With the looming Presidential election coming, all eyes are yet again on Ohio. Good thing, because if you’re a Tech fanboy like me, then these are exciting times. Tonight, the founder of Craigslist, Craig Newmark spoke at the OSU Law School in support of Barak Obama. I really really really wanted to attend. But unfortunately I could not go. But fear not, because on October 10, the founder of LinkedIn will be here in Columbus to talk technology, and also campaign for Obama.

Regardless your political leanings, if you are a techophile like me, then you should consider going to see Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn) and Judy Estrin (author of Closing the Innovation Gap:Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy) speak on October 10.

So David at ColumbusING says this in his post about the Streetcar meeting:

We actually had to bust out early as the Agenda was set up so that in order to hear from the residents of this city, we first had to spend an hour going through same (politically-sleep-inducing) diatribe that we had to sit through a month or so ago… we just couldn’t do it.

Which of course is done purposely to limit comments from the rif raff. Which is us, the common citizen.

Which led me to think (with the help of twitter friend @jkerstevens) that Columbus politicians REALLY need to engage with the rif raff. Justin recently wrote a blog post called How to change a country in 12 years? Have a barcamp. His post described the Australia 2020 Summit. Here’s how he described it:

The similarities to a barcamp, even with 1,000 people in attendance, were pretty significant. Participants were equipped with white boards, sticky notes and some even sat on the floor in the more popular sessions, like Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, in the session on the Australian economy.

Kevin Rudd said the purpose of the summit was:

‘…to do something new. Today we are throwing open the windows of our democracy, to let a little bit of fresh air in. Rather than pretending that we, the politicians of Australia have all the answers, and the truth is, we don’t, we are turning now to you, the people of Australia.’

The event started on Saturday and was broken into 10 separate sessions on the Australian economy, sustainability and climate change, rural change, health, communities and family, indigenous Australia, creative Australia, governance, productivity and Australia’s future in the world. Each working group was asked, by the Prime Minister, to deliver the following:

‘…First, to nominate at least one ‘big idea’ in their area for the future. Second … submit at least three, and I am sure there will be more, concrete policy ideas, at least one of which is to involve no cost or negligible cost… Third … identify at least three specific goals for which we should aim by 2020.’

As with most large gatherings there remains a degree of scepticism that the goals will be achieved. But, there is also a degree of hope. In 48 hours 1,000 Australians came together to suggest Australia should, amongst other things, open up schools 24/7 for ‘after school care; develop a bionic eye; lead the world in creating a green and sustainable economy (less than 12 months ago Australia hadn’t signed the Kyoto agreement); encourage retirees to act as workplace mentors; provide rural-city student exchanges; provide universal first aid training and digitally archive Australia’s art collections. Oh, and that republic thing seems to be on the agenda again.

That’s pretty cool. Columbus and Central Ohio politicians should definitely look into doing something like this. I’ll be more than happy to help organize this. Hazy Stars, you in? How about you Walker?

If I read some of my Republican friends right, they probably look at the Upper Arlington Progressive Action with either amusement or annoyance. Which is fine. I’m sure the members of the UAPA kinda expects that.

Upper Arlington Progressive Action (UAPA) is a grassroots political action committee based in Upper Arlington, Ohio a historically Republican suburb of Columbus. What began as “UA For Kerry” in 2004 has grown and become UAPA, Upper Arlington Progressive Action.

I for one am happy that these groups exists in the traditionally Republican strongholds. It makes for some interesting campaigns. Now we’ve just got to have on in Dublin. … Not that I’m volunteering.

If I were evil, I would come up with a diabolical caption for the picture of Mayor Coleman appearing in in Sunday’s Dispatch regarding Columbus’ retention of ultra hip NetJets. But I’ve met His Honor and like him, so he’ll get a pass.

What a funny clip from the Jennifer Brunner depostion.

More about the depo here from WOSU.

By the way, for the record I don’t really think anyone in the video is an a-hole, but I think some of the people in the video were thinking it.

If you visit the website loser.com, you will land at what appears to be Obama’s official website. But it’s not. Check out the whois data, and you’ll see that the domain name is owned by Brian Connelly. Regardless of your political inclinations, that’s a pretty low blow.

I just did a search on Google News and couldn’t find reference to this. But I expect that some news hound looking for a story will pick it up.

If you live in hio,  you know that tomorrow is primary day. And I often get questions (work with me here please) as to what political candidate the27 endorses. Well, in order to preserve journalistic integrity, I refuse to divulge who the27 supports.

Plus, I wouldn’t want to offend any of my readers. Hence, I’m taking the cowardly journalistic high ground.