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Lesson From a Crisis – When Trust Vanishes, Worry — In 1929, Meyer Mishkin owned a shop in New York that sold silk shirts to workingmen. When the stock market crashed that October, he turned to his son, then a student at City College, and offered a version of this sentiment: It serves those rich scoundrels right. A year later, as Wall Street’s problems were starting to spill into the broader economy, Mr. Mishkin’s store went out of business. He no longer had enough customers. His son had to go to work to support the family, and Mr. Mishkin never held a steady job again. “We are facing a major national crisis,” as Meyer Mishkin’s grandson says. “To do nothing right now is to do what was done during the Great Depression.”

Gas: Desperate Atlantans Use Twitter To Find Gas — “They’re tagging their posts #atlgas whenever they spot some and letting others know the price and location.” View a twitter search for #atlgas.

Freddie Mac Money Trail Catches Up With McCain — But the payments to [campaign manager Rick] Davis’s firm, Davis Manafort, are especially problematic because he requested the consulting retainer in 2006 — and then did barely any work for the fees […] Freddie Mac also had no dealings with the lobbying firm beyond paying monthly invoices — but it agreed to the arrangement because of Davis’s close relationship with McCain, the source said, which led top executives to conclude “you couldn’t say no.”

Hugh Hewitt’s Memo To House Republicans — Wow, it’s a Red Letter Day … Hugh actually makes sense.

McCain Meltdown Moves To Mississippi — “It just proves his campaign is governed by tactics and not ideology,” said Republican consultant Craig Shirley, who advised McCain earlier in this cycle. “In the end, he blinked and Obama did not. The ‘steady hand in a storm’ argument looks now to more favor Obama, not McCain […] My guess is that plasma units are rushing to the McCain campaign as we speak to replace the blood flowing there from the fights among the staff.” Adding to the rocky perception was a McCain campaign web ad released this morning declaring “McCain Wins Debate!” — put out even before the candidate had announced he was planning to debate.

A High Definition Movie Made With A “Still” Camera · Excuse my drooling. This movie was made with a prototype copy of the Canon 5D Mark II. Canon has placed it online at one quarter of the original 1920×1080 resolution … and it’s simply stunning. From the guy who made the movie: “I had it in my hands for less than 72 hours before I had to send it back — but the time I did have with a prototype of the Canon EOS 5D MKII will possibly change the path of my career as well as the photography industry…”

Canon EOS 5D Mark II: 21MP and HD movies — Yowzer! The long awaited successor to my current camera has finally been announced, and just in time for my birthday! And I would like to thank Canon for waiting a full 15 months after my $2700 purchase before making it obsolete.

HTML 5 Won t Be Ready Until 2022. Yes, 2022 — “Part of the reason for the long timeline is that HTML 5 attempts to do something HTML 4 never did — not only does HTML specify new tags for HTML authors, it dictates how a browser should render a page, how it should handle errors and more. The end result is that it may well take 13 years for browsers to comply with every line in the HTML 5 spec” Jeez, Louise, talk about repeating history. Haven’t we been here before? “Even though it was backwards compatible with HTML 2.0, the difference between HTML 2.0 and HTML 3.0 was so large that standardization and deployment of the whole proposal in browsers of the time proved unwieldy.”

Blizzard of Lies — “Did you hear about how Barack Obama wants to have sex education in kindergarten, and called Sarah Palin a pig? Did you hear about how Ms. Palin told Congress, ‘Thanks, but no thanks’ when it wanted to buy Alaska a Bridge to Nowhere? These stories have two things in common: they’re all claims recently made by the McCain campaign — and they’re all out-and-out lies […] How a politician campaigns tells you a lot about how he or she would govern.”

She was for it, before she was against it; but still claims she said “no thank you” — “We need to come to the defense of Southeast Alaska when proposals are on the table like the bridge,” Gov. Palin said in August 2006, according to the local newspaper, “and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative.” […] And while she did take part in stopping the project after it became a national scandal, she did not return the federal money. She just allocated it elsewhere. That’s the most amazing part to me … she claims she finally said “no thank you” to this waste of money … and then she kept the money!!!

A Web Developer’s Analysis of our Presidential Choices — “The choice is clear: a Microsoft-supported, business-as-usual site that clings to last decade’s HTML standards? Or an Open Source-powered site, that not only does a better job adhering to standards but embraces change, transparency, and clear communication?” For example, compare 404 pages: Obama vs. McCain. Later: CSS Crimes! My eyes!

EyeWitness to History – History through the eyes of those who lived it — If you are a history buff like me, you’ll find this fascinating. Read first hand accounts of events from The Battle of Marathon, 490 BC, to The Assassination of Gandhi, 1948 … from a story of Michelangelo Painting the Sistine Chapel by one of his students, to an account of Immigrating to America in 1905.

Scientists may have cured cancer last week – more on DCA — “Here’s the big catch. Pharmaceutical companies probably won’t invest in research into DCA because they won’t profit from it. It’s easy to make, unpatented and could be added to drinking water.” That’s right, there’s no profit in curing cancer, so the Pharmaceutical industry isn’t interested. Now, what was it you were you saying about letting corporations in the marketplace handle our nation’s heath care problems, rather than the government?

Cindy McCain’s Elitist Wardrobe — “One of the persistent memes in the Republican line of attack against Barack Obama is the notion that he is an elitist” … yet Cindy McCain appeared at the convention wearing a $3,000 Oscar de la Renta dress and a $4,500 Chanel J12 White Ceramic watch (not available at Wal-Mart)

A letter from someone who has known Sarah Palin since 1992 — “I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child’s favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city…” And he reports extensively on, not her family, not gossip, but her style of governing. Update:, Um, it’s she and her full email with Google-able name is here.

Why the media should apologize — “We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked. We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? We have asked mean questions like: How well did John McCain know her before he selected her? How well did his campaign vet her? And was she his first choice? Bad questions. Bad media. Bad.”

Google serves up a fresh take on the browser — “Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better.” Meanwhile, back at the Redmond Ranch, IE 8 consumes more RAM than Windows XP. And some would remind you, “the bad news is that Internet Explorer version 6 has 25% of the market.” Yep, a quarter of surfers still use a seven year old browser. It’s like carrying a brick-phone around.

ABC Reporter Arrested in Denver Taking Pictures of Senators, Big Donors — Arrested for being on a public sidewalk that a sheriff claimed was owned by the hotel. Of course, it’s on video, and it’s outrageous. The man is clearly on a downtown public sidewalk, yet a cop forces him into the street into oncoming traffic. “During the arrest, one of the officers can be heard saying to Eslocker, ‘You’re lucky I didn’t knock the f..k out of you.’” Well, I hope ABC News sues the “f..k” out of the Denver police department, to remind them who they work for (i.e., the “public,” who owns that “public” sidewalk, not the hotel).

Advertising may replace art at Atlanta airport — Hartsfield General Manager Ben DeCosta says, “We are a commercial society, and I think our society is reflected on the walls of the airport.” How did we become a commercial society? By removing art education from schools, focusing on the Almighty Dollar, and, oh, yeah, taking art off of public walls … in order to make more money. I call that “self-fulfilling idiocy.”

Rep. John Lewis: John McCain’s Wise Man? — But even though McCain has now repeatedly cited Lewis as a role model and potential adviser, McCain has not established a relationship with the Georgia Democrat in the 22 years they have served in Congress together […] In response to McCain’s latest invocation of his name, Rep. Lewis said in a statement requested by Mother Jones, “I cannot stop one human being, even a presidential candidate, from admiring the courage and sacrifice of peaceful protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge or making comments about it.” But, he added, “Sen. McCain and I are colleagues in the US Congress, not confidantes. He does not consult me. And I do not consult him.“