The Spam King of Nigeria and Other Stories

Ordinarily I'd just post a like like this one on the side bar but :apophenia: a google horror story: what happens when you are disappeared is a crazy one. A couple years ago I did a scenario planning session that revolved around spammers hacking email accounts and impersonating people from your past. That's not exactly the story, but as "phishing" attacks get more and more sophisticated it's heading in that direction. And google's centralization of power sure is going to help in that process.

I've been terrified of google for a long while now for exactly these reasons. They just have too much power, too much information centralized in one location. (Or really centralized and multiplied across multiple locations) It doesn't really matter if google is good or evil, or both because that much info placed into one interface and virtual location ensures that bad shit is going to happen. You know like your entire digital identity being hijacked, used abused and then sold off as scrap to the highest bidders. Add in google's god awful customer service (and a company with engineers at the helm is almost always ensured bad customer service) and the you've got an awfully frightening entity.

True Conservatives

When uber right wing pundit Ann Coulter stated she'd campaign for Hillary Clinton over John McCain I was quick to write it off as a play for attention from one of the worst media whores in the business. Coulter loves to take extreme positions and run with them as far as possible. But the continued hate for John McCain spewing from the likes of Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson is fascinating.

Politically I've never gotten McCain's rep for being centrist. He's a right wing warmonger in my book and his vote record is deeply right wing. But when Coulter says Hillary is more conservative than McCain, she's not really talking policy and shockingly enough she's actually right. Policy wise of course Clinton is moderate but far to the left of McCain. But personality wise, Clinton couldn't be more conservative.

At it's core conservatism as a philosophy is about maintaining the status quo, keeping the power structure intact. Clinton has climbed her way to the top of US politics and she has no interest in sharing that power or letting it slip away. McCain on the other hand has spent years cultivating an image as a maverick, a man who will think for himself and won't take orders. For people like Rush Limbaugh and Coulter who value blind obedience to the power structure this is a threat of the highest order. There is no space for mavericks in their world view, free thinking undermines their values to the core.

It's exactly because of this that voters tend to flock to Obama in the days leading up to their primaries, yet a substantial number break to Clinton at the last second. As inspiring as Obama may be his message of change is scary to the conservative minded. Hillary is the safe path, the choice of the risk adverse, the people who regardless of how they stand on policy are scared of new.

No matter how much conservatives hate Clinton personally, there must be a huge comfort in the pattern, they did Bush then Clinton before, why not keep it going. They wanted Bush as king, but Hillary as queen is far more palatable then a maverick or change agent as president.

Union Experience

Despite being part of "Super Tuesday" New York still hasn't gotten much of the full court political press. Judging from the conversations overhead at the Time Warner repair center today it seems like plenty of New Yorkers just heard the name Barack Obama this morning. Meanwhile the only people I've seen actively campaigning for Clinton are union members outside Grand Central.

It's a pretty remarkable contrast really, gruff teamsters pushing Hillary's tepid literature. It's certainly a sign of progress on one level that the gasp of blue collardom in New York City is out pushing for a female president. But at the same time it's not quite the coalition of the future is it? The hands on down and dirty politics the Clintons love to play certainly fits right into to an old school union hall. But for better or worse it's not really that clear that the hall itself is ready for the 21st century...

Notes on Yahoo Microsoft

Couple quick notes on the Microsoft- Yahoo deal:

- Yahoo and Microsoft are two of perhaps only four companies, the other two being Google and Amazon (via it's Alexa purchase) that have massive databases of information spidered from the web. Given how much effort now goes into gaming these same spiders that historical database just might be extremely valuable. The spidering infrastructure they have is probably even more valuable, except Microsoft already has much of that built via their MSN search already. How much value is there in keeping this out of other's hands?

- Microsoft going into debt for the first time? Signs of a financial empire finally crumbling? There cultural clout of course has been plummeting, but they still have a near monopoly on business desktops so who knows.

- Apple + Yahoo rumors = very interesting.

- The US tech world is always so US centric. Where do the foreign search engines stand in all this? Are there other datamining powerhouses that are below the radar but with a whole lot at stake in Yahoo's fate?