Daily Archives: March 6, 2008

Through the keynote

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On Tuesday, I went to Torquay to give the opening Keynote at the Naace Annual Strategic Conference. I confessed at the beginning that I was never sure what the purpose of a Keynote was, but said that I thought it was akin to a sermon, which reminded me of a passage from Trollope’s Barchester Towers that I’d been reading in the train on the way down.

There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind in civilised and free countries, than the necessity of listening to sermons. No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these realms, the power of compelling an audience to sit silent, and be tormented. No one but a preaching clergyman can revel in platitudes, truisms, and untruisms, and yet receive, as his undisputed privilege, the same respectful demeanour as thought words of impassioned eloquence, or persuasive logic, fell from his lips.

I then launched into my farrago of “platitudes, truisms, and untruisms” about our changing media ecosystem and was heard respectfully. It was blogged live by Ian Usher, who did a remarkable job. For which, many thanks.

The lawyers are coming

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From this week’s Economist…

But the fact remains that even after her wins this week, [Mrs Clinton] is well behind in the race for elected delegates, by roughly 1,360 to 1,220. That might not sound that much. But delegates are awarded proportionally and there are now only ten states left in play, some of them favourable to Barack Obama. He will almost certainly finish ahead in terms of elected delegates. So, Mrs Clinton’s only hope is to persuade the 796 “superdelegates” (members of Congress, senior party officials and other bigwigs) to reverse the elected delegate outcome—and push her over the 2,025 target.

This is where everything could turn ugly (and it is hardly pleasant at the moment). Mrs Clinton will need to present the superdelegates with an excuse to overturn the verdict of all those caucuses and primaries. It is still possible that she could win the popular vote, especially if she triumphs in Pennsylvania: that would help her case enormously. She will also no doubt point out that she has won in all of America’s biggest states, bar Illinois and Georgia, as well as several swing states, including Ohio. But Mr Obama will have powerful arguments of his own, such as his appeal to independents and his victory in Virginia. So the chances are that Mrs Clinton sooner or later will resort to a somewhat legal approach: asking the superdelegate-judges in effect to dismiss the verdict of the first trial on the basis that the procedure was unfair.

Imagine the scene: a posse of (mostly white) VIPs overturning a popular choice: a black man.

In praise of tech support

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Caller: Hey, can you help me? My computer has locked up, and no matter how many times I type eleven, it won’t unfreeze.

Tech Support: What do you mean, “type eleven?”

Caller: The message on my screen says, “Error Type 11!”

From David Pogue.

Swiss bank sees reason? Surely not

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It’s the next stage in the WikiLeaks story. According to the New York Times Blog today,

A Swiss bank on Wednesday moved to withdraw a lawsuit that it had filed against a Web site that it claimed had displayed stolen documents revealing confidential information about the accounts of the bank’s clients.

Lawyers involved in the case said the move by Bank Julius Baer most likely ends its battle against Wikileaks, a Web site that allows people to post documents anonymously “to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations.”

The bank last month obtained an order from U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White in San Francisco that obstructed, but did not absolutely prevent, access to material posted on Wikileaks by turning off the domain name wikileaks.org. The judge’s action drew a flurry of media attention and a barrage of legal filings by media and other organizations arguing that the order violated the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.

After a hearing on Friday, Judge White withdrew that order, saying that he was worried about its First Amendment implications and that he thought it might not be possible to prevent viewing of the documents once they had been posted on the Web anyway.

It’s been a huge PR disaster for them — and succeeded mainly in convincing people that there might be something fishy going on. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!