Newsweek Cover Story Missing Critical Poll Results

Newsweek year-end issue cover story is "The Race is On" where its asking if America ready for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton as President. Or to put it another way, could America support a women or a black man as President.

The story offers historical perspective and previous historic groundwork for such a Presidential run but of course offers no real conclusions. Its a good question to ask but considering the focus of the article is on Obama and Clinton, isn't a poll that Newsweek conducted in regards to them asking who Americans would most like to see as President relevant to the discussion? Especially in light of the results indicating that at least 50% say yes for Hillary, 32% for Obama and 43% for McCain.

The poll in effect says yes America might be ready, yet its goes unpublished. Newsweek may view it as unrelated the cover story but how can it not be. I think some of the blogs see some bias, I think its just business. You have a cover story asking if America can handle a women or black President and then publish a poll that says "yep they can" it kind of makes the whole article and its cover (which helps sell the magazine) kind of moot point. In effect, reading the article becomes a waste of time. The Clinton camp has asked for an explanation, I doubt they will get one.

New Star Trek Animated Series?

Trek Movie is reporting that CBS may produce a new Star Trek animated series set in the year 2528. The series would mimic Star Wars: The Clone Saga cartoons that aired on Cartoon Network where each episode was about 6 minutes long. Whether the stories connect as those did into one larger story is not indicated.

The series takes place 150 years after Star Trek Nemesis, and about 60 years after a second Romulan War that has left the Federation devastated and fractured do to the conflict ripping holes in subspace preventing warp travel in large areas. In addition, Andoria is destroyed, Vulcans have left the Federation and the Klingon homeworld, Kronos, is still recovering from Romulan occupation. The protagonists of the whole will be Captain Alexander Chase and his crew of the Enterprise who hope to return the Federation to its glory days.

The full details are here.

Shriek The Third Teaser Trailer

Shriek the Third teaser trailer is now online and if the trailer is a true representative of the movie, then its going to be hilarious and compete toe to toe with Spider-Man 3.

click here to view the QuickTime trailer. Hopefully it will pop-up on youtube.com soon.

John McCain Declaring War on Blogs?

Think Progress is reporting that Senator and probably 2008 Presidential Republican Candidate John McCain is sponsoring legislation whose intent is to essential shut down blogs. The goal is supposedly the mitigate the influence of sex offenders, but the effect would be to make blogs illegal or at least untenable as a form of communication and conversation.

The highlights of the bill according to the article:

– Commercial websites and personal blogs “would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000.”

– Internet service providers (ISPs) are already required to issue such reports, but under McCain’s legislation, bloggers with comment sections may face “even stiffer penalties” than ISPs.

— Social networking sites will be forced to take “effective measures” — such as deleting user profiles — to remove any website that is “associated” with a sex offender. Sites may include not only Facebook and MySpace, but also Amazon.com, which permits author profiles and personal lists, and blogs like DailyKos, which allows users to sign up for personal diaries.

I am hoping this information is exaggerated or incorrect. Considering that blogs have been credited with changing the political climate against Republicans, this could be an attempt to help smooth some of the bumps for his Presidential run. However, the odds of such a bill passing committee seems remote and he has to know this so that alone makes one wonder at its validity of the existence of this bill.

Amanda Congdon On ABCNews.com Review

Amanda Congdon, formally of RocketBoom, has most definitely landed on her feet just fine as a new face for ABCNews. The result is may be a boom for ABC but for viewers its just RocketBoom redux.

Despite the vast resources and money that ABC News offers, the first (and only show to be fair) indicates that Amanda has not grown at all as a performer (for lack of a better word) using the same tired tricks that she used on Rocketboom. The same wip pans, camera jerks, jokes and stories that where Amanda's bread and butter are being repeated for this new show. She literally has taken everything she did and developed in style over at RocketBoom and just repeated it here. Nothing new has been added except an increased budget, but that increased budget has been used poorly.

In its current form, the vblog appears to be a pass but hopefully that will change as the possibilities exist for this video blog simply because its on ABCNews.com. The real question is will Amanda learn, grow and tap the possibilities or just stay in her safe place she has grown accustomed to. Time will tell.

Some Funny Video

I re-found a two funny videos over the weekend. The first is a animated video created by Bernard Derriman for the song "Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me." Great video, wish more of them where as creative as this. A larger, better and original location of this video is here.


Another video is the cast of Scrubs, a great show on NBC, dubbing over an edited version of "A Charlie Brown Christmas." They more or less follow the story line of the story but its dubbed as the characters of Scrubs with their names and personality quirks. Its funny and well done.

James Kim of CNET, TechTV, Dead at 35

CNN.com reports that James Kim has been found dead in the Oregon wilderness, likely do to exposure to the cold. His family disappeared over the Thanksgiving weekend after a snow storm hit the area he was traveling too for a vacation. A large hunt involving the national guard, local police and even a satellite was in effect that ended at 3:03pm when his body was found. James was attempting to seek help for his trapped wife and children. He may be best known by many for his work on TechTV's The Screensavers and was a tech editor for CNET.com.

James Kim
August 9, 1971 - c. December 6, 2006

Update: An update reports that an autopsy determined Kim died due to exposure and hypothermia but exactly when was not determined. In addition, CNET has posted an "In Memoriam" video and article about Kim that might be worth reading.

I am going to be interested in how This Week in Tech handles this tragic event as Kim got his start with the gang on the Screensavers on TechTV. I remember watching many of his early on screen reports. He used to run the show's "lab". Moved to a slight on screen presence with the video comments from viewers, sometimes introducing those, and finally started doing reviews and reports for the show. It was always interesting watching him as he never seemed 100% comfortable on camera but clearly enjoyed the toys he got to play with. He basically had a dream job, knew it, and that joy came through on camera.

Olbermann Special Commentary to Gingrich

Gingrich, during an event honoring free speech in New Hampshire, declared that a "different set of rules" is needed when it comes to the first amendment in the effort to fight terrorism. Interesting though that often in the attempt to counter a threat, its freedom of speech that is first to go when someone is attempting to build power also. Gingrich is no sharing these ideas in an attempt to warn the public or even any real concern over terrorism, but as a possible 2008 bid for the Presidency, apparently one in which is playing from Karl Rove's book of fear. Hopefully Gingrich's efforts at the highest office will fail in its infancy as we do not need another president who doesn't believe in the ideals of this country.

Keith Olbermann last night did another "Special Commentary" on this entire issue, taking Gingrich to task for his words, reminding him once again, as its seems to be a constant with Republicans of late, that there is more to America then fear.