I'll shy away from stating the obvious, where I make the point that George W's presidency should have ended before it began, but as his bumbling and avoidance of reality has become so commonplace, I almost feel like we should present him with a medal on those rare occasions where he is asked a direct question, and answers correctly, stating the obvious.

Following month after month, year after year, of continued violence in Iraq, and continued denials from the administration that the insurgents (as they are called) are making headway, Bush told reporters today that it's highly possible the Iraq War will be ongoing even after he leaves the White House. On the flip side, he continues to say that Iraq is not in a civil war, and taunts Democrats who have said he broke the law through the domestic spying program, but haven't called for its dismissal.

What Democrats have done all year is call attention to the lies that got us into this mess, the illegalities at home and abroad, the bumbling, lying, cluelessness that seems to be the accepted status quo in the administration and through the Republican party. Yet, when some of the more outspoken congressmen, including John Murtha, have asked us to investigate reducing our presence in Iraq, he and others are called cowards, who are said to "cut and run". Those who have questioned the administration's lies have been thrown under the bus and mocked for their questioning, but now, even our misleader in chief is recognizing we are not being welcomed as liberators - that instead, his legacy of death will have long-term implications far beyond what anyone in Washington D.C. ever imagined.

I hadn't yet seen anybody on Athletics Nation announce the receipt of their 2006 Oakland A's season tickets, but in our house, they have been eagerly awaited. Today, we were pleased to have a visit from FedEx, and the friendly FedEx crew offered us forty chances at happiness - eighty if you count that I purchased two partial season ticket plans.

For your voyeuristic pleasure, I posted a gallery of the season ticket book, including front and back covers, full page shots, and individual ticket close-ups. Is it perfect? No. But that's because I can't make the big bucks as a photographer. I'm an amateur in everything I do, or so I'm told.


Click to Start Your Tour

More Samples:



Now, we're the humble church-goin' types, so for us to get a Friday/Saturday/Sunday package means there are 2 Field Level tickets available in section 114, row 28 for virtually every Sunday game at the Coliseum this year!

Sound interesting to you? Let's strike up a conversation...

The Web was built for linking. One page is not the final destination, and should always provide multiple links for pages on the site itself, and if relevant, links to third-party sites. But with recent advancements in the blogging world, this has been taken a step further, with a feature called TrackBacks, which, simply put, add a link and summary of your comments to a third-party site, if you link to them. It's a modern quid-pro-quo.

On Monday, two things of interest happened here at louisgray.com. I wrote a piece called "Newspapers a Dying Breed", discussing the potential fate of the San Jose Mercury News, now up for sale, and later that morning, the very same Mercury News scooped the technology media world by announcing Microsoft's work on a next generation game and music handheld, which I covered in "Microsoft Not Giving Up Despite Failures". In both cases, the links I provided issued TrackBacks to the original site.

Later that day, while at the office, I received a Google News alert saying that the blog had been quoted on media watchdog Editor & Publisher, in a piece covering CNET's blog site Blogma, and titled "CNet Forum: Web Guru Gilmor Wants Yahoo to Buy 'Mercury News'", a comment I had made was included. This happened thanks to TrackBacks, as CNet had found my post and included it in their morning news roundup. Additionally, in parallel, the link I had made to the Mercury News itself started driving significant traffic to the site, as the Microsoft rumor grew legs and got incredible exposure. The traffic swarm to Mercury News led some to click through and see my reaction, leading to six times the normal site volume Monday, and significant traffic from Redmond, Washington, home of Microsoft.

TrackBacks provide news seekers an opportunity to gain access to third-party commentary instantly, even if they may never have visited the site otherwise, and as the technology gains in adoption, you may see it further impact the process you take to gain information - as you rely less on established media and more on gaining the full picture from multiple viewpoints.

In politics, the president-elect has historically been given their first hundred days to set policy without extreme analysis from the press, in what's also referred to as a honeymoon period, where they have the opportunity to name their staff, introduce planned legislation and define the goals of their time in office. In the market, product announcements have followed a shorter cycle, where first impressions and media reviews are eagerly awaited - to see if the product experience approaches the levels promised by the company, or if its feature set is found lacking. But now, in an age where professional media and amateur commentators alike are seeing an increasing demand for instant analysis and feedback, those introducing new products to the market may have their wares filleted before a single customer has gotten their hands on a working device - their product launches dissected for praise or scorn, for the presentation itself, even if those writing and talking haven't given the news a chance to sink in.

Take a look at some of the most recent and most widely discussed product announcements for how this instant news cycle has taken hold.

Yesterday, Google introduced its Google Finance feature in direct competition to Yahoo! Finance, and the entire blogosphere was aflutter with the news. But rather than pass the links along with objectivity, there was a great rush to judgment. Business 2.0 reporter Om Malik, on his site, GigaOM, wrote in a big headline, "Google Finance Disappoints". How long did he use it? A week? A few days, before his dramatic conclusion? No. He writes, "After playing around with it for about 15 minutes, it is obvious that it will be a long time, and I mean long time in Internet years that is, before Google Finance really catches up to Yahoo Finance, which in fact is the gold standard." That's right. 15 minutes. After 15 minutes of intense evaluation, he was ready to declare it a failure, and his rush to judgment was parlayed into an appearance on CNBC today. But his strenuous evaluation didn't stop other sites from expressing quite the opposite response. TechCrunch wrote, "This is a great looking product overall. And they’ve taken things at least a step further than Yahoo Finance in its current form."

People are entitled to their opinion for sure. I've expressed mine occasionally here on this very site. But can instant analysis be as foolproof as say, Consumer Reports?

One amusing result is that instant commentary leads to retractions. Just look how Henry Blodget first starts his review as "Google Finance: Yawn" and ends with "Wow". Quite the 180, and one that comes with actual effort to investigate.

At the end of February, you may recall Apple held a special media event to announce the new iPod HiFi, the Intel Mac Mini and some other smaller announcements. Before a single consumer had access to the items, again, the instant analysis crowd issued a decree of disappointment. CNET's Blogma site summed up the mood of some would-be critics with the headline "Bloggers underwhelmed by Apple announcements". The site's story says "While Jobs had promised some "fun" new products, bloggers, many of whom gave up-to-the-minute accounts of his keynote, were largely underwhelmed by what they heard".

Up to the minute accounts and instant disappointment before a single unit had hit the Apple store. Maybe Apple should just avoid shipping the systems altogether now that they know it was a failure, right?

And earlier this month, as mentioned previously on this site, Microsoft unveiled its Origami ultramobile PC platform at the Intel Developers' Conference, and feedback across the Web was negative. You can see the headlines... "Microsoft's Origami UMPC: What Were They Thinking?", and "Will 2006 be the Year of High-Profile Technology Busts?" It's as if the instant Web news cycle is so excited to be the first to declare the disaster that nobody has taken into consideration the fact the devices haven't even gotten the opportunity to fail in the market.

The technology market is not alone in this instant analysis. It's seen everywhere, from sports to politics to American Idol. But those tasked with creating innovation and selling it to the masses need to learn how to capture that energy available and harness it to their own benefit, before they too are swallowed up in a wave of discontent.