Howard Dean: Take back America

The grassroots political organization MoveOn invited all nine Democratic presidential candidates to address a letter to its members. All nine did.

For the first time in years, I'm not committed to a particular candidate, though Sen. John Edwards, Sen. John Kerry and Gov. Howard Dean seem the most interesting.

Edwards' letter was a bit disappointing. My early support for him was based on his electability, but now i'm wondering if he'll be painted by the media as another mealy-mouthed Al Gore.

Kerry's letter was better:

I am prepared to filibuster, if necessary, any Supreme Court nominee who would turn back the clock on a womanís right to choose, on civil rights and individual liberties, and on the laws protecting workers and the environment.

Dean's letter struck me as astonishing -- you don't hear this kind of rhetoric too often from a presidential candidate. (Check out Lieberman's letter, by contrast.) Dean is clearly playing to the Democratic base, but he'll draw a lot of support that way. He hasn't won me over yet -- can an antiwar progressive win in 2004? -- but he's got my attention. What scares me is that the GOP has about four times the money the Dems have, and they'll use it to distort his record. The last thing we need is President Bush emboldened by a 49-state blowout.

Here's the blog that Dean's staffers run -- it's got energy and truth all over it. I'll reprint his letter here:

Dear MoveOn member,

Our country is at stake. The Bush Doctrine of preemptive war is wrong for America. The Bush tax cuts are not about cutting taxes; they are about starving and destroying Social Security, Medicare, and our public schools. They call polluting our air "The Clear Skies Act," destroying old growth "The Healthy Forest Act," and taking away our civil liberties "The Patriot Act."

If you are as tired and angered as I am by the manipulation and lies, then please join my campaign by signing the Pledge to Take Back America.

Let's show that millions of us are not ashamed to stand up for our values:

http://www.deanforamerica.com/moveon

Too many in my party have failed to stand up to this administration's assault on our country's ideals. Let's show them that the era of conservative intimidation is over. People in Washington worry about "electability" but they forget why they were elected in the first place. Silence equals defeat. Victory requires educating, organizing, and convincing.

Defeating George Bush will take nothing short of a massive grassroots movement. That's why we've taken a page from MoveOn's book and provided tools on our website to help you build the movement in your community. Click below to see what's happening near you and to join in. And please forward this email to your friends -- I want everyone to know that there is a way to get involved, no matter where they live, or how much time they have:

http://action.deanforamerica.com

Candidates who continue to say whatever it takes to be elected will lose. What Americans want is a leader who believes in and will fight for sensible and principled positions, including balanced budgets, health care for every American, and a defense policy consistent with American values. The only way we can beat George W. Bush is to stand for a clear alternative.

I stood up against this President's attack on Iraq. I did not support his huge tax cuts. I did not support the misnamed "No Child Left Behind Act," which is raising property taxes all over America and bankrupting our public school system. Unlike all but one of my opponents, I have balanced a budget and I have appointed judges -- and I am the only candidate who has made health care available to 99% of the children and 90% of the adults in my state.

On my first day in office, I will tear up the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war. I will end this President's policy of domestic division. I will repeal those parts of the Patriot Act that betray the Bill of Rights. And I will roll back this President's tax cuts, because we will never achieve social justice in this country unless we balance the budget.

I believe that we can protect ourselves from terrorism and protect the civil liberties that make our nation strong. I believe that we can grow and prosper while also protecting our environment. I believe that a free and brave nation will always be stronger than a fearful nation, and I refuse to submit to fear any longer.

Abraham Lincoln said that a government of the people, by the people and for the people would not perish from this earth. Only you -- we -- have the power to ensure that the ideals of America are not destroyed by this President's radical agenda. If you share my beliefs, then join me in pledging to take back America in 2004:

http://www.deanforamerica.com/moveon

To plan or to join campaign events near you -- including a nationwide day of rallies and house parties on June 23 -- please click here:

http://action.deanforamerica.com

We can undo the damage this President has done only by coming together as Americans today. MoveOn members like you have proven that the grassroots has more power today than at any time in history. Yet MoveOn took years to grow to the size it is today. We do not have years. Years from now will be too late. We must come together now to defeat George W. Bush -- so please pass this email along to all of your friends who believe, as you do, that we must act now to take back America.

Sincerely,

Governor Howard Dean, M.D.

Calling all wide-screen monitor users

Anyone out there use a wide-screen monitor -- that is, larger than 1,024 pixels wide? I just bought a ViewSonic VX2000 and hooked it up yesterday. It's a dream ... but I'm facing three immediate issues:

(1) The type is too small. I right-clicked the screen and went to Properties | Appearance, where I changed the fonts to large, but that affected only Windows (scroll bars, icon text). Do I have to look for a text size setting in every single application I use -- many of which (like MovableType for this blog) don't even contain a text size option?

(2) The photos on most pages are smaller than they appeared when I viewed them on a 1024 x 768 monitor set at that size. I've set mine to the new dimensions of the window, 1600 x 1200, but that makes everything much smaller. If I kick down the size (under Properties | Settings) to, say, 1280 x 1024), it seems to throw things off (for example, desktop images are cropped so that only the middle 60% is visible). And I get a notice: "For best picture quality, change resolution to 1600 x 1200." I haven't played around enough to see what the tradeoffs are.

(3) At 1024 x 768, I never saw that there's a glitch in coding on many of my pages. Viewed at 1600 x 1200 (I know, I know, fewer than 1% of users have these mammoth machines), the left-hand navigation repeats two-thirds of the way to the right of the full page. Click on the image to the left to see what I mean. Here's a url to the Travel page and you can view the Source code there.

You probably don't need to have a wide-screen monitor to figure out what's wrong in #3 -- I need to make some adjustment to the table width. I tried using TABLE WIDTH=100% instead of a fixed width (631), but that screwed it up royally.

Ideas?

A resource page of permament news archives

This is a quick first take, but I've uploaded a short page that may help bloggers point to online news publications with permanent archives -- thus avoiding link rot.

These news outlets out to be rewarded for their openness with more clicks and more mindshare.

If you know of others, lemme know.

The 8 business models of news sites

First Monday looks at the eight business models of news Web sites.

Join Salon for a buck

My subscripton to Salon recently lapsed, and I was waiting to see whether they'll stay afloat before renewing. No longer. They've got a new promotion:

You can renew your subscriptioin for an entire year for just $1. How? By applying for a no-annual-fee Salon Visa card. Writes CEO Michael O'Donnell:

We both win because Salon is compensated for every credit card account we open -- enabling you to support independent journalism -- and you save a lot on an annual subscription that includes great new benefits like: 1 year subscriptions to "Wired" and "Interview" magazines and access to read Salon on your PDA and cell phone. Plus past benefits like reading Salon in an ad-free reading environment.

Past subscribers (not sure about newcomers) can apply for the card here. Once approved, you'll receive the card in about 7 days and need only to log-in.

Certainly worth it, for Salon's high-quality journalism.

Keep conferences on the record

Kevin Werbach, the talented organizer of the annual Supernova conference (which I attended last year but can't next month), makes this commentary in an email today:

Silly conference reporting restrictions

I can't fathom why conference organizers still insist their events are off the record in this age of WiFi and Weblogs. At the Wall Street Journal's recent "D" conference, armchair Webloggers broke news simply because the professional journalists sitting next to them weren't allowed to report.

For a small private workshop, fine. But any time a CEO of a public company stands up in front of several hundred executives, he or she knows what they say is fair game. After all, journalists could just interview the attendees and get them to confirm what the speaker said.

The ostensible reason for these restrictions is that speakers feel more comfortable knowing they are in a "private" setting. But why are those speakers standing on stage at conferences if not to get public exposure? Any executive worth his or her salt knows what you shouldn't say at a public gathering, regardless of whether those in the room are officially labeled as journalists. Heck, dozens of executives and Wall Street analysts are facing prosecution for things they put in personal email messages!

At Supernova, we put no such restrictions on attendees. A conference is a conversation, and if you're not comfortable saying something that might be repeated, don't say it. Pervasive Internet connectivity and low barriers to publishing are realities that everyone needs to deal with. From my perspective, the fact that attendees, whether professional journalists or not, can blog the event is a benefit, not a threat. It enhances the conference for those present and those elsewhere.

Hear, hear.

The latest on phonecams

From Declan's politech mailing list today, the latest on phonecams and mobile devices:

• Phonecams banned from Swiss beaches and bathhouses
(some great addtl info in the "discuss" forum on BoingBoing).

• Chinese government arrests cellphone users for text-messaging SARS rumors.

• All mobiles may be banned from Australian courts over phonecam fears.

Looking for magazine interview subject

Just got back from an interview (for my book) at TiVo HQ in Alviso/San Jose. Great company. (By the way, the Mapquest directions take you down a street that no longer exists.)

For a related magazine piece I'm writing, I'm looking for a tech enthusiast who watches TV (selectively, if not abundantly), someone who's a power user of digital technology. Preferably he or she owns a TiVo or another kind of DVR. But I want to take it beyond that discussion of consumer-centric television to the next level in an article about the next generation of television -- on-demand TV, or file serve TV, where one might be able to dial up any show ever broadcast (or even a neighbor's or friend's video footage), download it and watch it for a small fee.

Know of anyone who's interested in being interviewed (including yourself)? Might wind up in a national magazine. If so, lemme know. I can send you more information.

Boucher: Congress wonít let Hollywood hack

Ed Cone: Rep. Rick Boucher says legislation allowing the recording industry to damage personal computers is highly unlikely to be enacted.

Marshall on his Talking Points

Princeton Alumni Weekly (Princeton has an alumni weekly?): The best political blogger on the planet, Joshua Marshall, talks about his Talking Points Memo and says he almost gave it up last year.

Thanks to Hylton Jolliffe for the pointer.

Will porn kick-start the video phone revolution?

BBC News asks: Will porn kick-start the video phone revolution?

Yes, probably.

iPod Muzak isn't same old song

Wired News: Apple's iPod is changing the market for canned music in business establishments. Entrepreneurs are using the device to play cutting-edge electronica where they once might have turned to bland elevator fare.

In other Wired News news, Tony Long has a dead-on commentary about why QuesTec, the tool designed to give baseball a uniform strike zone, is a bad idea -- bad for umpires and, ultimately, bad for the game.