Micorosft has launched a new web site that tracks popular political news stories and blog posts. Political Streams works a bit like a news aggregation service like Techmeme. But the layout is unique.

Items are listed either in the News or Blogs category based on the source. Scrolling over those colorful bars brings up the number of blogs or news sites writing about the main item. There's also information about related people and places. And if you click a headline you'll be taken to a sub-page with an excerpt from the article and links to related sources.

Each item also has a graph that shows how much "attention" a person or place has received in the last month. Political Streams draws its information from the links between blog post and news articles and from information found in Freebase, a community-driven information database.

It's not clear whether Political Streams uses a white list of selected blogs and news sites or if the headlines are drawn from Microsoft Live Search results. While I wouldn't recommend using Political Streams as your primary source of news just yet, the web service does offer a glimpse at some of the hot political topics in the US right now.

[via CNET]

If you're as busy as rest of us, you may not have time to catch all the latest presidential election details on the evening news. Fortunately, you can still keep up by listening to a few really excellent podcasts while you're commuting or working out. [Note: All links open in iTunes.]

Listen to selected speeches from the Democratic National Convention in a podcast series put together by the DNC. It's got all the usual suspects like Barack Obama and Joe Biden, but you can also catch speeches given by Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and some of the governors in attendance.

The Republican National Convention will also have speeches available as the event gets underway today in Minnesota.

For a general overview of what's happening with the election, have a listen to National Public Radio's "It's All Politics," a weekly podcast covering news and events in the presidential race. If it's political punditry you're after, choose from Bill Maher, Dan Carlin, Bill Moyers, and others.

Download Pod is an occasional series about our favorite podcasts. If you have suggestions for podcasts you think we should check out, let us know in the comments or via our tips page.

John McCain has gotten a lot of flack recently for his lack of tech savvy. McCain doesn't use email, the web, or a computer. But it turns out he's not the only high ranking politician who prefers a fax machine to email. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell has a cellphone and recently learned to send text messages - but has never sent an email.

The article raises an interesting point - does the guy at the top really need to be CCed on every single email his underlings send around? Some of Rendell's staffers say the answer is not only no, but that this frees the governor up to think about other things. He can make the decisions when it's time to do so, but he doesn't have to get bogged down in all the back and forth emails sent while hammering out the details.

On the other hand, Rendell has probably been responsible for the destruction of a small forest during his time in office, since every single document he needs to read has to be printed out in advance.

What do you think? Is it OK for politicians to be technologically illiterate, or would you like your elected officials to at least know how to look themselves up on Wikipedia even if they still prefer to write out their speeches by hand?

Have you ever heard a public figure make a claim that seems a bit preposterous? In the year of a U.S. presidential election, more people are going to be scrutinizing candidates -- and political bloggers -- and wondering if what they're saying is true, exaggerated, or just completely made up. That's where Ameritocracy comes in. You can add a quote, and Ameritocracy users will rate its accuracy and its relevance.

We think this is great fun, because it takes a step toward realizing our fantasy of siccing Slashdot commenters on all of our nation's politicians. Sure, the accuracy ratings might be questionable, but they should continue to improve as the site gains additional users. Ameritocracy is full of diverse issues and opinions, so if you can't get worked up over the election, maybe you have an opinion on propositions like, "The mobile phone may be the most potent tool ever invented for the elimination of poverty."

Look, we don't know where you live. But statistically speaking, there's a pretty good chance that if you're in the US, your state is holding a primary election tomorrow. And if you still haven't decided who you're going to vote for, what better way to research the candidates than by watching YouTube videos?

Yeah, we're not entirely convinced either. But Google has slapped together a Super Tuesday map with a bunch of videos posted by candidates, news organizations, and concerned citizen/YouTubers. In theory, this should be an excellent way to find out what other voters in your area are talking about. Want to know if a candidate is addressing the concerns expressed by residents of your state? Just check the map and see what people are saying.

In practice, there really just aren't that many videos available at the moment. Anyone can upload their own videos, but time is kind of running out to have an impact on tomorrow's primaries. But we're guessing Google will create a similar map for the general election. And if the idea catches on, YouTube's You Choose site could become a valuable resource for researching information about the candidates, or at least gauging popular opinion.

It's not as if politics and Twitter are new to each other, but it probably hasn't ever looked this nice. Politweets keeps pulse on where the buzz is in politics, specifically this year's election and the candidates involved.

As tweets flit back and forth among the people of Twitter, Politweets scoops out the tweets that contain the name of candidates and throws them up: to the left for Democrats, to the right for Republicans. It then tallies the scores and stacks the candidates down the middle in order of who's talked about the most. Obviously, it doesn't value the tweets in regards to whether it speaks of a candidate in a good or bad light - only if the name comes up at all.

Politweets is another nice example of what is possible with Twitter - and certainly more interesting than Foamee. Now if there was only a way to track custom terms on Twitter and have them ranked for you...

[via Mashable]

What do you get when you mix user-submitted video, the news judgement of NPR, and user-community of seemingly all single, unmarried, childless democrats? Well, in a word: Current.tv. This cable channel wasn't so much news as reality video, and it was created to compete for mind share with XBox and YouTube, not with CNN and Fox News. Developed by Al Gore, the TV network was ridiculed early on for airing user-submitted video, but the idea turned out to be a profitable one, if only to a painfully tiny TV audience. Airing a ton of essentially unknown, royalty-free content has a way of doing exactly those things--lowering costs and viewership at the same time.

The problem Current ran into was that people who watch cable don't generally get too excited about user-submitted video (unless it's reruns of AFV). That's the domain of YouTube, and the young, liberal audience targeted by Current probably spends more time online than they do parked on the couch. Gore's development specialists noticed this shortcoming quickly and redeveloped Current.tv into Current.com, which launches October 16.

The new site doesn't prop up the Current TV network as much as the old one does, though that's not the biggest change: Current is now a sort of Digg-for-social-media, with an obvious emphasis on video and video commentary threads, a la YouTube or Vlip. The new Current has wisely hidden the raw number of up or down Digg-style votes a particular item receives, instead opting to show percentages and hide the actual trends.

If Al Gore wants to transform the typically-cynical, MySpacing, twenty-something demographic into a group that actually cares about politics and social issues, the new Current might be the ticket. But enabling discourse through what is basically indy film-making? The notion of mixing art and issues is great for entertainment, but will it service Al Gore's mission? It will be interesting to see if Current sits in the happy median.

A fellow running for office in Rockingham, North Carolina recently discovered the dark side of YouTube content-producer rights. Essentially--there are none. The guy made a political advertisement, which, due to its Star Wars parody content, was a natural fit for posting on YouTube. Some time later, Viacom used the clip in a program that aired on VH1. Feeling more than a little slighted, the guy posted the clip as it appeared in the show back on YouTube, only to have it yanked due to a copyright claim by Viacom.

All of this begs the question--who is the copyright holder for the content in question? Is it Christopher Knight (the creator of the clip, pictured), YouTube, who apparently optioned the clip to Viacom for their Web Junk 2.0 show, or Viacom itself, which, two steps removed from the creator of the clip, aired it on VH1 and then asked YouTube to remove it after it was reposted?

It all stinks. Sadly, as we've seen before, YouTube "pwnz u" when you post video content on their site. It makes us feel more than a little sympathy for the creators of Chad Vader, who, if they could shift the center of their fanverse to their own web site from where it now resides at YouTube, might be raking in a fair amount of AdWords dough. Content sells content, after all.

So what do you think? Is YouTube's end-user agreement fair?

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, some 15% of all American adults say the internet was the place where they got most of their campaign news during the 2006 mid-term election, up from 7% in the mid-term election of 2002.

Interestingly, dirty campaign tactics are now de rigeur for virtual communites as in real life. The blogosphere is all a twitter about a recent defilement of John Edwards 08 headquarters in Second Life. It seems a group of Republican marauders vandalized the Edwards' campaign headquarters and even went so low as to put the candidate in blackface. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. When will those Republicans ever learn? This is going to ensure huge media exposure for the Edwards campaign for this week and maybe into next and might even replace poor Anna Nicole.

[via digg]

At the site you have access to Thomas, the website of the Library of Congress, bills, members of Congress, political punditry, votes, and campaign contribution information. And like all bona fide Web 2.0 sites, you can see what issues the majority of readers are most interested in, what bills are the most viewed, what bills are the most reported in news and blogs, etc., all with digg-like ranking buttons. The idea here is to focus public scrutiny on what people care about most and keep everything out in the light.

I went to one of my Member of Congress' site and viewed his votes, an analysis of his votes showed where the majority of his campaign contributions came from (real estate, insurance and finance) and the latest coverage on him from news and blogs. Best of all, there are live feeds to which you can subscribe and get yourself updated when your Member of Congress does anything new. There's even a button to contact your representative so when they do something naughty or nice, you can always be sure to stay in touch.

When politics and computing mix, the results aren't usually pretty. Politicians have fundamental misunderstandings about computing, the internet and how computers and people interact; a fault which often causes them to enact useless or even harmful legislation. Senator Sam Brownback is pushing a bill that would force the people who rate video games to play the full game in order to render a rating. Ed Felten of Freedom to Tinker explains why this shows a complete misunderstanding of games, and computer science.

He writes, "Nonexperts are often surprised to learn that programs can do things the programmers didn't expect. These surprises can be vexing; but they're also the main reason computer science is fun." Felten gives an example of a simple Python script which even source code inspection wouldn't explain. It's only three lines, games run into millions of lines of code.

import sys, sha
h = sha.new(sha.new(sys.argv[1]).digest()[:9]).digest()
if h.startswith("abcdef"): print h[6:9]

Can you predict every possible outcome from these three lines of code? Would it ever print anything kids shouldn't see, like, for example, a four letter word?

Who says software and politics don't mix? Google has released an update to Google Earth that adds a "2006 US Election Guide" layer to the cross-platform mapping app. The new layer includes two sub-layers: a "US Election Guide," which adds useful voting information like links to voter registration info for each state, and "US Congressional Districts," which, in case you hadn't guessed, outlines the United States' 436 congressional districts and gives information on the candidates. The Earth-Election mashup was created by two members of the Google Earth team during their "twenty percent time," and Google Earth and Maps director John Hanke says, "Our hope is that young people using Google Earth will make better, informed choices." As always, Google Earth is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, or USCC, is calling for an investigation into Lenovo, the Chinese company which bought IBM's PC arm last year, before the State Department closes a $13 million deal to buy 15,000 Lenovo PCs. The USCC wants to be assured that the Chinese computers, which are built in Mexico and North Carolina with components manufactured in Taiwan, are not equipped with bugging devices that could be used to spy on the U.S. government. Lenovo exec Jeff Carlisle says the prope is unwarranted, but says Lenovo has "nothing to hide" and the company will cooperate fully.

[Via Engadget]

In December 1990 there was a single web site on the Internet, and by the end of 1991 that figured had jumped to ten. Today there are millions of sites and billions of pages, and the web is a universe unto itself. It's impossible for any one person to keep track of even one percent of the interesting stuff happening on the web, but still we try until our favorites folders are overflowing, our social bookmark sites crash, and our inboxes choke on forwarded links. Occasionally, though, all of that collective interest organizes itself into something more orderly and, for a moment, it seems like everyone on the web is thinking about the same thing. Below are ten moments from the past year that the people who make the web found coolest, most interesting, funniest, and most throught-provoking.

10. Numa Numa Dance

What do you get when you combine a Romanian chart-topper, an American teenager, and a webcam? The Numa Numa Dance. New Jersey 19-year-old Gary Brolsma found Internet fame when he not only lip-synched, but did a slick choreographed routine—albeit without leaving his chair—to "Dragostea Din Tei," a dance track by Romanian pop trio O-Zone.

Though Brolsma ultimately shunned his fame, his performance is among the most-linked, forwarded, and immitated videos of the the year, even earning him a profile in the New York Times.