Hillary, Howard Dean, and can I please check my fucking email in the cultural hub of America?

Could there please be free WiFi all over Manhattan? It's one tiny island full of technologically-elite individuals. If anywhere should have omnipresent WiFi, it's here.

Just think of the tourism campaign -- many visitors' trips to NYC would be greatly enhanced if they could open their laptops anywhere and be online and not have to worry about setting themselves up in a hotel with a decent internet connection, or relying on coffeeshops. It would probably produce an immediate tourism boost for a little while just for the novelty effect.

Right now I'm particularly annoyed because the McDonald's Wifi network, which used to be free, no longer is. Cleverly, prior to now, the McDonald's network was accessible from inside the Starbucks on the west side of Union Square (which is next to a McDonald's). It always felt great to bypass Starbucks' overpriced network and piggyback on McD's, without having to eat their food.

I heard at one point that Senator Clinton was campaigning for free, public WiFi, but I don't know what happened with that. I went to her site and signed up for email updates, and there's never anything interesting. What's the deal, Hill? Can Howard Dean's people please come help you out?