Technorati is now tracking over 7.8 million weblogs, and 937 million links. That’s just about double the number of weblogs tracked in October 2004. In fact, the blogosphere is doubling in size about once every 5 months. It has already done so at this pace four times, which means that in the last 20 months, the blogosphere has increased in size by over 16 times.
Related: Katherine Seelye: Can Papers end the Free Ride Online?
Producers of a diesel alternative made from old vegetable oil want to build a network of stations to sell the fuel to motorists. But many find it tough to convince local regulators to approve their efforts. By Mark Baard
Freeculture.org sponsored blogshine Sunday, a day when news organizations run stories and editorials in support of public access to government information.
The internet has substantially improved citizen’s ability to see who is funding elected officials directly and indirectly.
The Madison City Clerk conveniently posts campaign finance information on their website. I took a quick look at PAC (political action committee) spending on school board races and found this:
Madison School Related PAC’s:
Every active member of the Madison School Board was endorsed by and received direct and indirect support from Madison Teachers, Inc. The only current exception is Ruth Robarts, who, while supported in the past by MTI, was opposed by MTI in her 2004 successful re-election campaign.
Jerry Brown on Oakland’s Sideshows (a new term for me). Brown also posts a useful quote from Clint Eastwood. (read the comments)
Draper is acknowledged as the inspiration behind the term “viral marketing” via his hotmail investment. Interesting interview.
We often list all the problems in society, and the politicians would make you believe that they’re going to solve all those problems.
Generally, I’d say it goes the other way. Businesses solve a lot of the world’s problems. The next big energy breakthrough will happen through a business.
The next big environmental breakthrough similarly could happen through a business. Medicine has been advanced through business. It turns out that it’s the businesspeople that tend to be the ones who solve all this stuff.
While we fiddle with poor (slow) broadband penetration and the incumbent telco’s try to stop any other approaches, such as municipally backed networks, South Korea surges (the US is currently 13th in global broadband penetration). Birgitta Forsberg takes a look at South Korea’s winning ways.
Greg Borowski continues his excellent coverage on local election flaws:
In the United States, your ballot is secret, but almost everything else about an election is part of the public record: Who voted and at what ward. Where they live. How old they are. Even what number they were in line.
Until recently, that is.
At least in Wisconsin, where a 2003 change in state law put the birth dates of voters off limits to the public, making it nearly impossible to determine whether someone voted twice, a felon voted improperly, or someone voted as a dead person.
And in Milwaukee, where officials have denied access – for now – to nearly all information about the Nov. 2 election, citing an ongoing local-federal investigation into possible voter fraud.
The irony: The investigation was started only after the Journal Sentinel revealed a host of problems about the election – including 7,000 votes that are unaccounted for – by examining information it obtained through open records requests.
New Haven city marshals, armed with a new tool that photographs auto license plates
and instantly matches them against a tax scofflaw database, had towed
Byers’ car right out of his driveway.