Clay Shirky on the last Internet campaign:

Those of us watching Dean thinking “This is it - the campaign we’ve been waiting for” were, in a way, correct. This is it, or rather that was it, before Dean decided that he could run a populist campaign without the support of the populous. The big surprise, to me and to many of us, is how little it mattered. Though Trippi said “It’s all about money”, they blew through $40M to surprisingly little effect.

I have a bad terrific case of schadenfreude about this: I am laughing about how paypal-tipping Deaniacs are still scratching their heads about how they’re still behind 0-9. The entire Dean campaign, with the “Internet constituency” as one of its most vocal (or is that blogarrific?) drivers, reminded me far too much of the second superpower meme floating around a while ago. That meme, like the energy behind the Deaniacs, fed on a vicious cycle of groupthink and faux bleeding-heart politics. At least the Deaniacs spent $40m of their own money to realize exactly where they stand — i.e., nowhere; which is more than can be said about the reflexive anti-war brigade.

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On this weblog, two years ago:

Sixty years ago, a sleeping giant was awakened, and though we do not have a president of FDR’s calibre at the helm today, if the giant even half-awakens today, something good will have come out of the all the mayhem and destruction of yesterday.

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Joshua Allen:

Considering that people like Safire focus on IAO, Congress is more interested in serving RIAA, and the Washington Post considers the arrest of three poor people to be a “success” in the war on identity fraud, it is clear that the sheer magnitude of the systemic identity leakage is not a problem that anyone is willing to acknowledge. And since acknowledgement is only the first step toward fixing a problem, it is safe to assume that this one will get much, much worse before it gets better.

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Wired:

More than 30,000 employees at Indian call centers, among whom Radhika becomes Ruth and Satish becomes Steve, are told to adopt American names and say they are calling from a U.S. city in order to put their American customers at ease.

Their training includes a smattering of U.S. history and geography, along with speech therapy so that they will sound “American.” Some call centers are adorned with American flags to give a cultural feel to the place.

Along the way, these employees are exposed to a way of life that can come into direct conflict with their conservative values and, sometimes, their sanity.

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$20 Bill Commemoration of 9/11. Farfetched.

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ZDNet: US to monitor overseas students via the Net. Rights, Schmights.

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USS Clueless: For the last few months, France has been trying to say to the terrorists, “We’re not the enemy, they are”.

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Outlook: Indian Hawks And The American Plan

Surprising, as it may appear to some, the Indian troop deployment along the border with Pakistan was exactly what Americans had hoped that India would do. It has furthered American interests and, according to policy makers in Washington, reaffirmed the logic of the American Plan.

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Doonesbury on the 9/11 detentions. Here’s another series on a continuing theme.

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Ashcroft Defends Antiterror Plan and Says Criticism May Aid Foes. It is perhaps coincidental that this Dilbert strip appeared on the same day.

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