Master of 500 Hats

Cheney's World: Through the Looking Glass?

further deterioration of administration positions re: reasons for invading Iraq, admissions of error re: post-Iraq handling:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2107847/#ContinueArticle

1) Rumsfeld acknowledges no significant Saddam-al Qaeda connection (backpedals later under administrative pressure)
2) Duelfer issues CIA report confirming Kaye's analysis Iraq had no significant WMD capabilities since '96 (Saddam was posturing to keep Iran guessing)
3) Bremer admitting we needed more troops to ensure security (aka Shinseki was right; Wolfowitz et al were wrong)
4) Americans not welcomed after war; initial disbanding of Iraqi military accelerated deterioration of security in Iraq, fueled insurgency ranks & arms
5) CSIS analysis concludes majority of Iraq reconstruction funds (73 cents of every dollar) being wasted on administrative costs & overhead; also on corruption, bribery & mismgmt
6) In addition to bureaucratic waste, and in addition to escalated re-direction of funding to security, majority of allocated funds for Iraq security remain unspent

finally, in review of American policy and execution in Iraq last night, Cheney's response:

"What we did in Iraq was exactly the right thing to do. If I had it to recommend all over again, I would recommend exactly the same course of action."

Bush is a Remote Control President -- spread the word

Something i've always suspected:
http://www.IsBushWired.com/

... and now that i think about it, why *hasn't* this been questioned by more people?
Spread the word on this, and let's make it an election issue.

Do you really want a Remote Control President?

Web 2.0 conference - Snap, Cuban, Pop!

hey! it's time to party like it's 1999! (well okay, maybe more like 1996)

Today at the O'Reilly Web 2.0 conference, it felt like a reunion... all the Interneterati who've been hiding under a rock for the past 3-4 years during the downturn, they all finally came out to play -- yay :)

Jeff Bezos was showing off the new AWS 4.0 stuff and A9, Bill Gross announced his new-new search engine startup Snap.com (flashback: wasn't snap.com a Cnet property?), John Doerr was pimping his investments and predicting the future of the Internet (with perhaps a little more humility and caveat this time around), and Mark Cuban was talking broadcasts and broadband.

my head is spinning -- what year is it again?

ahh, what the hell. let's try it ONE MORE TIME...!

ps - the Snap demo was effin' cool. that is some *good* shit.

I am Snoopy

You are Snoopy!

Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Alan & Dave meet Godzilla on the Odaiba Ferris Wheel

Great pic from my last trip to Tokyo... Alan and Dave show off their best "I'm so Excited!" faces.

Yes, these two gaijin are certifiably insane ;)

Gnomedex Report... and I'm Still a Geek :)

Just got back from Gnomedex, and i can once again confidently say i'm still a Geek :)

Drove up on Thursday with Scott Johnson of Feedster, and had a great time chatting about Life, the Universe, and Everything Feedsterlicious. We had the uniquely-California experience of picking up a Wi-Fi connection at a gas station on I-80, and Scott was definitely relishing the moment. The drive up to Tahoe was really quite beautiful; first time i'd gone up there when there wasn't snow everywhere.

Gnomedex itself was full of a vast array of very smart geeks, all of whom seemed to have very interesting shit going on. We gave away a bunch of PayPal Hacks books to all the attendees, and I moderated a panel on the Future of Online Advertising. Here are some online advertising links we posted related to the discussion (thanks to Dave Taylor, Intuitive Systems).

Got to meet Nick Bradbury (author of FeedDemon, TopStyle, Homesite) and take him and Scott out for pizza on Saturday night. Also had some fun conversation with several other folks there including Chris DiBona, Jason Shellen, Anil Dash, Jeff Barr, Jeremy Zawodny, the brothers Gillmor, Robert Scoble -- zowie, the A-Lister name-dropping does go on, but i digress... The keynotes by Steve Wozniak and Wil Wheaton were quite funny, and made me realize how very ok it was to be at home with geekiness in this crowd.

All in all a very enjoyable event. Thanks Chris & Ponzi!

Rank My Stuff -- 5-star ratings for blogs, links, etc

Sitting in the audience at the Gnomedex panel listening to the Blogging panel. I think one of the things we need is a simple/quick way to *rank* blog posts, links on Delicious, and even the "rankers" themselves, in a simple way that would allow me to filter based on rank scores & criteria.

I'm thinking of something like the NetFlix 5-star ranking, to overlay on top of any other list of topics, like this: