this is not my beautiful house

Presidental Debate #1: CBS Poll of Undecideds

obama wins debate #1 with undecided, says cbs newspolling of 500 uncommitted voters gives a clear victory to obama.”sixty-eight percent of uncommitted voters meditate on obama would make the right decisions about the briefness.”–cbs news pollcbs statementforty percent of uncommitted voters who watched the altercation tonight thought barack obama was the conquering hero. twenty-two percent thought john mccain won. thirty-eight percent saw it as a draw.forty-six percent of uncommitted voters said their opinion of obama got better tonight.sixty-eight percent of uncommitted voters think obama would make the sensibly decisions about the concision. forty-one percent think mccain would.obama is winning.watch how the polling moves over the next few days.electoral-vote.comwell known, opulently respected, been around for a while.hominid viewsuniversity of washington statistics professori know and respect him. good ridicule. i like his numbers.watch doused these numbers shift over the next three days; it on take three revealing powerful days in the interest of the numbers to meditate about tonight’s meditate on.remember — it’s electoral vote that matters. one vote is all it takes (except in two states) to prevail in that status. national polls don’t mean anything, not really. this is 50 confirm races recompense president.use this post as an open thread for electoral politics. also talk senate and congressional races.

Debate streaming

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Newton returns to LAT to resume editorial page editing duties

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tell zell laobserved.com jim newton communistic the times in july, saying he was going to write a book about dwight eisenhower. he’ll be back on monday in his old position of editorial pages editor. kevin roderick: it appears ex-publisher david hiller was the main reason newton had resigned.

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Widgetbox turns on ‘Blog Network’

widgetbox is one of many companies that jumped on the widget bandwagon, and now it’s jumping on the ad network bandwagon.

So far, the company has 135,000 embeddable objects and 64 million monthly consumers of its widgets, which live on blogs, social-networking sites, and other Web destinations. The most popular widgets are “The Fun Classic Super Mario Game In Flash,” BabyTicker: The Baby Countdown Pregnancy Ticker,” “Cyber-pet,” “Bubbles,” and “Idiot Test.”

While Widgetbox claims 462 million widget views in a month across 500,000 discrete domains, the big numbers don’t add up to a big business. The majority of Widgetbox views are happening on blogs, which led Widgetbox CEO Will Price to become more than a widget supplier.

This week, the company launched the Widgetbox Blog Network, which catalogs widgets in 29 verticals, such as Autos, Music, Sports and Politics. “It’s a natural step in the process for us to move away from a pure technology story about widgets,” Price said.

The Widgetbox network, which is starting with close to zero unique users per month, will primarily appeal to the long tail of bloggers who lack distribution. Participants include the network channel widget on their blog pages, and Widgetbox applies algorithms to determine which content gets pushed up to the top of the network categories. It publishes leaderboards listing the top contributors.

Widgetbox is launching an ad network, categorizing widgets into 29 content verticals.

“To date, widgets don’t have the concept of a network effect. The more people who use them, the more utility is created for individual users. Given bloggers are one of our largest user sources, taking a blidget (RSS feeds turned into a widget) from a single source, and sharing it with the community, and showcasing it in the channel, and having leaderboard benefits bloggers, online content publishers, and advertisers,” he added. “The new channels extend reach, drive traffic, improve brand awareness for bloggers.”

The Widgetbox network also gives the company an improved business model. Currently, the majority of revenue comes from custom advertising campaigns for companies such as Intel, Wal-Mart Stores, and Apple. But the vast majority of Widgetbox inventory cannot be monetized, Price said.

The company is developing an ad network to take advantage of the categorization into verticals.

“We have 462 million widget views a month, but advertisers are not getting it. We want to target demographics and have a user story–64 million unique users broken into 29 vertical channels, each with 15 to 300 authors,” Price explained. “We have to (determine a) domain, categorize them into channels, and understand ad treatments such as drop downs, pop-overs, peel-backs, and rotations, in a way that satisfies users, publishers, and advertisers. It’s still early. There are no standard ad units or blueprints to follow, but we are trying to figure it out. The goal for the rest of the year is to answer questions and go into next year with some case studies.”

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(AP)
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John McCain thinks Spain is a rogue state in South America

john mccain (ap photo/carlos osorio)

Enough worrying about Sarah Palin’s foreign policy expertise, time to return to John McCain’s.

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The Spanish press — in Spain, on the Iberian Peninsula, east of Portugal and south of France — is having a field day over a Cadena SER radio interview in which the senator seems to confuse Spain’s prime minister with a strongman in Latin America.

In the beginning of the interview, McCain discusses how he would not sit down with presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela or Evo Morales of Bolivia and certainly not with Raul Castro. Standard fare. The interviewer then says, “Let’s shift to Spain, would you invite President [Jose Luis Rodriguez] Zapatero to meet with you in the White House?” This is a big deal for Spaniards; Zapatero never received such an invitation from President George Bush. At first McCcain gives a vague answer about how he’ll work with anyone who cooperates withe U.S. but is determined to stand firm against our enemies. When pressed again, he makes no promises but notes “the importance of “our relationship with Latin America.”

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Perplexed, the interview blurts out “But I’m talking about Europe. About Spain!” Even then, McCain indeed does stand firm. He never giving a clue that he acutally knows who Zapatero is. He speaks in English and a Spanish translater is speaking over him so I’ll translate back to English: He’ll be friends with our friends and stand firm against those who oppose us.”

zapata (wikipedia) zapatero (pedro armestre/ afp /getty images)the spanish press is of several minds: it’s possible mccain, who in april said he would be on top of the world to meet with zapatero, forgot the prime minister’s moniker. or maybe, because of all the previous talk about latin american leaders he confused zapatero with zapatista? does he really thinks spain is a troublesome territory somewhere in the andes? others theorize if the republican candidate is still sore involving spain pulling its troops out of iraq.

When told of McCain’s refusal to invite him to the White House, Zapatero brushed it off, saying he’ll work with whichever man gets elected. Then he stumbled into what would be a gaffe here in the U.S., by graciously adding: “tenga el color que tenga” meaning, “whatever his color.”

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(AP)
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Blackstone: We’re On Top of the Stinking Pile!

It’s been 15 long and unforgiving months since Steve Schwarzman took the Blackstone Group to the public market. Ever since then, in every interview with the press and probably in most conversations with his partners and investors, Schwarzman has tried and mostly failed to explain why Blackstone shares have been so poorly received by public shareholders.

But now, finally, Schwarzman has a new defense: We’re actually the best of the worst.

During an interview at a Dow Jones private equity conference at the Waldorf Astoria Wednesday, Schwarzman was asked (again) what he has to say to the Chinese investors and others who invested money in his firm at the initial public offering, now that Blackstone shares are down more than 50 percent. Here’s his response:

Zero punctuation spore

“blackstone has actually performed better than most financial stocks. because of the timing when we went well-known, the rest of the world looked wonderful and we were in potency the first enterprise that looked like it was affected by the merit disaster. now that we’re a year and a quarter into this you can see that the average monetary stock around the mankind in virtually any rural area has been basically crushed so there’s nothing outstanding about blackstone. we’re down less than the chinese stock market.”

Good try, Steve. But it isn’t quite true.

Since its debut on June 22, 2007, Blackstone’s shares have fallen by 57 percent. It’s true that it’s outperformed some stocks like Morgan Stanley (-75%), Merrill Lynch (-76%), and Citigroup (-73%).

But it’s still underperforming others, like Goldman Sachs (-49%) and J.P. Morgan Chase (-23%). And its losses precisely match that of fellow alternative asset manager Fortress Investment Group (-57%).

It’s even underperformed the Shanghai Composite Index, which is down by 53 percent since June 22, 2007. Possibly Schwarzman’s talking point was given to him before the market opened this morning. Blackstone shares fell by 10 percent during Wednesday’s session.

And Blackstone shares are also still doing worse than the financial sector in general. The S&P Financials index has fallen by 48 percent since June 22 of last year.

In desperate times, being the best of the worst makes for a pretty solid argument. If only it were true. by Megan Barnett

related linksblackstone: the stock buyback which isn’tblackstone: the in front of assorted private equity iposseeing red in blackstone

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Plasma display coalition touts “entertainment efficient” screens

that Brobdingnagian plasma small screen in your living room probably isn’t an vigour sucking beast at least that’s what the plasma display coalition wants you to rely upon. the coalition says large plasma screens measuring 42 inches and larger are surprisingly ?lan efficient and upcoming models could cost just $4 a month to operate. over one year, that’s less than it costs to crowd up a honda gas tank, according to jim palumbo, president of the pdc.

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Monday Notes: Griese’s the guy … for now

by moving brian griese into the starting role at quarterback last weekend, tampa bay buccaneers chief honcho prompt jon gruden was hoping for a victory. he got it. but did he lose another weapon in the process? find out in the monday notes, with news from gruden’s monday newspaperwomen congress.

The 2008 NFL Ironman Team: Offense

Mike gallagher

scout.com’s ed thompson takes a look at the eleven players on offense who head into 2008 as the active-player leaders in the course of regular-season consecutive starts at their respective positions — and a few of the players who could pass them by if they upon this season.

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Cuckoo for Coco

Shirley MacLaine finally got to play “Coco Chanel” in the Lifetime bio film that ran this weekend.

Playing her was an idea once suggested to her by Audrey Hepburn, MacClaine said at press tour, when someone egged her on to tell the tale.

“Audrey and I talked about many things,” MacLaine said. “I tried to teach her how to cuss. It didn’t work. She tried to teach me how to dress. It didn’t work.

“But in the process of our time together on ‘Children’s Hour,’ she and I were talking about the contradictions, the ambition, the need for love, the search for beauty, et cetera, that fashion designers had because I didn’t know much about fashion, and she told me that I should play Coco Chanel, and I said, ‘Well Coco Chanel was little and scrunched over and very short.’

“And she said, ‘No, but the spirit of the woman is what matches your spirit.’ Now, I found Coco to be everything between generous and rude. So I don’t know what Audrey really meant. But she was right.”

MacLaine says she loved playing Chanel because of “her contradictions, her colorful rudeness, her sense of everything was about her talent, and her goodness. She could improvise a new outfit in ten seconds, which we show in the movie, and she had an ability to see the finished product within a few seconds.”

MacLaine, 74, said never met Chanel, who died in 1971.

At least as far as she could remember.

“Someone looked on the Internet and found a picture of me at a Chanel collection. I was in my 20s or 30s, something like that, but I don’t remember having been there, but then I don’t remember much anyway these days,” she said. “Yeah, I could have met her. It seems to me, if I had met her, I would have remembered it.”

And she found some similaries to her own personality.

“I think we’re both colorful. I think we’re both rude. I think we’re both spontaneous. We both can’t hold what we feel to be the honest opinion in. I think we both have talent. I think we both are probably dead. No.”

She didn’t bother trying the French accent in the film.

“I have what they call a mid-Atlantic accent, which means you try to get awaywith everything,” MacLaine said.

But she adds that she wouldn’t have done a French acent even if she was asked. After all, she said, “I’m not Meryl Streep.”

Are we in a depression

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Who Might Buy Lehman?

Lehman Brothers is officially in crisis mode. Officials from the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are reportedly on the scene, and that means one thing: Find a buyer now! Lehman has begun talks with potential buyers, Bloomberg News reports, following the plunge in its stock price and comments from Moody’s Investors Service that the firm needs to find a “stronger financial partner.”So who might buy Lehman? The strong buy the weak, and the list of potential acquirers is not very long at the moment. J.P. Morgan Chase, of course, came to the rescue of Bear Stearns and is not likely to try that again. Goldman Sachs has been the rumor du jour on several blogs, but Reuters reports that sources say that Goldman is not interested. B

Both the Wall Street Journal and CNBC are reporting that Bank of America has had preliminary discussions about a possible deal. The giant bank could certainly afford Lehman, but it is a surprising suitor given that a) BofA is already engaged in the process of integrating another troubled financial firm, mortgage lender Countrywide Financial and b) Ken Lewis, the bank’s C.E.O., last talked about the investment banking business in the same way that people politely make reference to the fact that sewage has flooded their basement.

Who’s left? Big overseas banks primarily. At any other time, the market plight of Lehman would be a great opportunity for a foreign bank looking to become a major player in U.S. investment banking. In this time of uncertainty, no one seems likely to take the risk. HSBC has been seen as a possible suitor, but a top Asian executive of the bank recently sought to pour cold water on an approach. Likewise, Barclays of Britain could be a good combination, but Bob Diamond, the president of the Barclays investment-banking unit, tried to discourage such speculation earlier this summer. The big Japanese banks have huge cash war chests, but having been burned before on Wall Street, are more likely to use that for overseas acquisitions of commercial and regional banks. Still, a Japanese newspaper said last week that Nomura Holdings was interested in Lehman. And what about Blackstone Group? Founders Steve Schwarzman and Pete Peterson are Lehman alumni. Lehman’s investment-management business would greatly bolster Blackstone’s asset-management business and would accelerate its push to diversify beyond buyout funds. Blackstone would become in one stroke a full-fledged major Wall Street firm.Or Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.? If the firm is planning to go public anyway, and is already bidding for a majority stake in Lehman’s investment management business, why not go whole hog?

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Jamie Malanowski: A Pick For All Seasons

DATELINE: Foxboro, Mass., September 9 - Acting boldly to fill the void left by the injury to perennial All-Pro Tom Brady, the New England Patriots announced that they had signed Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the team’s starting quarterback. “We’re extremely excited,” said team owner Robert Kraft. “In Sarah Palin, we have a proven leader with the grit, integrity, and fierce devotion to the common good that is exactly what we need in New England today.”

Capitalization

Emphasizing her experience as a high school basketball player, moose hunter and hockey mom, Kraft shrugged off suggestions that Gov. Palin’s slender football resume would be a factor in the coming season. “We’re accustomed to winning up here,” said Kraft, “And her responsibilities as the head of Alaska’s National Guard have certainly provided her with the background as a field general that any contender requires. Of course we’ll make some adjustments. Given her lifetime membership in the NRA, we’d be foolish not to make more use of the shotgun. But let’s not overlook the football experience she does have. She’s from a state that’s in between Russia and Canada.”

Asked if her relatively advanced age, relatively diminutive height, and total absence from the team’s preseason training camp would affect her performance on the field, Gov. Palin dismissed the concerns. “Here’s a little news flash for all the sports reporters and commentators and fantasy football experts: I’m not going to New England to seek their good opinion - I’m going to New England to bring home the Lombardi Trophy.” In response to questions about how she expects to fare in Sunday’s contest against the New York Jets, Gov. Palin said “I know Bret Favre is a fine quarterback and he’s won the Super Bowl and been the MVP a few times and has thrown for all those touchdowns, but let’s face it–Bret Favre is not the kind of leader who will upset the status quo.”

Contrary to expectations, the Patriots will not require that the mother of five abandon her historic quest for the vice presidency. “I don’t see potential for conflict,” said Kraft. “She’s a game-changer. When the people look at her, they see themselves. Besides, as Sen. McCain knows she’s a maverick.”

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(AP)