(Due to a family situation, we're offering up an abbreviated and belated digest today. In it, we point you to some of the day's more interesting stories; we'll return to our usual wordy and considered digestin' tomorrow. We appreciate your understanding.)

The Web on the Candidates

• At about 8:30 EST this morning and on the eve of the Senate vote on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the protest action we've been tracking against Barack Obama's stance on telecom immunity positively swamped the Google News results for searches about the bill. Add that to the metrics by which to judge the anti-FISA action's success?

The Candidates on the Web

• While we simply cannot wait to dive into this Mother Jones piece on John McCain's technology policy platform and then tell you just exactly what we make of it, we like you so much we're willing to give you a head start.

• It's one thing to read it with your own eyes but it's another to hear it with your own ears: some ad-sters and radio hosts are salivating over how Obama's Grammy-winning audio recording of his "Dreams from My Father" memoir could be used against him.

TechCongress and Beyond

• First Boing Boing goes all deletion happy and then then Flickr pulls down a picture of a Romania kid smoking, and now this! Is the House of Representatives' Franking Commission really trying to block Rep. John Culberson from Twittering, Qiking, and blogging? Before we jump to conclusions on this, let's take a pause: the letter (pdf) Culberson cites as an attempt to hush him up doesn't, upon first reading, seem all that restrictive. House rules are notoriously fuzzy and dated when it comes to online communications, but we suggest that you take this situation with a fairly sizable grain of partisan salt -- at least until it shakes out a bit more.

• Then again, rather than fighting House Admin, Culberson might want to instead make a go for the job of British prime minister: Gordon Brown and his team at 10 Downing Street are reporting back from the the G8 Summit now happening in Hokkaido, Japan via Twitter, Flickr, and the official blog -- all gathered together on a helpful microsite. It's good to be king, PM. (Thx Mike Plugh)

• NPR's new Get My Vote is "an online space where people explain their core political beliefs and share personal stories about how those beliefs were formed." It's sorta like StoryCorps meets 10 Questions meets the Iowa caucuses.

In Case You Missed It...

This Thursday at 2 p.m. EST, Personal Democracy Forum's Dave Witzel will sit down with the Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich to discuss the Open House Project, and here's the particularly exciting part -- the floor is yours. Post questions for John now and then come back on Thursday to take part in the live chat. (Our first question for John is obvious: what's he make of the Culberson Twitter hubbub detailed above?)

Barack Obama | FISA | John Culberson | John McCain | technology policy | the Open House Project | Twitter
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