For open source politics to reach its full potential, it has to break through this system in a systematic way. It has to find ways to turn more amateurs into pros, bring continuing revenue streams to the right people, and discipline those who (like Lockhart) fall out of line.
You measure the success of a blog by the number of dollars it raises for favored candidates and causes, by the number of events it causes to happen (even second-or-third hand), and the number of ideas it can pass on and bring to the table.
Stories flow from the Internet into the grapevine, and they tend to stick there. They move numbers in political campaigns, so we know they stick there.
What will happen, no doubt, is that parents will push these things on their kids in lieu of doing something really useful, like talking to them, or modeling proper behavior for them. In that way, this is counter-productive, and completely misunderstands the nature of the medium.
The worst is possible, but it's not as likely as you think. And if you assume it's inevitable, that there's nothing you can do and the world really is coming to an end, then the terrorists have truly won.
But the most important feature here is who defines spam with Mailwasher. With Mailwasher, you define spam. Not the government. Not the sender. You.
It will take time to get this into products, but Intel's recent financial setbacks give it an enormous financial incentive to accelerate that. The discipline of the market will force the company's hand.
Olbermann himself feels, I suspect, that he is undeserving of this moment, and the praise he will get from history for it. He should remember that Murrow himself was hired by CBS, not to run its news division, but its “education” division.
Georgia Democrats are like a drunk that hasn't quite hit bottom yet. They will in November.
The whole idea of a blog is to sustain readership and interest. That requires creativity. If you're just repeating what other bloggers are saying (or what some politician is saying) you're not being creative. You're not going to increase your readership. You're going to stay in the same little niche with all the others of your ilk.
