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June 6, 2003
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The following chart shows (a)
in red, the ranking among Salon Blogs in number of
hits in the past month (to June 5) and (b) in black, the
ranking among Salon Blogs in number of inbound blogs (per
Technorati
) at June 5, followed by the current number of inbound blogs. Blogs are listed
in order of combined (a) + (b) rank. Last month's combined rank is
shown in brackets.
The top 75 blogs received an aggregate 850,000 hits each month, up 14%
from the previous month. Name and location of each blog's 'owner', when known,
is shown below the blog name. The Salon blog # links to the blog's home page.
Apologies in advance for any errors or omissions. Corrections gratefully
accepted.
Just under: Iraq Democracy
Watch
, Reflections
, Global Suburb
, Paulapalooza
, Patriotically Incorrect
, Fiona
, Andrew Bayer is Dreaming
, Rich
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4:13:44 PM 
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Tomorrow, we hold our first virtual
meeting of the self-managed team developing the Freedom 2004 Meme, the slogan-and-story
set we hope will resonate with the moderate, the undecided voter in 2004,
and help us overthrow "the worst president in American history".
This week's lead-off comment in the New Yorker by Hendrik Hertzberg,
Building Nations, neatly and articulately contrasts the Bush
policies in dealing with America and with Iraq. We have agreed that our meme
needs to focus on the former. Here are the excerpts from Hertzberg's comment
that tell us what we're up against:
It's tempting to suggest that the Bush Administration
is failing to provide Iraq with functioning, efficient, reliable public services
because it doesn't believe in functioning, efficient, reliable public
services -- doesn't believe that they should exist, and doesn?t really believe
that they can exist. The reigning ideologues in Washington -- not only in
the White House but also in the Republican congressional leadership, in the
faction that dominates the Supreme Court, and in the conservative press and
think tanks -- believe in free markets, individual initiative, and private
schools and private charity as substitutes for public provision. They believe
that the armed individual citizen is the ultimate guarantor of public safety.
They do not, at bottom, believe that society, through the mechanisms of democratic
government, has a moral obligation to provide care for the sick, food for
the hungry, shelter for the homeless, and education for all; and to the extent
that they tolerate such activities they do so grudgingly, out of political
necessity. They believe that the private sector is sovereign, and that taxes
are a species of theft.
The Bush Administration no longer flaunts its contempt
for nation-building abroad, but it remains resolutely hostile to nation-building
at home. Its domestic policy consists almost solely of a never-ending campaign
to reduce the taxes of the very rich. Not all of this largesse will be paid
for by loading debt onto future generations. Some of it is being paid for
right now, by cuts in public services -- cuts that outweigh the spare-change
breaks for less affluent families which the Administration, in selling its
successive tax elixirs, has had to include in order to suppress the electorate's
gag reflex. The pain is especially acute at the state level, where net federal
help is in decline. States are cancelling school construction, truncating
the academic year, increasing class sizes, and eliminating preschool and after-school
programs. Health benefits are being slashed, and a million people will likely
lose coverage altogether. In many states, even cops are getting laid off.
Whatever one may think of the global democratic-imperial ambitions
of the present Administration, they cannot long coexist with the combination
of narrow greed and public neglect it thinks sufficient for what it is pleased
to call the homeland. At some point -- the sooner the better -- a critical
mass of Americans will notice.
As the outsider in the team, I continue to be amazed that the worst president
in American history isn't also the most unpopular president in American history.
The fact that he has a chance at re-election brings home just how different
21st century America is from every other country on the globe. This brand
of 'nation-building' leaves me bewildered, and aghast.
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10:29:22 AM
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A while ago I listed
World TV
in my Vectors & Tangents sidebar. After downloading the free software
and browsing through the hi-res stations (now that I have high-speed Internet
access a whole new multimedia world has opened up), I stumbled on a curious
Latvian station called Talantu Fabrika
. It turns out to be one of those survival-type bunch-of-young-people in
a house reality series. The site shows which people have been eliminated
and which remain, but since it's in Latvian I don't understand a word of
it, except that it's been running for 61 days. What's different is that it
runs 24 hours per day completely unedited and with no cutaways or
annoying voice-over commentary. The cameras appear to be everywhere except
the bathrooms.
Perhaps it's just the high picture quality, or the fact that it's happening
real-time on the other side of the world, but even though the action is pretty
inane (morning exercises, games of skill, manicures) it's strangely addictive.
I guess there's a bit of voyeur in all of us.
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3:53:04 AM
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© Copyright 2004
Dave Pollard.
Last update:
19/02/2004; 2:46:24 PM. |
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