State Of The Blogosphere
Sifry says there are 57 million blogs being tracked by Technorati ( though only about 50% have been updated in the past 3 months ).
My Contribution To The Elections
Last year I worked with a local government commission to develop a web presence designed to delineate the voting process and encourage grassroots level transparency. It meshed a voter database with the Google Maps API and was covered with a CSS based user friendly interface to provide the customers, the voters, with easy to read ballot and voting information.
As a result the number of “lost” voters decreased by about 50%. Lost voters are either unregistered, at the wrong location or generally unaware of new developments like electronic machines etc.
It’s nice to see hard work come to fruition. (As a side note: the entire project cost less than $500, including minimal overhead to ensure the site is up and functional for 10 years.)
Rummy Out
Rummy is out. Rumsfeld is falling on his sword to allow the Democrats to solidify a win, the President to work across Congressional aisles, and show America that the war can take a turn for better.
Problem: It’s too late to think a change in civilian leadership will do anything for the war effort.
Voting Problems
Marshall is keeping track of all the nonsense stemming from the elections over at TPM. Looks like a spattering of voting fraud, broken machines, voter intimidation, robocalls, and even phone systems crashing.
From all counts it looks to be an inefficient and time consuming process that relies on byzantine conduits for problem solving.
The Real Borat
CNN –
Turkey’s Internet celebrity Mahir Cagri is so convinced he was the inspiration for the Kazakh journalist character Borat Sagdiyev that he plans to travel to London seeking ways he can benefit from the movie that has surprised Hollywood with a No. 1 debut.
I’m going to go see the movie this weekend, heard it was great.