Max Mosley, who is head of motor racing’s ruling body has defended his right to pursue an “eccentric” private life – and insisted it has no effect on his ability to run Formula One. Given how bent Formula One is, this is surely correct.

I noted on Twitter last night that I’d had some interesting conversations over dinner in college with American academics about the US election. The gist of the conversation was that McCain will win in November. Lorcan Dempsey saw the Tweet and passed me the link to this interesting New York Times column by David Brooks.

It was inevitable that the period of “Yes We Can!” deification would come to an end. It was not inevitable that Obama would now look so vulnerable. He’ll win the nomination, but in a matchup against John McCain, he is behind in Florida, Missouri and Ohio, and merely tied in must-win states like Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A generic Democrat now beats a generic Republican by 13 points, but Obama is trailing his own party. One in five Democrats say they would vote for McCain over Obama.

General election voters are different from primary voters. Among them, Obama is lagging among seniors and men. Instead of winning over white high school-educated voters who are tired of Bush and conventional politics, he does worse than previous nominees. John Judis and Ruy Teixeira have estimated a Democrat has to win 45 percent of such voters to take the White House. I’ve asked several of the most skillful Democratic politicians over the past few weeks, and they all think that’s going to be hard.

A few months ago, Obama was riding his talents. Clinton has ground him down, and we are now facing an interesting phenomenon. Republicans have long assumed they would lose because of the economy and the sad state of their party. Now, Democrats are deeply worried their nominee will lose in November.

Welcome to 2008. Everybody’s miserable.

Wonder what the bookies are quoting for McCain.

… in 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and set off raging fires. More than 3,000 people died.

From Good Morning Silicon Valley

The 140-character limit of Twitter messages doesn’t lend itself to extended discourse, but if you’re about to be dropped down the rabbit hole of a foreign and hostile justice system, you don’t really need to say a lot. Berkeley graduate journalism student James Buck, for instance, managed to boil down the essentials to just eight characters — ARRESTED — and as a result is a free man today. Buck is in Egypt working on his grad project on the country’s mostly leftist, anti-government bloggers. While photographing a demonstration last week with his interpreter and friend, Mohammed Salah Ahmed Maree, the two were picked up by police. Buck fired off his tweet to a wide circle of friends in Egypt and the U.S., and almost instantly had a network of people contacting the university, the embassy and news organizations on his behalf. He was out of jail the next day and is now campaigning for the release of Maree, who was taken off to another prison…

Frank Shaw, however, is not too impressed.

There is always a huge urge to make technology, especially new technology, the center of things. It will change the world, it will revolutionize the way we build cities, it will make us smarter, etc. Lost in the hype is the fact that often the most profound impacts of technology are the ones that play out over time, not the ones we see right away.

Twitter is a cool service. But it didn’t get Buck out of jail. Four years ago, the story would’ve been that his blog got him out of jail. 10 years before that it would’ve been his cell phone that got him out of jail. 10 years before that it would’ve been a chain letter of protest sent to the government.

What especially grates in this story is the sense of hubris that comes through — the sense that the technology used was more important than what happened itself. It’s a valley view of the world, for sure. Technology can be a powerful communications tool, but what is said is more important than the tool.

… in 1961, about 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in a cockeyed attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. The disaster marked JFK’s coming-of-age as President.