Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Outside viewz
Steve Mallett vidos from outside OSCon: Talking To Non-Geeks, and Open Source Java. Funny stuff.
Declaration of Independence
Stone at Article Online on bloggers at the convention: We've jumped the shark. But here's the pull-quote: I don't introduce myself as a blogger anymore. I'm more of an independent observer.
Think of the role of independent developers in building the Net.
Think of the role of independent fill-in-the-blank in any category you can name.
Think of how the country started.
War is terrorism with a bigger budget
That headline is a sign I didn't see in network TV coverage last night. Homeless Girl saw it, however, and put it on her blog with a bunch of others, most of which I also didn't see.
Stop getting what you don't pay for
Micah Sifry and Nancy Watzman in the L.A. Times (op-ed page): After All, it's a Multiparty System. A sample:
In a pay-to-play political system, Americans' votes don't matter nearly as much as cold, hard cash. That's why we need comprehensive campaign finance reform, including full public financing, to actually change the rules of the game. Under such "clean elections" systems, which are already the law in Arizona and Maine, candidates who collect a large number of small contributions and agree to abide by spending limits receive a public grant to run their campaigns. In that way, public officials are freed from their direct dependence on private donors.
If somebody is going to own the politicians, it might as well be us.