2008 Election

Democrats picked up the majority plus at least five seats in the Senate Tuesday by seizing seats from Republican incumbents in New Hampshire and North Carolina, while also gaining seats left by retiring Republicans in Virginia, Colorado and New Mexico.

The New York Times has a comprehensive Senate map with the state results as they come in, but at 4:30 EST on Wednesday Democrats had 56 seats and Republicans had 41. Fifty-one is considered a majority, but it could be a few weeks before Democrats learn the final stats.

Democrats are still short of the 60-vote majority that would enable them to push bills to a vote by overcoming filibusters.

Last week the series of presidential debates began and tonight the saga continues with a showdown between vice-presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. It's the perfect occasion to throw an impromptu viewing party! Hosting a debate party is a great way to feel more involved in the election process. To help you quickly plan a fabulous fete, I've rounded up some tips and ideas. Get them now and read more

I can't tell you enough how important email and online security is! I've been a little obsessed with the recent Sarah Palin email hacking scandal, but have put off saying much about it — until now. The suspected hacker — a 20-year old University of Tennessee student, and son of state representative Mike Kernell — was seen in front of the Grand Jury on Tuesday, and was let go without an indictment. Although there aren't many details as to what was or was not found, I suspect that the search for the real hacker continues.

Although hacking into anyone's personal account is a violation of the law and should be prosecuted accordingly, what really makes me uncomfortable is knowing how easy it was for the hacker to break into her account! Just by guessing a few password reset questions and some research on Wikipedia, they were in. I've talked in length about protecting your log-ins, but it's only a few security questions that separate hackers from your personal email when a password reset has been requested. Be diligent in keeping those questions and passwords hard to guess, and you won't have to worry about your emails displayed on the web, or your identity being stolen!

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Think you can run a better campaign than Obama or McCain? Then you PC users can give it a go with a free game download from the Political Machine! In the Political Machine Express, you can play as Obama, McCain, Biden, or Palin in a 21-week race to the White House, stopping off in cities around the country for town hall meetings, speeches, debates, and produce TV ads to crush your competition. It's all free, and sure to be a fun way to get out your political frustrations.

You can get the full version of The Political Machine for just $20 bucks, which allows you to campaign at different times in history, and get access to other candidates like Huckabee, the Clintons, and Ron Paul. So, who will you be playing as?

If you haven't registered to vote because of one lame excuse or another ("I don't know how," "I don't have time," or my fave "It's too complicated") then I have fabulous news for you — you can now take the simple route and register to vote using your Xbox! With all the time you spend playing games, the least you can do is make your voice heard in between Gears of War sessions and Mountain Dew runs.

Partnering up with Rock the Vote, Xbox Live's voter registration is free to access with a Xbox Live membership. And although you can't actually vote from Xbox Live, they make it pretty darn easy to take the first steps in doing your civic duty. Plus, if you've already decided on who you'll be casting your vote for come November, you can participate in online polls, and download gamerpics of your candidate to show your support. How patriotic of you!

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• Within the next couple of days, the second installment of the Bill/Gates Jerry Seinfeld Microsoft Ad will debut, and I must admit, it's pretty darn funny. — ZDnet
• The verdict is in on the thin iPod Touch 2G, and it sounds like it's totally worth splurging for. — CrunchGear
• Barack Obama's campaign released an ad today that showcases John McCain's technological ineptness. — Valleywag
• It may not be the hottest gadget out there, but the Backup Pal will easily backup your cell phone through a connection to your PC. — Unplggd
• Forty percent of teens would rather have a cell phone over a land line; now why doesn't that surprise me? — USA Today
• It's giveaway time! Be sure to log in to your TeamSugar account for your chances to win geek-chic beach gadgets and accessories! — geeksugar

If there has ever been a year to vote, this would be the one to do it! Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, obviously CitizenSugar has you covered on the details, but Election 08 is a handy little app to have in your pocket as well.

For only a buck at the App Store, Election 08 shows you real time results from polls about who is winning each state, and electoral vote estimates on who will take the General Election. Which of course, will either be a helpful tool to keep you informed, or cause you to go totally OCD from checking it every five minutes. Plus you can look back and see state-by-state results of past elections from 1992-2004! Facts that you can whip out at your next "Party" party to impress your pals. Aren't you smart!

New Yorker Sheryl Oring decided that the general public should be able to write postcards to President Bush, so she started a project called I Wish to Say, where she dresses in 1950s clothes and uses an antique typewriter to type up postcards from passersbys on the street (she even provides the card stamp for each and every one). Oring is already touring the country, collecting messages from voters who sit at her portable desk. You can see the scans of the postcards and photos of the people who sent them on her site, as well as check them out at the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum in Chicago this Fall. Thanks for sharing TeamSugar user jennymkpr!

To learn how to post your favorite websites to our Website of the Day group, read more

After spending more than $600 million on computers to facilitate a high-tech census, the US government has decided to go back to the old-fashioned way of counting the 300 million census forms — by pencil and paper.

CNN reports that this change will add an estimated $3 billion to the cost of collecting data as 600,000 temporary workers will be needed to manually record the census information by hand.

You'd think in this day and age, the government would want to embrace technology and use the next two years to implement a more accurate way to record the data with computers, instead of spending billions of the taxpayers dollars on going back to the old-school method.

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