Social network analyst Valdis Krebs has created an updated network map based on purchase patterns from major book retailers, similar to a map he created last year. Books are linked if they were bought together. Valdis makes assumptions about which political valence for each book, but the assumptions seem valid at a glance. [Link]

by Aldon Hynes To what extent can the issues around the media coverage of the ‘I have a scream’ speech of Howard Dean be seen as an archetypal conflict between broadcast politics and post-broadcast politics? If you look at CNBC or CNN coverage, it was a sound byte of Governor Dean broadcasting out nationally in [...]

John Lughland in The Spectator questions the existence of al-Qa’eda as a well-organized conspiracy, noting that the real conspiracies reside within the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other US secret services. [Link] (Posted by Jon Lebkowsky) British and American [...]

I keep saying that effective activism is neither virtual nor physical, but a robust combination of the two, and here’s a great example: “Blog for America: BloggerStorm!” aggregates posts by various bloggers who have gone to Iowa to work for Howard Dean’s campaign. The photo above is a Dean Perfect Storm team, blogged by Robert [...]

From Jock: Kerry Campaign Gives Back to Open Source Community (Kerry Tech Team answers Aldon Hynes’ question: Can we Really be Open?) From the Kerry blog:   We Will Beat Bush – Archives A Gift from the Kerry Tech Army   After many weeks of successful use, the Kerry Development Team is happy to offer [...]

Recently, there was an article in Wired magazine, “Clark Campaign Going Open Source”, http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,61723,00.html which caught my attention. I have been very active with DeanSpace, and I feel strongly that Open Source campaigns are crucial to revitalizing democracy in the United States. I sent an email to the various DeanSpace people, other technologists involved in [...]

by Sidney Blumenthal, originally appearing in The Guardian/London, reprinted with the author’s permission. The presidential party of the party that doesn’t hold the White House is like a ghost party that miraculously springs to life in the January of election year. It exists apart from the congressional party and often against it, and it does [...]