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• CAMPAIGN 2008

  The Big Picture

  Jessica Ramirez 11/10/2008 12:00:00 AM

  In the hours before President George W. Bush was set to give his final State of the Union message last January, Sen. Barack Obama was already preparing his response. His campaign wasn't planning a press conference or appearances on network news. Instead, they shot and uploaded video of the democratic presidential candidate's comments onto the only site that could rival primetime power—Youtube.

• PROJECT GREEN

  Why It’s Time for a ‘Green New Deal’

  Christopher Dickey 11/1/2008 12:00:00 AM

  In rented offices on a quiet side street in Paris, not far from the Eiffel Tower, analysts for the International Energy Agency spend long days and nights crunching numbers about oil production and greenhouse-gas emissions. They're the staid, sober global accountants who watch over the power supply for the 30 rich countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and their many reports are dry and technical. But lately, the group's pronouncements have taken on more ominous overtones. With a sense of urgency bordering on desperation, the IEA has begun calling for radical changes in the way the world drives its cars, its factories and, indeed, the global economy. This month the agency will issue a collection of comprehensive reports declaring that "a global revolution is needed in ways that energy is supplied and used."

• TECHTONIC SHIFTS

  Open Wide …

  Barrett Sheridan 10/25/2008 12:00:00 AM

  As the U.S. Presidential debates have shown, Barack Obama and John McCain can't agree on much. One rare exception: electronic health records. Obama has proposed spending $50 billion to help doctors and hospitals digitize their files and build patient databases. McCain agrees that electronic recordkeeping could lower costs and save lives—say, by helping doctors more easily recognize which patients are on dangerous drug combinations. Their proposals are part of a larger trend to bring the U.S. medical system, which still runs on paper and pens rather than bits and bytes, into the 21st century. Many businesses, from IBM to Procter & Gamble, have embraced the Web 2.0 ideals of transparency and decentralized problem-solving—what technologists call "open source." But is it a good idea to apply those values to private health matters? Some Web-savvy health-care practitioners are coming to the view that making data about your health freely available to family, friends and doctors could enhance the quality of care.

• TECHNOLOGY

  'Open Wide...'

  Barrett Sheridan 10/16/2008 12:00:00 AM

  As the U.S. presidential debates have shown, Barack Obama and John McCain can't agree on much. One rare exception: electronic health records. Obama has proposed spending $50 billion to help doctors and hospitals digitize their files and build patient databases. McCain agrees that electronic recordkeeping could lower costs and save lives—say, by helping doctors more easily recognize which patients are on dangerous drug combinations.

• FACTCHECK.ORG

  Nonsense in Nashville

  Brooks Jackson 10/8/2008 12:00:00 AM

  McCain proposed to write down the amount owed by over-mortgaged homeowners and claimed the idea as his own: "It's my proposal, it's not Sen. Obama's proposal, it's not President Bush's proposal." But the idea isn't new. Obama had endorsed something similar two weeks earlier, and authority for the treasury secretary to grant such relief was included in the recently passed $700 billion financial rescue package.

• The Slippery Art of Polling

  Sharon Begley 9/27/2008 12:00:00 AM

  If quantity fostered quality, this year's polls asking "McCain or Obama?" would be the best in history: polls have proliferated so crazily that Mark Blumenthal, who analyzes them at pollster.com, writes in a typical post, "Another day, another 37 new statewide polls." The profusion isn't surprising. It reflects the tightness of the race, the increased emphasis on state rather than national polls as the Electoral College looms large, and a race so fluid that pollsters are bound and determined to capture every shift. What is surprising is that, after a primary season in which polls got several big races wrong (Clinton. New Hampshire. Enough said), pollsters are breaking ranks on some key aspects of methodology and admitting that, this year, old truths about polling are in tatters.

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