Announcing a running mate via text messages is only the latest indication that the Obama campaign is really the first 21st century campaign in American politics. Not only is it an absolutely brilliant way to have active voters volunteer what is probably their most reliable contact info (you can gloss over an email, ignore a call via caller ID, but text messages cry out to be read), but it also provides the campaign with an immediate way of contacting (read: mobilizing) thousands of voters in an instant.  

That said, using a new medium to make the announcement raises questions. A friend writes via email:

So what do you all think the text message will be? Will it be quick and easy: "Biden" or text-hip: "BO <3 Kaine" or more formal: "Barack chooses Sen. Evan Bayh (IN) as VP"</p>

Will it include an appeal for $?

Thoughts?  How do you think The Message will read?

Crossposted at Politicook.net

Last time was fun for me, and I hope the readers as well.  We will try another episode, to see if this is viable.

Please consider this as an open thread for any and all questions related to science and technology.  If I do not know an answer, I will say so and ask others in the community with expertise to reply.

As usual, I am dancing naked, and will not look up anything on Wikipedia or in reference books except for the times when some numbers are required, such as the heat of formation of items.  Unfortunately, I can not keep all of those figures in my head.

At the Saddleback Faith Inquisition, err, Forum, both McCain and Obama were asked, "Who are the three wisest people that you know, and that you would rely on heavily in your administration?"

Obama:

His Wife
His Grandmother
Too many valid perspectives to limit to three

McCain:

General Petraeus
John Lewis
Meg Whitman

Fair enough and true to form, Obama was truthful and tactful; McCain was truthful and shooting from the lip.

The contrast in approach and thought process aside . . . Meg Whitman? The General and John Lewis were typical examples of McCain's pandering/bolstering version of straight-talk. No real surprises there – though Mr. Lewis may disagree. But Whitman? Really? OK, I'll play along.

We all remember when that crazy Al Gore claimed he invented the internet:

It's true: the FBI can listen in on your conversations through your cell phone–even when it’s turned off. This rather startling fact was first revealed in a mob trial two years ago.  The FBI had been trying to nail some cunning goodfellas who kept uncovering the bugs.  So the FBI resorted to the new technology in place since about 2002: it turned on the locator chip in their cell phones remotely and listened to their conversations–even when they weren’t talking on the phone.  

The most amazing thing about this new eavesdropping technology is not that it exists and is being used...

http://www.youtube.com/...
http://news.zdnet.com/...

...but rather that so few Americans seem to have heard about it. Other than Shepherd Smith’s 42 second story I can’t find anything on MSM cable.  I can’t pretend that I can accurately monitor the output of the American media with Google searches, but it does seem that the mainstream media have largely ignored the story of the most intrusive technology yet seen.  Why do you think that is?

Plenty of predictions about the future, whether speculative fiction or actual policy goals of governments, involve robots that walk, roll or fly around human beings. They go about their business. They are not impeded by us, nor are we impeded by them. They do our bidding flawlessly and without second thoughts.

It is a pretty neat image. It's pretty awesome to just tell a dinner plate with wheels on to go vacuum the house, and it can - and does. You can do the same with a lawnmower. You may even be able to do that with automated bomb disposal machines, which lack the dexterity and cleverness of human technicians but have the distinct advantage of being replaceable.

Even, some day, we might see machines capable of acting entirely independently of human supervision. Here's where we cut to uncomfortable reminiscences of Terminator or Stealth.

The author http://www.alternet.org/... brilliantly describes how humans evolved to a consumer/capitalistic/patriarchical society which we delude ourselves into believing is sustainable. He omitted a very significant revolution, information, which as the others, accelerated our pace towards ultimate doom unless we escape our delusions.

Today's Wall Street Journal broke earth-shattering news: McCain Tech Plan to Continue Hands-Off Approach to Regulation. Less regulation in my tech? Awesome! I was a bit skeptical about this computer "illiterate" having a progressive technology agenda, but he really surprised me. As he says in the intro:
"My friends, today I introduce TechPlan2000, my vision for the 20th Century. Together we will revolutionize the way America uses the Interweb-Contraption."

Over the past few weeks, various members of teh online liberal/progressive community, that included quite a few Kossaks, worked together in a democratic fashion to create the Netroots Platform  

For those of you who have just joined us, check out Democracylover in NYC's mothership diary entry, to get the whole picture.  For the Netroots Science & Technology Plank, we had 19 Contributors, and 11 different versions.  Join me over the fold to read the final version

I hate this time of year, and I have good reason. I start getting ready around now - I turn off the phone. I avoid the news. I take a long walk in the big blue and green room away from the computer, away from the flag-waving hype from loudmouthed Republican talking heads that makes me want to hurl my guts up for days because I know how shallow and temporary it is.

A week ago, it began - the anniversary diaries appeared. You know, the ones about August 6, 2001, the day that an intelligence threat analysis memo made it to Bush's desk which said "Bin Laden determined to strike in the US".

What makes me a little queasy is that August 13, 2001, is my own particular anniversary. Seven years ago today, blissfully unaware of whatever might have landed on Bush's desk, I suddenly decided that making backups of all my files to CD would be a Real Good Idea(tm). All my email, stuff I was working on, scripts and tools, etc. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. I burned 3 CDs worth of data and took them home.

With Barack Obama, we likely have the most technologically-savvy candidate for President in the history of the country.   He's revolutionized campaigning and fundraising with his web-based system.    He  even has his own personal iPod playlist.   Google CEO Eric Schmidt and numerous other leaders in the technology sector have endorsed him.  More importantly, Obama has an innovative series of technology policy proposals on his campaign website under the heading, "Technology and Innovation for a New Generation."  

In contrast, John McCain is technologically illiterate and his campaign's web page barely even mentions any technology issues.

August 6, 1945 was the horrible dawn of the atomic age at Hiroshima.

It's also the less well-known debut of an equally iconic, equally American killing technology:  the electric chair, which claimed its first victim on August 6, 1890 in New York's Auburn Prison.

This weird hybrid of penal reformism, naive techno-optimism and cutthroat corporate competition between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse made a nauseating botch of its maiden usage upon the person of otherwise obscure wife-murderer William Kemmler.

Cross-posted from Executed Today

One of the core messages in John Feffer's article (AlterNet: http://www.alternet.org/... )about using technology to solve our food, environmental and energy problems is that we should be very cautious about relying on technology to solve these problems. I would expand his message to a total prohibition on counting on high-tech solutions to solve our current problems.

Only 2 days left to submit new planks to the Netroots platform!!!! Come on by and add your $.02 to the process:

www.NetrootsPlatform.org

You can find the current top planks below.  These were developed by the Netroots community - democratically, collaboratively, transparently, and entirely online.

Most of the planks are really strong, but everything (even the good stuff) can still be improved. There's still time for YOU to add your voice before we submit this to the Obama Campaign and the DNC!

(For more info, see here, here, here, here and here.)

Click on to see the current platform:

(Cross-posted in part from Obamaism.org--although the restrictions on excerpting articles here mean that the version at O.o is longer and more complete, so remember to go look at it)

    Just what Obama believes, or may come to believe, could fill many volumes; but as a start, let's discuss one recent look from the Washington Post's Dan Balz; and, at that, one which uses the term "Obama[-]ism". My fellow DB (besides Darcy Burner, cf. our post of yesterday) opines in his 7/10/08 Obama's Ideology Proving Difficult to Pinpoint: Democrats Decry a Move Toward Middle, but Republicans Still See a Liberal,

    (look out below)

You'd think this would be an easy question. Who'd you rather have as President: Abraham Lincoln or John McCain?

Now I said that the answer, Lincoln for most, may seem easy to you. But when the topic at hand is which of these two embraced technology and which does not, would you be surprised to learn there are some who may come to a different opinion than you?

Sure both relied on the telegraph, but there are difference between the two.

John McCain thinks that a "tech freak" is someone who reads emails on a computer, rather than having them printed out on paper by staff.

GOP presidential candidate John McCain, fundraising in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the nation's technology capitals, acknowledged Monday that he isn't a "tech freak" or entirely comfortable with the Internet, BlackBerrys or e-mail. But he strongly disputed criticism that he is "out of the loop" as unfair.

As former head of the U.S. Senate Commerce committee, McCain said, he has been a driving force to oversee legislation that helped the Internet flourish - even as he is still learning to get comfortable with it himself.

"Am I a tech freak? No," he said in an interview Monday with The Chronicle. "And I don't like to text message because I'd rather call somebody on the telephone."
. . .
"It doesn't mean that I have to e-mail people," he said. "Now, I read e-mails," he added, saying his staff is "constantly showing them to me as the news breaks during the day."

"Meghan!  Ask the Google whether Ted Stevens is gonna screw me over in Alaska, and print out its answer for me!"

Picture here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

This isn't really a diary and I know I'll get bitched at for the length but this picture was too funny to keep to myself.