I’ve been silent recently due to being deep within a couple of projects. One is a new project at Platinum Blue and the other is a new web platform created by my friend Marcos Cuevas that is about to launch.

It’s called Layers and it will be in private beta for a few weeks starting in early December and users will be allowed in on a first come first serve basis.

If you want to be among the first, go to www.layers.com and sign up using the code: create1108

Imagine if you could pull a transparent layer over any webpage and then you could create upon it. You could annotate, draw graffiti, embed video, photos or do whatever you want. Then, by providing a link, others could see your layer (with the original content beneath it) and you could see layers created by other people. You could follow your friends and see all the layers they create. You could go to any webpage and see any of the layers that have been created over that site.

Imagine if bloggers, instead of just posting to their blog, we’re actually posting on layers they’d created on top of other websites. That would be pretty amazing, wouldn’t it?

What if a blogger who reviews sportswear were to go to LeadingShoeCompany.com and created a layer on top of the page where The Leading Shoe Company is introducing a new running shoe and the layer said something like, “I tried this shoe. I hated it. I recommend the new Competing Shoe Company running shoe instead.”

I’ll be posting more on this in the coming days.

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What the hell? It’s only smart because you let yourselves be duped! Essentially, you’re saying, “The Republicans are smart because we’re dumb and predictable and easily manipulated.”

One comes to expect spin from the campaigns. You know the campaigns will exaggerate. You expect, to a certain extent, that there will be name-calling. “He’s a liberal!” “She’s unqualified!” Subjective points are to be debated and that’s all good.

The media needs to wise up when it comes to lies. If you’re going to provide sports-like commentary on presidential campaigns then you ought to enforce sports-like rules. If a candidate cheats, lies, deceives and sacrifices their integrity they should be disqualified and kicked out of the race. Come on journalists!!! Kick McCain and Palin out! Stop taking the bait and covering a story that you’re being fed. How is that the role of the fourth estate? Pathetic! That’s how we got the country into this mess.

So today, instead of disqualifying these candidates you are falling all over yourselves talking about how smart the Republicans are: You are saying it was it smart of McCain to smear Obama by accusing Obama of smearing when he clearly wasn’t.

You are saying it was smart of Palin to lie by saying she has a record of being against earmarks when she got more earmark dollars per capita than any state in the country.

You’re saying it was smart to lie by saying she shut down the bridge to nowhere when she really kept much of the money!

You’re saying it was smart to lie about vetoing half a billion dollars of wasteful spending when in reality she was forced to reinstate almost all of that spending after realizing the importance of the programs she’d cut. Isn’t that actually a story about bad judgment?

Come on media! If a candidate lies about their record, the opposition or the issues you need to disqualify them. Make lying political suicide!! You have the power to do that and you would serve the American people infinitely more if you did.

The media makes telling lies a winning strategy.

He had an important impact on 20th century America. His “Seven Dirty Words” routine was central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a 5-4 decision by the justices affirmed the government’s right to regulate certain language on TV and radio. With slightly less importance, he was also the first person to host Saturday Night Live.

On June 18, 2008 The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced it would honor Carlin for his 50-year career as a stand-up comedian, writer and actor.

He was raised as a Roman Catholic faith but denounced the idea of God, in his “Invisible Man in the Sky” and “There Is No God” routines. He also expressed his disbelief in God in interviews. He invented the parody religion Frisbeetarianism for a newspaper contest. He defined it as the belief that when a person dies “his soul gets flung onto a roof, and just stays there”, and cannot be retrieved.

He once said that he worshiped the Sun, because he could actually see it, but prayed to Joe Pesci (a real life friend) because “he’s a good actor”, and “looks like a guy who can get things done!”

Carlin also introduced the “Two Commandments”, a revised “pocket-sized” list of the Ten Commandments in his HBO special Complaints and Grievances, ending with the additional commandment of “Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.” (source: Wikipedia)

Below is an excerpt of one of his routines where he describes himself as a modern man. Below that is his tongue-in-cheek essay on why voters have no right to complain about the public officials they elect.

The first one is from tonight’s broadcast. It’s about the truckers’ strike. Here in the US we’re having a hard time coming to terms with $4.00 for a gallon of gas. In Spain they’re paying $6.80!! And for Europe that’s still cheap!

This next one is from a few days ago and is about the fishing industry in northern Spain protesting the price of fuel.

Someone please take this camera away from me!! No, seriously!

Of this whole Scott McClellan affair there is one fact that particularly stands out to me. In order to raise the argument that Scott McClellan may be disgruntled the mainstream television media is pointing out that he was “forced out” of the White House back in April 2006. My question is, why didn’t the mainstream television media tell us that at the time?

I remember back around that time Bush’s new chief of staff Joshua Bolton told the White House staff that if they were going to be thinking about leaving in the near term they would do well to make the decision “now”. Then there were a few people who left, among them McClellan. At that time, if one read the blogs or dug into the analysis pieces it was discussed that Bolton was forcing some people out. There’s nothing wrong with that. He had been given authority over staffing hiring and firing. But why did the mainstream media have to be complicit in protecting the concocted story of McClellan deciding to leave the White House on his own? Why can’t mainstream television media level with the American people and report what is really going on instead of towing the line? Is it some sort of loyalty to Scott McClellan and his face-saving departure that he and the White House seemed to orchestrate at the time?

Sure, that’s nice but it’s not “doing their job” and now it has sort of backfired given that now he’s written this scathing book and his unhappiness with the way he was let go is being mentioned by some as a possible motive. I’m sure that for most Americans this is new news and to me that’s inexcusable.

Lastly, given Scott McClellan’s role in selling the war to the public and his criticism of the media not having done it’s job of asking the tough questions, I think he should go to work for the public by becoming an uncompromising, hard hitting investigative journalist working to expose the same sort of deception he was a part of. Given the lives and treasure this war has cost the country isn’t it the least he could do? He should do the work pro bono and donate the proceeds of his book to the cause of starting to make amends. Sure, it’s nice that he’s stepping up by telling the truth. That’s something more of this administration’s past and current members should do. But it’s not enough. Shouldn’t that come with hard consequences? Instead it’s coming with book sales!

On May 9, 2008 Platinum Blue’s Music Xray™ was a central part of the story line on the CBS television series Numb3rs. As we’ve seen before in the NBC series Studio 60: On The Sunset Strip, Platinum Blue makes for good and interesting drama. Music Xray is not always portrayed accurately but that’s part of the dramatization.

In this episode of Numb3rs (called “Pay To Play”), a music label president is paying radio stations to play songs from one of the artists signed to his label in spite of the fact the public isn’t buying while on the other hand he refuses to sign an artist whose Music Xray™ scores are very high. The label owner is even paying the radio stations not to play his songs. It results in murder and intrigue.

Thankfully, in this case fiction is stranger than truth. Click on the video below to see some scenes from the show.

Having said that and as you may know, I’ve been support Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and today I’m again making donation to her campaign and if you support her I encourage you to do so as well by clicking here.

Recently I was talking with a friend who is on the fence between Hillary and Barack and he asked why I support Hillary. He has been turned off by her seeming willingness to do almost anything to get elected. My reply was that short of selling her soul, he was probably right. But what’s wrong with that? Indulge me for a moment:

We have a party and a president currently in the White House that has shown they will do anything to get elected (maybe even sell their souls). I believe they stole the 2000 election against Al Gore, ramrodded the Supreme Court and used Bush Senior’s friends to take control. As much as I love and respect him, I think Al Gore stood down too soon and didn’t show the metal you have to have against the Republicans to win.

In 2004 Bush used fear to win against John Kerry. He ran those famous swift boat ads and tarnished Kerry’s heroic service to the country in Vietnam. They basically said, “If you elect Kerry the country will not be safe”. Kerry didn’t fight back effectively.

I believe John McCain is an honorable man. But the Republican Party plays dirty and they are not going to let go of power without a serious fight. Over the last 8 years they have gerrymandered congressional districts. They ram these redistricting acts through Congress when they’re in control and the Democrats don’t undo the damage. Little by little the Republicans are reshaping the country into a conservative, backwater nation that is less free, has worse infrastructure, a less educated population and has a wider gap between the haves and have-nots than many countries in Europe and Asia. Before long it will be impossible to reverse the damage and continue to lay claim to the title of Greatest Country on Earth. They truly do “whatever it takes” to get elected and if there’s one thing the Democrats haven’t done well it’s fight back!

The Republicans misinform, play a shell game, get uninformed voters to vote for them on values issues and then use the system not to the benefit of the country but rather to the benefit of themselves and the wealthy. They do it on the backs of their own voters, the middle class and the great people in rural states who get misled into believing voting Republican is actually in their overall interest. The last two elections were winnable for the Democrats but they lost them because they won’t take off their gloves and beat the Republicans at their own game. They won’t “do what it takes to get elected”.

The Clintons have been put through hell by the Republican attack machine. They know firsthand what the Republicans are going to do to the Democrats leading up to the November general election and they know they can’t win by appealing to reason. Even though you and I respond to reason we are unfortunately a minority. Elections in this country are won on emotion and it is often about negative emotion for the other guy than positive emotion for your candidate.

Whoever the next president is they are going to inherit a VERY difficult situation both at home and abroad. Two wars, a falling dollar, rising fuel prices, a country more in debt than ever, a failing economy, a tarnished national reputation in the world community and sky-rocketing food prices that have even resulted in Costco having to ration rice! This is the legacy Bush and the Republicans have given us. The next president is going to have to know his or her stuff!!!

I’m for Hillary because she’s a fighter and won’t let the Republicans ride over her roughshod. Her policies and positions are identical to Obama’s but she’s spent 8 years in the White House and knows better than anyone in the country (who hasn’t already been president) what it’s like to be president. She’d be moving into the White House with someone who actually WAS president for 8 years – and a damn good one at that. The Clintons know the world leaders. They know the landscape. They are cunning, clever and can get the job done and THAT´s what we need right now.

I’m not saying Obama doesn’t have the metal. I’m saying no one knows for sure that he DOES. He hasn’t been tested the same way Hillary has. We have a president currently who had little experience going in, who alienated his father who DID have experience and that got us our current situation.

This is an extremely crucial moment in our history and we can’t afford another Republican administration. Obama has energized the nation but his inability to close the deal has made me nervous. What if he can’t close the deal in November? Does anyone think McCain will be less of an opponent than Hillary? Can we afford to risk that?

The country I love is being shaped into an unequal, less democratic, shadow of what we could be. It is unfortunate that national politics has become what it is. But it is what it is and regardless of how she has to play the game, Hillary is more committed than are the Republicans to restoring America to a peaceful beacon of hope and an example to the world. THAT’s the country I grew up in. Regardless of what you think of “politics as usual” it’s how the game is played in this country. Hopefully it will change but how likely is that? We’re talking about the position of the most powerful person on the planet. It’s naïve to think the Republicans won’t continue to play dirty to hang onto the power and as Democrats we’d be naïve to run anyone against them who isn’t willing to fight them tooth and nail for it.

I have to say, it does a good job of showing John McCain to be out of touch and will try to position him early in voters’ minds. I think it will be hard to paint John McCain as dishonest or to be of ill character, despite his temper. In the video I don’t see a John McCain who is misleading anyone on purpose. I see a well-intentioned McCain either not knowing the facts (big problem) or forgetting them (another big problem).

It will be interesting to see how the different audiences will react to this.