When a lot of DSBPI subscribers were in school, they were told to be Computer Science majors. That "learning computahs" was the path to the pot of gold at the end of the whatever. That English, Philosophy, Psychology - the soft subjects - promised little.

It is clear, now, however that in a globalizing economy, those with technical, "hard" skills are the first to be offshored and outsourced out of a job, while those with "soft" managerial, sales and communication skills are increasingly needed to manage the outsourcing.

Someone can program J2EE in China for $1500 a year, but that person doesn't have the skills to sell his software application to the CIO of Wells Fargo.

Yet.

The quantity of data that are collected by businesses and governments with the assent of consumers and citizens needs to be rethought now that systems exist to analyze and correlate petabytes of information in real-time. Sharing of personal data in the past was predicated on the knowledge that it would be filed away, maybe even in the small print of a three-pound phone book. In the age of CAPP II, Google etc. historical standards for what information is considered public must be reconsidered.

Matt Bai from the NYT has already written off Dean's legacy as a footnote in this article.

The true sign of a compressed news cycle is that no later than an hour after you drop out of the race, you are relegated to the unmarked grave of presidential trivia.

In response to a comment in this blog from Shry on who is "talking the dangerous talk" mentioned on Feb. 16, we respond: the comment below was a warning shot -- that is, the attacks coming from the Democrats at Bush and the attendant echoes in the media (and by here we also mean blogs, comments on blogs, etc.), while not comparable in content to the base level of public speech before the Rabin assassination, are reminiscent in tone and, if unchecked, could quickly foster a destructive environment.

DSBPI predicts that Dean will come in second in Wisconsin, ahead of Edwards.

With freedom comes responsibility. In the case of free speech, it is up to the populace to police its rhetorical standards. If they don't, others will stand in their stead and pronounce from on high. Or worse.

The political firebrands in the US need to stay the acerbic edge of their diatribes and cease the poisonous invectives that have lead to tragedy before; and here we are talking about the dangerous verbal environment precipitating the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin.

The Dean campaign fundraising, previously likened by DSBPI to an NPR membership drive, now feels more like a late night televangelist ploy. The common folk that have been donating $100 a head to Dean "bats" on his blog should demand an honest and full accounting of where their $40mm+ was spent before sending a dollar more.

Somehow, DSBPI feels, the dem primary has turned into a reality TV series.

Dean on the money here: Dean Calls FCC Probe of Breast Incident 'Silly'

DSBPI hears all of Europe laughing at the US over the Janet Jackson "outrage."