I just made the mistake of turning on the TV and seeing the George Stephanopoulos show just at the moment where George Will, minimizing Karl Rove’s dangerous disconnect from reality, lumped MoveOn.org and Michael Moore as “extremists.”

Say wha’????

Michael Moore is an irresponsible provocateur and humorist who sometimes raises topics — and says truths — the mass media is too craven to discuss, so I can see why Will might confuse him with an extremist. But MoveOn.org, which came into existence with the radical extremist notion of censuring Clinton and then moving on? Is this a conscious effort by Will to shift the table to the right, or is he really so lacking in vision and historical perspective?

You would think that a vibrant democracy would take as a matter of pride the range of opinions it embraces… [Technorati tags: politics GeorgeWill MoveOn MichaelMoore Karl Rove]

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While I’m talking about companies I am an official advisor to, Technorati is serving as “blog central” for the Live8 Concert. Live8 wants your voice, not your money: The idea is that lots of our voices maybe can influence the G8 to put an end to poverty. The goal is to get a million posts supporting this idea. I don’t actually believe that even ten million would make any difference to the leaders of the G8, but what can it hurt?

Dave Sifry, Mr. Technorati, talks about this in my video interview of him at Supernova, which you can see here at C-Net. (The aggregation of v-blog interviews is here.) [Technorati tags: live8 technorati]

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As a liberal, I’m not insulted by Karl Rove’s remark that “liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.” He’s just demagoging based on a seed of truth: I do want to understand our attackers (because it’s stupid in n dimensions not to understand the people you’re fighting) and I do want a nuanced, well-thought-out response that will actually make my children safer, rather than the kneejerk Bomb Someone strategery we got from Bush and Rove. So, fine, politicians exaggerate the positions they don’t like and even end up stating utter falsehoods like Rove’s.

No, what gets my goat is his unthought assumption that every issue and event is fodder for political advantage. So he goes into the very city where firefighters ran up the stairs instead of down, and he mouths off to score some points at a fund-raiser? Tell me now who doesn’t take 9/11 seriously, the liberals or callow, unfeeling, assroves like him? This split from reality — he was in New York City! — is where evil takes root.

Karl Rove should apologize or resign…apologize not because our poor widdle feelings are hurt but to acknowledge that reality still matters. [Thanks to the Daou Report for links and fire.] [Technorati tags: KarlRove 911]

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Susan Crawford explains the FCC’s requirement that VoIP providers enable their users to call 911, reach the right local number, and automatically provide the local operator with location information.

VoIP providers in the US will have to negotiate separate contracts with 6000 emergency answering points, persuade the Bells to give them access to the necessary facilities at a sensible cost, and load up routers and databases with the right information. And compliance will be sufficiently expensive to make it no longer worthwhile to do business — unless you’re Vonage.

Susan continues:

This seems to be an unprincipled and blatantly political order designed to protect the incumbents’ ability to control the market for online voice services. Although the Commission is coy about the basis for its jurisdiction (how strange is that?), to the extent it decides to lean on Title I the DC Circuit has already said harsh things about the FCC’s overreaching in that statutory context. It’s a good bet that a good lawyer could attack jurisdiction effectively here.

Susan in her next post points to a report that explains the “complexity in every direction” of VoIP systems providing 911 services. [Technorati tags: voip fcc SusanCrawford]

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Sen. James Sensenbrenner (Rep., Wisc.) has introduced H.R. 1528, a bill that would mandate a ten-year minimum sentence if you smoke pot within 500 feet of a child. And that’s just the beginning of its badness. If you see someone using drugs anywhere near a child, you must tell the cops within 24 hours or go to jail for 2-10 years…unless you’re the parent of the child so wickedly exposed to someone smoking a joint, in which case you’re sent away for 3-20.

Yeah, forcing people to become informants. That’s what’s made this country great.

The bill has been referred “to the Subcommittee on Health, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Chairman.” I hope that means that it’s died of shame.

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Now that we know to a fair certainty who Deep Throat was, it’s time to have modern science look at the tape with the 18-minute gap. I’ve been told by one of the engineers who examined it at the time that we could probably recover the erased sound, but we have to act soon before the tape deteriorates entirely. [Technorati tag: Nixon]

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From the Washington Post:

LOS ANGELES — Posters that depicted President Bush with a Groucho Marx-style mustache and cigar were ordered torn down at a high school after a student complained.

Theater students, who had created the posters to advertise a satirical play, countered with new posters with a First Amendment message.

Principal Kenny Lee ordered 100 posters removed from the campus of El Camino Real High School in the Woodland Hills area last week on grounds that they promoted smoking and “endorsing one ideology over another.”

“That’s our take on the student speech and conduct,” Lee said.

The school-funded posters advertised the students’ play, “The Complete History of America (Abridged),” which satirizes U.S. history.

I haven’t found a photo of the poster, so here’s my blind re-creation. (I’m sure the HS students have better PhotoShop skills than I do.)

“I wouldn’t join any high school that would accept me as a student.”

Feel free to supply your own captions. [Technorati tags: bush freedom groucho]

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A woman just called, asked for me by name, and began her spiel. John Kerry has introduced the Kids Come First bill to expand health care coverage, and would like me to add my name to the other 600,000 citizens who are “co-sponsoring” it. Before I can say OK, she continues that Sen. Kerry would appreciate it if I would pledge one penny for every thousand (million? hundred?) uninsured kid — 11,000 pennies — to continue the campaign to get one million “co-sponsors.”

I know it’s shameful that a modern, wealthy society has such unequal distribution of health services. I don’t know if Kerry’s bill is the best way to go, but I’m willing to “co-sponsor” it because it’s better than what we currently have. So I agreed to be put down as a supporter. (You expect me to become an expert in health care policy before I back a bill? Not gonna happen.)

But I also know that I am sick to death of bills with emotive names, of marketing-driven twists of language that turn supporters into “co-sponsors,” of ending every political statement by begging for cash, and of John Kerry: When you’re beaten by the worst president in modern history — a man who lied us into a war and was caught at it, a man who is poisoning our kids’ planet — you shouldn’t show your face for a whole lot longer. [Technorati tag: kerry]

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The tag for those blogging from or about the Personal Democracy confab is pdf2005. Check for updates at Technorati… [Technorati tag: pdf2005]

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The Boston Phoenix reports on a new poll that shows that with 5,000 gay marriages in the past year, 48% of the 600 poll respondents say that gay marriage has had no impact on the quality of life in the Commonwealth…and 36% said life has gotten better. Support for the legalization of gay marriage has gone up from 59% last year to 62% now.

The issue comes up for popular vote in 2006 when we’ll have the chance to amend the constitution to ban gay marriages and permit civil unions. At this point, unless gay marriage is discovered to cause mad cow disease, it’s looking like Massachusetts may be able to change its motto to “Where love dares speak its name.” [Technorati tags: gay marriage massachusetts]

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