If South Korean elections (original) can be swung by smart mobs, what’s that say about US politics? Mind you, the voter turnout was a mere 70%, which is the lowest ever for a South Korean presidental election. Conventional wisdom says that Roh Moo-hyun benefited from text messaging because it helped him get out the vote, but the low turnout seems to contraindicate that. Possibly the turnout would have been slimmer if not for the smart mobs? Hard to say. ...

Gephardt’s in, which is somehow deeply unexciting news. Ah, bah; it’s good to have a traditionally Democratic candidate in the field. In theory, I’d like to see candidates in both sets of primaries from all over the political maps. I must try and be less cynical. Course, that means I’d rather see Bernie Sanders than Howard Dean as the candidate from Vermont.

Eric Raymond’s just published another internal memo from Microsoft. (Hint: the fisking doesn’t improve your credibility, Eric.) I recommend skipping over the snide commentary, because it’s actually neither that clever or that interesting. Read it for what it says about Microsoft’s belief about where it stands vis a vis nation states, and perhaps reread this post of mine in which I discuss the role of NGOs in the new world order.

Josh Marshall has been writing a lot of good stuff on North Korea lately. I have some comments on this post (original). In it, he discusses the administration’s claim that North Korea is already a nuclear power, and thus it’s not a huge concern if they get more nukes. One might well argue that the administration is correct in this. If North Korea has had nukes for several years and hasn’t used them, then maybe there isn’t so much urgency after all. The sense of urgency around North Korea’s nuclear program is predicated on the idea that if North Korea has nukes, something bad will happen. If North Korea has had nukes and nothing bad’s happened, what’s a few more? ...

So, about NGOs. Non-governmental organizations, if you’re not down with the acronyms. I think the events of the last five years have made it patently clear that NGOs of whatever sort can have a huge effect on the world we live in. Example one is 9/11. Al Qaeda is not a government in any sense of the word, but they’ve touched everyone who lives in the United States and most of the rest of the world. Example two is Microsoft. The antitrust trials of the last few years have been simply fascinating from the point of view of a territorial government trying to deal with an economic powerhouse whose interests don’t coincide with the country in which it resides. Further, when Bill Gates gives a hundred million dollars to India to combat HIV — that’s power; that has results. ...

I’ve been peering at this Scripting News post about cell phones (original) all day, trying to figure out what struck me as weird about it. I finally figured it out. Check this quote: “So why not make them just a teensy bit bigger and put a real qwerty keyboard on the darn thing and let me type into it like a human being.” That seemed totally reasonable to me the first zillion times I read it. I just went out and got a Sidekick, cause I wanted a keyboard on my cell phone. But wait — “like a human being.” He wants a keyboard-based interface, cause he wants to use the cell phone for more than just the classic telephonic voice based interface. “Like a human being.” ...

Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston looks like a fascinating book, judging from this interview. I’d never heard the Jackie Robinson story, but being a serious Celtics fan, the issues surrounding race and Boston sports have interested me for a while. He seems to have at least a little to say about basketball, although his surprise at the color barriers broken by the Celtics makes me wonder about his general research. Tagged for later consideration. ...

In keeping with my theme for the day (terseness. will talk more later), here’s a quick link to a Bruce Sterling interview. It’s happening right now. Like, real time. Maybe it is to talk about it in this thread, which is hijacked from Boing Boing. Transfictionalism now!

This is what we call an excellent cause. You know what’s even better? The people he’s trying to help grow coffee (original). This matters; donate if you can.

Happy Tolkien’s eleventy-first birthday! At 9 PM, raise your glass and toast “The Professor.” (Via MetaFilter.)