[UPDATE: Make sure and see this too]

Youtube and Barack Obama are conducting yet another scam, soliciting questions for Obama based on the State of the Union that he'll answer on Thursday, January 27. Other users vote up or down submitted questions, and then Obama will answer the top vote-getters.

The questions that get the most votes will invariably not be the best questions, the ones that Obama should be pressed on. In fact, they're likely to be some of the weakest questions of all. Obama and all other politicians should be "cross-examined" over their policies, and this latest scam will not even come close.

How systems like this are scams has already been discussed over and over with several examples involving Obama, Youtube, and others on the popular voting systems and Youtube corporate pages. If you don't agree that such systems are scams, see those pages and the past examples.

I submitted the following three questions to their immigration category; I'm not even going to bother suggesting voting them up because I know they'll never get enough of a vote differential between up and down.

For instance, at post time, six people like the DREAM Act question but five don't. The question is perfectly valid, very important, and needs to be asked. Yet, five people don't want it to be asked despite how valid it is. Under my plan (see the popular voting systems page), that wouldn't happen: known quantities who participated would be voting on how tough a question is, and if they unjustifiably voted a very tough question down they could be held publicly accountable.

Here are the questions; you might be able to find them through a search or here:

The Fed is profiting from money that illegal aliens send home to Mexico through their Directo a Mexico program ( https://24ahead.com/n/5978 ). Do you agree that a federal entity seeking to profit from illegally-earned money is a sign of corruption?

Do you agree that both college slots and college funding are finite? Do you agree that any college slots/funding given to illegal aliens under the DREAM Act will deprive some U.S. citizens of college? (attached video: youtube.com/watch?v=WZkvEmSy1vk)

Due to massive legal & illegal immigration, do you admit that the Mexican gov't has political power inside the U.S.? Do you agree that foreign countries shouldn't have political power inside the U.S.? What do you intend to do about it?

1/27/11 UPDATE 1: As yet another example of how Google Moderator (the software used in this case) and popular voting systems in general don't work, with voting closed the top 80 or so questions are all about pot. Those voting up the questions didn't abuse the system, they followed the rules of the system. And, the system revealed its flaws.

As for my questions, they have up/down votes of 9/6, 6/5, and 4/4 respectively. Meanwhile, this has 3152/282:

Mr. President, what is your stance on Net Neutrality? What do you intend to do to keep the internet free from censorship?

Obama's stance on Net Neutrality has been known for years and years and the FCC has taken steps in that area. A question that was going to do a public service would ask Obama a specific question about what his FCC has done in that specific area, based on a full knowledge of what they've said and done. Instead, questions like that just allow politicians to give stock speeches they've given many times before.

And, MoveOn voted up a similarly weak question about Net Neutrality in 2007 in a similar sham.

1/27/11 UPDATE 2: The event went exactly as expected: it was a complete sham. Steve Grove asked a series of weak questions, including some that were even weaker than "boxers or briefs?" And, Youtube managed to get in various plugs for their service, occasionally using the president of the U.S. as little more than a prop to promote a commercial company.

Video is attached, and at 33:00 you'll see Obama answer the only immigration question, about the anti-American DREAM Act. Instead of calling Obama on the downsides of that bill, Grove simply introduced a video of an apparent illegal alien and asked Obama when the bill might pass. (And, didn't call Obama on his use of nation of immigrants).

Personal anecdotes about the DREAM Act are not at all difficult to find (see dozens on the PIIPP page), but a debate about the downsides is very difficult to find. There are two or more sides to every story, yet all Youtube could do is present one side without acknowledging the viewpoint of another side.

1/28/11 UPDATE: I fixed the bad year (10) in the updates above. More importantly, the DREAM Act question that Grove chose is unpopular, but just happens to be from an organization that's partnered with Youtube in the past. See the link for the details.