Wednesday, October 27, 2004

A note of congratulations to our brothers and sisters in Boston. May the Bambino rest in peace. Philosophy rules! Love, Dave 

Northwest Public Radio joins the podcast community. 

BBC: New Florida vote scandal feared. 

Today I got a postcard, an official notice of voter registration from King County, State of Washington, USA, telling me where to vote next Tuesday. So it worked -- I get to cast a vote that counts in the Presidential election. 

NY Times: New food for IPods.  

Earlier today I had a note here asking why I wasn't interviewed for the NY Times piece above. The reporter contacted me, said he had tried to reach me. I apologized for not getting back to him. Overall the piece was pretty good. They use the word podcast without remark. And it was one of the first Times pieces to mention RSS.  

Slate: XM vs the IPod. 

Many thanks to Bradbury Software, makers of the FeedDemon aggregator, for a $1000 donation to BloggerCon; joining Adam Curry, AP, Google and Bloglines as primary sponsors of the conference. Thanks to all!  

Netcraft: "The official campaign web site for US President George W Bush appears to be rejecting web requests from outside the United States." 

Paolo: "It's true. I can't get on the site." 

BBC: "The blocking does not appear to be due to an attack by vandals or malicious hackers, but as a result of a policy decision by the Bush camp." 

NY Times piece on blogging on Madison Avenue. 

BBC: "A US airline attendant is fighting for her job after she was suspended over postings on her blog." 

Morning Coffee Notes, Day 2 

In this crazy mixed up day and age, Kerry is a gun-totin liberal, and Bush is a tax-and-spend compassionate conservative.

BTW, when Bush says he's a tax cutter, there's a little bit of sleight of hand going on there. A deficit is a form of tax. A rising deficit is a rising tax. At some point, unless he's planning on going bankrupt, we're going to have to pay back all the money we're pouring into Iraq. And unlike spending on education, health care, or infrastructure, there's no resulting growth to fund the payback. The money for Iraq is coming out of our pockets, one way or the other, sooner or later. I have a feeling it's not going to come in the form of higher taxes for his patrons. And when they say deficits will be paid for by our children and grandchildren, that's wishful thinking. Many economists believe the bill will come due while you and I are alive.

I remain skeptical of Kerry. Given the huge problems caused by Bush, wouldn't it be something if he had proposals that had a chance of making sure those problems don't plague a Kerry Administration. Some form of extra accountability if he should break a major commitment, as Bush did about going to war in Iraq. (I agree with Kerry, I remember the spin at the time the Senate voted to authorize the war, the President was clear that this was just an option, not a plan.) How can we make sure we're not just replacing one bad actor with another? Really, Kerry hasn't offered us anything substantial here.

The comedian Dennis Miller, who has turned into a Republican (amazing) was on some talk show yesterday and said something pretty reasonable. If Kerry is elected, he's going to get behind Kerry, because he'll be the President. Since I'm voting for Kerry, I can balance his promise, by saying if Kerry is elected, I plan to get on his case and stay on it all through his term. We've had enough horrible government. We must be suspicious of these guys, no matter what party they're from. Now, to be perfectly straight, I don't think I could support a re-elected George Bush. I stood behind him after we were attacked, this is the American thing to do, it's one of the reasons our country is so great. But enough already. We're so divided because of Bush that people are actually talking openly about civil war after the election. This is no good. I find myself ready to say to our friends in Europe and Asia, it's time for you guys to plan your invasion of the US. We need a lot of help here. One more time, we can solve this problem ourselves, but so far we've missed every opportunity to do so.