Sign of Hope?

At this moment, the seventh-most emailed article from the website of The New York Times is one about an open source statistics software package called R.

Is this related to the looming departure of Bush and inauguration of Geek-in-Chief Obama? Are Americans falling in love with data-driven, reality-based analysis all over again?

On the other hand, the second-most emailed article is one about squirrels -- it's the new white meat! So maybe everyone wants to learn about R because they figure it'll help them pick better lottery numbers.

Idle Thought

If one morning, the President-elect actually did walk on top of the water across the Potomac River, Greater Wingnuttia would immediately stop calling him the Messiah. They would instead blog furiously, "Obama too elitist to swim."

(Apologies to Lyndon Johnson.)

Idle Thought

Just occurred to me when glancing at the NYT's lead story at the moment (just a throwaway candidates-on-the-trail thing): You know who we haven't seen much of at all during this campaign? Meghan McCain.

I'm sure she's been out there, but you don't see her on stage with her father (and mother), and you don't see random shots or video clips of her out on her own, the way you used to with Chelsea Clinton and that scary-eyes Romney bunch. She's young, but not that young (24, if Wikipedia is to be believed), and reasonably photogenic. I remember she was a bit of a sensation way back when, and fuss was made for about a day over the idea that's she'd be blogging(!), but since then, nothing. I wonder why.

Maybe it's just as well. How many headlines like this do we really need to see?

The same could be asked about McCain's other kids, I suppose, Jack (22), Jimmy (20), and Bridget (17), but it did seem like Meghan was initially being groomed for a role of some sort.

Idle Thought

Is Hawaii still "exotic" if Alaska is part of "regular America?"

(Inspired by.)

Idle Thought

If I were to start saying, on a regular basis …

I am unaware of any Internet traditions

… how long before it would become really annoying?

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[Added] Hey, cool! I call first! (Click image to enlarge.)