BurntPhotons

I saw this video on Amber Mac's weblog today and couldn't help adding it here. I love the song (it was the reason I wanted to buy the game Gears of War for the Xbox 360), and the video is interesting too. You can find the original video here. I won't get into the politics of the whole thing but it states some very interesting information about the world if it were only made up of 100 people.

I just realized how odd that the song was used for both Gears of War advertising and this video. Strange world.

If only all political campaigns could be this entertaining. I would certainly enjoy a call from Chuck Norris talking about a candiate than the repeated calls from a political group or candidate bashing a candidate.

Humor in politics is such a rare thing these days.

I do not think I'm getting the news about Iraq or Afghanistan from the regular press. Maybe it gets pushed into the background in favor of Paris Hilton or Brittany Spears or perhaps more local events that affect us more immediately. Perhaps I'm just not looking for the stories in the right place. I don't know. It just seems the news coming out of Iraq is never good, and yet that doesn't jive.

I had a nephew in Iraq and what he told the family after he came back was positive. I talked with other vets and their families who have come back. I rarely find someone who vents about what is going on in Iraq from someone in the armed services.

And yet the national news always seems to be negative. That is unless we've caught a high ranking al Queda leader. Otherwise the stories seem to focus on the deaths and destruction surrounding our troops and rarely on the rebuilding of lives and the empowerment of people who our brave soldiers have fought to free.

The national press seems to have a negative slant. Is that part of my preconception? Perhaps. Maybe I have listened to Rush Limbaugh a bit too much while driving around.

Well, one place to get some interesting (not always positive) news is from Michael Yon. He writes about the good, the bad and the ugly from a first hand perspective on the ground with the troops.

Do I trust him 100%? No. We all make mistakes. But he's writing about events I'm not reading or seeing any where else. He is writing in a first person style, and he is telling the reader how it is where he is.

I do have to say though, I don't fully consider him a journalist. He doesn't follow journalistic guidelines when reporting. For example, he doesn't always attribute information. He'll say someone was killed by al Queda, but in truth he wasn't there and is being told this by someone. Not stating who this information came from doesn't allow the reader to make an informed decision. It is a big deal at times because as a thinking living human being you have to analyze for yourself the information your given from any news source.

Personally, I see him more as a person who balances out the news organizations who do not report what is going on.

Check his site out at Michael Yon: Online Magazine.

I'm not a huge internet radio listener. I don't live, breath and eat it, but I do occasionally listen to it. And I like the choice of listening to it when I want to.

Due to a recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC, American internet radio sites like Pandora.com (my personal favorite) will have to pay higher royalty rates. These rates are not just higher- they are higher rates than what satellite or broadcast are currently paying. And to top that off, they royalty pay hike doesn't just apply to future royalty rates but rates going back to January 2006!

That is right. It is a retro-active royalty fee.

If you are interested in saving internet radio please go to SaveNetRadio.org. Sign the petition and write your congress representatives. Help save internet radio and save music on the internet.

Too often I find myself ignorant of what is going on with politics. I hear the major points that I think I care about from the news stations, the major blogs and the podcasts I listen too. But I don’t know who the people I’m voting for truly are. 

When election time hits, their ads tell me that they voted for this or supported that, but then their opponents come out and say the exact opposite. Often the differences between candidates come down to a specific issue(s) on how they voted in the past or how they would vote in the future. The only easily accessible information I have to make a decision with is reading the local newspaper’s voter information guide. I always feel poorly informed about how my elected officials have done in office to try and make a decision on whether to keep them.

No more.

OpenCongress is a web site that will help keep me informed on the people that represent me in government. I can also see some of the bills coming up (The site is in beta, so be kind to it.)

It should be easier to check up on a newly elected official, such as US Senator Sherrod Brown (D, OH) who was recently elected to office this past November.

By going to his web page I see that in the 2 months in office he has either sponsored or co-sponsored 2 bills. One bill recognized John Glenn and another that recognized Tom Mooney.

And if I want to delve a little deeper I can go to Opensecrets.org to check out more on Sherrod Brown.

The power of the Internet will open the government up to each and every one of us as it was meant to be.

(And not to be biased, the other state senator is Senator George Voinovich (R, OH) and here is his Opensecrets.org page.)

Heard about this site that might be interesting to keep track of as the Presidential race heats up over the next couples years. (Yes, it’s that far away and the candidates are pounding the payment and our ears already.)

Anyway, techpresident.com is tracking the candidates and their use of the web. One thing to note right off is that it appears the democrats are learning to use the new medium more than the republicans, that is what I take away after looking at the front page.

techPresident: How the candidates are using the web, and how the web is using them..