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Welcome to the electronic chain gang (The Internet, the economy and cybernetics)
The Globe and Mail ^ | June 9, 2009 | James Harkin

Posted on 06/09/2009 11:52:38 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Thursday, March 26, 2009 – Day 66 of Barack Obama's presidency – may be remembered as the day that his clean-living administration went to pot. The occasion was the launch of Obama's Online Town Hall, designed to build on the momentum of his net-fuelled campaign by inviting ordinary Americans to pose questions directly to their new leader. The idea was touted in advance on the Whitehouse's website, and 92,000 people turned up online to speak directly to the President.

When the roster of questions bubbled up to the President's monitor at the press conference, however, most were obsessed with the decriminalization of marijuana. The imbalance was astonishing. In the middle of a deep recession and with the United States armed forces mired in Iraq and Afghanistan, the top four questions about both the economy and the budget were all about dope. The issue dominated in the section about “green jobs and energy,” too, where the most popular query invited the new President to “decriminalize the recreational/medical use of marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and a multi-billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.”

After addressing some questions which came in lower down the list, Obama gamely tried to laugh the whole thing off. “I have to say that there was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation,” he said. “And I don't know what this says about the online audience.”

(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bho44; computers; cybernetics; economy; internet; marijuana; obama
Interesting.
1 posted on 06/09/2009 11:52:38 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Those questions about you constitutional eligibility for the White House were real laughers too, weren’t they Hussein? Until staff erased them, of course.


2 posted on 06/09/2009 12:07:43 PM PDT by Oldpuppymax (AGENDA OF THE LEFT EXPOSED)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

who is going to post the birth certificate question and link it here so it can be voted up?


3 posted on 06/09/2009 12:08:07 PM PDT by justlurking (The only remedy for a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Very Interesting...
‘The medium is the message’.. Kinda like Obama’s speeches write themselves with the help of feedback from the internet. Same old song and dance, just more efficient.


4 posted on 06/09/2009 12:09:22 PM PDT by griswold3
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

All members of ACORN asking about pot?


5 posted on 06/09/2009 12:11:33 PM PDT by ridesthemiles
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To: justlurking
who is going to post the birth certificate question and link it here so it can be voted up?

It was at the top and kept getting erased.

6 posted on 06/09/2009 12:12:49 PM PDT by Bon mots
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To: griswold3
‘The medium is the message’

It is not the medium but the content that is as far as information is concerned.

Now the problem is filtering the "noise" and "lies" from the data.

The web is wonderful, because it is interactive not passive one way.

The problem is that things are atomized so much that things are no longer in a context that humans can relate to.

It is devoid of common values and common beliefs.

7 posted on 06/09/2009 12:18:55 PM PDT by Texas Fossil (Once a Republic, Now a State, Still Texas)
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