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Slate magazine has unusual articles. This one, http://www.slate.com/id/2203103, discusses a new video ad by HSBC bank. Watch the video before reading the article. Then you tell me. Is this one of the most unusual bank ads you’ve ever seen? What do you think it means?

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From one of my favorite blogs, Neatorama, this YouTube video presents the Manakin … a moonwalking bird. Apparently it moonwalks as part of its maiting ritual. It is one of many featured on the Neatorama collection of Strange Animal Mating Habits. Now, I’ll give you the link, but remember, I’m not forcing you to go there. http://www.neatorama.com/2007/04/30/30-strangest-animal-mating-habits

Today, I received one of my favorite mailings … Lauren Weinstein’s Blog … You can read the posting here: http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000448.html

It seems that the people who designed T-Mobile’s services didn’t do what I would consider “a good job”. As Lauren explains:

All callers who hear your personalized voicemail outgoing message are then offered the opportunity to send a numeric page (”press 5″). Unfortunately, this paging prompt is presented to everyone hearing your voicemail message, even when you have paging turned off — which is in fact the default state.

I couldn’t believe this so I called T-Mobile. Guess what … it is worse than that.

Their system actually does let you turn off the paging. However, note: even if you turn off the paging it keeps telling people they can page you!!

In my private correspondence with Lauren, it seems that their support people didn’t, at least at first, see the problem. They thought that turning it off was enough. The problem isn’t that you can’t turn it off. The problem is that even if you do, it keeps prompting people to page you.

I wonder how long this will take to get fixed.

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More of my political information. Certainly not unbiased. I have long considered myself a Republican. I voted for Bush the first time (but was severely disappointed in the final resolution). This page continues my contribution to the political discourse of our current election campaign.

The Republicans For Obama website is here: http://www.republicansforobama.org

Disclosure: I am a Barack Obama fan.

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Here is more information, clearly not “independent” relevant to the current election campaign. The source of this video is http://www.keatingeconomics.com. The NY Times has a brief story about this at http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2008/10/06/06gigaom-obama-puts-keating-economics-short-online-9540.html. The LA Times story is here http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-keating7-2008oct07,0,7970180.story. The second video below is CNN’s review of the video pronouncing the video TRUE.

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 Please note that the investigation cleared John McCain of all criminal wrongdoing; instead the Senate Ethics Committee reprimanded him for “poor judgement”.

Disclosure: I am a Barack Obama fan.

As to it’s urgency and necessity, please read this and decide for yourself.

http://WindowsSecrets.com/comp/081024

Ok … if you get this via email you can click here to see the video http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/gov-palin-cold-open/773761

This is just another in my series of video links relating to the election.

Disclosure: I am a Barack Obama fan.

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I offer this again for my subscribers. It is part of what I try to do for the political discourse of our current election campaign.

Disclosure: I am a Barack Obama fan.

When you go to fly does Airport Security make you feel safer? I’ve often wondered if that was its real purpose … not so much to improve security but to make everyone feel safer. This article (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200811/airport-security) makes me worry even more that making us feel better without really doing anything is the real mission. The author describes passing through security with enough contraband to embarass even the most ardent defender of the charade. Unbelievable.

Here is the end of the article:

As I stood in the bathroom, ripping up boarding passes, waiting for the social network of male bathroom users to report my suspicious behavior, I decided to make myself as nervous as possible. I would try to pass through security with no ID, a fake boarding pass, and an Osama bin Laden T-shirt under my coat. I splashed water on my face to mimic sweat, put on a coat (it was a summer day), hid my driver’s license, and approached security with a bogus boarding pass that Schnei­er had made for me. I told the document checker at security that I had lost my identification but was hoping I would still be able to make my flight. He said I’d have to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor arrived; he looked smart, unfortunately. I was starting to get genuinely nervous, which I hoped would generate incriminating micro-expressions. “I can’t find my driver’s license,” I said. I showed him my fake boarding pass. “I need to get to Washington quickly,” I added. He asked me if I had any other identification. I showed him a credit card with my name on it, a library card, and a health-insurance card. “Nothing else?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“You should really travel with a second picture ID, you know.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“All right, you can go,” he said, pointing me to the X-ray line. “But let this be a lesson for you.”

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These two are too good to miss so I offer both for my subscribers courtesy of YouTube.

Disclosure: I am a Barack Obama fan.