From Dave Winer:
A milestone case study from the Shorenstein Center PDF [324K] was released today. It tells the story of Trent Lott, his talk at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party, and how the news flowed through professional channels, to the blogosphere, and back, ultimately resulting in Lott’s resignation as majority leader of the US Senate.
Fascinating, and it’s great that this report is publicly available.

Wisconsin State Journal Editorial page:
“Beginning in September, the gun industry can resume making, importing and selling military-style semiautomatic weapons that were outlawed a decade ago. And in a hard-to-understand flip-flop, U.S. Sen, Russ Feingold, D-Wis., stood apart from President Bush and a majority of Feingold’s Senate colleagues of both parties by voting to dump the ban on these weapons.”
I dislike any sort of political posturing via votes that our representatives make knowing a bill will die. Politics…..

“Avi Rubin, a well regarded Johns Hopkins computer science professor and leading critic of e-voting, has written an account of his experience as an election judge on super tuesday.
Maryland was experimenting with e-Voting machines. Rubin puts it this way, ‘this was one of the most incredible days in my life.’ He wrote his experiences immediately after the day was over, capturing his perspective on the subject. A very interesting read.”

From the Atlantic Monthly:
A new breed of American soldier?call him the soldier-diplomat?has come into being since the end of the Cold War. Meet the colonel who was our man in Mongolia, an officer who probably wielded more local influence than many Mongol rulers of yore.
Thanks to John Robb….

From Glenn Reynolds:
“STEPHEN BAINBRIDGE has an article up arguing that Martha Stewart never should have been prosecuted.
Personally, I think they should be devoting their resources to investigating insider trading within the United States Senate.”

Charles Andres posts an interesting look at 1968 vis a vis 2004
http://www.e-pix.com/1968/
Recent comments about how we live in dangerous and chilling times (after 9/11) should be seen in perspective to 1968, when

• 25000 American soldiers had been killed in 3 years of the Vietnam War.
• The leading proponents for change (Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy) were assassinated.
• The Soviet Union was considered a nuclear threat that could wipe out the United States in a day.
• Protesters against the war in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention were stopped with police-state tactics.
• I have posted rare video tape footage of CBS News on April 4, the day Martin Luther King was assassinated, and ABC News coverage of the Democratic National Convention from Aug 28, 1968, the night of the largest riots, the fight over the Vietnam War plank (whether to change Democratic party plank to allow Vietnam the right to determine its own government and stop bombing the north) and Vice Presidents Humphrey’s nomination.

In May 2001, the professor of law at Georgetown University was tapped by the Justice Department to work for two years as an assistant attorney general, working primarily on judicial nominations for the department.
But three months later the World Trade Center towers collapsed, and Dinh was drafted to work on the USA Patriot Act, a bill that would give the government some of its most controversial surveillance powers. The bill, coupled with the government’s subsequent treatment of immigrants and native-born citizens, prompted critics to charge the administration with overthrowing “800 years of democratic tradition.” Wired.

Dave Winer (UW Grad and the original blogger) has some useful comments on Nader’s run.

Ms. Heinz Kerry compares her husband to a “good wine,” adding, “You know, it takes time to mature, and then it gets really good and you can sip it.” DAVID M. HALBFINGER NY Times