Tuesday, October 07, 2003

Weblogs bring Second Amendment logic to the First Amendment.   The Second Amendment means everyone gets to have a gun.   The First Amendment means everyone gets to say what they want to say. But a limiting factor on freedom of speech has been that the tools of mass communication have been unavailable to most individuals. Some people are more equal than others.   Now push-button publishing onto the Web means everyone gets to have a printing press and a distribution network.    Weblogs won't undo professional media, any more than personal gun ownership has undone the military. But many Second Amendment advocates believe an armed citizenry provides a check on the government. Arming people with weblogs certainly provides a check on corporate media and the government.   If the pen is mightier than the sword, this could be a very positive development. 3:18:05 PM    comment []

David Hoggard is blogging his predictions of today's election results, including his own performance. "I have visited about 20 polling places so far. Good turnout relatively...Prediction from my visits:  Stadium 50/50 - Me - fourth place." Fourth would put this blogging candidate in next month's general election for City Council at-large. 2:48:48 PM    comment []

Triad Biz Journal: "Wake Forest University has, almost overnight, become a major player in the emerging field of nanotechnology, which could have significant implications for future economic development." Great, as long as that gray goo doesn't come get us. 12:59:50 PM    comment []

Replacing the machines that can hang, impregnate, and otherwise mistreat ballot chads will...cause a bunch of new problems. That's what I found out by interviewing some county officials in California for a Baseline article. "'There isn't a system that has all I want' in terms of security, cost and ease of maintenance, says Tom Stanionis, head of data processing for Yolo County, near Sacramento. Yet he says he is being rushed into choosing new machines." Funding is available to counties for new electronic machines, which is forcing even counties that like their safe, existing technology to switch. Backing up the touch-screen machines with paper copies would be easy to do, but it costs the counties a lot of money on an ongoing basis. I voted this morning in Greensboro. Guilford County does not have paper backup for its electronic voting. An election official told me that smart-card enabled Internet voting is under consideration. Some of the folks I spoke to for my article think that's risky as hell. There are lots of questions and even conspiracy theories about electronic voting. Our story stuck more to the nuts-and-bolts of election technology and funding, and that was disturbing enough. 12:44:22 PM    comment []

Gotta go vote against that bad stadium ordinance. Warning: I almost always vote for the losing side. 8:22:09 AM    comment []

Lex Alexander: Your tax dollars at work, or, Can this marriage be saved?  NC representative Cass Ballenger explains his d-i-v-o-r-c-e in ways that make Lex wonder if he’s the right man for his job. C’mon, Lex, the man’s got A-rabs right across the street, and his wife can no longer dine out on lobbyist largesse, cut him some slack. 8:15:38 AM    comment []