Spot-On: Hot Spots

Faster than anyone - even Spot-on's own health care pundit Matthew Holt - imagined, health care has taken front and center stage in national politics. It's looking to be Topic Number Two (after the Iraq War) in the 2008 Election.

One of the best sites to follow the debate is Health08.org. The site is doing a good job tracking the arguments, the position papers and all the other political stuff that goes into making public policy. The site is put together by the Kaiser Family Foundation (yup, they're in the business) and it's today's HotSpot.

Posted by Chris Nolan at 1:29 PM | Permalink

Time was when you could say anything on the Internet and since there were so few people on-line (relatively speaking), no one much cared. No more. When controversy strikes these days, it's lawyer, threats and paperwork. Sometimes - not all the time but sometimes - a website can find itself without an IP address.

Jimmy Atkinson's come to the rescue. He's complied a list of hosting services that ain't scared a no suits. His "11 Web Hosts That Won't Dump You At the First Sign of Controversy" just might come in hand some day. So it's today's HotSpot.

Posted by Chris Nolan at 12:49 PM | Permalink

Culling through Federal Elections Commission data used to be a chore. It was on microfilm cartridges that had to be read page by page, name by name. Don't ask us how we know this. There's always been good data at the commission but, sigh, it was almost impossible to find fast enough.

No longer, thanks to the Internet, data mining FEC reports for trivia has become journalists' catnip. Really. We love this stuff. So we're going to bookmark today's Hotspot - the FEC's very own map showing where political dollars are raised - so we can check back and see how the dough flows over the next 18 months.

Posted by Chris Nolan at 12:36 PM | Permalink

Looks like Republicans have gotten tired of reading about how Democrats are cleaning their clocks when it comes to on-line fundraising.

A new network site for those of you out there in the grassroots who want to "take back" Congress has just started. BigRedTent.org - today's HotSpot - is up and running and open for business.

Brag about Rudy! Tell the world why you're a FredHead at the self-described "Republican Online Community with the Tools for Change."

Posted by Chris Nolan at 1:00 PM | Permalink

We're remiss in not doing this earlier and we feel a little guilty. Why? Well, TechPresident - today's HotSpot - is, er, a great source of Hotspots.

Yeah, we know. The difference between good websites and great ones is that the great ones steal. But it doesn't feel right. So today we're officially recognizing and thanking the good folks at TechPresident's Daily Digest for keeping us up-to-date on what's going on in the world of on-line politics.

Posted by Chris Nolan at 1:00 PM | Permalink

So much for any ideas about the presidential primary season slowing down for the summer. It's getting hot and nasty out there.

The latest bit of mischief comes from our friends at RedState.org who have a "McCain Deadpool" set up. Guess the date that the McCain campaign shuts down and you're a winner.

Evil genius Mike Krempasky, one of Red State's co-founders, has put the date at July 20th. That's right, he's saying McCain will out of the race next week.

Posted by Chris Nolan at 11:02 AM | Permalink

The Simpsons Movie, destined to be a classic no matter how good or bad it is, is upon us.

To gin up excitement - yeah, right - its publicists held a contest to determine which of the many towns named Springfield would be the "real" home of the loopy cartoon family.

The winner? Springfield, Vt. Meaning that well-known Senatorial Dead Head Patrick Leahy counts Marge, Homer, Bart and Lisa as constituents. To see how he won that honor, visit today's HotSpot, USAToday-sponsored videos submitted by Springfields vying to be Bart's hometown.

Posted by Chris Nolan at 1:03 PM | Permalink

The trope that the Internet changes politics has been around for awhile. But, like much of political life, the line between politics and policy has blurred a bit.

It's not clear that technology changes politics. But it's definitely going to change the business of government: how the state (and states) conduct their and the people's affairs. Today's HotSpot IndependenceYear.com went live last week. It's another on-line effort in this arena by some of the Internet's smarter thinkers and do-ers.

Posted by Chris Nolan at 10:08 AM | Permalink

First Facebook. Now MySpace. Spot-on's playing with the kewl kids.

Our own kewl kid, Nicole Martinelli is all over MySpace's Minisode network offering all the bad TV you can watch in a fraction of the time. A promotional vehicle for Honda, minisodes are condensed versions of of 70s/80s TV "classics," including Fantasy Island, Who's the Boss? and Silver Spoons.

Nicole's fave is the "Death On Wheels" episode of Charlie's Angels, the angels "investigate" a roller derby murder, which appropriately, has all the jiggle, none of the fluff.

Posted by Chris Nolan at 12:37 PM | Permalink

Any fan of tech guru Doc Searls' knows he loves many things, among them airplanes, his kid, cameras, the Internets and radio. So Doc comes up with cool stuff to think about and see on all these fronts.

Today's HotSpot is a straight rip-off of one of Doc's cooler blog pointers from last week. It's Aarons Koblin's video "Flight Patterns" that ran on Science magazine's site. It shows airplane traffic across in and out of the U.S. It's mesmerizing and a good way to begin a holiday week full of travel for many of us.

Posted by Chris Nolan at 9:54 AM | Permalink