The Rise of the Nanosites?

TechPres riffs on two new "nanosites" set up to answer the question "Is Barack Obama a Muslim?" This one simply says NO, while this one gives the same answer with some links. Perfect for anyone who can't do better than take him at his word.

Nanosites, as I glean from the TechPrez article, are simple, generally one page and convey a compact message. TechPrez notes that lately they have generally called to action. But reading all this brought to mind the first microsite to cross my radar:

The day after the first 2004 debate K-Pho emailed, asking in the subject line "How long does it take to set up a website?" The answer was a link to You Forgot Poland, a brilliant Bush satire, mostly in Photoshopped pictures. A quick Google search pulled up YouForgotPoland.org, something of a micronostalgia site in which the original creator offers the story, the images from the site, the backstory, and of course, the opportunity to buy a T Shirt. (The answer to K-Pho's question apparently is two hours)

Returning to the topic of nanosites as political campaign tools, the TechPrez post wonders aloud how effective something like IsBarackObamaMuslim can be against a viral email. Dunno and we'll find out. It certainly does offer a quick and easy way to send an email of one's own, (not to mention a blog post.)

Meet Bill Rausch, OPD Veterans Caucus Director and Obama Activist

The ODP dropped this in the ebag today:

COLUMBUS - The Ohio Democratic Party today announced the hiring of former Army Captain, Iraq War veteran and Marengo, Ohio, native Bill Rausch as the full-time director of the newly formed Veterans and Family Members Caucus. The Ohio Democratic Party is now one of only two state Democratic parties in the country to employ a director of veterans and military family outreach, signaling the party's intention to aggressively fight for the votes of this historically Republican-leaning constituency in the 2008 election and beyond.

After past tragic experiences, we've learned to always Google those whom the ODP hires. That yielded this interesting video posted by the Obama campaign.




First off, Capt. Rausch is an excellent and sincere speaker and I look forward to watching his work as Caucus Director.

Second, the fact that ODP hired someone with his very public record as an Obama supporter suggests one of two things. Either they still aren't Googling their job applicants (certainly a possibility) or the party as a whole is sufficiently confident that Obama will be the guy that they aren't worried about pro-Hillary blowback.

Finally, I bet Rausch could beat the crap out of John Ettorre.

McCain Says "Hold the Parsley."

Yesterday McCain sought out the unendorsement of two fundamentalist clerics whose endorsement he had earlier sought: Pastor John Hagee of Texas and Ohio's own Rod Parsley.

ProgOhio notes that the statements from Parsley's church about his history of anti-Muslim statements were -- wait for it -- taken out of context, and that this is a big honkin' lie. Here's what World Harvest Church said:

The church also said Parsley's comments were "in response to militant Islamic leaders" and not intended to single out the "vast majority of peaceful Muslims."

Hmm. Let's review. Anastasia Pantios wrote up Parsley's anti-Muslim rants in his book and I posted based on one of his televised sermons. In other words, this is all stuff out in the public domain.

Parsley, for example, says that Mohammed received the Qu'ran not from Allah, but from a demon who deceived him. (Was that the Qu'ran that only militant Islamic leaders use as opposed to the apparently separate Qu'ran of the vast majority of peaceful Muslims?) He also says that because Islam is a works-based religion as opposed to a grace-based religion, it inexorably leads some followers to violence in the name of the faith. He ultimately exhorts Christians to convert Muslims to Christianity as the only way to win the war on terror. (Hmm. Converting Muslims. Has anyone tried that before?)

This is all par for Parsley's course. In the confines of his congregation he makes outrageous, intolerant statements that seam likely to lead down some horror-filled roads. When called to account, he cleans it up for public consumption and, despite the extensive public record, the press goes along for the ride.

Blogging Through the Motions

This is how blogging has been for me lately:



(If you have no idea, start here. And no, I do know why this clip is subtitled in Czech.)

Why? Dunno. Part of it is, pace Jon Stewart, The Long, Flat Bataan Death March to the White House. Partly it's just that I'm tired, mostly by some health-related stuff that hopefully will resolve soon.

Bottom line, apologies for the lapse in quality and a promise to continue to work through it all.

Hillary's Latest: She Leads the Popular Vote if You Count the Ballot Obama Wasn't On

Received from Team Hillary last night:

I owe our 35-point win in Kentucky yesterday to your incredible support. So let me ask you -- do you think we should let the TV talking heads have the final say in this race? Or should we do what we have always done, and fight together for what you and I believe in?


* * *

I've won more votes than anyone running for the Democratic nomination in the history of our party. I've won states that will total 308 electoral votes in November -- more than enough to carry the general election. And it is critical that we make certain the more than 2 million voters in Florida and Michigan are heard.[emphasis added]

Well, has she? The statement she made is true, just misleading. Here's a vote breakdown from ABC's poll guy:

            With        Without      With FL,
        MI and FL    MI and FL    Without MI
Obama    18,176,329   17,600,115   18,176,329
Clinton  18,214,506   17,015,211   17,886,197
    
       Cl +38,177  Ob +584,904  Ob +290,132

So it's technically true that she has "won more votes" than any other candidate. But given that Obama wasn't on the Michigan ballot, it's a hollow statement. If he hadn't agreed to DNC rules and taken his name off, he would have gotten some share of Michigan -- certainly enough to tip the popular vote back to him. In fact, if you give him just one-fifth of the 238-odd thousand votes for "uncommitted" (a.k.a. NotHillary), he moves ahead in the popular vote again.

This is why it's "crucial" for Hillary to count Michigan and Florida. Not because it actually puts Hillary ahead by any responsible measure, but because it makes the result look close enough that she hopes the supers will entertain arguments in favor of overturning the popular will.

Hillary is for respecting the democratic process, until she is against it.

Hillary Proves Eric's Point

Eric and Jill have been trading shots in Eric's comments about the emerging phenomenon of Clinton supporters holding their breath until they get their way threatening to abandon the party in the fall. Eric's basic thesis (as I read it and apologies if my summary is off) is that
if Hillary supporters can be led back to the party, Hillary needs to take the lead. Jill's response is that Obama must take the lead in "building trust" among these voters.

I tend to side with Eric for a couple of reasons. First, because the hardcore Hillary supporters who make such statements seem to have closed their minds and hearts to Obama's overtures. As such, only someone who has their trust is likely to persuade them to trust Obama.

Second, Hillary hasn't just benefited from suspicions about Obama, she has encouraged them. The campaign emails to donors reek of a sense of entitlement, but the overt message is that Hillary is besieged by injustices perpetrated by powerful forces no one should have to contend with. For example, here's her latest missive about Kentucky:

Every time we win another state, we prove something about ourselves and about our country. And did we ever prove something tonight in Kentucky.

We showed America that the voters know what the "experts" will never understand -- that in our great democracy, elections are about more than candidates running, pundits commenting, or ads blaring.

They're about every one of us having his or her say about the path we choose as a nation. The people of Kentucky have declared that this race isn't over yet, and I'm listening to them -- and to you.

This particular take on The Terrible Injustice -- that some cabal of elite opinion makers is trying to somehow cut off her glide path to sure victory by forcing her out of the race -- is a staple. So are whiny complaints about Obama's money, and strident advocacy for counting the Florida and Michigan results as is. The message throughout the correspondence from the campaign has been that the only thing between Hillary and the White House is the way the system is stacked against her.

Never mind that until she started losing primaries, she was the prohibitive favorite of the Democratic establishment. I get emails over the signature of Terry McCauliff, the former Dem party chair and one of the most successful money men of the past twenty years.

The longer this goes on, the deeper the distrust builds and Team Hillary actively stokes that distrust. There are reasons to believe the problem will not be as bad as it appears now. But if Hillary's voters put McCain in the White House, Hillary will have authored the catastrophe.

Cincinnati Black Blog Smacked Down by Google

If you haven't been following the embarrassing train wreck of Cincinnati Black Blog lately, you have probably lost your chance. As the Cincy Beacon notes, Google has taken the blog down to investigate "possible Blogger Terms of Service Violations."

All this started a few weeks ago when CBB blogger Nate Livingston repurposed his dormant blog to exact personal revenge on his antagonists in a custody battle involving some public and semi-public figures. You can get a sense of the ugliness from this Bill Sloat piece.

According to Livingston, in the course of the dispute information from his daughter's confidential Juvenile Court file was released. In response he promised to publish whatever confidential information he could lay hands on about his opponents in the dispute. And, embracing the Keyser Söze school of revenge, he moves beyond that:

And so today I launch "Operation Heightened Contradiction." I'm going to collect and publish information -- including social security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, financial information, employment information, tax records, medical records, court records and whatever else I can find -- on those people involved in obtaining and making public my daughter's confidential juvenile court records. And I'm not going to stop there. I'm going to publish the records of their family members as well.

While CCB on the web has gone dark, the posts remain in my Reader. Livingston has published the social security numbers of a number of his enemies and in his last post, promised to scan in and upload medical records.

Tha Dean at CincyBeacon gets all howling fantod about the fact that Google has taken CBB down. It's pretty much cut-and-dried. The Google Content Policy states:

We do not allow the unauthorized publishing of people's private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, Social Security Numbers, and driver's and other license numbers.

Contra Tha Dean, this is something different than posting a phone number. Livingston posted information that any identity thief with a decent crawler can use to make someone's life miserable.

Plus, Google is allowed to set policy. People who howl censorship about such things really grate. As a private actor Google has the right to decide what goes up on its platform which, need they remind us, they provide free as part of their business model. As private actors we all have the right to decide what gets expressed using our property. I rarely delete comments, but when I do, it's because I don't want certain crap to be associated with my name. The right not to speak -- that is the right to decide whether certain expression may be associated with me -- is as basic as the right to speak.

Moreover, life in the Web 2.0 age can at times be scary. Regular people now have the tools to reach millions of people, and sometimes those regular people aren't screwed together too tightly. Google's policy is much looser than it could be. For example, Google sets no policy regarding libelous material which would put it in the position of being Chief Blog Cop. But they draw some sensible lines, one of which Livingston defiantly crossed.