Interesting column by Virginia Postrel…

Plenty of candidates attract supporters who disagree with them on some issues. Obama is unusual, however. He attracts supporters who not only disagree with his stated positions but assume he does too. They project their own views onto him and figure he is just saying what other, less discerning voters want to hear. So when Obama’s chief economic adviser supposedly told a Canadian official that, contrary to campaign rhetoric, the candidate didn’t want to revise NAFTA, reporters found the story credible. After all, nobody that thoughtful and sophisticated could really oppose free trade.

Unlike Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan, the two glamorous presidents who shaped 20th-century American politics, Obama has left his political philosophy a mystery. His call for “a broad majority of Americans—Democrats, Republicans, and independents of goodwill—who are re-engaged in the project of national renewal” is not a statement of principles. It’s an invitation to the audience to entertain their own fantasies of what national renewal would look like.

Lovely photograph on Flickr.

Thanks to Brian for spotting it.

Virgin Media PR Department has been working overtime to hoover up the ordure deposited by its new CEO in his RTS interview.

Virgin Media (VM) today moved to calm fears that it will start throttling web video from providers who refuse to hand over a levy to deliver their content.

A spokesman for the firm said it does not intend to hinder access to content providers who do not pay. Rather, VM could offer content providers deals to upgrade their provisioning if they want to ensure best access to to broadband subscribers…

Ho, ho!

Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC?

On the one hand:

Mr. Obama’s site is more harmonious, with plenty of white space and a soft blue palette. Its task bar is reminiscent of the one used at Apple’s iTunes site. It signals in myriad ways that it was designed with a younger, more tech-savvy audience in mind — using branding techniques similar to the ones that have made the iPod so popular.

“With Obama’s site, all the features and elements are seamlessly integrated, just like the experience of using a program on a Macintosh computer,” said Alice Twemlow, chairwoman of the M.F.A. program in design criticism at the School of Visual Arts (who is a Mac user).

It is designed, she said, even down to the playful logos that illustrate choices like, Volunteer or Register to Vote. She likened those touches to the elaborate, painstaking packaging Apple uses to woo its customers.

On the other hand,

Mrs. Clinton’s site uses a more traditional color scheme of dark blue, has sharper lines dividing content and employs cookie-cutter icons next to its buttons for volunteering, and the like.

“Hillary’s is way more hectic, it’s got all these, what look like parody ads,” said Ms. Twemlow, who is not a citizen and cannot vote in the election.

Jason Santa Maria, creative director of Happy Cog Studios, which designs Web sites, detected a basic breach of netiquette. “Hillary’s text is all caps, like shouting,” he said. There are “many messages vying for attention,” he said, adding, “Candidates are building a brand and it should be consistent.”

… in 1912, the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland, less than three hours after striking an iceberg. About 1,500 people died. The New York Times headline read

Titanic Sinks Four Hours After Hitting Iceberg; 866 Rescued By Carpathia, Probably 1,250 Perish; Ismay Safe, Mrs. Astor Maybe, Noted Names Missing

There is a story, probably apocryphal, that the Cork Examiner‘s headline read: “CORK MAN DROWNS”, and then, in smaller type, “Titanic sinks”.

Hard on the heels of the Phorm business (to which Virgin has signed up), here’s the view of the Virgin media CEO on the issue of net neutrality.

In an interview with the Royal Television Society’s Television magazine, far from covering up their intentions, Virgin Media’s new incoming CEO Neil Berkett – who joined the Virgin Media Board just a few days ago – has launched an attack on the ideas and principles behind net neutrality.

“This net neutrality thing is a load of bollocks,” he said, adding that Virgin is already in the process of doing deals to speed up the traffic of certain media providers.

With around 3.5 million customers in the UK, and already traffic shaping due to lack of capacity, it’s a sobering thought that at the behest of “content providers” with deep pockets, Virgin is prepared to speed up their traffic, which would presumably have a negative impact on those at the bottom of the ISP’s priority list, namely bandwidth hungry file-sharers…

From BBC NEWS…

The BBC’s head of future media and technology Ashley Highfield is leaving to launch an on-demand video service for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

Known as Project Kangaroo, the joint venture has been described as “Freeview for the internet” and plans to offer more than 10,000 hours of programmes…

You may recall that I was unable to view the celebrated Mosely ‘Nazi orgy’ video. Alexander Chancellor, the Guardian columnist and former editor of the Spectator was more persistent…

Having primly waited for permission from a high court judge, I have finally got on the internet and looked at a video of Max Mosley’s sado-masochistic sex games with a group of London prostitutes. I tried the News of the World’s website, but this was a bit of a disappointment because, while I could hear the formula one boss pleading for more punishment in a stage German accent, no pictures appeared on the screen at all.

I had more success on YouTube, which showed a woman with a rather posh English voice fiercely ordering the wretched man to “bend over, right over” before inflicting strokes of a cane on his naked bottom. The video was rather dark and hard to fathom, but it involved at least one woman dressed like a concentration camp inmate in black and white stripes as she waited for her turn to be beaten…