Chet Edwards is the rumor of the day for Obama’s vp. Here he talks about how Democrats can win. He is very close to Obama in his thinking on this:

[Tags: chet_edwards obama politics ]

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The Sunlight Foundation‘s new site, Political Party Time, tracks the hundreds of parties being thrown at the two political conventions by fun-loving groups who are merely interested in celebrating democracy, folks such as the RIAA, AT&T, USTelecom, and Bank of America. [Tags: democracy sunlight lobbying conventions ]

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One of the mailing lists I’m on, filled with pro-Obama folks, is exercised because the Borders book chain is prominently featuring Corsi’s hatchet job. Someone on the list is now suggesting that we each call Borders and tell them they’ve lost a customer.

Not me.

Corsi’s book is at the front of the store because it’s a best seller. It’s possibly a best seller because of large buys by politically motivated groups, as opposed to being a grass roots best seller, but, a best seller is a best seller. Also, publishers pay book stores to place their books at the front. So, there’s no reason to think Borders is engaged in an anti-Obama conspiracy. It’s just business, as venal and corrupt as usual.

So, why not fight back via the marketplace by organizing a boycott of Borders, or less, drastically, simply letting Borders know that we may be skipping the next couple of visits?

Go ahead. I wouldn’t picket you if you did. But, personally, I’m reluctant to use economic threats to affect political debate. I didn’t like it when radio stations refused to play even non-political Dixie Chicks songs, I wouldn’t stay out of a 7/11 that put a McCain sign up in its window, and I’d be angry at Borders if the right wing had gotten the store to move “The Audacity of Hope” off the front shelves because “it’s blatant political pandering.”

We’re better off without these threats to the pocketbook.

(Except sometimes.) [Tags: ]

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Craig Newmark weighs in on McCain’s scary Net agenda. (Craig says something very nice about me, but I’m linking to him anyway.) Craig’s written about this before. For example: Why a president needs to know tech.

And the cuticle on Harold Feld’s pinky knows more about the Net than all of McCain’s personal IM list does (because McCain doesn’t have one). Harold is, um, not impressed with McCain’s policy statement. To put it mildly. [Later: Part 2 of Harold’s post is more substantive but not as funny.]

And that ol’ AT&T veteran and certified visionary — he was right and AT&T was wrong — David Isenberg is equally aghast.

Matt Stoller runs just the subheads of McCain’s policy statement. Hilarious. As Matt says, “Seriously, this is approaching Chuck Norris-level aggrandizement.”

[Later] Susan Crawford, professor of law and ICANN rep, and one of the most clear-headed policy people arounds thinks McCain’s policy is “wistful.”

It’s not just that McCain’s policy is ludicrously wrong about the source and nature of the Internet’s value. It’s that McCain might win, in which case, the Internet is going to get a whole lot worse for us in the US … and, given that high on McCain’s agenda is exporting US copyright totalitarianism, it’s bad news for the rest of the world, too.

(My take, along with some more links, is here It’s also up at HuffingtonPost.) [Tags: ]

More links at Sascha Meinroth’s place, including his own analysis.

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McCain has delivered his tech policy. And it’s clear: This election will determine whether America willfully becomes a third-world participant in the online economy and culture.

Much of the McCain policy is the expected stuff about public-private partnerships, educating the workforce, and providing incentives to reach under-served populations, etc. But he shows his hand on three issues:

1. He’s flat against Net neutrality.

2. He wants to see copyright extended and enforced more vigorously.

3. He thinks the current infrastructure only needs a couple of tweaks.

In sum, our Internet policy should be the same as our energy policy: Hand a key resource off to big corporations whose interests are fundamentally out of alignment with ours as citizens.

Let’s assume that this is not because McCain is a tool. Let’s assume he has the best intentions and that his policy accurately reflects how he thinks about the Internet.

To McCain, the Internet is all about business. It’s about people working and buying stuff. There is nothing — nothing — in his policy statement that acknowledges that maybe the Net is also a new way we citizens are connecting with one another. The phrase “free speech” does not show up in it. The term “democracy” does not show up in it. What’s the opposite of visionary?

Further, the Internet to McCain is a set of tubes for delivering content to an awaiting public. Jeez, does he not have anyone on staff under the age of 25 who could have clued him in on what the Net is about?

It gets worse. Even if we ignore the cultural, social, and democratic aspects of the Net, even if we consider the Net to be nothing but a way to move content to “consumers” (his word), McCain still gets it wrong. There’s nothing in his policy about encouraging the free flow of ideas. Instead, when McCain thinks about ideas, he thinks about how to increase the walls around them by cracking down on “pirates” and ensuring ” fair rewards to intellectual property” (which, technically speaking, I think isn’t even English). Ideas and culture are, to John McCain, business commodities. He totally misses the dramatic and startling success of the Web in generating new value via open access to ideas and cultural products.

The two candidates’ visions of the Internet could not be clearer. We can have a national LAN designed first and foremost to benefit business, and delivered to passive consumers for whom the Net is a type of cable TV. Or, we can have an Internet that is of the people, by the people, for the people.

Is it going to be our Internet or theirs?

Go Obama! [Tags: politics mccain technology_policy net_neutrality obama ]

Obama’s campaign’s response:

“Senator McCain’s technology plan doesn’t put Americans first—it is a rehash of tax breaks and giveaways to the big corporations and their lobbyists who advise the McCain campaign. This plan won’t do enough for hardworking Americans who are still waiting for competitive and affordable broadband service at their homes and businesses. It won’t do enough to ensure a free and open Internet that guarantees freedom of speech. It won’t do anything to ensure that we use technology to bring transparency to government and free Washington from the grip of lobbyists and special interests. Senator McCain’s plan would continue George Bush’s neglect of this critical sector and relegate America’s communications infrastructure to second-class status. That’s not acceptable,” said William Kennard, Former Chairman, Federal Communications Commission.

Someone just pointed me to the back and forth between Kevin Werbach and Michael Powell. Powell (former FCC head) drafted McCain’s tech policy, and Kevin (former FCC person) is an Obama supporter: 1 2

Harry Lewis at BlownToBits points to some of the flat-out contradictions in the McCain policy statement.

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The Guardian turns 9 photos of Bush at the Olympics into LOLcats. Funny!

[Tags: guardian lolcats bush ]

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Stuart Shepard of Focus on the Family says he was aiming at being “mildly humorous” in his video asking “lots of people” to pray for “torrential” rain two minutes before Obama gives his outdoor acceptance speech, an aim I think Shepard achieved:

Apparently, this video has gotten some people bent out of shape, but I think we ought to take Shepard up on it. He says that even though some other people will be praying that the weather be clear and mild, “it’s not a contest.” Well, why not? Let’s have a good old-fashioned Ba’al smackdown. Let’s all put on our prayer caps*, and if there isn’t a torrential rain exactly two minutes before Obama speaks, we’ll know which side G-d is on. Then, both sides can stop campaigning as the voters dutifully ratify G-d’s will.

So, no torrential rain two minutes before Obama speaks means the Republicans have to acknowledge that the Creator prefers the Democrat. I’m ready to take that bet!

*Attire may vary by religion. Consult your local priest, rabbi, imam, or Tom Cruise for details. Children of G-d are ineligible to enter. In case of dispute, whether the rain was “torrential” will be decided by an interfaith panel of meteorologists. “Two minutes before” will be interpreted as meaning two minutes before Obama is standing on his network-assigned mark. Given G-d’s well-known punctuality, but factoring in the time it takes for rain to descend, there will be a 3 second grace period given, so to speak. In case of tie, the winner will be decided by seeing whether the Republican convention is hit with a plague of lobbyists.

[Tags: politics obama prayer humor ]

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Especially given how much I love Elizabeth Edwards, I was very unhappy to hear that John Edwards is an adulterer. And that perforce makes him a liar, a vow-breaker, and, well, the rest depends on details and psychologies I don’t even want to know about. So, when he and Elizabeth decided to continue the campaign despite the resurgence of her illness, I simply don’t know if they were reconciled and mutually aware, or whether he was cynically and quite horribly using her.

I had been hoping that Edwards would still be able to serve his cause and country. If this were a “simple” adultery, then I’d say it shouldn’t keep us from benefiting from his potential public service, and I’d say the same if it were either Bush, either Clinton or the one and only George Washington. But, there’s the potential that this was a far more treacherous betrayal. (Disclosure: I was a volunteer adviser to the Edwards campaign on Net policy.) [Tags: politics john_edwards ]

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Jose Antonio Vargas at the Washington Post wonders how we could make the upcoming presidential debates interactive, given that the teaming with MySpace is disappointing.

If given a choice between having more YouTube snowmen asking questions or hearing McCain and Obama talk with one another for an hour with no moderator and no questions, I would completely go for the YouTubeless version.

But, since that’s not going to happen except in “West Wing” reruns, I think the best we can hope for is a two-parter that makes everything around the debates interactive.

In part one, we the people have an official forum by which we can raise and debate questions beforehand. Maybe the moderators will be moved to ask something that actually matters to us. (The Berkman Question Tool is great for people in an audience to use during a session. It’s been open-sourced. Maybe it could be beefed up for national or regional use. Or maybe, if the debates really had a representative audience, it could be used during the debate. Sigh. Just daydreaming.)

In part two, we the people carry on a simultaneous debate and discussion as the debate proceeds. And before it. And after it. This already happens, of course, albeit these days frequently through Twitter, which is not well designed for this. But we ought to be able to debate along with the debate. And we will, one way or another. [Tags: politics debates question_tool jose_antonio_vargas ]

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Harry Lewis puts just right the way Homeland Security goes off the rails with its decision to give itself permission to confiscate laptops at the border:

I love Michael Chertoff’s explanation of why border guards won’t bother with the niceties of probable cause provided for in the Fourth Amendment: “As a practical matter, travelers only go to secondary [for a more thorough examination] when there is some level of suspicion. Yet legislation locking in a particular standard for searches would have a dangerous, chilling effect as officers’ often split-second assessments are second-guessed.”

He’s right, of course. The Bill of Rights has a chilling effect on the government. That’s what it’s there for!

[Tags: harry_lewis homeland_security laptops privacy creeping_totalitarianism ]

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