The Velveteen Rabbi is in Jerusalem, shopping in the Mechana Yehuda market.

[Tags: velveteen_rabbi jerusalem travel_writing ]

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Nick Sly has taxonomized the month’s best posts on “biodiversity, taxonomy, and systematics.” Some great stuff in it.

[Tags: everything_is_miscellaneous taxonomy biodiversity nick_sly ]

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Zogby is now publishing an interactive map of the US showing what its polling predicts as the electoral outcome in the fall election. Click on a state to get a brief, snappy explanation…except for Massachusetts, which isn’t clickable, possibly because what explanation do you need for it being a blue state beyond the fact that it’s Massachusetts?

[Tags: zogby polls politics massachusetts ]

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Here’s McCain’s new ad:

I think this is a losing tactic for McCain. Of course, as an Obama supporter, I’m biased. But the do-er vs. hoper idea only works if the hopeful candidate has no actual policies to offer. Then the hoper looks like a vacuous dreamer. But, over the course of the campaign, we’re going to hear lots and lots about the specifics of Obama’s platform. In fact, we’ve been getting the details for months now. For example, because McCain focused on economics this week, we’ve gotten a spate of articles comparing the two candidates’ policies. You may agree or disagree with Obama on this topic, but you can’t say he’s less detailed than McCain is.

In short, you can’t do a “Where’s the beef?” campaign when your opponent is serving up as many patties as you are. [Tags: politics mccain obama ]

One further thought: Is the generational culture war really going to work here? Obama – born in 1961 -was 7 years old during the Summer of Love.

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PC Mag has a bunch of Google tips. Some are familiar, but some were new to me. E.g., I didn’t know Google could give us transit directions.

[Tags: google ]

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Personal Democracy Forum has put together an anthology of essays on “rebooting democracy” in the age of the Net. It’s available in full on the Web (in tiny, gray type, as if they don’t want you to read it), or as PDFs, or you can pay for a printed copy.

There’s lots of good stuff in there, including a heavy representation from Berkman fellows, alumni, and friends. (Then there’s also a piece by me, defending echo chambers.) [Tags: berkman politics democracy echo_chambers ]

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Archon Fung, at Harvard’s Kennedy School, is proposing that we crowd source the fairness of the upcoming presidential election at MyFairElection.com. You can watch a 7 minute video presentation or read a brief paper.

[Tags: archon_fung myfairelection elections politics democracy fraud ]

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Great reflective post about the Global Voices Summit from Rebecca MacKinnon…

[Tags: berkman gv globalvoices rebecca_mackinnon ]

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Bloomberg reports that Mattel’s market cap, “helped by rising sales of Matchbox and Hot Wheels toy cars,” is now larger than GM’s. [Tags: mattel gm toys cars business economics ]

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As Bill Gates moves on from Microsoft, let us not forget one of his lesser-sung skills:

[Tags: bill_gates ]

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