Howard Dean has announced the annual report for the Democrat Party. The plan includes:

Focus On Our Core Values

Never Backing Down: Governor Dean has lived up to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s call to never remain silent about the things that matter. From the failed management of the war in Iraq to the moral crisis of 45 million people without access to healthcare, he has shown honesty and backbone and encouraged more Democrats to do the same.

A Clear Agenda: Working with other party leaders, we have created and begun to communicate a clear agenda for change:

• Honest Leadership and Open Government — We will end the Republican culture of corruption and restore a sense of responsibility to elected office, and we will pass fundamental reforms that make government more honest, open, and accountable to the American people than ever before.
• Real Security — We will protect Americans at home by getting serious about homeland security, and address the real threats abroad by capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and focusing on actual (not imagined) nuclear proliferation. We will be prepared for the threats of tomorrow, and we will always tell the truth to our troops and the American people.
• Jobs in America that will Stay in America — We will keep good jobs from leaving and ensure that every job in America is a fair deal. We will balance the budget, ensure that the tax code is simple and fair, and create jobs by making America energy independent.
• A Strong Public Education System — We will strengthen our nation’s public schools to restore opportunity and optimism for every American.
• A Health Care System that Works for Everyone — We will join every other industrialized country by making sure everyone has access to affordable health care. We will change a corrupt, inefficient system into one that makes sure the world’s wealthiest country is also the healthiest.

That’s rich. Wish I had time to parse it.

From WND.

The University of Washington’s student senate rejected a memorial for alumnus Gregory “Pappy” Boyington of “Black Sheep Squadron” fame amid concerns a military hero who shot down enemy planes was not the right kind of person to represent the school.

Student senator Jill Edwards, according to minutes of the student government’s meeting last week, said she “didn’t believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce.”

Ashley Miller, another senator, argued “many monuments at UW already commemorate rich white men.”

UPDATE 2/15: Michelle links to a letter posted by the Jawa Report from UW Student Council President Lee Dunbar.

The blog news and the draft minutes that were posted are inaccurate. First, Ashley Miller’s statements were highlighting, as a point of information, that the majority of our statues are white males, which was an issue previously addressed last year, this is not in any way meant to go against Colonel Boyington. It was noted by the sponsor, Andrew Everett, about Boyington’s heritage later. Jill Edwards made here statements as an individual, and it should not be assumed she speaks for all students. Karl Smith wanted to honor his service as a whole (he risked his life, endured 20 months in a POW Camp) in an effort to bring more support from a number of students who do not morally agree with war. These statements are in public discourse that has been and will always be at the University of Washington to educate on the questions and issues of our society.

I would also like to remind you that as ASUW President I cosponsored this bill to create a memorial, it failed by one vote, and a good majority of those who voted against it wanted more inclusion of other alumni who were combat veterans who earned the Medal of Honor. This week a new resolution to that effect is being drafted and introduced. In the meantime the ASUW supports veterans in other ways, currently we are supporting state legislation that will hopefully pass and guarantee veterans tuition waivers. In the end, the buck stops here, I would appreciate further comments to be made to me. Please do not participate or condone the hate-filled comments and phone calls made toward individuals in our student government. It has been appalling to see what is being said to people. I too am nauseated.

Thank you for you statements.
Sincerely,
Lee Dunbar

Rebecca MacKinnon parses Yahoo’s new ethical guidelines statement.

So. Let’s see. The second bullet point would be the one pertaining to hand-over of dissident information to the police. Yahoo! will probably claim that since its Chinese partner Alibaba now runs its Chinese e-mail service, there is nothing it can do… However such an argument would be a cop-out. Yahoo.com.cn is still a Yahoo-branded product. What happens to user data is being done under an American company’s name and that company is certainly morally responsible. User trust in their brand will be damaged no less than if Yahoo.com.cn were 100% run by American Yahoo! employees. Yahoo! really has two choices with its e-mail service: move it out of Chinese jurisdiction and thus most likely management, or make it MUCH more clear and obvious to the user (beyond the dense terms of service and user agreement that nobody reads) that their personal data is no more secure on Yahoo! than it is on any of the Chinese e-mail service providers.

The third bullet point would pertain to Yahoo!’s search engine. As of today that search engine has zero transparency about the fact that it is censored. Let’s see what changes actually get implemented and how.

At least that’s what Phillip Lenssen seems to think, where he points out that Google has changed their Help/FAQ.

As you can see, the following part is missing in Google’s revised policy: “The order and contents of Google search results are completely automated. No one hand picks a particular result for a given search query.”