But in every case, in each and every case, a new Political Thesis emerged from the crisis which lasted for a generation. And it came from the new force within the opposition party. It came from the Goldwater Conservatives (who had never held power before), from the neo-progressives of the 1930s (who had never held power), from the Populists and Progressives (who had never held power) from the Republicans (who had never existed).

I’m taking about modest IP connectivity – the most valuable services such as medical monitoring or supporting infrastructure is akin to a slow modem and can be deployed over any path – no need for DSL or all that.

It was the lie of consolidation, told by Fiorina, that sent H-P down this road. Once this was accepted, what happened with Dunn and Hurd was inevitable.

If this is an honest election, it will be the biggest blow-out in political history. But this may not be an honest election. Bush seems intent on bringing the temple down on his head. And we're stuck in it with him. So what is there to talk about, to argue about? All we can do is hold our collective breath.

So we have the race of our lives. The growing supply of technology, matched against a growing global catastrophe of Dinosaur-like proportions.

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.