Dave Rogers asks, in a comment to my posting about canvassing for Dean, why I’m supporting the Gov. Here’s my reply:

If you matched my positions up with the candidates’ (see the WBUR vote by issue quiz), it’d come out pretty much a wash among all of them except Lieberman. So, although overall I prefer Dean’s stances, I’m not voting primarily on the issues. There are two other reasons I’m supporting Dean.

First, I think he has the best chance to beat Bush. There are clearly reasonable arguments about this and I have never made an accurate political prediction. But it still seems to me that we can’t win by competing for the center. We did that and “lost” last time. We need instead to energize the base and bring in new voters. I think Dean has the best chance of doing that.

Second, win or lose, I think Dean is transforming politics. He’s giving people hope. (Despite what the Republicans and the media say, hope outweighs anger in the Dean movement, IMO.) He’s breaking the mold of traditional broadcast politics. He’s genuinely committed to giving citizens a voice and letting us self-organize. I think we (the grassroots) are laying the groundwork for something new and important. So, even if Dean loses the nomination, I will be proud to have worked for him.

Since beating Bush is my number one priority, of course I will work for and contribute to the campaign of whomever the Dems nominate…although my ardor will be dampened if it’s Lieberman.

Some friends of mine are considering switching from Dean to Bush (!) because they doubt Dean’s commitment to Israel. They are especially exercised by Dean’s referring to members of Hamas as “soldiers.” In context, though, he was calling them soldiers in order to support Israel’s policy of assassinating them. I don’t see how this indicates any weakness in his support of Israel, although it was obviously stupid politically.

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I’ve posted an entry at Corante Many2Many on whether social networks such as LinkedIn matter…

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Can anyone tell me why an entire news cycle was taken up by the crash of a plane full of tourists? Of course it’s a tragedy for the dead and their families, but once terrorism was ruled out early on, why was it the headline for the day and the lead story every hour on the radio news?

Slow news day? Yeah, except for a probe about to land on another planet. And Afghanistan on the verge of giving itself a constitution. And the New York Times claiming that Pakistan is the hub of the international traffic in the requisites for making nukes. And the Office of Management and Budget reporting that the new budget is going to halve the deficit in five years by cutting healthcare for veterans, job programs, housing vouchers and biomedical research. And a long-time Democratic representative switching parties because his district was repeatedly denied funds because he was a Democrat.

What does a plane crash tell me about my world? Why do the media think that it warrants my attention the way that, say, a Malaysian bus plunge doesn’t? Why does a plane crash matter?

(Note: 24 people died in traffic accidents in George over the long Christmas holiday weekend.)

Catherine Seip awards her own Dubious Achievements to the media. (Thanks to kausfiles for the link.)

Lisa Williams – four days away from giving birth – comments on this entry and points to a few sources of statistical information: the Statistical Abstract of the United States, the American Fact Finder, and A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper. She writes:

People get all worked up about welfare when it is a tiny percentage of each tax dollar; all that fuss about the NEA? We spend more on military bands.

Happy upcoming birthday, Lisa!

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It should rain when you canvass for a candidate. Not a downpour but enough of a drizzle that your hair is plastered to your head and your shirt never gets quite dry. And it should be cold. Glove cold. And the first person you meet should definitely not agree with you. Easy virtue isn’t worth it. (Accidentally leaving your umbrella, hat, cell phone and lunch at the local campaign headquarters is purely optional, however. Sigh.)

I’m home and dry now. My shoes are off and my feet are up. I feel good that I did a little tiny bit today to help get the Governor into the White House. I knocked on the doors of the registered Democrats and Independents marked on the papers the Portsmouth Dean HQ gave me. Most weren’t home. (Where do the people of Portsmouth all go on a rainy Saturday? Or did they just see me coming?) Some were Dean supporters. One woman worked with Dean’s wife in an ER in Vermont. Another said she’s supporting Dean because she’s in health care services — no further explanation required. A bunch politely declined to talk with me. No one volunteered that they were supporting another Democrat. The very first person who responded said, “I’m supporting President George W. Bush” with a semper fi stare that nearly knocked me off his stoop. His neighbor is also supporting the president, but thanked me for coming out on a day like this. I thanked him for thanking me, and he thanked me back.

I spent most of my time in an apartment complex where most of the people I spoke with were not the ones listed for those apartments; apparently it’s an area with high turn over as the economy shakes people out of their jobs and homes. One young woman was trying to decide which Democrat’s position on education is closest to her own. She’s preparing to be a teacher. I started to say something about the failure of No Child Left Behind, but she beat me to it. “This insistence on testing, and on blaming schools and teachers, is ridiculous,” she said. That’s Dean position, I replied. “Whoever we get will be better than Bush on education,” I said, and she agreed. I said that I was supporting Dean not just because of the issues but also because I like the way he makes decisions: look at the facts, come to conclusions, change your mind if the facts change or if you were wrong. It’ll be good to have a person of science in the White House.

For those who weren’t home, I left a Dean brochure. I wrote “I hope you’ll consider Gov. Dean!” on each and signed it “- David W., a wet volunteer.” No one told me to do that. In fact, when Joe at the Portsmouth HQ gave us our instructions, he said, “When someone answers, tell them a sentence or two about why you’re supporting Gov. Dean.” No Message of the Day. No scripted talking points. Just go forth and converse. Cool.

I came back to Portsmouth earlier than the rest of the canvassers because I wear out sooner. And the luck of my day continued: My drive home coincided with a particularly good episode of “This American Life” on the radio.

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I’m off to Portsmouth, NH, this morning to go door-to-door for Dean. I’ll let you know how it went…

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Mind some dumb-ass questions about cell phone location technology and policy for something I’m writing? I’m having trouble finding a site on the Web that talks about this at a sufficient level of ignorance.

I understand that by 2005, 95% of cell phones in the US need to be able to broadcast their location with an accuracy of 50-150m. This is part of the FCC’s e911 (“Enhanced 911”) act. Here’s what I don’t understand:

1. The wireless carriers are required to track that information only if you make a 911 call. But will my cell phone be broadcasting its location continuously, or only when I make a 911 call?

2. I’m confused about the tech used by cell phones to determine location. Is it GPS? (If so, what happens when I’m indoors or in an urban canyon? And, if so, a GPS device receives; it doesn’t transmit. So does the location information just get encoded as a header or something in a 911 call? In all calls?) If it’s not GPS, what is it?

I’d ask smarter questions if I could. And, of course, please feel free to correct the part that I think I understand, too.

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Jacob Shwirtz has moved to Israel and has taken his blog with him.

Dramatic excerpt:

It wasn’t long in the coming. I have now lived through Israel’s first terrorist suicide bombing since moving here (on Christmas day). From what I understand, it wasn’t too far away from the apartment. I had no idea what was going on until the phone rang – waking me up from a nap (still dealing with jet lag) – it was my mother wanting to know if everything was ok. Everything was ok except for my nap.

Undramatic excerpt:

The Irish pub was the only place I had seen a Christmas tree since arriving in Israel. It is weird but I almost missed Christmas in New York. The holidays aren’t over yet – New Years is just as big here as in New York. For some strange reason they call it the “Sylvester.”

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Kyle Shannon is blogging his new company, Invention Asylum. Should be fun.

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