For Canadians that didn’t notice that Bono was in Canada yesterday doing a photo-op with Paul Martin and holding a media conference, you can catch up at Paul Well’s Inkless Wells. I like this line.

Bono, fortunately, is immune to the cynicism that plagues this space.

Wells looks at the money Canada is putting out for international aid.

Liberal attack ads
With an election call just around the corner, the Liberal party has decided to go ahead with ‘toned down’ attack ads about Stephen Harper. Toned down as in no menacing music and interpretation.

The new ads are apparently toned-down versions of the earlier ads prepared for the party, mocking Mr. Harper’s views. The new ones feature only his words with no menacing sound effects or interpretation of his remarks.

Attack ads are usually used near the end of a campaign when a party is bleeding support.

“I’ve never seen a campaign where you start using negative ads before the writ is dropped,” said a veteran Liberal organizer. “Usually it’s at the end of the campaign . . . desperation.”

National campaign co-chair David Herle outlined the strategy to nervous Ontario Liberal members of Parliament on Tuesday night.

He called it bringing out the “heavy artillery” to soften the enemy before the expected election call, one insider said.

Mr. Herle said the ads were well received by focus groups. He said they simply present Mr. Harper’s words and let Canadians think about them, the insider said.

The Liberal Party’s deputy national director, Steven MacKinnon, has repeatedly said he expects the opposition parties to launch vicious attacks on Mr. Martin.

The Bloc Québécois has already run anti-Martin ads and also plans to take advantage of the pre-writ period; the Tories had prepared five attack ads for before the election.

It would be profoundly refreshing is at least one political party would take the high ground here and not run any.

A word to Voters
Charles King, former concierge of the lately lamented Parti Rhinocéros (1978-1993) has some sound advice for voters.

The simple fact remains that no one knows what the future has in store — or even if there’ll be stores in the future — but we can say with reasonable certainty that this campaign will have a happy ending. With few exceptions, we will all be happy to get back to our barbecues.

And while these may not be the best of times for an electoral event, they are not necessarily the worst of times, and in times like these, it helps to remember that in the lifetime of our nation’s bawdy politic, there have always been times like these.

Blogrolling
There was/is a security flaw in blogrolling which is what I use on the sidebar.
It was/is getting fixed I guess, if you have having load problems with this blog, that is possibly the reason why. (Hmmm. I wonder if I should run for politics - I just made an uninformed statement.) Some technical information is here.

Blogologists

…people who are studying the dynamic of blogs and trying to understand how they fit into our society. Not all of their research is related to journalism, because they see blogs as a much larger phenomenon that is changing our modes of communication and group thought. In fact, many of them downplay the effects bloggers have had on the media and discount the idea that bloggers are creating a new New Journalism.

The Online Journalism Review talks to academics who are studying the impact of blogs on society and interviews a couple of people that have done their PhD’s on blogging.

The blogologists admit that their research is only just beginning. OK, they’re not looking for a cure for cancer, but it would be nice to quantify just how much of an effect blogs are having. Trammell, whose doctoral thesis at the University of Florida was on blogs (yes, she’s a doctor of blogs), says that there haven’t been any breakthrough moments yet for researchers.

“At this point there has been so little published research in the academic journals,” she told me via e-mail. “Most of the research that is readily available (Perseus, Pew Internet) is important, but atheoretical. It gives a good pulse of the average blogger, but not much more. I think we are on the cusp of an exciting time where the theoretical research of blogs will begin to emerge. Now that we have explained blogs and understand them, we can start to make predictions and see how blogs fit into theories and compare to other ways of communicating.”

There are a couple of interesting questions posed to the academics in this article such as, “What has been the most surprising data point you have found and why?” “Has the weblog crossed international borders?” “Are weblogs a form of journalism?” Have weblogs changed the political discourse in the US and abroad?” “How is the blogosphere going to change the next few years and beyond?”

They’ve expanded so far so fast it’s hard to tell. One thing that’s interesting about blogs is that popularity and credibility don’t track with academic or other forms of formal credentialing (indeed, some of the most successful are written by authors who remain anonymous). What makes a blog successful are readers believing that its arguments are compelling and persuasive, and that the writer has integrity — which the blogger demonstrates through their commitment to providing the links, right there, so that the reader can always easily check that integrity for himself or herself.

The blogosphere moves in “Internet” years, so the time period you’re speaking of is a lifetime — so, who can say? But I can say this much: It’s gonna be interesting. And if the mainstream media don’t start paying real attention to blogs (and the frustration with the media that fuels them) and stop writing insipid, uniformed and dismissive articles, they will ending up paying the price, one way or the other.

What’s Making Blognews
Different sites such as Daypop and Blogdex track the top topics on blogs.
Here is a new tracker. At least 8 of the top ten subjects on blogs today is the US and Iraq.