Archive for June 2nd, 2008

Monday, June 2nd, 2008

Cause Caller: VOIP With a Mission

Phonebanking–a common tool in political campaigns and cause-related advocacy–has turned over a new leaf during this primary season.

Forget the cramped rooms with old telephone lines strung from one table to the next. The advent of cheap mobile phone calling plans led to both BYOCP (Bring-your-own-cell-phone) house parties online phone-banking, both pushed heavily by the Obama campaign this year.

Now, a Web site called Cause Caller is trying to empower even the smallest groups of activists with their free online phone-banking tool.

Try it out by calling California lawmakers to encourage them not to cut the education budget this year. Just enter your phone number on the cause page and the system will call you and connect you with each of the targeted lawmakers in succession.

Starting a calling campaign is just as easy. If you’re targeting politicians already in their database, you don’t even need to dig up phone numbers. Check out this video for more:

While the site needs some graphic-design help, it is a great resource for activists and one I hope takes off.

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Monday, June 2nd, 2008

Hole-Y Cow!

I remember we used to have a cow like this at the University of Florida.

Basically, scientists and students can peer/reach directly into the cow’s stomach to analyze how it’s digesting.

It was one of the things students at UF did in some of their initial agriculture, farming, or veterinary classes.

Gross, sure, but ahh, the wonders of science.

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