politics

Is it ever worth questioning officialdom?

After all, officialdom always seems to have an excess of "dom" and the power of the official to make that "dom" (which might seem really, really dumb) painful for the questioner.

Such might be the plight of software engineer John Tyner, who, the TSA has announced, is to be investigated for his behavior while going through airport security.

Tyner was flying out of San Diego last Friday and took exception to the idea of the new full-body scanners, which are capable of capturing whether you are hiding explosives in your … Read more

Citizens concerned with the direction of high-speed rail in their home states have taken to the Internet to voice their opinions on current plans proposed by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Self-described New Yorkers have started a Facebook campaign in support of high-speed rail service and have inundated the Facebook page of DOT Secretary Ray LaHood with posts imploring him to grant their governor-elect's request for more funding for a high-speed rail project in their state.

"I don't know who started it, but the Facebook campaign sure got my attention!" LaHood wrote in his blog … Read more

I woke up this morning thinking about Meg Whitman. You see, I'm finding hard to come to terms with the fact that my campaign to become customer of the week at my local Starbucks was successful and Whitman's quest to be governor of the week was not.

Should you have been unaccountably unaccounted for during World Series celebrations, you might have missed that the former eBay CEO failed in her grandiloquent bid to become CEO of California, or whatever they call that position in which everyone who tries fails.

Some have put this abject calamity down to a … Read more

Oh, yes, you all take your iPads everywhere with you. You love them. They are so simple even a child can use them without a manual.

But not everyone is familiar with touch screens like the iPad's.

You may be moved to democratic howling when I tell you that a voter in Washington, D.C., walked up to a touch-screen voting machine yesterday and didn't use his or her fingers.

No, instead, he or she thumped down a hand stamp bearing the name of Adrian Fenty, the current mayor of D.C., who lost his re-election bid in … Read more

Just in time for the midterm elections, app developer Handmark has launched two new political news apps, one aimed at liberals and the other at conservatives. PolitiCaster Left and Politicaster Right popped up in the Android Marketplace today and can be downloaded for free as both are ad-supported.

Each app compiles national and local political news from hundreds of sources in a single, tabbed interface, offering content customized for the opposing viewpoints. As the names suggest, PolitiCaster Left pulls a feed from liberal sites and blogs, such as Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and Think Progress. Similarly, PolitiCaster Right features commentary … Read more

President Barack Obama met yesterday with two ascendant Silicon Valley powers: Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Google VP Marissa Mayer.

With Jobs, Obama discussed American competitiveness and education, according to Reuters.

The president's visit to the home of Mayer and husband Zachary Bogue was for a $30,000-a-plate fund-raising dinner less than two weeks before mid-term elections, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Obama had good timing for catching people on the upswing.

Jobs this week revealed sleek new MacBook Air computers and announced Apple's quarterly profit of $4.31 billion.

Mayer--who is vice president of geographic and local … Read more

When you're running for governor and suggesting that perhaps your expertise in having run eBay will be much needed to sort out California, it is good to ensure that you have your tweets all in a row.

Some were frightfully amused that, Sarah Pompei, a spokeswoman for Meg Whitman, sent out a tweet that purported to link to an endorsement from the Deputy Sheriffs' Association of San Diego County but instead linked to the clip I have embedded.

Her tweet had read: "SD Cnty Sheriff Assoc says @Whitman2010 4 gov! RT: @Murphy4MegNews: CA Cops get it: Jerry Brown … Read more

For a few days this month, with midterm election season heating up, the Internet's army of bored office drones cast aside their usual YouTube fodder of strangely-behaving cats and all things lip-synced and Auto-Tuned. They turned instead to what may or may not have been a completely serious political campaign ad: fresh-faced Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell took to the airwaves, and to the Web, with a spot that began with the proclamation, "I'm not a witch."

There's a backstory, of course. As an evangelical Christian activist appearing on the 1990s talk show "… Read more

The Tech CEO Council, a group made up of top industry CEOs, including Dell's Michael Dell, Intel's Paul Otellini, and Motorola's Greg Brown, has laid out an extensive plan that could help the U.S. government save $1 trillion over the next decade.

Dubbed "One Trillion Reasons," the initiative outlines seven areas where the U.S. government could cut costs or revamp its operational processes to save taxpayers money over the long term. The organization shared its findings with the Obama administration's economic team and the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

"… Read more