As Jim Treacher quipped on Twitter last month, that whole “‘Obama is a megalomaniac’ thing is such a ridiculous right-wing smear. By the way, now he wants to take over the weather.”

In the latest edition of Silicon Graffiti, (coming to you this week from Space Station V in geosynchronous orbit high above my garage in Northern California, the only place I could find high enough to avoid being buzzed by Air Force One), we’ll explore the proposal that  John Holdren, the president’s new science advisor, put on the table last month.

As the AP wrote at the time:

The president’s new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth’s air.John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.

“It’s got to be looked at,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table.”

Indeed they’re not, and Holdren’s peculiar pollution particle plan is just one of several risky geoengineering schemes ideas that scientists are kicking around to stop global warming. Even though,  As the London Telegraph noted at the end of last year, “2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a ‘scientific consensus’ in favour of man-made global warming collapsed.”

But then, as a Rasmussen poll noted last month, only 34 percent of American voters now believe that global warming is manmade, but 48 percent of the “Political Class”, as Rasmussen puts it, do.

Which may explain why Editor & Publisher, the house organ for the newspaper industry ran an essay in 2007 titled, “Climate Change: Get Over Objectivity, Newspapers.”

Of course, as they’re coverage of the 2008 presidential election reminds us, newspapers have gotten over objectivity on every issue under the sun.

So turn on your telescreen and enjoy six minutes or so of orbital insanity — which could very well be coming to your a galaxy near you, if President Obama’s science advisor has his way.

And for 30 or so previous editions of Silicon Graffiti, click here and keep scrolling.

Historian Robert Conquest’s Third Law of Politics posits:

“The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.”

Malcolm Muggeridge’s Law explains that “there is no way that a writer of fiction can compete with real life for its pure absurdity.”

Hence, the P.U.M.A., the new vehicle that General Motors (or Government Motors as many are calling it these days) has teamed up with Segway to produce. It’s Iowahawk’s infamous Pelosi GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition from November of last year come to life; (the video of which was used by permission of the Burge For Auto Czar Coaltion) despite the fact that (a) most Americans continue to buy large cars and (b) the Segway hasn’t exactly been a top-seller, despite the hype from over-eager journalists in search of a new story. (Err, like this fellow about five minutes before he started his blog in early 2002…)

This is our 30th edition of Silicon Graffiti; click here and keep scrolling through the archives for plenty of free-wheeling video action, burning down the Information Super Highway at a blazing 30 frames per second!

Related: Don Surber notes that in automobile-unfriendly New York City, “tree-huggers go to an auto show to show off their moral superiority.” Meanwhile, regarding the P.U.M.A., “Rest assured, the blur effect was Photoshopped.” Gentlemen, start your Evereadies!

More: “GM prepares bankruptcy filing, with $70B taxpayer pricetag.”

Update: Heh! Found in the comments to this post, GM is apparently testing the P.U.M.A. for military applications…

Last weekend, we witnessed the yin and the yang of contemporary liberalism: on Saturday March 28th, we were hectored about our energy use, in the form of the anti-progress “Earth Hour.” On Saturday March 29th, the CEO of General Motors was ousted by President Obama, because he didn’t sell enough cars–the same person who told us on the campaign trail a year ago that we can’t keep driving our SUVs and consuming the energy we do.

Confused? Don’t worry; the federal government has trained therapists standing by to relieve your stress!

This is the 29th edition of Silicon Graffiti (complete with a new look for the opening credits); click here and start scrolling for lots more video action. At least until the pitchforks arrive, and your humble narrator is replaced by a new, federally-approved host…

Update: Steve Green checks in with the new Obama-approved CEO of GM, who has everything he needs to rebuild the troubled healthcare and pension agency, that happens to build a few cars on the side–except perhaps a plan. Or as Wendy Sullivan sums things up, “Obama Administration undermines auto industry.” But from the perspective of the POTUS with the TOTUS, is that a feature or a bug?

(Bumped to top.)

On February 10th, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) went into effect, impacting thrift stores throughout the nation, as this February news report from an Omaha TV station highlights. CPSIA was originally passed to reduce and ideally eliminate lead paint in toys, but it’s had sweeping repercussions. Used clothes have been removed from shelves for fear of lead in zippers, and even motorbike sales have been curtailed–apparently the writers of CPSIA were worried that teenagers would eat their bikes’ handlebars, or something. And sales of these various products have plummeted, during a time when the nation needs all the help it can get re-strengthening its economy

But perhaps the most worrisome aspect of CPSIA is that it’s led to books being banned. Lead in printers’ inks wasn’t outlawed until 1985; so books published in 1984 or earlier have had to be removed from used book sellers’ shelves, and even some libraries. And don’t think booksellers haven’t noticed the ominous sound of that cut-off date:



The latest edition of our Silicon Graffiti videoblog explores the impact of CPSIA, featuring a snippet of my PJM Political interview with Walter Olson of Overlawyered.com, as he discusses his recent City Journal article, titled “The New Book Banning.” It contrasts the Brave New World nanny state feel of CPSIA with earlier warnings that our history and culture might eventually start to shrink, such as George Orwell’s 1984, and naturally enough, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

Fortunately, at least for now, Big Brother is still allowing us to remain on the air–this is our 28th edition of Silicon Graffiti; click here and start scrolling for the previous segments.

Somehow I wound up on Right Wing News’ “The Top 10 Conservative Video Bloggers” list.  And I’m in some pretty good company with both the other nine video bloggers and the honorary mentions (including Michelle Malkin, who’s “Vent” video blogs in 2006 and 2007 inspired my own efforts). Check out the complete list here, and my own videos by clicking here.

After all of the recent political and media bias Silicon Graffiti videos, I wanted to do something in a lighter vein, so here’s (hopefully) a fun overview of Twitter. No doubt, hard care power Tweeters (yes, it’s supposed to sound silly) will chide me for leaving out whatever this week’s killer app of the century is, but I’ve tried to make something enjoyable for both newcomers and veteran users of Twitter.

From a Twittering Barack Obama to Hugh Hewitt and all points in between, we go deep inside your computer and try to make sense of Twitter.

Featuring:

• Doctors tweeting a live medical operation?
• “Obama’s Tech Twit Conference Will Destroy Us All” (and for much more on that topic, check out Breitbart.tv).
• Video Tweeting on 12.seconds.TV.
• Hugh Hewitt decodes hashtags.
• Lisa Nova tweets into hyperspace!
• Meredith Viera’s Jack Paar moment.
• And more!

Click here to follow us on Twitter, and here to check out our previous 26 or so prior editions of Silicon Graffiti.

Ronald Reagan began his political career as an FDR supporter. Beginning in the 1960s, he took to using FDR’s iconic “Rendezvous with Destiny” phrase in many of his most important speeches. But these days, it’s looking like the next few years—maybe even a big chunk of the next decade—could very well be a rendezvous with scarcity.

As we note in the latest edition of our Silicon Graffiti video blog, it didn’t start with the financial crisis of September of 2008.  Flashback to:

A division of General Electric spending millions of dollars of valuable television airtime to encourage consumers not to use light bulbs, one of GE’s chief products.

A future president telling potential voters they can’t heat their homes and drive large cars to the degree they’ve become accustomed, and a former president saying, “We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.”

Well, Mission Accomplished, Bill!

Plus calls for the New, New Deal, back when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was well over 12,000 points, and Tom Brokaw begging the president (even before he took office) for four dollar gas–consumers be damned!

You and I have a rendezvous with scarcity—a destiny that for some is already here, and for the rest of us may be arriving all-too soon. Because a surprisingly wide swatch of the nation’s elite apparently wants us to have just that.

(Assuming your broadband isn’t too scarce, click here for a couple of dozen previous editions of Silicon Graffiti.)

Recently, Charles Johnson and his readers debated if CNN ran faked footage of an attempted resuscitation of a wounded young boy in a Gaza hospital, in a video supplied by a Palestinian stringer. CNN initially pulled their video, and a day later reinserted it into their lineup, claiming:

Responding to accusations that the resuscitation efforts of Mashharawi’s brother appeared inauthentic, Martin said that, based on his years of reporting from Gaza, doctors often go through such efforts even with little hope that a patient can be saved.

Charles Johnson responded:

If they really had “little hope” the patient could be saved, they’d be going all out with CPR, which means very vigorous chest compression (it’s not unusual to break ribs if it’s done right), and ventilation to oxygenate the blood–not delicately touching the boy’s abdomen with the tips of their fingers as we see in the video clips.

But if the jury is still out on that clip, let’s take a video look at news from this decade that we know conclusively was botched, including:

• The New Republic’s Danger Man, Scott Thomas Beauchamp.
• Reuters’ Picture Kill fiasco.
• Former CNN chief Eason Jordan claimed US (and Israeli) troops targeted journalists For assassination–but was surprisingly cool about working with Saddam Hussein.
• Hurricane Katrina and the “Echo Chamber in the Superdome.”
• Document Dan Rather.
• Jayson Blair.
• And the grandfather of ‘em all: Walter “Boom Boom” Duranty.

Keep rockin’–and watch for cameos by Larry Kudlow, Hugh Hewitt, and John Hinderaker!

(If you missed any of the previous editions of Silicon Graffiti, click here and just keep scrolling.)

Update: Welcome readers (viewers?) from Little Green Footballs, VodkaPundit, the Brothers Judd and Danny Glover!

More: Welcome also readers from Pundits Insta and Gateway–and from Dr. Melissa Clouthier.

With a revival of the Fairness Doctrine making ripples in the news, we at Silicon Graffiti HQ know that it’s important to diversify our video blogging. Last year, we explored the Top Ten Gaffes from Hillary Clinton. So in the name of Fairness, we’re listing the chief gaffes of the winners of the 2008 presidential election as well.

Thrill to President-Elect Barack Obama in defense of high gas prices (when those prices were nearing their peak) and spreading the wealth–to all 57 states! And of course…The Top Ten Gaffes of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., demonstrating the continuing viability of Seinfeldian Opposite Theory in action.

Believe me, it wasn’t easy culling the list down to ten, especially when this late entrant came in over the transom this weekend. But even if you’ve drunk deep the Oba-Kool-Aid, hopefully you’ll enjoy what’s here.

(Bumped to top. Incidentally, for many more videos, start here and keep scrolling.)

One reader emailed that he wasn’t able to view my “In Dodd We Trust?” video earlier in the week apparently because of bandwidth issues. If you’ve had similar problems, that video is now up on my YouTube page. (The higher res, higher bandwidth version is still available here.)

And if you received a DV camera in your stocking today and want to put it to work, I have an article that recently went live on Videomaker magazine’s Website on the rudiments of videoblogging titled “Medium Cool: Launching Your Own Video Blog.”

In his 2001 book, The CEO of the Sofa, P.J. O’Rourke wrote:

The founding fathers, in their wisdom, devised a method by which our republic can take 100 of its most prominent numskulls and keep them out of the private sector where they might do actual harm.

But of course, with every new bailout, the Senate is becoming further and further intertwined with the public sector, and doing increasing harm. As Frank Martin noted in a recent post on his Varifrank blog, “This is how it ends. As of right now, the Senate IS the banking system“:

You just try prying the banking system from the hands of the Senate now. You want a loan? Sure, lets just check your voting record, lets see what kind of car you want to buy, oh darn its not a certified government “greenmobile”, well sorry Mr. Consumer, we can’t give you a loan for that new Toyota Dual Axle truck for your ranch, but how about a new Chevy Cobalt Hybrid? Sure thing. Sign right here Mr. Consumer.

SNAP! That’s just how easy it is for you to find that you no longer have any economic choices. No banks – then no bank loans. No bank loans – then no economy. In point of fact, your entire economy is now run by just 100 people. 100 people that if most of us were in an elevator and any one of them got on, we would then get off and walk up the rest of the building rather than risk our well being by exposed to their close proximity.

Hence the subject of my newest Silicon Graffiti, which begins with a parody of Charles Schwab’s 2007 ad campaign (with a little help from the cartoon plug-in from After Effects CS4) before exploring the auto bailout, and the banking bailout. And the good old days (by comparison), when Congress would look at a giant corporation and decide the best way to break it up, not prop it up. When it was wasn’t defaulting on its own debts, of course.

And along the way, a look back at some early warnings from the 1990s, and going even further back, a flashback from Vice President Elect Joe Biden to President Abraham Roosevelt Franklin Washington’s early televised fireside chats from the 1860s. And a timely paraphrase of the Bard of Springfield.

This is our 23rd edition of Silicon Graffiti ,which began in January of this year–you can explore the back catalog by starting these numbers.

(Also posted at Right Wing News, where I’m one of several guest bloggers this week.)

Welcome viewers and listeners of Cam Edwards of NRA News–you can watch the video comparing and contrasting two very different television news reports of elderly vets attacked that we were discussing right here.

I originally produced the above clip, “Mugging For The Camera,” back in early April as part of my Silicon Graffiti series of videoblogs, and uploaded it first to my primary video server, where I posted it here and it got a fair chunk of traffic in the Blogosphere. I then uploaded it to YouTube for hosting on my page there.

Last year, one of the subjects of the video, television reporter Rebecca Aguilar, then with Dallas-based KDFW, received a firestorm of attention (here’s our post, which links to others) for her badgering tone when attempting to interview an elderly Army vet whose business was robbed on multiple occasions, and fought back. (She was eventually let go by the station.)

In late March, when a TV station in northern California reported in a rather upbeat manner about the bravery of another elderly vet who fought back rather than be mugged, it seemed to be quite a contrast to the report that aired in Dallas.

As part of my Silicon Graffiti video series, I wanted to place those two video clips side by side, as well as include comments made by other journalists and bloggers, such as the proprietors of Breitbart.TV (who are local television vets themselves), and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com, all of which was clearly within the context of fair use.

On November 18, the page containing the above video was the subject of a DMCA take-down notice sent to YouTube by KDFW. YouTube, quite appropriately, took down the video and sent me a copy of the notice. My wife and attorney sent a counter notice, and after waiting the appropriate time, YouTube restored the content earlier this evening with a note that my account would not be penalized, which means that this won’t count against me on YouTube’s “repeat offender” list.

As others have noted, YouTube is quick to pull videos whenever there’s a whiff of controversy or a dispute regarding them. But I’m glad to see this video back up–to the best of my knowledge, it’s the only record available on YouTube at the moment of newscaster Rebecca Aguilar’s original report, the others having been removed due to KDFW’s objections. (See here, here and here.) But it’s also a reminder not to rely on the site as your primary or, especially, your only video host.

I hadn’t planned it this way when I started working on the new video late last week, but the timing of Monday’s news of fresh disaster from old media makes the latest Silicon Graffiti remarkably timely.

But first, let’s define the title.

From Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass:

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you run very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”

“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

Back in early 2007, I started wondering if the accelerating decline of print newspaper readership, media advertising revenues, and the upcoming election year were creating a strange new tone in the media. And near the tail-end of an election year in which the media weren’t afraid to let you know who to vote for–and who they were voting for–Michael Malone of ABC and Pajamas Media wrote:

Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you’ve spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power . . . only to discover that you’re presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn’t have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you’ll lose your job before you cross that finish line, ten years hence, of retirement and a pension.

In other words, you are facing career catastrophe -and desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if you have to risk everything on a single Hail Mary play. Even if you have to compromise the principles that got you here. After all, newspapers and network news are doomed anyway – all that counts is keeping them on life support until you can retire.

And then the opportunity presents itself: an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career. With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived Fairness Doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe, be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.

And besides, you tell yourself, it’s all for the good of the country . . .

So here’s a look at how the media got there, beginning in sepia toned 1926 when mass media was born with the first radio networks, all the way to the days of the Web, the Blogosphere, and the surprising impact Craigslist has had on classified advertising revenue–and a look at declining newspaper advertising in general.

This accelerating downward spiral has completed unnerved much of old media–to the point where a newspaper in a city once known 160 years ago for its residents’ spectacular success at mining for gold completely overlooked the solid gold story dropped into their laps, helping to create a remarkably holographic presidential candidate.

(For 21 or so older Silicon Graffiti videos, click here and keep scrolling. And a special thanks to my friend Jenifer Toksvig for doing such a terrific job of recording the opening narration.)

In the latest edition of Silicon Graffiti, I take a look at anger in American politics. The title derives from the nifty book on the topic by Peter Wood, whom I interviewed near the end of the 2008 election for PJM Political.

Look for:

• The exterminating Olbermann!

• Terry Tate, sacking Sarah!
• Dehumanizing bumper stickers!
  
• Code Pink has a plan to stick it to the man!

• Open Mic Night!
• Shocking signs!
• The don’t taze me bro!
• Five Easy Pieces!
• America’s favorite ex-Weatherman!
• And the world’s favorite Teutonic terror tyke!

The Five Easy Pieces clip, which Wood deconstructs in the above video is a tremendous touchstone of early 1970s anger. I had planned to connect it to this passage from David Frum’s 2000 book on the 1970s, How We Got Here, but it would have taken the video above the YouTube-friendly ten minute cut-off mark. Of course, there are so many examples of anger run amok from the 2008 campaign, that this video could have run infinitely longer than that. (There’s a reason why Michelle Malkin’s 2005 book on the topic ran for 256 pages.)

For previous Silicon Graffiti videos, click here and just keep scrolling.

Just received my copy of the December issue of Videomaker magazine, which contains my Camcorder Buyer’s Guide 2008–complete with a cameo appearance by James Lileks, fresh off documenting hecklers at the GOP convention for the Strib.

(For what to aim those camcorders at–besides protests and hecklers–click here.)

While I making the expected post-election inspection tour of NRO’s Corner, I spotted this sad news from Ian Murray:

Michael Crichton has died “unexpectedly,” with reports suggesting a private struggle against cancer. may he rest in peace. He was one of the few people publicly interested in science with the courage to speak out against the direction environmental politics had pushed it. All who want to honor his memory should read his Caltech speech, Aliens cause global warming.

In addition to having the courage to dissent against the near-monolithic global warming orthodoxy, he also managed to do a pretty good job of predicting the future of the legacy media in 1993. As Jack Shafer wrote back in May in Slate:

In 1993, novelist Michael Crichton riled the news business with a Wired magazine essay titled “Mediasaurus,” in which he prophesied the death of the mass media–specifically the New York Times and the commercial networks. “Vanished, without a trace,” he wrote.

The mediasaurs had about a decade to live, he wrote, before technological advances–”artificial intelligence agents roaming the databases, downloading stuff I am interested in, and assembling for me a front page”–swept them under. Shedding no tears, Crichton wrote that the shoddy mass media deserved its deadly fate.

“[T]he American media produce a product of very poor quality,” he lectured. “Its information is not reliable, it has too much chrome and glitz, its doors rattle, it breaks down almost immediately, and it’s sold without warranty. It’s flashy but it’s basically junk.”

* * *
As we pass his prediction’s 15-year anniversary, I’ve got to declare advantage Crichton. Rot afflicts the newspaper industry, which is shedding staff, circulation, and revenues. It’s gotten so bad in newspaperville that some people want Google to buy the Times and run it as a charity! Evening news viewership continues to evaporate, and while the mass media aren’t going extinct tomorrow, Crichton’s original observations about the media future now ring more true than false. Ask any journalist.

Call it, “The End of Journalism.” That’s what Victor Davis Hanson did recently, whom I interviewed on today’s edition of PJM Political on XM, about his latest essay, in which he wrote, “Sometime in 2008, journalism as we knew it died, and advocacy media took its place.”

All of which were the themes of a June edition of Silicon Graffiti:, which paired my thoughts on Crichton with another pair of futurists, Alvin and Heidi Toffler:

Welcome Mark Steyn and Brothers Judd readers.

I knocked this one together pretty quickly last night; I thought the speech by David Strathairn as Edward R. Murrow certainly takes on some interesting nuances when combined with the stories his self-styled successors chose to ignore or downplay in an election year. And what mediation on the thoughts of Morrow wouldn’t be complete without a cameo from longtime Reebok spokesbacker, Terry Tate?

(Bumped to top–welcome Brothers Judd and Dirty Harry’s Place fans.)

Both my prerecorded Silicon Graffiti video blog and PJTV, Pajamas’ live Internet TV coverage out of L.A. use virtual sets, and this new article of mine at Videomaker magazine explains how they work. (This demo reel for Adobe’s Ultra 2 product is a pretty good video intro in and of itself.)

Of course, first you need a green screen–but that’s a topic I explored at Videomaker last year.

In March of 2007, the election campaign essentially began when a consultant for Sen. Obama released this Apple 1984 mashup, which quickly went viral with over five a half million views:

Yesterday, a blogger at Red State brought things full circle:





But then, I’m rather partial to 1984-inspired videos:

And welcome to the readers of “Dirty Harry’s” film blog, who have some kind words to say about our latest production.

Update: More fun from Airstrip One, here.