After a brief costume change we progressed to Georgetown for a stroll down the C&O Canal and then to the waterfront for drinks with friends.   They really wanted something casual and candid – I think it worked out pretty well!

She is not going to be the leader of any party and doesn’t seem to be inclined in that direction.

The Sarah Palin phenomenon is a media psychodrama and nothing more. It gives people on each side an excuse to vent about personality traits they despise, but it has nothing to do with government.

She is in 2010 what Jerry Falwell was from the mid-1990s until his death — a conservative cartoon inflated by media. Evangelicals used to say that Falwell had three main constituency groups — ABC, CBS and NBC.

Source: New York Times via Andrew Sullivan

I’m pretty excited.  In September, I will move to London to begin a master’s program at the London School of Economics.  The year-long program, MSc Politics & Communication, addresses the changing relationship between politics, the media and global communications.  What interests me the most is the impact of technology and the Internet on political discourse and citizen engagement.

Leaving DC after 7 years won’t be easy.  I love my friends here and have enjoyed the collegiate and professional life.  Transitioning from my nice apartment to a tiny dorm room may also have its challenges.  But, it’s time for an adventure and I’m thrilled to take it in Europe.

September may seem a litte far off, but I figure it will come rather quickly.  I will continue in my current job through much of June before taking some time off for all that “personal exploration” stuff, to master my skills at eBay and Craigslist, to travel home for a big family reunion, and, of course, to start studying.  I will also try to find some source of income so my roommate doesn’t kick me out.

As for after LSE, I’m not there yet.  Right now, I’m just focusing on this Visa…

Photo: MSH* on Flickr

What began as a routine errands trip turned into a little tourism jaunt to the tidal basin to take this year’s requisite cherry blossom photos.  They’re not in full bloom yet, but they’re on their way.  More enjoyable was the annual kite festival that kicks off the two week National Cherry Blossom Festival each year.  The air around the Washington Monument was filled with hundreds of kites trying to avoid or fight each other.

I feel like it’s required of any amateur photographer to spend at least three hours getting the “perfect” photo of these Sakura blossoms at every angle imaginable.  Not one to miss out on the fun, I took a fair shot (even though they look a little sad in this snap).  Take a look.

Joined up with the fine folks at Brightest Young Things and photographed an event at Wonderland Ballroom last week.  Read the story and see the photos.

These aren’t your father’s CEOs

If there was a pinstripe suit in Austin this week, we didn’t see it.

The movers and shakers of the online world are young, casual and come at business from a different angle than their Wall Street forbearers (a fact not lost on SXSW Web Awards host Doug Benson, who joked that acceptance speeches would all be short because the winners weren’t used to being out of their basements).

But there’s nothing like seeing tech’s youthful leaders for yourself — and all in one place.

Once you’ve watched a company founder tossing fuzzy dice into a crowd of screaming fans or doing the backstroke on the floor of the Hilton lobby at 2 a.m., you won’t think of “CEO” the same way ever again.

Even if they’re a little misleading.

Chart: Obama for America
Data: U.S. Department of Labor

It snowed a bit in Washington this week.  Two storms, nicknamed ‘snowmageddon’ and ‘snoverkill’, shut down the government, schools and universities for about six days.  It was good fun for a time.  Now we get to dig out…or just skip.

See photos.

Many of these stupid mistakes are the result of a failure to understand where these messages go, who sees them and how long they sit around on servers for retrieval. Here are a few tips to securing your conversations and some common pitfalls in leaked communications.

Secure your Gmail
When you’re using WiFi, especially one that’s publicly available, someone can eavesdrop on your web surfing with surprising ease.  That includes your email, downloaded files and websites.  If you see the padlock icon on your browser, it means the website you’re visiting is transmitting that information securely – banks, e-commerce and most login pages are secure.  But, most email websites are not.

In Gmail, click on ‘Settings’ and set ‘Browser Connection’ to ‘Always use HTTPS‘.  This forces Gmail to transmit your data securely every time.  Phew, emails and juicy gchats secure.  Glad that’s done.

Go ‘Off the Record’
Google Talk, or gchat, swiftly brought about the end of AOL Instant Messenger’s reign when Google folded it into Gmail.  Aside from being more convenient, an ‘improvement’ in gchat involves saving every conversation you have for eternity.  I can’t even imagine how much fun it would be to read through a database of gchats.  What a treasure trove.

Make it your policy to “Go off the record” in every chat.  Once you initiate OTR, it stays on for every future conversation you have with that person until you turn it off.  This guarantees that the conversation is not stored in your account or theirs.  Also, it adds great emphasis to what you’re about to say.

Note: If they’re connecting to Google Talk with a third-party program, however, the chat may be stored on their computer.  Foiled.

Watch your BBM and PIN use
I can’t count the number of times I’ve been told by friends and colleagues that they prefer to communicate via BlackBerry Messenger and the internal “PIN” system because its untraceable and no one can read it.  This is not true.  If your BlackBerry is owned by your employer, every message sent and received over BBM is stored on the company’s server and easily retrieved by the system administrator.  Every company has different policies regarding this information, but never be fooled into thinking that what you do online and on your berry is ever secret.  (Update: The Supreme Court on Dec 14th granted cert to a case from a federal appeals court in California that will determine whether text messages sent by an employee on a company device are considered ‘private’.)

Encrypted Emails
You can encrypt the emails you send with FireGPG and a handy Firefox plugin for Gmail.  It’s burdensome to set up, but once you’ve exchanged public keys with the people you want to email with securely, the encryption happens in the background and the message cannot be read by anyone without the key.  Iranian revolutionaries are using it to coordinate protests and the public keys used to unlock emails that could be evidence are at the center of some court cases.

Even though these technologies exist, they really only protect against people eavesdropping on your conversation or intercepting your messages.  If the person you’re communicating with isn’t trustworthy and will just give up all that info…well, then…you’re pretty much screwed.  This post will self-destruct in….5….