Oh I'm back

I returneth to the blogosphere after days of vacational whimsy and paper-writing. Let's get right to it shall we?

First up: the Digg wars... I don't care. What I did want to comment on was the tone used by mainstream media regarding the "news community site." The New York Times sees the Digg revolters as "sophisticated Internet users." Forbes analyst sez: Adolescent males putting up "graffiti" and "vandalism". Which is it? Judging from Digg... probably more like the latter. Still, a warning to the wise about "living by wisdom of the crowds"... you also die by it.

Speaking of bloggy business, The New Republic, long since regarded to have sold out by many in the lefty blogs (Kos and Atrios come to mind), has published a number of pieces about the netroots recently. You can find the most recent here. The point about the lefty hysterical paranoia is that, sadly, during this Administration, they have been right more often than not. I still don't buy that "No Blood for Oil" crap, and Dick Cheney didn't order 9/11. But the fact is, all these lefty bloggers who were branded extremist nutbags by the right, and even by centrist liberal thinkers like those at The New Republic, were right about Iraq and this Administration's disdain for the rule of law. (Tom Tomorrow's cartoon sums up the idiocy pretty well...) Yet, the country remains mostly immobilized and apathetic. Maybe a little paranoid hysteria is what we need, eh?

The LATimes' weird piece about Chinese honey... worth the read, though. Illustrates that change in China may seem like it's going by fast in the cities, but the countryside will be a tougher sell.

Whither the miliblog? What a bad PR move by the Army. Yeah, I know, giving away enemy positions and everything... it's like blacking out letters before sending them back to the States. Still, cutting off the soldiers' ability to blog could backfire. No one is more supportive of the military than, you know, the military.

A picture from my trip... bombed out churches make me think of Wolfenstein:
That's all I've got for now.