James Poulos on McCain:
Somehow hating McCain is fun and easy for these people but dumping their failed President is a cognitive impossibility. If this is the reason why Romney can’t get nominated — and I think it is — it’s an expensive lesson to learn but one that shouldn’t make him feel too bad about himself.
The latest Rasmussen poll shows just a three point difference in California before the Edwards withdrawal.
A sobering look at cell phone use in Kenya – as troubling as the use of radio in Rwanda:
There’s no denying that the mobile phone has revolutionized Africa. In some other parts of the world a mobile phone is just a mobile phone is just a mobile phone. Not so here.
In Kenya, I can store funds on my phone and transfer or liquidate these as necessary. It is also the primary internet surfing device for a good number of people I know. In addition, the mobile phone can be used as a social networking and newsgathering tool. Services such as Kazi560 and Ushahidi.com are to be applauded for catering to, and harnessing the power of, the bottom of the pyramid respectively.
Unfortunately, what can be harnessed for good can equally be exploited for sinister purposes. Regarding the escalating violence in Kenya, the ICRC spokesman in the country, one Bernard Barret is quoted as saying that rumours are being spread by mobile phone text messages predicting imminent attacks by one group or another and that this is heightening tensions. It’s difficult to attach a positive or negative value to these messages collectively. If they’re true, then they serve as a useful warning, enabling those who are due to be attacked to protect themselves or to flee.
If they’re not true, on the other hand, they cause unnecessary panic and might lead to those receiving them planning and executing attacks of their own in order to pre-empt the attack of the perceived enemy. And if you think this is farfetched, then take another look at the Akiwumi report in which some people were reported to have defended their acts of aggression by saying that they had received word that they were due to be attacked and that therefore they were merely being offensive in their own defense.
…What makes these subversive messages spread by mobile phone most sinister though, is the ability to select for audience.
It is one thing to broadcast subversive messages on Radio as was the case in Rwanda, and is alarmingly the case with some vernacular radio stations in Kenya.
It is an entirely different thing to send these messages to a carefully selected list of people on your contact list who will in turn send them on to their own select list of people so that the message spreads like a virus but catches only people who answer to certain ‘characteristics.’It is more dangerous because there is more stealth to it. It is not done in the open, it is done in secret, making it harder to put an end to. In addition, the dissemination instrument is not situated in one central place that can be clamped down on easily. Rather, every mobile phone in this country is a potential dissemination instrument, making it nigh impossible to crackdown on the proliferators of these messages.
I’m very afraid that mobile phones will be for Kenya what Radio was for Rwanda. I really look forward to being proved wrong.
That’s some haul for January. 170,000 new donors?
Shocked by racial code? The guy has obviously never lived in Detroit.
She won’t vote for McCain – even against Clinton.
A bit of a surprise in Brooklyn, where Clinton is struggling.
A lovely outtake from the NYT this morning:
Both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Giustra at first denied that any such meeting occurred. Mr. Giustra also denied ever arranging for Kazakh officials to meet with Mr. Clinton. Wednesday, after The Times told them that others said a meeting, in Mr. Clinton’s home, had in fact taken place, both men acknowledged it.
Hat tip: NRO.
The king of talk radio isn’t backing down, as Ambers notes. But it’s also worth noting what one Romney supporter has realized:
Candidates slammed by Rush got over half the vote in his adopted home state. McCain, Huckabee, and Paul were almost universally attacked and were outspent, but gained a majority of the vote.
I do not rejoice in this truth, but the conservative think-tanks, media centers, and pundits need to re-evaluate their educational strategies and make up.
Chris Mooney is thrilled at McCain’s emergence:
There seem to me to be two fundamental points. One: Anyone who cares about global warming should want McCain to vanquish his Republican opponents in the primaries. If we get McCain versus one of the Democrats in the general election, we’ll have two candidates who want strong action (even if their precise stances may differ). Whoever wins in that scenario, we’ll be better off in the climate arena than ever before—and we can count on action finally happening.
The other fundamental point is this. While McCain’s support of nuclear power and his more cautious approach to greenhouse gas regulation each can be criticized, neither rates, in my view, as an irredeemable flaw. Politics is too messy for purism on these matters—and the climate problem too urgent. A McCain presidency would certainly be a great step forward on climate, and given our nation’s past history on this issue, well … that’s more than a start.
