What does it mean when the miserable harpies at Campaign Desk sound incredible partisan by advocating fact-checking?

Last night was WYSIWYG's IMHO panel on politics and blogs. Anyone who's thought about the topic for more than about ten minutes could predict the course of the discussion: anyone can publish, anyone can read, any editing is through a Darwinian process of competing "mindshare", the potential hazards, and so forth. There was a consensus that decentralized publishing would somehow invert the decision-making in a political campaign. This was exemplified by the Clark Network and a never-implemented DNC Convention blog network that would have allowed convention attendees to publish their own experience and ideas for the consumption of other attendees and, of course, the public. This stands in stark contrast to the traditional set of campaign messages, which are centrally planned and "broadcast" to the unwashed hoi-palloi. The populist appeal is obvious, but what is the benefit? At first blush, it's a decentralized message machine that would allow the most engaging or appealing ideas to float to the top -- a marketplace of ideas. This is blogging as polling, where messages are wrought from social networks and the politicians are informed less by his own convictions (subsequently delivered top-down) than by the convictions of the raucus social network beneath them. When the moderator turned the discussion towards the economics of blogs, things started to get interesting. There is clearly tension between the need to get paid for publishing, and thereby free up an author to continue their blog, and the obvious ethical problems of accepting advertising. At this point, David Rashikoff announced that blogging was somehow beyond "economics" and was instead an "ecology". To give him the benefit of the doubt, he may have been referring to the majority of the blogging community that diligently posts without the promise of being paid. That may be true, but the economy of blogging can't be dismissed out of hand: as in any other system, it has an economy which provides us with an understanding of the forces it employs.

Is Jack Edwards the new John-John Kennedy? Is Mexican the new Black?

The most impressive thing about Kerry's selection of Edwards is that the force of JE's charisma (hair?) actually bumped Bill Clinton out of the news cycle. That's no small order--- Bill has been pimping My Life every night this week: Larry King, Jim Lehrer, etc etc... Over a year ago, Clinton famously said that the Democratic party had two stars (not counting himself): Hillary and Wes Clark. The surprise of the primaries was that Clark went from super giant to white dwarf in as much time as it takes to say "endorsed by Michael Moore." Clinton had the numbers right but the stars wrong.

In case you were wondering... Title 36, Section 10 of the U.S. Code specifies that the flag shall be flown at half-staff: * Thirty days from the death of the President or a former President; *Ten days from the death of the Vice President, the Chief Justice or a retired Chief Justice of the United States, or the Speaker of the House of Representatives; *From the day of death until interment of an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, a Secretary of an executive or military department, a former Vice President, or the Governor of a State, territory, or possession; and *On the day of death and the following day for a Member of Congress.

The Alien Tort Claims Act was passed by the First Congress to combat piracy on the high seas, but since 1980 has found new use as a weapon against human rights abuses and genocide. Around the 1990s, plaintiffs began using the ATCA against corporations, rather than individuals, and ATCA became much more controversial. Opponents of the law, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Department of Justice, believe that the law is overly broad, misapplied, and that it could create a whole host of diplomatic horrors. Supporters contend that the ATCA is a valuable tool to combat human rights abuses. In this context, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday in Sosa v. Alavarez-Machain that foreign nationals could use the Alien Tort Claims Act to sue other foreign defendants in U.S. civil court for violating the "norms of customary international law," although the abuses in Sosa specifically did not meet these standards. The decision validates a number of pending cases, but raises the bar for plaintiffs who must now prove that the defendant violated international human rights laws. In short, the court ruled that "...for the purposes of civil liability, the torturer has become

From WaPost: "On Tuesday, Cheney, serving in his role as president of the Senate, appeared in the chamber for a photo session. A chance meeting with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, became an argument about Cheney's ties to Halliburton Co., an international energy services corporation, and President Bush's judicial nominees. The exchange ended when Cheney offered some crass advice. "Fuck yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency." ... Make that a weak, wheezing, somewhat unreliable heartbeat from the Presidency. Unfortunately, no press accout I have read thusfar gives Leahy's reaction--- which in my book is an essential part of the story.