Wednesday, March 03, 2004

Dave Winer: "According to a source close to the Kerry campaign, they will announce shortly that they have raised over $1 million through their website in the last 24 hours." 4:52:07 PM    comment []

A couple of additional thoughts on N&R blogs: *Use non-staff bloggers as well as staffers -- offer blogs to public board members and officials. This idea came from you in the first place -- there was some talk last fall about giving weblogs to mayoral candidates. *Create a community relations weblog, or ombudsman's blog, or have John Robinson expand his editor's column to blog format. 4:44:47 PM    comment []

"I do this store because I too want to live in a town that at least HAS a cool record store. Is Greensboro capable of sustaining such a store?" Gate City Noise is on the brink. 4:37:58 PM    comment []

"The two groups of professionals involved—elections officials and computer scientists—are talking past each other. Where their specialties overlap, they tend to disagree on both the big picture and the details." Baseline looks at paperless electronic voting, with a focus on Maryland, which didn't even manage to put up a firewall or patch its Windows software before using its new Diebold machines. "The early returns are in and no voter fraud has been discovered...That's a good thing...right? Maybe not, says the expert who outlined several specific steps Maryland needed to improve its security procedures—only some of which the state managed to implement before the primary." 2:58:45 PM    comment []

"In the space just off the field of play there really is no level of incompetence that won't be tolerated...baseball is structured less as a business than as a social club...There are many ways to embarass the Club, but being bad at your job is not one of them." Michael Lewis rips baseball insiders and hangers-on in a Sports Illustrated article (3/1/04, article unposted, I guess those AOL synergies never quite took hold...) on the reaction to his book, "Moneyball." He's pissed, apparently with cause, that the book has been misread, not read, and otherwise abused by many members of "the Club." It's fascinating to see an outsider with a well-established reputation in other fields take on the professional sports establishment. He's clearly not interested in being one of the boys in the press box, either, calling writers and broadcasters who follow baseball the game's "women's auxiliary," a sexist (and successful) attempt to insult a presumably sexist group by insulting them in sexist terms. 11:40:56 AM    comment []

I'm proud of my Senator. John Edwards showed well in the primaries. He did himself, and North Carolina, proud. Edwards used his natural talent as a speaker, a connector, but he also reminded the Democrats that after the long party of the '90s, there are still too many needs unmet for too many Americans -- that the downturn of the early '00s has been business as usual for the millions without access to basics like healthcare and the kind of education that leads to opportunity. He should be Kerry's veep. That would be a really effective combination. The youthful demeanor and relative lack of experience that hindered Edwards even in the eyes of some who wanted to support him would become assets when paired with Kerry's seriousness and resume. Thanks, John Edwards. 7:59:57 AM    comment []