Tuesday, August 24, 2004



The Blog Debate between Eric Muller and Michelle Malkin continues with this latest installment from Muller.

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Voter tracking software: the dark side of technology and democracy
The potential benefits and pitfalls of electronic democracy are already on display in the use of voter tracking software by Australia’s major political parties, argue Peter van Onselen and Wayne Errington in this paper from the CPP’s Australian Electronic Governance Conference. The use of such technologies, which contain a host of information about voters and their policy preferences, are a potentially useful conduit between citizens and their elected representatives. Instead, their development has been veiled in secrecy, and their operation puts vast public resources to use for partisan ends, invades the privacy of constituents seeking help from their member of parliament, and tilts electoral politics towards the minority of swinging voters.
Electoral databases; [ Do Not Reflect the Community, Be the Community ; Public antipathy Lack of civic introspection in the American character ]
• · Circulation numbers of political magazines
• · · Government That Works Online Get online, not in line
• · · · Buddy was an unflinching, old-school perfectionist who absolutely believed that government, regardless of its partisan affiliation, required a large dose of skepticism, and that it was an essential duty of journalists to point out its failings and hypocrises: H.G. “Buddy” Davis Jr., the Gainesville Sun’s only Pulitzer Prize winner and a longtime University of Florida journalism professor, died
• · · · · The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow Australian author Thea Astley, who won the Miles Franklin Award a stunning four times, has passed away
• · · · · · You're Athletes, Not Journalists Olympians largely barred from blogging [Polished Olympic Site: Adam Michnik editing Otylia Jedrzejczak's gold-medal performance in the women's 200-meter butterfly]