Catch phrases are big business. Streaming movies? Not so much.

Mat Honan worked for two failed dotcoms before becoming a contributing editor at Wired magazine — but his luck changed in February when he created a funny site about Barack Obama in just a few hours. 7 million pageviews later, it's landed him a book deal, a slew of interviews, and even a mention in the New York Times.

The success grew from a personal catchphrase whispered teasingly to his wife: "Barack Obama is your new bicycle." (Her excitement about the candidate matched her previous enthusiasm for cycling.) But it soon exploded, proving once again the strange fame-making power of the web.

How a Barack Obama Site Made Me Famous

Worth a look.

Would McCain be the oldest US President? Would Obama be the youngest? Who was the youngest president? Were presidents younger in the past or older? What is the highest number of years a former president lived after leaving office? Who served the longest? Whose term was the shortest? The interactive visualization below lets you answer these and a few other questions.

Presidential Demographics

Neither candidate speaks with much candor about solving the energy crisis.

See also:

What will happen when America can't afford to fly?

From the archive:

In all his speeches, John McCain urges Americans to make sacrifices for a country that is both “an idea and a cause”.

He is not asking them to suffer anything he would not suffer himself.

But many voters would rather not suffer at all.

More recently:

McCain is no longer telling the sorts of hard truths that people would prefer not to confront, or even half-truths that they might find vaguely discomfiting. Instead, he’s opted out of truth altogether

Recent history suggests that Presidential campaigns don’t reward integrity; the candidate who refuses to compromise his principles is unlikely to have a chance to act on them. Still, McCain’s slide is saddening. That he has sunk to the level of “Pump” a full month before Labor Day really doesn’t leave him—or the race—far to go.

Perhaps the most powerful way in which we conspire against ourselves is the simple fact that we have jobs.

The sacrifice-free election strategy

Is an imperial presidency destroying what America stands for? Bill Moyers sits down with history and international relations expert and former US Army Colonel Andrew J. Bacevich who identifies three major problems facing our democracy: the crises of economy, government and militarism, and calls for a redefinition of the American way of life

Bill Moyers and Andrew Bacevich

Justice has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.

But many voters would rather not suffer at all.

The changes would revise the rules for police intelligence-gathering for the first time since 1993 ...

Quietly unveiled late last month, the proposal is part of a flurry of domestic intelligence changes issued and planned by the Bush administration in its waning months. They include a recent executive order that guides the reorganization of federal spy agencies and a pending Justice Department overhaul of FBI procedures for gathering intelligence and investigating terrorism cases within US borders.

Taken together, critics in Congress and elsewhere say, the moves are intended to lock in policies for Bush's successor and to enshrine controversial post-Sept. 11 approaches that some say have fed the greatest expansion of executive authority since the Watergate era.

Supporters say the measures simply codify existing counterterrorism practices and policies that are endorsed by lawmakers and independent experts such as the 9/11 Commission. They say the measures preserve civil liberties and are subject to internal oversight.

From the archive:

Is more what we really need?

In my opinion not.

But running spies is not the NSA's job. Listening is, and more listening is what the NSA knows how to organize, more is what Congress is ready to support and fund, more is what the President wants, and more is what we are going to get.

US May Ease Police Spy Rules

NSF data reveal that in 2005, the foreign student population earned approximately 34.7% of the doctorate degrees in the sciences and approximately 63.1% of the doctorate degrees in engineering. In 2005, foreign students on temporary resident visas earned 30.8% of the doctorates in the sciences, and 58.6% of the doctorates in engineering. The participation rates in 2004 were 28.5% and 57.3%, respectively. In 2005, permanent resident status students earned 3.8% of the doctorates in the sciences and 4.5% of the doctorates in engineering, slightly above the 2004 levels of 3.7% and 4.2%, respectively.

Many in the scientific community maintain that in order to compete with countries that are rapidly expanding their scientific and technological capabilities, the country needs to bring to the United States those whose skills will benefit society and will enable us to compete in the new-technology based global economy. The academic community is concerned that the more stringent visa requirements for foreign students may have a continued impact on enrollments in colleges and universities. There are those who believe that the underlying problem of foreign students in graduate science and engineering programs is not necessarily that there are too many foreign-born students, but that there are not enough native-born students pursuing scientific and technical disciplines.

Foreign Science and Engineering Presence in U.S. Institutions and the Labor Force

So remember, when John McCain and his surrogates call me a "celebrity," they're not insulting me; they're insulting you.

The phrase "celebrity culture" is an indictment of the culture, not the celebrity.

The Anonymous Liberal: How Obama Should Respond to the 'Celebrity' Charge

Thinking about the genesis and consequences of the Iraq War and the recently passed FISA law that authorizes wholesale wiretapping, I recalled a relevant party game described by philosopher Daniel C. Dennett in his book "Consciousness Explained." It's a variant of the familiar childhood game requiring that one try to determine by means of Yes or No questions a secretly chosen number between one and one million.

In Dennett's more interesting and suggestive game, one person, the subject, is selected from a group of people at a party and asked to leave the room. He is told that in his absence one of the other partygoers will relate a recent dream to the other party attendees. The person selected then returns to the party and, through a sequence of Yes or No questions about the dream, attempts to accomplish two things: reconstruct the dream and identify whose dream it was.

The punch line is that no one has related any dream.

War, Spying and Party Game Delusions

The White House is expected Thursday to unveil the largest overhaul of intelligence powers in a generation, spelling out the responsibilities of each intelligence agency in the wake of several reforms following the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to government officials familiar with the plans.

The revised order states that the new law will be the only law that governs surveillance, in an attempt to quell the concerns of lawmakers who contend that Mr. Bush ignored the law when he authorized a warrantless-spying program after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Some on Capitol Hill were frustrated that the administration kept Congress in the dark on this historic overhaul. "They did not consult Congress at all," said one congressional official.

Overhaul Elevates Intelligence Director

On behalf of the President and the Director of National Intelligence, I am pleased to present this second Annual Report to the Congress on the Information Sharing Environment (ISE). We believe it demonstrates a solid record of accomplishment by the Office of the Program Manager, the many agencies represented on the Information Sharing Council, and our partners in State, local, and tribal (SLT) governments. In the past year we have made significant progress in a number of important areas of information sharing. Issuance of a new framework for marking and handling Controlled Unclassified Information, establishment of the Interagency Threat Assessment and Coordination Group at the National Counterterrorism Center, completion of a functional standard for terrorism-related suspicious activity reporting, and publication of the first version of an enterprise architecture framework for the ISE are only a few of the important achievements.

Notwithstanding these achievements, there is still much more to be done. In particular, Information Sharing Council (ISC) member agencies must work to fully implement the ISE; assure full participation by our SLT partners; and help secure and make safe our communities and nation by effectively sharing information. So, in addition to describing 2007-08 accomplishments, the Report outlines the status, outcomes and activities that are needed to continue to improve information sharing.

Annual Report to the Congress on the Information Sharing Environment