ShortFormBlogJune 27, 2011

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We’ve all said we would vote for the full faith and credit of the United States to be honored by voting for this increase in the debt ceiling. If they don’t want to do taxes, maybe they don’t want to do anything.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi • Pointing her finger at Republicans — emphasizing that if nothing’s done about the debt ceiling situation (because they aren’t willing to raise taxes), it will greatly hurt them. The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait suggests that this is a power play on Pelosi’s part; if the Republicans can’t make a deal with Obama, it’s likely to damage the economy in such a way that a) it will hurt Republicans and b) it will hurt Obama. One group it won’t hurt, however, is House Democrats — meaning that they’d get some much-needed leverage in 2012 and Pelosi will no longer be an afterthought. This is what we call game theory. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 Jun 2011 14:27

57% the share of China’s microbloggers that use Sina Weibo — a Chinese Twitter clone; that’s roughly 140 million users (compared to Twitter’s roughly 200 million worldwide)
87% the share of China’s total microblogging activity that goes through Sina Weibo; not bad for a former Yahoo-like portal site that’s stretching its wings source

» This is pretty huge. China has more internet users than any other country, and Sina is dominating their microblogging market. They’re trying to make themselves more than just China’s Twitter, though; they want to add more Facebook-like features as well. But that won’t be easy. Competition is fierce, because no single social media site dominates and the company faces strong competition from RenRen and Tencent. On top of that, though, Sina has to police its users and censor them if they’re talking against the government — something Twitter doesn’t have to do. Regardless, this sort of outside-in social media cloning is pretty fascinating to us.

Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

Guilty as charged? Rod Blagojevich may learn his fate later this afternoon. About a year ago, Blagojevich, accused of trying to appoint a senator to replace Obama’s senate seat that would help him personally, went to trial for similar reasons. However, the jury at that time could only make up their minds on two of the charges (see the Red Eye cover, via Flickr user quinn.anya, above). It’s not because of a lack of evidence, however: Federal regulators secretly began recording Blagojevich’s phone calls after Obama’s presidential win, after getting word that the former Illinois governor was scheming for campaign contributions, a cabinet post, or even a new job in exchange for appointing someone to Obama’s former senate seat. We’ll see where this one goes — a partial verdict should come out at 1 p.m. Central time. source

Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

A case of local government overreach? In San Francisco, officials are pushing a bill that bans the sale of pets. Say whaaaaaaaaaaa? See, The Humane Pet Acquisition Proposal merely started out as a bill banning the sale of dogs and cats produced in puppy mills or kitten factories — as part of a push to improve adoption numbers. (Which is actually a pretty good idea, if you think about it.) But suddenly, the bill’s scope broadened dramatically, and now includes pretty much any type of pet you can buy in a store — from goldfish to gerbils, bunnies to birds. However, the bill has a pretty big loophole: If you plan to buy a live animal for the purposes of eating, a law already on the books allows that. So, just claim that it’s rabbit season and that you plan to eat Bugs Bunny, and you should be fine. (photo via flickr user blmurch) source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink