I mean, after winning this honor, all the others seem so trivial!

You need further convincing that the Web is the new Forum? It is the communal hearth arround which all of us gather. Web 2.0 is not just a catch phrase any more. The sale of You Tube to Google, the Rise of Google itself... The phenomenon of My Space... It's a new world, and indeed a new story:

But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It's not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It's a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it's really a revolution.

And we are so ready for it. We're ready to balance our diet of predigested news with raw feeds from Baghdad and Boston and Beijing. You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos—those rumpled bedrooms and toy-strewn basement rec rooms—than you could from 1,000 hours of network television.

And we didn't just watch, we also worked. Like crazy. We made Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded podcasts. We blogged about our candidates losing and wrote songs about getting dumped. We camcordered bombing runs and built open-source software.

Some of us are pioneers in this new world... Our friends ragged on us about our blogging, and for our personal web pages... Those same friends now quietly create their own blogs, or sign up for my space.

We have built massive repositories of information, created virtual worlds and communities, sold billions of dollars in merchandise, created candidates and helped win elections. We have faced down major media operations, and raised millions to help victims of natural disasters.

Netcitizenship has become a common ground, bringing citizens of the world closer together.

But it has also spawned some bad...

Terrorist use the internet to communicate and dispense propaganda.

Scammers from Nigeria, other parts of Africa and Europe, farm tens of thousands of emails a day, to send their ridiculous scam emails, and attempt identity theft through phishing attacks.

Hate Groups use the internet to spread their message of hate.

Scammers of every ilk use the internet as their virtual office...

It's not perfect, but perhaps that is why Time is so RIGHT. The Internet IS the new world, it is a place where all of us can participate Rich and Poor, and where access to a connected computer is all it takes to be heard. A friend of mine and fellow blogger, used to run his popular blog from Library computers... He was homeless and did not own a computer, so he logged on at his local library and contributed to the debate. He inspired me... With all the wants and needs a person in his position must have had... Having a voice in the debate was a priority. It is HIS picture that should grace the cover of time, because despite the contributions of hotchick@xxx.com, and her lingerie shows from her bedroom... It is people like my friend who has led this revolution...

So thank you Time Magazine, for acknowledging us. I have taken the liberty of preparing my cover... After all, all of us would not fit!

Featuring quotes by yours truly....

Click on images for larger image!

Busy week ahead. I hope to meet with the representative of a group of Angel investors this week. I have been working since the completion of the Guatemalan project on an idea for a new company focused on wireless technology. The response to my initial executive summary has been encouraging, but there is still much work to be done.

The truth is that after five years, I have grown tired of the original charter of Grupo Utopia. To be sure we have acomplished some incredible things on the small investment we started the company with. GU has become synonymous with high technology leadership. We have forged relationships with some of the biggest technology companies in the world, including Intel, Oracle, IBM, Motorola, Palm and HP, and we have created a buzz about wireless technology and high technology in general. We have also created a strong brand...

So why start a new company?

There are many reasons, but the primary one is to seek a level of investment that will allow me to develop some exciting new concepts. With the ownership structure of GU, it would be hard to raise sufficient funds to do so, without long and drawn out negotiations with existing investors. I plan to refocus GU on Call Center Consulting, while structuring the new company to be 100% focussed on wireless and associated technologies.

One of the great things that has come out of my adventures has been developing a relationship with the Press. GU is one of the most written about companies in Costa Rica.

This week, I have two interviews appearing in the local business press. This picture is from one of the Interviews.I am frequently consulted about trends in Outsourcing or wireless technology.

Both subjects are hot right now, as Costa Rica struggles with more competition from other countries in the region, as an outsourcing destination, and as ICE (The National Phone Company), is finaly working to make their three year old GPRS wirless network a "real service."

RACSA, ICE's official Internet subsidiary has also put together plans for the launch of a Metropolitan Area network of wirless hotspots, more than likely 802.11B or G.

So wireless is about to take off in a big way in Costa Rica, and we want to be there to take advantage of the trend. Five years ago, Grupo Utopia installed the first, "Public," wireless network in Costa Rica, at the Palma Real Hotel, and then we stood by and watched the market explode with public access points at almost every major hotel here. We made ZIP off of our Pioneering efforts. We will NOT miss this opportunity!

I have never been a believer in LUCK. I believe in Destiny. The two interviews appearing this week were not planned, they just happened, as I got a call from a reporter friend who was in the process of writing them. The timing is perfect...

And ISOU came in a respectable 9th in the voting. Considering the fact that I have been too busy to blog much for the last couple of months, I am satisfied with a respectable showing. Thanks to all who voted for ISOU. Despite what is an obvious Right Leaning slant to the Awards, I am happy to be a finalist, and for all the new people the nomination bought to ISOU.

Congrats to The Devil's Excrement, an excellent blog and very deserving of the award. I am proud to be in such good company again.

Welcome to Readers of CNN/Netscape News. Please feel free to comment and weigh in on other posts on the blog.

I would have never expected that my little personal reminiscing from last night would have made News.com, but hey who am I to question success. I hope that you will stick around and read other articles from ISOU. Welcome, and please feel free to comment.

Kathy Gill of About.com, has a great roundup of some of the coverage in the blogsphere on the Pat Robertson issue. ISOU is included in the roundup.

Blogosphere on Robertson
It seems Robertson has struck a cord across the blogosphere, especially in the religious realm. Blogging for Liberty reflects my opinion: "Any minister who condones the murder of a person is not reading the same bible I am." He then calls for a boycott of the 700 club.

serotoninrain writes: "You're giving those of us who actually love Jesus a bad headache." And Alex says: "The world needs Pat Robertson's Christianity as much as it needs Osama bin Laden's Islam."

The Purple Pew also looks at Robertson's comments from a religious perspective:

... Pat's latest statement testifies even further that he is no Christian. It's not because he has sinned. We all sin. But when confronted with his sin instead of repent, he lied, committing another sin against God.

There are some great nuggets in this post, from a wide diversity of Bloggers, check it out.

Great Question at the end of the post:

"Question? Define "becoming a dictator" when you've been elected, 71 percent of the population supports you (far more than Bush) and new elections are scheduled for December."

The truth is, that Chavez has strong support in Latin America. The same Latin America that has been victimized by American Politics for decades. Too often, "Dictator," is defined as any leader not catering to U.S. interest. "Pinochet," one of the most murderous Dictators in Latin American History, was all but installed by the Nixon Administration, and the region has a history of exploitation by American interest.

I don't know enough about Chavez one way or the other to judge what kind of President he is, but living in Latin America, I can assure you of one thing, he is a helluva lot more popular than George W. Bush!

Welcome to Daou Report readers. Please feel free to comment on the post that the Daou Report linked to, as well as anything else you find interesting on ISOU.

And if you want to read two more interesting viewpoints on the effects of the war in Iraq on Bush's legacy. Professor Bainbridge and Kevin Drum have two excellent pieces on the subject. It is heartening to see Conservatives like Bainbridge waking up to the reality of this folly.

I found these two comments, particularly compelling:

The trouble with Bush's justification for the war is that it uses American troops as fly paper. Send US troops over to Iraq, where they'll attract all the terrorists, who otherwise would have come here, and whom we'll then kill. This theory has proven fallacious. The first problem is that the American people are unwilling to let their soldiers be used as fly paper. If Iraq has proven anything, it has confirmed for me the validity of the Powell Doctrine.

and

The second problem is that the fly paper strategy
seems to be radicalizing our foes even more. For every fly that gets
caught, it seems as though 10 more spring up. This should hardly come
as a surprise to anybody who has watched Israel pursue military
solutions to its terrorist problems, after all. Does anybody really
think Israel's military actions have left Hezbollah or Hamas with fewer
foot soldiers? To the contrary, the London bombing suggests to me that
it is only a matter of time before the jihadists strike in the US
again, even though our troops remain hung out as fly paper in the
Augean Stables of Iraq. {Update: The news
that Scotland Yard foiled a gas attack on the House of Commons, for
which the Yard deserves mega-kudos, doesn't change my mind. As the
climax of Tom Clancy's novel Debt of Honor suggests (and I still wonder of that inspired 9/11), the terrorists only need to win once. Conversely, the latest news
about that rocket attack on a US Navy ship in Jordan seems to confirm
my concerns: "The Abdullah Azzam Brigades -- an al-Qaida-linked group
that claimed responsibility for the bombings which killed at least 64
people at Sharm el-Sheik in July and 34 people at two other Egyptian
resorts last October -- said in an Internet statement that its fighters
had fired the Katyushas, bolstering concerns that Islamic extremists
had opened a new front in the region." Indeed, the NYT reports
that: "The possible involvement of Iraqis and the military-style attack
have raised fears that militants linked to Iraq's insurgency may be
operating on Jordanian soil."}

I have to admit, I often wonder what some Conservatives out there are smoking, that they can't see the obvious. I am convinced that they do see it. If 2000 was a heady experience for Conservatives who had suffered through eight years of Bill Clinton, despite aggressive attempts to get rid of him at any cost, then 2004, after surviving numerous mini scandals and debunking Rathergate, must have been the greatest of highs.

That Republicans managed to take healthy majorities in both Houses, and seemed to dominate the U.S. political agenda, must have given Conservatives a sense of invulnerability. But the cracks have been showing in the armor for some time now, and it has taken "Rovian," measures to keep the fact of the Emperors Nakedness from the American Public. It must be painful in the extreme to see those cracks appearing, and know that not only did they make a monumental mistake, but that all they worked so hard for is based on a foundation of lies, deception and corruption.

Admittedly, the Downing Street Memos, in and of themselves might have been compelling to those who already suspected the truth, but they were not "smoking gun," enough to convince the majority of the faithful. This is especially true of those who invested so heavily in what they felt was a new Conservative Revolution. They have been rewarded by stark failures on the part of the Administration to propel that Revolution forward, and have instead seen it get bogged down in a morass of ineptitude. For a time, they were able to defend against this ineptitude by making the issue "Liberal Hate of Bush," rather than accepting the realities of consistent and repeated failure by the Administration to accomplish much of anything, except successfully defending itself against charge after charge. Now, with more and more Conservatives beginning to acknowledge the obvious, the spin begins to ring hollow, even for those who once believed it.

Even still, some refuse to acknowledge the obvious:

I honestly don't see anything "inappropriate" about it. Cindy accuses the President of "lying" about several of the reasons for war in Iraq, so maybe these television stations are worried about giving air time to somebody calling the President a liar when its clear to most of us with common sense that he didn't lie about Iraq. But that's just a guess.

Were it up to me, I'd have let the ad run. Most Americans don't agree with the idea that the President "lied" about the WMD's and know that Saddam had plenty of ties to al Qaeda, though not to the 9/11 attacks specifically. This is why Americans re-elected the President in the face of these accusations of lying. Putting Cindy Sheehan up to repeat these accusations again is only going to do more harm to her causes than it would to the cause of the President.

Rob's argument is deeply flawed... First off, recent polls indicate that as many as 51% of Americans feel the American Public was deceived about Iraq. With some polls nearing 60%. So the argument that "Most Americans believe that the President did not lie is intellectually and morally dishonest.

The Left has often made this spin easier, by failing to stay on message, and by failing to present a clear alternative. The Left has also been guilty of wimping out at key times. Those who have shown strength, have been attacked as members of the "Loony Left." Rove has been able to successfully exploit this time and time again by pointing out the inconsistency of the Left's message, while hammering away on the Administration's, even in those cases where it was obvious that the Administration message was a nefarious one. Rove and his Conservative Disciples have been Masters of hammering away on a message until it BECOMES truth, even when it is clear to any thinking person that the message lacks logic.

9/11 was a catharsis for America. Karl Rove and the Administration have shamelessly taken advantage of this to smear Liberals, out a CIA agent in an act of revenge, and execute a disastrous and unjustified war. This administration's legacy will be based on Post 9/11. With information coming to light almost daily on how badly they bungled the so called "War on Terror," and with little else to point to as accomplishments, Bush's legacy will likely suffer. More significantly, he may join Nixon as a President corrupted by his own sense of infallibility.

Looks like we made Slate's Online Magazine today, where I was quoted:

Many liberal bloggers are ignoring the issue. In Search of Utopia's self-described progressive/centrist Democrat David Anderson writes, "To be honest, it is hard to tell where the political opportunism ends and reality begins, and considering the clear cut common sense thing to do, it is not worth me 'researching'. Whatever the situation, pay the goddamned money and move on! ... The bozo who took it is already gone from Air America, and this 'scandal,' only dilutes the message Air America is trying to get out."

With all of the attention ISOU is getting lately, maybe some of our core issues will filter to the top! Here's hoping anyway.

Considering Today's Piece on Ohio, I thought I would dig up some of my old archived discussions on the subject. This piece from October 24, 2004, just before the election. More to come.

Stealing the Election 2004 Edition
Update IV: This is one of the fairest responses yet to my Rant... So much so that I want to highlight it as trully progressive thinking.

And thanks to Oliver Willis for giving this some attention.

Also a big thanks to Digby of Hullabalooo.

If Republicans think they can intimidate Black Voters in this year's election, they will soon find it is NOT going to fly. For my conservative friends who tried to pooh pooh dissenfranchisement of black voters in Florida in 2000, or spin it with claims that soldiers voting by absentee ballot were also dissenfranchised, whatever. It is NOT going to happen this time folks. This kind of bullshit will not stand.

Where the Hell is Malcom X or the Black Panther Party

when you need them. Someone needs to gaurantee that people will be able
to vote without being subjected to some stormtrooper who wants to
interogate you becuase they THINK you are going to vote Democratic.

The Bullshit is starting to stink up the whole country now. What is happening in Ohio is an outrage. But this time it wont be allowed to stand. A lot has happened in four years, and part of what happened is US, the troops in the trenches who will not allow this to be covered over.

I am going to make it my mission the next days up until the election to fight this bullshit at every turn, and to mobilize as many progressive bloggers as I can to the cause as well.

So I am throwing out a challenge to progressives everywhere, and to those on the right who care about our constitution, and not just their guy winning. It is time we cleaned up the dirt, and go back to being Americans again, people who pledge every day to defend the ideals of our republic.

Read On...