Ellee Seymour

I was reading this grisly report about India’s suspected third serial killer which mentions forensic scientists using a “truth serum” on two suspects. One is said to have confessed to eating the liver and flesh of his young victims.

I thought this was the stuff of fiction, but is seems not. So what is a truth serum made from? Is the evidence it elicits admissible in a court of law? What proof is there about its effectiveness? Do other countries use similar means to extract confessions? Should we use it on our politicians?

I imagine many political bloggers would love the chance of making some dosh from their online discourse and interaction. If British politicians follow the example of what is happening in America, the chances are it could  happen here too.

Former Senator John Edwards and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (pic)have both recently started running ads on political blogs, via the ad network Blogads.

Edwards’ blog ads began appearing earlier this month on sites including Daily Kos, MyDD, AmericaBlog, and Crooks and Liars. The ads offer links to Edwards’ video message from New Orleans announcing his candidacy, hosted on YouTube, and to his campaign site.

His campaign team also plan to use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, as well as SMS messaging to bring people to the campaign site. He said  the Web was central to their goal of creating a truly national grassroots campaign in 2007 and 2008.

Romney has also run a series of blog ads on right and libertarian-leaning blogs, including OutsideTheBeltway.com, RightWingNews.com, the Townhall.com blog network, and Powerline.com.

Romney’s campaigners are planning an “aggressive, innovative and integrated campaign” that will include search marketing. He hopes the blog ads will reach the most influential voters.

Do you think it will happen here too, that this kind of campaigning and advertising will be effective? Will the message mainly reach political geeks when we need to target voters who don’t read political blogsites? Besides using the social networking sites, should they be advertising on non-political sites too in an attempt to engage with wider audiences? I suspect it will only be the big guys like Iain and Guido, as well as ConservativeHome, that will be used by our Tory politicians if it did happen here.

Incidentally, it seems that Romney is a Mormon, which would make him the first Mormon American president if successful. So why has he only got one wife?

I thought how slick and beautiful the new Apple iPhone looked. But it  seems all that glistens is not gold. Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s former  top blogger has given it the thumbs down, and there are 123 comments to scroll through and help me make my mind up about whether I should buy one when it becomes available at the end of the year.  Do you think it is all it is hyped up to be? Are you tempted to buy one?

However, the Apple TV does seem to be a hit.