Congressman Heath Shuler is poised to vote for telecom immunity. He thinks that holding the phone companies to account for participation in the Bush regime’s illegal wiretaps would impose an unfair economic burden on the companies.

Huh? They KNEW it was illegal, and the Constitution prohibits ex post facto laws. Screwy Hoolie has the full story here.

Contact Shuler (or your own congress person, if you live outside NC 11) and demand accountability. The only reason Democrats are ready to vote for this scam is MONEY $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Don’t let them sell us out without a fight.

I’m posting from the bloggers/MAIN meeting at the Rocket Club in West Asheville. There are more than three dozen folks in attendance.

Gordon Smith (screwy hoolie) did an intro, now Wally Bowen (MAIN/WPVM) is talking about his vision of a way to aggregate a readership for local blogs and citizen journalists.

***

Wally’s talking about grants available for citizen-journalism, and the idea of using new networking tools: cell phones, video cameras, content management, networked computers to create a new type of journalism and build community.

***

Now he’s talking about why “progressive” isn’t left or right, liberal or conservative, but rather top-down. Progressives are grassroots activists, from all walks of life … he mentioned Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican progressive.

***

Gordon: “Are you here to listen, or to share?”

he noted that people blog for a wide variety of reasons — political, personal, promotional, etc.

***

“BlogAsheville” said that the site just evolved. No particular goal.

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Wally: talking about how we can utilize citizen journalism via WPVM. Also talking about how the consolidation of the Web is threatening net neutrality and the telecoms are getting their hands on all of our data. Using that data to build profiles of how people use the internet to use for marketing. Mentioned the Microsoft bid for Yahoo, the consolidation of data by Google, ATT announcing that they will be the internet copyright cops. He thinks congress will not be likely to enforce any regulation on those businesses.

***

Gordon talking about the unused TV spectrum that could be used for wireless service.

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Greg Lyons: WPVM can offer a megaphone for the community. The relationship between the radio and the Web can be synergistic. He mentioned that Gillian Coates’ new show will in some ways be an audio blog. She concurred, that she will be doing street interviews.

***

too dark to identify people here in the bar, ideas being offered about ways to enhance, interconnect local blogs.

***

7:35

Wally talking about using the Web to keep people connected with legislative changes that affect the internet, about improving the aggregation of news to keep people in touch with local politics.

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Up to four dozen in attendance now.

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Shelly, from WPVM “Listen to Women” talked about need for more training on how to blog, tools that might be used.

Blog Asheville: said tried that at Bele Chere, teaching people basics.

Unidentified: have taught myself to use droople. I’m sure we could organize a one-time seminar at the West Asheville Library. Come on down, I’ll show you what you need to know.

***

My connection died for a while. some great conversation about the possiblities for organized blogging, anonymous blogstorms, etc. Paul Van Heden (“Brainshrub.com”) mentioned the current battle between “anonymous” and the Church of Scientology as an emblematic battle. He noted that the blogosphere could take on mainstream media in the same way.

At 8 p.m. the meeting devolved into conversation, pizza and drinking. Life is good.

We’re about to find out. See the press release below.

Asheville City Paper will bring you hard-hitting investigations, local and national stories, Ted Rall, Savage Love, Red Meat, Sudoku, crosswords and more. Starting out lean, but we mean business.

The latest CBS poll is probably giving Hillary the heebie-jeebies.

Here are the numbers if Gore is included in the national presidential preference poll.

Clinton 37%
Gore 32%
Obama 17%
Edwards 7%

Gore also has significantly better favorabilities than Clinton.

Clinton fav/unfav
43/41

Gore fav/unfav
46/29

Remember that unfavorable feelings are almost as important as favorable. There are many of us who feel like we were suckered four years ago when big media decided to take down Dean. (People forget that he talked about re-regulating big media on national TV just a few weeks before the fake “scream” issue was used to raise his unfavorables.)

As I have predicted before, I do again. Al Gore is our next president.

Thanks to Blue Gal for posting this. Take back the media.

Consumerism is killing the planet. The “beauty” industry is killing our children’s self-esteem.
Dove, at least, seems to be turning the corner.