tecznotes

MoveOn used Stamen's collaborative mapping software again tonight, with an online town hall meeting that featured calls from Howard Dean, Senator Harry Reid, and Adam Ruben.

It was great to hear two things:

Recognition of linguist and cognitive scientist George Lakoff's ideas about self-aware language usage in politcal speech. It's not a matter of arguing your point, it's a matter of framing it to drive home the underlying values. Social justice, in the case of Dean's talk.

Black box Voting: It's about time this country took voting technology seriously. Dean mentioned the specific example of Oregon, which requires that all voting technology used in the state supports manual recounts. This issue has been covered extensively in such forums as Slashdot, and it's really pretty simple. How is it that national elections in the US have been twice marred by "irregularities", while a low-tech purple-thumb in Iraq ensured that no voters were able to defraud the system?

Agh.