BuzzMachine

Read all about it
: There’s a transcript of the ETech panel on which I served up here. I shudder to think what it’s like to read what I say talking. I talk fast. There are probably nospacebars.

Iran sham
: Great Michael Ledeen column on the true numbers in the Iranian “election.” We got way way better coverage out of Iranian bloggers/citizen reporters via Iranfilter.com than through most big media.

(And we got that thanks to the translation of Hoder, Pedram, and other Iranian bloggers.)

: UPDATE: And Pedram says it even better. What does it matter how many people show up to a sham election?

In short, even if 80% take part in the next fake election, it won’t prove anything. It will not be a sign of approval for the regime or the process in any way or shape. What is clear, is that the majority of Iranians do not approve of this regime. If they did, there would be no reason for the establishment to deny the demand of its various inside and outside opposition to hold a binding and monitored referendum and either silence all the critics once and for all, or accept their policies of the past 25 ears have been a major disaster and accept the consequences. Only if that vote is internationally supervised and accepted binding by all sides will we be able and justified to argue about what the numbers actually mean or how it’ll effect the future of Iran.

Later
: Have crappy connectivity. Back in a bit.

Another wet kiss
: Lee Gomes gives blogs a belated Valentine in today’s Wall Street Journal.

These blogs are becoming an alternative-news universe, giving everyone with a PC and a Web connection access to the sorts of gossip that was once available only to reporters on the press bus. At a site like Feedster, which is to blogs what Google is to Web sites, you can track the rumor du jour. And what Napster did for MP3s, blogs are doing for news — or, at least for rumors. They are eliminating the gatekeepers and all barriers to entry….

I am, in my private life, a voracious reader of these things, as are most of my friends, reporters included.

The Stern vote
: Howard Stern spent the last few years singing George Bush’s praises but Bush has lost him and here’s the killer blow: Over vacation, Howard bought Al Franken‘s book and loved it. “If you read this book, you’ll never vote for George Bush,” he said.

Before you go off on a Frankenfest, that’s not the point. Bush lost Stern in part because of what he confesses is a self-serving issue: threats of censorship from the FCC. But it’s more than that; Stern said it’s also about forbidding stem-cell research and trying to forbid abortion. Stern said Bush is a religious fanatic, “a Jesus freak.” And, Stern said lately, it’s about the economy; it’s about jobs.

Stern didn’t say much about Kerry; he didn’t mention Edwards. But he said he has become an anybody-but-Bush voter.

This matters.