November 8, 2012

There were 5 posts published on November 8, 2012 (this is page 1 of 1).

Secrets, Schemes, and Lots of Guns: Inside John McAfee’s Heart of Darkness

Here’s an interesting look at John McAfee, the eccentric founder of the McAfee antivirus company.

It’s not too unusual for eccentric gringos to wind up in Central America and slowly turn stranger—”Rich white men who come to Belize and act strangely are kind of a type,” one local journalist told me. But this one’s story is more peculiar than most. John McAfee is a founding father of the anti-virus software industry, an inveterate self-promoter who built an improbable web security empire on the principles of trust and reliability, then poured his start-up fortune into a series of sprawling commune-like retreats, presenting himself in the public eye as a paragon of engaged, passionate living: “Success, for me,” he has said, “is being able to wake up in the morning and feel like a 12 year old.” But down in Belize, McAfee the enlightened Peter Pan seems to have refashioned himself into a kind of final-reel Scarface.

via Secrets, Schemes, and Lots of Guns: Inside John McAfee's Heart of Darkness.

More ‘fewer angry white guys’

Tim Funk at the News and Observer also points out the value of the non-white vote.

Tuesday’s voting results held some good news for North Carolina Democrats hoping to keep the state competitive in future election years.

Black voters, who make up 22 percent of the state’s population, cast 23 percent of the vote and went for Obama 96 percent to 4 percent, according to exit polls.

And Latinos went for Obama 68 percent to 31 percent. “You’re talking 2-1 in a group that’s getting to be a bigger part of this state,” said Bitzer.

But exit polls also said this: White voters, who now represent 70 percent of the state’s electorate, were even less supportive of the president than in 2008.

That year, 35 percent of white voters in North Carolina cast their ballots for Obama.

In 2012, he got 31 percent.

via 5 reasons why Obama didn’t carry North Carolina – Elections – NewsObserver.com.

Monopoly Is Theft | Harper’s Magazine

I enjoyed reading about the history of the Monopoly board game, a history that turns out to be quite different than I had imagined.

The official history of Monopoly, as told by Hasbro, which owns the brand, states that the board game was invented in 1933 by an unemployed steam-radiator repairman and part-time dog walker from Philadelphia named Charles Darrow.

The game’s true origins, however, go unmentioned in the official literature. Three decades before Darrow’s patent, in 1903, a Maryland actress named Lizzie Magie created a proto-Monopoly as a tool for teaching the philosophy of Henry George, a nineteenth-century writer who had popularized the notion that no single person could claim to “own” land.

via Monopoly Is Theft | Harper's Magazine.

Airdevil plans Atlantic crossing using 365 balloons

Raleigh resident and part-time daredevil balloonist Jonathan Trappe will be headed for the skies again next summer, this time on a trip across the Atlantic Ocean!

The big balls in the sky won’t just be the cluster balloons!

AN adventurer who became the first person to fly the English Channel dangling under helium-balloons is now planning to cross the entire Atlantic Ocean.

Intrepid Jonathan Trappe, 38, plans to navigate an incredible 2,500 miles next summer in a seven-foot lifeboat suspended by 365 huge UV-resistant balloons.

His outlandish aircraft will have an open roof with a canopy to protect him from high-altitude winds and frost bite.

Floating at between 18,000ft and 25,000ft – beating his previous record of 21,600ft – Jonathan will have to fly ten times further than his previous record of 230 miles to succeed.

via Airdevil plans Atlantic crossing using 365 balloons | The Sun |News.

Not Enough ‘Angry White Guys’

Here’s why I’m not at all worried about the future of the Democratic Party: demographics. The “angry white guys” that have lately been the target constituency of the GOP are fast becoming a minority. Couple with the fact that many of those angry white guys are also older means that this demographic isn’t a long-term way to build a party.

The Tea Party may disagree, but the racism that once kept Jessie Helms in office and Michael Dukakis out of office is a dead-end political strategy. The party that values inclusiveness (and more closely aligns with the changing demographics) will be the one that succeeds in the long term.

Republican senator Lindsey Graham’s remark that there weren’t enough “angry white guys” to bring Republicans to power seemed prophetic in the light of President Barack Obama’s victory. A decline in the number of white voters and a surge in voters from ethnic minorities and women helped Obama on election night. Ohio, one of the key battleground states, was captured in part through a rise in turnout among African-Americans, who voted overwhelmingly for Obama.

via Secret to Romney’s Defeat: Not Enough ‘Angry White Guys’? – U.S. Election 2012 – CNBC.