Friday, February 25, 2005

The academic unleashed. The academic unleashed [Salon.com] 10:47:13 PM    comment []

AlterNet on Iranian blogs. Here is a well-done AlterNet report on the Iranian weblogs, titled 'Building Blogs': Persian blogs represent a grassroots movement that is paving the way for Iran's political awakening. These thousands of online journals show their tyrannical government that social change is inevitable. "If the Supreme Leader was a fan of reading blogs," Derakhshan said, "Iran would be a different country." Moreover, these genuine Iranian voices are trying to tell the rest of the world that not only are the people of Iran ready to embrace democracy, but that they are fully capable of bringing about this change themselves. Iranian bloggers are ready to open the bridge, the café, the window with the West and start an international dialogue. [Editor: Myself (English)] 10:43:58 PM    comment []

THE FIRST EVER BTD MIXED TAPE/CD SWAP THINGY. For our readers who don't frequent the BTD Forum, I'll also post the announcement here: Here's how it would work (and I'm open to additional suggestions): Everyone who's interested, raise your virtual hands. I put the virtual hand raises into a virtual hat, and pull them out, matching everyone up with someone else. The people who are matched up have to make a mixed CD for the ones they're matched up with, and vice versa. You can (but aren't required to) post your song lists to the Forum. THIS PART IS VERY IMPORTANT: If you volunteer to make a mix, you have to: 1) Actually make one; and 2) Actually mail the mix to the person you've been assigned to mail it to. Otherwise, you will be subjected to virtual shaming and other punitive measures to be determined at a later date by the powers that be in the BTD community. If this sounds like something you'd like to be a part of, go sign up for the forum and get in the mix. [Begging To Differ] 10:39:02 PM    comment []

Kevin sends along: CONFESSIONS OF A PAYOLA PUNDIT What happens when a progressive journalist gets called on the carpet for taking money from an institution he covers? Conservative media outlets are hammering Ian Williams for a fee he received from the UN to discredit the Armstrong Williams scandal. Here is his response in a MediaChannel exclusive. [SOURCE: MediaChannel.org, AUTHOR: Ian Williams] 5:43:42 PM    comment []

Flashmob for Iranian bloggers. Juan Cole, University of Michigan blogger and Middle Eastern expert, has called for a flashmob to protest the Iranian government's jailing of dissident bloggers. This is in response to the popularity of a Website calling for a day of blog action concerning the dissidents. [Smart Mobs] 6:25:22 AM    comment []

Airport Screeners Cheat to Pass Tests. [Schneier on Security] 6:22:35 AM    comment []

P2P for academic geeks (Alan Wexelblat). In the PLOS/science-wants-to-be-free vein comes citeulike. I hate the cutesy name, but I like the concept - peer-to-peer sharing of good citations. It's like browsing someone's music collection, for academic geeks. Your ISP Knows You're a Dog (Donna Wentworth). Fred von Lohmann, in a Law.com column on the importance of preserving anonymous speech on the Internet: "[R]emember, on the Internet, your ISP knows you're a dog, and your adversary is only a subpoena away from compromising your constitutionally protected right to bark anonymously." [both Copyfight] 6:21:47 AM    comment []

Wife Defined. We've come a long way since 1963 and the launch of The Feminine Mystique. The feminist movement has allowed women to move away from the domestic sphere into the workforce, redefining their lives and yet the definition for the word wife remains the same. [WNYC New York Public Radio] 6:19:07 AM    comment []

Case of Former SUNY Official Points to Ethics Law Loophole. A loophole in New York State law grants most employees immunity from ethics inquiries when they leave the state payroll - no matter what their actions while on the job. By MICHAEL SLACKMAN. [NYT > Education] 6:14:42 AM    comment []

In the Press Room of the White House that is Post Press. Before the certification of "Jeff Gannon" as a White House reporter there was the Bush Administration's de-certification move against the Washington press. These two things are deeply related. [PressThink] 6:14:19 AM    comment []

For a Start-Up, Visions of Profit in Podcasting. The primarily amateur Internet audio medium known as podcasting will take a small, hopeful step on Friday toward becoming the commercial Web's next big thing. By JOHN MARKOFF. [NYT > Technology] 6:14:01 AM    comment []

Astroturf-Blogging in South Dakota. Personal Democracy Forum: Daschle, Thune and the Blog-Storming of South Dakota. The blogging efforts on behalf of Thune's Senate campaign didn't cause greater civic participation or bring in piles of small donations. Instead nine bloggers -- two of whom were paid $35,000 by Thune's campaign -- formed an alliance that constantly attacked the election coverage of South Dakota's principal newspaper, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. More specifically, their postings were not primarily aimed at dissuading the general public from trusting the Argus' coverage. Rather, the work of these bloggers was focused on getting into the heads of the three journalists at the Argus who were primarily responsible for covering the Daschle/Thune race: chief political reporter David Kranz, state editor Patrick Lalley, and executive editor Randell Beck. This well-reported piece shows the danger of hidden interests in journalism. The game played by the pro-Thune blogging campaign should have been known before the election, not after, because it might well have changed the outcome had voters known what this crowd was doing. [Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism, Etc.] 6:09:42 AM    comment []