I stumbled across a blog that has an interesting comparison of the dates when news that is bad for Bush is released, and the dates when Homeland Security's issues terror warnings. It is trying to make the case that Bush is using terror alerts and warnings to knock these stories off the front page.

I'm not sure if I totally believe the evidence they are laying out. The evidence can be discredited with one simple statement:

Over the past two years, there has been a constant stream of “bad news” for President Bush. So every single terror alert or warning issued is likely to coincide within a few days with bad news.

To put this another way, there is a higher rate of drowning in Florida than in Nevada. It's not that people of Nevada are better swimmers than people in Florida... It's because Florida is surrounded by water. There is no sense looking for a conspiracy when a simpler explanation exists.

In the past two years, you have these major events that look bad for Bush:

• No weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
• The changing reasons for going to war in Iraq
• High American casualties in Iraq (almost 1,000 dead, many more injured)
• Cost of Iraq and Afghanistan ($200 billion and climbing)
• Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are still out there
• Haliburton scandals that affect VP Cheney
• Government deficits (almost $500 billion per year)
• Release of pre-9/11 intelligence that was not acted upon
• White House leaks CIA operative's name

I mean, I could go on and on for many more pages. Dozens of events have occurred in the past couple of years that look bad for Bush. So there is a high likelihood that one of those events will coincide with a terror alert.

Plus, the list also includes minor events like war protests, Kerry choosing a running mate, change in power in other countries running on anti-war platforms (Germany, Spain, etc.), pullout of troops from other countries, UN and Red Cross pull out of Iraq, etc. I mean, if you really wanted to count every possible bad event, you could make a list of hundreds of such events.

So there is no conspiracy here. Those who have read this blog before will note that I am no real great fan of Bush, but I don't think this list shows evidence of anything sinister.

I agree there are political motives behind most things any president does, this list isn't proof of them though.

A meme is defined as “an idea...  that is passed from one generation to another by nongenetic means”. So essentially, if I post an idea here, and two blogs pick up on that and post some thoughts on the topic, and four blogs pick up on those, we have a meme... a idea that spreads.

Garrett Fitzgerald's blog has an interesting experiment in meme's that I'd like to try. So here goes.

This posting is a community experiment that tests how a meme, represented by this blog posting, spreads across blogspace, physical space and time. It will help to show how ideas travel across blogs in space and time and how blogs are connected. It may also help to show which blogs (and aggregation sites) are most influential in the propagation of memes. The dataset from this experiment will be public, and can be located via Google (or Technorati) by doing a search for the GUID for this meme (below).

Please join the test by adding your blog (see instructions, below) and inviting your friends to participate -- the more the better. The data from this test will be public and open; others may use it to visualize and study the connectedness of blogspace and the propagation of memes across blogs.

The GUID for this experiment is:

as098398298250swg9e98929872525389t9987898tq98wteqtgaq62010920352598gawst

The above GUID enables anyone to easily search Google or other search engines for all blogs that participate in this experiment, once they have indexed the sites that participate, which may take several days or weeks. To locate the full data set, just search for any sites that contain this GUID.

Anyone is free to analyze the data of this experiment. Please publicize your analysis of the data, and/or any comments by adding comments onto the original post (see URL above). (Note: it would be interesting to see a geographic map or a temporal animation, as well as a social network map of the propagation of this meme.)

INSTRUCTIONS

To add your blog to this experiment, copy this entire posting to your blog, and then answer the questions below, substituting your own information, below, where appropriate. Other than answering the questions below, please do not alter the information, layout or format of this post in order to preserve the integrity of the data in this experiment (this will make it easier for searchers and automated bots to find and analyze the results later).

REQUIRED FIELDS (Note: Replace the answers below with your own answers)

(1) I found this experiment at URL: http://blog.donnael.com/

(2) I found it via "Newsreader Software" or "Browsing the Web" or "Searching the Web" or "An E-Mail Message": Newsreader Software

(3) I posted this experiment at URL: http://www.mydemos.com/blog

(4) I posted this on date (day/month/year): 04/08/04

(5) I posted this at time (24 hour time): 16:00

(6) My posting location is (city, state, country): Toronto, Ontario, Canada

OPTIONAL SURVEY FIELDS:

(7) My blog is hosted by: CardinalFactor.net

(8) My age is: 35

(9) My gender is: Male

(10) My occupation is: Developer

(11) I use the following RSS/Atom reader software: http://saucereader.com/

(12) I use the following software to post to my blog: http://dasblog.net/

(13) I have been blogging since (day, month, year): 08/01/02

(14) My web browser is: IE 6

(15) My operating system is: Windows XP

I start my day off at work every day by heading to Daily Dose of Imagery and looking at the beautiful photo of the day. Often, I use that picture as my Windows wallpaper for the day (right-click, Set As Background). It helps that the photographer lives in Toronto, like me, and I often recognize the streets and buildings in the pictures.

It's interesting to me that some of the most mundane subjects make beautiful pictures (a brick wall, a streetcar, a bug...)

Or, alternately titled, “How A Young Guy Like Rory Blyth Got Such A Cool Job At Microsoft”.

Remember when you were young, and your parents used to tell you, “You can be anything you want to be”. Well, that's largely true. You could fill a small country with people who have transcended their poor upbringing to make a substantial contribution to society, and people who come from rich upbringings who manage to screw up to become nothing. At the age of 5, the range of possibilities is endless.

But as you get older, your ability to be “anything” starts to shrink. If you aren't an up-and-coming politician by the age of 25, you will not become president. If you didn't quit college to start a company, you will not become Bill Gates. Almost every person you can think of who has become something great got there gradually. You can't wake up when you're 40, broke and unemployed, and decide you want to become president. It won't happen.

So when I heard that 26-year old Rory Blyth accepted a job as an MSDN Presenter, his dream job, I was not surprised. He has been leading an outstanding life as a consultant for the last couple of years, and this career move is the next logical step for him.

His blog entry on the topic is quite insightful. He has reached a point at 26 that I am reaching at 35, which is a bit disturbing. Basically, “Consulting is great, but it's tough not staying anywhere for long. Most times I am working on small and inconsequential stuff such as a new report, or a new web page. But there are so many other things I never get to do. Money isn't everything.”

It's interesting to see how he did not simply sit back and let fate decide what happened to his career. While still in school, he was hard at work getting real programming experience. He wrote online articles, hosted radio shows, travelled to conferences and gave presentations. As he says in his blog entry, his net income this year was “basically zero” if you factor out all the other expenses he personally paid to develop his career. Most other people do not put a similar amount of time, energy and money into their own careers, and languish somewhere as a result.

You know those people who have been at the same job for 5 years and hate it? Those people who would not dare work past 5:00pm and don't even want to think about anything possibly work related off-hours? They are the ones who expect others to direct their career and get nowhere as a result. While those that take training on their own time, get certifications, read books, go to seminars, etc, are sitting in the driver's seat.

So, if you're a teenager or in your early twenties, and are wondering how to get ahead in life, here's the great secret. “Get started now.” There is no better time than now. Don't believe for a second that if you have a job you hate, that in a couple of years things will magically get better. It is better to suffer the short-term discomfort of lower pay, for long-term happiness. The only way situations resolve the way you want them to is to resolve them yourself.

Oh yeah, I realize now that the people of Washington, D.C. are not alone. There are millions of Americans that aren't allowed to vote... residents of Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico.

A few months ago, an online tool told me Al Sharpton was the closest presidental candidate to my views. I was shocked, as I would never have guessed. Tonight I heard Rev. Sharpton speak on TV from the Democratic National Convention, and I must say I was extremely impressed. Supposedly, he did not use the speech that was displayed on the teleprompter, which impressed me even more.

The funny thing is, afterwards political commentators on CNN were frothing at the mouth over this “unscripted” event. They were downright giddy. And their main focus was how this was somehow bad for Kerry and the Democrats. I mean, I just heard the most interesting and moving speech in ages, and CNN was calling it bad for Kerry. I say it was good for Kerry.

Now I sit here watching John Edwards stumble over his words. He's chanting “Hope is on the way”. That's the stupidest slogan I have ever heard. Hope is on the way? Hope? I have to tell you, if the Democrats are pinning their success on providing “hope” to people, they're going to lose in November. Why don't they just print signs saying “We'll try”, or “I think we can”.

Finally, I was surprised to learn that residents of Washington, D.C. do not have the right to vote. That's so ironic. Even Alanis Morrisette would agree.

For the last nine years, I have been paying my local newspaper (The Toronto Star) $14 a month for twice-a-week delivery (Saturdays and Sundays). I'm finally at a point where I can cancel my newspaper delivery for good. There are no more reasons to get it any more.

It's not like I read the paper. I rarely have the kind of time to spend the 45 minutes or so it takes to flip through a newspaper and read the interesting content within.

The only three reasons I subscribe to a newspaper are:

1. Comic strips
2. Movie listings
3. TV guide

For this, I have been paying $14 a month. I no longer need #1 - I visit www.dilbert.com to get my fix. I no longer need #2 - my cell phone, for gosh sakes, has movie listings when I need it. And I visit www.toronto.com to get listings when I am home.

That leaves the TV guide. That's a tough problem to get around - my wife watches a lot of TV and likes to read the TV listings to let her know what interesting things will be on. (Basically, she plans her TV watching in advance.) Now, the digital cable box gives TV listings, and so does Channel 5 -- but those only show what is on now, not what is on next Wednesday. I could go to www.zap2it.com, but my wife doesn't use the Internet and even find the online services awkward and inconvenient. They are not easy to use.

That leaves TV Guide. Either you need to pay $1.50 at a retail store to get it (no cheaper than the newspaper), or get it delivered to your home for $.90 a week. It seems a bit expensive for what it is -- about $.10 of paper, plus $.20 of postage.

Many, many companies have access to this TV listings data. TiVo, zap2it, Channel 5, my digital cable box, newspapers... I wonder how much it would cost to get access to this data. Would people be willing to get a PDF file via email with a weeks worth of TV listings, ready to be printed? For $0.25 a week or $12 a year? I would pay for such a service - print the listings for my wife or leave it by the TV.

The Internet is all about giving people access to information on their terms. Magazines such as TV Guide, which are simply repositories for information, should be prime targets. It can be done better. Maybe I should try to do it better?