Campaign advertising is generally evaluated in two broad categories: how much is spent on ads and what claims are made in them, as explored in a recent Monitor article .

For further research, consult the website of the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin. The UW project is dedicated to studying campaign advertising. In the current campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, the project's researchers have found that ad spending was far higher in Iowa than New Hampshire.

And for claims made in the ads, Factcheck.org, an initiative funded by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, has short, well-sourced summaries about claims made in campaign ads and speeches.

This week's Iowa caucus has infused excitement and uncertainty into the race for the Democratic nomination; though candidates do need to do well in these early races to be a contender for the nomination. In the past, winners of the Iowa caucus generally have won the nomination, according to a page of caucus results from the Iowa Secretary of State.

For information on New Hampshire results, there is an impressive political library and archive of New Hampshire primary and other political history, complete with results back to 1952.

Another page with very detailed historic caucus/primary, delegate and convention vote information is an independently-run site called The Green Papers. In fact, it was the only site we could find that had delegate vote data from recent conventions. A true public service begun during the 2000 campaign year, and it's nice that site owner Richard E. Berg-Andersson is continuing this web page for campaign 2004.

Another country is experiencing a backlash against increasing hours spent at work, this time it is Britain's "long hours culture," as described in a Monitor article Tuesday.

For more information about international comparisons of average workweek hours, try this release about the Key Indicators of the Labor Market report from the International Labor Organization (ILO). This report illustrates this issue with colorful charts and lots of data as well.

South Korea remains atop the list of the longest workweeks in the world, the subject of a Monitor article two years ago, when they agreed to reduce it by a mandate. For further research on working hours and other work-life issues, consult the Families and Work Institute site.

The dream of owning a small business is often tangled in red tape, at least in the beginning, according to an article in today's Monitor. "How to be your own boss - in 215 highly regulated days" details the findings of a World Bank report on barriers to business ownership around the world. Yet, even with these regulatory hurdles, we're still a nation of shopkeepers in the twenty-first century: according to the Census Bureau, the number of 'Mom & Pop' shops keeps growing. And two-thirds of those started as a small business are still in operation after two years, according to statistics at the Small Business Administration. The majority of these businesses have less than 20 employees, as well. In fact, the average small or independent business employs less than 5 people, and grosses $350,000 in sales, according to a page at the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

The practice of beaming radio propaganda into foreign lands is nothing new. In the 20th century, this became the standard operating procedure of many nations during the Cold War and its aftermath. That the same thing is happening in post-war Iraq should not be surprising. For the best look at Iraq's media melange go to Radio Netherlands' excellent Iraq Media Dossier. Using a good portion of material from BBC Monitoring and Clandestine Radio Watch, this site covers just about every aspect of the state of Iraq's media climate both prior to and currently under the Coalition Provisionial Authority, which runs the Voice of New Iraq (alternatively Voice of Free Iraq) under the Iraqi Media Network .

United States broadcasting abroad, of course, must be done with a knowing glance, if not under the watchful eye of, the Broadcasting Board of Governors . The BBG is the "independent, autonomous entity responsible for all U.S. government and government sponsored, non-military, international broadcasting." These broadcasting ventures include Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (which started with funding from the CIA), Radio Sawa (Arabic-language programming), Radio Martí (into Cuba), and Radio Free Iraq (run by RFE/RL).

The rebuilding of the Iraqi media infrastructure was one of seven contracts given to Science Applications International Corporation by the Bush administration. The employee-owned (and therefore unaccountable to the Securities and Exchange Commission) SAIC has been a prime contractor for the US Defense Department and US intelligence agencies for many years. SAIC was also set up as the prime employer for those working for the beleagured Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council, a group which reports to Douglas Feith, US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.

The IRDC was set up under the Future of Iraq project working group two months before Operation Iraqi Freedom and was, as recently as December, sponsoring pro-Coalition Provisional Authority demonstrations in Iraq. Intelligence Online has produced a very helpful chart on "How SAIC Extends its Influence in Iraq." To learn a little more about SAIC's Iraq contract to set up the "free and independent indigenous media network," go to the Center for Public Integrity's "Anatomy of a Contract", part of its Windfalls of War special investigative report. For more on the San Diego-based defense contractor, see these stories from Asia Times and Corpwatch.com .