May Challenge!

May Challenge

The Contest:  Refer as many blogs as possible to sign up for One Million Blogs for Peace during the month of May 2007.

The Contestants:  Anyone signed up as part of One Million Blogs for Peace, from an Inblogural through May 31st.

The Prize(s):  $50 Amazon.com gift certificate to the winner.  Other prizes as donated by OMBFPers or their supporters.

The Details:  The first challenge at One Million Blogs for Peace is designed to drive up our membership by getting you to actively recruit during the month of May.  We will periodically update a list of the top referring blogs on this page so you can keep posted.  To count towards your total, that blog must cite you as the referring source with their registration for One Million Blogs for Peace.  I will also post a list of additional prizes donated by supporters of this challenge as they become available.  Prize selection will be up to the winners, so the grand prize winner can choose which prize (s)he would like of all available prizes, then second place gets their choice of remaining prizes, & so on.  This maximizes the use of prizes by giving everyone what they most want!

Why Just May?  While the focus is on May, you will be rewarded for doing your hard recruiting work before May as well!  The top overall referrer (since OMBFP was created) who does not win the May Challenge will receive a $30 Amazon.com gift certificate!

Get Involved!  Start encouraging everyone you know to sign up today!

You can keep track of this challenge here!

Sixth Tuesday Topic

My apologies for not posting this earlier. However, the point of the Tuesday Topic is to have a weekly topic for discussion, so please consider this on Wednesday:

It has recently been revealed that at least two highly publicized accounts of U.S. soldiers in the Iraq War were largely, if not wholly, falsified.

What does this say to you about the motives of those prosecuting the Iraq War?

How much faith do you have that any of the information we are getting about Iraq has validity?

First Month - 86.18% Increase!

We have reached the end of the first month of One Million Blogs for Peace. We grew from 217 blogs to 404 blogs in that time, an increase of 86.18%.

This monthly rate of growth sets us on a pace to reach 376,395 blogs by the end of one year. While that number is short of our goal of 1,000,000, it would still be a very impressive number and represent a tremendous outpouring of support for peace in Iraq.

Maintaining that pace, however, may get harder as the movement gets larger, so it is imperative that everyone do all they can to spread the word and get people signed up and on board. This will be the focus of May's challenge, which will be announced soon.

Some have commented that they would like to see OMBFP be more active in doing things rather than building numbers in the movement. I see the role of OMBFP to be to do both: to grow the movement towards one million while being active in trying to accomplish things. However, it makes the most sense to focus on growth at the early stages because of the exponential nature of growth, and then work on accomplishing things once a wider audience is participating. As such, most of the rallies and challenges will continue to focus on building the base for the near future, and then give way to more action-oriented opportunities once the base is built.

Please continue to send your comments, feedback, and especially suggestions for how we can build this movement. I will be out of town for the next few days after tonight, so the list will not be updated until early next week, but please keep signing up and getting involved! (This will also be my last trip away for quite a while, so I appreciate your patience during this time.)

Fifth Tuesday Topic

When asked about the anti-war movement during Vietnam and at the time, during 2003, Kurt Vonnegut (who passed away last week) said the following:

"When it became obvious what a dumb and cruel and spiritually and financially and militarily ruinous mistake our war in Vietnam was, every artist worth a damn in this country, every serious writer, painter, stand-up comedian, musician, actor and actress, you name it, came out against the thing. We formed what might be described as a laser beam of protest, with everybody aimed in the same direction, focused and intense. This weapon proved to have the power of a banana-cream pie three feet in diameter when dropped from a stepladder five-feet high.

And so it is with anti-war protests in the present day. Then as now, TV did not like anti-war protesters, nor any other sort of protesters, unless they rioted. Now, as then, on account of TV, the right of citizens to peaceably assemble, and petition their government for a redress of grievances, 'ain't worth a pitcher of warm spit,' as the saying goes."

What do you think of this quotation?

How do you think the modern anti-war movement can rise above the value of a pitcher of warm spit?

Please Act NOW in Virtual Rally #2!

Here's all you have to do to participate:

1. Click this link:
http://digg.com/political_opinion/Blogs_Unite_Against_Iraq_War
(opens new window)
2. Click digg it under the number next to the title of the article.
3. If prompted, register for Digg or login, and then repeat above steps.

Last time we fell just a little short, so it's very important for everyone to participate early and get all your friends on board! I have sent out reminder e-mails to all members subscribed to the e-mail list.

If we get around 100+ "diggs" in the next 24 hours, we will get on the front page of one of the 100 most visited websites in the world!

Thank you all for your support and participation! Let's make this happen!

OMBFP Merchandise!

Two designs featuring the OMBFP logo are now available for purchase on nearly 100 products each at CafePress!


Basic OMBFP Logo


I'm One in a Million Logo

All proceeds from these products will go directly toward prizes for the OMBFP Challenges, the first of which will begin May 1st.

Please let me know if there are additional logos you would like to see on merchandise!

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)

Hello everyone.

As I'm sure you've heard by now, Kurt Vonnegut, legendary writer and noted peace activist, passed away on Wednesday night.

I have been a bit focused on this event, and helped put together this tribute video for the man:


In any case, we have lost one of the few brave souls willing to call himself a pacifist in these frightening times.

"I have wanted to give Iraq a lesson in democracy - because we're experienced with it, you know. And, in democracy, after a hundred years, you have to let your slaves go. And, after a hundred and fifty years, you have to let your women vote. And, at the beginning of democracy, is that quite a bit of genocide and ethnic cleansing is quite okay. And that's what's going on now."
        -Kurt Vonnegut

In other news, the Virtual Rally is still on for Monday. And I'll let you know when we have OMBFP merchandise available.

Virtual Rally #2

Virtual Rally #2
Site:  digg.com
Goal:  Elevate OMBFP to front page of digg.com.
Mission:  Spread word about OMBFP to a wide audience.
Participant Actions:
(1) Register as a member of digg.com (11-15 April 2007)
[Register]
(2) "Digg" OMBFP article to be linked (Monday, 16 April 2007)
[link available Monday]

We're shooting for a Monday morning effort to catch the week on the upswing and hopefully ride the momentum all week long.

Also, OMBFP merchandise will be available this weekend on CafePress.com. Stay tuned for details! Thanks to the Guerrilla Blogger for a reminder to get going on this.

Fourth Tuesday Topic

Find and post a photo of the Iraq War.

What does this photo say to you about the war?

Do you think this photo could change others' minds about the war?

Topic suggested in part by Ian at doodlingintodespair.

Long Weekend - Updates on Monday - Blog Carnival

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I will be on a trip to see a friend get married in Atlanta for the next three days. I will have sporadic to no internet access, so there will not be updates until Monday the 9th. My apologies for this brief hiatus, but you should know that we are up to 339 blogs (list not updated yet, but sign-ups received) after a bumper-crop in the wake of our Digg efforts!

While you're waiting for OMBFP updates, why not check out the Blog Carnival that Sholom at Anarcho-Judaism set up?

You can view it here and submit content here!

Have a great weekend!

Thank You Everyone!

I would like to personally thank everyone for their tremendous outpouring of support for and participation in Virtual Rally #1!

We received 76 diggs in less than 24 hours.

By any prior estimation or anticipation of the way that Digg works, this would have been well more than enough to catapult our article to the front page. Unfortunately, despite its wide influence and credibility, Digg.com is also well-known for its lack of transparency and consistency in how stories get selected for the front page.

Several stories in our topic category made it to the front page with 60 diggs. Others made it with fewer, and at least one made it with 70.

Most baffling of all, the OMBFP article was not even given its full 24 hours. I checked it this morning with at least half an hour left in the 24 hours, and it had been taken down from the Upcoming Stories.

While we didn't meet this first goal, I think we can look at this as a trial run for the Virtual Rallies. We clearly came extremely close, and whether we were kept off the front page by pro-war people "burying" our story, Digg's unpredictable algorithm, or just bad luck, our ability to conduct these united demonstrations of support will only get better in the future. So we can make adjustments and move forward, and the movement is constantly gaining supporters all the while!

Please let me know of suggestions you have for both (1) improving the conducting of Virtual Rallies and (2) sites you think would be good for the staging of future Virtual Rallies. I already have a major suggestion for myself, which is to e-mail the whole list earlier rather than just the people who signed up as specific participants in this Rally! My haste to avoid sending many mass e-mails to the list seems misplaced, and the massive outpouring that came from the e-mail to the whole list (once I did send it, about halfway through the Rally) clearly indicated that most of you wanted to participate and were looking for a reminder.

I anticipate we will probably try something through Digg again, despite its fickle nature, especially since so many of us now have registered accounts there! However, I am very interested in branching out to other similar sites where a strong, committed showing can make an impact. Let me know what ideas you have and we can build this movement together!

Thank you all again for your efforts over the last 24 hours.

Virtual Rally #1 Coming Down to the Wire!

Please Digg now if you haven't already... it's going to be close and there are only a few hours left!

http://digg.com/political_opinion/One_Million_Blogs_for_Peace

Click digg it at the above link. Register and/or log-in as necessary.

And thanks to all who have helped already! Just a few more diggs should get us over the top...

Please Act NOW in Virtual Rally #1!

Here's all you have to do to participate:

1. Click this link:
http://digg.com/political_opinion/One_Million_Blogs_for_Peace (opens new window)
2. Click "digg" under the number next to the title of the article.
3. If prompted, register for Digg or login, and then repeat above steps.

If this is at all unclear to you or you would like help with this, please comment below or e-mail me. I would like to make this as easy and seamless as possible. I will also have direct links to the "digg" button on the OMBFP front page and Virtual Rally page.

If we get around 50+ "diggs" in the next 24 hours, we will get on the front page of one of the 100 most visited websites in the world!

Thank you all for your support and participation! Let's make this happen!

Third Tuesday Topic

Try to imagine yourself as a lifelong Iraqi citizen.

What do you think would motivate you?

How do you think your life would change if foreign combatants left the country?

How do you think you would feel about the United States and other occupying countries?