The next democratic primary competition isn't for another 3 weeks, and while it looks like it's not going to be important (Obama is too far ahead to lose elected delegates, and superdelegates are likely to follow the will of the majority of the electorate, even though Hillary would prefer the delegates vote for her whether pledged or super. Nevertheless, a whole bunch of democrats still get to vote, and here's when: April 22 Pennsylvania primary May 3 Guam caucuses May 6 Indiana primary, North Carolina primary May 13 West Virginia primary May 20 Kentucky primary, Oregon primary June 1 Puerto Rico primary (originally June 7th as a result of a typo) June 3 Montana primary, South Dakota primary See all the previous primaries.

For those of you who haven't found out by other means already, I am currently in London, visiting for a week until Sunday on a vacation to see friends I've not seen in 15 months and also to meet the adorable little poo bomb that is my new niece. I also made a surprise appearance at M's birthday party, which is why there was no warning on Twitter or anywhere that I was going to be in the UK. Being back in London is weird for lots of reasons. I'll write more about them at some point.

From the Chronicle: ...a confrontation between the two sides escalated to a physical violence, when a San Francisco man named Kevin Johnson, 48, walked into a crowd of torch supporters and began yelling, "Communists!" So SF is a little bit crazy about most things, so running a torch through town in support of a very public world event being held by a country with a ton of historical and ongoing abuses of human rights was always going to be a circus. Also, check out the route: apart from Europe, it's basically 1 stop per continent before you get to South-East Asia, where it hangs around for ages. Everything about this torch is a political statement, so making counter-statements by blocking the torch is completely justifiable. A lot of people are asking: why is China bothering with the torch at all? It's not like it's a surprise that it's being protested. In fact, why did they try for the Olympics at all? Weren't they prepared for the huge influx of protesters and media coverage? I think the key thing to...

Returning to the UK was strangely reassuring. All my favourite places in London are still there, and largely unchanged. My favourite people are also nearly all still there, too, and it was lovely to see them and discover that gaps of 15 months or more between seeing them had not diminished our compatability or affection. It was also fun to see their lives in a sort of fast-forward: the last time I saw them they all had different jobs, different houses, often different relationships. In nearly all cases their current situation was an improvement on 15 months ago, so from my perspective they were all suddenly happier, healthier, richer and more respected in their careers, which is always a nice thing to see in your friends. Plus there is my lovely little niece, who despite being a mere 6 weeks old, essentially immobile and incapable of rational human interaction, manages to somehow be adorable and also look remarkably similar to the rest of my family. I realise the latter shouldn't come as a surprise, but...

The financial crisis The collapse of housing values in the US and around the world Health care Energy Immigration Education Trade Pakistan Afghanistan Iran China Torture Global warming The world food crisis The declining value of the US Dollar Things that were: Whether Obama thinks people in small towns are "bitter" Whether Obama should have walked out of his preacher's church Whether Obama supports Weather Underground, a terrorist group who were last operational over 30 years ago Whether Obama isn't patriotic because he doesn't wear a flag-pin in his lapel How Obama intends to modify affirmative action so rich black kids don't get special treatment Whether the candidates support gun control How the candidates plan to get out of Iraq Whether the candidates will raise taxes, and how exactly In all, nearly substance-free and pretty nakedly pro-Hillary. ABC's debates are terrible even by the very low standard of American political debates.

People complaining about outages at Twitter often say (as Scoble does today) that people will switch to some other service. Scoble says Friendfeed, others say Pownce. This confuses the hell out of me. Those services do not have an SMS interface. The SMS interface is what makes Twitter interesting and useful. I don't understand how Pownce can even claim to be competing when they haven't solved the core problem that Twitter solves, which is being a no-brainer SMS broadcast/aggregation service.

The state of Florida has introduced a $60 fine for attaching TruckNutz (or other replica bull testicles) to your vehicle. It's hard to say which is more depressing: that this practice is popular in the first place, that somebody was offended by it, that Florida lawmakers thought it was worth their time to ban it, or that Florida lawmakers believe that it's okay to ban things just because you find them offensive. None of them say anything good about the state.

I wrote a while back about Obama being the candidate who understands the Internet and I've been meaning since then to go into more detail about the actual policies that he has that I like. It was my intention to compare these policies with Hillary's, but her site doesn't address the issue of technology at all. The closest she gets is talking about science policy, which mentions broadband once. Understand that this is not just some silly "gotcha" that her website doesn't address these issues. Her website is very comprehensive, and an absence of a policy issue belies a lack of focus on that issue. And technology is not just my pet issue. Technology, specifically information technology, has shifted in the last decade from being an industry of its own to being part of the structure of every industry. Policy made affecting information technology, and specifically the government's use of IT, will have profound and widespread effects on the economy and society. A lack of recognition of that fact is a serious...