Announced today XM Satellite Radio & C-Span are teaming up to provide a 24/7 channel devoted to the 2008 Presidential Election. The channel will be titled POTUS ‘08. POTUS of course the acronym for President of the United States.

Most interesting though is that the channel will be “free to air” meaning if you have an old XM radio lying around you can listen to it even if you don’t subscribe to the service. Which I declare “rats” too because I did have an old XM lying around up until I moved a few months ago. Which kind of bothers me to tell you the truth. Oh well.

From the Associated Press:

Clinton said a more even discussion of politics could come from Internet sites and Web blogs. He cited the tendency of blogs to scrutinize one or two subjects rather than a full plate of issues.

“They can do research and get the facts and don’t have to bad-mouth people. Sometimes they do, but they don’t have to,” Clinton said. “I think all these blog sites are creating a whole new opportunity for public debate that may revitalize our politics in an old fashioned way.”

Clinton and (Former President) Bush lauded the role telecommunications and technology can play in improving healthcare, spreading individual freedoms and eradicating poverty.

And as for personal technology, the former presidents said they were dedicated to using cell phones or wireless devices.

“The hour I’m here is about the longest I can be away from my Blackberry,” Bush said.

Just to add my own thoughts I am glad to see President Clinton have such a positive thought about blogs & the Internet. Especially since during his years The Drudge Report & sites like it played such a pivotal role in releasing information about his personal indiscretions. Meanwhile it is really cool to see elder Bush is a Blackberry user. Somehow I just wouldn’t have pictured it on my own.

From ABC News:

According to the webblog TechCrunch, which tracks new Internet products and sites, McCain’s MySpace page profile included a pranked letter on Tuesday morning that read: “Dear Supporters, Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage … particularly marriage between two passionate females.”

On his own website, the co-founder of Newsvine, Mike Davidson, claimed responsibility for pulling the prank.

Davidson claims that he designed the MySpace template that McCain is using and usually lets anyone use it for free as long as they give attribution.

However, apparently McCain didn’t give him credit and Davidson sought retribution.

“I think the idea of politicians setting up MySpace pages and pretending to actually use them is a bit disingenuous, so I figured it was time to play a little prank on Johnny Mac,” writes Davidson.

Also see techPresident for more.

Well the Internet has been atwitter the last few days over a video posted to YouTube that melds Apples famous 1984 Superbowl ad with the image of Hillary Clinton. The message is Hillary = Big Brother, Barack Obama = tightly clad woman with hammer ready to destroy a television set…. or so my understanding goes.

For me the WORST part of this parody was the nine hundred articles & blog posts written about it. Which is why I stayed away. Every one of these things had the same message. “The Internet is Changing politics” which is something I have heard since 1996 and doesn’t come as much of a surprise. But anyway, this video was a great visual representation of how the Internet is indeed changing politics AND in true Internet style it was a whopping example of copyright infringement.

Read the rest of this entry »

It was the biggest topic in the campaign news for at least twenty-four, maybe forty-eight hours this week, U.S. General Pace remarked that homosexuality was “immoral” and suddenly every news reporter was flocking to find out what all the candidates thought. Did Senator John McCain, the only major candidate to have served, agree with the general? Did Mitt Romney, the candidate now being championed AND questioned heavily by the Religious right, have the answer that would make them happy? The General was speaking about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell a popular issue in other elections. What did each candidate really think?

If you wanted to find out and get your news straight from the horses mouth then heading to any of the candidates Web pages certainly wasn’t the way to do it.

I am one step above the casual Web viewer when it comes to using the candidates sites. I subscribe to RSS when possible, get campaign e-mail and check out various other sites which monitor the candidates blogs. Nowhere, not in those immediate hours and rarely afterward did I see anything at all addressing the issue of the day. The sites had plenty of virtual networking available, I could watch old video footage, see Hillary have a conversation from three weeks ago. I could do a lot, I just couldn’t find out what the candidates were thinking, in real time, about an issue immediately relevant to the news.

Read the rest of this entry »