US Elections Round-Up

According to Gallup Obama has for the first-time 'a statistically significant lead'.

Al Gore the power broker

Obama's winning the fundraising battle, raising around $1m a day in January, to Clinton's $400k

Recently Consumed and Recommended

• Heart of Darkness - A Filmmaker's Apocolypse - the best 'making of' ever
  
• An Unreasonable Man - doc on Ralph Nader
  
• Shut Up and Sing - doc on the aftermath of the Dixie Chicks anti-Bush statements
  
• Podcast: Fresh Air Feb 6, 2008 - interview with Fred Kaplan, author of Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power
  
• Gary Taubes at Berkeley - webcast of a recent presentation from the author of Good Calories, Bad Calories
  
• Podcast: An interview with Thelma Schoonmaker - 30 minutes with Martin Scorsese's editor and widow of Michael Powell
  

I May Have Over-Stretched

In a recent podcast on plate tectonics, a scientist was talking about a 'Happy Idea'. It means an unproved hypothesis, an idea that appears to make perfect sense but, as yet, has no scientific evidence to back it up. I loved the phrase and so I decided to call my Universe that. Hmmm. Couple of problems:

* I am rarely described as being 'happy'
* I never have ideas

Still, gonna stick with it. 'Bang it til it breaks' as me dear old mum used to say.

Bill's Backfired

Bill Clinton should be the Ronaldo of the Clinton campaign. He should be nothing but an inspirational, energising,strategically-brilliant, experienced campaigner that every
campaign-team would die to have on its team. But have you seen him recently?

I first saw him a couple of months ago on the Charlie Rose show. And instead of the unifying, charismatic charmer that used to bring me to the brink of tears, we've got this snarly, bitter, twisted, old grey-hair. And instead of a man who represented the future, we've got a guy who seems overcome with jealousy because he's up against a
young-turk who's got the chance to be what he tried, but failed so spectacularly to be - The New JFK.