This past August, GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain turned some heads when he quoted the Donna Summer song “The Power of One.” You might not recognize the song from the title, but cast your mind back to the closing credits of Pokèmon 2000 and it’ll all coming rushing back. At the time, Cain chalked up the quote to “a poet.”  However, he begrudgingly acknowledged the song’s provenience after announcing the suspension of his presidential campaign yesterday.

Revving up for the 2012 Presidential campaign, YouTube has introduced an official channel that will be devoted to politics. Now that doesn’t just mean that it’ll be a collection of promotional sound bites from politicians interspersed with  ads, the channel is also intended to include things like parodies and other things that are related to politics, but not necessarily politically charged.

In addition to providing video, as YouTube tends to do, the channel will also provide some neat, up-to-date statistics about the YouTube numbers of each candidate in the 2012 presidential race, things like number of views, subscribers, even number of searches. YouTube has been trying to edge its way into the politics scene for a while now, even organizing a virtual town hall where users can watch clips and even vote in polls. While this channel may not be for everyone, it’s sure to be great for people who’d want this kind of stuff all in one place.

Check out YouTube’s pitch for the channel after the jump.

As part of a plan to get more involved in politics, Facebook created a political action committee it will be using to support politicians that might be able to help it get by in a world where social media is becoming increasingly important but also increasingly complicated. The PAC was incorporated on Monday right around the time that the domains Fbpac.org and Fbpac.us were registered. For the moment Facebook is remaining tight-lipped about the whole deal. One makes a PAC in order to support political campaigns, so Facebook is clearly planning on doing that but they’ve yet to say anything about who they might have their eyes on.

Facebook has been stepping up its Washington presence for years, so it’s really not all that surprising they’ve incorporated a PAC. Back in 2007, Facebook hired its first Washington-based employee, now it has about a dozen, including four lobbyists. With all the patent-trolling going on and rising questions about software patents, in addition to increasing concern about net neutrality and online privacy, it’s no wonder Facebook wants to have a foothold in Washington. It’ll be interesting to see how they decide to go about this.

(via New York Times)

An Indonesian politician who was known for his role in passing a stringent antipornography law resigned yesterday after he was photographed watching porn on his computer during a parliamentary debate last Friday. The politician, who goes by the single name Arifinto, is a member of Parliament with the conservative and Islamist Prosperous Justice Party.

Apparently, Arifinto viewed the pornography “for several minutes as fellow legislators debated plans to build a new parliament building.”

In a speech to his constituents, the politician stated, “I am a human. I err like anyone else. I said this to the people and to the party. They understood.” He says that he will return to his previous business as a printer.

Ironically, the Jakarta Globe says that he could potentially be charged under the very law he helped enact: “‘If you are unaware that a particular Web site contains pornography, then it is permissible. But if there is enough evidence that [Arifinto] was browsing the Internet, intentionally accessing pornographic sites, then it is punishable,’ [a legal analyst] said.”

(Belfast Telegraph via The Daily What)

The National Organization for (Straight) Marriage, aka NOM, thought it might be cute to use February 3rd’s edition of the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal to illustrate their perspective on heterosexual-only marriage, specifically, the point that only straights can marry because only they can procreate. The old-fashioned way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, NOM. Unfortunately, what they did was hotlink the webcomic, meaning that the image came directly from SMBC creator Zach Weiner‘s server, using his bandwidth and not NOM’s. This is a big no-no in the blogosphere. It’s considered rude, as opposed to saving the image to one’s own server. And that’s not the only problem.

From the people who brought you the Star Wars Weather Forecast, it’s Sexual Congress, a website that asks users to decide which of a pair of federal representatives is more attractive, and then ranks Senators and Congresspersons accordingly.

I’m sure you can guess what we’re fixating on…

The statistics, man! The statistics!

Kay Bailey Hutchison, Senator from Texas, has responded to the successful launch of the Falcon 9 rocket.

This first successful test flight of SpaceX‘s Falcon 9 rocket is a belated sign that efforts to develop modest commercial space cargo capabilities are showing some promising signs. While this test flight was important, the program to demonstrate commercial cargo and crew transport capabilities, which I support, was intended to enhance not replace NASA‘s own proven abilities to deliver critical cargo and humans to low Earth orbit. Make no mistake, even this modest success is more than a year behind schedule, and the project deadlines of other private space companies continue to slip as well. This test does not change the fact that commercial space programs are not ready to close the gap in human spaceflight if the space shuttle is retired this year with no proven replacement capability and the Constellation program is simultaneously cancelled as the President proposes.

Right, because NASA has never missed a deadline.

Yes, we know Hoover wasn’t British.

On Monday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will announce a four year initiative to go paperless. That is, to make every possible interaction between British citizens and their government into something you can do online.

From the Times:

The aim is that within a year, everybody in the country should have a personalised website through which they would be able to find out about local services and do business with the Government. A unique identifier will allow citizens to apply for a place for their child at school, book a doctor’s appointment, claim benefits, get a new passport, pay council tax or register a car from their computer at home.

The savings on paper, postage, and physical government offices are expected to be in the billions.

Read on...

Attorney General of the state of South Australia Michael Atkinson, shown here being metaphorically attacked by the animated alter-ego of a prominent Australian gamer, has resigned his post as AG as of today. Or, maybe yesterday. Today in Australia. We’re not really sure how the International Date Line works.

Atkinson has drawn much criticism in Australia and from gamers around the world for his stance on mature games. Specifically, his refusal to allow a R18+ rating for games. The Aussie rating system’s most mature level is currently MA15+, and anything that is deemed too violent or sexualized for that is considered beyond the system. Since unrated games cannot legally be sold, this effectively bans the game nationwide.