This is surprising:
=< Halavais: News>=: Where have all the bloggers gone? Well, basically the places you would expect. Lots in Boston, lots in Austin, lots on the coast, and a surprising dispersal in Florida (?)
See the cool map too (albeit only for blogs hosted by Livejournal and Diaryland).
How absolutely amazing to find that two of the more interesting people I know from such different parts of my life are almost related. It turns out that Ed Hasbrouk, the Practical Nomad, whom I know virtually and from conference calls, is partnered with the cousin of Eric Muller, a law school classmate and now fellow law prof. The occasion for this discovery is that both of them are participants in a great NPR segment called Making Contact.
The show is not being played on either of the NPR stations I can get on my radio, but Ed notes that it can be heard online “from the National Radio Project. You can listen to streaming Real Audio or download a high or low bandwidth MP3.”
For the very interesting details as to how Ed and Eric met, and what they have in common and what they argue about, see Eric's blog entry and Ed's.
High-octane commentary from Giblets at Fafblog! the whole worlds only source for Fafblog.
Now and then I see something intelligent on the internet like this piece of reporting from Iraq from Andrew Sullivan. You know it is true because it comes from a military chaplain (he's from the military and the church – two great flavors that go great together). He explains for all the stupid people why it looks like things are getting worse in Iraq when they are actually getting not-worse:
“This country became a welfare state under Saddam. If you cared about your well-fare, you towed the line or died. The state did your thinking and your bidding. Want a job? Pledge allegiance to the Ba’ath party. Want an apartment, a car, etc? Show loyalty. …
“So, we come along and lock up sugar daddy and give these people the toughest challenge in the world, FREEDOM. You want a job? Earn it! A house? Buy it or build it! Security? Build a police force, army and militia and give it to yourself. Risk your lives and earn freedom. … they want a sugar daddy, the U.S.A., to do it all. We refuse.”
Damn straight! Giblets for one is sick of these pampered Iraqi welfare moms and their “ohhh feed my family” and their “ohhh rebuild the infrastructure you blew up.” Learn some gratitude, Iraqis! We come halfway around the world and take the time to give weapons to your dictator, start a war with him, crush your economy with sanctions, start another war, blow up your power plants and your cities and disband your police, and we did it all for you, so you could grow up to be as mature and developed a nation as we have become. And this is the thanks we get!
Freedom is not free, Iraqis! It has a price. And that price is being invaded crippled and occupied by a foreign military. If you cannot handle freedom we'll just have to hand you over to a “democracy-minded strongman.” And this one might not be the sugar daddy that Saddam was.
Cheer or cry?
Alexander Halavais has started a wiki list of Scholars Who Blog. So far he has about 400, and invites those missing to add their names.
Absolutely one of the best things about the Internet is how easy it makes it to get unfiltered perspectives from people unlike (or far away from) the ones you run into every day. And then there are nice people like Rafe Colburn who want to help you find them…
rc3.org | Surveying Iraqi weblogs: I've been reading Iraqi weblogs lately, and I thought I'd give a brief survey of the ones I follow, in case anyone else is interested. They come from varying perspectives, and I find all of them fascinating. Some of them I find more depressing than others. One thing you'll find is that the Iraqis who write these weblogs have mistaken impressions about America. I find them illuminating as well, because the impressions of America that Iraqis have are far more important than the truth in terms of whether or not we have any hope of leaving Iraq better off than we found it.
Probably I'm the last lawyer-blogger in America to notice the Anonymous Lawyer, which I found via the also-anonymous Partner Blog, And What Thanks Do I Get. AWTDIG is sometimes funny, but has a more serious edge. The kind law students probably won't like. Because it has enough truth to hurt.
The Anonymous Lawyer, on the other hand, mostly has the sort of truth that won't hurt as long as you are not involved. It's no doubt a sign of my moral degeneration that I found this post pretty darn funny. I don't suppose everyone will.
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