Halley Suitt is having a party. I am going. You should go too.#

I have the remedy for that dreaded New Year's Eve problem. You know you HATE going out on New Year's Eve, so why not come to my Dean House Party the night before? Drop me email if you'd like to attend. You can get my email over here at Misbehaving.

I absolutely guarantee it will be a ton of fun. Even Republicans are invited. We serve koolaid and chips and dip.

BTW, this blog post is NOT at all endorsed by the Dean campaign, it's just my pathetic attempt to get this party started.

I am calling out all ladies to come and rock out, I don't want to be shamed and have to hire some escorts. (Actually that was Halley's idea but I'm horrible.)

Even though I'm not a Dean supporter I'm going. I don't think it matters. It's more than a political event, it's a party and plus the whole "echo chamber" thing is getting oooold."

I added the event to Exploit Boston! Maybe you haven't heard of it, it's "an independent guide to events and happenings around the Greater Boston area" from The Sooz.

Dave Winer posts a followup to his last editorial on this issue.#

A candidate who wanted to help software jobs come back to NH, a high-tech state, could do something right now to help. No need to wait till they're elected. And I don't agree with people who say the candidate's job is to get elected. Sure, that's probably the way the candidate views it. But I'm not a candidate, I'm a member of the electorate and a taxpayer. I've yet to vote in a presidential election that means something. I'd like to, someday. I honestly don't think this is the year, but I'm doing my part to shift the focus to the voters and away from 60-second TV commercials. What are you doing?

Although Dave specifically points software jobs, I think that people can really do something to help each other at any time no matter where they are in the process of being elected. These are the best candidates, who are part of a group that is actually doing something rather than people who promise they'll start doing something once they get enough money/votes. Words meet Action, Action meet Words.

And I mean this separate from my libertarian philosophy, while I think that private solutions are potentially always better in a country that supports them, in the mean-time I don't see why the people we support privately are not the same people we'd like to support publicly.

Ryan Overbey writes about internet discourse because of this.#

So how do many bloggers operate? It works like this:

Read an essay.
Identify the weakest possible point the essay makes.
Trash the weakest point.
Add sarcasm, or (if you're bold), ad hominem.
Hit the "Post" button, and grin in self-satisfaction. You've "won" your argument.

I think the above is funny and Ryan adds great substance later.

Two of those three (Aaron Swartz and Gregor Rothfuss) attacked the last, glaring weak point in the argument. But they didn't even bother responding to the other points of the argument, points which, if you cornered Dave and pressed him on it, were probably far more important than the claim that free software can't be user-oriented. Congratulations, you've won your argument! Only you haven't made an argument worth arguing. You've wasted hot air on something not worth attacking, and you haven't responded to the substance of the essay.

And some great advice from academia.

Bloggers do this all the time. It's really, really frustrating to read. They need to take a lesson from academics- who have a clear sense of propriety, who make effort (for the most part) to argue with substance and arguments rather than ad hominem and sarcasm. When I pick up a book by someone I disagree with, I always try to read it asking the question "Is there anything in here I can use? Anything strong? Anything correct?" Because dwelling on weak points accomplishes nothing. Lots of bloggers really need to learn this.

I know many people who think that debate and conversation amongst people who disagree is horrible and unproductive because it turns into a fight and gets emotional. They fail to grasp that it is a fight because they make it a fight and emotional because they let it be. If you enter a discussion with a particular attitude you can come out better off no matter if you agree or not. When two different viewpoints compete they must both get stronger, when two viewpoints agree that back each other up. But if both refuse to compete or one attempts to monopolize the conversation the obviously neither will be truly better off.

I feel that this is the message of Ryan. If you're going to have a discussion, then really have a discussion and not a shouting match with personal insults. Even if you feel that your "opponent" (which, IMHO, is your first problem--from the get-go you cast it as a fight) does these thing then remember that two wrongs do not make a right. Be the better person, in your opinion.

Matt May responds to my reply to his comments on Dave Winer.#

I used to believe this myself: that a candidate should embody the will of the voter. This concept of one person, one vote is the essence of pure democracy. But we don't have, and in my opinion are far too large a country to have, pure democracy. We have representative democracy, and some salesmanship has to come into play. You cannot have your choice of empty vessel in which to instill your individual political bent. That won't cut it. Voters who wish to take stock in what is out there need to evaluate the candidates to see which of them to support, and then ply them with policy requests. (I've got a few such requests for Dean, for example.)

I am reminded of the Roman Emperor Tiberius who said of the Senate and the people of Rome at the time, "How eager you are to be slaves!" When they said they would pass any law he wanted.

What Matt is essentially saying, as I interpret it, is that the democracy of this country and its election practices have failed. They have failed so horribly that we no longer expect at all that the people in power will speak for us, instead they will be despots to whom we must "ply" ("To continue offering something to; ensure that (another) is abundantly served") with our donations of time and votes and offers of power. Once the politicians have been sufficiently bought then maybe they'll be on the people's side... at least until the next bid comes in.

A election that is rigged or bought is wrong and illegitimate whether it has been bought by an oil consortium or any other minority population. And the minute that we start believing that the fight for democracy has been lost then it has because we have lost the will to claim our freedom as our own. The world can always be better and the government can always better serve the people--when you accept defeat and do nothing in the face of corruption you become responsible for its horrors.

It is the job of a candidate seeking election to take the support of like-minded individuals and use that to convince others. If this holds true, then what the Dean and Clark campaigns are doing with free software is brilliant.

Yes, cull the minority by the will of the majority. Apologies for the sarcasm. But really, people should convince themselves and those interested should be given opportunities to connect to each other to further refine what their own beliefs are. I simply disagree fundamentally. If something is a truly good policy then the only reason that more people don't support it is because they either (a) haven't heard of it or it's reasons for support, which is solved by discussion tools; or, (b) they have lost faith in the government and politicians to actually do what is best.

I feel that the Internet will be a wonderful tool in both of these causes: connecting others, promoting conversations, and challenging the corruption of the current system. These things together can restore faith in a government that serves the people, rather than is served by the people.

Currently as it seems to me, people do not vote for people who they believe will be their voice. They vote against the person they dislike the most. This is obvious from the "Anyone But Bush" crowd and the diehard fight for the center of "say-nothing-ville" where no one is offended. This is obvious from the way the parties only try to paint the other has horrible and tend to ignore their own strong points. This the worst symptom of the problems with the election process in my opinion.

 

Matt's response to my second point that the candidate should really be challenging the media monopoly and engaging citizens:

It takes time to get deep into theory debates with voters, especially in this day and age when candidates have to announce their intentions and have a coherent policy platform two years before the first vote is cast. Candidates need to run on their records, because they will be held to them -- or their lack of them -- in the general. Each candidate has a publicly viewable platform, and voters are responsible for determining which best matches their politics, and whether they are reputable -- and, yes, viable -- enough to win.

To me this is another example of Matt May's disbelief that democracy is something to aspire for or that the people should actually be listened to. We want these people to have the immense power of government, yet we accept that they don't have the time to actually listen to us? Or, we accept that the system has made voters so uninterested and uneducated in politics because they have been denied their right to have a say in how it works?

I feel that a fundamental problem between Matt's opinion and mine is that Matt is talking about how a candidate can win today, while I am talking about how our democracy should work tomorrow--how we find the types of candidates who will actually serve us. I think that what Dean is doing is a step in the right direction but the goal--return to democracy--should not be lost in the hype. And we both agree that the software and the Internet are very important tools in the future of American democratic experiment.

 

Matt also says something very interesting about how the election could work in the future:

Political candidates are not a great market for products. In my mind, they shouldn't be. Candidates should receive free air time on network television for their ads -- partly because they shouldn't have to create financial relationships with the companies that report on them, and partly because the networks have to do so damned little in the way of public service to begin with. However, in this time and place, the candidates need the money where the grassroots effort doesn't get them, as candidates like Kucinich might have noticed. They have nothing to gain by paying for something they're currently getting for free.

There are many problems with the way elections are run in the minds of many commentators like Matt and I. How these problems will be fixed, how long it will take, what the tools will be, and other issues are all up in the air. But the discussions are happening right now and it should be clear because citizens like you and I are interested in improving the system that the system WILL be improved or will die.

One of my favourite things to quote of Lawrence Lessig is from Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace:

No institution within a democracy can be the enemy of the people for long. [pg. 214]

Let's just hope America is still sufficiently a democracy.

Steve Crandall has a suspicion that maybe God Isn't A Right-Wing Zealot.#

An interesting piece in Salon on a different sort of Christian... at least different from the decidedly Old Testament type that controls the airwaves.

Well, I'm not part of the evangelical right. I believe that God's spirit is inclusive, not exclusive. I believe that the public marketplace -- the place where ideas are exchanged and decisions are made -- is not to be monopolized by one religious point of view.

I believe that we are an open country with religious and even non-religious diversity, and that's a good thing, a democratic thing and very American.

And then I believe part of the appeal of the evangelical religion is for offering certainty, not faith. Certainty about what's doctrinally correct. I think one of the dangers of religion is to believe we've got God all buttoned down. And I believe just the opposite. I believe in the freedom and mystery of God that doesn't allow us to be certain but allows us to be loving.

Norman Geras profiles Jeff Jarvis.#

Can you name a major moral, political or intellectual issue on which you've ever changed your mind? > Easy: War. I called myself a pacifist early in the age of Vietnam and did not change my mind until September 11. There's an old joke that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. A hawk is a pacifist in the foxhole. I saw on that day the moral imperative to protect our children from the threat of terrorism; I faced my generation's Hitler that day. My transformation occurred publicly, on my weblog.

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to disseminate? > My brand of populism. As a critic, I defended the taste of the American people. As a blogger, I defend the wisdom of the people. For this is citizens' media. And I now firmly believe that if you do not essentially trust the taste, intelligence, and goodness of your fellow man, then you cannot be a democrat or an effective marketer or an artist or a reformed theologian or a decent teacher.

Felmming Funch on a better world.#

I envision a time when most people have stopped having problems they don't need to have, and where they spend most of their time dealing with what is actually going on in their lives, what is right in front of them, what needs to be done. That is, people will stop acting and reacting based on a picture of reality they see on TV, or which comes out of their fears and biases and misunderstandings, and they will start taking action in more useful ways.

We live on a planet that is bountiful with resources, if we just use them in harmony with the cycles of nature. We have reached a stage of civilization where most people can live in peace. We have the technological means of having all of us live in comfort.

Most of what would be in the way of allowing the world to work for all of humanity is mental problems. It is when millions of people feel a need to be fearful and insecure when just a few people's dramatic misfortune is broadcast on TV. It is when many people believe that economics or politics dictate that some people HAVE to be hungry or without work, and the rest have to work themselves to threads in meaningless occupations. It is when people feel they are justified in harming others because they are different from themselves. It is when people think that life is about acting like most other people around them. It is when people believe that pessimism and cynicism about the future is the logical outcome from studying the past.

Adam Yoshida is frightening in the way he proposes America wages "economic thermonuclear war" with China.#

Now, I'm not advocating that any of this take place at the present time. After all: it would probably, in the short term at least, cost a fair number of American jobs. However, it's good to have such a plan in America's back pocket: and for the Chinese to know of it. Moreover, I would greatly prefer to endure the short-term dislocations caused by such a strategy than I would live to see the Chinese become more powerful than the United States.

China is our enemy. It might suit our short term purposes to deal with them for the present time, but we must never forget: they are our enemies. Better to die a thousand deaths than live in a world ruled by the Chinese. If we must, someday, pay an economic price to destroy the Chinese threat: so be it.

Of course, I understate the difficulties of such a strategy. Anything which destroyed the Chinese economy would also severely damage the economies of most of China's neighbours. But that's a risk that I think is worth taking. If we cause damage elsewhere: neca eos omnes, deus suos agnoscet.

No American problem is so severe that it cannot be dealt with via appropriately harsh and brutal action. If the Chinese want to mess with America: let them. When they day is over, it shall not be America's blackened and distorted corpse that is rolled into a mass grave.

(My emphasis above.) I am reminded of George Washington's comment that nations should not have friends or enemies, only interests.

Adam Yoshida on who Dean really is.#

The interesting thing about the ending of The American President (and, for that matter, those of other recent American political films) is the insight it provides into how liberals think. Consider it for a moment. What fictional political films have been produced in recent years? Rod Lurie's The Contender, Chris Rock's Head of State, and Warren Beatty's Bulworth (there's also Primary Colors, but I'm going to ignore that, as it was largely based on actual events). What is the theme of each of these films? To put it simply: the American people are all actually liberals, and the only thing preventing them from expressing their liberalism is the stubborn (and inexplicable) refusal of Democratic candidates to place themselves in the Michael Moore/Dennis Kucinich wing of the Democratic Party.

If Bill Clinton was the candidate of the actual people in Hollywood then Governor Dr. Howard Brush Dean III is the candidate of the images that Hollywood created. One thing that has gone almost totally unremarked upon (an internet search finds a reference by myself and exactly two other stories that even mention it) is that Dean's campaign slogan, "Dean for America" is obviously cribbed from a 2001 episode of the Aaron Sorkin-penned The West Wing, in which we find out that the campaign slogan of the fictional President Jed Bartlet was "Bartlet for America" (in fact, it's the title of the episode).

Now I realize that most people would dismiss this as insignificant. I disagree: it says a lot about who Howard Dean wants to be and how his followers see him. This is one of the reasons why the Dean campaign has proved so resilient to bad news: the Deaniacs are operating on the false premise that, if only Americans knew what liberals really believe, they would elect them by overwhelming majorities when, in fact, the truth is much closer to how Ann Coulter has put it in the past: if the American people knew the truth about what liberals believe, they'd probably boil them in oil.

Kenneth Quinnell on why, as an atheist, he celebrates Christmas.#

The answers to that are pretty simple, too. The most obvious is that it's difficult not to. Everywhere you look, everywhere you go, everything you watch, Christmas is in the air or on the air. To avoid it is pretty difficult, especially if you are from a typical white lower class family like mine. My family is filled with semi- or pseudo-religious people and they celebrate Christmas, and I'm always invited to Christmas events. Not to mention Christmas parties and events where we exchange Christmas gifts. It's much easier just to celebrate it with everyone than it would be to explain to everyone why I "hate Jesus."

There are a lot of Christmas-related traditions that are pretty cool. There is some good music, the tree and decorating it, buying gifts for people you appreciate, the stockings, and, most importantly, the TV specials. What would Christmas be without Charlie Brown, Rudolph and Burl Ives? And I don't know how I could deprive my son (and future children) of the traditions of the holiday and the joy that we see in his face when he opens presents on the holiday. We aren't going to lie to him about Santa or avoid the reality of the origins of the holiday, but we're going to downplay the religious aspects, and make it more a holiday about celebrating family and showing your appreciation for those people that make your life better.

The Marmot claims that South Korean land should not be given to traitors of Korea.#

Or more precisely, no land for the descendants of traitors. That's the message in today's Hankyoreh, in which we find an editorial castigating descendants of pro-Japanese figures during the colonial period for seeking to retake possession of certain pieces of property that will be freed up once USFK redeploys to bases south of the Han River. Apparently, a number of the descendants of pro-Japanese Koreans have submitted law suits against the state calling for the return of properties that were taken away from their families following Korea's 1945 liberation, and interestingly enough, some of those lawsuits were successful. The list of individuals reads like a veritable who's who of your favorite maegungno - we've got descendants of the late pre-colonial Prime Minister Lee Wan-yong, who was made a count by the Japanese Emperor for signing away the nation's independence in the Treaty of Annexation of 1910, and descendants of Song Byeong-jun, who was awarded a viscountship for his efforts to promote what we'll kindly refer to as "closer Japanese-Korean ties" as a minister in Lee's cabinet and later made a full count after he joined the Japanese colonial government as an adviser. Needless to say, the Hankyoreh is taking a dim view of these developments, especially since it's likely that Song's descendants will not only win their case, but then turn around and use their land to build apartments and/or move into the real-estate business. Anyway, the Hani calls for the court system to take a good look at itself and called for the National Assembly to pass a law that will open investigations into those who engaged in pro-Japanese and anti-Korean activities during the colonial period.

Elisabeth Riba praises the duel.#

As Barbara Holland writes in her introduction:

There was much to like about the duel. It was a regulated way for one man to prevail over another when he felt the need to do so, and an improvement over the informal ambush, or sending out henchmen to break the enemy's skull by night on the highway. It had rules enforced by peer pressure that respectable men respected. Its gratifications were more immediate than the gratifications of successful lawsuits, which in early times could take years or decades to settle.

Of course, to really be effective, there needs to be a code of conduct for duels to ensure fairness. And I'm honestly not sure modern American society would be willing to follow one. Ian pointed out that just in his years of public schooling, he watched the playground rules for fist fights degrade from "fists only, no kicking" in elementary grades to "no-holds-barred, win at all costs" by the time he graduated high school. I can't help wondering how much the popular practice of enrolling children into martial arts self-defense classes may have accellerated that change. And of course, nowadays wronged schoolkids bring guns to school. Americans seem to pride ourselves on taking unfair advantage of one's foes.

So we may actually be too far gone by now for such a system to work. Which seems, weirdly enough, somehow sad.

Supafamous had a horrible Christmas.#

Dude, where's my fucking Ferrari? Every year I ask for a few simple things and every year which of those things do I get? Bupkis. Shit all. Is it that hard for you to get me that Ferrari 360 Modena in Maranello Red that I've been asking for for years now? It's not like it hasn't been around for years now, it's way past the Tickle Me Elmo stage of popularity. God damn you you fucking cheapskate. It's not like it costs more than a house or anything.

Chris Winters writes that these people have no shame, none.#

Thanks to one of the most egregious examples of muscle politics seen in Harrisburg recently, the day of reckoning is at hand -- for Gov. Ed Rendell, for the state constitution, for sexual assault victims, for Pennsylvania's environment and for the right of every township and borough to make and enforce its own laws.

It started with a legislative hijacking. Late at night, with no hearings and no notice, the Pennsylvania Senate made a stealth attack on a bill that changed sentencing laws for sexually violent offenders and drunken drivers. House Bill 1222 had universal support and had been sent to the Senate by the House for final agreement.

But instead of agreeing, late last Wednesday the Senate inserted language that strips local governments of all rights to protect citizens from the pollution caused by factory farms. Factory farms are large-scale, vertically integrated operations where hundreds or thousands of animals are confined in tight spaces, with little or no access to sunlight and with the manure sometimes posing a pollution problem.

Jane can be strong when we cannot.#

Somewhere along the road of my life, I've failed to keep a family - or to make one. Somehow I've lost both my parents - carelessness! tsk tsk - and nearly lost my sister to bitterness the root of which I hardly remember. I've lost the comfort of several surrogate families, the warm and welcoming arms of my various boyfriends' homes. And I've failed to build my own - unwedded, unoffspringed.

It never matters any other time of year but tonight.

I allow myself a moment of indulgence in pathos. I have been "strong" all afternoon, reading and knitting and working and writing. But now as night falls and the rain begins and the cats leave, the house is quiet and I remember what is was like before, when I had my mother and father and sister around me.

Davezilla explains "Smoked Salmon."#

Please

Do not drop your cigarette butts on the ground. The fish crawl out at night to smoke them and we are trying to get them to quit.

Anil Dash on the history of Christmas and tradition.#

Tradition is something you can start, not just something you can observe.

New York City never looks more magical than when it's dressed up for the holidays. For a city purported to be peopled with cynics, I suspect no one here can resist the romance of the season, swathed in elegant scarves and ducking from the chill wind into a cab whisking off to another round of office holiday parties. I won't ever be able to claim that I believe in gods or messiahs, let alone one being born on a specific date or in a specific place, and it wouldn't be my right to try to celebrate that. But to be in the place where so much of a global celebration of goodwill and generosity was created, where the locals' unique ability to promote their ideas, and where people are so willing to expand a tradition to include everyone who would want to participate, I'm more than ready to make an annual tradition of celebrating that potential.

Dave Winer points to an anti-spam plan from Microsoft.#

Microsoft has announced a unique approach to stopping spam. "For any piece of e-mail I send, it will take a small amount computing power of about 10 to 20 seconds. When you see that proof, you treat that message with more priority." Normal email senders won't notice the delay and filters on your mail client will be able to tell high priority mail from low priority spam. Very clever. I was briefed on it a few months ago, and as long as they are making the technique freely available I support it. If it's another patent gateway I'm afraid we're just trading the evil of spam for another evil. Which is lesser is a good question.

A strange side-effect of Microsoft's monopoly is that they could make it work, at least on the client-side. I see no real reason when Sendmail or qmail wouldn't be interested in supporting it, provided there are no patent issues as Dave notes.

Michael Feldman notes that Joe Lieberman is very approachable and seems to genuinely care.#

Sen. Lieberman was astonishingly easy to approach. Basically, all the Dowbrigade had to do was sit down on the unoccupied bar stool to his left. The candidate immediately offered his hand and introduced himself. He asked where we were from and what we did for a living. He seemed genuinely interested, and was remarkably easy to talk to.

When he heard that the Dowbrigade is about to lose his job at Boston University due to the difficulties of foreign university students in obtaining visas to study in the US post 9/11, Lieberman said, "I will definitely do something about that after I am elected. The immigration authority in this country is in a shambles."

Ryan Overbey posts new pictures. My favourite.#

Michael Feldman links to Howard Dean embracing religion for his new stump speeches in the South.#

Dean, 55, who practices Congregationalism but does not often attend church and whose wife and children are Jewish, explained the move as a desire to share his beliefs with audiences willing to listen. In the Globe interview, Dean said that Jesus was an important influence in his life and that he would probably share with some voters the model Jesus has served for him.

He acknowledged that he was raised in the "Northeast" tradition of not discussing religious beliefs in public, and said he held back in New Hampshire, where that is the practice. But in other areas, such as the South, he said, he would discuss his beliefs more openly.

Moxie covers this amazingly.

Justin Hall refers to the Christmas Truce of 1914.#

Although the popular memory of World War One is normally one of horrific casualties and 'wasted' life, the conflict does have tales of comradeship and peace. One of the most remarkable, and heavily mythologised, events concerns the 'Christmas Truce' of 1914, in which the soldiers of the Western Front laid down their arms on Christmas Day and met in No Man's Land, exchanging food and cigarettes, as well as playing football. The cessation of violence was entirely unofficial and there had been no prior discussion: troops acted spontaneously from goodwill, not orders. Not only did this truce actually happen, but the event was more widespread than commonly portrayed.

There are many accounts of the Christmas truce, the most famous of which concern the meeting of British and German forces; however, French and Belgium troops also took part. The unofficial nature of the truce meant that there was no one single cause or origin; some narratives tell of British troops hearing their German counterparts singing Christmas carols and joining in, while Frank Richards, a private in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, told of how both sides erected signs wishing the other a 'Merry Christmas'. From these small starts some men crossed the lines with their hands up, and troops from the opposing side went to meet them. By the time officers realised what was happening the initial meetings had been made, and most commanders either turned a blind eye or happily joined in.

Al3x writes about beauty, health, and women.#

Normally I could give a damn about celebrities and, much less, people blogging about celebrities. But Jay linked to a side-by-side comparison of Renee Zellweger with and without a little extra weight for a role and the results are staggering, at least to these eyes. She's not normally one of the actresses I flip for, but with a good meal or two in her she looks positively luscious, radiant and glowing. I'd reconsider my tastes for yes-I'll-have-the-cheesecake Renee. Which I know she'll be glad to hear, international superstar playboy bachelor tastemaker that I am.

Al3x has great advice for online musicians.#

1. Don't release your music in anything other than MP3 format. Fuck Ogg Vorbis, Shorten, or any other crazy-ass format. People use MP3s. Software uses MP3s. Hardware uses MP3s. Use MP3s.
2. If you're offering your music for full MP3 download, don't bother with a Real Audio preview. If you're offering nothing but a Real Audio preview, just don't bother.
3. #1 and #2 combined: don't be Tokyo Dawn, offering nothing but Real Audio and Ogg. Life's too short, guys, even if your music does get hella down.

Aaron Swartz on an odd movie.#

Nothing So Strange is an excellent movie on numerous levels. On one level, its a straightforward documentary of one group's attempt to investigate the assassination of Bill Gates in MacArthur Park. The film pieces together newsreel footage, computer simulations, and police reports about the event to tell more of the story that you may have gotten from the traditional media.

The Two Beautiful Girls post amazing pictures.#