La Shawn Barber has relocated. She and Blogspot had issues. She can tell you better than I. She’s having some difficulty exporting her Comments section from Blogger, though. I’m no help. If any of you can be, go to her new site.
July 22, 2004
Slice closer to home
Slice is moving west as he does his logistics thing:
I have arrived in [Kuwait] finally. We had a plane catch fire on the way, so our arrival was delayed as we had to make an emergency landing and switch flights. No big deal, really. The funny thing was that when the crew began putting on breathing aparati, one of the guys I was traveling with says, “I think there’s something wrong.” Captain Obvious…
Marine. You have the advantage of having been in the Air Force for 18 years.
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Blogosphere
Daniel Drezner maintains one of the busiest blogs around, and also happens to be a professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He and a colleague have put together their first draft of a scholarly paper, “The Power and Politics of Blogs”, to be presented this year at the American Political Science Association.
I downloaded and read it today. I think it tells some interesting tales about the relationship between traditional journalism and media and the blogosphere. One journalist commented to them in their survey:
“The editorial process of the blogs takes place between and among bloggers, in public, in real time, with fully annotated cross-links.”
I think that, along with rapidity of response, is the most significant aspect of blogs which separates them from traditional news coverage. In editorial offices, decisions are made about what to cover (and how intensely) based on many factors, only one of which is ideology. Bloggers post what they want to post. Editors can’t fact-check quickly, and must make quick decisions based on what a reporter already has. In the blogosphere, everyone is an editor. If you misstate fact, you are told, and quickly. An outright lie may have a million lives if it sounds credible enough and a blog’s readers are all of like mind, but there is usually someone around to throw cold hard fact into the mix.
And there are plenty of editors willing to take on the task.
The blogosphere has grown at an astronomical rate. In 1999 the number of blogs was estimated at under fifty; at the end of 2000, estimates ranged into the thousands. Less than three years later, such estimates range from 2.4 million to 4.1 million. One study estimates that by 2005, over ten million blogs will have been created.
I did a check at Technorati just to see what’s going on out there. They list slightly more than 3 million that they track. A search for this site showed 56 inbound links, which puts me somewhere below midpoint. I like being average.
Even though there are over a million bloggers, posting approximately 275,000 new items daily, the median blogger has almost no political influence as measured by traffic or hyperlinks. This is because the distribution of weblinks and traffic is heavily skewed, with a few bloggers commanding most of the attention.
The main thing blogs do for political discourse is bring a variety of minds together. I’ve always felt that nobody has all the answers in anything, but if we put our minds together, we probably have all the important answers. That is the strength of the blogosphere. Those dozen or so major bloggers help pull all the answers together, and that is where influence happens.
Federal Inertia
The 9/11 Commission officially released its report today. One of the recommendations is that a new cabinet-level position be established for a Director of Intelligence.
That may not be a bad idea. What are they going to eliminate to form this new department?
You know the answer. The Federal Government grows. Always. Well, Clinton often spoke of reducing the size of the monster, and actually did. That is, if you count heads. The number of Federal employess declined at one point during his Presidency. Every department actually increased in size except one: the Department of Defense. Our military was depleted so that other departments could continue to grow while still reducing the total number of people employed.
That is the nature of our Government. It will continue to grow, and grow. No Department is ever eliminated. And every Department always feels it is short-handed. It is time for some lawmaker or President to stand up and say, “That’s enough.”
To be truly efficient, the Government needs to prioritize. When a new program is proposed, some other program must be eliminated to provide the manpower and budget for the new one. If there is nothing which is less important than the new proposal, then it fails. Period. Unfortunately, everything is the top priority in Washington. What that really means is that nothing is the top priority. Everything is equal. And everything is equal because each program is the most important in the world to someone.
But not the most important to the country. And that is the sad fact. Our “representatives” in Washington don’t look at what is best for the United States. You’ll hear them say they do, but their actions speak much louder if you’re listening. They are interested in what benefits them or their constituents. I can live with that. But I don’t want them trading things away to satisfy someone else’s constituents. Heresey, I know. But as soon as you are willing to trade your vote for someone else’s, you’ve bloated the bureaucracy and made every program the top priority.
I know that won’t change. And I know there isn’t a politician in Washington who would propose a bill to make things change by requiring a review of existing Departments or programs before approving a new one to replace one. Inertia in politics is huge. It has a very low velocity, but the mass is tremendous.
And the mass continues to grow.
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Fans?
Reuters carries this story about the time trial yesterday in the Tour de France:
“There were lots of aggressive fans surrounding the riders and I even saw two idiots spit at Lance Armstrong.”
Where is the “Can’t we all just get along?” mentality we’ve grown so accustomed to from our European friends? And what has Lance Armstrong ever done to them to deserve this kind of thing? Oh, I know. He’s a Texan and has beat them at their own game for the last five years.
July 21, 2004
Israel’s Racist Policies
Olivier Guitta has a heartwarming post at The American Thinker, although some may not think so. At a time when the representatives of nations at the UN denounce Israel’s building of a barrier, it might do all of us some good to hear a different story, one you might not expect.
“I do not know of a single country in the world who would have welcomed us like Israel did. We were Muslims and it is the Jewish state, which embraced us with love and affection. The entire world witnessed what happened in Sarajevo and only Israel came to our rescue. This is the true state of Israel and not what foreign TV networks show you every night. If Israel was a racist state, how come they took care of Muslims like us? Our story is a message for those who really want to live in peace in the Near East.”
This is from a Muslim saved by Israel. Of course, Arafat is a Nobel Peace Prize winner. I wonder, how many Jews has he saved?
But it is high time to remember that Israeli Arabs remain far the best off among the Arabs of the Middle East. In fact, Israel is still the only place where the condition of women is one of fundamental equality, and where they can vote. So, instead of always pointing the finger to the most tolerant country in the Middle East, why is the UN not taking care of more pressing issues in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia or Sudan, where Christian minorities were and still are being slaughtered day in the millions?
Berger
Sandy Berger is a liar and a thief, at the very least.
I waited to comment on this issue because I’ve been mulling it over in my mind. Of course, Democrats are already out in force talking about “timing” and “partisan politics” as if they knew nothing of such things. What I have to say will probably be condemned as such, even though I will simply point out fact. Because fact indicts a member of the Democratic Party and National Security Advisor to the current Democratic candidate for the Presidency, it does not automatically imply partisanship.
I have spent a great deal of time in both the National Archives and the Library of Congress Manuscript Division doing research. I understand procedures in the open areas. The classified areas have even more stringent controls. When you enter you are asked to leave all your folders, cases, and bags at the main entry. The US Government provides pencils and paper for you to take notes. You are not allowed to bring in your own. When you seat yourself at a table, you fill out a form requesting specific boxes of records. If you know what you are looking for, it is relatively easy. Otherwise, you go through a series until you locate what you need. You are welcome to take notes, although this would not be allowed in any classified area I’m familiar with.
When you depart, you pick up your belongings at the front desk area. The attendant checks your papers to be sure you haven’t “inadvertantly” included anything which belongs to the Government, and the people of the United States.
You walk into the reading area with nothing, and leave with nothing more than notes written on paper provided. In a classified area, you leave with nothing. Period.
Okay. Tell me where calling Berger a liar and a thief is partisan.