Yahoo changes its rankings. We went from #13 to #3 for 'activism'! I think it changed the algorithm.

This is weird because yahoo still has only indexed 1000 out of the 20,000 pages on this site so we are still getting literally 100 times more traffic from Google.

Do a Google search for "Activism". We're ranked #2!

Back in September 2003, I started wondering why some websites got more traffic than others. I looked into how search engines work, read several books (ex. Search Engine Visibility), and started religiously monitoring Webmaster World.

I decided to take a gamble. We were only ranked around 75th for the activism keyword, but I bet that we could make it into the top ten which is the only way to get a decent amount of traffic. Until last night, we'd be stuck at around 5th, occasionally getting 4th for a couple hours - then suddenly we leapt to 2nd. Who knows if this will last or just be another blip on the screen, but it is a fun ride!

If you want to democratize the electoral system proportional representation (PR) is a good idea, but not a perfect one. As everyone focuses on the advantages of PR, in the spirit of critical analysis I will give several reasons why it could fail to be adequate.

Poor People Vote Less
Poor people (and people of color) are less likely to register to vote, and less likely to vote. (Does anyone have statistics on this?) If representation is set so that each district has approximately the same number of people, and if the Census accurately counts poor people (not true for the US Census) then having a district with a poor majority can give them fairer representation than PR.

If you have an online discussion forum, chances are that Google indexes only a handful of the pages. The problem with most forums is that they use dynamic pages and have too many variables in their URL for Googlebot to understand. Googlebot can handle dynamic pages with only one variable.

If you have phpBB2, a popular forum software, then there is an excellent mod that you can do that will greatly increase the amount of direct search engine traffic that your forum gets.

You can download the Able to Know SEO 2.0 Mod from the second post in a lengthy discussion of how to optimize phpBB2.

Currently this website provides many powerful tools that you can use to promote a campaign, issue or network.



For instance, when you start a campaign, issue or network you get your own webpage. However the issue pages aren't controlled by anyone, and really you don't have much control over the page of campaign or network.



So we're going to change this by giving you a webpage that is part of the CampusActivism.org system, but is one that you can make your own.



You will be able to

During the summer, it is possible to hear FM stations (and also VHF channels 2-6) that are 1000 miles away using pretty much any FM radio!

From May 15 - August 15, the E layer of ionosphere will sporadically achieve a high enough level of ionization so that higher frequency signals (low VHF and FM) will bounce off the E-layer back to Earth, instead of going out into space.

This condition is rare. It is most likely that you will notice it on TV channel 2, because lower frequencies bounce back to earth with less ionization. During the course of the typical summer, I only get E-Skip twice, generally for a period of 1-3 hours.

Is Online Activism

Most people do not realize that at its political convention the Green Party chose to run David Cobb for president. There are actually two progressive tickets running for office. Nader as an independent and Cobb as a Green.

The Greens choice was close. On an approximately 300 to 200 delegate vote, they went with Cobb over "none of the above" - the latter option was pushed by Nader supporters who wanted the Greens to endorse the Nader canidacy.

So progressives must decide between holding their nose and voting for Kerry, voting for Nader (who is running in all states), or voting for Camejo (who has an official strategy of only running in "safe-states" as he does not want to throw the election to Bush).

If you are an activist who uses email, you are probably overloaded with Action Alerts.

You know you should be calling and writing Congress, but you also have a sneaking doubt that it just isn't worth your time.

I think you are right. I think national action alerts are rapidly losing their effectiveness as people are bombarded by 101 appeals, and email and email petitions are practically useless.

Fortunately, I believe we can resurrect Action Alerts by creating a grassroots system that focuses on local targets. By targeting people who are not used to being targeted, a small number of emails or calls can make a substantial difference in a local campaign.

On June 28, Canada had a federal election and nobody in the US noticed.

The election was the closest race in over twenty years. The Liberals (a centrist party), who have been in power since 1993, were well in the lead in the polls when the called the election. The new Liberal leader, Paul Martin, wanted a mandate to govern and to hold an election before the newly formed Conservative Party (which was a merger of two rightwing parties) had its act together.

Well, just after he called the election the Liberal's support fell about 10 percent. The entire election campaign was a neck-in-neck race between the Liberals and Conservatives - both at about 33%. The (loosely social-democratic) New Democrats (NDP) were hoping to make some gains as they were polling at their highest levels (around 16%) in any national election campaign since 1988. The seperatist (and somewhat progressive) Bloc Quebecois was set to win an overwhelming majority of the seats in Quebec. And the Greens (at 3-5%) actually stood a chance at winning their first ever seat.