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With the release of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (also on Facebook and Twitter) next month, will Oliver Stone yet again capture the pulse of the country?

(spoiler alert – if you are one of the few who haven’t seen the film Wall Street, watch it before reading this post)

When Oliver Stone’s Wall Street came out in 1987, he completely captured a decade of greed and excess in just 2 hours. In fact the era it represented can be summed up in just one line from the film’s instantly iconic villain, Gordon Gekko: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”

It was the driving principle at a time when trickle down economics still seemed like a good idea and Wall Street bankers like Gordon Gekko were role models for the legions of Ivy League educated youth looking to make themselves into millionaires overnight.

If you think times have changed since then, Stone’s sequel – Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps – might make you think again.

In Money Never Sleeps, he pits Gekko (Michael Douglas) – fresh out of a stint in jail for insider trading and fraud – against a rising Wall Street star (Shia LaBeouf), who is set to marry his estranged daughter. If you think you’re in for a heartwarming tale about a reformed Wall Street tycoon who sees the error of his ways, think again. Neither character gives you the feeling that there has been some kind of ethical epiphany on Wall Street since the collapse. Sure, there may have been a change in some of the rules, but the game is still largely the same, and so are the players. And thankfully for Stone, they are players we all still love to hate.

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The Florida Senate race is a microcosm of what is occurring in our politics nationally and it offers a glimpse of where we might be headed in 2012.

Marco Rubio won the Republican nomination with strong and early support from Tea Party activists. He also drove a much more moderate Republican, current Governor Charlie Crist out of the Party forcing him to run as an independent rather than face the conservative elements of the GOP. Kendrick Meek also cemented his position as the Democrat in the race with his victory in the Democratic Primary last night.

Looking at the electoral map for 2012, it appears to me that President Obama will need Florida in his column to win re-election. That makes the U.S. Senate race in the Sunshine State perhaps the most important contest in the country in 2010 as well as the most unique.

Now come the questions: The first question is how well will Charlie Crist do with Democratic voters in November? Can he pull enough Democratic votes away from Meek to sneak past Republican Marco Rubio and win election to the Senate as an independent? Or will Democrat Kendrick Meek not only hold on to his base – but succeed in pulling enough independents away from Crist to score a surprise victory in November? And finally there’s this one: how hard will Barack Obama work for a Meek victory?

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Twitter just launched a new section of their site called Twitter Tales, where they’ll highlight the many creative ways that people and businesses have used their service. Here’s more from the Official Twitter Blog:

Today we’re launching Twitter Tales – a growing set of articles that highlights creative individuals and businesses from all corners of the world that help make Twitter awesome. The examples of great Twitter use will also likely inspire others to use the service in innovative and interesting ways.

For the next several weeks, we’ll add a new story to the Twitter Tales homepage that you can access by clicking on the Twitter Tales icon on the sidebar of the Twitter Blog.

Do you have a tale to tell? Tell us who you are and share more information by emailing tales@twitter.com.

What do you think of the concept? Will you submit your Twitter tales?

A few weeks ago, I blogged about YouTube’s venture with Ridley Scott and Kevin Macdonald, the Life in a Day project, which aims to document one day — July 24 — through user-generated video from around the world. In all, the project received 80,000 entries from 197 countries.

The completed film will premier at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, where contributors whose footage makes the cut will be credited as co-directors. But we’ll be able to get a sneak peak in early September when all of the entries go live on YouTube.

With that much footage to sift through, there any number of directions the final film could go. Check out this interview with Ridley Scott, then share in the comments – did you submit any videos to the project?

According to a new Nielsen study released today, Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs, up from 15.8 percent just a year ago (a 43 percent increase). That’s definitely dramatic, but here’s another interesting fact from the study:

Online games overtook personal email to become the second most heavily used activity behind social networks – accounting for 10 percent of all U.S. Internet time. Email dropped from 11.5 percent of time to 8.3 percent.

What does this shift mean about the way in which people communicate online? Are their broader implications? Interestingly enough, though, email continues to dominate mobile internet activity, with an increase from 37.4 percent to 41.6 percent of U.S. mobile Internet time. Nielsen analyst Dave Martin shared some insight on why PC and mobile internet usage remain so different:

“Although we see similar characteristics amongst pc and mobile internet use, the way their activity is allocated is still pretty contrasting, added Martin. While convergence will continue, the unique characteristics of computers and mobiles, both in their features and when and where they are used mean that mobile Internet behavior mirroring its PC counterpart is still some way off.”

Just wanted you to see this great Kos diary from radio host and political commentator David Sirota, on the implications of the new Denver Post poll showing Andrew Romanoff pulling ahead of Michael Bennet in the Colorado Senate Democratic primary. Here’s an excerpt:

The Washington Post recently called the Colorado Senate Democratic primary one of the most important in the nation, and a new Denver Post/9News poll’s results are stunning: Former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff has now taken the lead over appointed Sen. Michael Bennet. I say this is stunning because Romanoff’s progressive-themed campaign has closed a 17-point gap despite being outspent by about 8-to-1. Romanoff will be on my AM760 morning show Monday (8/2) at 8:30am Colorado time to discuss the state of the race. Tune in here. (Note: We are also inviting Sen. Bennet on as well as we always do – but he has most often refused to come on the show and remains unconfirmed for Monday’s show at this time).

A question I keep being asked right now is: How should progressives look at this race? [...]

Bennet has run one of the most D.C.-directed, top-down, Big Money campaigns I’ve ever seen run in any state I’ve ever lived in. He is one of the biggest recipients of corporate campaign cash in the entire U.S. Senate and has relied almost exclusively on the support of the Democratic Party Establishment. That kind of campaign comports not only with some terrible votes he’s cast, but also with a career that has been the antithesis of anything you might call “grassroots” (he went from son of an ambassador to D.C. insider in the Clinton administration to corporate takeover executive for right-wing billionaire Phil Anschutz to appointee as Denver Public Schools chief to appointed senator).

Romanoff, by contrast, has run an almost purely grassroots campaign, has not taken corporate PAC money in this race, has taken concretely progressive positions and has made concrete pledges to cast progressive votes on specific issues. In short, his campaign has been all that any progressive could ask for in terms of structure, issue positions and funding – and the Denver Post/9News poll shows that his campaign is being specifically supported by the progressive base.

Read the rest of Sirota’s post here.

Full Disclosure: I am currently the media consultant and adviser to the Romanoff for Colorado campaign.

Incredible news today: Andrew Romanoff has come from 17 points behind and is now leading the sitting Senator — and Wall Street favorite — Michael Bennet.

Romanoff and Bennet are about even — 48 percent to 45 percent, respectively — in the poll of 536 Democrats who have voted or are likely to vote in the Aug. 10 primary. The question has a margin of error of 4.3 percentage points.

The results show a surge for the former state House speaker since June, when he was 17 points behind, and are likely a reflection of a well-organized and passionate ground game, analysts say. Romanoff recently sold his house and cashed in savings to loan his campaign $325,000.

Romanoff’s movement is “dramatic,” according to pollster Jay Leve of Survey USA, the firm that conducted the poll.

Andrew Romanoff will stand up for ordinary Coloradans, not the special interests — he’s the only candidate in the race that won’t take a dime of special interest money. Senator Bennet takes over a million dollars from big banks, big oil, and other special interests.

The momentum is clearly on Andrew’s side, but Michael Bennet still has millions in the bank. With the primary just over a week away, chip in and help Andrew overcome Bennet’s corporate cash. Donate here.

Full Disclosure: I am currently the media consultant and adviser to the Romanoff for Colorado campaign.