Jonathan Strong, the author (bio) of the Daily Caller's on-going series of articles based on excerpts from emails selected out of the private Journolist discussion list, has been making a name for himself and his upstart online news organization in recent weeks with provocative attacks on the integrity of many well-known writers and bloggers, and his fierce defense of a bright line between political journalism and political activism....

Three years ago, we had a modest idea here at Personal Democracy Forum: that the internet could be a vehicle for transforming the presidential debates then underway. Instead of relying solely on journalists to determine the questions being asked of candidates; why not involve the public? Instead of giving the candidates 60 seconds to recite a canned answer, why not offer them unlimited time to prepare a serious response?

I recently asked Aaron Smith, research specialist at the Pew Internet & American Life Project, if they had any data looking at how internet use might vary by degree of religious affiliation. Turns out that Pew hasn't really dug deep into that question, so I can't tell you whether Mormons tweet more than Baptists, or if Episcopalians update their Facebook profiles more often than Lutherans.

Several months ago, Julian Assange cannily described the paradox on releasing raw data online. "It's counterintuitive," he said to ComputerWorld. "You'd think the bigger and more important the document is, the more likely it will be reported on but that's absolutely not true. It's about supply and demand. Zero supply equals high demand, it has value. As soon as we release the material, the supply goes to infinity, so the perceived value goes to zero."

Is there some line in the Democratic online operative handbook that says that the very best time to send an email blast asking for money is 11:30am?

After several weeks of speculation, the supranational transparency site Wikileaks has released 92,000 leaked documents pertaining to the US war in Afghanistan, triggering huge stories in the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel, who were each given advance access to the material.

If you didn't think technology was changing politics, perhaps now you'll reconsider?

The Washington Post says that the old Democratic Party circuit of intimate high-dollar fundraising events in the palatial apartments of a tight circle of New York City donors is dead, killed off by the White House's wariness of appearing too close to Wall Street, and the small donor revolution supported by the Internet.

Unemployment, and the issue of extending unemployment benefits to the 2.5 million people whose checks ran out seven weeks ago, has been much in the news of late. Earlier this afternoon, the Senate bill cleared a procedural hurdle, and with the House expected to pass the legislation tomorrow, the new benefits should be law soon.

Lucy Bernholz is writing one of the smartest and most engaging blogs I follow, Philanthropy 2173. The title of her site might make you think it's only about philanthropy, but it's really more about the future, social change, and how we can use open data and networking to reimagine public engagement.

According to our Facebook tracking tool, President Obama has a whopping 11.3 million supporters on the giant social networking site. (Technically, Facebook used to count those people as "fans" but now they are just listed as "likes.") The national politician with the number closest to his, as we've reported many times, is former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, with just under 2 million. Seems like quite a comfortable lead, no?