I have two different, and probably related reactions to the discussion about how the internet is affecting the way we experience current political situation. One topic is, how is blogging affecting the available information. Currently, I am reading Kevin Sites blog, http://www.kevinsites.net/. Kevin is a CNN reporter currently in Northern Iraq. This site is his personal blog. A second site that I am following is 'Where is Raed?', http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/. This is a blog from a person living in Baghdad. This relates to the article posted here a while ago U.S. citizens starting to get more news from non-U.S. sites. I am wondering to what extent AoIRers are following blogs like this, and what other blogs people recommendd. The second topic I think of in terms of Larry Niven's famous 1973 short story, Flash Crowd. (See the Wikipedia article http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Crowd) I received several emails about anti-war activities within two hours of the bombing in Iraq starting. This has facilitated 'Flash Crowds' of demonstrators to mobilize in ways not possible. Within a day, I had received an online petition, http://www.moveon.org/declaration/ I am interested in others thoughts and experiences with Flash Crowds as well as 'flash' online petitions. Aldon __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop! http://platinum.yahoo.com