It’s been a long time since it’s happened, but today I was actually inspired by a political candidate — Mike Gravel. I’d never heard of him before but 7 minutes of watching him rip through the curtain of the kabuki show in SC was enough to show me that he’s fundamentally different. Don’t get me wrong…I love the Kucinich and the Sharptons of the world, and I have a lot of respect for them. But they lock into the slot of “hopeless lefty candidate” from the get-go, and in doing so they validate the ridiculous charade that the US political process has become. Gravel seems different. He engages on his terms and has the track record to prove it. You can almost see the corral around the other candidates as they helplessly chew their cud and wait for him to finish.

politics | No Comments »

In a direct response to the censorship I previously wrote about, users mounted an incredible attack on Digg last night. They relentlessly posted the numbers on Digg in as many ways as possible. Meanwhile, Digg responded by nuking the stories and banning the users as fast as it could. But it was not fast enough. At the height of the attack, all stories on the Digg front page contained the numbers. Then, at 9pm, Digg’s Kevin Rose capitulated and agreed to stop fighting the posts and end the censorship. Yay.

A good description of these events was posted today on Boing Boing.

Update: BBC is actually running this story on its front page!  Nice to see that the MSM is clueing in to this issue’s broad relevance.

fight the power, geek | No Comments »