, we must (find) ways to give mainstream journalism what it most desperately needs: a spine transplant.

The aptly names sportswriter Field Maloney asks us to consider the contrasting fates of the two biggest country club sports; golf and tennis.

Golf's popularity originally surged in the late 1950s and '60s. You had a golf-nut president, Dwight Eisenhower, and a charismatic regular-guy star, Arnold Palmer… Yet, during the '70s and into the early '80s, tennis appeared poised to grab the limelight. Golf seemed too fusty and stiff for prime time, too male, too redolent of Republicans and retirees, less prepared to shed its exclusive aura. Tennis courts could be found in neighborhoods rich and poor, and the sport already had its Tiger Woods figure: Arthur Ashe.

However similar their popular beginnings, it’s clear that golf is the dominant sport in American life. More people watch, play, and frankly, get excited about golf than tennis, and this has tennis fans and players scratching their heads. Maloney claims this divergence has come because golf has held onto its elitism, which ironically fuels its populism:

The irony is that golf has thrived and tennis withered precisely because tennis has worked so hard to expand into a wider demographic.
In the '70s and '80s, more public courts were built, more outreach programs were started, and racquets got cheaper and easier to use. Andre Agassi, in his younger, wilder years, played in black denim and lime-green Lycra.

Noting that the Bush’s, a tennis and golf family, appears to take pains to demonstrate an affinity for golf over tennis, Maloney opines that tennis has become more than just uncool, politically it’s the jock version of having a poodle:

Tennis has become a political liability: effete, preppy, what high-schoolers call a "wussy sport." Whereas golf, no matter how fey the links attire or how pricey the greens fees, has become so solidly red-blooded and all-American that even our folksy president can embrace it.

As a tennis fan and player, I too am dismayed by the relative lack of interest in the game. It’s populated by some of the most attractive stars in sports, currently has a player that is so immensely talented he draws comparisons to the greatest to ever step on the court, and can be played for free in just about any city in America. So what can be done? Impede the racket “arms-race” by deadening the balls? Playing the game on the moon? Reaching out even more to the inner-city in the hopes of bringing a new demographic to the game? Perhaps all tennis needs is for someone to produce a tennis version of Caddyshack.

The Slurpee is 40, raise a cup for me.

Dare to dream. America needed a five bladed razor and America got one. Oh yeah...

As we discussed yesterday, Delta and Northwest both filed for bankruptcy protection.

Apparently the President of the United States asks Connie to go potty.

Continuing the innovation, Google has added a blog search engine. Kudos

Northwest Airlines and Delta both could file for Chp. 11 protection as soon as tomorrow. This can't be good for the economic prospects of America over the near term, but it might be a sign that our system actually works well over the long run.


Inefficient carriers burdened with ancient labor agreements and hub-and-spoke flight models are being crushed by newer (read: smarter, more efficient) airlines. This story has been played out ad nasuem by the financial press, so it's important to remember that this is a healthy (though painful) development of that larger dynamic.

Technorati-bombing, the new scourge of the web. Well, not really, but it's a bummer nonetheless.

CA lawmakers pass a bill that makes it a crime to sell violent videogames to minors. Not everyone is happy with AB1179.

Michael Kinsley is leaving the LA Times. And from this email he sent to staffers it appears the break-up is "bitter".

Kinsley is amazingly talented and the little interaction I've had with him has impressed me with his intellect, drive, and unique perspective. My guess, he'll have a new job within a month.

Bush admits responsibility for screw-ups related to Katrina.

Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government. And to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility.

In other news, hell has, indeed, frozen over.

At last! Wal-Mart has a blog...

"All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved."-Sun Tzu

Fresh on the heels of his hostile takeover of Peoplesoft, Larry Ellison has made another of his former proteges bow to his will. Beleaguered CRM maker Siebel, still nominally headed by Ellison's rival Thomas Siebel, announced they are being bought by Oracle for the tune of $3.61 billion. (Actual purchase price is close to $6b minus the $2b+ Siebel has sitting around in petty cash).

The purchase allows Oracle, the world's largest database manufacture, to potentially migrate millions of Sielbel's CRM customers over to their technology stack. The purchase instantly makes Oracle the largest CRM company in the world, and more clearly sets the contrast between traditional client server software manufactures and those who advocate an on-demand model. Most notable among the on-demand camp is former Oracle sales executive and current Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff. Speaking at the SFDC conference Benioff said:

"When I was at Oracle, we watched Computer Associates buy all those mainframe software companies and milk them for their license revenue. I never thought that's what Oracle would be doing one day, and yet, here it is."

Industry watchers are mixed, some are concerned about a coming lack of innovation in a rapidly consolidating space, others feel Oracle has instantly given a lift to one of their most unsophisticated divisions (CRM/PRM), others think it will have little impact on a space that has clearly matured.

Regardless of what this deal appears to be on the surface, the x-factor is clearly the man at the helm, Larry Ellison. He's vanquished most of his rivals in Silicon Valley, clearly has his sights set once again on Redmond, just agreed to pay $100 million to charity to settle an insider trading case, and is reminding everyone that the art of war is based on deception.

A defense of fat Americans. We've got that going for us.

The Gaurdian with a nice piece abut junk, no, bad, science.