June 30, 2006
Kuwait’s First Ever Internet Election
Kuwait's parliamentary elections mark a number of firsts: the first time women are able to vote and the first time that the Internet has played a role in a Kuwaiti election.
Kuwaiti college students and other young Kuwaitis have organized groups to lobby for electoral reform and fight vote buying as well. On its Web site, one group called Kuwait5, urged Kuwaitis to send SMSs to reform candidates as well as messages to others ``whose positions are not clear.''
Candidates Campaign Via Internet
Kuwait: Debate Over Vote-Buying, Corruption
Q&A: Kuwait Election
Posted by Buzz Webster at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
June 28, 2006
Blogger Responds to Seattle PI's Defense of Congressional E-Mail Block
Over at Dr. DigiPol, blogger and PoliticsOnline contributor Dr. Alan Rosenblatt responded to a Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial that defends a new program that is being used by the U.S. Congress to block constituent e-mail.
Dr. Rosenblatt's response points to a number of flaws in Shapley's argument. For one, constituent e-mails are far from the excessive spam Shapley describes them as: "These are not “automated” massages to Congress, as you write, but facilitated," Dr. Rosenblatt writes. "There is a big difference. These emails, whether they are form messages or personalized missives are from REAL constituents exercising their First Amendment right to petition the government with grievances. And while form emails may not rise to the top of the persuasive pile, they should not be dismissed since they are from real citizens."
Dr. DigiPol's Response to Thomas Shapley of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, re: Logic Puzzles and Constituent Email
Posted by Buzz Webster at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Political Blogger Hired By Clinton Campaign
In a sign of the blogosphere's growing influence, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign has hired prominent political blogger Peter Daou as a web consultant to improve Sen. Clinton's Internet image.
Sen. Clinton has previously been a target for left-wing bloggers, who criticized her support of the war in Iraq. Unlike former Virginia governor Mark Warner and Iowa's Gov. Tom Vilsack, Clinton did not attend the YearlyKos, the major bloggers convention that took place this month.
The hope is that Daou, who worked as the blog outreach and online director for Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign, will be able to rehabilitate Sen. Clinton's image among an increasingly influential set of liberal bloggers.
This announcement by the Clinton campaign team has fueled speculation that the first-term New York Senator and former First Lady is planning a run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2006.
Political Blogger Hired By Clinton Campaign
Posted by Buzz Webster at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
June 26, 2006
Oklahoma's Online Message Boards Get Political
Oklahoma activist Chris Heldenbrand is using online message boards to mobilize minimum wage activists in his state.
Heldenbrand has used message boards at the Oklahoma activist Web sites OKGOPChat.com and DemoOkie as well as national sites like Meetup to recruit volunteers and gather support for his organization, Raise Oklahoma. The group is currently circulating a petition that would raise the state's minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $6.15 in 2007 and $7.15 in 2008.
Heldenbrand describes the notes he left on the free online message boards as Raise Oklahoma's "primary distribution tool for news."
Boards such as OKGopChat.com and DemoOkie can be sites of both intellectual debate and the Internet equivalent of spitball throwing. Keith Gaddie, a professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma who posts on both sites said, "There is an ancient American tradition of this. Certainly these chat boards are not the Federalist Papers. In a way a chat board is a lot like a bar. You will have intensive and insightful conversations. And occasionally you will just have bar fights."
"Online Message Boards Get Political"
Posted by Buzz Webster at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
June 23, 2006
Kentucky Gov Blocks Bluegrass Blogs
Gov. Ernie Fletcher's administration has blocked state employees' access to many Web sites including some blogs, causing a knee jerk reaction from the blogosphere.
One popular Kentucky blog, the Bluegrass Report, was among the newly blocked blogs and the blogger believes that the timing of the block is not purely coincidental – the block comes shortly after a front page New York Times story cited the blog as critical of Fletcher.
It wasn’t long before national blogs chimed in with their charges of censorship including the popular Daily Kos and MyDD. Meanwhile, Beltway Blogroll and others provided another perspective on the scandal – perhaps the state was just promoting efficiency as blogs may be one of the largest distracters of state employees.
Bloggers may not get the last word on this issue. The watchdog group Public Citizen announced that it may sue Fletcher on free-speech grounds. Public Citizen has filed an open-records request seeking information on why some political sites have been blocked and others not.
Related Articles:
State Workers Denied Access to Political Blogs, Cyberworld Protests Intense
State Adds Blogs to Off-Limits Sites for State Employees
Besieged Kentucky Governor Draws Fire From a New Quarter
Posted by Buzz Webster at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
June 19, 2006
Maryland Candidates Pop Up on Facebook
Move over, MySpace: Facebook is now joining the campaign fray, with all three of the Democratic candidates for Maryland's governorship creating profiles on the student-oriented site.
In preparation for the state's upcoming Democratic primary, all three candidates have created profiles on Facebook in hopes of tapping into the often overlooked sector of college-aged voters. The Washington Post reported today that Douglas M. Duncan, Martin O'Malley, and Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. can all be found on the site. Although users are required to have a college-affiliated email address in order to register for Facebook, all three candidates are reported to have used those of their college-aged campaign workers.
The article quotes PoliticsOnline's own Phil Noble, who says, "In 1968, Bobby Kennedy showed up and hung around the student center, and Gene McCarthy did the same. Facebook is the student center of college students these days."
Candidate Profiles Pop Up on Facebook
Posted by Buzz Webster at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
June 16, 2006
World Cup on the World Wide Web
Thousands of fans have taken a train, plane or automobile to catch a World Cup game. But the rest of us will have to take the information highway. Not surprisingly, millions are turning to the Web to follow the games.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 04:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
June 12, 2006
Dem Politicians Court Liberal Bloggers
The psuedo-mini-political convention, called the YearlyKos, was organized by Markos Moulitsas, a self-described Democratic activist and founder of the Daily Kos Web site.
About 1,000 progressive political bloggers attended the convention along with a parade of prospective Democratic presidential candidates and party leaders, held in Las Vegas, this past weekend. The event was a mile-stone in modern politics, as it seems that mainstream political figures have begun to understand the political influence and utility of the liberal blogger's support.
Of course attempting to buy this support will always occur, like Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, who spent over $50,000 throwing a party for the bloggers in Las Vegas' Stratosphere Hotel and Casino. The festivities included an Elvis impersonator, a vodka-chilling ice sculpture, a chocolate fondue waterfall, and free roller-coaster rides. And although Warner far out-spent his peers, he wasn't alone in his utilization of retail politics. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark threw an after-hours party Thursday night at the Hard Rock Hotel, and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson showed up Friday morning with breakfast pastries.
Still, the convention intimated that the future of American Politics is rapidly changing. And those politicians who didn't show up may have regrets about their decision later. Who didn't show? Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Kerry, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Russ Feingold and former Sens. John Edwards and Sen. Tom Daschle, to name a few.
Of the blogosphere's place in partisan politics, Moulitas says "Both parties have failed us. Republicans have failed us because they can't govern. Democrats have failed because they can't get elected. So now it's our turn."
Related Articles:
Democrats Reid, Vilsack, Warner Woo Bloggers as Web Clout Grows
Gathering Highlights Power of the Blog
Democratic Presidential Candidates Try to Take Advantage of Blogging
Politicians Court Bloggers in Vegas
How Much is That Blogger in the Window?
Posted by Buzz Webster at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
June 09, 2006
Death of a Terrorist (Web)Mastermind
Everyone online has something to say about the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Jihadist Network Promotes Zarqawi Views Unabated
Zarqawi Is Dead: Day I
Posted by Buzz Webster at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
June 07, 2006
"But, EVERYONE Is Doing It..."
Another brick is laid in the Great Firewall of China as news-sources report that access to Google's original and uncensored Web page is no longer available to Chinese citizens.Posted by Buzz Webster at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
June 05, 2006
Sweden: Authorities Raid P2P Site
More than fifty law enforcement officials raided ten offices run by PirateBay.org, one of the worlds largest BitTorrent trackers, last Wednesday.
BitTorrent is a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) software program frequently used to copy pirated files such as movies because it speeds the transfer of large files over the Internet. Pirate Bay, created in 2004, boasts over one million visitors a day and provides access to hundreds of thousands of media files, including movies as recent as The Da Vinci Code and Mission Impossible III.
The weekend saw uproar as protestors vociferated their dissatisfaction with the closure of Pirate Bay in the streets of Stockholm. Hundreds of protestors marched carrying skull and crossbones and signs bearing the Pirate Bay logo, a pirate ship firing cannon balls at the "Hollywood" sign.
The day after the raid, the Swedish National Police Web site was shut down after a hacker attack from an unknown source. Although no evidence is certain, police have no ruled out that the effort could have been an act of retaliation for the Pirate Bay raids.
On Friday Pirate Bay maintained that it would be up and running in a few days, and although the site is currently up, it is not running to its full potential. No recent downloads have been made, and the search engine is down as well. But registration has increased drastically in the past few days nonetheless, probably due to the amount of press coverage the issue has received.
If Pirate Bay is shut down permanently, it is likely that another P2P site will emerge to replace it anyway based out of another copyright-lenient country like, for instance, Russia.
Posted by Buzz Webster at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
