Or rather, Rep. Stephen Urquhart's legislative wiki, Politicopia, is having a good showing in its first week. Urquhart emailed me to say, "The first week has been good. Citizens are participating and leaders are taking notice. Politicopia made both of the major newspapers, and the Governor, the Senate President and the Speaker of the House have all been on the site."

Indeed, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that Urquhart used the site to put up a preview version of an education voucher bill he is sponsoring, and Democrat Minority Whip Brad King responded positively, saying he "really kind of liked" the idea. "We'd much rather have it out there where we can all see it," he said.

What made you laugh this year?

Here's the best William F. Buckley parody video I've ever seen:

It is by my brother-in-law, I have to admit...

But since humor travels on the web much further than serious, I repeat my question...what made you laugh?

Technorati Tags: Ilan Lieman, parody, William F. Buckley

Here’s an excellent and effective example of using MySpace and YouTube to tap into thriving online subcultures with the hopes of activating them toward a specific message. In this case, the subculture is the Harry Potter online community and the message is for WalMart to start treating its employees and surrounding communities with respect.

In the interest of full disclosure the comedy troop involved are really good friends of mine.

WalMart Watchdog, WalMart Watch hired the Late Night Players to make a video where Harry Potter must fight the Dark Wizard, Lord WaldeMart. With the help of many leaders in the Harry Potter community, the video has caught on like fire in just a few hours. It’s too early to tell what will happen, but in just a few hours it’s become one of the most popular videos on YouTube for the day. Related to this are the politically orientated Harry Potter Alliance and WhatWouldDumbledoredo.com. More updates on this story to follow, but if you’d like to check out the video, here it is (or click bellow):

Just intime for the holiday weekend! "Strategery", "nucular", "misunderestimate", "compassionated" – Lil’ Bushisms will soon be appearing on a small screen near you! The MVNO Amp’d Mobile is launching, "Lil’ Bush: Resident of the United States" on Amp#039d Mobile handsets, Friday Sept. 1 (today). (You can also check it out on Break.com & YouTube next week.)

Two examples, one serious and one cute, of how technology is changing the actual conversation between elected officials and their constituents:

First, check out this online survey posted on H2otown ("news and events for Watertown, MA") by town councilor John Donohue, which hyper-local blogger Lisa Williams is serializing into individual polls for her readers. The first question is "If you have had interaction with a town department (DPW, Police, Fire, Clerks), how was your experience?" So far, 34 people have responded, which for a town of about 33,000 is pretty good, I think.

Second, I can't help passing along this amusing exchange from an "online listening session" conducted by Senator Russ Feingold, which vaguely reminded me of that great Saturday Night LIve sketch where Dan Ackroyd plays President Jimmy Carter doing a live national call-in and talks someone down from a bad acid trip by telling them to listen to some Allman Brothers:

"The Paper of Record" is hardly the one place to get the gospel on anything, but when 4 NYT articles in 24 hours talk about customers, fans, and online contributors driving the direction of not just web sites, but franchises and products, then I'm comfortable saying leadership via consumer collaboration is on the radar in a new way.

Katie Hafner's article on gating access to some Wikipedia entries highlights the need for some level of process and hierarchy even in an open community. The inevitable need to close a small number of entries some of the time echoes my favorite PDF article ever, when Zephyr called for a "productive tension" between the hub of a campaign and its spokes.

The popular band, and one of my favorite growing up, They Might Be Giants has entered the Ringtone phenomenon with three tones to choose from. While the first two "Phone Phone Phone" and "Ring Ring" are more along the general surreal stylings of the band, it is the third ringtone titled "Call Connected Through The NSA" that reminds us of the political significance ringtones can have in terms of viral messaging.

It's possible that this is a brilliant reverse-marketing move aimed at getting lots of bloggers to pass around an online video (and don't forget, pictures do speak louder than words), but right now my guess is that Chevy Tahoe isn't all that happy that they're not screening the ads that people are submitting to their "Apprentice" contest.

It looks like more Republican staffers than Democrats have their fingers caught in the cookie jar known as the Wikipedia. At least that's what this entry on the Wikipedia page shows for IP 143.231.249.141, which belongs to Information Systems, U.S. House of Representatives and which is cited for "a large amount of vandalism." Rep. Marty Meehan (D-MA) was the first Congressman whose staff admitted cleaning up his Wikipedia entry--to remove an unflattering but true reference to his having broken a campaign pledge to step down after four terms--but he's hardly the only one. In no particular order, Wikipedia lists these Members' names and their reported infractions, along with several other politically-charged pages that were altered from House computers:

* Richard Pombo (Removing referenced to possible ties to Jack Abramoff and many other npov [neutral point of view] yet politically damaging items),

* Trent Lott (editing references to his rumored actions...)

* Phil Gramm (removing quotes I wouldn't want anyone to see if I had to run for re-election),

* Rick Renzi (removing a section titled "Ethical Questions,")

* Jim Ramstad (removing reference to his "moderate\ liberal" tendencies),

* Trent Franks (replacing article with official House bio),

* Darrell Issa (removing references to pro-palestinian actions),

* Talk:Jim Nussle (removing talk section titles 'Republican conspiracy'),

* Jim Nussle (removing references to his divorce),

* Darrell Issa (removing quotes supporting Hezbollah),

* Rick Renzi (replacing article with official House bio),

* Rodney Frelinghuysen (removing information about financial contributions),

* Sam Johnson (removing unflattering quotes),

* Mark Green (removing references to " unethical campaign finance practices",references to his ties with Tom DeLay, and other unflattering details),

* David Dreier (removing unflattering information about his 2004 campaign),

* Jerry Weller (adding self promoting crap and removing questions of a conflict of interest),

* Podcasting (This past summer, the House Republican Conference, under Chairman Deborah Pryce, began PodCasting all their press events.),

* Bob Taft (removing ties to Abramoff),

* List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States,

* Ward Connerly (adding libelous comment),

* Ralph Neas (attempting to categorize him as "socialist"),

* MoveOn (changing liberal to "left-wing"),

* 2003 Invasion of Iraq (Suggesting a link between Iraq and al Qaeda),

* Eric Burns (political strategist) (blanking article),

* Randy Kuhl (removing scandal related information),

* Jim Sensenbrenner (removing information in "Controversy" section),

* Nancy Pelosi (entering libelous statements),

There's also an even longer list of page edits from U.S. Senate IP addresses, here.

According to the Lowell Sun, which first broke this story in the old media, more than 1,000 changes to Wikipedia entries have been made by House staffers in the past six months. In November and December, the paper reports, "users of the House's IP address were temporarily blocked from changing content because of violations described by the site as a 'deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia.'"

The Chicago Tribune writes today that: "Web loggers, who pride themselves on freewheeling political activism, might face new federal rules on candidate endorsements, online fundraising and political ads, though bloggers who don't take money from political groups would not be affected."

Check it out: FEC treads into sticky web of political blogs

Truth be told, I'm significantly more interested in the titles of recent FEC articles than their substance. I'm just uncertain which titles I like better.

Today, we were handed the "sticky web" by the Tribune. Not bad. But last week, MSNBC brought us the "thorny case." Together, we've got sharp edges and a sweet mess. Hmmm.

MSNBC's "thorny case" was actually a re-print of a Forbes.com article that also ran last w