Looks as though Dan’s “prediction”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000695.html has come to pass; Glenn Reynolds “claims grandly”:http://www.instapundit.com/archives/012127.php in Instabolded type that the “ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE is blasting Paul Krugman for anti-Semitism.” To put it as kindly as possible, this is a rather … overenthusiastic interpretation of the ADL’s “letter”:http://www.adl.org/media_watch/newspapers/20031021-NYTimes.htm to the New York Times, which merely suggests that Krugman “underestimates the significance of the anti-Semitic diatribe by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.” Of course, this isn’t the first time that Reynolds’ enthusiasm for a good slur has gotten in the way of the facts, but surely he can do better than this. Does he even read the stuff that he links to? I wonder.
From the category archives:
Blogging
If you look up “self-indulgent blog post” in the dictionary, you’ll find the following. You’re all excused from reading it.
Little Green Footballs, having a go at the Guardian for … the quality of vicious oaf they tolerate on their comments board. It’s enough to make a cat laugh.
UPDATE: Tim Blair‘s apparently joined the echo chamber on this one, so that cat’s going to be pretty amused for a while.
Final update: The Guardian deleted the thread in question. Fair enough, but my cat’s already knocked off work for the day.
– The cast of the Antic Muse can write circles around most of us. The best posts I’ll read today are Holly Martins’ hilarious take on David Brooks, while the second best is Ana Marie Cox on New York magazine’s discovery of dirty pictures on the internet.
– Daniel Drezner is hosting a debate on the truth or falsity of the statement: “It is a complete fabrication that the Bush administration argued in the runup to the war that there was an imminent threat from Iraq.” It’s being held at a pretty high level; no one has yet been compared to Hitler. So root, root, root for your side. Anonymous Blogger has much more on the question.
– Jim Henley has a concise take on the story about US soldiers allegedly bulldozing the crops of Iraqis to punish the farmers for not providing information about guerillas. I sincerely hope that this story isn’t true.
– Finally, my friend Irfan posted a picture of me last night at a farewell party. I can be pretty self-conscious about photos, but I think it turned out pretty well.
If you’ve been hit in the last couple of the days by pornspam in your comments, you’re not alone; Crooked Timber has been hit too, as have many other sites. If you’re a MT person, the IP address to block for this latest wave is 209.210.176. *and make sure to include the period at the end.* Thanks to “Teresa Nielsen Hayden”:http://www.nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/ for the heads-up – and check her site for further updates and breaking news. “MT Blacklist”:http://www.jayallen.org/journey/2003/10/mtblacklist_monday_hell_or_high_water should be out tomorrow; if it works as advertised, it should help mitigate the problem.
Though it can never replace the old one, in what way is a new one needed?
Sorely.
When it is published online what must we read?
The whole thing.
What value do such posts hold for reading?
Much worth.
What sort of insightful are they?
Characteristically.
As you’ve probably seen on the news, Mark Kleiman’s blog has moved. Update your blogroll.
It just struck me that if all your information about America came from political blogs, you’d think the country was composed mainly of libertarians together with a bloc of right-wing populist-imperialists and a few liberals here and there. But if all your information about California came from political blogs, you’d think the state’s politics must be a model of thoughtful right- and left-leaning commentary, marked by a care for civility, a tendency to moderation and a close attention to detail.
Just goes to show.
Daniel will be pleased to note that his post discussing the Ambassador’s wife who must not be named was judged by the content filter on Canterbury airport’s coin-operated Internet terminal to contain material of an adult nature unsuitable for a public environment. If only Karl Rove had been using one of these things when he sold Wilson’s wife down the river.
“Glenn Reynolds deplores”:http://www.instapundit.com/archives/011754.php :
bq. the excessive gleefulness and point-scoring of the anti-Bush bloggers in general on this topic, [which] only serves to make this matter look more political, and less serious, than it perhaps is.
I’d just like to endorse that sentiment, and look forward to the bright future of Instapundit, freed from all that excessive gleefulness and point-scoring on serious matters.
A couple of weeks ago Henry posted an entry about blogs and teaching, or perhaps more broadly about the (potential) role of blogs in academia.
In the meantime, I’ve been having discussions with people at Northwestern’s Academic Technologies about the use of blogs here on campus. During these discussions, an interesting point came up that has some implications for the use of blogs in teaching. Apparently, it is illegal for a university to disclose information about who is enrolled in a course. When I asked for the legal basis of this, I was pointed to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Reading that document, I can’t say this becomes obvious. But if it is the case then it has implications for requiring students to participate in world-accessible blogs. If we require students to maintain a blog or post to a central blog then we are making their course enrollment public.
In light of this policy, it seems blogs that require students to post in the context of a course cannot be public. And if teaching blogs cannot be public then I think they lose much of what makes them more interesting than a discussion thread for the purposes of teaching. As someone noted, it is exciting and educational for students to learn that some of the authors they discuss are real-live people out there who may stumble upon their comments. Students may then take the material more seriously and pay more attention to how they comment about issues. However, if a blog cannot be public then this won’t happen. So at that point, what distinguishes a blog from the combination of a message thread and a course Web page?
Jonathan Ichikawa, who has a shiny new blog, asked me an interesting question the other day. Why are there so few ethics blogs? One simple answer would be that there are lots of ethics blogs, they are just spread around between political theory and legal theory and other areas of normative philosophy. Sad to say, these bloggers seem to be just as interested in day-to-day affairs as in high points of theory. Where’s the fun in that? (Not that they don’t write excellent posts when they do turn their attention to more theoretical matters. If only the world was less pressing.) So if any aspiring (or established) ethicist wants to start up a blog on the finer points of Korsgaard’s or Blackburn’s or Smith’s views, there’s probably a market niche waiting to be filled.
By the way, it’s a sad day when the graduate students start seeming to be appallingly young. Sad day indeed.
I’m embarrassed pleased to report that I’m the first victim subject of a “Normblog profile”:http://normangeras.blogspot.com/2003_09_21_normangeras_archive.html#106457158565367983 .
Will Baude at Crescat Sententia has been running a series of online interviews with various bloggers. And the subject of the latest interview is me. Here’s the interview. If you want more blogger Q&As, previous blogger interviews (including Lawrence Solum, Matthew Yglesias and several permanent or temporary Conspirators) are prominently featured in the Crescat Sententia sidebar. I’d like to say that everything I say there about Crooked Timber is official CT party policy, but that would be, at the very least, a lie.
True to form, she’s jumped in already, but I wanted to welcome Eszter Hargittai as the latest member of the CT catnet. Eszter is a sociologist, is newly ensconced at Northwestern, was an office-mate of mine for a while in graduate school, has far too many publications for someone who just started their job last week, and has an Erdõs number of three.
I followed a link from tbogg today over to Donald “Poor and Stupid” Luskin’s website. In big letters on the left, it says:
“THE CONSPIRACY TO KEEP YOU POOR AND STUPID BY DONALD L. LUSKIN
THE WEBLOG OF THE BOOK: How Big Government, Big Business, Big Media, and Big Academia Block Your Road to Financial Freedom– and Tell You It’s For Your Own Good”
Underneath, it has a quote, which I reproduce in full:
“…straight contrary-to-fact statements embarassing, and damaging to their own credibility…”
— Brad DeLong
This doesn’t link to anything.