I need a new cellphone.

This is an area of technology that I find kind of infuriating because of the lack of standardization and the desire to "productize" the ability of users to move different sorts of data. But anyway...

What I think I want is a phone that's really a phone (not a PDA) that has the guts to connect to the 3G data networks and which I can use thusly as a cellular modem for my lappy, which I'm rarely without in any kind of work-potential situation. Any pointers?

This is the Right Idea. Francene Busby is trying to replace Criminal War Profiteer Duke Cunningham, and she gives a decent stump.

This is a big part of what makes politics work online. You have to build a relationship with the Public. Media is a big part of this. I wouldn't have gotten so hard into Dean if this hadn't been one of first things I saw. Creating compelling candidate media and then supporting it with an active team of talented writers who can create compelling campaign message on an hourly basis is the new-media two-step that's proven to work. It's kind of surprising to me that more people haven't done this.

There's a fair amount of gammering going on around lately wrt Ann Coulter, partly because she recently was a featured speaker at the biggest "movement conservative" convention of the year and scoffed "I think our motto should be post-9-11, 'raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences," According to Max Blumenthal, who "infiltrated" CPAC to report on what went down.

His stuff was picked up eventually by the Huffington Post, which is probably why it was used as an example in the Glenn Greenwald post I linked to the other day about right wing cultism. The rational digestion.

And now the final arc of a Coulter Event, the parody:

Bill Maher, from Los Angeles, CA writes:
Ann, sweetcheeks – call me back, OK? Why is it we only hook up when you’re in LA, lonely, and zonked on Dexatrim? Anyway, I'm having a little bipartisan snugglefest tonight on my vibrating waterbed to break in my new hookah. Would love to have you. Can you hop the next red-eye to "La"?

Ann Coulter:
Bill, take it easy, please. This whole "friends" thing was hatched for book cross-marketing purposes, remember? Yes, I was a deadhead for many years, and yes, my 35-foot Eddie Bauer edition Airsteam was party central in concert parking lots from coast to coast. But come on. Weed? Everyone knows I was always an acid queen.

The rest is savage, a lot of it sexual, verging on misogynistic... but if you can stomach it, quite hilarious. The pathology is explored from all angles.

This is the work of an artiste, but crude at the same time. Many critiques of Coulter are inflected by/towards her sexuality. I think it's because politics is still dominated by men with issues with women, especially on that side. I mean, she's literally the most prominant conservative woman in the political mass psyche. Think about that. Creepy.

There's so much weirdness in politics, especially deep right wing politics, it's good fodder for the nerdly mind. Like what was on the other end of that "acid queen" link. Someone had fun making that. The truth is stranger than fiction, and it makes for great humor, list this:

Moon has been talking about saving the world with a tunnel to Russia. But astute AlterNet reader Mitch Kramer points out that his rival, power-hungry doomsday peddler Lyndon LaRouche, was talking about building his own world-saving tunnel to Russia shortly after 9/11, without a Neil Bush endorsement.

That, of course, is Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a vaguely fascist mass cult leader who gives a lot of money to politicians (generally Republicans) and owns the Washington Times, a conservative DC newspaper. He recently provlaimed himself the Massaiah on Capitol Hill. The truth is stranger than fiction.

And on that note, in case you've been in a hole all week, Dick Cheney shot a man.

Anyway, headed down to DC tomorrow, wheeling and dealing with Trellon. We're gonna by buying some drinks for friends Thursday night; email me if you wanna come. Back on Saturday for Frank and Laura's a-Typical Wedding Party. They got engaged and then married by the court. Shazam!

Gotta tell ya, I been watching this one, and it's exciting: Kinky Friedman for TX Gov. He's making all the right moves online. The cartoons are slick, and getting really good candidate media out online is a huge part of getting people you don't know engaged in your project.

I think there's an enormous potential for independent political actors who have a different idea of how and why to govern to make great gains in the next 20 years. I'm still a fan of taking over the Democratic party (and of burning down and rebuilding the GOP too), but to be honest the Democrats are fucking squares. I'm a freak-power man myself, and I don't ever really see myself having a comfortably home under that big tent. It's a big tent, but everyone in it of consequence is deeply (and beautifully) square. As the Hammer of Truth notes:

There’s going to come a time in American politics when we’re tired of ex-wrestlers, action heros, and writer/author/country singers and want staid guys in suits to lead us. Until then, and as long as the establishment politicians are fun-hating windbags who only stop legislating morality long enough to take a bribe or shoot their friends, Go Kinky!

Fuck yeah. Maybe once I'm old and networked enough, I'll head on back to Oregon and stomp it up. Rowdy bloggers running for office on the open source ticket. Frank already promised to work for me, so there's that. Could be fun.