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Your e-mails

We had a flood of e-mails about our discussion on the suicides at the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camp. I'll do a roundup of those later, but I wanted to let you know about some of your suggestions. Just yesterday, we talked about the internet-driven US Senate campaign of , which was a suggestion from listener .

But here are a few more suggstions that we've had recently. Phyllis Jeden had this suggestion:

I wanted to suggest the discussion of Google (and Yahoo and MSN) being allowed to operate in China though China limits free speech and , as a matter of fact, benefits from Google search engines in spying on citizens. I don't know if this has been discussed but I would like to hear a topic concerning this and America's attitude towards China whom we don't seem to mind so much as they annexed Tibet (though we didn't want Iraq invading Kuwait), forced the Dalai Lama to flee, and oppresses the civil rights speech and freedom to practice religion of all the many people in their control.

Graham Binns from Bradford in the UK had this suggestion:

Hi, I would like you to debate the Iranian women who are striving for freedom.Apart from the demo.today,women have been trying to get into football matches and there are some at the world cup.I know British Pakistani muslim women and they are well educated and vocal for their rights.The Iranian women should be encouraged.

And Tekla Hoban in Burbank California said that an Iranian expat was telling him about a 'heroin epidmic' there. We'll see what we can find out Tekla. Keep those comments and suggestions coming.

Russian political 'idol'?

But here are some stories that caught my eye this morning. A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the millions who took part in voting in the American Idol contest and what, if anything it had to say about the state of American democracy. But what happened if you mixed reality TV with politics? . Modeled on the programme Star Factory, they now have Political Factory.

I've often said over pints at the pub that it might be fun to mix politics and reality TV, although we'd have to do something about multiple voting. One of our callers during the American Idol discussion said she had used a computer programme to vote 600 times in the final. Vote early and vote often, as they used to say in Chicago.

Young people in Russia are indifferent to politics. Will this be a way to get them to re-engage? Is it a boost in the arm to democracy or a race to the bottom?