No chiropractors needed

The newest edition of the Circus of the Spineless is up on Snail's Tales.

The new Grand Rounds is up on Kidney Notes.

Wonderful World

I was in the car earlier today (buying candy for trick-or-treaters) when Fresh Air with Terry Gross started on NPR. She was talking about Sam Cooke and the show started with a longish excerpt of his song Wonderful World.

Now I cannot get the darned tune out of my head! @#$%^&* I think that song is an unofficial anthem of the Red-State America: all emotion, no reason, no literacy. It drives my wife crazy whenever we hear the song. Why? Because I stand up and place my hand over my heart. Here are the lyrics:

Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about science book
Don't know much about the French I took

But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me too
What a wonderful world this would be

Don't know much geography
Don't know much trigonometry
Don't know much about algebra
Don't know what a slide rule is for

But I know that one and one is two
And if this one could be with you
What a wonderful this would be

I don't claim to be an "A" student
But I'm trying to be
Maybe my being an "A" student baby
I can win your love for me

Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about science book
Don't know much about the French I took

But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me too
What a wonderful world this would be

But I know that one and one is two
And if this one could be with you
What a wonderful world this would be

Halloween

Took the kids trick-or-treating earlier tonight. This place is nuts over Halloween. So many houses are elaborately decorated, with smoke machines, spooky sounds, lots of fake spiderwebs, wonderfully carved pumpinks.... It is really fun! Coturnietta was a little Red Devil, wielding a trident (I did not tell her she looked like a Red Devil vaccum-cleaner, oh no!) and Coturnix Jr. was, I thought, a sullen teenager, but he said that he was just his own evil twin. They got TONS of candy. Myself, I don't need a costume to look scary, especially when I am two months overdue for a haircut!

Beforehand, I carved a nice scary face on a pumpkin. This year I decided not to let the seeds go to waste. So, what did I do? I searched teh blogs for a recipe, of course. I got a great one: Toasted Pumpkin Seeds Recipe. In a few minutes, I'll let you know how they turned out. Look out for the update.

Update: They were delicious!

Political Affiliation on Campus

Over the past few hours, several people came here via a search for 'Political Affiliation on Campus' by Bora Zivkovic or something similar. All of them come from Kentucky, mostly Bowling Green, all from wku.edu (Western Kentucky University). Such regularities in the Sitemeter are always thought-provoking. Technorati and Google do not provide any hints. Has someone told students to look up this information? I hope that the post they are getting is answering their question. I'd like to continue the conversation. Post a comment, please.

Bush is Tired

Weary Bush has no early release:

Uninspired appointments are the symptom of a President who has simply run out of energy.

President Bush is tired. It was part of his original appeal that he is such a normal American, not an obsessive over-worker, willing enough to do his job and just as willing to go on vacation whenever possible, and notably more often than his recent predecessors. But too many things have happened to him of late, from unending war and inordinately destructive hurricanes that ravaged some of America's least civilized places, to the nasty little press leak scandal that has caused the indictment of Mr Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and the humiliating withdrawal of his candidate for the Supreme Court.

Carnival of the Godless

Carnival of the Godless #26 is up on A Rational Being.

Tar Heel Tavern - Halloween Food Edition

The Tar Heel Tavern #36 is now up on Mel's Kitchen. This is, I think, the first time ever that any edition of any carnival was posted on a blog officially affiliated with a newspaper (or any other MSM). Of course this happened with Greensboro News & Record, the newspaper on the cutting edge. Way to go!

You may have also noticed that the link I just used has a little hover-over title (place your mouse on top without clicking to see it) and, once you click, the page opens in a new window (this way you NEVER leave my blog - you are my prisoner forever). If you want to learn how to this (assuming you don't already know), check out these two marveolous posts by Dark Wraith: Blog HTML
Coding Hacks Corner.

In the meantime, we need hosts for the future editions of The Tar Heel Tavern. Let me know by e-mailing me at Coturnix1 AT aol DOT com.

Orgasm Festival at UNC

Anticipation builds for orgasm day climax

Amanda slaughters Mike Adams' response.

Indicted

Link-Love: Random Weekend Edition

As always, don't restrict yourself to just the linked posts - explore these blogs some more.

A moving tribute to Hair, Life and Optimism by Ron.

Soj: Sun Myung Moon was banned from entering Bulgaria.

Katja finds the interview with the Serbian officer who shot down the stealth bomber.

Mark Kleiman: Corporate sociopaths (has he read "The Divine Right of Capital"?)

Chelsea writes a Dissertation.

Greg is thinking about the Brain, for the fourth time already, this time on the philosophy/psychology of Religion.

Perpwalk analyzes conservative motivation.

Jeff Jarvis: Journalism 2010.

Bill Nye's Apprentice spends a day teaching the blind.

The newest edition of Advocate Weekly, a roundup of education blogs.

Scary stuff: The Norquist Pledge!

This is an amazing blog about using blogs in teaching. See this post for an example (hat-tip: Laura).

And Barbara Ganley also comments on her experiences using blogs in teaching, e.g., here and here (these are excellent - long but worth your time).

Yup, a lot of people have not the foggiest idea what is happening.

I agree with Julie. Just remember how many glitches there were a year ago compared to now. Then chill out! You'll be just fine.

Force-Feeding the Manufactured Controversy and Dead Bodies and Pretty Girls (I loved 'Stiff'. I hear Mary Roach published a new book on the 'science' of paranormal, but I don't think she is 100% skeptical, though).

The Invisible Library on A Hangover of Historic Heft and Dimension - an elegant dissection of emptiness that is Peggy Noonan.

A knowledgable analysis of the new Guinness evolution TV commercial.

Media Girl: Next on the conservative agenda: Intelligent Poverty!

Neil Shakespeare, The Ethical Werewolf and In The Pink Texas report from the John Edwards tour.

How to learn and teach math and how it matters in the real world (LOL).

Protecting the Meaning - Dr.Freeride on the decision of NAS and NSTA to force Kansas to write its own science curriculum.

Positive attitude and Negative attitude, from Rush Limbaugh, via Einstein to the War in Iraq.

James Wolcott is good today.

Element List is a place to go for links about science.

Stcynic continues to report on the Dover hearings.

Putting together Miers and Libby: why one withdrew on the day the other one got indicted?

P.G.Wodehouse, as recommended by Accidental Blogger.

Dark Side of education.

How to be a Successful Scientist!

Ampersand: Should we legally recognize polyamorous marriages? (good comment thread, too)

Liberal Academia - yes, because it has to be

Here are two excellent articles about Horrowitz and his crusade to inject mediaval worldviews into academia.

Local races

The Independent Weekly has endorsed candidates for local elections. See, for instance, their recommendations for Chapel Hill mayor and town council and for Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board.

Apparently this years' recommendations have garnered some controversy, but you can follow up the developments on the Indy blog Dent.

Carnival of Cockroaches #2

The second Carnival of Cockroaches is up on Blog D'Elisson.

Why is Scooter Libby on crutches?

Quiz:

A) Because his knees were not Intelligently Designed

B) A nasty fall persuaded him that his scooting days are over

C) Don't you know that Tonya Harding is an evil librul?

D) Other (supply in comments)

AP: Official A is Karl Rove

'Official A' stands out in indictment

Neo-Nazi Taxonomy and Systematics

Here is a taxonomy of new American Nazis by someone who's met them all: Nazi Variety Pack.

(hat-tip: Blog on the Run)

Lots of Shallow Throats this time around, though...

Carl Bernstein Finds Plame Parallels To Watergate

"But what the Plame leak investigation has unveiled is what the press should have been focusing on long before and without let up--how we went to war, the dishonesty involved in that process in terms of what the president and vice-president told the American people and the Congress, and the routine smearing by members of the Bush administration of people who questioned their actions and motives."

Go read the rest....

The New Domino Theory

I know this is not a GoTo blog for getting the Breaking News, but I was certainly not AWOL. I timed my activities today carefully. I checked the Very Important Blogs in the morning, as well as Fitzgerald's website - still nothing. I went to set up the lab.

Once I got there I got on the computer and checked out the Very Important Blogs - still nothing. Fitz website - nothing. A minute later: Fitz website...a-ha! There it is - the indictment and the press release. I could have posted, but, as I stated above, this is not a GoTo blog for Breaking News - nobody would get their news from me first. Anyway, I don't like posting away from home - all that logging in and logging out and stuff.

Then I set up the lab for tomorrow and went to lunch to a place that I knew would have CNN on a TV in the corner and I made my menu choice in such a way that I could get into my car at exactly 2:15pm. I listened to the press conference on NPR in the car and, after arriving home, on CNN.

Since then, I checked the Very Important Blogs for first reactions. Law-bloggers are the best. Firedoglake has been so much on top of all this, it is the first GoTo blog on the topic. Publius promises more later. On the political side of the blogosphere, Billmon, Digby and Josh Marshall are on fire. Pick your own favourite choices where to go.

My first impressions: this is just a beginning. Fitzgerald said what he could say. He ably countered all of the Wingnut talking points, e.g., about his partisanship. His almost-angry (is this guy capable of being angry?) tirade about seriousness of perjury and lying should shut up anyone who tries to play that gambit. Anyway, if anyone tries that on you, Google, Google News and Google Blogsearch are your friends. Type in "1998 Clinton perjury" and you will be served dozens if not hundreds of quotes by prominent Republicans about the seriousness of the crime.

The Indictment, which I only skimmed so far, appears really seriously damning, not just for Libby - he's guilty as can be and will have a second career as an anthropologist studying the prison culture by being deeply immersed in it for many years - but a number of others.

Libby's already facing 30 years in jail for lying - he'll be nuts to lie any more. And sooner or later he will understand that he's been made a fall guy and that his friends are not his friends any more. He does not work with them or for them any more and they have no interest in helping him at all. He either saves them or saves his own skin - guess which of the two options a Republican will choose.

A lot of dirt is going to come up during trial (some of it already in the text of the Indictement - go to other bloggers for careful parsing of every word) and more heads will roll next year, just in time for mid-term elections. There is a reason why Fitzgerald just doubled his office space....

I Am More Atheist Than PZ Myers!!!

You fit in with: Atheism Your ideals mostly resemble those of an Atheist. You have very little faith and you are very focused on intellectual endeavors. You value objective proof over intuition or subjective thoughts. You enjoy talking about ideas and tend to have a lot of in depth conversations with people. 100% scientific. 100% reason-oriented.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Of course, the questions are pure dreck. But answered them as honestly as possible, i.e., I was not TRYING to get 100%.

Housekeeping

You may have noticed a couple of subtle changes here.

I have kicked off the Hitmaps, the TTLB Ecosystem status and the Moonphase off of my template.

I have moved all the miscellaneous links off the front page - too much clutter - but you can access them from the sidebar, just click on Miscellaneous Links.

I have finally provided the links to the Meta-Carnival, Circadiana and groups blogs I am a member of. Instead of searching through the site to find that stuff, it is now readily available on the sidebar.

Now I have a huge space between the bottom of the last post and the bottom of the page! Can anyone help?

Also, the links to the Webring I am a member of is all the way down below the bottom, on the dark part of the skin, thus barely visible unless you try to highlight it. Help?!

Next:
Updating the Categories (I am about two months behind - use monthly Archives for recent stuff and Categories for older stuff until I catch up)
Updating the BLOGROLL
Changing the template - which standard Blogger template do YOU like?
Putting up the Amazon button (many people refuse to use PayPal)

Anything else I need to do (besides moving off Blogspot)?

Update:
I have now updated the Categories. I need to get in a habit to do that as soon as I post. I wish Blogger would automate this function!


Update 2: You may notice a little BlogAds spot on the left. Sooner or later I am assuming I will get some ads there through Liberal Prose blog group. Until then, if you want to advertise here for free, let me know.

You Gotta Love Some Of The New Blog Carnivals!!!

Check out the premier edition of the Carnival of the Cockroaches !!!

I And The Bird #9

I and the Bird #9 is up on Living The Scientific Life. Fly over there.

Skeptic's Circle

I did not believe this at first. It seemed just too fantastic. But three other groups independently confirmed the findings: the brand new Skeptic's Circle is up on Uncredible Hallq.

Fish Eyes

A few years back my brother went to Japan to do some fieldwork for several months. Although he had been taking Japanese for several years, the classroom language skills and real-life language skills are different kinds of skills.

Early on in his endeavour, trying to immerse himself in the local culture, he went to a restaurant. He picked up the menu and had no idea what any of the names of dishes meant. Well, he thought, if the Japanese can eat something, he can, too.

When the waiter came to his table, my brother pointed (randomly?) at a menu item. The waiter gave him a strange look for a second, then smiled, bowed and walked away. Seconds later he came back with a little net, walked over to the aquarium in the corner and netted a little fish. He slapped the fish onto a plate and brought the plate to my brother.

The fish, alive and flapping, was looking up at my brother. The waiter produced a knife and a fork and watched with amusement and apprehension.

There was no going back. My brother is a brave man. A few minutes later, the poor fish was marinating in his digestive juices. The waiter smiled. My brother ordered another glass of sake.

He wrote a story about this experience and the story got aired on the Japanese National Radio. I doubt he has ever ordered the same dish again, though. Which reminds me of a story....

Back in Belgrade, in the deep winter, when one's breath froze in the air, after riding three or four frisky horses, nothing felt better than going to a nearby warm cafe/restaurant with my friends. We would each order a half-liter bottle of Niksicko Pivo (the best beer in the world) and a pound of fried smelt (or anchovies).

Fried smelt ('girice') are really small fish - 2-3- inches in length - and they were so thoroughly deep-fried that their soul was fried, too. The ultimate fish'n'chips: tastes like fish, but is crunchy like chips.

Most people eat fried smelt by picking up the fish by its head and biting off the rest of it. I (as always) had to be different, so I picked them up by their tails and ate them whole. That way, I got more nutrition, and it was crunchier, too.

At the and of the meal, my plate would have just a little bit of grease on it. Others' plates would have piles of little heads. One day one of my firends finally asked me why I ate the heads, too. My answer: because I could not stand the guilt-trip induced by the accusing stares of the poor fish eyes...let's have another beer before going back to the stable to clean out the stalls and feed the horses before going home to crash.

What do you prefer?

A) No indictments - this means that the country remains in the hands of a mafia of unscrupulous hardened criminals hiding behind a bumbling, idiotic, ignorant, arrogant marionette,

or

B) Indictments - this means that the country remains in the hands of a bumbling, idiotic, ignorant, arrogant marionette.

What is worse?

Belgrade Blogger Bar

Is this the beginning of a blogging community in Belgrade? Four (apparently - from what I can figure out from a distance) most popular Blegrade bloggers had their first ever MeetUp in an appropriately named bar "Anna and Four Pistols": LaLara - Blog Serbia & Beyond, Brand New Girl, Domacica iz Pakla (Housewife from Hell) and Kikoman Experience.

They immediately liked each other, had LOTS to drink, thus all four had to wait until the following day to blog about it. Here are the hungover reminiscences by LaLara, Brand New Girl, Housewife From Hell and Filip Kikoman. Filip syas that BNGirl is a hottie. I believe him.

I hope they meet again, and bring in more people. I need to get Carnival of the Balkans re-started soon, so everybody from there (or from here but currently there) can get to find each other and share some burek and slivovitz.

Blog Cladistics

David of Science And Sensibility made the next logical step in the tracing of blog lineages started by Comissar. When I first mentioned this exercise (see below), I called this "building a phylogeny". Well, David actually did build a phylogeny of (science) blogs and used this to teach us all how phylogenetics trees are really constructed by biologists. Go and learn and have fun!

Fitzmas Tomorrow? Be Prepared!

Jeffrey Feldman has some good advice (sorry for copying almost the whole thing - it's important for this to be spread wide):

High profile members of President Bush's administration will soon be charged with serious crimes--crimes committed to keep Americans from learning that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq--crimes committed to help George W. Bush launch an unnecessary invasion of the Middle East--crimes committed to help raise the approval ratings of the administration--crimes committed to re-elect the President.

It's high noon in Washington, DC. And the President's hired guns are about to bust through the saloon doors with double-barrel propaganda a' blazin.

Here are some pointers to prepare for the news that is about to break...

Events will move fast and will be full of fireworks. These are serious crimes that have been commited: purjury, obstruction of justice, leaking national security secrets. The people who committed the crimes are the top aides to the President (Karl Rove), the top aides to the Vice President (Lewis Libby) and potentially others. So, given the power of these men, we can expect that the President has a strategy to deflect blame, to distance himself from those aides who have been named as criminals, and to undermine the authority of the Grand Jury issuing the indictments.

Be mindful when listening to tomorrow's news, and consider the following suggestions

1. The White House will be running a communications strategy, so beware of anything they say. In the past 24-hours, the President has given a series of speeches discussing every aspect of his presidency (e.g., business as usual). But they will go on the attack very soon.

2. Listen for magic words. Expect the White House to try to control debate by repeating keywords over and over again. So far, they have been quiet. But the specter of 9/11 is never far off. Beware of White House spokesmen who try to discuss 9/11, tomorrow.

3. Stay focused. The real issue tomorow is crimes committed by the White House to trick the American people into supporting a war. There is no other issue that comes close to this, tomorrow.

4. Do not talk about whether we should stay or pull out of Iraq. That is an important topic, but it will be a distraction tomorrow. The issue is crimes committed against the American people by top officials at the White House.

5. Read the White House website. This will help to understand what strategy they are launching.

6. Use only the President's name. This crisis is about the President of the United States, the people he hired, the decisions he made and the methods he used. Do not get distracted by too much talk about the names of aides.

7. Read a variety of news sources. Follow the story in a variety of media (e.g., print, TV, blogs) to get a full picture of what is going on. Don't become a CNN zombie.

8. Talk to co-workers and friends about what's happening. It is important that all Americans follow what is happening. Spread the news. Be the media.

9. Keep following the story. It is likely that the story will change several times before it is over.

Fair And Balanced

If Fox News Had Been Around Throughout History

hat-tip: Ed Cone

Carnival of Education

Carnival of Education #38 is up on Education Wonks.

French Carnival of Education?

I don't remember any French, but this looks like a beginning of a Carnival of Education that is all in French language. Is that correct? How cool!

Tar Heel Tavern - call for submissions

This is the first time, if I am correct, that an edition of a blog carnival will be hosted by a blog officially affiliated with a newspaper.

Mel's Kitchen, the food blog of the Greensboro News & Record (that paper is the first in everything!) will be hosting next week's Tar Heel Tavern. The theme for the weekend: food horror!

Blog-post as a scientific reference

I have, so far, published five scientific papers and each has been cited a few times by other researchers in the field.

But this is something very new and unusual. Biological Procedures Online is an online open-source journal (something like PLoS, but more narrowly thematically focused). Recently, this journal published an excellent paper on methodology (and the underlying reasoning) of circadian clock researh: A guideline for analyzing circadian wheel-running behavior in rodents under different lighting conditions by Corinne Jud, Isabelle Schmutz, Gabriele Hampp, Henrik Oster and Urs Albrecht.

What is interesting is that Reference #16 is not to a peer-reviewed paper, or a published review, nor even a book, but to a blog post. It is this post I've written a few months ago on Circadiana.

How cool is that? Also, how new is that? Are you aware of another paper citing a blog-post? Have any of your blog posts ever been cited in a scientific paper? I'd like to know.

What does it all mean, i.e., how does that pertain to the way science will be done and reported in the near future? How do you feel about it?

I am wondering how many people in my field read Circadiana. One of the authors, at least, does, or the reference would have never appeared in the paper. How is that going to affect my chances of getting a decent job in the Academia? I have not published much lately (luckily a co-authored paper came out recently). I missed the last meeting of the Society. I have no feel for the breadth of acquantance of the field with my blog. I am dragging my feet finishing the Dissertation. Can my blog help me overcome the "time-hole" in my CV?

On Poverty

There will be quite a lot of activity at the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity here at UNC this Fall:

October 31
"Toward Common Ground - A Dialogue about Work and Opportunity in America"
Debate between Senator Edwards and Jack Kemp, former Secretary of the
Department of Housing and Urban Development. This event will be
moderated by Dan Gitterman, Asst. Professor of Public Policy.

November 3
"How the Media Depicts Poverty and Constructs Social Class in America"
Panel of nationally renowned journalists to discuss the historical
depiction of poverty in the media, current and future trends, and how
Katrina has affected the media's portrayal of this issue.
The following journalists will sit on the panel, moderated by Sen.
Edwards:

David Wessel, Wall Street Journal
David Brooks, New York Times
Sam Fulwood, Cleveland Plain Dealer
Katherine Boo, New America Foundation
Jason DeParle, New York Times


November 9
"Katrina's Lessons: Moving Forward in the Fight Against Poverty"
Panel of five experts to discuss the lessons learned from Katrina and
to propose concrete policy solutions to address those living in
poverty. The panel will be moderated by Sen. John Edwards and includes
the following experts:

Jared Bernstein, Economic Policy Institute
Ray Boshara, New America Foundation
Anna Burger, Change to Win
Bruce Katz, Brookings Institute
William Julius Wilson, Harvard University


November 22
"Strategies for Improving the Conditions of Low-Wage Workers"
Panelists will include Annette Bernhardt of NYU, John Sweeney of the
AFL-CIO and Tom Clarke of UFCW. This event will be moderated by Arne
Kalleberg, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Senior
Associate Dean for Social Science, College of Arts and Sciences, UNC.

I'll see if I can make it to some or all of these events.

We're just illusions in Dubya's head

We are all just parts of Bush's holodeck. What happens to us once he's out of chips and he gets the "Game Over" sign?

Avian Flu spreads....

Croatia confirms first cases of bird flu

ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) -- Croatia confirmed the country's first cases of bird flu Friday with six swans testing positive for the H5 type, the Agriculture Ministry said.

Twelve swans were found dead Thursday near a pond in the village of Zdenci in eastern Croatia.

It was not immediately clear if the remaining six had been tested or whether the confirmed cases had the deadly H5N1 strain, which has devastated poultry stocks across Asia and killed 60 people in the past two years. It has recently been found in birds in Russia, Turkey and Romania.

The pond has been closed, ministry spokesman Mladen Pavic said, adding that the closest village is a few miles) away.

The swans were tested at a veterinary clinic in the capital, Zagreb, and the samples will be sent for further testing to a lab in Britain, the ministry said.

The government held a special meeting, and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader confirmed the reports in a live broadcast on the independent Nova television station. He said the country would immediately impose EU measures, including a ban on distribution of poultry in the area and the closure of free-range poultry sites.

Sanader said that "all measures to contain the virus and its possible spread have been taken."

Croatia has been on high alert since the lethal strain was confirmed in nearby Romania, Turkey and Russia in recent days.

Earlier this week, the EU urged Croatia to step up testing as the 25-member bloc tries to manage a regional response to limit the spread of the virus.

H5N1 is easily transmitted between birds, but is hard for humans to contract. Experts are closely watching the disease, however, for fear it could mutate into a form easily transmitted between humans and spark a pandemic.

Rosa Parks, R.I.P.

What she said:

In one of her last interviews, Rosa Parks spoke of what she would like people to say about her after she passed away.

"I'd like people to say I'm a person who always wanted to be free and wanted it not only for myself; freedom is for all human beings."

When Rosa Parks refused to get up from a bus seat in Montgomery, AL in 1955, an entire race of people began to stand up.

Rosa Parks: a case of mistaken identity:

"To call Rosa Parks a poor, tired seamstress and not talk about her role as a community leader and civil rights activist as well, is to turn an organised struggle for freedom into a personal act of frustration"

This is where I live, proudly

Chapel Hill says No to the War in Iraq.

Building the Blog Phylogeny

A meme I got from Pharyngula (though it started on the right-wing Politburo Diktat) is exploring the geneological relationship (phylogeny) of blogs. Here are my answers and you go ahead and do this on you own blogs.

The questions to answer are:

1. Your blogfather, or blogmother, as the case may be. Just one please - the one blog that, more than any other, inspired you to start blogging. Please don’t name Instapundit, unless you are on his blogchildren list. (Same goes for Kos-spawn)
I did some usenet in the early 1990s because of Balkan wars, but then quit that kind of activity for a while. After a year or so of campaign blogs and forums in 2003/04 I moved out to individual blogs. I first cut my teeth by commenting on Legal Fiction, so I consider Publius to be my blogfather. He's spawned a lot. A number of good bloggers, I think, consider him a blogfather (or at least 'one of'), too, e.g., Eric, Jon, Julie, Dr.Biobrain, Nadezhda, Praktike.... (let me know if this is wrong, or if I omitted someone).

2. Include your blog-birth-month, the month that you started blogging, if you can. August 17th, 2004.

3. If you are reasonably certain that you have spawned any blog-children, mention them, too. I seriously doubt I have any blog-spawn. Correct me if I 'm wrong. Have I inspired YOU to start your own blog?

I think it is interesting how one's earliest blog experiences shape one's own style. All of the bloggers I mentioned above as my blog-siblings at least initially tried to emulate Publius's format and style. This means: infrequent, long, analytical posts. Some have moved away from this, i.e., started posting shorter posts more often, while Eric has gone the other direction - his posts are now less frequent and LONGER than even Publius'!

I actually like this. I want to dig into a real essay in hope I will learn something from a person who has background and has spent some time and thought putting that essay together. If you check this recent list of my favourites, you'll see that almost all of them are blogs who write long, informed, interesting essays.

I keep bumping into this "rule" that says that blog posts should not be long. What is the limit? 400 words, 4000 words? Nobody specifies.

While quick link-and-snarky-one-liner posts can be funny (and the link can be useful), I resent anyone telling me how to blog. Still, I have changed, perhaps semi-consciously.

If you look at my Archives, the first few months consist almost entirely of very long posts. If you look at the last couple of months, there are tons of short posts and only an occasional long one. Now, don't assume I lost steam - I have a number of long posts brewing - but I've been running into this "rule" a lot lately and it affects me. Will people run away if they see more than three paragraphs?

Perhaps my propensity towards long discourse is cultural, i.e., a Serbian thing: This post by an American living in Belgrade is funny, but oh-so-true...don't get me started now!

Wanna buy?

Bush Selects White House Economist Bernanke to Replace Greenspan

Who is this guy?

Bernanke, 51, served as a member of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System for three years before being named chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers in June. He previously was an economics professor at Princeton University and served as chairman of the university's economics department from 1996 to 2002.

Bernanke, a Republican who holds a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has a fiscal philosophy similar to that of Greenspan, who was named Fed chairman by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 and renominated for four-year terms by three other presidents. However, Bernanke and Greenspan differ on whether the Fed should set targets for inflation. Bernanke believes the Fed should set such targets, while Greenspan does not.

Parental Kidnapping, anyone?

If there is a topic in the universe, there is a blog covering it. So, if you are interested in parental kidnapping, you need to go here.

Another Blogging Course

Esther Hargittai, one of the contributors to the excellent European academic group blog Crooked Timber is teaching a blogging class as part of her Internet and Society course. Check the class' main blog and, on the right sidebar, click on the links of all the students' blogs. Some of the students have really taken off with their blogs and will be interesting to follow over the time.

I've already told you about the other blogging class, in which exchange students scattered around the world are blogging their experiences. You can find them here.

And, of course, I am closely following Colin McEnroe's blogging class at Trinity College in Connecticut.

Do you know of any others?

I'm Gone Country, You're Gone Country, We're Gone Country

Triangle got a second country music station. I tried 99.9 Genuine Country in the car yesterday and, yes, it is better than the nasty ClearChannel/CurtisMedia 94.7FM. They actually play Dolly and Willie and Waylon and the boys alongside the current hits....Perhaps I will soon have an inspiration for another installment of my "I'm Gone Country" series of posts.
(hat-tip: Flannel Avenger)

BTW, Blogger has started, this morning, teh stuff that Pirillo suggested the other day: a kaptcha for posting every post. A small nuisance compared with splogs. I have no problem with doing it.

Toledo Race Riots

If you want to know what really happened in Toledo during the recent racist demonstrations, counter-protests and the clash between the two, go to Orcinus for a detailed and in-depth reporting, explanation and a series of exclusive photographs from the event.

If you are not already a regular there, I suggest you make Oricnus a frequent read. Dig through the archives, too. It will change your perspective.

Big Brother Is Watching You

Sitemeter reveals everything. A reader from Corvallis, Oregon, comes here every day and spends 10-90 minutes here with several page-views every time. Of course I am curious....

Blogs can answer all questions in the Universe

To the person who got here via this web-search: what is the definition of anal orifice?

I hope the post your search pointed you to adequatelly answers your question.

The Final Argument Against Intelligent Design Creationism

I know, I know, everyone's already linked to this a week ago. I am late (as usual), but at least you will (if you click on the link) see all the updates and a 100+ comments: The only debate on Intelligent Design that is worthy of its subject .

I agree with that post wholeheartedly. I wrote a couple of posts early on about Intelligent Design Creationism (see Categories) and then quit. What I really wanted to do is write a post like the one above. Now I don't have to - just click on the link. The debate is over, as far as I am concerned. I am not going to try to refute IDC any more for the same reasons cited within. Go read Talkorigins.org instead. And, BTW, I stuffed some cork inside my baseball bat....

Thomas Kuhn on the blogs again

Michale Berube kicked off an interesting discussion on Thomas Kuhn. Check the comment thread on that post, then read the comments on these posts by Andrew Jaffe, Cat Dynamics and Cosmic Variance.

Tar Heel Tavern

Tar Heel Tavern is up on Slowly She Turned.

I forgot to write and send anything this week (I was teaching yesterday, then was too exhausted to write anything original) and I am blushing with shame. Still, you should go over there because there is a LOT of great writing there.

Also, let me know if you want to host next week.

Link-Love: Random Weekend Edition

The best conspiracy theory ever! Or a bad case of projection?

Funny movie about the Republican War on Science, in this case global warming. Read the full lyrics (pdf) and especially the footnotes.

Say Ciao to Antonella.

Unlike flagella, mitochondria and ribosomes, this is a real intelligently designed sub-cellular machine.

How to Get Ahead in the Republican Party? Fake it! Like this!

I read about this last night and thought about writing a post, but was too tired. Anyway, I knew that Pam was going to cover it today. Poor brainwashed kids! Dohiyi Mir also picked it up. Read the comment threads on both (as well as here). Neil Shakespeare has a different take and Orac takes it seriously.

Scabs on shins - not sexy, blood on pants - not sexy, self-constraint - an angelic deed, but not sexy, and this?! Definitely not sexy! All that from the sexiest blogger on the block.

Everybody appears to be linking to this wild anti-Kos rant by Res Publica. I'll jump on the bandwagon...because I like these sleek navy-blue bandwagons. And while you're there read also: Everybody's doing it (and the links within).

I suspect this may turn into a Carnival of Eerthworms! That's what blogging is all about, after all - getting all the used vegetable oil you ever wanted.

Matt deserves a monument! He sacrificed his sanity for good of humanity by watching and writing about the complete Kent Hovind video series. Go read the series and say "thank you" to Matt.

What is a Dissertation all about? I needed to read this.

Ruby provokes an intense discussion in the comments. Elizabeth Edwards posts a comment in response.

Is this how it works? Shall we tap into the teenage rebellion?

Pirate Roberts was a computer programmer in 1966!!!!! [snark] Moving around the little balls on the abacus? [/satire] Makes me feel so young. OK, he was very young at the time - he got married later.

Here comes a hypothetical....

Why people believe what they do? I'll have to work this into one of my posts on childrearing-to-femiphobia-to-conservatism posts...

How and why to give up on vegetarianism? Dunno - I've always been a bloody carnivore. BTW, the next edition of the Carnival of Feminists will be hosted at Personal Political, so throwing red meat is a requirement.

Save My Ass.

Another blogging course, this one very different, though. The students are scattered all over the world, doing a lot of photoblogging and vlogging. Really cool.

Talking of narrow-focus blogs, this one is intriguing.

About looks, via BlahBlahBlah a new nurse blog on my roll.

The orifice is open and an interesting
middle wedding.

On the future of newspapers.

A contradiction in terms - something about nobility...

Uggabugga pictorially explains Schwarzennegger's gerrymandering scheme and links to several good analyses, too.

Carl Zimmer is asking for feedback on science blogging. Here's his latest, on what's a gene for.

See what's new at the Liberal Coalition.

Is AmTaliban in charge of NASA, too? Out-of-this-world sex could jeopardise missions.

Catalyst and Aussie Scientists Put The Boot into Intelligent Design

Lance Mannion Superstar: It takes a tough man to save a tender chicken.

I've bashed the genocentrism before, but I agree with Keat's Telescope that the Human Genome Project was a very useful endeavor.

The Day After Fitzmass.

Jane Hamsher is on top of the entire, detailed Plame/Miller/Rove/Libby/Novak/Fitzgerald saga as well as the Harriet Miers saga. How does she do it? Does she sleep?

Echidne on Kass...

Jim Anderson on Behe in Dover. The school superintendent from the neighboring school district came to watch and conluded that IDC is "great science" and needs to be implemented in his district, too. What was he watching!?

Physical exertion impacts our perception of distance.

The Church of Reality got the 501(C)3 tax exempt status from the IRS!

Diebold caught again!

The happiest teacher alive.

Do you listen, or do you wait to talk?

The Miers withdrawal watch. Also How To Avoid Blog Burnout.

I'll have to check out this new station. Perhaps I can continue my "I'm Gone Country" series...

Fitzgerald has a new website (thanks Sue).

Exosceletons are the military unifroms of the future.

T.H.Huxley has a blog (hat-tip: PZ Myers).

Interesting discussion about religious progressives.

Somebody finally did this obvious photoshop.

Silver Ring - what a choice!

Everything you always wanted to know about viruses.

He looks nice, but he is dangerous!!!!

Multilingual Katrina survey.

Wow - David Brin does not read many blogs, does he? Scroll down for his series on propertarianism.

Hardcopy Hyperlinking of the Future

I've been thinking a lot lately about the way linking on blogs breaks the linearity of reading and how books may try to catch up as our mental habits change over time.

Now Hanna, in comment #2 in this thread (the post is a very good read itself - I may even buy the book if/when it gets published) has the solution: Pop-up Books!

It was sooooo obvious! Why didn't I think of that?

Exterminator meets Philosopher in a Texas courtroom

Lindsay is the only blogger liveblogging Tom DeLay's arraignment in Austin, TX, today. Check it out every now and then for updates.

On the same topic, nobody can put it in as funny words as Anonymoses!

Return of the school newspaper

With the US schools having to do more and more with less and less money, one of the first things that has to go is usually the school newspaper due to high costs of printing.

Now, an organization is providing server space and logistical help for hosting online school newspapers in high schools and elementary and middle schools.

Great idea and, you can see, quite a lot of schools have signed up (I understand this is not the ONLY such service). Now, if they would just open up the comments and get kids introduced to blogging....

Skeptic's Circle - call for submissions

The next Skeptic's Circle will be on Uncredible Hallq. Send your musings against psuedoscience, bad history, medical quackery and other superstitions over there.

Teen Parenthood for the X-box generation

Earlier today Mrs.Coturnix and I took Coturnix Jr. and Coturnietta to the pediatrician (and the dentist - they are in the same building). While sitting in the waiting room we saw a strange scene. A father and a son (about 14-years old, I'd say) walked out of the office, the boy vigorously rocking a little baby, the father saying "It's great we have a car. Cars are good things".

I guess I made such a face that the receptionist started laughing: "It's a doll". A girl waiting in the same room offered an explanation that in middle school you get a doll for a couple of days and have to take care of it. The doll is computerized and cries "all the time" (her words spoken over a painful grimace).

The receptionist (quite young herself) mused that "in her day" the dolls were not so sophisticated so she and her friends just locked them up in the lockers. I asked for the name of the program and she said "Let me check", got up and in a few seconds came back with the answer: Baby Think It Over.

I looked at Mrs. Coturnix and said "I have to blog about this", so here is what I found:

Baby Think It Over is an educational program that is done in high schools (and recently in middle schools) to demonstrate to the adolescents what parenting really entails.

This paper describes research on the effectiveness of the method and provides background information on which the program is based.

Here you can see what the doll does and what the 'parent' is supposed to do.

This is a good essay by a student who's done it and here are a few more experiences.

See more.

Beats "abstinence-only" Xtian programs hands down, I'd say.

Update: If you did not bother clicking on the links, the program is designed not to teach kids to parent, but to show tham how HARD it is ....and it seems to be working! They want to party and sleep, not change diapers. Harsh reality kicks in.

Tar Heel Tavern - call for submissions

The 35th edition of the Tar Heel Tavern will be posted at Slowly She Turned on Sunday, Oct. 23 around 12 noon. The deadline for submissions is 9 a.m. Sunday morning, to accommodate you night-owl writers.

The theme this time will be "An Oldie But a Goodie." You can approach this one in many ways - for example you can write about a treasured possession, memory, relationship, past administration, book, song, movie...use your imagination.

OR you can submit a post older than one week. The only restriction is that it must not have been included in a past Tar Heel Tavern.

OR you can do both in one post...

OR you can do neither and just send me whatcha got.

Send your permalink to lponeill AT att DOT net.

Encourage new N.C. bloggers to participate, and beg old bloggers to host!

Link-Love: some more science blogging

Is time travel possible?

Want to save on gas? Does lowering the tailgate decrease drag? Perhaps you should buy a bycicle instead (recent sales are HUGE).

Six drinks that changed the world.

Legal aspects of Intelligent Design Creationism in schools and amazing chicken bones.

New Dinosaur in New Haven.

When warm liquid trickles down your leg it can save your life. I am waiting for an Evolutionary Psychological story on this.

Fish medicine and fish euthanasia.

Science catches up with Jules Verne.

IgNobel Prizes and Annals of Improbable Research now have a blog (hat-tip: e pur si muove).

When a Mad Scientist bakes bread.

Flu prevention kit and a bone eating snot flower.

Space program, via cucumbers, eradicates rural poverty, God is NOT supernatural and an extroverted Australian's chances of dying of bird flu.

Tracking stuff from photocopiers, color printers and cellphone cameras.

Phony feathered dinosaurs?

Katrina Flood Waters Not The Mother of All Toxic Stews.

Anthopology: a reformer's science - what does that mean? And science vs. science.

God is to engineering what Michael Brown is to hurricane relief and Intelligently designed avian flu.

ID Books and Peer Review and ID Books and Peer Review.

Philosophy is a combination of zoology and prostitution.

Lost your marbles (plus my favourite horse sculpture).

Presenting: Science, Wackmobiles and Spurious Brainchildren.

Meta-meta-meta-meta-blogging: tying the knots in the blogosphere

A long, long time ago, when I first started thinking about blogging itself (as opposed to just doing it) and first discovered blog carnivals, I wrote this post called meta-blogging, in which, among else, I wrote this:

While old Big Blogs are themselves centers of the Universe from which all opinion radiates, small blogs have a different strategy. Large blogrolls, lots of blogwhoring, commenting on each others blogs, linking to each others posts - those are all strategies to gain one's visibility, with a consequence of new knots forming. These new knots are much larger than knots of Big blogs. Several dozens of blogs in each knot keep linking to each other all the time, and the knots get bigger and bigger, connecting to each other, forming a really extensive web which only tangentially includes the Big Old Ones.

I remembered this not only because I am in the meta-blogging mode after ConvergeSouth, but mostly due to some stuff I have read recently on the blogs of students who are taking the blogging class with Colin McEnroe (check his sidebar for the students' blogs and give them some comment-love).

For instance, one of their recent assignments is to read and comment about Lance Mannion. There are already several interesting commentaries on NileBlog, Metablognition, Don't do the crime if you can't..... (and here again), Semper gumby, Jean Dublog, Bill's Blither and I can't help it if i'm lucky.

My blog is certainly not big, but it is huge compared to some who get 7 hits per day, yet DESERVE much more. I want to help new good blogs get some recognition. I have, from relatively early on, tried to link to such unknown little gems of the blogosphere as much as I could, pretty much as I just did above. But just posting a link is not that much help because my blog is not that big.

So, I have recently started other strategies. For instance, I occasionaly do 'linkfests', i.e., posts that contain a number of links to interesting recent posts on a number of blogs, for instance, recent examples are linkfests of female bloggers, science bloggers, political bloggers, North Carolina bloggers, medical bloggers, education and academic bloggers, philosophers, journalists and expert-bloggers, some miscellaneous blogs and some more .

The strategy is to have, in the same post, links both to some of the big blogs (e.g., Leiter Report, PressThink, Pharyngula, Legal Fiction, Pandagon, Majikthise, Shakespeare's Sister, etc.) and some of those newer smaller blogs that deserve wider audience. I am counting on the big bloggers tracking down the link to my linkfest via their sitemeters or search-engines, to look around and check out the unfamiliar names. Hopefully, they will like them, bookmark them and, one day soon, will link to them and bring them huge traffic and lots of new readers.

Even more direct method (which, sadly, bypasses me and my sitemeter) I have done occasionaly is to post links to cool little blogs directly into the comment threads on big blogs.

For instance, just very recently, I thought that Amanda would really like this post from Pearlswine, a blog with nice satire (also a blog I discovered via this post on this blog from Colin's class), but only 17 visits per day. I posted a link in this post on Pandagon and Pearlswine's sitemeter exploded with Pandalanche - and it did not even neccessitate Amanda linking to it in the body of a post. I am hoping that people who like Pandagon will also like Pearlswine's satire and will keep coming back for more.

I did the same thing with this post from Nonsense, another one of Colin's students. That blog gets only 12 visits per day. Not any more, as I have posted a link in a comment on this post at PressThink. I hope his sitemeter is happy with JayRosenlanche and will result in a couple of more regular readers!

Thus, I am trying to help new people join the existing 'knots' of the blogosphere, as well as perhaps build new knots. What do YOU do when you discover a pearl of a blog that nobody appears to know about?

Watch One, Do One, Teach One...

Carnival of Education #37 and Teaching Carnival #2 are up. The former focuses mostly on elementary-middle-high school, while the latter is about college teaching. Enjoy.

Update: Education Roundup: The Advocate Weekly is another carnival of teachers and educators.

Tangled Bank

Tangled Bank is up on The Questionable Authority. Get your bi-weekly dose of science/nature/medicine/environment blogging there.

Carnival of Feminists #1

The very first Carnival of Feminists is up on Philobiblion, with a great collection of excellent posts (and if you did not have enough, scroll down to my post from this morning that links to some more female bloggers).

Nielsen-Ratings Rated by Blogs

Hmmm, there is a storm in the blogosphere. Jacob Nielsen, who is, so they say, some kind of web-designing guru (sorry, I have not heard of him before) wrote these 10 reasons why many blogs suck.

While some of the advice - mostly the technical ones - are OK, others, the social ones, reveal complete misunderstanding what blogging is all about.

Sharon, ClioWeb, Tony and Chris Clarke have their own opinions. PZMyers has his, plus a bunch of commenters pitch in.

What do you think?

Are my titles uninformative and non-eye-catching? Is this blog too 'miscellanous' in theme (as opposed to straightjacketed-narrow Circadiana)?

Do I suffer from irregular posting or dry spells? Is my future boss going to fire me?

Are you unable, even when hovering your cursor over the links, to figure out where I'm linking? Are my old/best posts burried in the archives and never refered to in more recent posts?

Is my 'About Me' section too empty and photograph-less? Anything I should change?

Best spam comment ever

Chris Pirillo thinks that Google should kill Blogger.com because of the harm done (to search engines) by spammer-blog ("splogs") hosted mainly on blogspot. (via Dan Gillmore, hat-tip Ed Cone)

Just one day later, I saw the most brilliant piece of comment spam on a Blogger blog:

ACHILLE said...

Should Google kill Blogspot?
Chris Pirillo is hopping mad about a recent swarm of search spam coming from one rather conspicious domain: blogspot.com. The accusation is that, for whatever reason, it's far too easy for spammers to send ...
Information on daycare referral

5:58 PM

Link-Love: Femmes Fatales

Who asked where are all the women bloggers? Here they are, just a little sample. What a diversity of voices!

Lindsay Beyerstein explains what a Sunday Sermonette is and points out an important detail about the new methods of extracting stem cells.

Newswriter has an appropriate job for Harriet Miers.

Drunken Lagomorph receieves anticlimactic packages.

Amanda's chat with her sister makes her less confident about the DeLay affair. Jesse is leaving Pandagon and he will be sorely missed by the blogosphere, but I have to admit that I ahave been going there primarily for Amanda's rants, like this one on he-said-she-said media.

Kim will make you think about nurses differently for the rest of your life.

Trish Wilson has the best take on Real Dolls.

Jane on Armageddon, lies in history textbooks and the language you have not heard of: Hebonics.

Sakhita on KillWhitey parties, Vanessa on the sex workers conference, Anne on the inmates' right to abortion and Jessica on Vagina101 are some of the reasons to check out Feministing.

Jodie on the history of Candyland, on inspirational speaking and the second-oldest profession.

Bitch, PhD on the Supreme Court and Harriett Miers.

Julie Saltman (another one of Publius' blogchildren) has an excellent take on the Mooney/Yglesias debate on the Republican War on Science.

Arse Poetica is daydreaming, then Scotty McLellan wakes her up again.

Echidne also loves Bruce Lee and uses verbal Jeet-Koon-Do to beat up on David Brooks and James Dobson.

Nancy Nall on the death of a newspaper and some animals.

Cyndy on Kucinich, Crimes Against Humanity and White House Iraq Group.

Deirdre is back in London.

Tiffany defines Bennett's racism and the Miers strategy.

Oh, no! Pen-Elayne has another meme!

Pinko Feminist Hellcat gives credit where it is due.

The Girl With A One-Track Mind connects with her mother and suffers culture-clash in NY City.

Pissed-Off Patricia on how the war was sold, BlondeSense Liz on Cindy Sheehan, Anntichrist S. Coulter on Halliburton Watch and Jaye Ramsey Sutter on factual relativism in the classroom - all good reasons to subscribe to Blondesense.

Alexa is back (does that mean that the Carnival of Sin will resume?) and is being whisked to Prague. I expect the next post will not be work-safe.

Shakespeare's Sister is my first-in-the-morning read for a reason. Here she is on sizeism, Tom DeLay, Al Gore and the Idiotisation of America.

Blue girl recieved a Miller-less copy of New York Times.

Pam is having an interesting discussion about the issue of being gay in political campaigns. She also reports on the recent God-Blog conference.

Hedwig The Owl on birds in the news and academic hiring.

Jane Hamsher has been on fire lately, following fervently the whole Plame/Miller/Rove epic. Try this, this and this for a taste.

Laura is back in school and back in the gym.

Media Girl on what progressivism is.

Danah Boyd on visualisation and tagging.

BotanicalGirl on vertigo, anonymous blogging and losing weight.

Rana connects to nature, turns websites into vegetables and has an eventful day on campus.

Avedon Carol on liberalism.

Rivka on cognitive dissonance.

Mary Anne on the differences between know and believe.

The Little Professor is having hard time reading!

Saheli meets a spider.

Jude is already looking ahead towards 2008 elections.

Dr.Petra reports that having a baby can be an aphrodisiac, and on a man experiencing his wife's orgasm under hypnosis.

It's Chewie's birthday. Go say Hello.

Sarah Dessen is going to New York.

Nita looks at homecoming from a different perspective.

A cop complimented Jasna on her hair. See her hair here.

Natalie Bennett has this to say about crime statistics.

Feministe: Lauren has a strange moment student teaching and another one and Jill detects eurocentrism in archaeology.

Roxanne has all the links on Plame/Rove affair and is waiting for the Flipper.

Grand Rounds - medical blogging

Grand Rounds is up on Diabetes Mine.

The John Edwards Kind Of Day...(and nice weather, too)

Earlier today I made it to the UNC campus for the kick-off of the Project Opportunity campus tour by John Edwards.

John is an honorary chair of the board of the Center For Promise and Opportunity, an organization devoted to recruiting college population in a fight towards elimination of poverty. The Center is working together with the UNC Center on Poverty, Law and Opportunity of which Edwards is the Director.

This tour is designed to raise awareness about poverty among the college students and to start a movement that can effect real change. One of the projects of the Center is a pilot program based on Edwards' campaign idea: providing for one year of college tutition for students who are willing to work 10 hours per week. They have picked Green County in Eastern NC, a relatively poor county, to try this program.

It's been a while since the election so I have forgotten the rock-star effect Edwards has on the crowds when he enters the room. I have overheard an estimate of about 1000 people (800 in the main hall, another 200 in the overflow room next door) being present - mostly students. And all 1000 cheered as loudly as if it was a January in Iowa.

The speech was a shorter version of his excellent post-Katrina speech with an important element added: a brief history of student activism and the profound societal changes it effected in the 1960s and 1980s. This was to undescore that change is possible, that bigwigs in DC are forced to listen if enough people scream loud enough. John urged the students to advocate to their friends and families, to write to their representatives (and college administrators) and not to be defeatist about the real possibility that change is possible - and neccessary because it is the right (and moral) thing to do.

At the press conference afterwards, the questions were exactly as expected: first, how is Elizabeth (she's doing fine), second, is he running for President (too early to decide yet) - at least that's what the TV guys (Channel 11) asked. The Edwards' are currently renting an appartment in Chapel Hill while waiting for their Carrboro house to be finished.

The complete elimination of poverty in the USA, which is possible, is Edwards' main issue - stuff he spends most of his time and effort on. Co-chairing the Council Task Force on Russian-American Relations (he just came back from Moscow) is second on his list of priorities. The third will be his new work with the Fortress group, through which he is hoping to learn about programs and possibilities here and abroad that can be used to alleviate poverty.

Of course, raising minimum wage and helping kids with college are just first (and relatively cheap and easy) things to do. The problem of poverty, he said, is a complex problem that has intertwined financial and social components. It's not just money, but also the the feeling of hopelessness of young men in the inner city who expect to either get killed or go to jail. It will take some hard work to change this psychological perception - but it is possible. It's not just money, but also the feeling of hopelessness by the young women who therefore do the one productive thing they can: have babies. There are deep structural problems in the society as a whole that result in the ongoing cycle of poverty and the forces against change are powerful. But the system has to be changed because if not, the country as a whole will suffer - rich and poor alike - in the long run.

You can read more on the One America Committee website and its blog.

After the press conference I had several minutes of one-on-one with John, something that could not have happened even a year ago - I would have had to wait in line to shake his hand (and he shook something like 1000 hands today - no campaign managers were there to whisk him away to the next campaign stop). Heck, a year ago I would not have even been allowed into the press conference. Today, being a blogger opens all doors. You have to keep your bloggers happy!

Bad Science at UCLA (again)

Wow! They are doing this again this year! So cool. They should include Chris Mooney's blog as 'supplemental reading'.

Fair Blog

NC State Fair is on this week and it has a blog! You can find important info on rides, food, exhibits, locations of bathrooms and other nifty stuff online before going to the fair. (Hat-tip to amazing Heather)

Off to see the Wizard

John Edwards is speaking at UNC today (and meeting with local media and bloggers afterwards). Report here tonight.

ConvergeSouth - Closing Thoughts

Finishing the series on the ConvergeSouth conference....

I am the slowest blogger ever - always the last one to write about any given topic. I guess I am not all that into speed and 'scooping the competition' and such stuff. I like to digest the news slowly before I write anything here. Most other bloggers have moved on and here I am, still harping on ConvergeSouth. But now that I look at the whole series (see bottom of the post for links), I am quite satisfied. All of them put together are better than any of the individual posts standing alone. I had several days to forget the details and only write about the big take-home messages, plus add my own musings to the topic.

As I have already stated in my very first impressions from the meeting, the whole affair was a blast. Fantastic hospitality by the hosts (thanks Billy, Dave and Ed for driving me to the hotel and back multiple times each!), great organization of the meeting, excellent choices of topics and speakers,....

The choice of venue, NC A&T was a stroke of genius. It is a beautiful modern campus. The atmosphere is serious and scholarly, and the students and faculty (including those who participated in the conference) are world-class. I should check out their biology department - I would have no qualms about moving to Greensboro (Dave's neighborhood looks expensive, but I can dream, OK?).

Dave fixes the best BBQ ever and his house feels 'at home' from the first minute one walks in. We had great time at the Friday night party and again at dinner on Saturday night (fantastic bar-steak at Cafe Europa - thanks Roch for hosting and for tipping us to the best, and best-hidden, item on the menu). It was also a privilege to finally meet Jinny in person - what a wonderful person!

Whenever I travel I start out with an assumption that I will NOT be able to access the WWW at any time during the trip and try to make my peace with it. Usually I get pleasently surprised, including this time. Two computer labs at A&T were set aside for us and rows upon rows of PC's were there, already logged in, ready to use at any time of day. The Marriott hotel (very polite and efficient staff!) had something they pompously call "Business Center" which is really a little room with one ancient PC - good enough to check all of my e-mailboxes, all my sitemeters, my favourite blogs, technorati and google searches, the facebook, blogs of people I just met... This is the millionth time I saw people like me happily logging on, while people with their own laptops are fuming in the hall, helplessly trying to get online via incompatible hardware...

A number of bloggers have already written their impressions and the MSM has reported on it as well, including this editorial in Raleigh News & Observer which came on the heels of a spirited discussion that transpired on N&O blogs over the past week. I have also heard Jay Rosen on NPR's "On The Media" today during a long segment on the future of TV (evening) news.

I am sorry, of course, that I had to miss almost 2/3 of the sessions. As you could see in the posts over the past week, I chose the sessions that explore the ways blogs build local, national or global communities, how such communities strive to become more diverse, and how such communities affect the world via their effects on journalism and politics.

This means that I have missed more explicitely political sessions by Ruby Sienrich and Sandy Carmany (both sessions I wanted to see), the Katrina session I was really excited about, as well as 'techno'-sessions: new blogging tools, Wikipedia, podcasting and videoblogging. I SHOULD have gone to those last four because that is my weakness. I am so behind the technological curve, I am going to miss being on the cutting edge. Again.

I tend to wait until a new technology becomes entrenched before I hop on the wagon. I am not impressed by the gee-wizz factor. I want to know how the new stuff is going to be useful to me and is it worth my investment. My computer does not have sound (OK, I'll have that fixed next week). I do not have a lap-top. I do not have an iPod. I do not have any downloaded music. I do not have TiVO. I do not have satellite TV. I do not have digital TV. I do not even have a cell phone. And I am a blogger who spends hours at the computer every day. If you cannot get ME to adopt a new technology, what are your chances with millions of people who are computer-illiterate, computer-apathetic or even computer-phobic?

In the meantime, on this old PC (with WinXP-Prof), when I go to Rocketboom I get a green puzzle-piece. Clicking on it offers the option to download Apple Player. What software do I need and can download that will let me watch those videoblogs on my computer?

It is time now to move on and take a look at the future. There will be a podcastercon in Chapel Hill in January and Anton is planning a different kind of bloggercon later on next winter in Chapel Hill, too:

"But sometime in 2006 I hope to organize a conference on storytelling. More about that in the coming week, and how a storytelling conference might bring together storytellers, bloggers, genealogists, oral historians and the senior citizens of our communities to put our “institutional memory” online."

The previous bloggercon Anton organized was a blast. The next one intrigues me. Let me use that brief cryptic statement of his as a starting point to dream out loud what kind of sessions I would like to see in the future bloggercons. I want to spread out maximally in blogspace and in blogtime.

First, I am interested in the future (thus 'blogtime'). Not 6 months or 5 years in the future, but more like 50 years or 100 years (or 1000 years!).

I want to know how will the world of blogging look in 50 years. Why not invite Cory Doctorow? He's the only one who has written a sci-fi book speculating about the future of the Internet and he is a famous blogger.

I want to know how the blogs will change the world, including politics (Get Joe Trippi?), science (Carl Zimmer as a panelist?) and journalism (Jay Rosen again?).

I want to know how blogs will change education and academia.

Finally, I want to know how the historians, librarians, archivists, students and journalists 50 years in the future will look back at us: are we blogging in a way that makes their job easier? Are we representing the real Zeitgeist to the audience of the future?

Second, I am interested in a broader scope (thus 'blogspace') and reach of the blogosphere, beyond the usual focus on would-be-journalists, political pundits and techno-geeks.

I have written before (here and more recently here) about the importance of expert-bloggers - the people who know more about a topic than your average journalist and are bypassing media filters to disseminate the best information and the most informed opinion on any given topic. Let's bring some expert bloggers.

There are gazillions of lawyers and legal scholars on blogs - let's bring one. Foreign policy experts (Juan Cole). There are philosophers (Brian Leiter?), academics and historians (someone from the HNN?). There are scientists (PZ Myers would be a blast to have here), physicians, avian-flu experts, global warming experts,....and many others.

Also, majority of blogs are personal journals. Many of those are quite well written. Some of those have serious pretensions of becoming writers. I'd like to see a session (or more than one) about blogging poetry (see what Billy thinks about it), stories, essays and novels. About online book publishing (and making money on it, if possible) - Cory Doctorow again? About well-known writers using blogs to converse with their readers (Sarah Dessen is here in Chapel Hill). About essayists letting commenters on their blogs fact-check and critique before the thing gets published in hardcopy (David Brin does that all the time).

Another thing - I would like to see an effort to get professional journalists help bloggers (those who want to do this) become better journalists. I think this is a fantastic idea along those lines.

Also, I would like to know what is the best way to spread blogging. How to teach it to newbies. How to make it available to everybody. How to make more people WANT to do this.

Just some ideas....

Previously:
ConvergeSouth - First Impressions
ConvergeSouth - Some Pictures
ConvergeSouth - International Coverage
ConvergeSouth - Building Community
ConvergeSouth - Blog Carnivals
ConvergeSouth - Ethics
ConvergeSouth - Policing the Media
ConvergeSouth - Blogging from the outside
ConvergeSouth - Local Online Alt Media
ConvergeSouth - Creative Branding on Blogs
Related: Teaching Blogging

Check the Technorati Tag: ConvergeSouth

I don't know. I am ignorant.

Wow, someone from Riverside, California just got here via this search: "site:sciencepolitics.blogspot.com ignorant". What does that mean?

The Tar Heel Tavern #34

The Tar Heel Tavern is now up. See the cool T-shirts worn by North Carolinians and the stories behind them....

Carnival of the Godless #25

Carnival of the Godless is up on The Common Man.

Feminists, Unite

The call for submissions for the first edition of the Carnival of Feminists has been aired. I wish they would think of a catchier title. I am sick of the ubiquotous "Carnival of XYZ"...

History Carnivals

A wonderful edition of the History Carnival is now up on Acephalous.

An amazing issue of Carnivalesque is hosted by Alun on Archaeoastronomy.

ConvergeSouth - Creative Branding on Blogs

Continuing the ongoing coverage of ConvergeSouth....

Saturday afternoon - the last session of the day.

Michael Cobb Bowen, aka Cobb, is one cool dude. He runs a conservative blog AND a progressive blog. He is a smart African-American conservative blogger (no knee-jerk Regressive a la Hindrocket or Vox Day - but a serious and respectable thinker) whom I had the honor of meeting (and sharing one interesting car ride with) last week.


Now, I can make a lame excuse about being tired at the end of the day and worn-out by the exciting sessions that preceded this, thus not being very well concentrated on what Cobb was saying, but that would be a lie. Actually, how could one possibly focus on the presentation while sitting right behind Amanda Congdon? There is a reason - a GOOD reason - why there are more pictures from ConvergeSouth of Amanda than of all the other participants combined.

OK, OK, excuses, excuses. I do remember at least some of the stuff. And to help me (and you), Michael wrote a little intro and provided us with the bulleted points of his presentation.

How do you make yourself into an online brand? Michael divided the strategies into mechanical, personal and creative, although there is quite an overlap between the three. I would divide them differently: bells and whistles to make your blog (or your comments elsewhere) LOOK memorable; strategies for making friends online (community building); and strategies for increasing one's traffic. Of course, if you follow my taxonomy, there is still a lot of overlap.

Only a rather narrow circle of bloggers (those who met me in person?) think of me as Bora Zivkovic. For most, I am Coturnix. On some blogs I have a gravatar showing a Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) - my laboratory animal model. On some blogs I have an avatar - a photo of myself and John Edwards from a fundraiser. On some forums I go by "LiberalZoo" reflecting where I am (Chapel Hill was nicknamed "liberal zoo" by Jesse Helms) and who I am (a liberal and a zoologist). So, those are my multiple online personas. Cobb has many more (LOL).

If you look around, you will see that I am not much into bells & whistles. This blog looks downright nasty - I have to make it look a little neater soon. The hitmap needs to go. The moon-phases are more appropriate for my other blog than for this one. All the miscellaneous links need to go off the front page. I need to add an Amazon button because many people dislike PayPal. Blogroll is in a bad need of updating. Categories need some updating. I am more into eliminating bells & whistles than adding more of them. Ah well, if I am in a mood to do something here, I'd rather write a marathon post than fiddle with the template....

One new thing I learned at the session was the existence (and great potential as a blogging tool) of the Strip Creator. See Michael's own recent use of it. There is also Strip Generator (hat tip: AE), which I tried to use to make a comic-strip describing what REALLY happened during Cobb's session. I have no idea how to upload it on the blog, so you will HAVE TO go and read it here!

This post generated some linking and commenting about the role of TTLB ecosystem. Apart from being based on (erroneous to boot) The Great Chain Of Being, it is also notorious for its effect on hardening the hirerachy of blogs. Several months ago a number of important bloggers got out of the system and its relevance has been diminishing ever since. Cobb, like me, is a Large Mammal in the TTLB ecosystem. It is extremely easy to get that high (and very difficult to lose that status no matter how hard you try). What did it for me is one of the strategies that Michael calls "leaguing", i.e., joining blog alliances.

As soon as I joined the Progressive Blog Alliance I shot up to the Large Mammal status. Even when I moved the PBA list off the frontpage into my blogroll, I did not loose the status. I really need to get myself off of TTLB soon. Also, see this excellent article - it will make you think differently about the whole concept of TTLB.

Also, in the meantime, I have joined Liberal Coalition, which automatically places one in a cross-linking group that contains some strong bloggers (including one A-lister - Steve Gilliard), Big Brass Alliance, which is more of a 'community-building' kind of group with nothing automatic about the rise in linking, and the Circle of Scientific Assessment webring, a new blogger community that I expect to grow rapidly. I've also been considering joining a group for purposes of advertising - this one looks good.

I have hosted a dozen or so carnivals (some on this blog, some on the other one) and have sent my entries to many, many more. This is a great way both to get hits and to make online friends, as I have tried to explain at the conference. My blogroll is several months out of date. The REAL blogroll, the one I keep in my browser, contains about 80% blogs I discovered via carnivals - the bloggers who have similar interests as I have and who write well about them.

Much of the discussion centered on the "digital divide" - is blogging still unavailable to too many people, mainly the poor and the minorities? Is it mostly an economic divide or a cultural divide? I do not know. Your thoughts?

Well, at every session I had to - being me - say something. What I said here is that the best and most honest way to get recognized is to choose a few good blogs and keep posting intelligent, literate, polite comments that add something important or novel to the discussion. The hosts and the other commenters will, over time, start paying attention to you and checking your blog on a regular basis. One day, one of them will link to something interesting you posted and you'll wake up in the morning to a Sitemeter-Gone-Wild. It's fun! Give it a try. And there is no gimmick involved so the effect will be lasting.

Tomorrow: Final Thoughts!

Previously:
ConvergeSouth - First Impressions
ConvergeSouth - Some Pictures
ConvergeSouth - International Coverage
ConvergeSouth - Building Community
ConvergeSouth - Blog Carnivals
ConvergeSouth - Ethics
ConvergeSouth - Policing the Media
ConvergeSouth - Blogging from the outside
ConvergeSouth - Local Online Alt Media
Related: Teaching Blogging

Check the Technorati Tag: ConvergeSouth

Self-congratulations!

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Go to Belgrade

This makes me nostalgic (hat-tip: Eric Gordy).

Lance Mannion to be dissected

Oh, oh! Sorry, Lance. I t may be due to a comment that I left there.

Colin McEnroe, whose blogging class up in Connecticut I am following with considerable interest, directed his students to read Lance and write on their blogs about him (check the list of student blogs on his sidebar over the next few days for results).

Colin itroduces Lance as someone with "big rep as a strong writer" so the students are going to be predisposed to nitpick about his writing style. Also, judging from some of their previous posts, a number of students have a strong aversion to (or is it 'against') political blogs and Lance has written quite a lot of political posts recently. Perhaps Lance should write one of his beautiful lyrical pieces and keep it on top for a few days....

Also, Aldon Hynes came to class there (he is my fellow co-blogger on Idea Consultants) and pointed them to this excellent article which provides some very interesting statistics about the sex and age distribution of bloggers and other similar stuff, something relevant to the discussion generated by this recent post.

BTW, Colin should tell his students to enable word verification as their blogs are full of comment spam. He should also encourage them to respond to comments they get on their blogs, as well as to comment on each others' blogs. Finally, they may need help installing sitemeters - a neccessary tool if the conversation between blogs is to be more than one-sided (i.e., talking out loud, but being deaf to responses from the blogosphere).

I am such a geek!

Megaraptor - It's all about size, baby. I'm so big
and bad, who CAN'T notice me?


Which Dromaeosaurid Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

ConvergeSouth - Local Online Alt Media

Continuing the ConvergeSouth coverage...

Saturday early afternoon:

Exposing a little organizational glitch - Roch Smith's session moved to a different room (Hoder was absent), yet there was no sign posted at the old venue, nor an announcement. So, by the time I and a few others figured it all out, we came in late and missed the opening spiel. I hope I did not miss too much.

At the beginning, Roch asked people why they blog. Nobody said therapy, although I feel it may be the real reason why I blog and why, I suspect, many other people blog. From that Sue's link, here are some examples of blogs as therapeutics.

This session was about building a blogging micro-community, something that Greensboro practically invented and Roch was instrumental in the process by building and running Greensboro101.com blog aggregator. A number of other places are now trying to emulate Greensboro and foster hyperlocal blogging communities with more or less success.

Lux-Et-Umbra explains:

* Greensboro101 is an aggregator. Not a public forum.
* Greensboro101's mission is to generate local news via blogs, thereby pushing the comments to the blogs that are pushing the local news or setting up the events.
* Greensboro101 is NOT like Backfence, or any site as such since it does not empower citizens for an onslaught of full articles. You blog your post, you summarize on GSO101 and others that are interested will link into your blog.
* Greensboro101 is NOT a conventional news site either, whereas pretty much all of your other sites are basic alt-media news sites. These sites are no different from WaPo, NYT, or even CNN websites except for the fact that they allow citizen participation and sometimes include a forum.

Here's Backfence, so you can compare.

Terrablogs is trying to do this for a number of cities, including Seattle, Atlanta, Berkeley, Boston, Chattanooga, Memphis, Monroe, New Orleans, Saint Andrews, San Diego, St.Louis, Vermont and Vicksburg, but each aggregates only a few blogs so far.

Following in the steps of Greensboro101, there are some other successful local aggregators, in Charlotte, Charlotte again, Seattle, Washington D.C. and Nashville, for instance.

At a level of the whole state, Connecticut appears to have a thriving community of bloggers, including those who do Connecticut Local Politics. I found out about them from a blogging class taught by Colin McEnroe. Check out the students' blogs on his sidebar and their reactions to their state aggregator. Many are uncomfortable with the fact that most local blogs do not write about local issues - what makes a CT blog a CT blog apart from being located in CT? Do people ask the same question when seeing Greensboro101.com?

But, with Greensboro being "30 seconds ahead of the curve" (is this Ed Cone's phrase?) it is not suprising that North Carolina as a state is at the front, and that several other places in the state are trying to learn from the Greensboro experience and join the cutting edge. The "web is a petri dish for hyperbole" (Ed Cone), and with our strength in biotech, it is not surprising that this petri dish is incubated here.

The concept of the blog carnival was born in North Carolina with the Carnival of Vanities. Not surprisingly, the first state-carnival also started here: The Tar Heel Tavern (check out the archives). Several other states have started their carnivals in the meantime, e.g., Montana, NY, NJ, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Kansas is probably going to be next (see here for more). Stephen aka Cicero has a great idea to celebrate the first anniversary of the Tavern in person at the next bloggercon in Chapel Hill.

The Triangle is closely following in the footsteps of Greensboro, emulating everything that appeared to work well. However, the Triangle blogging community is "fractal" (or schizophrenic if you do not want to be charitable) as it tries to organize at three distinct levels. The first level is hyperlocal, pretty much bu county: Wake Co. (Raleigh, Cary, Apex), Durham Co. (Durham, RTP) and Orange Co. (Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Pittsboro). The second level is Triangle-wide. The Triangle is not just a geographical unit, but also a psychological one. Many of us live in one county, go to school in another, and go to work in the third. Finally, as Raleigh is the seat of the state government, Triangle bloggers feel the need to be at the forefront of organizing the state-wide blogging community. Perhaps there is even a fourth level - national - as many local bloggers worked, in one capacity or another, for John Edwards in his national bid last year.

Mark Tosczak built the biggest aggregator in the state, the NCblogs.com, which can be viewed whole or in regional parts: Triad, Triangle, Charlotte, Western and Eastern.

Triangle Blog Aggregator can also be viewed in separate parts: Chapel Hill, Raleigh, RTP and Triangle Java User Group.

North State Blogs and Triad Blogs are also local aggregators. Does any other state have this many blog-lists and aggregators?

Raleigh News and Observer and Independent Weekly are now trying to use the blogs the same way that Greensboro News and Record pioneered.

In Greensboro, the motor behind the building of the community is Ed Cone - he taught everyone how to blog, organized the Piedmont Bloggers Conference and the ConvergeSouth, and did a lot to force the newspaper to get ready for the 21st century.

In the Triangle, Anton Zuiker does exactly the same. He has organized the Triangle Bloggers Conference and is planning for another one next year. He has blog teach-ins every month. He also runs the local blog meet-ups via Blog Together.

Something is always happening around here. Jude, Justin and Walloper may have moved out of state, but Reed is moving to Raleigh soon and new bloggers are starting out, like New 2 Raleigh in the Triangle and Nita in Greensboro just did.

Sandy Carmany is an elected official in Greensboro. Sally Greene is an elected official in the Triangle, and Will R is running for office.

In the Triad, GTRC and Jill run the Greensboro Truth & Reconciliation Commission blog. In the Triangle, Heather is blogging for the NC Conservation Network.

In the Triad, the blogging community is so compact, it almost feels foul to pick some over the others, but you can see the great examples of their work if you check out Sue, everybody's blog-mama, Jay Ovittore, the music man, Stewart the camereman, Lex, the journalist, Billy the blogging poet, Mandie, the photoblogger, and many others, like Chewie, Dave, Michael, Jon, Laurie, Guarino, Patrick, David, Seymour, jw, .....

In the Triangle, Ruby has done miracles with Orange Politics - a site that many are going to emulate next year for mid-term elections. Eric Muller is possibly the best known NC blogger nationally. Pam is right up there as she recently made it. Paul Jones teaches journalism. Henry Copeland runs Blogads. Sarah Dessen is a famous writer. Robust McManlyPants on Average Display has the bext blog title ever. Dave Munger is Poli-sci Department Head at Duke who recently quit blogging for various professional reasons (but I am sure he is still reading us all). Just off the top of my head, let me also mention Jane, Ron, CathColl and ae. We all know each other, meet every now and then, and think of each other as friends.

Will the mountain folks be next? Check the Ashville blogroll here. Some very impressive blogs. Erin, being in Monroe, can pick where to be aggregated - everywhere perhaps.

Or is it going to be Charlotte area? See the Charlotte blogroll on Anonymoses blog for some fine examples.

Anyway, if Greensboro is 30 seconds in front of everyone else, perhaps the rest of the North Carolina is 10 second ahead of the rest of the world. Not bad.

Previously:
ConvergeSouth - First Impressions
ConvergeSouth - Some Pictures
ConvergeSouth - International Coverage
ConvergeSouth - Building Community
ConvergeSouth - Blog Carnivals
ConvergeSouth - Ethics
ConvergeSouth - Policing the Media
ConvergeSouth - Blogging from the outside

Check the Technorati Tag: ConvergeSouth

The Mad Hatter Party

By artist Mark Bryan, through Avedon Carrol, via arse poetica.

ConvergeSouth - Blogging from the outside

Continuing the ConvergeSouth coverage....

Friday late morning:

This was probably the most exciting session of all. Tiffany of Blackfeminist blog was going to discuss the problem of an emerging hierarchy within the blogosphere.

All the so-called "A-listers" are middle-class, middle-age, white, straight, and usually Christian, men. Every three months or so, one of them looks around and posts a question "Where are all the female political bloggers?". What inevitably ensues is a big fight in which hundreds of female political bloggers post comments saying, pertty much: "We are here, and if you looked around and linked to us every now and then, you would know there are hundreds of us".

Over the course of these discussions, an important point is always made and that is the fact that search engines (e.g., Technorati and Google) favor the early adopters, most of whom are computer geeks in engineering schools - the guys who developed the software we all now use. Kos, Atrios, Instapundit and others became big because they came to the game early.

Once a blog gets linked enough to become "A-listed" it is almost impossible to fall down in the hierarchy. Somebody later in the session pointed out an example of a blog that has not had a new post in over a year yet is still a "large mammal" in the TTLB Ecosystem.

It is very difficult to rise in such a hardened hierarchy. The only way, in reality, is by getting linked, and often, by the A-listers. Yet A-listers tend to only link to each other. For Kos, that is actually a spelled-out policy. The others just don't "get it" how their behavior affects the hierarchy and get defensive when attacked. They do not see themselves as doing anything wrong, yet they do not see how their linking habits keep many good bloggers down.

Much of the debate also revolves about the definition of "political blogging" and possible sex differences in styles of political blogging. The typical A-listers are policy wonks. They cover, day by day, details of what is happening in Washington, the legislations, nominations, policies, etc. Lots of Iraq coverage, too. War is sexy for men.

Many other bloggers do not want to blog that way, yet thoroughly consider themselves to be political. Mixing purely political posts with posts about one's kids is NOT disqualifying.

Focusing on issues of local politics and the way national policies affect the real life is just as political, and perhaps more important, as anything discussed regularly by Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum, Josh Marshall or Ezra Klein.

Focusing on issues of sex, gender and marriage just shows that the blogger understands, perhaps just by gut-instinct, that all politics is sexual politics - something that is the main topic of my blog. All policies are based on one's basic worldview ("ideology"), which comes out of one's relationship with sexuality, which in turn results from one's upbringing (Dobsonian childrearing leading to wingnuttery via femiphobia). Usually the debate drifts from here into the "nice guys come last"-type discussion.

My name ending with "a" is not the only reason why so many of my readers assume, erroneously, that I am female. I blog like a woman and proudly so. My blog is deeply political, yet I have no intention to ever blog like Markos Moulitzas.

You can find some links to previous discussions here, an interview about this here and very long lists of female political blogs here and here. Somebody, if I remember correctly, put in one place the links to ALL posts in the history of this debate - if you know where it is, please let me know so I can add the link to it.

Well, Tiffany did a great job presenting the background story and identifying the core problems of this debate, including the search-engine question, TTLB ecosystem problem, frozen hierarchy, sex-differences in style, definition of "political blogging", and the oft-unspoken issue that it is not just women, but also minorities, gays and all others who are not WASPs that get the shaft due to the way the system (structurally, i.e., techonologically) is set up.

At the very end of her introduction, while Tiffany was finishing with her last couple of sentences, Dave Winer walked into the room. He had no way of knowing what the session was all about. All he heard were the last couple of sentences and he jumped to the conclusion that Tiffany was attacking middle-class, middle-age white men for being middle-class, middle-age white men. Ah, what a misundertanding!

He got very defensive about being a middle-class, middle-age white men and repeated, almost verbatim, almost all the lame excuses that Kevin Drum and Co. tried to use when they were centers of the storms of these debates in the past. I don't know how a veteran blogger like Dave could have missed several iterations of the debate in the blogosphere before and not armed himself with better defenses. It took some explaining until he understood what it was all about and chilled out and behaved well for the rest of the session.

One telling thing that Dave said, something which surprised me because I thought I knew him better (no, I don't think he is a big bad mysoginist pig, just a natural contrarian) - he said at one moment that he will take offense when a feminist blogger attacks a man for being a man. Well, I've been reading the top 'feminist' bloggers like Shake's Sister, Pam, Amanda, Lindsay, Echidne, Jane, AE, Liz, Patricia and Co., Rox, Jill and Lauren, Pen-Elayne, Trish and others for quite a long time now. After the early-morning dose of Pharyngula which I read for obvious reasons of shared interests, those are the blogs I read first. I have NEVER seen any one of them ever attack a man for being a man. If I did, I, as a man, would feel insulted and would lash out at them. They all like men. Most of them LOVE men. What they do is destroy sexist, mysoginist, homophobic, femiphobic pigs (who are sometimes female, too, see: Schlafly, Phyllis) whenever they say or write something that reveals their medieval Taliban-style view of women. As a man, I join in the slaughter because such men give all men a bad name.

After this little 'incident', I think nobody had the appetite to get back to the core of the problem. Discussion went into some other areas in which non-traditional voices have difficulty being heard. One is blogging in languages other than English (although I don't think that 10 million Chinese bloggers care one bit if the 'other' blogosphere cannot read them - learn Chinese if you want to join the online revolution!).

The other is blogging in non-traditional English. We rehashed the case (local, so the non-NC folks were not aware of it) of the Guilford Co. GOP Chairman who has a blog and was complaining that he, as important as he thinks he is, is not linked by Greensboro101.com (or anyone else for that matter). The response was that, due to illiteracy of his posts, nobody understands what he is trying to say, although some of Ken Mehlman's talking points appear strewn around the text. No paragraphs, no capitalization, no punctutation, no grammar, no sense.

Illiteracy is not the same as non-standard English, though. If your target audience is African-American, or young, or Australian, you should write in the way they like and understand. Nothing written by Fafblog or Rude Pundit is work-safe, yet their message is clear, their voice is strong, and they are immensely popular because of the message. The irreverent use of language makes their message more powerful.

Lack of capitalization is the brand of skippy the bush cangaroo, but everybody understands what the good folks there are trying to say. Still, at some venues, and in some instances, writing a post in standard English adds weight to one's thoughts. It tends to be taken more seriously. I have written a strong post about this very issue about a year ago or more here.

You can see additional (quite diplomatic, mostly) reviews of this session by Tiffany, jw, Cobb, Dave Winer, Bill O'Pad, Dave and Chewie.

Update: Big thanks to Pam for linking to and commenting on this post (go check out the links in her post for more info).

Update 2: David Boyd who I had the pleasure to meet for the first time last week, but on whose blog I could not post a comment, asks if it is possible for non-A-listers to design a system that does a better job than the TTLB in making the hierarchy less frozen.

I think that TTLB appears in these discussions mainly because the A-listers use it as a starting point to ask the silly question "Where are all the female political bloggers?". Many small bloggers, once attaining "large mammal" designation (which is unbelievably easy) realize that the game is rigged, opt out (and it is not as simple as deleeting from your template, though) of TTLB. There was a massive opt-out move a few months ago.

I am still on (although I debate this with myself every week or so) for two reasons: one, it provides some stats that Sitemeter and Technorati do not, and two, I am computer-semi-illiterate and, always working on unreliable machines, I am afraid to mess with my template without Anton sitting next to me, or Erin Monahan e-mailing back and forth. I know I will opt out one day soon.

The TTLB ecosystem has become, in part due to these debates, largely irrelevant over the past several months.

Many bloggers, including myself, do not WANT to ever become A-listers. There is too much pressure at the top, and we blog because it is fun (or therapy). I am perfectly happy with my 250-300 hits per day. David is so happy with his 90-ish hits per day that he even talks about "you outsiders". He's 'made it' according to his criteria and that is perfectly legitimate. People blog for different reasons and have different goals. Not everyone wants to have a direct line to the Party Chairman.

The real problem are search engines like Google (including blogsearch.google.com), Technorati and Yahoo news. There is no opting out ot those. Much of the discussion is about the way to get the A-listers to understand how their linking habits need to change to accommodate the technology. Otherwise, the hierarchy will remain rigid and the diverse voices will not be heard. Many bloggers contribute important points and perspectives even if they do not discuss ppolicy details several times a day. Such points and perspectives need to be more readily available to the readers.

Update 3: Read this excellent article - not just the first paragraph, but the whole thing - as it is very pertinent for this discussion.

Update 4: Finally found the Link Portal to all of the previous discussions on this topic.

Previously:
ConvergeSouth - First Impressions
ConvergeSouth - Some Pictures
ConvergeSouth - International Coverage
ConvergeSouth - Building Community
ConvergeSouth - Blog Carnivals
ConvergeSouth - Ethics
ConvergeSouth - Policing the Media

Check the Technorati Tag: ConvergeSouth

Idiot America

Nobody can say it as clearly and as well as PZ Myers.

Teaching Blogging

Somewhat related to the whole ConvergeSouth experience. I've been pitching a blogging course to my school for a while now (not NCSU, but a community college where I teach). It's been slow and disheartening so far. Nobody knows what blogging is. Also, there is a rule that one needs to have an appropriate degree for a class. In the case of a blogging class, this would mean, or so they said, either journalism school or computer science.

Last night we had a faculty retreat and the main campus bigwigs showed up on our little satellite campus. The new Dean was there. He was talking, as a part of his top 5 things he wants to do, about completely re-doing the computer science curriculum, as well as pushing for more online and hybrid online/classroom) classes. I had only about 5-10 minutes, during a break, to corner him and to sell him these two points:

- Blogging class is important because it is the wave of the future and having such a course would prepare our students for the 21st century, as well as put the school on the map as a cutting-edge educational insitution. It would also be a hybrid class: first meeting in person to help students set up their own blogs, and the rest of the class online. I mentioned Colin McEnroe's blogging class up in Connecticut, as well as the position of North Carolina as the incubator of all new blogging ideas in the world, including the innovations by Greensboro News & Record that the whole world is watching.

- J-school graduates bring in the biases that make them most likely to misunderstand what blogging is all about, thus trying to teach a journalism class on computers instead of a blogging class. A computer scientist, likewise, would try to stick in too much technical stuff, and is likely to miss completely on the sociological, political and journalistic aspects of blogging. Thus, the proper background for teaching such a class is to be an experienced blogger, and I am one (using the fact that I was invited to ConvergeSouth - and I was, on purpose, wearing my ConvergeSouth T-shirt).

I talked fast. Ten minutes is not very much time (and I had to start with introducing myself and then chatting about Yugoslavia first). It worked. I am going to write up a proposal and it is likely to pass and I may start teaching it next year, perhaps as early as spring.

John Edwards in the news again

John Edwards will be advising, part-time, Fortress Investment Group, a progressive global economic investment organization that donated 15 times more to Dems than to Reps last time around. How do wingnuts respond? By accusing him of trying to get rich! Now that's rich! Anyway, since when do they not like rich people?

Pinter to go to Stockholm

Harold Pinter got the Nobel Prize for literature this year. Michelle Malkin is having a fit and the wingnuts are photocopying her rants all over their pitiful blogs.

I'm Gone Country, Again

What is a Jewish Serbian atheist liberal doing driving a van (used to be a Volvo station-wagon!) with the radio blaring country music? My oldest readers may remember this strange bucking of stereotypes. But here's a country song that bucks sterotypes, or I am reading it all wrong:

That's What I Love About Sunday

(Adam Dorsey, Mark Narmore)

Raymond's in his Sunday best
He's usually up to his chest
In oil and grease
There's the Martins walking in
With that mean little freckled-face kid
Who broke a window last week
Sweet Miss Betty likes to sing off key
In the pew behind me

That's what I love about Sunday
Sing along as the choir sways
Every verse of "Amazing Grace"
And then we shake the preacher's hand
Go home into your blue jeans
Have some chicken and some baked beans
Pick a backyard football team
Not do much of anything
That's what I love about Sunday

I stroll to the end of the drive
Pick up the Sunday Times
Grab a coffee cup
It looks like Sally and Rob
Finally tied the knot
Well it's about time
It's thirty-five cents off of ground round
Baby, cut that coupon out

That's what I love about Sunday
Cat napping on the porch swing
You curled up next to me
The smell of jasmine wakes us up
Take a walk down a back road
Tackle box and a cane pole
Carve our names in that white oak
I steal a kiss as the sun fades
That's what I love about Sunday

New believers getting baptized
Mama's hands raised up high
Having a Hallelujah good time
A smile on everybody's face
That's what I love about Sunday

Oh yeah
That's what I love about Sunday
Oh yeah

Sunday Times?! Sunday Times?! Do the Red-Staters read Sunday Times? Or do they just use the word "Times" not for New York Times, but for any local little rag?

Bora needs

A silly blog-meme is going around: Pen-Elayne needs and PZ Myers needs, so let's see what heppens when I google "Bora needs". Here are some of the top hits:

Bora needs your help to reach out to provide education based on loving
attention to poor children and AIDS orphans unable to attend Primary School

Bora needs more green hotels like Eden Beach if it is to survive

Bora buyer needs to look at the 115bhp diesel

Bora needs a symbolic masterstroke

Bora needs 35 minutes

Bora needs an n. 8 accelerator pump cam

BORA needs to be considered

Bora needs to get to the top of the Tower

I would agree that there needs to be a Bora

Skeptic's Circle

Believe it or not, the newest issue of the Skeptic's Circle is up on Kelly's wonderful blog, Time To Lean.

Book reading not to miss

Thomas Frank, author of WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS (NY Times' "Best Political Book of the Year") has been (re)scheduled for Friday, Nov 18, at 7:00 PM at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh (corner of Ridge Rd and Wade Ave.). I think I can make it.

Will the Bird Flu Pandemic Kill the Newspapers?

An intiriguing hypothesis.

ConvergeSouth - Policing the Media

Continuing ConvergeSouth coverage....

After getting lost on campus, Atrius made his entrance on Saturday morning. It was a great continuation of the previous day's session on journalistic ethics (see my previous ConvergeSouth post).

The discussion centered on the perils of he-said-she-said journalism, even in cases in which there is only one side backed by empirical facts, the other side being a wrong-headed opinion manufactured for the express reason of having another side - the best example being evolution vs. intelligent design creationism. Problems with voting machine code is another example: the media has no problem reporting on other methods of vote manipulation (e.g., vote supression), but stays away from the only problem that is empirically proven to be true: the code is so poorly written that the voting machines are extremely vulnerable to tampering.
One thing that a newspaper cannot do (and blogs do all the time) is provide links - an instant source of background information. Will newspaper articles of the future all have URLs in the footnotes?

Instead of me going on and on, go check the posts by Atrios himself here, here, here, here and here, as well as these reports here and here.

Previously:
ConvergeSouth - First Impressions
ConvergeSouth - Some Pictures
ConvergeSouth - International Coverage
ConvergeSouth - Building Community
ConvergeSouth - Blog Carnivals
ConvergeSouth - Ethics

Check the Technorati Tag: ConvergeSouth

Blogging can be good for your academic career, after all...

Hmmm. Even when blogging anonymously, one can get job offers. The wonderful world of blogging - if you are good, your blog opens doors. So much for Ivan Tribble's thesis.

I And The Bird #8

Brand new edition of I and the Bird is up on Science and Sarcasm blog. Go feast on a wealth of wonderful bird-related posts.

Blog Experiment

There are estimated to be more than 20 million blogs in existence. Somebody somewhere knows the answer to my question. If every one of my readers (who also owns a blog) copies and pastes this post on their blogs, it should spread through the entire blogosphere over just a couple of days. Then, once somebody comes up with the answer to my question, the whole process repeats, with every blogger posting the answer. It should reach me in no less than a week. Let's try to do this. My question is:

What is the first original use of the phrase: "Note to Self"?

Does it come from a movie, comic strip, TV show ("Police Squad" comes to mind)? If you know the answer, post it on your blog and encourage your readers to do the same. Is the blogosphere such a powerful means of light-speed exchange of information? Let's prove that it is.

ConvergeSouth - Ethics

Coverage continues...

Friday afternoon:

Jay Rosen and Lex Alexander session was amazing (and a number of bloggers have already commented on it). Daniel's doodle of the two guys is right on the money:
Compare it to the photo:
The session was actually quite tense and contentious, struggling over the ageless question of who has, or deserves, more trust: professional journalists or bloggers...until someone really smart suggested to stop thinking "Who do I trust" and ask instead "Who do I believe". At that moment, everyone in the room relaxed. Words 'trust' and 'reliability' (because that is what 'believe' means in this context) have a similar relationship to each other as 'respect' and 'tolerance'. Reliability and tolerance are words with a single, simple, limited meaning that everyone agrees with. Trust and respect have a shifting meaning, starting out as synonyms for reliability and tolerance, respectively, than sliding into ever more broad meanings, something properly dubbed respect-creep and I would say also applicable for "trust-creep".

Lex described the way News and Record blogs got started and the operating principles they use in accepting and "editing" citizen's contributions (not comments - whole posts): just the punctuation and grammar. The Editor writes more on the issue.

Ted Vaden of Raleigh News and Observer commented on the session. Melanie Sill, providing a great personal example of what is wrong with institutional journalism, jumps on an out-of-context quote by Rosen, as reported by Vaden, with no further verification of the quote, accusing Rosen of doing exactly what Sill did: sitting behind the computer screen and making Ivory Tower pronouncements. Ahhhem (clearing thorat). Rosen was actually there (see picture above). I saw him. He is real - muscle and blood. He said "Hi". Sill was the one sitting behind the computer.... Actually, I still have no proof that Sill is not just a clever piece of computer software that N&O uses to fill its blogs....Get down from the Ivory Tower, Melanie, and show us that you are a human, too.

Anyway, Jay commented on Sill's post. David Boyd exchanged e-mails with Sill on the issue.
Paul and Ed chip in.

In the beginning of the session, Jay stated that the first journalist to figure out how to use blogs right will become famous. Later in the session, someone reminded everyone that most blogs have no journalistic pretensions. At the end, conversation turned to the fact that insititutional journalism is very reluctant to lose control (power) over the information available to the people. Thus, a media-company will closely guard itself against its own journalists who may make an attempt at any kind of transgression that could possibly reduce the company's control. Putting the two and two together, I asked if perhaps the front-page political journalists are the ones who are most closely monitored and that the "first famous" journalist will be someone on the beat who can slide under the radar, someone, perhaps, who writes about sports, a restaurant critic, a science reporter, or someone covering public health and medicine. Jay said that it is most likely to be a reporter covering the local schools, as nobody understands what is going on in schools as well as parents, students and teachers: most valuable resources to a guy on the education beat.

He may be right about it, but I tend to agree with Michael - the "first famous" journalist-blogger will be someone on the beat who does NOT have the J-school baggage and is not immersed in the newsroom culture. Someone who is always on the run, on the beat, and turns in stories by e-mail, never getting soiled by the newsroom culture. Perhaps I can do that as a science reporter for some local newspaper?

Previously:
ConvergeSouth - First Impressions
ConvergeSouth - Some Pictures
ConvergeSouth - International Coverage
ConvergeSouth - Building Community
ConvergeSouth - Blog Carnivals

Check the Technorati Tag: ConvergeSouth

Intelligently Designed

An interesting riff on Intelligent Design as in "intelligently designed communities". It is interesting in light of an unusual and unexpected alliance of free-market fundamentalism and anti-evolution fundamentalism (see this and this for my take on that).

Raleigh is not Megalopolis...yet!

Republicans have no sense of reality, even if they read science-fiction:

"...Republican mayoral candidate Joe Ross’s answer to the traffic congestion in Raleigh is–no foolin’–Flying Buses. Joe said he’d seen stuff on the web about the advent of flying cars (oh?); therefore, he said, flying buses can’t be too far away."

Confident or Cocky?

Ha! Busted! Now you know why I can bullshit you here so confidently! This new study reveals all:

A new international self-esteem survey puts Serbia at the top, Japan at the bottom, and the U.S. in sixth place.

Of course, as in all such studies, all the caveats apply: what is the definition of self-esteem; what does the test really measure; is the sample size sufficiently large (only 59 Cypriots were asked); what are the sampling biases (apparently mostly college students were asked), etc. Still - this is a fun little piece of trivia I can use to my advantage in the future!

ConvergeSouth - Building Community

Continuing reporting from Greensboro...

Friday noonish:

Dave Hoggart, Ruby Sienrich and I had a great time in our session:

Dave was talking about the vibrant local Greensboro blogging community - the one that gave its city the nickname Blogsboro (by an LATimes writer). Dave's personal story is a great example of the way a blogging community can work. About a year ago, Dave's wife Jinny got diagnosed with breast cancer. Dave blogged about it. Suddenly, local bloggers decided to do something about it. With no prompting or prodding but anyone, local bloggers put together Hoggsfest downtown with good local bands and plenty of food and drink, raising almost $10,000 for Jinny's rising medical expenses. I am happy to report that Jinny looks and feels great - she is a wonderful woman!
Dave also mentioned that he started blogging when he ran for the City Council. He lost the race, but he acquired a community of friends and realized the power of blogging - a power he wields that is perhaps greater than if he WAS elected.

Ruby echoed the same sentiment. She also ran for local office in Chapel Hill and lost. Today, she has no intention of running again because she saw how much more influence she has on local politics by running Orange Politics blog - the real mover and shaker in local politics (I believe it was Dave Winer who gave Ruby the nickname "the blogging dynamo"). Ruby and Brian are also using a blog to run the first open-source wedding (theirs, of course).
As for my part of the session, you can check my spiel here. The response was great. I was approached by a number of people afterwards. Some have never heard of blog carnivals before, others misunderstood what they were, or had a negative opinion due to looking at the wrong ones. I think, judging from the responses I got, that I have changed quite a few minds on this. Carnivals, if done right, are a good thing for building both local communities and global communities, as well as the ideal starting point for extensive thematic blog searches in cases in which search engines hopelessly bring out millions of useless hits.

Billy, the Blogging Poet (who did NOT name his blog after Harry Harrison's "Billy, The Galactic Hero" although he is surely my blog hero), looking like a wise, bearded Buddha (or Santa Claus?!) started his comment (the unforgetable one about blogophere as a merry-go-round on which Instapudit stands in the middle with his hands raised while all the other bloggers do the pushing around) with "I am not a journalist...". He got addressed as "Professor" on more than one occasion after that. Ed Cone also finds that characterization fitting.

I am really sorry I had to miss the session on Katrina Blogging that was happening at the same time. Stewart Pittman was one of the session leaders there. I am glad to hear that he used this post of mine in preparation for the session. I am still waiting for someone to post a more detailed description of that session, as I was quite involved in Katrina blogging from the very beginning (Update: Here is one account).

Previously:
ConvergeSouth - First Impressions
ConvergeSouth - Some Pictures
ConvergeSouth - International Coverage
ConvergeSouth - Blog Carnivals

Check the Technorati Tag: ConvergeSouth

Another Spawn of ConvergeSouth

New 2 Raleigh is another blog that got started at the Greensboro bloggercon. Welcome to Raleigh and welcome to the blogosphere!

ConvergeSouth - International Coverage

Here's a little bit more about ConvergeSouth, session by session:

Friday morning:

Michael Moran started off the Friday morning with a session on the effect bloggers have around the world, particularly in countries where freedom of speech and freedom of press do not exist even on paper. The prime example, of course, was Hoder, a blogger who started the Iranian blogging revolution, keeping the Iranian government's feet to the fire and at the same time keeping the Iranian (and global) population informed without filtering by the government and professional press. The government in Tehran understands Hoder's power and what a PR catastrophe it would be to lay a finger on him, so he freely travels between Toronto and Tehran. Yet, ironically, Hoder was kept by the US immigration service for a couple of days in Buffalo NY, so he never made it to Greensboro. What a national shame. We should really raise some big stink about it. The international hero of freedom, democracy and human rights held captive as suspicious by our racist government. City on the Hill, yeah, right!
Michael has showed us Global Voices Online, an excellent aggregator of international blogs. Interestingly, he was using Yugoslavia as an example of a situation in which international journalists got their informaiton from local bloggers instead of filtered governmental press. Yet, Global Voices Online (web-place I am familiar with from before) does not aggregate a single blogger from Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia or Macedonia. Being from that part of the world, I could not contain myself and had to blurt out this observation. Why is this the case? Perhaps all the poli-bloggers from the area are now abroad? Everyone there is sick and tired of political coverage and has moved to blogging about movies and music? The new generations do not care about politics? All of the above?

There are a bunch of Balkan bloggers. One can look at a sampling here, here and here. I have recently discovered several dozen Balkan blogs on MSNSpaces - mostly young people and some of them talk politics (among else). It's time to re-start the Carnival of the Balkans, I guess.

Previously:
ConvergeSouth - First Impressions
ConvergeSouth - Some Pictures
ConvergeSouth - Blog Carnivals

Check the Technorati Tag: ConvergeSouth

Back to normal

I have finally fixed the computer and my internet connection (broken since Firday morning!). This means that blogging will resume normally tonight. More on ConvergeSouth. More carnivals. More link-loves. More everything....

Tar Heel Tavern - call for submissions

Next issue of the Tar Heel Tavern will be hosted by Anton Zuiker of Coconut Wireless. He has a theme for the carnival, so go check out the rules of the game.

Grand Rounds

The newest edition of Grand Rounds is up!

ConvergeSouth - some pictures

You can see some pictures from ConvergeSouth here, here, here and here. For now, here's a few that prove that I was there:

This is just before our sessions started: L-to-R (but not politically) me, Ruby and Dave.

Chatting after Tiffany's session.

Waiting for Atrios (who got lost on campus) on Saturday morning.

Adrian and I used to be next door neighbors and saw each other walking our dogs. It never occured to us to mention blogging. What a surprise when we bumped into each other at ConvergeSouth: "What are you doing here?" "What are YOU doing here?"

Yes, I got to chat with Atrios aka Duncan Black (Potter-head, as I am, I always want to call him Sirius Black!).

More to come, stay tuned...

Update: There are some more pictures here.

New blogger in NC

Nita is an A&T student who started her blog at the ConvergeSouth conference. Welcome to the blogosphere! (Everybody, go say Hi!)

Tar Heel Tavern

The new Tar Heel Tavern is up on Nothing Could Be Finer.

Will Raymond for Town Council

Will R., the most famous local blogless blog commenter has decided to loose his mistique and succumb to the temptation of starting his own blog. He is also running for local office - he has my vote!

New carnival

If you are a Harry Potter fan and write thoughtful blogposts about it, this carnival is for you. I hope they give it a good name (I am kinda sick of "Carnival of XYZ"), like "Sorting Hat" or "Blogwarts Magic" or "Blog Quiddich"....

ConvergeSouth - first impressions

Taking a little break between the end of the ConvergeSouth conference and dinner, enjoying Dave's hospitality, here's just a quick post on the conference - apparently there is something wrong with my online access back at home, so I may not be able to blog tonight once I get there.

My session with Dave and Ruby went very well - everyone was talking about carnivals afterwards and asking me more questions about them in the hall during the breaks. The Facebook study was mentioned several times in different sessions.

Sue was so obviously in charge and the conference went so well, I think she should be made the Director of FEMA. Yes, I got to chat with Duncan aka Atrios (yes, I have a picture taken and will post it when I get it to prove it!) - I hope I managed to get him to reconsider his dislike of carnivals by checking out some carnivals other than CoTV.

It was so nice to put together faces, names and blog-designs of a number of bloggers I know very well, as well as some I just got to know now and like what they are doing. It was great fun chatting with Rita and Adrian, Marcela, Heather, Dave, Dave, Dave, Jay, Jay, Tiffany, Sheila, Ed, Roch, Billy, Michael, Anton (check out his version of our van ride to Greensboro and my session here), Martin, Stewart, Daniel, jw, Seymour, Brian, Paul, ae, Lex, Jozef, Michael, Chris, Amanda, Michael (Cobb), Jimmy, Sandy, the guy who runs the new Indy blog and many others whose websites and blogs I'll need more time to find....

You can (or will soon) find other participants' impressions on the GSO blog or by checking the 'convergesouth' tag. I'll write more detailed impressions of individual sessions later. Dinner is calling....

Tar Heel Tavern - Last call for submissions

The Tar Heel Tavern will be posted on Nothing Could Be Finer later tonight or tomorrow. You still have time to send your best post of the week to sdb3622 AT hotmail DOT com.

ConvergeSouth - Blog Carnivals

ConvergeSouth is on Friday and Saturday. I am part of the session on "community building" and I am invited to explain the concept of the blog carnival. It is going to be fluid and conversational, i.e., I will not be standing up and lecturing for 20 minutes, but I need to have my thoughts clear and talking points ready. This post is a mental preparation for me. Writing this post may help me make my points more concise than the usual marathon posts I write on this (or any other topic). I may even pull up this post on Friday and have it contain links to places I want to show the conferees.

What is a blog carnival?

A blog carnival is a:
- well-defined
- well-archived
- regular
- rotating
- linkfest.

Can you think of a shorter or better definition?

What does this all mean?

Linkfest: A linkfest is a blog post containing a bunch of links to posts from other blogs. A blog carnival is a series of such linkfests. Unlike in a usual linkfest, the links are not chosen by the owner of the blog, but are submitted as entries by the authors of those blog posts (or their friends).

Rotating: Each edition of the carnival appears on a different blog.

Regular: Editions of the carnival appear with predictable regularity. If it is slated to appear every Wednesday, it actually does always appear on every Wednesday (or every two weeks, or every three months, or whatever is the official frequency).

Well-archived: The carnival has a homepage with links to all editions of the carnival. The archives are updated promptly after an issue appears.

Well-defined: The homepage states the theme, topic and goal of the carnival, the duties of the hosts, the criteria for the inclusion of the links into a carnival, and the mechanics of hosting and submitting the entries.

The oldest carnival, Carnival of the Vanities, is just over three years old. Most carnivals got started within the last few months. This is still an early time in the development of the concept and there is a lot of experimentation going on. However, it can already be seen that carnivals that do not entirely fulfill the definition above do not thrive as well as those that do.

Without a clear criterion and topic, or without a readily accessible archive, or without rotation, or with unpredictable timing, the carnival can never engender a sense of ownership by the community of bloggers associated by that particular carnival. If nothing else, the return on the investment, measured in hits and new readers, is diminished for both hosts and participants if some of the elements are missing.

I have collected all existing carnivals in Meta-carnivals, six editions total, but decided to discontinue as a website was built that does the job much better.

The Three Functions of the Carnivals

Beyond the short-term enjoyment of discovering and reading cool blogs, or getting many hits and new readers, there are three major long-term functions that carnivals can potentially fulfill.

First, for a researcher in the future, e.g., a historian, journalist or student in 2055 who needs to research a topic, e.g., popular response to Katrina, no search engine can separate the wheat from the chaff among the millions of blog entries written on the subject. The best entry into a topic on blogs is to find carnivals with the right theme - general magazine format, or political - and look at the archives from September 2005. This avoids sifting through millions of one-liners with links, or reprints of the same photos over and over again. Carnivals contain the best posts submitted by the authors - thus usually longer, more thoughtful pieces that also tend to contain further links to other bloggers' longer, more thoughtful pieces. An ideal place to start may be Blogarithmicly, a carnival of linkfests. A September issue actually contains a linkfest of Katrina blogging. You have considerably narrowed down your search to some of the best posts that will then lead you to the other best posts on the subject.

Second function is building a geographic community. This usually means building a political community, but there is no reason why it cannot be a business community or a community gathered around a hobby, sport, or even dating. What is important about these carnivals is that the members are occupying the same geographical area and can, potentially, meet in person, or organize action concerning a local issue. Large geographical areas, like Asia, Canada, Balkans, or British Isles, may be too big for political organizing or putting together people who want to meet in person. Smaller countries, like New Zealand and Malta now have their carnivals. But the best are the smallest. The first state-wide carnival is The Tar Heel Tavern, here in North Carolina, but there are now carnivals of New York, New Jersey, Montana, Virginia and Wisconsin bloggers, with a Kansas one in the planning stages. Interestingly, it is the conservative bloggers who felt the need to start carnivals in Blue States and the liberal bloggers in Red States. Some remain strictly one-sided politically, while others strive towards bi-partisanship or even a non-political atmosphere. Week after week, you discover more and more like-minded bloggers who are your physical neighbors.

The third function is community building around a topic or common interest. I have explored this idea concerning science blogging before. This is globalization at its best - an opportunity for people in poor countries to join the networks on equal footing with their colleagues in rich countries, and to be recognized for what they are worth. Topical carnivals, like Tangled Bank, Grand Rounds, Philosophy Carnival or History Carnival, provide the opportunity to discover, every week or two, like-minded bloggers from around the world. You discover blogs that immediatelly go into your RSS feed and your blog goes into their feeds. Thus, you gain regular readers as well as become a regular reader of blogs that cover the same topics you are interested in. Beyond increased traffic, you build friendships that, who knows, may be really helpful in the future - like getting a job! If somebody on a search committee is an academic blogger who knows and likes your blog, don't you think you'll have a greater chance of getting hired in spite of coming from a lower-tier school or even a Third World country?

Update: Related links:
ConvergeSouth - First Impressions
ConvergeSouth - Some Pictures
ConvergeSouth - International Coverage
ConvergeSouth - Building Community
ConvergeSouth - Blog Carnivals
ConvergeSouth - Ethics
ConvergeSouth - Policing the Media
ConvergeSouth - Blogging from the outside
ConvergeSouth - Local Online Alt Media
Related: Teaching Blogging
ConvergeSouth - Creative Branding on Blogs


Check the Technorati Tag: ConvergeSouth

On marriage

A thought-provoking post about the meaning of marriage including an organization of heterosexuals refusing to get married until gays get the same right, sorta in line with my ancient posts like this one and this one. (Hat tip: Dictionopolis in Digitopolis, itself discovered in the comments sections on Shakespeare's Sister).

Second-hand Comment-troll for Hire. Cheap.

I have a creationist troll suddenly appearing in the comment section of this old post. It is one of the most unsophisticated types - the "theory" redefiners - so I do not want to waste any more time on him. If you wish to have some target practice, feel free to deal with him, the quarry is all yours.

The Meaning of Miers

There is tons of Harriett Miers blogging out there - hard to keep up really. It's easy to get lost, or overwhelmed by the sheer volume of it all. The usual suspects, like Billmon, Digby and Legal Fiction have thoughtful posts, and lots of high-profiled blogs are recycling some of the same ideas.

But, just in case you missed it, I would like to point you to an unusual and excellent analysis by Buridan's Ass, followed by a logical conclusion. Perhaps we should not be so mildly amused about her nomination, after all.

Carnival of Education

Carnival of Education #35 is up on Education Wonks. Go get schooled!

JRE on TV tonight

John Edwards will appear on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight. Last time he was there, he announced he's running for President. You just never now what can happen tonight! Check your local listings.

Tangled Bank

A gorgeous new edition of The Tangled Bank is up on Living The Scientific Life. The best of blog writing about science, nature, environment, medicine and interaction between science and society is there for you to sample.

PETA is - emphatically - NOT a Progressive organisation

I can't believe that AlterNet published this piece of crap glorifying Animal Rights terrorists, calling them "Progressive" and praising them particularly for their visibility antics!!! I am frothing at the mouth....I better go get me some steak right now!

(if you want to see my view on this issue in more detail, read this)

Science - The Best of the Web

Scientific American has given Science & Technology Awards to 25 web sites and blogs. Among them are some of my regular reads, including Chris Mooney's Intersection, Carl Zimmer's The Loom, The Mind Hacks, The Panda's Thumb and Real Climate. Go check them out and say Hello and Congratulations!

To God or to God Not, that's the question....

The very first edition of God Or Not, a blog carnival that discusses religion by both religious and atheist bloggers, is up on Skeptic Rant. Today's topic is "Sin".

Being Poor All The Way To The Bank

In a recent speach about the response to the Katrina disaster, John Edwards, among else, said this:

Second, folks need a chance to save for the future. The CCC sent money home to families. FEMA actually had a good idea with these debit cards. But now they're doing direct deposits in bank accounts. The problem is, many people displaced by the storm lived in neighborhoods without banks.

A worker making $12,000 a year could spend $500 just cashing checks and buying money orders to pay the bills. David Shipler begins his book about poverty by saying "it's expensive to be poor," and he's right. So as we offer relief, we should help people open bank accounts so they can escape the check-cashers and save. So they can get ahead - not just get by.

Some conservative commentators have commented on this, displaying their out-of-touchness (I will not say ignorance and arrogance) by voicing surprise that people do not have bank accounts. I will now briefly explain why not having a bank account is a rational choice if you are poor.

If you are not poor, your bank balance looks somewhat like this (X-axis is time, Y-axis is amount of money in the account):
Once a month (or so) your paycheck gets deposited in the bank. Over the period of a month, you gradually spend most, but not all of the money. Something remains in the bank account. That difference between income and spending accumulates over time and gathers interest. It is obviusly a good idea to keep that money in the bank, or to move it to a different account (e.g., savings, retirement) or invest in the stock market.

Let's, for the argument's sake, assume that you do not start off as poor, but as middle class. You have a bank account and the balance looks like the one above. But, as economy is slouching, your expenses start matching your income. Gas prices go up. You salary does not. You incur additional expenses, e.g, you have a baby, or your car is getting older and needs frequent repairs, or your health insurance premiums go up, or the taxes on your house double. As a result, you spend all of your pay-check every month - nothing remains.

Your balance approaches zero at the end of each month. Then a disaster strikes: you have a huge medical bill to pay, or the car repairs cost you several hundred bucks, or someone dies and you have to pay for the funeral, or you loose your job and it takes you a couple of weeks to find a new one that does not pay as much as the old one. Your balance will start looking like this (the arrow showing the time of the disastrous event):

Every month you are faced with a choice, really a false choice: do you worry about your credit rating, or do you pay your bills and feed your kids. To hell with the credit standing - your primary duty is to survive, keep the roof over your head and feed your kids. Every month, you get into the minus. Month after month you dip deeper and deeper into the red.

What happens then? The interest rate is pretty small. At the end of the year you may accrue a dozen bucks total. On the other hand, every time you write a check that puts you into the minus, your bank automatically charges you a dozen bucks. You get smart: pay all the little bills first and leave the biggest bill (e.g. rent) for the end, getting into the minus only once a month, thus avoiding paying multiple penalties.

Let's look at this from a different angle. Whenever your balance is positive you accrue interest. The bank holds your money and pays you for that privilege. In a sense, the interest rate is the penalty the bank pays you for owing you money. But when the situation is reversed and you owe the bank money, you do not pay exactly the same penalty rate. Instead, you pay exorbitant amounts of money that put you even deeper in debt.

All the money that a bank has belongs to someone else. The bank invests that money and uses it for a lot of good and important stuff (on top of paying their employees, building and equipping new branches, and advertising). Without the banking industry, the economy would not be able to operate very smoothly.

Yet, the banking system is not designed to be fair, nor is it good for poor people. When you open an account you are asked to sign on the dotted line - you have no say in the crafting of the contract. It's YOUR MONEY, after all, that the bank will be using, so it is YOU who should have a bigger say in how the contract is worded and how penalty rates are calculated when one party owes the other.

So, what do you do if you get into the situation depicted in the second figure above (or if you are poor to begin with)? Get out of the bank! Close the account before the bank closes it for you. Or keep the account but do NOT deposit your money in it. Keep the cash. Spread it along the month as wisely as you can. Pay everything with cash. If you cannot (and I am assuming it is illegal to refuse cash - the legal tender in the US - though many organizations do), exchange the cash for a money order. Quit using checks. Keep only one small credit card - completely empty - for emergences. Not just that you have a better control of your finances and a better feel, day-by-day, about your financial state, but you also avoid paying penalties for going in the red.

All of this I am telling you from personal experience. The picture number Two is how our bank account looked for quite a while. We keep a checking account in one bank, but do not use checks - debit card only. I check the balance almost every day. We also have a savings account. Whenever some money comes in I put a piece of it in the savings account. By the end of the month, there is usually sufficient money there to pay the rent, which I do using a money order.

We have one credit card which is tiny - only $400 credit limit. We use it occasionally and try to clean it up every month because this improves our credit rating. For 14 years we had two cars - needed for two people, two jobs, two kids to take to two schools. Now we have one car and on some days have logistical nightmares with driving schedules. Sooner or later we will have to get a new car, but I will not be able to afford to buy a car that I can afford to drive with current gas prices (hmmm, first Priuses are 5 years old now - perhaps they are getting within reach).

My mother sends some money all the way from Yugoslavia sometimes when I am in a financial crunch. My mother-in-law sometimes pays some of our bills, or buys us a lot of groceries, or buys kids' clothes. We are poor, but we manage every month to survive somehow, using magic for most part. One of the key aspects of it is to have as little to do with banks as possible. Bank will come and get you and bleed you to death if you do not know what you are doing. It is a rational economic choice for a poor person not to have a bank account at all.

I owe my school almost $800 dollars in tuition for the last year. I was planning to pay it once my defense date is set. However, a couple of days ago, I lost my school e-mail account (which only means I'll loose departmental information - no big deal), but more importantly I lost online access to the library, something I need for my Dissertation writing. I need to download papers. I have no idea how to find such an enormous amount of money. I guess I can negotiate a payment plan, but even that would be a couple of hundred per month that I do not know where it will come from.

While writing my thesis takes time and energy, and teaching does not really take much time (and does not pay much, either), I would not mind an additional flex-time job. Anyone in Chapel Hill/Carrboro/Pittsboro/Raleigh area has a job I could do? Waiting tables? Let me know. I would also appreciate a hit on the PayPal button every now and then. Or should I install an Amazon button instead, for those who do not like to use PayPal? Let me know in the comments.

Tar Heel Tavern

Tar Heel Tavern - The Minimalistic Edition is up on Captivated by Mandie. No, this is not a slight. Mandie had stuff come up over the weekend. I still think that the simplicity of the picture and the colelction of links is artistic, in a modern-art sort of way.

Grand Rounds

Grand Rounds, vol.2, issue 2 is up on Haversian Canal.

Carnival of the Godless

Carnival of the Godless #24 is up on Unscrewing the Inscrutable.

Journalists As Bloggers - are they any good?

Colin McEnroe, in his blogging class, is urging his students to take a look at some of the real-life journalists who are also bloggers. His suggestions include James Wolcott, Roger Ailes, Eric Alterman and Andrew Sullivan, as well as Huffington Post as a place at which some journalists also show up to blog. Interestingly, the students who have commented so far appear not to like Wolcott, mainly because the comments are closed and he comes accross as haughty, preachy and agry, while avoiding conversation. That is why I also don't like Wolcott, although it is indisputable that he is an excellent writer.

Of course, I started thinking who else is a journalist and is now a blogger.

Josh Marshall first came to mind - closed comments make him equally unappetizing as Wolcott.

Matt Yglesias, a professional journalists (American Prosepect) also blogs on TPM Cafe and on Tapped.

Ezra Klein is a free-lancer, but very influential on Progressive blogs.

Mickey Kaus is official blogger for Slate and is quite influential.

Salon has real journalists blogging, including Peter Daou.

The New Republic has an official blog. They used to have four going on simultaneously last year, with Ryan Lizza, Greg Easterbrook and others doing an excellent job covering the election '04, Iraq etc.

MSNBC blogs are so-so, with the exception of Keith Olberman who is excellent on his Bloggerman.

David Niewert is a professional journalist, specializing in White-supremacist groups and other internal terrorist organisations.

Ed Cone writes for Greensboro News & Record, where there are many blogs, including the Editor's Log and blog written by Lex Alexander who also has a "private" blog: Blog on the Run.

If I remember correctly, both Jeff Jarvis and Dan Gillmore are (or were) journalists.

Jay Rosen and Paul Jones are professors in schools of journalism.

Carl Zimmer is NYTimes science reporter and Chris Mooney is a free agent, publishing about the intersection between science and politics in numerous venues. I believe he got a more permanent position recently for the Seed magazine.

Viewfinder Blues is a cameraman for the local TV station and is wonderful at bringing to life the actualy reporting work on the ground.

Finally, after a post-Katrina trip to New Orleans as a blogger, Lindsay Beyerstein decided to become a journalist for real. Anybody else I forgot? I assume that many of them also have other journalists' bloggers on their blogrolls.

All these people are good bloggers. But are they better than bloggers with no journalistic training and experience? Definitely no. With the exception of "specialists", e.g., Zimmer, Mooney and Neiwert, these guys are mostly generalists - they know a little bit about everything and a lot about nothing - just like most bloggers.

The ins and outs of Washington gossip do not require any expertise. Blogging about blogging (or about the interaction between blogs and MSM) is numbingly boring (I know, I do it sometimes myself!) in a navel-gazing kind of way.

In blogs, just like in MSM, it is expertise that matters. Experts provide a valuable service.

For instance, if there is an important legal decision (e.g,. on the Supreme Court), you need to check what Publius has to say because nobody is as good at explaining the key aspects of the case to lay readers. Brad DeLong does the same for economics.

If foreign policy and Iraq are your interest, you will not be mistaken if you regularly check Total Information Awareness, though the real expert here is Juan Cole.

For the news from the Balkans, see East Ethnia and for the rest of Europe, go to the European Tribune or Crooked Timber.

You check Brian Leiter for all thing philosophical and Education Wonks is the teachers' hub. Billy will lead you to the world of blogging poets.

For biology, especially evolution, and lately the fight against irrationality, the first place to go is Pharyngula, where PZ Myers explains the science to lay people and skewers the Creationist morons with wonderfully ascerbic tone. Especially valuable is the collection of super-smart and super-educated commenters there.

For more on the Intelligent Design Debate you can also check Panda's Thumb, Evolutionblog, Thoughts From Kansas or Mike The Mad Biologist. Transitions is the source of high-school level essays on evolutionary biology. Unscrewing the Inscrutable collects the reality-based community in its own way and with a characteristic voice.

If you are interested in cognitive science, you go to Cognitive Daily and Mixing Memory. If you are interested in sleep, I hope you check out Circadiana. Effect Measure is the place to see what is new on the Avian Flu.

Respectful Insolence destroys medical quacks, pseudoscientists and Holocaust deniers. Animal Crackers keeps up with the shenannigans of animal rights terrorists. Slacktivist reads and reviews the "Left Behind" books.

Common Ills reads the newspapers so you don't have to, and Crooks Amd Liars provide you with all the latest photo-, audio- and video- files you may want to import to your blog.

For some real political journalism, see AmericaBlog, and to check the latest political actions you may want to participate in, go to Big Brass Blog. You cannot do much better if you decide to start your day with a political blog other than Shakespeare's Sister.

Feministe, a wonderful blogger on her own, is also a web designer who helped several other bloggers spiffy up their sites, most recently the unique Bitch PhD. Speaking of feminists, your ears will get red and hot once you read Amanda Marcotte. Still not had enough? Try Echidne of the Snakes.

Most of us don't have thick enough skin to wade through the slimy bogs of the Freeperland. Instead, we go to Pam for a sanitized sample, as well as the news from the Religious Right and the trenches of the gender wars.

Billmon writes better than any professional journalist. You will never forget you have tried reading the distinct (and very funny) voices of Jesus' General, Fafblog and Rude Pundit.

Best links, but even more importantly, best satirical photoshopping can be found on the Heretic. Jeffrey Feldman dissects the language of the GOP talking points at the Frameshop and suggests counter-points. Contrary Brin looks at the biggest picture of all.

Finally, if you just look at the quality of writing, no journalist can match, for instance, Creek Running North or Michael Berube. And Lance Mannion is the best writer of them all - with beautiful command of English, he slices away the unneccessary details, cuts to the chase and cuts to the bone.

I could live without most (if not all - Neiwert, Zimmer, Mooney, Beyerstein again) of the journalist-bloggers listed on top, but I cannot live without the daily read of the bloggers listed in the bottom half of the post (and many more, too many to list here).

Writing skills, a strong personal voice, and a definitive expertise definitely trump any journalistic training and experience. Remember, blogging is NOT journalism - it is conversation.

History Carnival

New edition of the History Carnival is up on Apocalyptic Historian.

Cliffs Notes for Christians

Bible in 50 words:

God made, Adam bit,
Noah arked, Abraham split,
Joseph ruled, Jacob fooled,
bush talked, Moses balked,
Pharaoh plagued,
people walked, sea divided,
tablets guided, promise landed,
Saul freaked, David peeked, prophets warned,
Jesus born,
God walked, love talked,
anger crucified, hope died, Love rose,
Spirit flamed, Word spread,
God remained

This is much easier than actually knowing what the Bible really says.

This is not photoshopped

I just had to steal this one from Pam!

Link-Love: A little bit of science blogging

DefCon blog is a new blog that tracks the attacks on the Constitution by the Religious Right, most notably on Creationism right now, due to the Dover trial.

Deep-Sea News on toxins from the deep that can kick cancer ass, on the new Colossal Squid, on Kraken, on the first filming of a giant squid, and on a rare collaboration between science and oil-industry.

In what sense of "fresh" is this fresh science? How about this one?

Canadian Cynic gives some speaking advice to those who speak about Intelligent Design.

Uncredible Hallq attends a Plantinga lecture.

Omniorthogonal on social crapital and on blogger self-promotion. Also, a book review of The Long Emergency.

Uncertain Principles discovers a blogging Dean and discusses lackluster blogging by scientists.

More Evolution Theories is collecting myriads of origin stories, evolutionary accounts, and just plain wacko theories. Intelligent Design Creationism is most definitely not the only alternative to evolution!

After all that science education, Penn is now counting mice, counting fish and counting drunk motel customers.

Zeno of Halfway There on mathematism and math envy.

This story is all over the blogs. I picked it up from The Lippard blog: Student harrassed by Baylor police for poking fun at a religious nut.

Acronym Required on E = mc².

Gorgeous picture of a neuronal synapse.

Blog of Planetary Science.

Tree octopus! Endangered, of course.

The Hairy Museum of Natural History is the coolest blog if you are into paleontology and stuff....

The agrarian party and the USDA stooges on Glorfindel of Gondolin.

The Questionable Authority is covering Dover trial blow-by-blow. More on Intelligent Design Creationism and a bit about Einstein.

A philosopher deconstructs Bennett.

Carnival of the Badger

Wisconsin bloggers have started their own Carnival of the Badger. Like Tar Heel Tavern, it is trying to be bipartisan. Edition #7 is now up.

Flora Bush - the child left behind

Explore this website.

Political Affiliation on Campus

The Facebook is an extremely popular social software on campuses around the country. According to Fred Stutzman, (hat tip: Paul Jones) 85% of incoming Freshmen at UNC - Chapel Hill had a facebook account on day one of class.

If you follow that link to Fred, you will see that he used the Search function of the Facebook to look at the breakdown of UNC students by political affiliation. Intrigued, I did the same thing for NCSU. After an hour of struggling to import the Excel image (that is larger than a couple of square milimeters) into Blogger, I gave up, so here are the raw data. You can make your own graph, or just compare the raw numbers between the two campuses:

Political Affiliation: Female / Male

Very Liberal: 244 / 264
Liberal : 1267 / 1122
Moderate: 1101 / 1491
Conservative: 1560 / 2312
Very Conservative: 119 / 320
Libertarian : 38 / 122
Apathetic : 94 / 309
Other : 152 / 509
-------------
Total 4575 / 6449

Update: I figured out how to resize the image (I did it in MSPaint!):

The obvious difference is, as is expected, that the students at UNC report themselves to be more liberal than NCSU students. No surprises there. In both schools, guys are more conservative than girls - also no surprise. On both campuses, very few students choose the extreme options ("very liberal" or "very conservative").

What can we glean from these data? I say, not much. There is just too much information missing.

Sampling: What proportion of NCSU students have a profile on Facebook? Are the men or the women more likely to put up a profile? What is the sex-ratio of students at NCSU in the first place? Are people of a particular political ideology more or less likely to sign up on the facebook? Does that differ between the sexes (e.g., female libertarians are less likely to sign up than statistics would expect, but male libertarians are as likely as anyone else to sign up)?

It is not neccessary to choose any political affiliation when making a profile. What proportion of students have profiles with no political affiliation at all? Does that differ between males and females? Does that differ between people of different political ideologies?

Searching: What does the facebook search engine do? What proportion of hits tabulated above are alumni (graduated last year), grad students, faculty or staff? How many of the 'hits' are non-existent people? I have seen, when searching faculty, profiles of Albus Dumbledore, Rush Limbaugh, Andy Rooney and many other celebrities and fictional characters. Coach Herb Sendak is listed as a professor of philosophy!

Self-reporting: How accurate is the self-reporting? Are students choosing 'moderate', 'apathetic' or 'other' (or not to sign up at all) in order to not allienate their friends? Is the choice to avoid the tag "very" motivated by the same reasons? After all, the total number of friends is a currency of prestige on the facebook.

Meaning of labels: I think that people who reported being "very conservative" and "very liberal" can be believed on their word. The former are members of Young Republicans, GOP activists, and Christian fundamentalists. The latter are largely "Deaniacs", with some other Democratic activists, College Democrats, and Greens thrown in the mix, too.

What do the other labels mean? I did a little scan of the profiles listed as "other". Most people on facebook list membership of various virtual "clubs" or groups. I was expecting to find some Greens (the only major party that is not a choice on facebook) in this group. However, most of the "other" have listed membership in groups concerned with student life, popular culture, partying, drinking and sex - no politics. Shouldn't they picked "apathetic" instead? I have found some, among the "other" who are members of a variety of Republican, conservative, and Bush/Cheney clubs. Shouldn't these people self-report being "very conservative" instead?

How about Libertarians? It is a strong third party in North Carolina. Why were there four times more male than female self-reported libertarians? Is that the sex-ratio of the party membership in the state? Also, "libertarian" is a very inexact term. What does it really mean? I know some students who consider themselves libertarian, yet when poked with questions, reveal to be pure liberals. Do they know the meaning of labels?

What does "moderate" mean? If you considered yourself a moderate, you are likely not paying attention. I assume that the concept of moderation in everything, including politics, appeals to many. But, moderation in politics is a meaningless concept - it reveals lack of understanding, information and motivation. Most of the people who list themselves as moderate are, more honestly, apathetic. Some are perhaps liberals who think they are conservatives because of the way they were raised.

The biggest categories - liberals and conservatives - are probably even more or a grab-bag of apathetic, very liberal, very conservative, and libertarian students, many of whom are misguided about the proper meaning of the labels.

It is always a surprise for self-professed conservatives when they try to do various political quizzes online and find themselves to the Left of Marx. The meaning of terms has been obfuscated, often on purpose, by the two big political parties. Many core liberal values, especially those that most Americans hold the dearest, are erroneously believed to be conservative due to historical contingency that these values were held by the Republican Party some decades ago. Fiscal responsibility is a good example.

Many people vote GOP because they (correctly) equate modern GOP with conservatism and erroneosly think of themselves as conservatives. If given a qeustionnaire, they invariably turn out to be quite liberal. The Dems need to do something about this misperception, as it is a major source of drain of voters away from it.

A final note on the Facebook study: most college students do not care much about politics. They do not know enough. Their self-reported political affiliation is a pretty accurate break-down of what their parents think (not neccessarily correctly) is their political ideology.

On the other hand, college is supposed to be a place where one questions and leaves parents' beliefs. That is the place where one obtains information and facts, where one realizes that one has previously held erroenous ideas about history, economics, law, gender-relations, religion, science and politics. Thus, it is to be expected that college turns people into liberals, as the whole fabric of conservatism is based on erroneous and long-debunked notions about human nature, operation of complex systems (including economies) and everything else. It would be interesting to repeat the facebook search with divisions by year and see if recent alumni, grad students and seniors are more liberal than freshmen.

Update: Thoughts From Kansas did the analysis of the Facebook at KU.

Update 2: Fred Sutzman has more on the UNC use of Facebook, focusing on the freshman class. I initially got on the Facebook in order to see how many students are blogging (and Fred looks at that, too). A relatively small proportion of students put up a website on their profile. When they do, it is usually a Flickr (or some other photo) site. Some have websites made in class and not updated for two years. I found a few xanga, MSNSpaces, and a few LiveJournals, but not a single Blogger, not to mention more involved blogging platforms. Are the kids not blogging? Are they hiding their blogs/journals? I know of several students who have LiveJournals but do not provide links to them from their Facebook profiles - in other words their FB profile is their public face and their LJ is their private face, to be kept separate at all times and at all costs. When I go to bloggercons, I see grey hair everywhere. Are the kids going to take up blogging later, once they ar ea little older, smarter, better educated and have something to say beyond gossip?

Update 3: More thoughts: Someone with time and patience should look at political self-description of freshmen by major, and compare the numbers to that of the seniors in the same majors. Are conservatives drawn to business and liberals to sociology or does spending four years studying business turn one into a conservative and studying sociology makes one a liberal? Are geneticists and biochemists more conservative than ecologists and physiologists to begin with, or only after years of study? How do philosophers stack up against physicists? If college experience naturally turns one into a liberal, which majors are most successful (if any) at engendering that change? Do some majors turn kids into conservatives?

Carnivals.....

Sneak's Wild World of Blogging carnival is back after the summer break.

Link-Love: New Political Friends...

G. D. Frogsdong on the Gerbils of War and a conversation with an anti-protester in DC last week.

Bitter Green Gazette is a blog about agriculture and food business. The fault lines of industrial agriculture is an example of an analytic post. The posts collecting the current news are titled "Roundup, Ready", for which Monsanto threatened to sue. The Gazette's answer: Go to Hell!

Prairie Angel looks at Seattle as a lesson for rebuilding New Orleans. This really makes me want to go to Seattle and take a tour of the Underground!

Dadahead on the guy in philosophy class, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and crazy conservatives getting crazier by the minute.

Preemptive Karma links to and article about a new textbook for studying the Bible, promotes the new DefCon Blog, slams Hidrocket and Falwell.

The Token Reader can make even Friday Random Ten into a riveting read. How about open source code for voting machines?

Jim Johnson on the beauty of photographs depicting sorrow, images of child labor, documentary photography and embededness.

Blue Meme reveals the identity of the Intelligent Designer(s).

What is Rovenge? The Generik Brand takes it to the Dems and figures out how to separate the wheat from the chaff there. And a serious one on Intelligent Design.

Is Murky Thoughts on hiatus?

You gotta love The Disenchanted Forest, if nothing else but for the post titles, like Frist's diagnosis of Schiavo more blind than his trust, Philly Rag writer perfects the cranio-anal inversion, Frist is gonna need a bigger fan and Waiting for the Soylent Green Medicare Plan. Then go beyond the titles for the meat of it.

Birmingham Blues finds an ideal job for Brownie.

Phaedra of Smoke and Mirrors went to the DC rally.

Five Wells on privacy, tragedy of the bunnies, gerin oil and geraniol and technology.

Under No Circumastances is one of many commenting on the recent paper about the correlation between religiosity and social ills, but goes a step further.

Speedkill dissects religion and Coulter.

A Beaumont evacuee blogs about Rita, Dallas, Houston and everything else.

Circadian Rhythm blog (no, not Circadiana) on Intelligent Design.

Rigorous Intuition on remote viewing.

Draft for War in Iraq as economic choice, by DaveAwayFromHome.

Edwards in the news

From an OAC e-mail:

Mark Your Calendars!
Senator Edwards will be on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart Wednesday, October 5.

Don't miss Thomas Oliphant's column about Senator Edwards.
Restoring the American Dream

Senator Edwards has been quite busy and we wanted to let you know about some of the things he's been up to! Recently, he delivered a very well-received speech to the Center for American Progress in which he laid out his plan for fighting poverty in America, and this past week he traveled to Moscow on behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Senator Edwards serves as Co-Chairman of the bipartisan Council on Foreign Relations Task Force, which assesses the relationship between the U.S. and Russia. His co-chair on the task force is former Congressman and Housing Secretary Jack Kemp, who joined Senator Edwards on the trip. In Moscow the two of them met with an array of officials and experts - including Kremlin officials, Russian Duma (parliament) members, business leaders, NGO experts and activists, and journalists - and they also had a chance to meet some Russians as they walked through Moscow (Senator Edwards says that the traffic there is so unbearable that they found it easier to walk to many of their meetings). Now that he's back, he and Mr. Kemp are preparing to convey their findings to the task force, which will in turn issue a formal report suggesting specific, bipartisan policies for improving our relationship with Russia. Senator Edwards says during his trip he heard many things that left him with a deep sense of possibility for this relationship, but he also feels that he has a greater appreciation of the challenges that he and the other members of the task force will face as they try to improve that relationship.

We'll be hearing more about the task force and its findings next year, when the official report is published.

Click here to learn more about the Council Task Force on Russian-American Relations.

Sen. Edwards Speaks at Center for American Progress

On Monday September 21st, before leaving for Russia, Senator Edwards spoke at the Center for American Progress. He discussed the widespread poverty exposed by Hurricane Katrina, and he proposed steps that we as a nation can take to combat poverty in the Gulf Coast and across the country.

Download the MP3 of the speech, read the speech, or
watch the video.

A key part of Senator Edwards' plan is the New America Initiative. It's modeled after FDR's WPA program, which employed millions of Americans during the Great Depression. Through the New America Initiative, residents of the Gulf Coast region would rebuild their communities with the help of the government, nonprofit organizations, unions, and private businesses. This concerted effort would restore the region, and it would provide the residents with good-paying jobs and benefits. In addition, the residents would develop valuable work skills that would enable them to get good-paying jobs in the future. This initiative could not only get the region and its people back on their feet; it could make life better than it was before for the thousands of Gulf Coast residents who were living and working in poverty before Katrina struck.

To convince the President and leaders in Congress that this initiative must be implemented, the call for it must be loud and continuous. Thousands have already joined in. Please add your voice to this call.

Thank you for your support! And if you haven't already, please visit our web site. There you will find regular updates on Senator Edwards and the issues he's tackling, and you can also participate on our Blog, which is frequently updated with new threads and content. Check it out!