One of the newly posted talks to the TED website this week is one by Clay Shirky, author of here comes everybody. In it Mr. Shirky discusses the impact of how we organize ourselves and our efforts and the way that is effected by the fact that the internet drops the cost of communication to virtually nil. What's fascinating about this talk is that he discusses the subject matter in a kind of ideologically agnostic way that makes it clear how many debates this phenomena pops up in. He only explicitly discusses three: photography, journalism/blogging, and software development, but he makes clear that he believes that the impact will be of similar magnitude to the invention of the printing press.

Follow me over the fold for the embedded version of the talk, a little background on TED, and my own commentary on the talk.

Below the fold I have included a letter that I electronically submitted to Senator Feinstein just minutes ago. As I have experienced in the past on these matters I fully expect that I shall receive a form response that does nothing to address the points I have written about beyond the fact that they are nominally on the same topic. Figuring I might as well at least get a "paper cut" of real effect in I requested that she respond via snail mail instead of letting her fob me off with just a spam email.

Happy Independence Day, everyone. Stay safe and enjoy the holiday weekend.

The fact that this FISA thing is coming shortly after the primary between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ended is fishy to me. Well, that by itself does nothing to my backroom smoke detector, but Obama's support of the bill definitely makes it twinge. If we accept as fact that Obama does not in his heart of hearts support this bill then there must be someone who had and possibly still has leverage over him that forced him to accept the compromise.

Let us examine the possibilities of whom that might be over the fold.

Obama has to win Kentucky in order to win the nomination, and that's all there is to it. Forget big states, swing states, popular vote, and even delegate count. If Obama can't win KY he cannot win in November. Kentucky is the linchpin on which this nomination will swing, and an Obama loss there, no matter how small, is a game changer. The bluegrass state, home to the Kentucky Derby, and hillbillies... I mean, good working class people will decide the nomination this time as Hillary Clinton wins from sea to shining sea and ends this rediculous insurgent campaign by that uppity.... I mean young and inspiring empty suit... I mean inexperience Senator from Illinois.

Why is it that Obama has to win in KY? Because if Hillary Clinton wins in KY she'll be the only candidate whose victories make a continuous line that connects the Atlantic to the Pacific and, just like Hex, that's the true measure of victory.

Do you think it will fly?

Me neither. :)

Much has been said by a certain Presidential candidate with a poor track record in the caucus states denigrating their value because they are "undemocratic" and not reflective of how a candidate will perform in the general election. The former is laughably false because it is simply democracy of a different form that what is practiced in the general election and the primaries. In fact I would say that any republic, meaning a representative democracy where politicians are elected by district, is also nowhere near as democratic as some alternatives, but I digress. The latter is a far more serious criticism because there is a kernel of truth to it, but it ignores two very important factors: first, the general election will not be a rerun of the primary for any number of reasons  - higher turnout and a different opponent being chief among these; and second, the fact that the caucuses are different from the primaries and the general election doesn't mean that they're worthless, it just means that they give you different information about the candidates that ballot box races do. It is when one stops to consider what caucuses do tell you rather than bemoaning what they do not that they expose their true worth.

There's one thing you can do right now that will help the Dems win in November. The main event has already begun, even before tonight when John W McCain solidified his victory the initial shots had already been fired. Right now McBush is at his weakest - his money is relatively low, he potentially has campaign spending limits looming over him, and he has to go running to Mr. 20% to beg for money and support. Our candidates are too busy running with the primary to turn their attention to the old Republicant Rerun, so the task of defining him falls to our old friends the DNC. So, unless you have the ability to bend HIllary's ear and the influence to convince her to drop out to end the primary tomorrow, the best thing you can do to help Democratic chances in November is donate to the DNC. They're the ones who will be doing the yeoman's work of campaigning against McFlightsuit 2.0 (it comes with an actual military record this time!). They also may get stuck with a bill of running a do-over in FL and MI that the media seems to be salivating about these days, so they can use every contribution you can spare.

The basis of the title of this diary is that the only way Senator Clinton wins the nomination if she doesn't win big on Tuesday is if Obama is not in the race anymore. In other words the only sane reason for staying in the race is to treat it essentially as a lottery ticket. Is that expectation realistic, though? Consider - given how negative she has gone against Obama how realistic is it that his delegates would vote for her? How likely is the Democratic party to coalesce enthusiastically behind her? I ask you to consider these things because they are things that the super delegates will have to consider as well. If you were a super delegate and you were faced with the choice of Hillary Clinton or someone else who might be better able to unite the party what do you choose to do? Here's my guess - even if Barack Obama is somehow gone from the race, you go into a smoke filled room with somebody who will have a powerful sway with Obama's delegates (whether that's Obama himself or his wife, Michelle) and you pick a compromise candidate who will be able to unite the party going in to November.

Well, it seems pretty clear that if things keep going the way they are going Senator Clinton is going to lose the race. There is an important caveat, though, if things keep going the way they are going. So, here's the question I would like to discuss in this diary, what magnitude of an event will it take for Hillary Clinton to be able to win? Take the poll and turn below the page for my thoughts.

Let's face it - the primary process has the upside that it potentially permits a candidate to come from outside of circle of famous people, perform some face to face politics, and win the nomination from presidency. They cause the problem that the first states have disproportionate influence and therefore receive disproportionate attention. In and of itself, this is an inseparable part of the upside of the primary process - the one fact causes the other. Where this becomes a problem is that the states individually decide when their primaries are and so their is a race to move the primaries earlier and earlier. This lengthens the campaign season, making it more expensive, obviating much of the advantage the system supposedly had in the first place.

How do we fix this? Suggestions have included national primaries, regional primaries, and kicking out the state legislatures and independent voters. These approaches have their strengths and weaknesses. There is a solution that addresses the issues of our system and still gives states the freedom to schedule their own primaries: permit states that schedule their primaries later to allocate more delegates.

Kos and DHinMI have both weighed in on the hubub on the front page. Frankly, on whether or not there is a "there" there, I agree with them that this will likely amount to nothing. Where I disagree with them is about whether or not it is a waste of time making sure of that.

Follow me over the fold where I will follow a time honored tradition of letting a more talented writer express what I feel by quoting him.

There's one thing I find kind of confusing about the recent hoopla over telecom immunity and the previous Military Commissions act. That is the fact that these laws retroactively make something legal. Now, it would seem to me that doing that is unconstitutional. "Ex post facto," logically, should cover all retroactive changes in law and not just the ones that make things more harsh.

It seems that judicial precedence, however, means that ex post facto only covers retroactively making the law more harsh.

Can anyone give me a good reason why that should be the case? Otherwise, it seems like a position taken for convenience that is now permitting the kind of behavior that the founders would have most feared - an out of control executive with a compliant Congress making the executive's law breaking legal ex post facto.

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

He was the most high-profile labor leader in a state known for its stiff opposition to unions. He was a Democratic state senator in arguably the most Republican state in the union. He fought for causes that were unpopular among the majority of his colleagues.
   Yet it is hard to find anyone who did not like Ed Mayne, the longest-serving state AFL-CIO president in the United States.
   Mayne died of cancer at his home Sunday at the age of 62.

I didn't really know Mayne personally; I had only met him, briefly, once. I do, however, have a story to relate that speaks to his generosity.

It seems all too often some issue will flare up around here, then it will just disappear a couple of weeks later, never to be heard of again. As much as we decry the media for its minute attention span, we in the blogs are only a little better. I don't know the best way to remedy this, but an improved and more sophisticated search would go a long way, not to mention improved tagging by diarists and integration of the tags with the search. For instance, it would be nice to be able to look for entries that have both tag A and tag B, A or B, A but not B, or even just search for diaries on "similar topics" that searches ranks diaries by how similar the tags are. Then give the user the ability to put searches into their hotlist with, say, updates once per day or per week (defined by a user setting) so that people can maintain their own list of topics to keep an eye on. That list would naturally serve as a reminder to look into things if a topic has gone stale here at DKos.

I digress. Improvements to this site would be fantastic, but they are not the topic of this post. Follow me below the fold for the more immediate topics hinted at in the title

I have been following, with no small amount of trepidation, the bad news in the financial markets of late (bondad: The Worst Economy of Our Lifetime pt I, pt II, pt III, and What the Hell Happened in the Markets?; and Jerome a Paris: Credit Crunch Act II, Financial Meltdown - More to Come, and The Level 3 Bomb). All that talk of so many very large banks ending up holding that much worthless paper, and thus going bankrupt, left me concerned that my own meager savings was at risk. After all, the scale of this has been speculated to potentially overwhelm federal agencies that insure bank accounts like the FDIC or NCUA.

Follow me over the fold for more discussion.

Failures are, perhaps, the most sound source of positive lessons you could ask for. Given that, what better place to go to for lessons than that epic failure, George Bush? We are already well versed with the Rovian tactic of attacking your enemy where he's strong. What we seemed to have missed is that strategy works particularly well with it's complement: own your weaknesses to make them your strengths. Granted, this can't be done with every weakness, but it can be done with enough to make a difference. Witness Bush's collection of monumental weaknesses and how he made them appear to be strengths: he was an unserious, idiotic drunken, drug addict who skated by on his family name his whole life. How did he transform these into strengths? Well, the media narrative was that he was an affable, repentant man who may be prone to misspeaking, but who isn't?

It seems that a large fraction of the people here is ready to move on from the minimal, "Give me a Democrat, any Dem!" We're ready for some substantive standards. The most comment tactic mentioned is to run primary challenges against those Democrats who have drawn our ire. We have to be smart about how many people we run primary challenges against, though, so the question naturally arises - how do we pick who to run a primary challenge against and concentrate our efforts appropriately? Given the nature of our community any process would have to be an open one. That would have the added benefit of providing real time feedback to our leaders that we really really disapprove of what they're doing, but also the downside that we would need to figure out some way to prevent people from gaming it.

To that end, I have a modest proposal for the community's consideration: the Shit List and the Hit List.

Looks like Alberto Gonzales has defied the subpoena for emails with Karl Rove. See, for example, the video titled Gonzales' blame game here. That's it. Game over. Defying a subpoena is definitely a misdemeanor, and rises to a high crime given the fact that it's a coverup for efforts to turn our nation in to a banana Republican. Because of that fact I have this to say to every member of the house of Representatives and every Senator - impeach Gonzales now. You don't need to wait for the slow courts. Attempting to exercise the "inherent contempt" clause will also lead to a useless court battle. Justice delayed in this case is justice denied, and that's precisely what Gonzales, Rove, and Bush are hoping for.

More on the flip.

The focus on impeachment is healthy inasmuch as it helps move forward the impeachments of those who have committed crimes in the Bush administration. Impeachment may not be the only possible course of action against some of these people, though. Consider one of the chief authors of the torture memos - Alberto Gonzales. Here is a lawyer who offered his "client," the government, legal advice that was not just wrong but in clear contradiction with the law. This was obviously a stall tactic and meant to give Bush a fall guy in the event he needed one, but I digress. An attorney who gives such advice has committed a crime, right? Kind of like suborning perjury to the nth degree. Is it possible to get such an attorney's license revoked by the bar association? Can someone who cannot legally practice law be the attorney general?

The reasons I bring this up are: one, I genuinely would like to know if this is possible; and two, it seems like a positive step that we outsiders can take that does not rely on waiting for Congress to act and could support any efforts to investigate wrongdoing by the administration.

Thoughts, corrections, etc?