Politics

The Government Information Awareness website just might be one of the coolest things I’ve stumbled across recently, thanks to this article from Wired News.

Researchers at the MIT Media Lab unveiled the Government Information Awareness , or GIA, website Friday. Using applications developed at the Media Lab, GIA collects and collates information about government programs, plans and politicians from the general public and numerous online sources. Currently the database contains information on more than 3,000 public figures.

The premise of GIA is that if the government has a right to know personal details about citizens, then citizens have a right to similar information about the government.

GIA was inspired by the federal government’s Terrorist Information Awareness, or TIA, program.

[…]

GIA allows people to explore data, track events, find patterns and build profiles related to specific government officials or political issues. Information about campaign finance, corporate ties and even religion and schooling can be accessed easily. Real-time alerts can be generated when news of interest is breaking.

“History shows that when information is concentrated in the hands of an elite, democracy suffers,” said Csikszentmihályi. “The writers of the Constitution told us that if people mean to be their own governors, they must arm themselves with information. This project brings that American spirit of self-governance into the era of networked information technology.”

GIA site users can submit information about public figures and government programs anonymously. In an attempt to ensure the accuracy of submitted data, the system automatically contacts the appropriate government officials and offers them an opportunity to confirm or deny submitted data.

But like an FBI file, information is not purged if the subject denies its veracity; the denial is simply added to the file. McKinley wryly added that those government officials who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear from GIA.

I spent a few minutes poking around on the GIA website, and I’ve gotta say, this is an impressive, and potentially extremely useful site. For examples, take a look at their pages for Seattle Representative Jim McDermott, or Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. Unfortunately, their page for President George Bush leaves a bit to be desired just yet.

Anyway, good stuff, and a great project.

Public opinion of the war in Iraq is starting to shift — most prominently at the military bases that have supplied the troops currently stationed in Iraq.

“I want my husband home,” Ms. Leija, a mother of three children, said. “I am so on edge. When they first left, I thought yeah, this will be bad, but war is what they trained for. But they are not fighting a war. They are not doing what they trained for. They have become police in a place they’re not welcome.”

Military families, so often the ones to put a cheery face on war, are growing vocal. Since major combat for the 150,000 troops in Iraq was declared over on May 1, more than 60 Americans, including 25 killed in hostile encounters, have died in Iraq, about half the number of deaths in the two months of the initial campaign.

Frustrations became so bad recently at Fort Stewart, Ga., that a colonel, meeting with 800 seething spouses, most of them wives, had to be escorted from the session.

“They were crying, cussing, yelling and screaming for their men to come back,” said Lucia Braxton, director of community services at Fort Stewart.

The signs of discomfort seem to be growing beyond the military bases. According to a Gallup poll published on Tuesday, the percentage of the public who think the war is going badly has risen to 42 percent, from 13 percent in May. Likewise, the number of respondents who think the war is going well has dropped, from 86 percent in May to 70 percent a month ago to 56 percent.

(via xowie)

Very interesting Alternet article from last week that I just picked up on looking at the way Bush uses langauge to his advantage. Not in the way he consistantly mangles words and phrases, but in the way he uses domineering language and empty statments to put himself in a nearly unassailable position.

George W Bush is generally regarded as a mangler of the English language. What is overlooked is his mastery of emotional language — especially negatively charged emotional language — as a political tool. Take a closer look at his speeches and public utterances, and his political success turns out to be no surprise. It is the predictable result of the intentional use of language to dominate others.

President Bush, like many dominant personality types, uses dependency-creating language. He employs language of contempt and intimidation to shame others into submission and desperate admiration. While we tend to think of the dominator as using physical force, in fact most dominators use verbal abuse to control others. Abusive language has been a major theme of psychological researchers on marital problems, such as John Gottman, and of philosophers and theologians, such as Josef Pieper. But little has been said about the key role it has come to play in political discourse, and in such “hot media” as talk radio and television.

Bush uses several dominating linguistic techniques to induce surrender to his will.

Of course, this was before his “Bring ’em on” gaffe of last week. How do you explain that one away, aside from pure blundering incompetence?

(via Larry Halff)

Well, there are now \$25 million bounties out for both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. I’m sure that’ll help.

(sighs)

(via Leah)

Interesting, if depressing, combinations of headlines on MSNBC’s main page right now:

(via Slothrup)

Someone needs to shut Bush up — now.

President Bush vowed today to pursue and prosecute Iraqis who attack American troops, saying: \”Bring `em on! We’ve got the force necessary to deal with the security situation.

“Anybody who wants to harm American troops,” Mr. Bush said, “will be found and brought to justice.”

Most people grow out of this schoolyard bully bravado once they leave elementary school. Can we get away with starting a ‘Ball Gags for Bush’ fundraiser drive?

(via Aziz Poonwalla, Kos, and Zephyr Teachout)

Mr. Bush raised 3 million Dollars today with a 2000 dollar a plate Dinner which most Americans can’t even think about being able to afford.

Gov. Howard Dean raised 756,000 dollars today (as of 10:30pm EST) with each contribution averaging 66.00 dollars.

Let’s do the math

3,000,000/2000 = 1,500 people

756,000/66.00 = 11,454.5 people

Don’t ever be discouraged by dollars. Dollars don’t equal votes.

We did make history. Politics will never be the same.

— Michael (not me) in the comments on Blog for America.

I have to admit, this is really amazing — the Howard Dean campaign is posting the results of their fundrasing in near-realtime, with updates every half hour, as this is the last day for fundrasing for this quarter.

Last week their goal was to hit six million in contributions.

This weekend, after passing six million, they raised the goal, hoping to hit six and a half million by the end of today.

Around 12:15pm EST today, they broke the six and a half million mark, and raised the goal line on the bat to seven million. As of their last update, at 1:30pm EST, they’d raised \$253,604 today.

Let’s help them out.