Protesters on the streets of Tehran questioning the recent Iranian presidential election results have gotten support from a new breed of election watchers: Internet-enabled anomaly hounds who say the numbers don’t add up.

Fraud hunters are no newer to elections than conspiracy theorists are to the Internet. But unlike election monitors seeking voter tampering or intimidation, or local experts who critique faulty ballot design or study pre-election polling data, these statistical analysts don’t need to know anything about the dynamics of an individual race. Their toolkit is primarily statistical and can be applied to any numbers, voting or otherwise. The Internet provides quick access to election numbers and speedy dissemination of findings.

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It seemed like more troubling evidence that kids these days engage in behavior they wouldn’t want to write home about. Researchers recently found that one in five teenagers have shared nude or seminude photos of themselves by cellphone or online.

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Last year was a “banner year” for U.S. newspaper Web sites, an industry association announced in a recent press release, headlined, “Online Newspaper Viewership Reaches Record in 2007.” The Newspaper Association of America also noted that the fourth quarter set a record for any quarter since the group started tracking online audience, in 2004, and October set a monthly record. But placed in the context of an overall increase in Americans’ online usage, newspapers’ electronic march forward looks a lot slower. More people are spending more time loading more Web pages, lifting the boats of lots of online categories.

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