3/4/2006 - Bloggers unite!
The blogosphere, apparantly, is up in arms. Why? It seems that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 may apply to internet communications after all. What does that mean? It means that, if I spend $250 in the maintenance of my blog, and express political views on said blog (e.g. Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!) I may be guilty of illegally exceeding a financial contribution to a political race. And so Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) has proposed legislation that would explicitly exclude we bloggers from the BCRA.
There are some who fear that exempting bloggers from creates a major loophole that could be exploited. I'm not sure I agree. There are 30,000,000 odd blogs. I estimate that mine gets hit by 3-4 actual people every day. A well placed add on TV can reach millions, and well placed 500,000 adds in the blogosphere may achieve the same thing.
But there are 2 things I have forgotten. The first is that some blogs have a wider distribution than others. For example, every presidential candidate had a "blog" as do many other political entities. Second, money can create readership.
For example, if Ted Stevens (R-AK) happened to give me $9,600 to publicize the advantage of domestic oil in these crazy days of risk from abroad, and the word got out, hundreds, no thousands of viewers might flock to my website daily to escape the madness of such oil-producing countries as Venezuela, Russia and Saudi Arabia. These readers would agree when I commented that nuclear energy requires too much start-up funding for too little return and they would vote their conscience when crazy liberals tried to stand in the way of progress, development and all that the American People stand for.
For example.
Yes, I suppose that blog posts are speech, but money is money. I and my lawyer eagerly await the results from this upcoming vote.
21,400 steps today. Solar energy is not the answer.
There are some who fear that exempting bloggers from creates a major loophole that could be exploited. I'm not sure I agree. There are 30,000,000 odd blogs. I estimate that mine gets hit by 3-4 actual people every day. A well placed add on TV can reach millions, and well placed 500,000 adds in the blogosphere may achieve the same thing.
But there are 2 things I have forgotten. The first is that some blogs have a wider distribution than others. For example, every presidential candidate had a "blog" as do many other political entities. Second, money can create readership.
For example, if Ted Stevens (R-AK) happened to give me $9,600 to publicize the advantage of domestic oil in these crazy days of risk from abroad, and the word got out, hundreds, no thousands of viewers might flock to my website daily to escape the madness of such oil-producing countries as Venezuela, Russia and Saudi Arabia. These readers would agree when I commented that nuclear energy requires too much start-up funding for too little return and they would vote their conscience when crazy liberals tried to stand in the way of progress, development and all that the American People stand for.
For example.
Yes, I suppose that blog posts are speech, but money is money. I and my lawyer eagerly await the results from this upcoming vote.
21,400 steps today. Solar energy is not the answer.
posted by jgfellow at 10:49 PM
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