Year: 2005

  • Blake Ross's 10 predictions for the new year

    Tired of end-of-the-year top ten lists and predictions? Try Blake Ross’s Ten predictions for the new year. Here’s my favorite: > Yahoo, acclerating its bid to dominate the social space, will announce that it is buying the actual societies of 32 cash-strapped governments. Citizens will be allowed to link their existing names to their Yahoo…

  • Rameses the first war blogger?

    David D. Perlmutter writes in his Policy by Blog weblog, in an entry called Blogs of War: Then and Now: > In c. 1300 BCE, the pharaoh Rameses II and his army fought a battle against a Hittite army at Kadesh, in what is now Syria. The battle was a draw; in fact, the Egyptians…

  • All politics, still local

    Ron Fournier, political writer for the Associated Press, put an article on the newswires on Christmas Eve summing up a trend over the past few years: Internet Fosters Local Political Movements. Sound like a familiar premise? The examples he cites include MoveOn, Meetup, and BlogsforBush.com. Not sure what prompted the article, but there’s no time…

  • Kingly prerogratives

    Perhaps I’m humorless or old-fashioned but I’m still not over the cavalier way the President and all of his men are defending their decision to spy domestically without seeking warrants. Last week Christopher Brauchli put it thusly in a post to Spot-On called Presidential Prerogatives: > When asked by Jim Lehrer of “The NewsHour With…

  • Basic Facts as a Wondrous Surprise

    There are so many basic facts about the world that we, as grownups, take for granted, yet to a child are matters of wondrous surprise. Living here with my eight-year-old grandson Seaney has really brought that home to me. The process of opening up the wider world to him has been an inspiration and a…

  • The madness of kinging George

    The capacity for Bush defenders (I can’t call them conservatives — not even sure they’re really Republicans anymore) to argue that up is down and black is white and violating the law is not violating the law has reached a crescendo. Glenn Greenwald explains cogently just how far out of line the defenses of warrantless…

  • An overdue realignment?

    A diarist at Daily Kos asks Will Real Conservatives Become Democrats? and provides some interesting links that suggest that a possibly unexpected realignment may be in the offing. * [Will Real Conservatives Become Democrats?](http://www.partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=1708) * [Open Letter to Libertarians and Conservatives](http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/18/5724/7930) * [Thoughts from a Libertarian Democrat](http://www.terrymichael.net/home.htm)

  • Time for bookmarklets 2.0

    Bookmarklets were always a hack, says Kevin Burton in his Feed Blog: Bookmarklets 2.0?. Is it time for some (don’t say it!) standards?

  • Google Earth in the wrong hands?

    A day or so after reading that a number of national governments are unhappy about Google Earth’s aerial views of their sensitive buildings and installations, I read in the Telegraph (UK) about Insurgents ‘using Google Earth’. There’s no real way to avoid these trade-offs, is there?

  • How do I blog?

    Frank Paynter at Sandhill Trek has been asking people this month how they blog. Cool people. Not me. Which is just as well, because I’d be tempted to make a joke (“very carefully”), or be all literal about software and processes (boring). I don’t think I have a good answer anyway. It keeps changing. Mostly…

  • Osama’s satellite phone

    With so many lies flying around about Bush’s warrantless wiretaps — even the lies have lies — one caught my ear the other day during Bush’s press conference and repeated by 9/11 commissioner Lee Hamilton in an article in today’s Times. The anecdote (much like Reagan’s false – but – still – believed – to…

  • b!X's postmortem on Portland Communiqué

    The One True b!X shuttered his citizen journalism site in September of this year (it launched in 2002). In Coda he looks back on that decision and elaborates on three major motivators: * Growing weariness with the prominence of demagoguery. * Major local stories looming on the horizon. * Inevitable future dominance of the financial…

  • Growing pains for the monsters of Web 2.0

    First Typepad had its embarassing outage and now Delicious is feeling some pain: Due to the power outage earlier in the week, we appear [sic] a number of continued hiccups. We’ve taken everything offline to properly rebuild and restore everything. I apologize and hope to have this resolved as soon as possible. Thank you for…

  • Back up your blog!

    I’ve been asleep at the wheel lately, but the recent Typepad outage should remind everyone to keep current backups of your site, both the data and the output if possible, whether you are self-hosting or relying on a service. Related: *michael parekh on IT*: ON TYPEPAD OUTAGES AND WEB 2.0 MORTALITY, More than a common…

  • Malevolent Design

    Proponents of Intelligent Design argue that it is just an alternative theory that open minds will agree should be taught as a possibility alongside Darwinian evolution. Another alternative theory that merits such treatment is Malevolent Design. Though still in its infancy, Malevolent Design has a strong scientific advantage, because it is a testable hypothesis that…

  • Well, what’s he waiting for?

    In Address, Bush Says He Ordered Domestic Spying NYT [Boldface added] As a result of the [NYT’s] report, he said, “our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk.” He said the Senate’s action “endangers the lives of…

  • Sue, are you? Sue sue, sue, sue

    Tort reform for thee but not for me: Sirotablog: NOW & THEN: Trent Lott on suing & lawsuits

  • Death in a Bad Year

    “In 2004, the USA executed more people than any country except China, Iran and Vietnam. But last year’s 59 executions were down 40% from a peak in 1999.” USA Today There is twice the chance of death in a bad year. This kind of giddy predilection used to be compared to hem-lines, Power Ties, and…

  • Bumblers

    Let me just say: if there’s indeed a so-called “War on Christmas”… …based on the number of lilting Christmas tunes I’ve been hearing in public places all around the liberal paradise that is my beloved Bay Area, the folks who are fighting in this particular conflagration — the anti-Christmas bridade — are a pack of…

  • U2 at Jazz Fest 2006

    Ruh roh! Rumor has it that U2 has been booked for Fest. This may be good for turnout but it may also be kind of a nightmare for just hanging out and being mellow.

  • Discussing Siegenthaler and Wikipedia on CBC's "The Hour" tonight

    I got a call from a producer of a CBC show, The Hour, last night, looking for someone who could discuss the Siegenthaler brouhaha on Wikipedia from both a cultural and technical perspective. Hey, I’m that guy! They taped five minutes with me this morning and it should be airing about now. Since I don’t…