Matt Ortega: the man behind Mitt Romney memes - Mitt Romney What began as an unintentionally revealing analogy at 8:09 a.m. Wednesday needed just six hours to become a full-blown meme. It started with Eric Fehrnstrom on CNN, deadly serious as he explained that his boss Mitt Romney’s campaign was like an Etch A Sketch that could be shaken and reset for the general election. Within hours there were spoof videos, pictures and several competing Twitter hashtags trending worldwide. By 2:14 p.m., the Etch A Sketch had reached what is perhaps the apotheosis of Internet meme-dom: a microsite, EtchASketchMittRomney.com. The site displays two contradictory Romney quotes every time you “shake” it. “Inevitable,” several prominent journalists tweeted when the site appeared, already steeped in Etch A Sketch riffs for several hours. In the case of EtchASketchMittRomney.com that somebody was Matt Ortega, a liberal consultant and activist. Ortega’s sites weren’t always political, and neither was he. That hasn’t stopped some political pundits from attacking it.
Michele Bachmann’s husband shares her strong conservative values “Their career in politics has always been about pursuing a social conservative agenda,” Larry Jacobs, a political scientist and longtime Bachmann watcher at the University of Minnesota, said of the couple. He said that Michele Bachmann’s initial race for the state Senate, in which she ousted a more moderate Republican, was “broadly over gay rights.” “My husband and I,” Bachmann told The Washington Post in March, “are a really good team.” These days, as Michele Bachmann burns up the campaign trail, attracting big crowds, oodles of media attention and skyrocketing poll numbers, her husband is a constant presence at her side. He is visibly engaged in the campaign, riding the bus and mingling with reporters as team Bachmann hammers its conservative, small-government message. This is something of a change. Michele Bachmann has called gay marriage “probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, 30 years.” Dr. Dr. “I’m a job creator,” she said. Dr.
This Is What The Desk Of The Future Looks Like [VIDEO] | ReadTechNews - StumbleUpon EXOpc has posted a video of its EXOdesk — an interactive desk environment that lets you do all sorts of tasks on a virtual space on your desk — in action and it looks amazing. The actual device is a tabletop computer, somewhat similar to Microsoft Surface, offering 40 inches of high definition space, where you can manipulate virtual objects by touching them and dragging them around. The video offers a taste of what you can do with EXOdesk: add a virtual keyboard, an RSS feed stream and apps to your tabletop surface. A piano simulation app is shown, and though we don’t see much of its functionality, it looks stunning when expanded to the entire surface of EXOdesk. Although the release date is vaguely set for 2012, we already know EXOdesk will cost $1,299. If that sounds like a lot, compare it to the recently announced price of Microsoft Surface 2.0, which is $8,900, and it will suddenly seem like a bargain. AD: >> Click to download the best 3D Video Converter << via Mashable
Hoodies don't kill - Trayvon Martin You’d better hope Geraldo Rivera never ventures into an Old Navy. He’s going to freak out. In a wildly absurd, calculatedly provocative post on Fox News Latino, Rivera declared Friday that Trayvon Martin’s hoodie killed him “as surely as George Zimmerman did.” When the 17-year-old Florida resident died a month ago, was he wearing a lethal hoodie, one packed with explosives or poisons? The subsequent grief and rage over the death of a young man at the hands of an eager, 9mm-brandishing neighbor — and the shooter’s continued freedom from arrest – has sparked international outrage and an impromptu “million hoodie march.” Rivera, as the parent of a teen, calls this a “teachable moment.” We all have to take responsibility for the way we present ourselves to the outside world, and the way that image will be received – received, even, by dangerous, aggressive people. But he doesn’t consider the nuances of a person’s gait or the time, whether the individual is alone or in a group. Update:
Jon Stewart LIVE On Fox News, Tells Host 'You're Insane' [UPDATE] - Stewart slammed Fox News on Monday night's episode of 'The Daily Show' for editing his interview with Wallace. Watch the clip here. [ORIGINAL STORY] - The Daily Show's Jon Stewart entered the proverbial lion's den, appearing live on Fox News Sunday to debate "media bias" with host Chris Wallace. Early in the interview, Wallace flashed a previous quote of Stewart's calling Fox News a "relentless agenda-driven 24 hour news opinion propaganda delivery system," and asked Stewart, "Where do you come up with this stuff?" Stewart responded, "Uh, it's actually quite easy." Later, when Wallace argued that a clip about Sarah Palin from the Daily Show was political commentary, Stewart told Wallace, "You're insane... "Do I want my voice heard?" However, it was in a later exchange that Stewart got actually angry at Wallace, as he talked about what he called the misinformation that Fox News gave its viewers. "I don't think our viewers are the least bit disappointed with us," Wallace said.
8 Things Everybody Ought to Know About Concentrating - StumbleUpon “Music helps me concentrate,” Mike said to me glancing briefly over his shoulder. Mike was in his room writing a paper for his U.S. History class. On his desk next to his computer sat crunched Red Bulls, empty Gatorade bottles, some extra pocket change and scattered pieces of paper. In the pocket of his sweat pants rested a blaring iPod with a chord that dangled near the floor, almost touching against his Adidas sandals. Mike made a shift about every thirty seconds between all of the above. Do you know a person like this? The Science Behind Concentration In the above account, Mike’s obviously stuck in a routine that many of us may have found ourselves in, yet in the moment we feel it’s almost an impossible routine to get out of. When we constantly multitask to get things done, we’re not multitasking, we’re rapidly shifting our attention. Phase 1: Blood Rush Alert When Mike decides to start writing his History essay, blood rushes to his anterior prefrontal cortex. Phase 2: Find and Execute
Wanted (by NYT): One Woman to Represent All Feminists Over the weekend, the New York Times (3/18/12) published an article pondering why no one has taken Gloria Steinem's place as ubiquitous spokesperson for women's rights: Over the last 40 years, Gloria Steinem has almost always been at the other end of the phone when some member of the news media has sought comment about a pressing issue involving women's rights…. And that raises a question well worth asking in 2012: Where is the next Gloria Steinem, and why–decades after the media spotlight first focused on her–has no one emerged to take her place? But is it well worth asking? Why would anyone (besides lazy journalists) want there to be just one (white, straight, white-collar) woman speaking to the media about all things woman-related? As for whether there should be another Gloria Steinem, she replied, "I don't think there should have been a first one." Yet none of this diverts the Times from its premise, or keep it from including sentences like this:
Party Politics: How Conservatism Lost Touch with Reality "Conservatism is true." That's what George Will told me when I interviewed him as an eager student many years ago. His formulation might have been a touch arrogant, but Will's basic point was intelligent. Conservatism, he explained, was rooted in reality. Watching this election campaign, one wonders what has happened to that tradition. Consider the debates over the economy. Many Republican businessmen have told me that the Obama Administration is the most hostile to business in 50 years. In fact, right now any discussion of government involvement in the economy — even to build vital infrastructure — is impossible because it is a cardinal tenet of the new conservatism that such involvement is always and forever bad. Of course, American history suggests that as well. But that history has been forgotten. Conservatives used to be the ones with heads firmly based in reality. We need conservative ideas to modernize the U.S. economy and reform American government.
Our One Percent Media From Politico (3/20/12): David Gregory, host of NBC's Meet the Press, and Bret Baier, host of Fox News's Special Report, are among the latest applicants to the Chevy Chase Club, the historic social club that has catered to Washington's wealthiest for over a century.The Club's recent "Membership Report" shows that both Gregory and Baier are up for consideration as "newly proposed candidates for membership." Gregory is being sponsored by Joseph Stettinius and William M. The Chevy Chase Club would not disclose the cost of admission, but a member told me that the initiation fee is $80,000 and that members pay $6,000 in annual dues. The piece adds: The Chevy Chase Club was founded in 1892. Something to keep in mind next you hear the likes of David Gregory talking about the need for "shared sacrifice" or "hard choices," or for cutting Social Security.
Report: Obama Administration Rewards Big Donors With Jobs <br/><a href=" US News</a> | <a href=" Business News</a> Copy President Obama launched his campaign in 2007 promising a change in the way business is done in Washington, D.C., but today a report from the Center for Public Integrity says that when it comes to major campaign donors scoring plum administration positions, it's business as usual. The report says that 184 out of 556 2008 Obama campaign "bundlers," donors who agreed to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for a campaign -- or their spouses -- joined the administration in some role. But the percentages are much higher for the big-dollar bundlers. Nearly "80 percent of those who collected more than $500,000 for Obama took 'key administration posts,' as defined by the White House," the report said. The center pointed out that candidate Obama suggested that big moneyed interests would not have as prominent a role in D.C. during his administration.
Bill Keller Remembers the Downing Street Memos (Sort Of) Bill Keller's New York Times column (3/19/12) begins with what might be a bit of self-deprecation: "When you've been wrong about something as important as war, as I have…." You might take that as a cue to stop reading right there. But Keller's point is that people should think long and hard about signing on to the latest calls for war. He writes: Sometimes our leaders start with the answers and work backward, fixing the facts to the policy, as the head of Britain's MI6 said of the Potemkin intelligence used to sell the invasion of Iraq. As the link (in the original online text) indicates, that's a reference to the famous Downing Street memos–the notes on a 2002 British government meeting about the U.S drive for war with Iraq, where British officials discuss the U.S. government's apparent desire to invade Iraq with whatever pretext they figured might work.