The influence of the Internet in politics continues to expand, and the recent election here in Ontario was no exception. All the political parties had extensive Internet strategies, employing a diverse range of tactics, on various platforms, from blogs, to social networking sites like Facebook, and viral video platforms like YouTube.

I did a number of TV and Radio appearances during the election, analyzing some of the Internet activity going on as well as how effective the various parties strategies were.

Over the past several weeks I've been working with my friend Danyon Reeves on the new Bob Rae website, running on the oh-so-lovely Drupal CMS.

I've always loved politics. Since an early age I've been fascinated by all levels, and for that matter all jurisdictions. I suppose this is what fuels my news consumption, and relatedly what attracts me to innovative uses of technology. The upcoming US Presidential election, which is arguably already underway, promises to be quite a battlefield when it comes to the use of technology, explicitly social media, such as facebook, youtube, etc. It was with this in mind that Nancy Wilson and I had a chat about the election, and just how nasty it may turn out to be, thanks to the fog of war the Internet fosters when it comes to campaigns and electioneering.

Retired CBC foreign correspondent David Halton has been giving lectures and is writing a book about his experiences, and explicitly his time as the Washington correspondent for CBC News. David was in Washington during the rise of the religious right, and the ascendancy of the born-again Bush White House. It was with this in mind that I interviewed him for my show 3D Dialogue:

Facebook is a social networking platform that has been around for some time, originating in select universities then spreading across all schools and now into society at large. However it has been in the past month that it has rapidly expanded into broader demographics and gobbled up circles of friends from all walks of life. Explicitly I've noticed that as a federal election looms, many of those running have embraced facebook as a means of reaching out to younger voters. I spoke about this, and other aspects that are behind the infectious spread of the facebook meme on CBC News Today with Nancy Wilson:

Last night I went on TVO's Agenda with Steve Paikin to discuss Second Life as part of a panel with Tony Walsh, Alexandra Shimo, and Anthony D. Williams. The producer of the segment was Mike Miner and he has his own blog post about the panel on the TVO site. It was a great discussion, and the five of us were able to address some substantive issues while explaining Second Life and the genre of virtual worlds to the TVO audience. (You can watch a copy of the episode via TVO's website).

Tony has posted about the segment on his blog, and has quite a bit of second life coverage in general that's worth reading. Tony also took the time to create a second life avatar of TVO host Steve Paikin. It was interesting to see Steve's reaction to seeing his avatar, and the general distance most people feel from the "virtual world".

At the end of the panel I put forward a notion that at some point in the near future we will no longer think of the virtual and real as two different states. Rather we will accept the unity of the two, and acknowledge that we spend our time simultaneously in the real and the virtual. I suspect the advent of GPS and RFID technology will, much like gravity, draw all things and people into a virtual representation regardless of their awareness of said virtuality. Power will be the ability to understand and influence one's virtual self in the same we think of our physical or "real" self.

Already data mining and visualization has reached a point where elements of our identity and behavior exist in databases beyond our control. I personally see a time where we'll demand consistent and comprehensive avatars that accumulate all of our data representations into a single unit for us to scrutinize and control.

Similarly another interesting issue that came up during the discussion was the issue of control in the form of governance, whether social or explicitly political. Certainly the issue of griefing in Second Life is causing the notion of regulation to be discussed and examined. How can (virtual) spaces be protected for legitimate public or private use? It's irresponsible to just pretend that the net is self-regulating. I'm not in favor of government control, but I do support community control, which can be facilitated by public institutions and democratic authorities.

Relatedly, a representation of the US House of Representatives (i.e. the lower house of Congress) has been established in Second Life, coinciding with the swearing in of Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the house. While this clearly does not mean that democracy is coming to Second Life (or the US for that matter), it does indicate a willingness on both sides to learn from each other. Certainly online environments like Second Life could learn a lot about governance from the likes of the US Congress, and similarly American politicians could learn a lot from environments like Second Life, in which no doubt they will find existing and future constituents/voters.

In fact, the introduction of Capitol Hill into Second Life was met with a protest/sit-in by Abe Rosenthal who was objecting to the way in which the virtual Washington Mall was configured/governed. Initially Abe was going to be treated as a griefer, and ejected, but smarter heads prevailed and Abe was acknowledged as the free-speech activist that he is. A sign of things to come perhaps.

Here's a photo of me standing in the Speaker's position in the virtual House of Representatives on Capitol Hill in Second Life:

If you've paid any attention to the news or media in the last few years then you've probably heard of Shia and Sunni Muslims. However it's also quite likely that you're impression of these two elements of Islam are superficial if not entirely inaccurate. Often you hear the American Government and Media blaming the ongoing war in Iraq on a conflict between Shias and Sunnis.

I was downtown today for a lunch meeting at Barberian's and afterwards decided to go to city hall and cast my vote in the 2006 Toronto Municipal Election.

Advance polls have been open at city hall for over a week, the actual election day is not until Nov 13th. I prefer voting at the advance polls as its easier, and without the crowds and lineups, however it also grants a different perspective for the remainder of the campaign, which tends to be the nastiest and most conducive to empty promises.

I've also noticed over the last few elections, most recently the last federal one held this past winter, that here in Canada electronic voting machines are slowly and quietly being used instead of traditional paper ballots.

In the United States I've been closely following the debate and controversy around electronic voting machines, and their potential to be manipulated and thereby alter the results of an election. The concern is that the virtual can override the real, and votes that were not cast can actually be counted, and votes that were cast not counted. Greg Palast is an investigative journalist who has written on this as well as the general culture and practice of electoral fraud that currently exists in the US political system.

One thing I noticed right away when using the system setup at city hall, was a visible paper receipt that was generated as you made your votes, which I'm assuming can be used to audit the results if required/requested. Certainly this made me feel quite a bit more comfortable casting my vote electronically, and the receipt itself, while visible, is not accessible to the public, so you don't get a copy of who you voted for, but neither does anyone save for the appropriate election officials.

However it did occur to me that if you wanted to spoil your ballot, or write in a candidate, you might be shit out of luck. I've done both in past elections, either as a protest against voting as a shallow and superficial type of democratic participation, or because I felt there were no candidates worthy of my vote, yet I still wanted to vote and express my democratic rights, even if I felt they were shallow and futile. I also knew of people who as a form of protest either ate their ballot, or urinated on their ballot, both of which are acts of civil-disobedience, as to do either is illegal. Perhaps the voting machines need to be configured to have a "none of the above" option?

For the record, I voted Kevin Clarke for mayor, Adam Giambrone for my city councillor, and Nellie Pedro for public school trustee.

I voted for Kevin in large part as a protest against the current mayor David Miller, whom I feel is a disappointment, at least in his first term. I also could not vote for Miller's primary opponent, Jane Pitfield, as she's a total wingnut.

I voted for Adam because I feel he deserves more time to serve my ward, and when I've called his constituency office he's returned the call. None of the other candidates for council in my ward struck me as being worth my vote. Simon Wookey in particular I found to be rather arrogant and I could not support a number of his policy proposals.

The only reason I voted for Nellie Pedro was cause she's the incumbent. Terrible I know, but school trustees, especially candidates for school trustee, tend to have such low profiles as to effectively be invisible, certainly given the fact I have no children in the public school system. If I could have voted for "none of the above" when it came to school trustee I would have.

I've started producing episodes of the Jesse Show, and this episode focuses on Bob Rae, a politician whom I believe will be the next Prime Minister of Canada. In the first part of the episode I have a brief interview with Bob, and in the second discuss his chances at electoral success and the general Canadian political environment with filmmaker Robin Benger.

I am not a member of the Liberal Party, however I do think that Bob is an honest man, which is quite rare for politics. That's why I've made this video to put forward the idea that perhaps Bob will be the next Canadian PM.

I've been doing almost weekly appearances on CBC News Today with Nancy Wilson. Every once in a while another CBC show will invite me on in a similar capacity. Recently I was able to go on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos, and discuss the issue of Net Neutrality. As the Internet becomes increasingly commercialized and monetized, a lot of stress is put on all carriers and providers to try and get a bigger slice of the pie. Is it too late for a public interest?