Of blogs and SWAT teams

LLRX.com (for which I've written a couple of articles) features an Internet Roundtable on weblogs: Just why are they so darn exciting? Among those taking part: Jerry Lawson, Brenda Howard, Dennis Kennedy, Ernest Svenson (aka Ernie the Attorney) and Tom Mighell.

Good quote from Ernie: "I have no idea where my blog is heading. I just hope that it doesnít wind up in a place where the SWAT teams have to storm in."

Reviews of wack job Ann Coulter's new book

The trouble with getting three Sunday newspapers -- we get the NY Times, SF Chron and San Jose Merc -- is that it takes a few days to read them all. So, belatedly, don't miss:

- Dan Gillmor's important and plaintive plea to elected officials to leave a paper trail, even when going electronic, to ensure the integrity of our elections.

- Two looks at right-wing wack job Ann Coulter's new book, Treason, in the NY Times (Blond Lightning on the Far Right) and the SF Chron (Dangerous Minds). It's scary that this book -- which, among other things, defends Joe McCarthy as a true patriot -- is No. 2 on the non-fiction list.

The Times' review is more thorough, but the Chron's piece is more fun. Outtakes from the latter:

What do you say to the physically mature, opinionated female pundit (suspected of leveraging her sex) who begins Chapter 6 of her new book with the very same sentence? You say, "Ms. Coulter, in light of the insipid invective, appalling ignorance, slipshod scholarship and egregious dishonesty oozing from your new book, 'Treason,' I'm not surprised. You richly deserve the title of pseudo-intellectual and give real meaning to Jacques Barzun's complaint about 'the menace of the untaught -- the menace to themselves and to us.' But I'm not sure what to conclude about your publisher." ...

although Ann Coulter's "Treason" may be proof positive of Samuel Johnson's observation that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," what really matters is how many of her die-hard fans (a.k.a. stupid white males) seize upon it as the gospel truth, and vote accordingly.

The book is a mess! Coulter's first paragraph contains the vile suggestion that liberals constitute an inferior race. The evidence? "Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." Essence? According to George Fredrickson's history of racism, "It is when differences that might otherwise be considered ethnocultural are regarded as innate, indelible, and unchangeable that a racist attitude or ideology can be said to exist."

Coulter may substitute a "political" difference for the "ethnocultural" out of ignorance, but her objective seems clear -- to supplant "nigger" and "communist" with "liberal," as the new conservative epithet describing inferiors beyond redemption and thus unfit for consideration. ...

Coulter's pseudo-racist view of liberals enables her to adopt the notorious demagogue, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, as her intellectual pimp. Her book attempts to rehabilitate McCarthy by proving he was "indispensable." ...

Entertainment industry sets up RespectCopyrights.org

Dan Gillmor in today's eJournal: Respect Copyright, Says a Pious Hollywood. Sony, Disney, AOL and the other big movie studios have set up a cleverly named site, Respect Copyrights.org, as part of a campaign (also including TV commercials and in-theater pitches) aimed at persuading us all of a single point -- that it's wrong to infringe on copyrights.

A fresh look at ActiveWords

Seattle Times: New utility program makes it easier to open Windows. A look at the fabulous, time-saving PC app ActiveWords. Thanks to Doc for the pointer. (And I just used ActiveWords to supply Doc's link.)

Schools stay mum on file traders' names

News.com: Schools stay mum on file traders' names.

Some universities are balking at stepped up demands from the recording industry to unmask alleged student file swappers, citing procedural uncertainties over an avalanche of subpoenas filed with the courts in recent weeks.

Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Tuesday said they are barred from immediately handing over the names of students to the recording industry by the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, which requires institutions to notify students before releasing any personal data.

Both schools said they were opposing the subpoenas on procedural grounds, rather than contesting the RIAA's right to the information. As a result, the refusals could further delay--but are unlikely to derail--the recording industry's efforts to unmask the identities of file swappers and ultimately file suit against them.

"MIT of course has a policy of complying with lawfully issued subpoenas," said professor James Bruce, vice president for information systems at MIT, in a statement. "In this case we have been advised by counsel that the subpoena was not in compliance with the court rules that apply to these subpoenas, and did not allow MIT time to send any notice as the law requires." ...

Political Advertising -- From the IRS

More from Mitch Ratcliffe at Correspondences.org:

We received a letter today from the Internal Revenue Service, informing us that thanks to Congress and President George W. Bush, "We are pleased to inform you.... This new law provides broad-based tax relief, including a $400 increase in the child tax credit for 2003...."

This is another example of malfeasance by the Bush Administration, not because the Federal government is borrowing from future generations (more about that in a moment), but because the letter is a political advertisement for the Bush campaign. It doesn't simply inform taxpayers about a change in rates, it spins the very debatable point that this is a "broad-based" form of tax relief.

The letter should not have been sent with the adjectival "broad-based" appended to the phrase tax relief, since the child tax credit is only one aspect of a much larger tax cut that, cumulatively, results in far greater benefits for the richest one percent of the U.S. population than for the typical American. The Secretary of Treasury, John Snow, should resign for having abused the neutral bureaucratic function of the Internal Revenue Service mailing priveleges for political purposes.

But, I also want to send some feedback from one of the Americans the Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 ostensibly benefits, my seven-year-old daughter, Geneva. When I opened the letter and read it, then handed it to my mother-in-law, who said "What are they sending $800 [for my two kids] when the government doesn't have the money?" my daugher said: "They're sending us $800, why are they doing that when they don't have the money -- where does it come from?"

I explained that even though the Federal government doesn't have the extra money to write these checks, it is borrowing the money and will pay it back later, with interest. My daughter, who is already certain she will own a business someday (a pet shop currently, but she's got entrepreneur written all over her, as she's always making and selling things), asked who would be paying it back.

"Americans will pay it back, in the future. You and the other kids who will have jobs someday will pay it back."

"I don't want my store to pay back $800 we got this year," Geneva said. "That's not fair." I didn't go into how some very wealthy families are getting a lot more than $800. But I did ask her a question to make sure she understood that we pay taxes every year, anyway: "Would you be willing to pay some money to the government every year for schools and other things it provides?"

Here, Genny was precise and the President should listen to my little girl: "Daddy, of course I'd pay taxes to let us live, but President Bush shouldn't be taking $800 out of my pocket when I am a grown up." ...

Snow won't resign, of course -- he's doing exactly what the White House wants -- but perhaps the campaign of a Democratic candidate for president can use Mitch's daughter in a campaign commercial. Maybe Geneva at a chalk board, doing the math of what this will cost her in the future. And it'll add up to way more than $800. And maybe she's got a friend whose daddy got way more than $800 back, and who won't have to pay back a cent when she grows up. Just riffing here.

News media vastly underreport U.S. death toll in Iraq

From the July 17 E&P: Media Underplays U.S. Death Toll in Iraq. Soldiers Dead Since May Is 3 Times Official Count.

Any way you look at it, the news is bad enough. According to Thursday's press and television reports, 33 U.S. soldiers have now died in combat since President Bush declared an end to the major fighting in the war on May 2. This, of course, is a tragedy for the men killed and their families, and a problem for the White House.

But actually the numbers are much worse -- and rarely reported by the media.

According to official military records, the number of U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq since May 2 is actually 85. This includes a staggering number of non-combat deaths. Even if killed in a non-hostile action, these soldiers are no less dead, their families no less aggrieved. And it's safe to say that nearly all of these people would still be alive if they were still back in the States.

Nevertheless, the media continues to report the much lower figure of 33 as if those are the only deaths that count.

A Web site called Iraq Coalition Casualty Count is tracking the deaths, by whatever cause, of U.S. military personnel in Iraq, based on official Pentagon and CENTCOM press releases and Army Times and CNN casualty trackers. Their current count is 85 since May 2. ...

The followup is that the article set records for reader e-mail, with readers saying they want the press to cover all U.S. casualties.

Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.

LA Times cartoon prompts Secret Service inquiry

The Los Angeles Times' publishing of this cartoon of someone pointing a gun at President Bush's head prompted a visit by a Secret Service agent.

Even though the cartoon was pro-Bush.

Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.

Digging for Googleholes

I had missed this Steven Johnson piece in Slate last week: Digging for Googleholes. Google may be our new god, but it's not omnipotent.

Participatory journalism at Correspondences.org

Correspondences.org has this Mission Statement:

Think of this as a "newspaper out of the box" where everyone can contribute. We're building a portal for reporting of events by participants and commentators covering all aspects of events around the world, locally and internationally: politics, business, economics, technology, medicine, media and culture.

Somehow I hadn't seen this site before. Good stuff here, like Today's Political Rewards, a regular feature. Yesterday Mitch Ratcliffe posted an entry on the day's Department of Defense contracts and the political contributions made by the companies that received them.

It's the sort of thing newspapers used to do.

Later: Mitch emails: "I'm hoping that if enough people pick up their own little hobby reporting efforts, so that we dissect the system that exists today, we can create something greater than the newspaper and CNN rolled into one genetically mutated civic journalism."

Google feature outclasses news sites' own search

San Jose Merc:

Google has added another drawing card to its popular Web site by introducing a tool designed to make it easier to find specific news stories.

The new feature, available by clicking on an advanced search link in Google's news section, enables users to limit news searches to particular publications and dates. The tool also narrows searches to stories containing an exact phrase.

Mountain View-based Google's online newsstand covers 4,500 English language sources, up from about 4,000 sources 10 months ago.

Now here's the cool thing: Even though many news sites close off their content behind a pay firewall after 7 or 14 days, at least some of that content can be accessed through Google's advanced search function. For example, you can retrieve free news going back one month or so on the New York Times by using Google's search rather than the Times' own search.

Now, maybe Google will enhance its clunky alert service so that search results will be relevant, timely, and site-specific. Tonight, I got a Google alert notice for my search term "copyright." The result?:

Copyright Notice Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company.

Convergence news

San Jose Merc: EchoStar deal gives SBC bundling edge

In its strongest push yet to be all things to all people, SBC Communications announced a deal with EchoStar Communications on Monday that will allow consumers to bundle satellite television with their phone and Internet services.

The agreement marks the first time a company has said it will offer customers all five of the key telecommunications services: local, long-distance and wireless phone, and broadband Internet and television.

The Greek islands revisited

I still get emails every month from strangers who plan to visit the Greek islands, thanks to the travel article I wrote about the honeymoon my wife and I spent there seven years ago this month. (Apparently it turns up fairly high in Google.) Here's the article I wrote, and the photo gallery of Crete, Santorini and Naxos. (Newspaper travel editors are underpaid and underappreciated, but I still think they're some of the luckiest souls around.)

And now comes a NY Times travel piece about Santorini that brings back memories: A Shining Arc in the Aegean.

Who's unpatriotic now?

Another dead-on Paul Krugman column in Tuesday's NY Times: "By cooking intelligence to promote a war that wasn't urgent, the administration has squandered our military strength. This provides a lot of aid and comfort to Osama bin Laden ó who really did attack America ó and Kim Jong Il ó who really is building nukes."