Presidential Milkshakes 2008

This has been making the rounds today, I’ve seen versions both on blogs and in e-mail, so I am not sure which one is the original:

Presidential Milkshakes 2008

I support your milkshake, even though I opposed drinking your milkshake four years ago. -Mitt Romney

I’ll drink your milkshake, but only if the Bible says it’s allowed. -Mike Huckabee

I will drink your milkshake for another 100 years, if that’s what it takes. -John McCain

I drank a milkshake on 9/11. -Rudy Giuliani

I’ll drink your milkshake a few months after everyone else does. -Fred
Thompson

I will drink your milkshake, but only if I can bring back the gold standard before paying for it. -Ron Paul

America deserves a new milkshake, a milkshake with a change. -Barack Obama

I will fight the corporations so that you can drink your own milkshake. -John Edwards

We have 35 years of milkshake-drinking experience. *sob* -Hillary Clinton

I will peacefully drink your milkshake. -Dennis Kucinich

Global warming is melting your milkshake. -Al Gore

It depends on what your definition of “milkshake” is. -Bill Clinton

We’re making good progress in the war on milkshakes, and make no mistake: we will prevail. -George W. Bush

My favorite? The Gore one.

Good to Know: Comments and the Law

Here’s a useful factoid for those of you out there who might be considering adding or updating your blog comment policy:

One of the biggest arguments in the debate over moderating comments is that editing inappropriate comments may lead to the site’s liability in defamation cases. The Communications Decency Act of 1996, however, has protected sites from becoming liable for user comments; it is only when an editor changes the meaning of a post to make it libelous that a site becomes responsible.

I used to have a link to my comment policy, but somewhere along the line of the site move & redesign I dropped it. I don’t get enough comments here to need a complex policy, honestly, but in the interest of clarity, here is is:

Comment Policy

I reserve the right to delete any comment left on this site or any URLs left in comments, for any reason or for no reason at all. I pay for the web hosting; I get to decide how my disk space and bandwidth are used, and where my outclicks go. However, I do not edit the words left by my commenters. They remain as their authors wrote them.

Did Huckabee Really Say The Constitution Is Wrong?

I’m a bit hesitant to link to The Raw Story but if this is for real … it’s a little disconcerting, to say the least:

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”

When Willie Geist reported Huckabee’s opinion on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski was almost speechless, and even Joe Scarborough couldn’t immediately find much to say beyond calling it “interesting”

Someone needs to ask Huckabee exactly what he means by that comment.

If he means we should add stuff about loving your neighbor as yourself, or about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and healing the sick … well, maybe he’s got a point. But if it’s the parts about killing homosexuals and making women into chattel, well, that’s another story.

Gizmodo in the Playground

I wasn’t going to blog about the Gizmodo / CES thing, but a conversation I had today made me realize how strongly I feel about what they did, so I’m going to add my voice to the chorus.

What the Gizmodo guys did wasn’t just puerile, it was mean and flat-out wrong. The fact their their boss Nick Denton seems to think it’s all good so long as the pageviews keep rolling is just as bad.

Those people in the CES booths are human beings trying to do a job and they should be treated with basic respect. If you think their shtick is stupid or their product is lame, fine. Feel free to say so. But when you decide you’re going to screw around with their stuff just because you can, you’re way, way over the line, and you’re no better than a schoolyard bully.

There once was a young girl who came home from school one day with grapefruit-sized bruises on her legs, because a couple of boys decided that kicking the crap out of her was “fun”. The bruises went away eventually, but the memories of fear and humiliation linger a long, long time.

Bottom line: It’s not funny, and if you think it is, you need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself what kind of person you really are.

The Role of Video

One thing I have been pondering lately is whether I should be doing something more than just blogging. There’s podcasting, and video blogging, and I haven’t tried those at all (with the exception of one very short video clip I did of Scott making ravioli). I’m not on Utterz or Seesmic or any of the other “cool” new content creation sites. I’m just a blogger. Sometimes I worry a little — am I getting left behind? Am I turning into some dinosaur of the Internet because I’m still just typing away?

But there’s a reason why I don’t do that stuff, and it’s not for lack of time, software, or equipment. It’s because they do not add any value to what I’m doing here.

My long-ago college major was in Drama. One of the things you learn when you study theater is that everything you do on stage should serve the purpose of the production. If you do it, say it, wear it, or hang it on the wall of the set — it all needs to be there to augment the essence of what you’re trying to communicate. That essence will change, of course. Your vision for presenting Phantom of the Opera is going to be different than your vision for Othello. But no matter what you’re doing, you need to constantly ask yourself, “Is this serving the goal I am trying to achieve?” And if the answer is “no” then DON’T DO IT.

As John Whiteside points out today,

Video has its place. Video can show you things that would be hard to follow in a written description; the video that Apple put on its site as a promo for the iPhone is a great example (it convinced me to buy one because it made it obvious how many features worked, and it served as a quick start guide when I got the phone home). I’m not saying video is bad.

I’m just suggesting that if you can’t figure out why you shouldn’t be using a simpler, lower-bandwidth, more flexible, and more user-controlled medium for your message, then you shouldn’t be making a video.

I couldn’t agree more.

People have a complete right to be self-indulgent, and to experiment with new mediums of communication. It’s a great way to learn to use technology. The next stage is to learn how to use those tools to do something that people will actually get value out of watching. I hope we get there soon.

Quick Note

It’s an odd feeling to compare the stats of my 4+ year old blog and my 3+ month old blog, and realize that the baby blog is getting more traffic and more subscribers than this one.