I’m supporting Obama in ‘08

Ever since his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, I’ve been a fan of Barack Obama. Even before that famous speech I had known about him, given the chaos and mess of the 2004 Illinois Senate election. He had won the Democratic nomination, a bit of a surprise if I remember right, and then became the obvious favorite once the Republican candidate dropped out of the race. (Even at that point, no Republican wanted to join the election halfway through, running against a charismatic Obama.)

I was excited to hear that he was interested in running for President, and even more excited when he actually announced his candidacy. From the news I read and the people I talked to, I thought he would do better than the media was predicting.

After Barack won Iowa and South Carolina, people have really started looking at him anew. Just in time for Super Tuesday!

I’m supporting Barack Obama for President in 2008. As an American that lives abroad, I don’t really get a chance to vote for him in the primary, but certainly look forward to voting for him in November. I’ve also put a poster-pic in the right sidebar of this blog.

If you haven’t already seen it, please play the video below. It’s the kind of video that could be a true phenomenon in this years’ election.

A reminder of (submarine) times past…

I spent three years on the USS Hartford (SSN-768). It was a fantastic experience, though I always talk about it in Dickensian terms…

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

– A Tale of Two Cities

I recently saw a video that reminded me of some of my more fond memories of the boat… watching dolphins play in our bow wake. This video is from the USS Wyoming (which has a higher sail than the Hartford, we were a bit closer to the surface) and is something that many submariners have seen at least at some point in their careers.

So here’s a little taste of submarine life.

Dolphins playing on the bow of the submarine USS Wyoming

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Breaking news via Twitter

Today has been a big news day. The international financial markets went crazy, and the US Federal Reserve cut a key benchmark rate by 0.75% about an hour before US markets were going to open after a long holiday weekend. Last night was a major Democratic party debate, where the candidates started really doing battle with each other. Heath Ledger was found dead in his NYC flat. There were other big stories, but it’s late and these were the big surprises of the day.

What’s odd about all this? I found out about both of the “Breaking” news stories from Twitter.

I know that the tech-saavy people have already experienced this phenomenon, but as I’ve described earlier, I’m much more of a Twitter voyeur than a true Twitter-community participant, so it’s never happened to me. To be on the receiving end of breaking news twice via Twitter on the same day was fascinating.

While there’s really no implication of this in anything, it’s still interesting to note. Perhaps I’ll pay more attention to Twitter in the coming weeks/months.