Midday open thread

• Today, the British Minister of Defense started blocking Daily Kos. When a civil servant at the agency asked why, the employee was told "security reasons".
• Who knew Paul Krugman was such a geek?

  Thirty years ago I was an oppressed assistant professor, caught up in the academic rat race. To cheer myself up I wrote — well, see for yourself. Joshua Gans of the University of Melbourne scanned a copy of the thing I wrote — back then academics did their work with typewriters, abacuses, and stone axes — and was good enough to send me a copy. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Theory of Interstellar Trade. [PDF]

• So the folks at Google sat around and said, "what can we do that is even cooler than what we've done in the past?" And behold, they gave us Google Sky. It's like Google Earth, but for the universe.
• Paul Waldman:

  Technological advancement, particularly the rise of the Internet, is bringing about a renaissance of grassroots activism on the left, yet there are still many people who believe that if there is a problem you want addressed or a policy you want changed, the only thing to do is to gather as many people as you can in a public place to hold signs and perform call-and-response chants. "What do we want? To feel like we're accomplishing something! When do we want it? Eventually!"

  What worked for the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s is not going to work today. And the truth is that comparing the civil-rights marches to a bunch of people carrying signs with "No more war!" on one side and "Free Mumia!" on the other is an insult to everyone who took part in the civil-rights movement. The civil-rights activists weren't just looking to feel good about themselves. The political actions they undertook were carefully planned and well executed. They knew exactly which levers of mass and elite opinion they needed to press and how to do it. They weren't trotting off for a Sunday to hang with some friends and speak their minds -- they were engaged in a deadly, serious enterprise, one with enormous personal risks, and they approached it with the seriousness it required.

  Any effective political movement has to engage its participants in a way that makes them feel their contributions are meaningful and redefines their sense of self. But if those contributions aren't actually meaningful, if they amount to an extended series of circle jerks that accomplish nothing, then the movement will inevitably be confined to a small group of self-deluding members with a lot of time on their hands. There are tens of millions of Americans who want to end the war in Iraq. But how many of them see something like Code Pink protesting a Marine recruiting station and say to themselves, "I want to be a part of that"?

  In fact, this is exactly what my forthcoming book, Taking on the System, is all about, all 260 pages (or so) of it. It isn't a book that says "get off the streets, the internet rulez!" But it draws upon great examples of modern activism -- from the Jena 6 to the immigration protests to electoral victories like Webb vs. Macaca -- and teases out the elements that made those efforts so successful.

• Tom Shaller:

  Incidentally: If you want to talk about contrasts, it’s amazing that on the same network featuring Buchanan, Sally Quinn did a great job this morning, as the networks were killing time waiting for Obama to arrive on stage, pointing out all the incendiary and unacceptable statements that preachers from Jesse Jackson to Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell to Billy Graham, have made over the years...and the absence of any real expectation that the white politicians who relied on their support give a major speech denouncing them and reflecting on race or religion in American politics.

• The nastier turn in the Democratic primary race has given McCain a boost in the Rasmussen tracking polls. The Wright controversy has tightened up the national Democratic poll numbers as well. This is a great chance to see how Obama reacts under fire and duress. So far, the response seems good. We'll have to wait and see if the poll numbers react in his favor.
• Obama wrote this speech himself.
• Agreed.