Well, the waiting is finally over - we can talk about what we’ve been working on all this time. Today, a completely redesigned version of Google Analytics is launching, bringing a lot of the simplicity and data visualization techniques we learned building Measure Map to a whole new scale.

Jeffrey Veen

Kottke breaks the story. I just started utilizing google analytics for WA to get more familiar with things and don’t have the redesigned viz stuff yet but am interested to see the results. There’s a comprehensive (read: very thorough) overview on Kaushik’s site as well. More interesting to me though is what Veen had to say about what he’s doing now:

On a personal note, I’ve got a much different job now that the design work on Analytics has wrapped up. I now lead a team of over 30 designers and researchers responsible for the user experience of Google’s web applications. We’re working on Gmail, Calendar, the Office-like tools, Blogger, Orkut, Picasa, Talk and a bunch more. And that means I get to dig into some of what I consider the Web’s most interesting challenges and work with some of the smartest people in the industry.

Given how good the overview looks for the new analytics I can’t wait to see what they do with the other stuff.

“The primary message coming out of the November election was that the American people are sick and tired of the fighting and the gridlock, and they want both the president and Congress to start governing the country,” warned Leon E. Panetta, a chief of staff in Bill Clinton’s White House. “It just seems to me the Democrats, if they fail for whatever reason to get a domestic agenda enacted … will pay a price.”

TPMCafe

What complete and utter bullshit (let me tell you how I really feel). The point of getting the Dems in congress was to reduce corruption (we know both parties have that stink, don’t we?) and to provide better (hell, any) oversight and, yes, fight the administration and Republican party on Iraq. This is not to diminish the need for a strong domestic agenda but right now Iraq is what needs attention and fixing - not tomorrow, not next week, not two months from now — it needs it now.

Jim Dean, head of Democracy for America and brother of Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean, said he understands the reluctance of Pelosi to lead Congress into impeachment proceedings during her first 100 days in office. “We took control of Congress because people are fed up and want us to get things done,” he observed, adding that impeachment proceedings would bog down Congress.

But he noted, “Just letting these guys off is setting a bad precedent.” Asked about the prospect of impeachment, he observed, “I think it’s more on the table than people think.”

Raw Story

This has been my biggest gripe regarding the Dem leadership when they took control of congress. Impeachment should never be off the table - their duty on this matter is declared specifically in the constitution and they must uphold the law. It’s been good to see us getting closer to legislation that makes a real and definite change regarding the war in Iraq, holding the President accountable and such - but will somebody please grow a pair and stand up to these people?

Well…there’s always Kucinich.

In the end, though, I probably won’t be doing much with Silverlight, for the same reasons that I’ve written about before. The technology has definitely gotten stronger, but the other issues haven’t really changed much: there are no tools for the Mac or Linux, and as far as influencing the technology, you’re just standing outside the Big House, pressing your nose up against the window.

Ted Leung On The Air

Something that I think is seriously in favor of Flash/Flex is that the development tools are cross platform. Macs have been big in design shops for a long time, and still are. And, many of the Mac OS X “switchers” over the past few years have been software developers (go to an open source development conference like PyCon and you’ll see what I mean). The fact that I can develop Flex applications on my Mac is a big deal. And I don’t have to settle for text editors and command line compilers. The Flex Builder IDE and the full Flash environment are both available for the Mac. This is not the case with Microsoft’s tools for Silverlight.

Blue Sky On Mars

Personally, I’d like to pick up more time with Flex but given the “ooohs” that Silverlight is drawing from the digerati I’ll keep an eye on it as well (and maybe give it a whirl).

The idea is that when you’re having a bad day, express your pain through the soothing verbal tea that is Haiku. It combines just the right blend of tension with authentic expression, tinged with a responsible amount of subversiveness. And yet…venting through haiku is somehow not mean. Incredible!

David Seah

I start generating responses to haiku for any variety of reasons and it never fails to make things better. There was a time where I was writing at least one haiku a day in response to something. It’s a great workout for the brain and a lot of fun.

So what do we have here? We have two political parties, neither of which represent their base all that well. And we have people that will continue to vote for one or the other knowing this. We are enabling the theocrats and the neosocialists by our unwillingness to tell them to go to hell.

OK, so I’m not really a cowboy

The more I consider the current established political practices the more I believe that the system is in need of a pretty big overhaul. I realize it doesn’t take a genius to arrive at such a conclusion (humor me here) but I think we should really take a moment to create a definition of what really needs fixing and where we can head in terms of a national dialogue on the subject. Here are some easy pickings: 1) money in politics (corporations, I’m looking square at you), 2) the two-party system (why is there such a high barrier to entry for third parties?) 3) putting better checks and balances in place for all three branches of government and 4) stiffer penalties for ethics violations, fraud, corruption, etc while holding a government office (something that will actually be a deterrent). Ok, so who’s got item number 1? Anyone? Bueller?

Forgive the fact that its Fox News doing the reporting. I wonder if there might be more video out there but this is what a quick search picked up on youtube. Here’s an interesting comment on this particular video thread:

Omg does this remind anyone of the peaceful marchs by african american civil activists that were beaten down in the civil rights era by police and govt.? I cannot believe what I just saw, it has no justification no matter your race, legal status, etc.

It’s interesting to note some of the other responses to this video and in general the response that I see in the media at-large. What bothers me most about it is how there seems to be this tacit connection being made that something like this doesn’t matter because, well, they’re immigrants and they have no rights anyway - seemingly giving them a less-than-human quality as they discuss this issue. I fear, given the way the Republicans are using immigration as a wedge issue that we might find ourselves in a era where racism and xenophobia are considered party platforms.

Update: Looks like the mayor will return to address the issue and there are all sorts of investigations being squeezed out of LA and Washington. Reading stories and comments around the web both sides are heated up on this issue. What a waste of air - if the folks condemning the marchers and setting up border watches (minutement) spent half that same energy on something that is more a national priority (just pick one, there are plenty) then we could easily do something akin to putting a man on the moon.

This type of hate, unfortunately, is an incredibly potent catalyst for action.

God God God God God God God Reagan Reagan Reagan Reagan Reagan Reagan God…and, oh by the way, Reagan.

Joe Klein

He left out “Iran, Iran, Iran, nuclear, national security…and, oh by the way, Iran.” Anyone do a tag cloud on these things? It’d be interesting to see the keyword differences between the two debates so far. I haven’t seen the entirety of this debate so I can’t really make a judgement call on who might have won but I think the above synopsis from Klein is correct given what I’ve heard from the highlight reels.

Update: I should have waited to post this until I had finished my feeds. Check out the tag clouds for the Republican and Democratic presidential debates. Courtesy of pollster.com - check out the differences…very interesting stuff.

“If this debate were a drinking game, and you had to imbibe every time you hear the word ‘Reagan,’ you would pass out before the closing remarks,” predicted Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Wonkette

“The question is, ‘Who ought to make that decision, the Congress or the commanders?,’’ Mr. Bush said. “As you know, my position is clear – I’m the commander guy.”

Via NYTimes The Caucus

The last few days have been completely exhausting. We had plenty of trouble trying to get Seth to feed but finally got some relief via the Pediatrician who allowed us to start using the assisted feeding system. It basically allows us to keep him feeding normally via the breast but with a little tube on the side so he gets some milk as well. It’s not that we aren’t on the normal track but Seth has been, well, rather impatient with the entire thing. Once we got him on the system he went after it, quickly downing quite a bit of formula. Since doing that this morning he’s slept much better and given us a bit of breathing room. My hope tonight is that at least Magda gets more rest as she’s slept as little as I have and been through much more of an ordeal here obviously. Tomorrow should bring lots of paperwork, a circumcision and, hopefully, discharge from the hospital.