] "The technologies don't infringe, people do," Greenberg
] said.

Yeah!

Wired News: Senate Shelves Induce Review

] The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The
] Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction

Looks like you can download the audio version of this book on itunes.

Amazon.com: Books: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction

] Some detected animus toward Edwards in Ifill's
] interrogations but for me the overwhelming impression,
] which I've gathered over the years from watching her on
] PBS's Wash Week in Review, is that this is a person with
] a case of the cutes. There's a preening coyness to her,
] as if she's smiling at herself rather than at the camera
] and expecting a cookie.

She did a good job of putting them both on the spot, but on the other hand, the "without using his name" bit was quite silly. This isn't a game show. (At least its not supposed to be.)

Gwen Awful

] Treemap is a space-constrained visualization of
] hierarchical structures. It is very effective in showing
] attributes of leaf nodes using size and color coding.
] Treemap enables users to compare nodes and sub-trees even
] at varying depth in the tree, and help them spot patterns
] and exceptions.

A very interesting way to visualize a large amount of data on screen at one time.

Smarrtmoney.com has a realtime interactive graph of the stock market using this technology, but its a premium feature.

Treemap: Home page

The website Cheney thought he was recommending in the debate. Its a little slow but finally viewable now.

FactCheck.org - Annenberg Political Fact Check

Memestreams.com now points to Memestreams.net... and there was much rejoicing!

Memestreams.net 'Its dot com!'

] The House of Representatives on Tuesday crushed a bill
] to reinstitute the draft as Republicans accused
] Democrats of raising the specter of compulsory military
] service to turn voters against President Bush's
] reelection bid.

Symbolic house vote kills draft proposal 402-2

] William F. Buckley
] Convention Bloggers
] Tim Berners-Lee
] Gore Vidal
] Lawrence Lessig
] Joe Trippi
] Adam Curry
] Wesley Clark
] Joi Ito
] John Edwards
] Howard Dean
] The Daily Kos
] Doc Searls
] David Weinberger
] Dave Winer

This podcasting concept seems like nothing new at all, but if people are going to be putting cool audio content up there it sure would be nice to know about it.

This set of interviews seems very interesting. Where else are you going to find Dave Winer, Adam Curry, and William F. Buckley all in the same place?

Christopher Lydon Interviews...

] "Now we have the power to launch a missile with a 2,000
] km (1,250 mile) range," the news agency IRNA quoted
] influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as
] saying. "Iran is determined to improve its military
] capabilities."

Iran seems rather undeterred

] The Discovery Institute's appeals to academic freedom
] create a kind of catch-22. If scientists ignore the ID
] movement, their silence is offered as further evidence of
] a conspiracy. If they join in, they risk reinforcing the
] perception of a battle between equal sides. Most
] scientists choose to remain silent. "Where the scientific
] community has been at fault," says Krauss, "is in
] assuming that these people are harmless, like
] flat-earthers. They don't realize that they are well
] organized, and that they have a political agenda."

Wired published a fairly long article on the creationist revival. It was interesting sort of as a microcosm of the anti-scientific thinking that is consuming our political and social lives:

Develop convictions.
Never think critically about your position.
Come up with a strategy for advocating your perspective.

Don't engage people who disagree with you unless it has a strategic purpose. Do not listen to them. They are the enemy. Your goal is to defeat them. They are evil, and everything they say hides an ulterior motive.

The jaw dropping thing was the end. George Gilder: The creationist. George Gilder has been a major leader in the technical community for over a decade. He was the sooth sayer of the internet boom in the early nineties. The U.S. made significant policy decisions based on this vision.

The telecom crash has hurt his credibility because he didn't forsee it. Some people have been wondering whether he should have been listened to, but most of the tech community still thinks of him as a leader.

But to go to an audience like Wired, which is primarily read by engineers and technical business people, and associate yourself with creationism? People who make their living from applied science; people who understand the history of technology in unparalleled detail... hundreds of years of using the scientific method to investigate natural phenomena and harness them. And you go to them and tell them that conclusions ought to precede the collection of evidence! Thats an amazing thing. Like a rock star blowing his brains out at a concert in front of a million fans.

Its important for that reason. George Gilder is dead.

Wired 12.10: George Gilder is Dead!