PSoTD

Today is one of those days where the differences between news blogging and reporting are put into focus. I would not be surprised if traffic on blogs in general turn out to be considerably lower today than normal, just as audience for CNN/MSNBC/The Weather Channel probably will be considerably higher today.

When one story dominates the news media, as Hurricane Katrina will today, there's not much space for other stories, and not much space for advancing the main story. In some ways, to blog about a different story might actually serve to bury that story, since blogging traffic will be down and interest will be less.

Because what news blogs do best is advance a story. It could be an unknown story, it could be a little reported story, it could be a different angle on a well known story, but that's what they do.

What the paid news media does best is initial reporting of the story to the widest audience with the greatest resources. With this kind of coverage and resource utilization, the paid news media provides the advancement of the story.

When the paid news media saturates a story, such as Hurricane Katrina, there isn't much room to advance the story until the new media "unsaturates", which will eventually happen. There will be many, many blogger posts about Katrina and NOLA that will be informative in the days to come, as the news media de-emphasizes the event. But today is not likely to be full of those posts.

In many ways, this is a day for bloggers to witness events unfold, and spend less time blogging.

CNN still hasn't figured out what a blog is - but I don't see any way you can call this a blog. Unless you want to start calling the Weather Service site a blog - it's updated regularly. Or bulletin boards "blogs" - they are updated regularly.

Appreciate the information Miles O'Brien is providing, but don't call it a blog.

The Peking Duck: China's Forex Piggybank

By the end of 2005, China is expected to hold foreign exchange reserves in excess of US$900 billion, replacing Japan as the country with the largest foreign reserves. In 1995, China had US$75.4 billion, rising to US$610 billion last year. Compare that to the US’s reserves of US$79.5, Britain’s US$48.1 and the Philippines US$17,7 (June, 2005).

Archy: This is getting interesting

A senior representative of America's evangelical Christians is to make an attempt to set up a meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

The Rev Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, wants to distance American Christians from the remarks of a tele-evangelist.

NewsHounds: Fox Contributor Fired After Endangering Innocent Family

John Loftus, Fox News Contributor, carelessly gave the address of an unexpecting family because he thought a terrorist lived at their address. He was wrong and the family has been tortured and terrorized since his irresponsible statement. Chrish reported this story and at that time the family was waiting for an apology from Fox News. This morning 8/27/05, CNN reported that Fox had fired Loftus and issued a written apology to the family who have gone through hell.

Unbossed.com: TABOR - Is your state on the 2006 hit list?

TABOR. If that acronym doesn't send shivers down your spine then you ain't payin' enough attention. As many of you know, Colorado is in the throes of a ballot intiative this November to provide for a five year timeout from the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights-mandated rebate to taxpayers when thre is an overage of revenues over expenditures in the state budget. For the last couple of years, Coloradans have not received rebates because of the Bush recession effect on the state budget.

Blog.Bioethics.net: Ethics and Superfat NFL Players

Art Caplan, rapidly becoming the official bioethicist of sports, writes that:

A tearful memorial service was held Tuesday in Mountain View, Calif., for Thomas Herrion, 23, an offensive lineman for the San Francisco 49ers football team. The service drew more than 500 people, including the commissioner of the National Football League, Paul Tagliabue, and many other NFL officials and coaches. Their grief for the loss of this young athlete was sincere. But the NFL does not seem to have gotten one message it needs to learn from Herrion's death: Players in the NFL have gotten too fat.

Revere of Effect Measure agreed to be both subject and part of my learning curve to present e-mail blog interviews - bloggerviews. I asked a question each day and have posted the responses in their entirety.

Originally I intended to post the whole bloggerview in one post, but it turned out pretty long. So I'll post the first half today, and the second tomorrow. Let me know if you have any suggestions for the process that you think might be worth implementing.

Revere's responses are in the blockquotes.

1) What blogs do you primarily rely on for news or information or just value? How did/do you find them?

Not sure you'll like the answer. It's hard to put the URLs for the referenced blogs on dial-up and email, but all are pretty easy to get to stick in. But it's a beta test, right?

I'm not sure I can reconstruct this completely. I remember getting to Majikthise (perhaps my favorite blog) through James Wolcott, but how I got to James Wolcott is lost to my now porous memory. Those two blogs have some of the most stylish writing going. I collected a bunch of blogs off blog rolls during the 2004 election campaign, when I became a serious blog reader, and I would accrue and discard them relatively quickly. Since starting my own blog 9 months ago, I picked some up by seeing who was reading mine.

However since much of my blogging relates to current news I spend an inordinate amount of time surfing news sites now, much more so than blogs. There are a couple of other public health blogs out there (Confined Space is outstanding and is the main source of news about occupational health and safety for the progressive wing of the profession) and Stayin' Alive is also great reading. So is Pharyngula, the best biology/political blog out there by a long way.

I confess I have much less interest these days in the partisan political blogs like Atrios, DailyKos and MyDD because they are preoccupied with electoral politics, while I am mainly interested in public health issues. The Democratic party also makes me retch. It is unbelievably cowardly and has been whipped by the right wing to the point it can't even muster a reasonable response to unreasonable events like the Plame outing. Why should I bother about the latest rearrangements of the deck chairs on the Titanic? In Australia the opposition party has made in issue out of the failure of John Howard's right wing government to prepare adequately for a bird flu pandemic. In this country the head of the DNC is a doctor and all we get is silence. Jeez.

2) You post a lot about Avian flu. Who would you ask (or force) to guest post on your blog about the subject, assuming they would do it? And what specific points would you want those guest posts to cover?

This interesting question has a double answer: no one; and just about anyone that has something useful to say.

No one:

The bird flu theme on our blog is somewhat misleading. Ours is not a bird flu site, although for many months it was one of the few that mentioned it at all and during that time mentioned it very often: there have been around 150 posts on the subject. But the main topic remains what it was at the outset, public health, especially public health in the US. American public health professionals are having a difficult time. We have no effective leadership and the profession and discipline have become increasingly marginalized, dispirited and demoralized. Bird flu emerged as a theme initially because it seemed the perfect metaphor for this lack of attention by our political (and through them) our public health "leaders," and because it seemed it was a genuine emerging threat of major proportions that was not being attended to. Today, of course, we find frequent mention, both in the MSM and in the blogosphere, but for a long time we were among the few to discuss it and the only ones to discuss it in relation to the failure in leadership. Thus we have no specific need for anyone else to come along and add their expertise.

Almost anyone who has something useful to contribute:

However that doesn't mean we know all the answers. In fact it is clear we know hardly any of them. In our view a pandemic cannot be stopped by any conceivable policy options at this stage. What we require now is to prepare to manage the consequences if a pandemic of avian influenza should occur at some point. In that regard, there is a great deal of expertise but it is scattered among people who often don't know they have it. For example, in small but essential businesses, who are the key personnel and what are the choke points that would be affected if there were an illness with a 30% absenteeism rate? How would they work around it? If someone were the sole (material) support of an aged relative (did their grocery shopping, went to the drugstore and got their prescriptions), what would happen if that younger provider were sick for three or four weeks? If overroad trucking were disrupted by widespread illness among truckers, who would deliver the drugs to pharmacies or supermarkets who have "just in time" inventories? This kind of expertise exists, but it isn't in the public health community and isn't being harvested and marshaled for the purpose by planners. Our blog isn't the place to do this, but a "wiki" is. So along with two other bloggers (DemFromCt at The Next Hurrah and Melanie Mattson of Just a Bump in the Beltway) we started (with the amazing technical expertise of pogge of the pogge.ca blog in Canada) the Flu Wiki (http://www.fluwikie.com). It is an open site where any and all can contribute, edit and correct current entries, and take away much current information on planning for pandemic flu. It has been an amazing success and grows daily. We will need sources like this if we are to prepare to help each other in a crisis, rather than turn our backs on each other, retreat to a cabin in the woods, and guard our families with guns to avoid infected outsiders or those also seeking the staples of life. Cooperation is our strategy, not survivalist preparation and the Flu Wiki is one way to promote it. In a sense, everyone who participates there will be our "guest bloggers on bird flu."

Part II on Sunday.

Baghdad Burning hasn't been updated since July 15...

Which one(s) do you prefer, and why? Technorati, Feedster, IceRocket, whatever else...

One of the appearances, at least, from the state rosters of Lefty Blogs are how few liberal/progressive/left blogs there are in some states. Take a look at these numbers:

Mississippi - 1 blog - and it is a newspaper
Louisiana - 2 blogs
Nebraska - 4 blogs
Arkansas - 4 blogs

If you know of a "lefty" blog from one of those four states, can you post their link here in comments? I think the liberal blogosphere ought to try to flesh out the coverage in some of the lesser blogged states.

Update: A few Mississippi blogs for consideration:

Magnolia Politics
Hungry Blues
Kaustic
JohnSugg.com

We're up to 1607th with a bullet on The Truth Laid Bear, so I took a look around at some of my new neighbors, and here are some of the more interesting posts:

My 2 Cent:

So I been in this wheelchair for about 4 weeks and I have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as handicap access. It's just an illusion. Businesses and such will tell you they are handicap friendly but it's mostly lip service. Yeah, they meet government standards, but that's not saying much. Here are a few examples:

Shopping malls. Sure they have the wheelchair ramp, but once you get to the front door, there's no button or switch to get it to open automatically. So, I try to pull it open, but the thing is fucking heavy and I'm no weakling. I look up to make sure I'm at the right door and sure enough it has a handicap sticker. OK guys, putting a sticker on it doesn't make it any easier to open. Fuck! Now this isn't every mall, but it was a good bit of them.

Suitable for Mixed Company:

Some Dominican nuns have found a United States company that still manufactures washboards, and they are delighted to have been able to buy a new one to replace the ones they'd worn out keeping their white habits white. The Columbus Washboard Co. has bowed to the times and makes musical washboards and decorative washboards, too, but it still makes working washboards - and has a special program to provide soldiers with washboards and cleaning supplies.

Better Living: Thoughts from Mark Daniels:

My wife and I just returned from her thirty-fifth high school class reunion. I always enjoy these get-togethers because we graduated from the same school with me following her by a year and I know and am friends with many of her classmates.

We had a great time.!

But one big surprise hit us. After a mixer, we moved toward the banquet hall. An Amish guy greeted us by name. Ours was a city high school and definitely had no Amish contingent. It was a member of the class of '70, though. After thirty years as a Math or Science teacher, he told me, he retired, moved to Logan County, about forty miles northwest of Columbus, our hometown, and became Amish!

I didn't know a person could become Amish!

Has anyone ever heard of this before?

Transterrestrial Musings:

Bob Moog has died. It's hard to overestimate how much he changed the face of modern music.

Organic Baby Farm:

Why, in the good ol' U. S. of A., home of capitalism and famous for American ingenuity, can't anyone seem to make a bra for the busty that is affordable and cute and provides uplift, separation, and style? And why can't these be carried in normal stores?

cre8d journal:

There’s a desire in me to simplify, slow down and get to a deeper level of reflection and thinking.

Do you struggle with this desire and the reality of a day of interruptions too?

With all this focus on connectedness and community, have we forgotten the importance of balancing this with aloneness and silence?

Were we meant to multitask?

Surprisingly, the new neighborhood is somewhat vacated... a lot of the blogs that surround PSoTD on this countdown have stopped publishing earlier in 2005.

I don't know what the deal is with LeftyBlogs, but they've declined this blog for inclusion as a Pennsylvania blog. Kinda annoying, since they emailed me to submit my site...

Update: Apparently I am left enough, as Kari Chisholm's message in comments indicates. My apologies.

Today let's look at The Funny Farm's blogroll, and check some of those sites out...

Memeorandum --- The American Street --- The Grand Old Party --- Cursor --- Common Dreams News Center --- Alternet --- Move On --- Buzzflash --- Tom Paine --- Tapped --- TBogg (LandSnark) --- South Knox Bubba --- The Rude Pundit --- Talk Left --- The Hollywood Liberal --- The Smirking Chimp --- Majikthise --- The Practical Press --- Democratic Underground --- 3AM Magazine --- The Randi Rhodes Show --- Body and Soul --- Yar's Revenge --- The King of Zembla --- busy busy busy --- Orcinus --- ChoBlog --- Scoobie Davis --- Not Geniuses --- Baghdad Burning --- Informed Comment --- Talking Points Memo --- Tina's Shark Tank --- Alas, a Blog --- Matt Tobey's City of Floating Blogs --- Shakespeare's Sister --- Blondesense --- Mad Kane's Notables --- Dubya's Dayly Diary --- President Boxer --- Bob Harris --- Follow Me Here --- Fishwars Blog --- The Left Coaster --- PSotD --- This is Class Warfare --- StoutDemBlog --- Cup O' Joe --- Maru (WTF is itNow?) --- Michael Moore --- The Anti-Rush --- The Sideshow --- O-Dub --- Wampum --- Happy Furry Puppy Story Time --- skippy --- No More Mister Nice Blog --- Nathan Newman --- Max Speak, You Listen! --- The Talking Dog --- Dogged Blog --- Preemptive Karma --- Red Meat --- Calpundit --- Lazy Days and Sunshine --- Sisyphus Shrugged --- Democratic Veteran --- Bloggin' in a Bunker --- Back to Iraq 2.0 --- Lies,Damn Lies,and Statistics --- The Vidiot is pissed! --- American Leftist --- Alternative Energy --- Break Your Chains --- Cliches --- Blaghdad Cafe --- The Mo Paul Institue of Fine Art --- The Modern Humorist --- The Church of the Sub-Genius --- Agitproperties Web Zone --- BaconSlab Archives --- Ethel the Blog

Please do something about the blogspamming that is clogging up your search engine. For example, today, when I searched for

"life insurance for active-duty National"

I was awarded these fabulous results:

Man, you have to be careful what you say on your political site, and what you link, or you get some VERY funky ad matches.

I run Political Site of the Day, and I've been struggling with some awful ad "matches" with Google Ads the past few weeks. I had a Cayman Island related pick one day, and a goofy Hamster for President pick one day, and I've been paying for it ever since with their matches. I'll admit, I was experimenting, but apparently the Cayman Island and hamster food advertisers are really in need of placement.

So... Taegan, I'm going to set up with your Network as soon as I get it figured out.

Some very interesting blogposts I'm reading in my bloglines catchup...

Marginal Revolution: Tantrums as Status Symbols

In an Alternate Universe: Massacre on Capitol Hill

TalkLeft: Virginia Judge Declares DUI Law Unconstitutional

Freiheit und Wissen: An American Labor Party

Alternative hippopotamus: Republicans Protest Use of Budget for ANWR Drilling

Nathan Newman: Texas Belongs to Progressives

Capitol Ideas: Gov. Ed Rendell said that he'd sign a bill delaying lawmakers' pay raises if the Legislature sends him one

Check 'em out.

Remember the way they used to say "Thank You!" on Hee Haw?

Well, I'm not doing THAT, but I want to thank the two fine blogs below for adding PSoTD to their blogroll..

Just A Bump In The Beltway

Paperwight's Fair Shot

A tip of the hat to you both!

Surprisingly, I am now a "Large Mammal" at The Truth Laid Bear. Of course, that's kind of misleading... Large Mammals start with the 101st most whatever (popular? linked to? visited?) blog, and go all the way to 1805th most whatever.

I'm 1749th 1682nd most whatever.

Anyways, this move means I have some new neighbors! So, with no further ado, here's some interesting posts from these up-to-now-unknown-to-me-but-more-popular-than-me bloggers (or whatever!):

PrestoPundit

Conservative Bloggers love Michelle Malkin

50+ bloggers picked their favorite conservatives in America and Michelle Malkin edges out the President for the #1 spot.

Okay...

AKMA's Random Thoughts

While I was travelling, I overheard a media report that dermatologists suggest that every American have a yearly dermatological exam to catch skin cancer in its earliest stages.

Meanwhile, over at Ignosi et Quasi Occulti, Kevin considers the likelihood of getting a yearly exam for his general health, and it just doesn’t add up. We’ve heard comparable stories from Jeneane and Chris and probably other people, too. If Kevin can’t afford a basic health care check-up, what does the recommendation of yearly dermatological check-ups imply? When will the sleeping giant of the U.S. health-care mess wake up?

The Elfin Ethicist

Ever wondered how the intellectual property rights to religious texts are determined?

Progressive Society Blog

Well, September 24th is around the corner (think we'll be up to $3.15/gallon by then?) and its time to begin planning the March on Washington to end the war in Iraq.

Small Business Trends

Inc.com reports that optimism is up among U.S. small business owners.

On the same day the Los Angeles Times reports that confidence is down among U.S. small business owners.

So what's going on? Is one study right and the other wrong?

Well, I'm not inclined to put much stock into what Inc promotes...

time for the end of the day question...

What's the coolest/most useful "technology" gadget you've acquired in the past year?

Hat tip to Wilson's Blogmanac for highlighting this: from Micro Persuasion

What Role Will Web Designers Play in an RSS World?

Right now the number of Internet users who subscribe to RSS feeds is tiny. Have no fear, it will rise dramatically in the years ahead. As I told Debbie Weil today, I think RSS is the second coming of the web. But what will web design look like on that fateful day when more people subscribe rather than browse sites? The final answer to this open question has huge implications not only for the design community, but for toolmakers like Adobe and advertisers too.

I think Steve Rubel is spot on here. Every blogger ought to give this a read. These days, I find it much more encouraging when somebody becomes a subscriber to PSoTD through Bloglines or other aggregator. I still have less subscribers than links, but the day is coming where that will change.

Trump has a blog.

or however that should be said. Here's a bit of a spotlight on the blogroll of Washington State Political Report:

Daily Kos --- Talking Points Memo --- This Modern World --- Bob Harris --- Max Speaks --- Eschaton (atrios) --- Bartcop --- Daily Howler --- Kicking Ass --- Political State Report --- Jesus' General --- skippy the bush kangaroo --- First Draft --- Xoverboard --- Corrente --- Mathew Gross --- Steve Gillard --- Democracy For Washington --- Democracy For Vancouver --- Upper Left --- Chad Johnson --- Columbian Watch --- Progressive Majority Washington --- Evergreen Politics --- Horses Ass --- OlyScoop --- Kitsap Pundit --- Pacific Views --- Northwest Progressive Institute --- Orcinus --- Preemptive Karma --- Peace Tree Farm --- The Panda's Thumb --- London Underground Tube Diary --- Jerry

Some should be quite familiar to you, some not so much, but check them all out, good stuff!

Rox wants to know what you'd want to eat for your last meal.

But we didn't get a dinner invite...

I was checking out Technorati's Top 100 Blogs. It's all based on the number of links a blog receives.

There were a couple of positions where I realized my blog could make a difference. For example, by plugging Joel on Software's blog I could move that blog from 40th to a tie for 39th.

Also, I can help Lextext move into a tie with Scrappleface (sorry, no linky!) at 56.

And here's my chance to move Crooked Timber into 60th place all by itself.

Of course, what is the point of this. When a blog such as Where is Raed which undeniably was important two years ago, but hasn't been updated in a YEAR, is still ranked 79th, then you gotta wonder why its worth the effort making the artwork Technorati created to provide the link to the rankings.

C'mon. That's just way too simplistic of a model.

And here's somebody else who thinks so also, and is putting some money up to challenge Technorati's list.

Just a word of thanks to two fine blogs for adding PSoTD to their blogrolls...

Majikthise

Rowhouse Logic

Much appreciate the fine company!

Why not help Frosh Slosh B'Gosh get to 30,000 in his first year?

Cheer T. Rex up with some kind comments...

Go ask Faith Forward when he's planning to post again...

Same holds true for Mamie...

And let Can't Keep Quiet know what you think of her redesign. I like it.

I was just looking at my ranking at the Truth Laid Bear, and thought I'd promote some of the postings of blogs that are near mine in traffic...

Another member of my blogroll is bowing out. Onanism Today, we hardly knew ye...

and crap, Good Intentions has left now also, due to privacy concerns...

From WebProNews:

Yahoo is currently testing its blog-search in Korea. When Yahoo releases the blog-search in other countries such as the United States, it will pose a competitive threat to other blog search engines like Technorati.

So when is Google going to buy Technorati? It just seems like... destiny...

but they would have to do a much better job than they've done with Blogger.

Other comments: Tom Raftery's I.T. Views says Yahoo must include an RSS feed subscription.

The Blog Herald wonders if Yahoo! is also thinking about rolling out Yahoo! Blogs to the rest of the world as well.

Gary Price at Search Engine Watch makes the easiest prediction: " the guessing game about when Yahoo blog/rss search will launch outside of Korea will continue at a fever pitch. "

Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth...

Thanks to the following site for adding PSoTD to their blogroll:

Blankbaby

Much appreciated!