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Is anyone here surprised?

This article is from exactly the same mindset that Microsoft displays when they tell us that Windows is cheaper and better than Linux.

Fact is, many in the media realize they have a serious trust problem, but things will get much worse before they get better.

Blogs are a huge potential threat to the media establishment, and the best ones provide information which BigMedia wishes to see suppressed, such as the UN Oil for Dictators program known as UNSCAM

There will be lots of loud and shrill posts in this thread reminding YOU, Citizen, that blogs are bad for you, boring, and will make your palms hairy.

Certainly, if you agree that your betters at BigMedia are best qualified to tell you what to think about, carry on as you are.

I mean, BigMedia has YOUR best interests in mind right? Right? It's not as if they are trying to sell you something.

Is anyone here surprised?

This article is from exactly the same mindset that Microsoft displays when they tell us that Windows is cheaper and better than Linux.

Fact is, many in the media realize they have a serious trust problem, but things will get much worse before they get better.

Blogs are a huge potential threat to the media establishment, and the best ones provide information which BigMedia wishes to see suppressed, such as the UN Oil for Dictators program known as UNSCAM

There will be lots of loud and shrill posts in this thread reminding YOU, Citizen, that blogs are bad for you, boring, and will make your palms hairy.

Certainly, if you agree that your betters at BigMedia are best qualified to tell you what to think about, carry on as you are.

I mean, BigMedia has YOUR best interests in mind right? Right? It's not as if they are trying to sell you something.

WTF? DO NOT USE EITHER OF THOSE SITES AS INDICATING ANYTHING ABOUT EITHER PARTY. They're both a bunch of jackass extremists. For left/democrat stuff try atrios or Daily KOS or if you're in to economics Brad DeLong. For righties/repub you can check out Instapundit or the Volokh Conspiracy and I'm sure there are more sane rightish folks out there as well (although Instapundit is on the edges of what I call sane but I'm generally a lefty). As with all Blogs they're all worth checking out but take everything you see with a big grain of salt and get involved in the comments.

As Instapundit said:

In 1992 the FCC fined Infinity Broadcasting $600,000 after Stern discussed masturbating to a picture of Aunt Jemima. Is that better or worse than asking a Nigerian woman if she eats monkeys, or hosting a discussion of whether, when you have sex with a black woman, it smells like watermelons? I guess you can argue that point, but I'd be a lot more impressed with Stern's defenders if they'd quote these comments verbatim in the process of defending him.

Ok, first Ashcroft wants to tackle porn (link), then they want the DOJ to go after file swappers?

This is one of the biggest reasons Bush's continued 9/11 references make me ill. I could deal with it if they were actually working to fight terror. Instead, every time somebody waves the bloody shirt, all we get is some tired propaganda for drilling in the Arctic, a Federal Marriage Amendment, tax cuts for the wealthy, or some other thing we have to do to keep the terrorists from winning. Meanwhile, Homeland Security isn't getting the funds it needs for simple, basic port (seaport, not computer port) scanners: link (found on Instapundit).

I'm a hawk on security, folks. A hard-core, let's get them before they get us, serious hawk. And I'm voting against Bush and his idiots for precisely that reason.

(Sorry for the rant, but I just couldn't take it any more. Feel free to mod this down.)

Saturday, May 15, 2004

My last trip to Samawa was short but full of events. It's not easy for someone who used to live in Baghdad to accommodate to life in a village far away in the south. Baghdad is the most civilized place in Iraq and there's no way one can compare it with the rest of the governorates not to mention the ignored villages in the south.

I set off with a number of passengers heading for Samwa. The road was quiet despite the troubles in Kerbala and Najaf, which are both on the road. We had to use the old road as the new one (the high way) is closed because of the current fights in those two cities.

My arrival day was the day when a rally of support and gratitude to the coalition passed the streets of Samawa. The scene was very delightful for me, I, who believe in the necessity of establishing a strategic partnership with the free world represented by the coalition, because this the only way for Iraq to rise again, prosper and join the modern, free world. Such partnership, the way I see it, is vital for the free world in its war with terrorism, the corner stone of which is to establish peace and stability in the ME. Yes, we should put our hands in each other's because we have a common destiny. It was a very encouraging thing to see that the simple people there understood the case and this is probably the first time where people go out to the streets to thank and support our allies in the coalition, but strangely it came from ordinary, simple people not from those who claim to be civilized intellectuals. On the road to the residents' house we passed near the coalition base in Samawa; the striking and ugly feature of this base, like any other one is, the concrete wall that surrounds it. These walls initiate a sensation of fear in the hearts and a feeling that there's a huge block between the people and the coalition. I understand the security necessity of these walls but they still form an unpleasant sight for everyone, except this particular one. The coalition forces here invited all the kids-and their parents-in the neighborhood for a special festival, the kids were given paints and brushes and a definite area of the wall was assigned for each kid to paint on whatever he likes and to sign his painting with his/her name. I leave it for you to imagine how this hateful wall looked like after this festival. It became a fascinating huge painting that gives a feeling of brotherhood and friendship. These paintings eliminated all the psychological walls between the folks and the coalition here. At the end of the festival, gifts were given to each

YOU KNOW, sometimes I feel like maybe I'm too harsh in my charges of media bias. Then I read accounts like this one from Baghdad, by the Daily Telegraph's correspondent Toby Harnden:

The other day, while taking a break by the Al-Hamra Hotel pool, fringed with the usual cast of tattooed defence contractors, I was accosted by an American magazine journalist of serious accomplishment and impeccable liberal credentials.

She had been disturbed by my argument that Iraqis were better off than they had been under Saddam and I was now -- there was no choice about this -- going to have to justify my bizarre and dangerous views. I'll spare you most of the details because you know the script -- no WMD, no 'imminent threat' (though the point was to deal with Saddam before such a threat could emerge), a diversion from the hunt for bin Laden, enraging the Arab world. Etcetera.

But then she came to the point. Not only had she 'known' the Iraq war would fail but she considered it essential that it did so because this would ensure that the 'evil' George W. Bush would no longer be running her country. Her editors back on the East Coast were giggling, she said, over what a disaster Iraq had turned out to be. 'Lots of us talk about how awful it would be if this worked out.' Startled by her candour, I asked whether thousands more dead Iraqis would be a good thing.

She nodded and mumbled something about Bush needing to go. By this logic, I ventured, another September 11 on, say, September 11 would be perfect for pushing up John Kerry's poll numbers. 'Well, that's different -- that would be Americans,' she said, haltingly. 'I guess I'm a bit of an isolationist.' That's one way of putting it.

The moral degeneracy of these sentiments didn't really hit me until later when I dined at the home of Abu Salah, a father of six who took over as the Daily Telegraph's chief driver in Baghdad when his predecessor was killed a year ago.

Moral degeneracy, indeed. You hate to think that any American journalist could feel this way, but we've had other admissions of this sort in the past. To explain things in words of few syllables: It's wrong to root for your country's defeat. Especially when that defeat would mean the death of innocents. And surely it's worse still when it's merely for domestic political advantage.

The American establishment, led by the media and politicians, is in danger of talking the United States into defeat in Iraq. And the results would be catastrophic. . . .

But even more than Moore's documentary, I hope more and more images and video keeps coming out of Iraq in regards to the abuse, torture, rape and slaughter of Iraqi citizens, most of whom are guilty of no crime. That more than anything is Bush's legacy, his mark upon the world and truly the images that best define our Fascist Leader and his doctrines.

InstaPundit.com has been posting links to other prison abuse stories. For some reason, these aren't getting as much attention in the mainstream media ("all Abu Ghraib, all the time").

Maybe the French, Germans, Arabs, public employees unions, California Attorney General, and their apologists should take note.

May 22, 2004

PRISON MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS AND A DYSFUNCTIONAL CULTURE OF ABUSE in the California prison guards' union.

posted at 03:53 PM by Glenn Reynolds

May 21, 2004

SOMEONE TELL 60 MINUTES about this secret underground prison:

'It starts off by being stripped naked in front of 10 police officers including two women, gratutious humiliation is used to break you down.' '... worst jail that you can possibly imagine.' 'Not even a hole to go to the bathroom. You have to piss against a wall and you sleep in piss on the concrete floor.' The torture victim demands 'the immediate shutdown of this secret underground prison'. It's not at Abu Ghraib, it's in Marseille, France.

No doubt Ted Kennedy will be condemning it soon.

posted at 07:41 PM by Glenn Reynolds

May 21, 2004

MORE STORIES OF ARAB PRISONERS BEING ABUSED:

ARAB prisoners beaten and tortured, innocent bystanders killed by gunfire - another damning human rights report.

But the difference this time is that the violence is being perpetrated not by coalition forces in Iraq, but by the Palestinian Authority, and the victims are its own people.

The report, partly funded by the Finnish government, claims Palestinian cities are in a state of near anarchy, with people on the payroll of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) blamed for 90 per cent of gangland violence.

It highlights numerous incidents of torture of prisoners and refers to the killing of civilians in gunbattles between Palestinian factions.

It is another blow for Mr Arafat's organisation, which was recently accused of misusing 134 million of European Union funds. Mr Arafat was accused of signing cheques to people linked with terrorist activity.

I'm sure Ted Kennedy will have comments.

posted at 09:55 AM by Glenn Reynolds

May 18, 2004

IRAQI EMIGRES ON ABU GHRAIB: This is interesting:

Hadi Kazwini is an Iraqi engineer who moved to Australia in 1997 and lives in Sydney with his wife and three children. He is amazed at the gullibility of those Australians who have taken the Arab response to the photos at face value.

This sort of brutality goes on all the time, it is happening now in jails right through the Middle East, he says. But of course there are no photos. This is selective outrage.

Kazwini believes that the behaviour revealed by the photos is awful and the US soldiers involved should be punished. But he says some of the Iraqi prisoners shown were Saddam's killers and torturers. They have been responsible for far worse violations of human rights than the Americans.

Where is the outrage about this, he asks. I haven't seen

The law requires everyone to follow the speed limit and other traffic regulations, but in Suffolk County, exceptions should be made for cops and their families, police union officials say.

Police Benevolent Association president Jeff Frayler said Thursday it has been union policy to discourage Suffolk police officers from issuing tickets to fellow officers, regardless of where they work.

"Police officers have discretion whenever they stop anyone, but they should particularly extend that courtesy in the case of other police officers and their families," Frayler said in a brief telephone interview Thursday. "It is a professional courtesy."

Frayler's comments echo views expressed in the spring union newsletter, in which treasurer Bill Mauck exhorts "you don't summons another cop" and says that when officers decline to cite each other, "the emotion you feel should be that of joy."

Maurice Mitchell, a project coordinator with the Long Island Progressive Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group, said the PBA's position undermines taxpayer confidence in law enforcement.

Angie Carpenter, a Republican lawmaker from West Islip and chairwoman of the legislature's public safety committee, said she didn't have a problem with the PBA's policy because she believes it will be applied judiciously.

"It's the same way they would offer a professional courtesy to a doctor pulled over on the way to the hospital to deliver a baby," she said. "Besides, I can't imagine that if some police officer was to commit an egregious offense that they wouldn't be cited, regardless of who they are."

While this is outrageous in itself, it would seemingly put the lie to the notion that the purpose of such laws in for public safety, since it's no "safer" for a police officer's wife to speed than it is for anyone else. It's a tacit admission that it's all about revenue generation. . . . Remember this the next time you hear a lecture from a cop about how dangerous it is to exceed the speed limit.

Uhhh, if the voting machines don't boot up, I'd have to say there's a problem with electronic voting...

I don't have to boot up a pencil or a piece of paper. Hell, I can vote by candlelight if I have to.

Has anyone else ever noticed how much blogs just reference eachother and talk about how amazing blogs are, while not really doing anything all that insightful or significant? Most of the time they just keep posting the same old thing you saw on that other guy's blog, while offering nothing new.

Some blogs, yes. Others, absolutely not. For example:

Healing Iraq A 24-year-old dentist with a digital camera has repeatedly given thousands an inside look at post-Saddam Iraq, from an Iraqi's perspective. The MASSIVE anti-terror demonstations in Iraq last year were only covered in depth here, not on any international news source.

Steven den Beste A retired engineer who writes quite thorough articles. Many I don't agree with but are usually an interesting read.

In a more extreme case, there's no doubt in my mind Scott Koenig lost Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney her re-election due to exposing her unusual support base after September 11.

There's also at least 20-30 Iranian blogs that give a perspecitve simply not present anywhere else. There's the CaribPundit in the Carribbean, Chief Wiggles in Iraq who started a toy drive for Iraqi children and Homelss Guy Blog who is indeed, a homeless man utilizating the public library.
Some, like Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennesee law professor, merely provides short commentary and links. I don't see how this is bad in any way. All most syndicated columnists do is pick a topic du jour and write about it with minimalist research anyway.
At least with blogs, you can get first-hand accounts of events and cultures, with no illusion that the source is not biased.

Ummm yea d00d, except that it was Clinton who said Iraq had WMDs.

And since the yahoo link is farked, here is a google link for ya.

And while we are at it, let's look at this timeline of statements by the best Scientists of their time:

0000's : Elements are Earth, Fire, Water, and Air

1300's : Earth is Flat

1800's : Radio waves move thru the "Ether"

1800's : Man will never fly

1900's : Smoking is good for you!

1970's : Global Cooling!!!

2000's : Global Warming!!!

2400's : There will never be a warp drive

Hell, I would be just as accurate as "Experts" if I just flipped a coin...

Correct.

It has been repeatedly shown that taking guns away from law-abiding citizens makes them easy targets for violent criminals, who, by definition, do not obey laws, including gun regulation laws.

Just picking an example at random, the University of Arizona is a gun-free zone, which did nothing to preventthe shooting there.

Or not.

(Score:-1,Disproved Meme of Hive Mind)

He in fact argued the opposite of that, and said we can't wait until the threat is imminent, and we need to go in now.

The thing that's quoted in the link you gave actually backs that up.

This has been proven over and over to be a liberal meme that just can't stick, because it's a lie. Instapundit even points out to a guy that got a retraction from a "journalist" that tried that.

- ac

"Fox News brings out both liberals and conservatives to state their views on a daily basis. You have to wait for the weekend to get that from the broadcast news organizations... and even then you don't always hear the conservative side of things" - Rich Powell

This has been covered pretty extensively in numerous blogs once the left started all this in the press. For one, Check here. One blogger even received a retraction from the guy in the press that tried to pass along the lie. There are numerous other examples.

Again, the lie that was being passed along was "Bush said it was an imminent threat", when in fact, he argued the exact opposite, and went in because Iraq needed to be stopped (for amongst other reasons) before it did become an imminent threat.

That report you cite says exactly that: We can't wait to apply how we'd react to terrorists until after they attack. We know they will, and we have to treat them that way.

Here is a good summary of all the holes in the BBC story.

Good, then we agree that they both were right that they should attack the programs before the threat becomes imminent. From Bushes speech: Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option. Saying that Bush said there was an imminent threat has been discredited. A simple web search can show that: example, example, example.

Read this and especially the links embedded therein, my pretty!

Also of note is that the Iraqi governing council is (occasionally) standing up to the US, e.g. with the issue of Turkish troops coming.

Based on my reading of European press, Europeans are very badly informed about what happens in the United States. There is a large amount of selective editing that takes place, and frankly, quite a bit of anti-American propaganda.

For example, yesterday's Associated Press article about reaction to Bush's speech was significantly different [in German] / [in English] in the version sent to Germany than that distributed in the US.

This is normal. Europeans, who so proudly tell us about the undersophistication of the average american in his sources of information, have far fewer sources available than we do, and the sources are more biased.

In the US, the broadcast news networks are all anti-Bush and pro-internationalism in their coverage. The same is true of CNN. Only Fox and conservative talk radio present the other side.

Certainly the average america is less "international" in that he pays less attention to European issues, but Europe is far less important to world affairs than it used to be. Thus the average American is tuned in to events in Iraq more than, say, France.

Here is a nice collection of links that completely undermines your argument. Feel free to ignore them completely, as I'm sure nothing will change your mind.

But take heart, we'll be rid of Bush in another five and a half years or so.

according to this the authors of the software don't think Hatch would have to pay, if he had tried to license it legaly.

I don't usually complain about stories getting rejected, but I submitted this story more than 24 hours ago, when Hatch's site still hadn't been updated. I had heard about it on instapundit which had linked to the same blog that wired sites in its article: Laurence Simon's Amish Tech Support. I wonder why Slashdot waited until this story hit the mainsteam (wired) before covering it. I love slashdot, but I wish that the editors would be more willing to post stories that are breaking in the blogosphere, and not waiting until the mainstream press gets a hold of them until highlighting the story. :-(

verb. To deconstruct an article on a point by point basis in a highly critical manner. Derived from the name of journalist Robert Fisk, a frequent target of such critical articles in the blogosphere (qv).

Usage: "Orrin Judd did a severe fisking of an idiotic article in the New York Times today..."

Three people asked what "group-Fisking" means in this post, which borrows the term from an InstaPundit post.

The term refers to Robert Fisk, a journalist who wrote some rather foolish anti-war stuff, and who in particular wrote a story in which he (1) recounted how he was beaten by some anti-American Afghan refugees, and (2) thought they were morally right for doing so. Hence many pro-war blogs -- most famously, InstaPundit -- often use the term "Fisking" figuratively to mean a thorough and forceful verbal beating of an anti-war, possibly anti-American, commentator who has richly earned this figurative beating through his words. Good Fisking tends to be (or at least aim to be) quite logical, and often quotes the other article in detail, interspersing criticisms with the original article's text.

If someone can send along a link to the earliest use of the term, I will gladly include it.

verb. To deconstruct an article on a point by point basis in a highly critical manner. Derived from the name of journalist Robert Fisk, a frequent target of such critical articles in the blogosphere (qv).

Usage: "Orrin Judd did a severe fisking of an idiotic article in the New York Times today..."

Three people asked what "group-Fisking" means in this post, which borrows the term from an InstaPundit post.

The term refers to Robert Fisk, a journalist who wrote some rather foolish anti-war stuff, and who in particular wrote a story in which he (1) recounted how he was beaten by some anti-American Afghan refugees, and (2) thought they were morally right for doing so. Hence many pro-war blogs -- most famously, InstaPundit -- often use the term "Fisking" figuratively to mean a thorough and forceful verbal beating of an anti-war, possibly anti-American, commentator who has richly earned this figurative beating through his words. Good Fisking tends to be (or at least aim to be) quite logical, and often quotes the other article in detail, interspersing criticisms with the original article's text.

If someone can send along a link to the earliest use of the term, I will gladly include it.

verb. To deconstruct an article on a point by point basis in a highly critical manner. Derived from the name of journalist Robert Fisk, a frequent target of such critical articles in the blogosphere (qv).

Usage: "Orrin Judd did a severe fisking of an idiotic article in the New York Times today..."

Three people asked what "group-Fisking" means in this post, which borrows the term from an InstaPundit post.

The term refers to Robert Fisk, a journalist who wrote some rather foolish anti-war stuff, and who in particular wrote a story in which he (1) recounted how he was beaten by some anti-American Afghan refugees, and (2) thought they were morally right for doing so. Hence many pro-war blogs -- most famously, InstaPundit -- often use the term "Fisking" figuratively to mean a thorough and forceful verbal beating of an anti-war, possibly anti-American, commentator who has richly earned this figurative beating through his words. Good Fisking tends to be (or at least aim to be) quite logical, and often quotes the other article in detail, interspersing criticisms with the original article's text.

If someone can send along a link to the earliest use of the term, I will gladly include it.

If some European politician made any such proposal or in fact any attempt to "secure a market" at this point in time he'd be thrown out of office.

Are you for real?

Proposing deals to secure markets for corporations is a daily occurance in Mercantile Europe. A really quick google news picked up this.

Some commentators in France fear the United States will dominate Iraq's reconstruction, freezing out France since Chirac staunchly opposed the war and incurred the wrath of Washington.

But a spokeswoman at employers federation Medef said an informal working group had been set up to look at opportunities for French businesses.

"It's a cooperation between the (government) administration and companies," the spokeswoman said. "We have not had any meetings. It is informal."

...

Finance Minister Francis Mer said on Sunday French companies including oil giant TotalFinaElf could have a role in assisting in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq's oil industry.

It's also no secret that French opposition to the war has been driven largely by economic interests:

Richard Perle, a former US Assistant Defence Secretary, said the French anti-war stance was driven by economic interests. French oil giant TotalFinaElf has exclusive exploration contracts worth ?60bn - ?75bn to develop the massive Majnoon and Bin Umar oilfields in southern Iraq, he said.

?What?s distinctive about the Total contract is that it?s not favourable to Iraq, it?s favourable to Total,? Mr Perle, the chairman of the Pentagon?s Defence Policy Board, said during an address in New York.

?One can suspect that there?s some arbitrage there, that in between the real value of that contract and the cash value of that contract there?s a certain amount of political support.

?It?s entirely possible that Saddam negotiated that deal because that along with the revenues, he could get something else.?

He said oil experts who had analysed the deal described it as ?extraordinarily lopsided? in favour of the French company.

Don't trust Richard Perle? How about Egyptian economist Khalil Al-'Anani (as presented in al-Jazeera):

France's opposition to the war in Iraq, rather than being based on political considerations, its historical ties with the Arab world, or an attempt to challenge America's role as superpower, is motivated by pure economic interests. Despite France's attempts to portray its stance against the war as a political one, it is difficult not to imagine the economic benefits to France if the war had not occurred. The consequences of war on the weak French economy will be palpable primarily in the oil and commercial sectors. . . .

The German economy is going through difficult times with a GDP growth in 2002 of 0.2% and unemployment of 11.3% which translates into 4.06 million unemployed workers. The reduction in taxes collected, coupled with rising unemployment benefits, could drive German deficits above the 3% ceiling established by the European Union, which would invite punitive measures. The war in Iraq could result in two immediate negative consequences for the German economy: first, a decline in German exports which is the main engine for German economic growth; and second, higher oil prices could intensify the German economic slow-down. . . .

Not unlike the case of France, it is difficult to overlook the extent and depth of the economic relations between Russia and Iraq which extend over 40 years. Here, again, economic considerations drive the Russian position vis-à-vis the war on Iraq. . . .

I'm drifting, but really,

There is obviously a large market for political writing, which is why such blogs are so popular. You don't have to read the same columnists over and over again, as political blogs contain many new voices and links to all sorts of news stories. Instapundit.com mainly contains links to other stories. But check out all the links to other blogs on the left side of the page. You have some blogs, like USS Clueless, that present lengthy analysis of the upcoming war. In the legal world, a blog about appeallate law, How Appealling is among the most popular blogs, but there are many legal blogs (sometimes called blawgs), as you can see from the compilation on Bag & Baggage. The key to these blogs I listed above isn't necessarily the content (and none of them are "what I did today" type blogs), it is the links to other stories.

Is news blogging important? Ask Trent Lott. The news about his racist comments was small news on an AP wire that no major news organization covered. Instapundit covered it immediately (after being pointed to it by Josh Marshall, another blogger. IIRC, the comments were made on a Thursday. Instapundit was all over the story, calling for his ouster by Friday and Saturday, but the major news organizations didn't cover the story until Tuesday.

"The last time I had a milk-based product develop an 'attitude,' it was because of insufficient refrigeration."

FOXNews
Drudge
Rush
InstaPundit
The Bleat
Dilbert
Blue's
jwz
Davezilla

I used to run a frequently updated humor website, and most of my traffic were people I knew from the Badassmofo.com forums and people they knew (this was a few years back, before "blogs" as such). This whole deal is really a word-of-mouth phenomenon based on people who trust the opinion of friends, a popular website, etc.

I know what you mean. You'd think that this piece were copied from something Glenn Reynolds wrote or something.

I promise that I am not bashing.

If it had been 1 Canadian the CBC might not be charictarizing the US as arrogant and the french might be actually reporting it instead of ignoring the accident.

(many thanks to the 'bloggers around the world covering the angles that the TLNs ignore)

I'm not sure how those are the two alternatives. My impression is that the indictment of Lomborg contains no substantive scientific criticism, just an accusation of partisanship. Both sides are trying to argue a point of view; one is doing it with facts and one by issuing a fatwa and what one may or may not think. (I'm talking here about this specific ruling. I'm sure there are factually-based objections to Lomborg, although I haven't seen one that impressed me, and I'm a Sierra Club member.)

Instapundit has a bunch of links, the most prominent being the Economist calling the ruling "incompetent and shameful".

Glenn Reynolds, author of the popular InstaPundit blog and a professor of law at the U. of TN offers this observation "I also tend to wander around the room a lot ..., which may discourage some of that behavior. And I tend to call on the students who don't seem engaged. But I don't make any particular effort to ensure that students aren't surfing or IM-ing or whatever. They're grownups. If they're willing to risk their grades, and to look dumb when they're called on, well, I'm willing for them to do that too."

Basically the way I read it, is if a professor is engaged in teaching his/her class, then he/she isn't going to have a problem keeping the students engaged as well.

E/N stood for Everything and Nothing, a "timewaster" page about silly news articles, bizarre Flash movies from Japan, and other amusing stuff the author finds on the web, plus commentary and rants that put them in context. badassmofo.com is a good example, as he's a tech worker who has time to kill scrounging the 'Net. His page used to be considered E/N a few years back, but now would be thought of as a blog.

Obviously Andrew Sullivan is the exception, no the rule. But how likely is it that a community of unemployed could muster $80,000 in donations during Mr. Sullivan's recent pledge week?

What about blogs run by authors of books, or people running little companies, churches, and other entities using the blog format to get their information out w/out having to <html> and FTP their brains out?

I want to see some hard numbers before I believe there is a correlation.

Glenn Reynold's (Instapundit) exerpt can be found here

I'm a molecular biologist myself, so as a rule I'm all for nanotechnology. However, the fact that the libertarian nutjob who wrote the PRI article support unfettered research makes me think regulation must be needed. He thinks the constitution guarantees the right to overthrow the government through armed struggle.

Now, I am pretty far from a libertarian - in fact, I hate the fact that Slashdot message boards often have a very libertarian slant. However, that being said, Glenn Reynolds is far from a libertarian nut job. I've been reading his blog, Instapundit, for a while now, and he's not a crazy by any means. As for his paper, your summary of it makes it sound ridiculous, when in fact it is not. Simply put, he is arguing that the people's right to guns was intended by the crafters of the constitution as a way for the people to be able to maintain their liberty against an oppressive government by force if it was necessary. Given that Jefferson famously said that the tree of liberty needed to be watered by the blood of revolution every twenty years, it is not crazy to argue that the founding fathers intended for people to have funs so that they could overthrow a government that attempted to take away their freedom.

It may not be correct, but it's not an illogical argument. And Reynolds is not a nutjob, by any means.

It seems clear to me that Crichton's 'Non-fiction' on technical subjects is even worse than his 'Science Fiction' is when it comes to science.

Glenn Reynolds has been wondering just how much Crichton's new novel (on Nanotechnology) will get wrong or sensationalize. The worry being that Crichton could easily cause an anti-nano-science backlash by putting the phear of grey goo into Joe Sixpack...

It seems clear to me that Crichton's 'Non-fiction' on technical subjects is even worse than his 'Science Fiction' is when it comes to science.

Glenn Reynolds has been wondering just how much Crichton's new novel (on Nanotechnology) will get wrong or sensationalize. The worry being that Crichton could easily cause an anti-nano-science backlash by putting the phear of grey goo into Joe Sixpack...

Okay, let me understand this. Lets say I create a set of Christmas Jingles using something like Cakewalk Sonar .. or better yet, one of several Linux based multi-track recording tools. Then burn my tunes with something like Nero ... then list it on E-Bay - they're going to pull my ad?

Perhaps this is a result of an indiscriminate Copyright Bot as described by Tennessee Law professor, Glenn Reynolds?

Sometimes I walk into ReadMeDoc.Com and ask - did a tree really have to die for that subject? Not to disparage the writer, but I have to categorize this one under the "DUH" section along with "MacIntosh for Dummies."

Blogging can be learned two ways. Visiting blogs. Its easy, there are tech blogs, there are pundit blogs, there are blogs for dogs and blogs4God. There are even nichy topical blogs, such as how to fix your church's web page.

Then there are a variety of free or next-to-nothing tools to get the job done. For the absolute newbie, there is Blogger.com. Once you've figured it out a bit, you can graduate to MovableType. And if you're really afraid of HTML, you can spend $49 and do it brain dead with Radio Userland. There are also a gazillion of choices inbetween.

The point is, blogging is simple. Its not more difficult than back in 1995 when we all posted our first kitty-kat pictures using notepad or VI. Writing good content for blogs is the hard part.

at the U of Tenn and is very active in tech rights issues, as well as being one of the most popular bloggers around.

And I believe he claims to be a Libertarian.. rather than a Republican as suggested elsewhere (what, there are more than two parties in this country?!)

this link should pretty much put that idea to rest.

ad-hominem attacks are so 90s.

You're right, Fox isn't the best place on the planet to publish, but Glenn is a pretty smart guy, and his site Instapundit is excellent.

Yea, Sweden is such an economic powerhouse.

after a while people get sick of learning a new way of doing something every time they have to trade in their newly obsolete product for the next product that will be obsolete in two years. i guess this means any unstable or inconsistent interface is what's truely non user-friendly.

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame has coined a term for this - version fatigue. I used to customize software I use a lot more, but now after a few upgrades I pretty much stick with the defaults unless they're very annoying.