Post-election

Wow. Distributed self-correcting systems can work. Too bad the feedback cycle takes so long though. Glenn Greenwald:

The basic mechanics of American democracy, imperfect and defective though they may be, still function. Chronic defeatists and conspiracy theorists — well-intentioned though they may be — need to re-evaluate their defeatism and conspiracy theories in light of this rather compelling evidence which undermines them (a refusal to re-evaluate one's beliefs in light of conflicting evidence is a defining attribute of the Bush movement that shouldn't be replicated).

Karl Rove isn't all-powerful; he is a rejected loser. Republicans don't possess the power to dictate the outcome of elections with secret Diebold software. They can't magically produce Osama bin Laden the day before the election. They don't have the power to snap their fingers and hypnotize zombified Americans by exploiting a New Jersey court ruling on civil unions, or a John Kerry comment, or moronic buzzphrases and slogans designed to hide the truth (Americans heard all about how Democrats would bring their "San Francisco values" and their love of The Terrorists to Washington, and that moved nobody). It simply isn't the case that we are doomed and destined to lose at the hands of all-powerful, evil forces.

On the other hand, Pelosi is wimping out from the get-go by declaring impeachment to be "off the table". That is another element of the constitutional feedback system, and an important one. Politically, even the conservatives are ready to turn on Bush, so putting his feet to the fire is the right thing to do.

I'm shocked, shocked to find illegal spying going on!

I find myself somewhat out of step with the left blogosphere, who are all in a righteous lather over the revelation that Bush authorized the NSA to do some illegal surveillance. Perhaps I've been wearing tinfoil too long, but is this really a surprise? Does anybody really not believe that various government agencies are peeking in on citizens all the time, under varying degrees of surreptitiousness and illegality? The Bush administration did something illegal. Yawn.

That doesn't mean the lefties are wrong to act indignant and press the issue, now that it's in the open and acknowledged, but there seems to be an element of theater to the whole thing.

Update:

Max Sawicky at least seems to share my attitude:

For a red diaper doper baby (o.k., not really red, at least a light pink) like myself, it's possible to get very cynical about these revelations that the USG is flagrantly violating the law in its surveillance of U.S. citizens and treatment of foreigners. To me this is not news, it's always been done, it's the way this unAmerican American government works.

There is an important difference, however, in what you or I think and what everybody thinks. (More than one, actually.) Even when it's the same thing. The difference is timing, which hinges on what is commonly regarded as reliable reportage. The masses may decide what is true much later than you, and that point in time is an important political milestone. So cynicism (or as I prefer to say, realism) aside, now is the time to pump up the volume.

Web 2.0 -- back to the future

Paul Graham often manages to articulate what I've been thinking before I can:

Does "Web 2.0" mean anything more than the name of a conference yet? I don't like to admit it, but it's starting to. When people say "Web 2.0" now, I have some idea what they mean. And the fact that I both despise the phrase and understand it is the surest proof that it has started to mean something.

Yeah, I had the same sort of epiphany he describes. Someething is happening here/what it is ain't exactly clear.

But there is a common thread. Web 2.0 means using the web the way it's meant to be used. The "trends" we're seeing now are simply the inherent nature of the web emerging from under the broken models that got imposed on it during the Bubble.

That's an interesting thought; Web 2.0 is really a return to Web 0.1 -- more of the intelligence augmentation, social intelligence, peer-to-peer, conversational stuff that was part of the original hypertext vision through Bush, Englebart, Nelson, and Berners-Lee. A return to traditional values, as it were.

Pinning the Goddamnomometer

My ability to be outraged has more or less atrophied after five years of the Bush regime. But this Veteran's Day provided a cocktail of news stories that had a synergistic effect:

Bill O'Reilly invites Al Qaeda to blow up San Francisco
Senate votes to repeal haebeas corpus
The LA Times gives Jonah "doughy pantload" Goldberg an op-ed column.

Gah. Just another day in the imperium, I suppose.

On the other hand, Bush's approval is the 30s and the Republicans are showing signs of coming apart at the seams, so it's not all bad news today.