I got a note today from a longtime reader. He wrote of the comments here (and is far from alone in this sentiment):
“I’ll no longer be reading them.“Not your fault, really. But there’s enough that annoys me in the world without it deliberately trying to be offensive.”
Amen on the last part.
The Hill: Rule change to shield DeLay. The House GOP caucus is likely to vote today to end its rule requiring leaders to step down if indicted, thus shielding Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) in the event that criminal charges are brought against him in a highly controversial case in Texas.
Things that make you go Hmmmmmm
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee stunned a public hearing by revealing that recent newspaper coverage had inaccurately understated what the committee identified as over $66 million in payments and millions more in political donations, extracted from six Indian tribes by casino lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his secret junior partner Michael Scanlon. The partners shared millions of this loot with former Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed, Abramoff’s prot
I’ve returned to Hong Kong, where the Net connections are excellent. The difference between here and Shanghai is amazing, in many ways.
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass when you leave!
Five Rivers versus WalMart
Did you know that Walmart was dumping TV’s on the market at lower than market prices and that this was possible (partialy) because China has purpously devalued the Yuan (their currency) and held it down artificialy for years? This is a MAJOR cause of job-loss in the United States.
OK, this is from a friend of mine who sometimes gets out of control, but can someone tell me how legit it is?
If manufacturing is the baseline of our economy and someone else is doing (manufacturing) more than us, does that mean that they are gaining on us as an economic power in the world? Last quarter trade deficit with China was over $120Billion!
It’s only a matter of time before China will be a bigger economy than the US. Current World Bank estimates put the changeover as happening at about 2025; using current GDP and growth rates puts it at more like 2040. But: it will happen sooner or later.
…to the Online News Association for the kind award to this online column. I’m flattered, and honored.
Nihao, Dan–
You’ll be amused to know that as your award was announced, the screenshot shown to the crowd was headlined: “Please don’t feed the troll.”
Congratulations Dan,
and thank you for keeping your comments section open to the public
Congratulations, Dan.
Daniel Drezner and Henry Farrell have written a well-reasoned piece in Foreign Affairs about the intersection of grassroots media and international affairs. Summary:
Every day, millions of online diarists, or “bloggers,” share their opinions with a global audience. Drawing upon the content of the international media and the World Wide Web, they weave together an elaborate network with agenda-setting power on issues ranging from human rights in China to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. What began as a hobby is evolving into a new medium that is changing the landscape for journalists and policymakers alike.
This reminds me of Time’s piece with the headline “Hyper-Democracy?” The Internet and now blogging is on its way to destroying Big Media Owners’ monopoly on defining the “normal” scope of political debate — and it’s about damn time!
This is an interesting point and adds a new dynamic to blogging journalists. As a more or less direct analogy, is Dan Rather more influential because he has a large audience in America or is Dan Gillmor more influential because his audience is global and fully interactive (meaning he hears their views as well as “broadcasting” his own)?
Traditional news media provides the occasional editorial comment within a sea of, essentially, “announcements” whereas blogs offer an number of, essentially, “editorials” and viewpoints with each and every story. We become a more educated reader when we are offered the “why” and “how” in addition to “what, where and when”.
More and more I am seeing traditional news outlets as providing stale, diluted and often unfiltered “sound bites” straight from the spin masters and PR people. Moving forward can someone like Dan Rather (as an analogy) compete in terms of accuracy and insight with a medium whose readers are potentially a vast army of “on the spot” editor reporters distrubed across the globe?
I sent this to a bunch of international poison control centers today:
http://slashdot.org/~js7a/journal/89475
I have a feeling that sending to the email inboxes of poison control centers’ directors will be more effective than just blogging it.
This is an April Fool’s Joke, right?
blogging has become a social networking kind of tool i assume but it is smaller scale if compare to friendster, flickr or orkut.
Dan,
a slight correction to the post. The Drezner/Farrell piece appears in Foreign Policy magazine, not Foreign Affairs.
Tom Davey
Web producer for www.foreignaffairs.org
My publisher tells me that rights have been sold for Japanese, Portuguese and Korean editions of We the Media. Grassroots media in Asia is getting big, and Brazil is a hotbed of blogging and other media work, so I’m naturally pleased to see these thoughts get into their native languages.
Also, Fortune Magazine’s David Kirkpatrick offered some kind words in his latest column, saying, “If you want to really understand the significance of blogging as a new media alternative,” read the book.
Dan, Be careful, you may be the crank that started a revolution.
Lawrence Lessig, President 2008
Washington Post: Microsoft E-Mail Looks Like Spam to Some Recipients. Like many anti-spam activists, Poortinga, a Bloomington, Ind., programmer, has never been a fan of the Can-Spam Act. He said it is as much an effort to protect corporate marketers’ ability to send unwanted e-mail as it is to block unsavory spam. He said he never gave Microsoft the e-mail address to which Ballmer’s note was sent. Poortinga said he primarily used that address to register Internet domains for hosting Web sites. “It also shows that the Can-Spam Act is simply a worthless exercise in PR and it reinforces the widely held belief that Microsoft is so arrogant that they feel that they are not bound to conform to laws and standards,” Poortinga said in an e-mail interview.
The Direct Marketing Association and their furry little friends have this fantasy that there is such a thing as “legitimate” spam. There isn’t — it’s a matter of simple arithmetic. If there are 100,000 busineees worldwide that might want to sell you something, and each of them sent you one e-mail per year, that would be 274 *per day*. Both of those assumptions are wild underestimates, of course.
Spam is looking less and less like marketing and more like a massive denial- of- service attack. Cyberterrorism, anyone?
I agree with Lightning. I get 15-20 Fake Rolex ads a day as well as the other garbage and I have noticed in the last two or three days that some idiot had spoofed my email address and sending spam from me, at least I am getting the bounce messages.
Hey Guys
The Feds have a way for you to, at least, get rid of that spam… well, in a manner of speaking.
Look here: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/online/inbox.htm
About half-way down that webpage is this:
“What Can I Do With the Spam in my In-Box?
“Report it to the Federal Trade Commission. Send a copy of unwanted or deceptive messages to spam@uce.gov. The FTC uses the unsolicited emails stored in this database to pursue law enforcement actions against people who send deceptive spam email.”
The Feds are asking for the spam you receive. There’s only one way you can make ‘em work on it. Send the spam to the FTC.
Microsoft has been both a spammer, and spammer-friendly, for a long time.
Back in the days when inames was giving away free addresses, I got one from them. I never had any use for it, until one day we had a problem at work that required access to some of their tech support databases. Since we didn’t have a net conection at work, I volunteered to do the research at home. The database access required that I cough up an email address, and, being suspicious, I gave them the inames one. Not long after that, I started getting email from MSN Sidewalk vendors offering me cheap DVDs, airfare discounts, etc. And it got worse: apparently, either one of their vendors sold my address, or someone hacked an MS server and stole their database, because the inames address started getting all kinds of crap. I even got a few 419 spams through it.
One of the very first things MS did when they bought Link Exchange was to amend its TOS to eliminate the provision that banned spammers. This had been a useful way of starving them of free advertising.
Before they sold out to MS, hotmail had an aggressive policy of closing accounts that were being used as dropboxes to collect replies to spams. MS modified their software to make it impossible to even _complain_ about such abuse by autobouncing any complaint about email that didn’t _originate_ from their servers (To be fair, they appear to have stolen this idea from Yahoo, so it’s not like they actually went out of their way to “innovate” any means of being a spamhaven).
Like everything else that isn’t tied down (and quite a few things that were), the net is, in Microsoft’s view, just another resource to be ripped off to the extent they can get away with it.
“Cyberterrorism, anyone?”
This is starting to sound pretty tempting: some slimeball (probably a spammer I got busted) put my email address on one of those “FFA” sites, and now every moron who’s ever fallen for one of those “$29.95 bulk emailer software with 50 gazillion opt-in leads!!!!” scams is trying to sell me a copy of it. Hacking a few of those scam sites (so that, say, the “add an address” script sends a few thousand “new sucker signed up” emails to the domain owner’s whois contact for every new entry) might give them a hint…
The plot emerges through Carson’s meditative, microsoft elusive fragments, mysteriously isolated couplets, nude excerpts from versified conversations and letters, sears interior monologues and (as Carson’s readers have band come to expect) digressions on matters of classical christina aguilera scholarship. This kind of thing is imitated badly harry potter and often by others, but Carson’s phraseology vacation within poems remains her own: “Rotate the husband dog
Vote.
I woke up, compared my “civic duty” to my “conscience” and decided I couldn’t vote for either of the candidates. First time ever I didn’t vote for a presidential candidate.
Until a party chooses a real leader, a statesman, my voting days are over. I’m not voting for incompetents, opportunists, or clowns anymore.
From Jeff Jarvia, via Andrew Sullivan:
After the election results are in, I promise to:
: Support the President, even if I didn’t vote for him.
: Criticize the President, even if I did vote for him.
: Uphold standards of civilized discourse in blogs and in media while pushing both to be better.
: Unite as a nation, putting country over party, even as we work together to make America better.
I’ll agree with Mike. Although I didn’t vote for the president that won, I will support him even though I’m not that happy with him.
Meanwhile, the regime in Beijing just can’t stop closing down Internet cafes (Register), part of the government’s attempt to stifle political dissent even as it liberalizes economically. In the end, they can’t do both successfully, because a vibrant free economy depends in part on political freedom.
“a vibrant free economy depends in part on political freedom.”
Is this true? what about Singapore?
(I’m curious, not challenging)
It worked for a while in Singapore, but they’ve stifled creativity for so long that they’re now in some trouble. In fact, the government is liberalizing politically at this point, and for this reason — they know that in the economy of tomorrow, creativity is essential.
China has closed 1% of the cafes.
Not really a big crackdown.
Our solution is to simply keep using their cheaper labor while we bring in our fast-food and Western lifestyle franchises to sell them more stuff with their raised standard of living. The more disposable income they have, the more choice they have, the more their politics will lean toward personal freedom and personal responsibility.
That will settle the dust, eventually.
Check out http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/pnm/pnm_index.htm : Pentagon’s new map
Just some questions… sort of following up on Anna’s comments:
1)”a vibrant free economy depends in part on political freedom.” Any evidence this is more than just wishful thinking on our part? I can’t think of a fundamental reason why this statement would be true.
2)”in the economy of tomorrow, creativity is essential”… again, we hear this so often, but is it more than wishful thinking? In the last chapter of his book “Accidental Theorist”, economist Krugman plays the devil’s advocate (sort of), and imagines a future where the above is not true.
“Any evidence this is more than just wishful thinking on our part? I can’t think of a fundamental reason why this statement would be true.”
I can, now, I think. Not sure if it would scale down to small-country size, but:
Political freedom means voters have control of their govt. If voters have control, corporations don’t. If corporations don’t, they can’t stifle competing “garage company” innovations in the cradle. Hence more freedom to innovate.
And what about Hong Kong (especially before mid-80’s when UK started the process of returning HK to China and introducing some political liberalization)? Or is that due to unique circumstances in spite of the political environment?
Speaking about Hong Kong, are you teaching there this year, Dan?
I don’t know that much about Singapore; been there just once several years back. One impression (whether true or false) I got from the trip was that the major projects or developments over there were led or coordinated by the government. So the corollary would be if you don’t get the government interested, it won’t get done.
Again, I don’t see why “a vibrant free economy depends in part on political freedom.” Although Anna makes a good point as to why the assertion may be corect, I still think it could be a case of wishful thinking. The last century was “the American century”, where the US economy was the dominant player. Why? It is nice to think it is because of our democratic institutions, but it could just be an accident of history. If this century indeed turns out to be the “Chinese century”, then all of a sudden everyone will think their political system is superior. In chaotic systems, temporary equilibria can persist, to be replaced by others, yet it is impossible to predict the sequence of equilibria, or even to explain in hindsight why a particular sequence occurred.
The Chinese government confirmed this weekend that it has closed 1,600 internet cafes. 1600 cafes = 1% of cafes…
Bob Herbert (NY Times): Days of Shame. Overseas, our troops are being mauled in the long dark night of Iraq – a war with no end in sight that has already claimed the lives of more than 1,100 American troops and thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of innocent Iraqis. At home, the party of the sitting president is systematically stomping on the right of black Americans to vote, a vile and racist practice that makes a mockery of the president’s claim to favor real democracy anywhere.
We’re seeing a raft of stories now, full of journalistic “balance,” showing problems on both sides of the aisle.
There certainly are some cases of fraudulent registration. But this is hardly likely to be a more Democratic phenomenon than a Republican one; it’s just as easy (or difficult) to do it on either side.
Naturally, I didn’t hear any Republican complaints about the phony Ralph Nader petition signatures that caused a Pennsylvania judge to proclaim the activities “the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever perpetrated upon this court” before tossing Nader off the ballot. A Nader vote would surely have been one less vote for Kerry in most cases.
But there is abundant evidence surfacing that people — presumably who want Bush to win — are trying to suppress the vote, especially in minority communities, through various kinds of trickery or outright bullying. Herbert’s column talks about Pennysylvania, but there have been cases documented around the country.
Several of my friends, including two high-powered lawyers, have flown to Ohio and Florida, to be poll monitors. They want to help ensure that people who are registered to vote don’t get bullied out of voting.
The people attempting to illegally suppress the minority vote deserve more than condemnation. They deserve jail time.
When the term “machine” is used to talk about elections, the word “Democratic” is always understood to be in front of it. And the reason is the “machine” manufactures votes. Absentee ballots and this provisional balloting in different precincts are some of the tools of the trade. The expansion of same day registration is an interesting advancement in fraud: why not vote in multiple precincts? How are they going to check? As we saw a few weeks ago in a few news sources, the Dem’s playbook is to complain about problems, bring some “disenfranchised” person (preferably a minority) and get it on the news…
From the Rocky Mountain News describing the Dem’s playbook…
“If no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a pre-emptive strike,” rule No. 2 says.
Then, the manual says the operatives should issue a press release “reviewing Republican tactics used in your area or state.” They should also quote “party/minority/civil rights leadership as denouncing tactics that discourage people from voting.”
–
So, Dan, you and the Dem’s then get to complain about poll watchers catching some of this stuff. The Dem’s raise such a ruckus that even when the law is broken and someone is allowed to vote when they have no right to, a big deal is made.
I have nothing but contempt for these practices. And yes, the Republicans play games, but I live in Chicago and the games played by the Democrats are huge. Who was JFK’s first guest in the White House in 1961? Richard J Daley? Who did Gore get to spearhead the 2000 recount fiasco? Daley’s son. Why? Because they brought in the vote manipulation experts.
The games played by Republicans pale against what the Democrats are pulling. It’s one thing to get out the vote. I whole heartedly agree. It’s another to attack and overwhelm the system with fraud. And they do it where they have the most control – the heavily democratic areas where the Dem’s control the apparatus. When I hear people talk about Republican thugs in these urban areas, I laugh. Then they complain about Republicans who may run a Secretary of State’s office. These elections are highly local and the shenannigans happen at the precinct level. Who do you think works the precincts? Many are former or current party people or were on the city’s payroll? (I’m thinking of how Chicago works.)
I suspect the same tricks happen at most major urban areas.
We need some type of real voter registartion system to fight this crap. We also need an honest media to report. SO when you or I see the complaining going on over the next few weeks, we should all take the Dem’s playbook into account.
Balance is the key word.
New York Times is hardly accurate or balanced these days, proven over and over and over.
Racism is using “race” (other than the human one) for personal profit or benefit. Same way with sexism – those claims of “homophobia” that surfaced during the last debate.
It’s been proven over and over and over that there was no problem during the last election. Practically, half the country doesn’t have a problem, only the metro areas – who have problems with everything (IMHO).
The news only cover metro areas and think their money comes from readership which depends on controversy. Bogus.
Those parties and papers who use the race or sex card to get their ratings and circulation up are the lowest of the gutter snipes.
What we need is to let the states work it out, which they have for over 200 years now. Keep the feds out. Ignore the old media, get your news from news.google.com, where you can get all the data from both sides and can compare to get the actual facts, as opposed to slanted opinion. I find the most accurate views of the American election actually come from Australian papers.
Luck to us all – and another point, all the polls are wrong. Check out what they said about Missouri’s marriage amendment – they were way off, and are in this election, too.
Posted by: Ted Feuerbach on November 17, 2004 02:14 AM
Sadly, judging from the last election, it’s what 51% of the American people want.