Amazon Daily

Meet one of the newest members of the Zak! family--the 4-piece nested bowl set.

More than just helpful around the kitchen, this bowl set is extremely easy on the eyes. I recently used the set in red for a party and they were a big hit! The melamine bowls are durable and perfect for picnicking, but also make cool centerpieces for your dining table or handy dishes for appetizers or snacks. They're also dishwasher safe, which makes me much more apt to use 'em!

Available in shades of red, yellow, or pink; a percentage of the proceeds from the pink set will be donated to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. The bowls come in a cute gift box too, so if you're planning on giving these as gifts--you've already saved a step.

--AndreaLeigh

Introduction: Ollie is part of a pack that includes five kids and two adults (Mom & Dad). He is "dad's dog" and when the kids say I like him better I tell them its because he listens to me and when I call him he always comes. He is the perfect fit to our active family. The kids entertain him as much as he entertains them.

Home: Richmond Hill, Queens, New York City.

Age: 18 months

Breed: Jack Russell Terrier

Personality: Weighs 15 lbs but thinks he weighs 75 lbs.  Extremely shy and cautious outside of the house and with strangers; pushy and and assertive in his safety zones. Very intelligent and a good problem solver.  He will do anything in his power to be at my side. Loves a good game of chase and keep away. While a lot of dogs are eager to please humans, he has only the desire to please himself. He is very obedient and listens very well. His one weakness is cats, he loves to chase cats. Here kitty-kitty....And while I'm very cute please don't try and pet me, I'd much rather play ball!

Likes: Food, toys, car rides, chasing cats and anything else that will run away from me. Being with the family.

Dislikes: Being petted by strangers; not getting to go out with the rest of the "pack"

Favorite Toy: Any stuffed animal.

Favorite Food: Anything you are eating; any and all meat products.

Trivia: Ollie was named after Mets pitcher, Ollie Perez, after beating the Yankees in inter-league play.

--Spanno
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Okay, I'm starting to sound like a WWF announcer (are you ready ruuuuuuumble?) but it is funny that the same Nobel season in which the Swedish chair of the literature prize committee asserted that Americans were not up to European standards saw the first award of the week, for Medicine, go to the French researchers whose claim to discovering the AIDS virus was embroiled in dispute with an American researcher, Robert Gallo, who was not included in today's award. I make no claims to being able to adjudicate the science of the controversy (despite growing up in a National Institutes of Health family, where my dad and Gallo both worked), but it does seem that despite Gallo's "disappointment" at not joining his French colleagues, the controversy (which required at one point an agreement between President Reagan and Prime Minister Chirac) has cooled and the scientific consensus has settled that Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier do have the legitimate claim to first scientific dibs here. Even Anthony Fauci, a high-profile administrator at NIH, "agreed there's no doubt the French scientists first identified the virus. He said they, and zur Hausen [who shared the award for his work on cervical cancer], deserved the Nobel. Fauci said that if additional researchers could have been included, Gallo 'would have been an obvious choice to be added to that list.'"

If you want to return to the bitter days of this '80s scientific controversy (carried on amid the general panic, anger, and shame surrounding the AIDS crisis), NBC's Robert Bazell has a short summary, and you can also visit our contentious customer review section for John Crewdson's Science Fictions: A Scientific Mystery, a Massive Cover-up and the Dark Legacy of Robert Gallo (whose take on Gallo is obvious from its subtitle). Gallo and Montagnier also wrote their own versions of the discovery and dispute: Gallo in Virus Hunting: AIDS, Cancer, and the Human Retrovirus: A Story of Scientific Discovery and Montagnier in Virus: The Co-Discoverer of HIV Tracks Its Rampage and Charts the Future. --Tom

Though it's definitely a catchy song, I doubt many people would remember A-ha's "Take On Me" if it weren't for its innovative-for-the-'80s half-animated/half-live action video. Recently, some evil genius took a crack at rewriting "Take on Me," crafting the lyrics as a running commentary describing exactly what's happening in the song's iconic video. The results are hilarious. Behold:

[ht: Line Out]

-- Jeff Reguilon

Many of you probably tuned in to Saturday Night Live this weekend for their opening spoof on the Vice Presidential debate, presided over by Queen Latifah as moderator Gwen Ifill (who pitched that her book was available for pre-order at Amazon, ha!) and once again starring Tina Fey as Sarah Palin (someone get her another Emmy, stat). Here it is again, if you missed it:

But for those of you who turned it off afterwards, too tired or impatient to sit through 90 minutes of commercials and usually mediocre bits, here are the top 3 I enjoyed from this weekend after the debate sketch, with guest host Anne Hathaway. The episode was actually better than average; Hathaway did a great job poking fun at her own mini-scandal this summer in her monologue, and also managed to sing in nearly ever sketch she participated in.

First up: a Mary Poppins spoof (Hathaway perfectly embodies Julie Andrews), where the real meaning of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is revealed:

Meanwhile, Mark Wahlberg talks to some farm animals. I rolled with laughter only because I didn't realize Mark Wahlberg was so spoof-able. ("Say hi to your mother for me, OK?")

The third highlight I picked actually not available to watch (it's Will Forte's song during Weekend Update attempting to run down how everyone voted on the economic bailout), so I'll show the honorable mention, Andy Samberg's digital short with season MVP Kristin Wiig. -- Ellen

The Watchmen is here! Wait, not THAT Watchmen. The much-anticipated film won't be out until next year. However, the "Motion Comics" version of the classic story is unfolding on digital video platforms, including Amazon Video On Demand. Here's some of what what Dave Gibbons, who drew the original graphic novel, told Newsarama about the new thing:

The source material was never designed to be animated and this has created a lot of logistical problems with extended drawing, additional movement to figures that never had it, etc. I think it’s always going to be a hybrid; it’s never going to be the pure thing anymore than the multi-million dollar motion picture will be the real thing. Watchmen the comic book is the real thing.

I still do think it’s an attractive and exciting way to present the material and I also think it shows the great strengths of Alan’s original story and, with modesty, the accessibility of my art style that I used on it. I think people can enjoy the graphic novel, they can enjoy the Motion Comic and they can enjoy the movie. I don’t think enjoying the presence of one excludes enjoyment of the others. I was particularly struck by the reaction of people who did not read the initial graphic novel. They were used to getting their visual excitement and storytelling from YouTube, TV or DVD. I think it’s a way of bridging that gap – bringing people hopefully to Watchmen the graphic novel and hopefully to other graphic novels and comics in general.

The Motion Comics are a great way to get into the world of The Watchmen, but be advised. The graphic novel is indeed graphic, and so are the videos. -- Stephanie Reid-Simons

The sign outside my local elementary school last spring wished students a "great summer" in a typical Travis Heights way: "Whatever Higher Power(s) You May Or May Not Believe In...YEE HA!"

Gender neutral, faith neutral, God neutral...that's my neighborhood here in Austin, Texas. In 2000, George Bush came in behind both Al Gore AND Ralph Nader in Travis Heights. When 70 percent of Texas voted in favor of a ban on gay marriage, my precinct voted 90% against. In my zip code, 90% of the federal election contributions this year went to Democrats.

Oh, and one more thing. Travis Heights Elementary is exactly one block from the house where liberal writer Molly Ivins lived. (If Molly were still alive and writing, our zip code would be bright blue on the Amazon book map.)

To the cable television boys who finger paint on the electoral map, Texas is always solid red. (The CNN guy never taps his digit down in our direction.) But here, in the neighborhood where I live, we're bluer than Vermont. And that's the point about all those red and blue state maps. They are good for showing what has been a remarkably static division in the Electoral College. But they miss how people are living and, I suspect, buying books.

The divisions state to state are real, but they are nothing compared to how Americans are sorting themselves from community to community. Statistician Bob Cushing and I traced the votes at the county level from 1948 to 2004 in our book The Big Sort. We could see that majorities, Republican or Democratic, were piling up in communities. The last five presidential elections have been as close as any in the last 100 years. But an increasing number of people live in counties where elections aren't close at all, where either one party or another wins in a landslide.

So, in 1976 — the nearly dead-even contest between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford — about a quarter of all voters lived in a county where one side or the other won by 20 points or more. By 2004 — the nearly dead-even contest between John Kerry and George W. Bush — almost a half of all voters lived in places, like Travis Heights, where 20 points or more decided the election.

When you look at local voting results over time, you see that counties tip Republican or Democratic, and then they keep tipping as more Republicans move into Republican counties and Democrats cluster in Democratic communities. (Or, at the same time, counties grow increasingly lopsided as members of the minority party decamp for more politically hospitable environs.)

One half of U.S. voters live in counties that have remained unchanged in their presidential preference since 1980; 60 percent live in counties that have not changed since 1988; and nearly 73 percent live in counties that have not changed since 1992. Orange and Los Angeles counties in California are side by side, but local political majorities have been growing in opposite directions since 1976, a phenomenon found in two-thirds of U.S. communities.

Our sense is that people aren't moving to be around others who feel as they did about the Iraq War or single-payer health plans. People are clustering around others who live as they do — people who have similar lifestyles, who read similar kinds of books. And every four years those ways of life align with political party.

Marketing folks have known for some time that demographic factors have little meaning these days. People don't define themselves as "single, male, college-educated, 25 to 35 years of age." They think of themselves as environmentalists, car-racing enthusiasts, or, as one woman told me, "I'm an ocean-oriented person." They know that to learn about another's politics you consider the way they live, not their age, race, or level of education. In a radio talk show in Minneapolis, three callers told me they realized they had moved into a community with political opposites when they saw their neighbors using lawn chemicals. (It was a public radio show, in case you couldn't tell.)

Politics these days aren't about issues. People don't line up with a party because they agree with a set of policy position papers. One political scientist described the choice of a political party this way: You have a choice of attending one of two parties being held in two rooms off the same hall. You look into each room and you look at the people — how they appear, their gestures, what they're wearing. You get a vibe and then you join with the group you think is most like you.

You might even look at the books they are reading.

That's how people pick neighborhoods these days. It's also how they pick churches and civic clubs. It's the reason people with college degrees are clustering in particular cities and why some places are succeeding economically while others are slipping further behind.

That's The Big Sort. And it plays out more in culture, in books, than in politics. --Bill Bishop

See the whole Red-Blue Roundtable.

The big message of our Red State, Blue State book is that the "culture war" between red and blue America is real, but it is concentrated among upper-income voters.  Richer Americans tend to be more politically involved and more ideological in their voting patterns.

Here are some maps from our book showing our estimate of who would've won each state in 2004 if only the votes of rich, middle-income, or poor voters were counted. For each scenario, we show the states (red if Bush would've won in that income category, blue if Kerry would've won) and then a scatterplot of estimated Bush vote vs. state income.

Among the rich, you see a strong red-state, blue-state divide, with Kerry winning rich voters in only four states--the cultural elite of New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and California--and Bush winning the other forty-six. Going to lower-income voters, you see Kerry winning in a mixture of rich and poor states.

So, what does this say about Amazon book-buying patterns? Or, more to the point, what do Amazon book-buying patterns tell us about the electorate? I assume Amazon purchasers are mostly in the upper third of income, and so I'd expect to see pretty strong red-state, blue-state divisions. And, indeed, the colors of Amazon's red-blue map of book purchasers looks a lot more like the voting patterns of the rich than the poor.

For example, look at Nevada, whose Amazon purchases are going 2:1 Red to Blue. Nevada as a whole is split evenly between the two parties, but higher-income Nevadans have gone Republican in recent elections.

Higher-income, more politically involved citizens drive our political discussions, on both the left and the right, and so I think the Amazon data are telling us something. But let's not forget that the geographic distribution of political attitudes is different among other segments of the population. --Andrew Gelman

See the whole Red-Blue Roundtable.

I think we're moving well beyond red states vs. blue states. Back in 2004, this artificial construct actually defined the election and the nation. We saw in our polling huge differences in demographics, attitudes, and behaviors between citizens of the red states and citizens of the blue states.

This could very well be the year when the old red state vs. blue state paradigm disappears. Frankly there are other demographics that I’m watching, notably the Equinox Voters -- the Spring Aheads, who are the economic winners in key new- economy states like New Hampshire, North Carolina, Florida, New Mexico, and Colorado vs. the Fall Backwards, the victims of the old-economy who are bouncing from lower paying job to lower paying job in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Missouri.

People are buying fewer hardbound books: first and foremost that's a statement on the economy and technology -- other forms of reading cost significantly less. Right-wing books have their devoted following, thus an Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly is assured strong sales. While the left has its devoted followers, they seem to show up mainly on the blogs and online.

Those differences still persist but are moving into the background because of the rise of the political center and a growing need by Americans of all stripes for problem solvers not ideologues. That is what over 80% of voters tell us they want -- a problem solver, a competent manager of government, someone who can work with the opposition, and someone who can command the military. Not one of those is ideological or partisan. The most interesting thing to watch this year is not the hyper-partisan rhetoric, but instead the way both major candidates are appealing to the middle. Something worthy of note: there is always a centrist political party waiting to be formed. If either party tilts too far toward its base, the center could rise. Frankly, had this election been about Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee vs. Hillary Clinton, I think a centrist like Mike Bloomberg running on the characteristics I just noted had the potential to do very well. --John Zogby