I was visiting my only relation who strongly supports Bush (quite the Howard Dean sterotype -- gave up his pickup truck for an SUV after having kids, but still a southern male.) He was complaining about how bad the president was, and I was surprised. But then he layed in to how much worse Kerry would have been and the liberal agenda. I pointed out that Kerry wasn't even slightly liberal, he was in fact more conservative than the average Democrat. I said that the Republicans had lied during the election and that Kennedy was obviously actually the most liberal guy in the Senate. My relative said that Kerry was in Kennedy's pocket and had just been a front man.

While people are believing this nonsense, the Democrats still aren't winning. America is just losing.

Is it possible to convince people that they were being lied to for at least 5 years (well, decades) before they noticed, without making them feel so stupid as to get defensive?

Another option is not giving full trust to anyone who is (or claims to be) deeply superstitious. But in America, if you are not any kind of mystic then you are regarded as less trustworthy.

http://www.the-brights.net/

As Luce (? the guy with the monkey data) implies, I think the thing about celebrity culture is that it's a `super-normal stimulus' for our natural inclination to spend some time every day socializing. But I also think (as many have said) it can become an obsession. Like Arthur, mine is more for news/politics than celebrity. I think this means I get enough social stimuli in my normal life, but when I'm working I'm often looking for something that might reset my own priorities, especially when they are getting tedious at the moment. (I think expecting the news to do this is a post Sept 11 thing -- I think as upsetting as that was, it was also a rush that made us all feel special & fragile and start valuing our families more --- there's apparently an associated baby boom!)

Enough theory, the cure for this kind of obsession I've found is just putting the right kind of things in front of myself. Just like not having cookies in the house so I won't eat them. Find websites with really fantastic, inspiring poetry (or biographies of poets -- even Wikipidia will serve there!) and put these on your bookmarks lists right by all your celebrity links. Then, when you're procastinating (we all need a break sometimes!) it's more likely you'll remember and/or choose to click on something that will help you with your work than something that's a pure sponge.

Well, it's hard to say, but let's not underestimate or joke about this. Everyone (in the know) has been worried about whether or not Google will "be evil" with all its data. Don't underestimate what people can predict with their data either --- your voting preference is a cinch, for example. But this story points out that it's not just about anything google does to guarantee its own ethics. Unless the courts and the company can stand up to an onslaught from the government, then Google doesn't get the final say on who sees your data. And if Google ever go bankrupt, anyone can buy their data as an asset. They have got to figure out how to permanently anonymize it when they collect it, or it has got to go.

Jaibe

I do find it unlikely that the justice department seriously expects to overturn the supreme court ruling. I think they are testing the waters to see what data they can get from search engines, using something politicians will find it hard to complain about (child porn). It is interesting that Google are the only ones who haven't rolled over; maybe they truly are the one anti-evil high-tech company. But as I said in my posting this morning, their own ethics and intentions don't make their data safe.

Jaibe

I want to say that part of the reason there's no need for more blog content etc. is that you have made excellent improvements of late. Making it so easy to add letters, and then also having the editors come in and *rate* the letters, so that if you are in a hurry you can just read the editor's choices, that's brilliant.

The only of your new ideas that might be useful is making it easier to link to or upload non-text media, but I think it should be kept in the context of (public) letters to the editors or journalists. Then the editors and journalists can decide whether to follow the leads up with full stories, just like editors and journalists always have.