The Internet Settles a Bet for Me

According to SpellWeb (the sense of the Internet based on Google results):

1,830 votes for "Jesus was a liberal"
62 votes for "Jesus was a conservative"
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Framing by Branding

Brand Democrat uses branding techniques to carry the reframed discussion. It's open source so you can jump on the brandwagon.
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BananaSlug and Amazon APIs

Between more content-rich posts (as if?), I'll use this space as the chronicle of BananaSlug updates and progress.

It seems that the Amazon v3.0 APIs feeding the Amazon similar book explorer function stopped working, and the Amazon lookup with every BananaSlug search was slowing down the BananaSlug results, so I turned off the Amazon book result and the link to the similar book explorer. Over the weekend I wrote a book lookup function in Perl using SOAP::Lite and the Amazon 4.0 APIs. It's a stopgap, and the lookup is by-request-only with a button at the bottom of the BananaSlug results page.
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Speaking of BananaSlug

For as long as I've been a programmer, I've never jumped into object-oriented programming in any real way, other than a tutorial here or there, or a quick mod to someone else's method.

So as I added one more category to BananaSlug (10x10 current news words) I decided to make a quick rewrite of BananaSlug using PHP classes. It took a couple days and the normal amount of obsession, but it's there now. I wanted to make it quicker, and the rewrite has accomplished that, along with (unfortunately) removing the Amazon search results. They were slowing down the BananaSlug results. I'll be adding a link to pop-up my Amazon results explorer, so that's next on the list.

I also returned BananaSlug to displaying the full list of categories, all at once.
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BananaSlug Adds 10x10 Current Word List

The BananaSlug search engine, which adds a random word to your search in order to make the results more interesting (and no less relevant!) has added the current word list from 10x10. Every hour 10x10 scans several news feeds and through "an elaborate process of weighted linguistic analysis" chooses the most important words of the hour.

A Physics of Ideas

This document offers the highest density of thinking that correlates to all the random thoughts I've had in the last few years. Thanks for developing and articulating them, Nova. I'll gladly engineer to these physics. Inspirational and aspirational, it is vanguard meme science: it points to areas that are waiting to be opened up when the right explorational tools are developed.
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Taking Heart

and the backlash.

Tech Trend #5

Tech Trend #5 at the Churchill Club's 7th Annual Top Ten Technology Trends dinner was Tony Perkins's:

5. Mainstream media & entertainment will relent to the Open Source Media Revolution, and allow more online content participation (e.g. Blogging, uploading of music and video) and greater transparency and collaboration of members (i.e. online social networking). This will provide a mini-boom for new content creators and blogging and social networking tools and application developers.

Today brings the Online News Association keynote address by Tom Curley, President and CEO of the Associated Press on his ongoing relevance.

Practice the Pitch

Now is the time to develop the debate and refine what works. Use the blogosphere as a sandbox of engagement. Keep the focus on accountability, move beyond the election and hold the focus singularly on the winner of the election.

Framing Simplified

Framing the debate is critical to success, and understanding the concept of framing is the key to making it so. George Lakoff offers a concise intro. Please read it.
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Course of Action

There's a synchronicity of thinking afoot, so when I spot it, I'll link it.

Progressives have only one course of action now: React quickly to every outrage—red state types love to cheat and intimidate, so we have to assume the worst and call them on it every time.

-Jane Smiley in Slate
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Moving on...

1. I know nothing.

2. The majority of the electorate has chosen based on different criteria than the minority. A perceived difference in "values" got priority over specific issues and performance. So succinct and effective articulation of values is the order of the day. As is responsibility for performance.

3. The majority of the electorate needs to be held responsible for its choice when it comes to favoring "values" over performance, as we all will be directly effected by the consequences of performance. These are the lives, the dollars, the jobs, the quality of health that will be quantified over the next four years. When they choose to elect someone based on intangible grounds, we must hold them responsible for the tangibles.

4. Be succinct, damn it. Make your memes stick. Help reframe the debate:

Progressives	Conservatives
Stronger America	Strong Defense
Broad Prosperity	Free Markets
Better Future	Lower Taxes
Effective Government	Smaller Government
Mutual Responsibility	Family Values

Visualizing Victory

It's still November 1, west coast standard time, so I'll slip this pre-election day prediction in under the wire. Kerry tops 300.