“Politics is like the weather: everybody discusses it but nobody actually does anything about it.”

The golden dome of the Massachusetts State House rises majestically over the grass of Boston Common. The sun glints off the dome while kids play on the grass, but on the State House steps there is nobody except for a couple of my friends — and me, holding a ridiculously-large stack of paper that threatened to blow away in the breeze. “This is what failure looks like,” I thought.

Within half an hour, I found myself standing in the same place, surrounded by TV cameras and microphones on all sides, reporters throwing questions as fast as I could answer them. And the papers hadn’t blown away. How did I get here?

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At the beginning of the year, I cofounded a political action committee, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. We had no money and no members and not much of a plan for how to get them. We wrote up long proposals for big donors on why they should write us checks, and tried negotiating with electoral candidates on why they should send us members, but neither of these were particularly successful. Then Jon Stewart attacked Jim Cramer.

Cramer came to symbolize the foolishness and vapidity of the media in the face of the financial crisis. His blatantly buffoonish cluelessness (“Don’t move your money from Bear! That’s just being silly! Don’t be silly!”) were the epitome of a press that championed the housing bubble and fumbled the crash. We were giddy about the press getting their day in scorn, but we wanted to accomplish positive change as well. So we hit upon the idea of starting a petition to demand CNBC hire someone who was right about the housing crisis.

We spread the word to friends and bloggers and before we knew it we had nearly 20,000 signatures — 20,000 new members. It was quite the start.

A couple months later, frustrated that Norm Coleman wouldn’t drop his spurious legal challenges against Al Franken being named a Senator, we started NormDollar.com. We asked people to donate a dollar each day Norm Coleman didn’t drop out of the race, money we’d spend electing progressive candidates. It was featured on Hardball and throughout the political press. We also videotaped Norm’s donors’ reactions when we told them about the program. But my favorite was when we presented Norm with a big novelty check for him to sign, representing all the money he’d raised for progressives.

Now we had money too.

I came back from my month offline to find we were raising money for TV ads — running ads in DC pressuring representatives to support the public health care option, asking whether they’d sold out to their insurance industry campaign contributors. And when Sen. Ben Nelson started a campaign to stall the health care bill, we filmed an ad with Mike Snider. Mike talked plainly to the camera about how, as owner of the local Syzzlyn Skillet, he received a call from his insurers saying they were raising his rates by 42%. “I can’t afford that!” he exclaimed. And then to hear his own Senator was trying to prevent health care reform?

Mike was just an average guy who made a real political difference. After we started airing our ad, Ben Nelson’s spokesperson tried to denounce him and the Senator himself called Mike and asked to see his health care bills. Mike was a guest on The Rachel Maddow Show and his restaurant has become a base of operations for the local political community. Mike’s story was so powerful that Ben Nelson was forced to put up his own ads directly responding to it — even though Nelson isn’t up for reelection in years — in which he (ridiculously) calls Mike a lying DC politician.

Mike’s story really inspired me as to the difference just one person could make, but I never thought that person would be me. When my Senator, Ted Kennedy, passed away, I wanted to honor his memory by fighting for the causes he fought for. His last request had been a letter to the Massachusetts legislature asking them to change the law and let a replacement be appointed to his seat to continue his fight for universal health care. Without the change, the seat would stay vacant for five months while an election could be scheduled — and the next five months will be crucial.

With the rest of the (growing) PCCC team, we came up with a plan to launch a petition asking the legislature to honor that request. We sent out an email asking people to sign and tell their friends. Within a few days, we had 20,000 signatures. I was blown away — clearly people cared.

I’d promised to deliver the signatures on Monday, without really thinking about what that entailed. I called the office of the Senate President and Speaker of the House to ask when I could come by and film a short video of the petitions being dropped off. The President of the Senate’s office blew me off, insisting that under no circumstances were cameras allowed in their office and saying that the President simply couldn’t meet with me. So we decided to make the delivery something they couldn’t ignore.

We emailed our list to ask people in the area to show up on the State House steps at 11am Monday. Then we emailed the press and asked them to get there at 11:15. I stayed up all night the night before, feeding paper into the printer trying to print out 20,000 names. Then I grabbed a stack and headed to the State House.

The stack — 600 sheets or so — kept trying to fall over and blow away and at the State House there were only a couple friends who were loaning me their camera. We decided to go in and scope out President Murray’s office. When we came back, our members started arriving: old ladies with their grandchildren, college students, and everyone in between. The media started pressing closer: a photographer for the Herald, a cameraman for Fox. Microphones kept being shoved in my face and people kept asking me to spell my name. I hefted the stack of petitions and kept repeating why I was here.

Local TV news isn’t exactly known for its crack reporters, but I have to say I was impressed by Janet Wu. She didn’t just ask me the standard questions, but kept pushing me on the hard stuff, barking responses at me, not letting me off the hook. The other reporters smelled blood and joined in. Soon I was at the center of a full scrum of cameras and microphones — surrounded on all sides, every local TV station there. I like to think I comported myself well: I didn’t get angry or flustered, I refused to me taken off-message, I kept stressing that this was about doing what the people wanted.

(Later, away from the cameras, Wu was a completely different person. “Hey there, little guy,” she cooed at a grandchild. “Hey, it’s OK, you can talk to me.” Actually, I thought the kid might have the right idea by staying quiet.)

At some point all the cameras dematerialized. “OK, go in,” someone said. “Just pretend we’re not here.” They’d all rematerialized down the street, to film us marching into the capitol, stack of signatures in hand.

Believe it or not, it’s not easy to walk into the state capitol holding 600 pieces of paper with TV cameras in front of you and a crowd of supporters behind. I kept wondering where to look and trying not to lose the rest of the crowd. Who knows how that footage came out. And when I got up the steps the reporters dematerialized again and rematerialized inside at the Senate President’s office, to film us marching down the hallway. We entered her office and all crowded in — I didn’t think we were all going to fit, but we just barely did. The receptionist — in the middle of a phone call — looked a bit flustered. We waited patiently. Soon a broad-shouldered man in a suit came out. “Thanks so much for the petitions,” he said, taking them from me. “The proposal will go through the usual process. He turned to head out. I was dumbstruck.

But, bravely, one of the older women spoke up. “Wait,” she said. “The normal process? Isn’t this a matter of some urgency?” “All I can say is it will go through the usual process.” Those women wouldn’t let him go. But eventually he did, looking the perfect image of the arrogant unconcerned Boston pol, and Janet Wu stuck a microphone in my face. “Do you feel satisfied?” she asked. I started to speak but she interrupted. “Wait. OK, go again: Do you feel satisfied?”

Outside, a cameraman turned the bright lights on one of the older woman. She was saying, far more clearly and convincingly than me, that no, she wasn’t satisfied. That this was an important issue and she wanted to be heard. I was so glad she came.

And then the press and the supporters dematerialized again. I was left, once again, alone with just my friends. We stood in the hallway trying to process what just happened. We caught the man who’d taken the petitions as he was coming out of the office. “So, what is your actual title?” I asked. “Director of Communications,” he said.

“And where is the Senate President really?” asked a friend. “Oh, she’s in Russia,” he explained. “Russia?” “Yeah, she’s helping with a nonprofit to assist orphaned children. Pre-scheduled trip. She does it every year.” “You’re saying she can’t meet with us because she’s in Russia saving orphans?” I asked. “That’s a pretty incredible excuse.” We all laughed. He headed off down the hallway.

“Wait, one more thing,” a friend called after him. “Where’s a good place around here we can get some lunch?”

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Please, sign our petition.

Some things tend to be ignored by most of us until they happen to someone close to us, or to ourselves. Maternity can be one of them. While most people “feel good” about maternity not all of them (us?) really become aware of the importance of some seemingly secondary things such as what clothers a pregnant woman wears (or the kind of clothes we should give one as a gift).

Dresses worn by women during the maternity period is the major factor which affects a woman’s mood. When a mother is cheerful,the baby inside the mother’s womb will also be cheerful.  Finding the right pieces of clothing, then becomes very important.

But the question remains. What should we get them? Don’t worry, you can get the latest designs for maternity clothes from Kiki’s Fashions Maternity, where you can find clothes for various sizes such as maternity,juniors and junior plus clothes. Stock in www.kikisfashions.com is also updated on a regular basis so that you can always get the best designs available.

But there’s more! Bloggers and Friends of Bloggers are eligible to receive an exclusive 20% discount! Just use coupon code “blogfriends” during checkout and make your credit card happy as well.

Technorati has released its 5th State of the (Blog)Nation report this week. We of course are fascinated by The Money and how it cascades down the Long Tail, (see initial post here) and the main piece on that will be in Day 4 of the report, tomorrow. Day 3 had an interesting table on expenditure on blogging:

Blog Spend from Technorati

What is somewhat interesting is the huge difference in average spend between European and the US & Asian blogs – $2k vs sub $1k. This is all the more intriguing given the extremely low median spend of European blogs. The implication (given that spend is clearly a strong poisson or power law distribution) is that a small number of Euroblogs are spending a fortune compared to both the US and Asian Pro-Blogger and the average euroblogger’s pittance.

The piece of value left out here, however, is the time element. The study also shows that 2/3 of bloggers spend c 4 hours+ a week at it, so over a year thats c 200 hours (assuming that one does not blog on vacation), which, at say $50 an hour (c $350 a day, c $70k pa) is an input of c $10k pa. 45% of bloggers do double this, ie a labour input of c $20k pa. Of course, I could be massively overestimating the market value of bloggers, so assume $35k pa and its $5k and $10k respectively – still a far larger input than any of the above material investments.

The reason for this – as TechCrunch notes, success in blogging is not about beautifully crafted writing or erudite knowledge – the quality is nearly all in the quantity:

Blogging is a volume game. The more you post, the more chances there are that someone else will link to one of your posts. (Technorati rank is based on the number of recent links to your blog). The majority of the Top 100 blogs tracked by Technorati post five or more times per day, and a full 43 percent post more than 10 times per day. Meanwhile, 64 percent of the 5,000 blogs ranked lower than 600 post two to four times a day, which is still a serious commitment

Lying down a bit with the stats here allows me to calculate that the average blog post takes roughly an hour therefore, probably a bit less…….(this one, if you are interested, took 29 minutes in which 1 cup of coffee was also produced and consumed)

It seems like I’ve been running to the store every couple of weeks to buy ink cartridges lately. With the job I do, at home, I’m printing full-page graphics all the time. Isn’t that what web design is all about J? Don’t get me started on the scrap booking. I’ve been printing out layouts as an 8×8 and that’s eating up my ink like you wouldn’t believe.

This is especially true when I’m not satisfied with the way it looks, so I have to go back and redo the entire layout then print again. Then once I finally get it the way I like after printing out 10 times just to see I have to reprint for family members. You know they all love scrapbook layouts of my kids all over their homes. I know all my fellow bloggers out there hear me!

Let’s face it, ink cartridges aren’t cheap. In fact, the price of ink for me is soon going to start looking like my gas bill every month. Ugly picture isn’t it? Lucky for you and me I have found a company that sells ink cartridges for CHEAP!! We’re talking up to 70% cheaper than you probably normally spend on your ink cartridges. I know, I know! I can hear you now screaming share the info, lady! We want in on this beautiful gold mine that you have found. Patience, I’m getting there!!

I’ve stopped applying the re-fill ink method to my Canon printer at home because of the poor quality but changing canon ink cartridges monthly really cost me a thing. I have no choice because quality of ink is vital to me as I need to work on some paperworks at home most of the time. Thus, I need a good supplier like Pacific Ink who convinced their customers with hassle free guarantee besides the much lower cost for the ink cartridges for most of the popular brands.

They will replace the cartridges or refund within 65 days if we are not satisfied with the quality. On the other hand, we will be replaced with a printer or reimbursed for the fees in repairing the printer if a licensed technician confirmed the ink cartridge from them is the root of the problem. I find this is interesting as we seldom get supplier offers such guarantee.

As for prices, they will fully refund us the differences for the same product if it’s cheaper from others. (This doesn’t apply to OEM cartridges) I’ve found what I’m looking for because I believe Pacific Ink offers the best deal ever as far as ink cartridges are concerned.

In other words, If I find a Pacific Ink product costing less money somewhere else, then I’ll get the cash back to purchase from them. There is a 100% guarantee on all my purchases from Pacific Ink just make sure that you return it before 65 days and if my printer gets destroyed like it did last time. I’ll at least get up to $100 for my repair problems.
Check out Pacific Ink for all your ink cartridge needs and more. You’ll be glad that you did.

I can hear you asking now; do they carry canon ink cartridges? Yes!! What about epson ink cartridges ? They do! They do! Guess what, folks! They even carry dell printer cartridges! Pacific Ink makes purchasing the ink cartridges that you need a walk through the park.

You know what makes me like Pacific Ink even more? They have FREE SHIPPING!!!! What if you get your ink cartridge and you’ve changed your mind, well then lucky for you they have a Hassle Free Guarantee. Returns are a breeze.

Think of a place where thousands of Bloggers and advertisers will meet, make friends and create a nice social environment ! Wouldn’t it be nice if such a place existed? Think of all the possibilities… Well, the wait is over. SocialSpark is now live.

If you have a blog, and have not created your profile there, get one. My profile is here. The best part of being there is the fact that users visiting the site are able to browse the public profiles of advertisers and bloggers along with their associated sponsorship and blog related data. Make friends, and hang out in the desired circle.

SocialSpark is a place for advertisers to interact with bloggers who are willing to take pay per post type advertising and run with it. It’s the first social network of its kind which has been designed with view of the interest of both the Bloggers and the advertisers.

Through the discussions I could realize that people get some kind of confusion on taking the posts as it is designed in different way than PPP. People have to wait for the slot. The better way would be to offer the first post for everyone who enrolls and make them realize how to get oriented into the system through the very post written by them.

However, SocialSpark isn’t just a pretty face. It’s a whole new advertising and community concept altogether. It has been created from the ground up by IZEA, the same guys who developed PayPerPost. That’s right!

Unlike PPP, however, SocialSpark takes a whole new approach to blog advertisement. For instance, every post must have a disclosure badge, so that everyone knows what they’re reading. Also, all links must have the no-follow attribute, so that linking to advertisers’ sites don’t hurt your blog page rankings.

But there’s more! SocialSpark adds a bunch of community tools that help bloggers and advertisers know each other and write to each other even before they write a line in a blog post. SocialSpark is full of communication tools that allow all of its members to know each other and interact in ways never seen before.

In short, SocialSpark is here to stay. Although it’s only been around for a couple of months (in beta), it has a large number of members and the adoption rate is increasing on a daily basis. So, whether you’re an advertiser or a blogger, or you’re just curious about this whole new concept in blog advertising, check SocialSpark out. You won’t be disappointed.