Spinoffs

Reading Obama's Statement on a Space Weapons Ban

As he promised in his campaign platform, President Obama has moved quickly to distinguish his foreign policy from the Bush administration by pledging to pursue space arms control. The new Whitehouse.gov website has a short paragraph defining the Obama administration's defense agenda, including its take on military space

Open Debate Engine in Changemakers.net Competition

Changemakers.net, an Ashoka.org initative, runs competitions to find new ideas for global challenges, or "open sourcing social solutions." Their newest competition is The Power of Us: Re-Imagine Media and their goal is to find the best new ideas for inspiring a better world through media and technology". The Open Debate Engine Project was nominated as a candidate and I submitted an entry which outlines the future scope and plans for this project:

Momentum Builds for Space Code of Conduct

The Stimson Center convened a forum recently in Bellagio Italy with a collection of diplomats from Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States.

"Measuring and Impacting the Online Debate" Forum at Center for American Progress

Alan Rosenblatt with the Center for American Progress has been running a series of excellent discussions on "digital technology strategies for advocacy and policy campaigns" and the upcoming one promises to be especially interesti

Crusty Old Debate Backfiles Posted

Do debaters even use these anymore?... For Competitive Two-Person Debaters: A couple of years ago, I finally scanned and recycled all of the old Fort Hays backfiles I was lugging around "just in case". I lost track of them but found them again during the recent site move so I'm posting them here though I can't imagine any reason why anyone might want them beyond historical amusement.

Can Space Weapons Defend against Extraterrestrial Invaders?

In a gift to the election-weary U.S. news audience, the British National Archives has released 1,500 pages of formerly secret government documents relating to UFO sightings.

Google Launches Debate-Wiki on Knol

Google recently launched a series of wiki-debates focused on some of the key issues in this year's election.

New Alternate Reality Game Focuses on Existential Threats

I need more time in my day.. Just found out about a new alternate reality game (ARG) that launched a few months ago but gameplay begins sometime tonight.

Adding "Digg This" Buttons to External Stories

I'm trying out a new experiment on the site by adding "Digg This" buttons to (some of) the stories. One difference between these buttons and the over-saturation of these social bookmarking buttons on so many sites is that rather than link to any content on this site, I'm trying to connect to the external story as it already exists on Digg.