The Internet's Impact on Citizen's Participation

   The internet has taken a dramatic impact on citizen's participation. It seems as though blogs are the new way to spread the news, twitter is the way to share it and facebook is the way to talk about it. The majority of the people around the word are now internet dependent and it is obvious everywhere you look.  The internet has always been a great tool for communication and entertainment but now its branching out and heavily becoming a part of education as well as working as a tool to bring together people with common interests.
  One of the most influential stories about the internet bringing people together is the chaos in the Middle East which was triggered by facebook groups and other viral organizations.  The fact that multiple nations can go through their own revolution in a matter of a couple months shows the strength and influence of the internet when used correctly.

e-Commerce Taxation

There is a lot of discussion about the taxation of e-commerce and most of that talk revolves around the sales tax imposed by various states or countries on products sold to their residents. For now, there is a halt on the imposition of new taxes while the government agencies argue about whether changes are needed in the way sales taxes are determined for goods or services sold on the Internet. It's clear the U.S. government isn't going to make it easy for U.S. persons to avoid paying income taxes by simply renting space on a computer in an offshore island. There are actually a number of issues that will make it difficult for a U.S. citizen to easily avoid US taxes on their global e-commerce business. The U.S. citizen  is still subject to US income taxes on his or her world wide income as well as some other U.S. tax code provisions that make any American internet business pay their taxes.

Campaign Posters From the 2008 Election

 

Above is John McCain's campaign poster from the 2008 presidential election with running mate Sarah Palin.

Here is McCain's opposing candidate, Barack Obama's campaign poster from the 2008 election.

I find that Obama's poster is much more effective than McCain's for a number of reasons.  One, it has a picture of him on it, giving a face to the possible leader of the United states. Two, it has the campaign slogan "Yes we can" on it, giving people confidence in their vote for Obama. Also, it says to "vote Obama" which at the very least will make some kind of mental impression on the reader.  McCain's poster has none of these things, there is only the last names of the candidate and his running mate with the campaign website at the bottom.  It appears that the only graphic on this poster is seven little stars making up the big dipper constellation, which to me, and probably many other viewers of this poster, has no influential power at all.

Obama's Speech Concerning Osama's Death

 

With the end of nearly decade long man-hunt comes a plethora of news coverage on the story of Osama's death.  In the video provided above, Obama gives his speech confirming the death of Osama Bin Laden.  The only thing missing from his speech, and every news channel's coverage of the event is how Osama was killed and by whom.  The most specific details given so far is that it was in a "firefight" in which Osama was killed.  The government is probably going to release more information as the story develops so it is okay that they are censoring some of the news stories, but right now it seems as though they're holding back some information until it is deemed safe to release by the government.

Response to Article on Stem-Cell Research

I found CNN's article concerning the Appeals court's lifted ban of government funded stem-cell research to be quite informative.  It does a great job of explaining the background of the issue as well as what's being done.  In this case, breaking news tells us that the ban on federal funding for stem-cell research has been lifted, and Obama has given the "OK" to continue funding stem-cell research.  While some more bias news sources might convey the networks opinion on stem-cell research, such as Fox News showing utter disdain for the topic, I felt that CNN's coverage was only the facts which is nice to see from a major news network.