Politics

Independent citizens, including professionals, filmmakers, government workers, and even former U.S. military officials are among the brave, new, small investigative citizen reporters who have been spending their time to research on their own what really happened on the tragic September 11th, 2001.
What they all want is a public re-opening of the investigation into [...]

After last week’s execution of Tookie Williams, the Greens in Graz started a movement to strip California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger of:

his Austrian citizenship
the honor of having a local sports stadium bear his name
the “ring of honor” given to him in 1999 for having put Graz “on the map

If you are into understanding how much world-changing information is being kept away from us, while appreciating from a direct personal account (which of course you can believe or not) how vulnerable high-security systems within the US Government and military really are, you MUST listen to this fascinating BBC interview with Gary McKinnon, who has [...]

About a year ago, I was briefly consulted by Italy’s RadioRadicale, to review and analyze a new challenging and very ambitious project.
The goal was the creation of a software-based technology platform to allow the easy editing, commenting, remixing and online re-distribution of all of the tens of thousands of hours of video and audio recordings [...]

Someone at the DNC isn’t sending all of the memos to all of the right people. This has caused the Democratic leadership to speak somewhat disjointedly.

On Monday, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said that Republicans are “not very friendly to different kinds of people, they are a pretty monolithic party … it’s pretty much a white, Christian party.”

Jeremy Hinzman lost his application for refugee status in Canada back on the 16th. A copy of the Hinzman Decisions (TA4-01429, TA4-01430, TA4-01431), before the Government of Canada, Immigration and Refugee Board is here. Please note that this does not mean that he will be deported from Canada to face charges, only that he may [...]

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has just released a report and a commentary about the internet’s role in the 2004 election. The report is based on a post-election survey and documents how and why the internet became an essential part of American politics in 2004. Fully 75 million Americans - 37% of the [...]

It’s encouraging and ironic that the percentage of voters who turned out for the election in Iraq is estimated to be about the same as that for last fall’s U.S. election. While the violence and death accompanying Iraq’s election are lamentable, we can rejoice that the amount was much lower than had been anticipated. [...]

Some of my many joys of the Internet are making friends around the world and learning about different cultures. A particular focus of my activities in this area is to learn from Muslim friends in the Middle East. I met these people on Google’s Orkut social networking service, and some of them read [...]

According to a Washington Post analysis, the “GOP Got More Bang For Its Billion.” In the most expensive presidential contest in the nation’s history, John F. Kerry and his Democratic supporters nearly matched President Bush and the Republicans, who outspent them by just $60 million, $1.14 billion to $1.08 billion.

In 1948 Lyndon Baines Johnson’s political career was revived by a “lost” ballot box which put him 58 votes over popular Governor Coke Stevenson in that year’s Senate race. The Miami Herald won a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for uncovering how “vote brokers” employed by candidate Xavier Suarez stole a mayoral election by tampering with [...]

This past election cycle really saw the web log (or “blog”) come into its own. Blogs now apparently have the power to make and break election candidates and drive stories on their own.

Washington state Democrats test the adage that a “third time is a charm” when it comes to the race for our next governor. In an unprecedented and controversial maneuver, the state’s Democratic Party ordered a second statewide recount of votes from the November 2004 election. Even after the hand recount, state voters may never know [...]

Any time you see someone selectively quoted without also giving you
access to the actual quote you should retain a modicrum of suspecion.
Consider this quoted response attributed to Donald Rumsfeld and
provided by the Associated Press:
“You go to war with the army you have,” he said in a rare public
airing of rank-and-file concerns among the troops.

4,400 lost votes merits rerun.

What were you doing the Sunday before Thanksgiving? I was having Moroccan food in Seattle with friends. Were you absorbing some cable or Internet entertainment? Our diligent representatives in DC were passing the Omnibus Appropriations Bill. Here’s the replay.

Do we netizens actually want to support the creation of fake identities? Helping the homeless get the welfare services they need is well and good, but enabling the bad guys to cross borders meant to keep them out–well, Daddy, that’s just wrong. In this era of people being other than what they appear [...]

In the wake of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s recent passing, the BBC reports:
The main Palestinian political faction, Fatah, is set to pick Mahmoud Abbas as its candidate to succeed Yasser Arafat in January’s presidential poll.
“We decided… to have… [Mr Abbas] as the candidate for president of the Palestinian Authority,” Social Affairs Minister Intissar al-Wazir [...]

Step one in the fundraising efforts of presidential candidates David Cobb (Green) and Michael Badnarik (Libertarian) for a ballot recount in Ohio was successful! Here’s what they have to say on the steps ahead (from votecobb.org):
Our first goal was to make sure the recount could go ahead. We didn’t want to raise more money until [...]