Monday, December 08, 2003

Dowbrigade: "Wednesday, China's new premier, Wen Jiabao, will be speaking at the Harvard Business School, and my Chinese student Simon will be there to give us a first-hand report." 

AP: "Former Vice President Al Gore intends to endorse Howard Dean for the Democratic presidential nomination, a dramatic move that could tighten Dean's grip on the front-runner position." "This is huge," said Donna Brazile, who was Mr. Gore's campaign manager in 2000. "It gives Dean what Dean has been missing most: Stature. Gore is a major league insider, somebody with enormous credibility that Democrats respect, who can rally the grass roots, and who's been speaking very strongly in the last few months about the direction he wants to take the country in." 

No word about the Gore endorsement on the Dean weblog. For that matter no mention of it on the Clark or Bush blogs either. Postscript: Lieberman had something to say. 

Joshua Marshall: "It's difficult to write anything about Howard Dean without Dean's fans thinking you're bashing him -- except, of course, if you're adoring him or cheering him on." I noticed too. 

On this day last year, my Dad talked. This was a big deal, and the family was optimistic -- but he wasn't out of the woods yet, as it would turn out. Today, he and my Mom are hiking in the desert east of San Diego. Hiking. We call him The Miracle Man. Later this month, Murphy-willing, the folks will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.  

Betsy Devine: "In her doggy mind, I'm the one who made all this snow. And I did it for her, just because it would make her happy." 

Zawodny: "RSS may not be perfect, but it's good enough." 

Paul Boutin's 10 technologies that have changed the way we live. 

Jim Moore: "Woke up this morning to a world of dazzling sunlight on waves of undisturbed sugar crystal snow." 

2/18/95: "If millions of people understand and use the expressive power of the web they would be easier to organize against paranoic attacks on our civil liberties." 

Ed Cone: "The Dean campaign has created its own parallel media universe." 

I email on and off with the CTO of the Kerry campaign, he was at BloggerCon, trying to drop not-too-subtle hints that Dean could be one-upped, or maybe two-upped. So he asks how and I tell him, and he says they have to go slowly. And you wonder why Kerry, according to some, is getting ready to write off New Hampshire. BTW, I don't support Kerry, or Dean. I do believe in using the Internet to revolutionize democracy. You can see that in my writings going back to 1994. People said I was a dreamer, that I should stick to technology, but I insisted that politics and technology were inseparable. Hey it's nice to be right. But Dean doesn't go nearly far enough, not enough to make it real democracy, and not enough to beat Bush. So far Dean only reports to and about people who are already Dean supporters.  

BTW, Dean breaks the number one rule of the Internet, he takes from the Internet, but doesn't give back. Where is he on the Broadcast Flag and earlier Democrat-sponsored efforts to turn control of the Internet over to the entertainment industry? Has he stood up for free speech on the Internet? What was his position on the Communication Decency Act? Read the last section of my recommendations for Presidential candidates. Imho, it's not enough just to use the Internet to schedule meetings and raise money. The ideal of democracy involves diverse points of view, an informed citizenry, and freedom of speech. I've yet to hear a Dean speech that grabs me this way, but such a speech is not only possible, it's mandatory. Get up in front and tell us why the Internet is great. Dean is in front but sadly he doesn't really know why the Internet is great. The real revolution is still waiting to happen. 

One more thing, Dean has picked safe people to advise him on the Internet. They're nice. They say nice things. But they're not fighters. Another way to say "let's lose this election but we'll be really nice about it." 

NY Times: "At least a third of all spam circulating on the Internet is now sent from or relayed by personal home computers that have been taken over." 

Slow start today -- lots of good stuff on yesterday's Scripting.