Monday, September 26, 2005

Troll management, from News Hounds, via Dave. The field guide is handy. Hmm...this one looks familiar: "The Gravel Thrower simply grabs a handful of whatever first comes to mind - quotes from like-minded souls, genuine or perceived past misdeeds of the opposition that have no bearing on the subject, misapplied debate terms, wild generalizations, off-topic cites, perhaps a touch of personal disparagement - and hurls it, hoping some of the litter will hit the target." Don't feed 'em. 8:21:59 PM   permalink   comment []

Linthead Living: Three weddings and a funeral (9/23/05). 6:20:58 PM   permalink   comment []

Broussard and Russert... ...by Winer: "Russert had a chance... to do the most real journalism of his career and keep the open dialog that came out of the Katrina disaster. He chose to go the other way." ...and Jarvis: "This turned into a game of factual gotcha and in the process some lost sight of the real story and the real tragedy and that is by far the greater failure." 2:30:51 PM   permalink   comment []

Don't forget to stop in over at Gate City and wish the mysterious pinup-obsessed alleged group-blog a happy birthday. 2:21:12 PM   permalink   comment []

JW has the money comment in response to Marcus Kindley's public ruminations about terminating his blog: Quoth she: "If you want to blog, then blog. If you don't want to blog, then don't. "Just quit whining. "You want civil discourse? Quit callling names. You don't want criticism? Don't say anything. Anywhere. Anytime. You want to people to think? Say something thought provoking, don't just provoke." Kindley seems genuinely hurt that his posts draw sharp responses. Maybe as head of the Guilford GOP he's used to preaching to the choir, and writing for a diverse audience is a new thing for him. Certainly his reductive GOP Good/Dems Bad approach is self-limiting, and would seem to be counterproductive in terms of winning over swing voters. Maybe he just doesn' t believe the impact his own words have on readers. 11:39:19 AM   permalink   comment []

Brad Krantz brought up TimesSelect with Frank Rich on WZTK this morning. Rich tap-danced by saying it's too early to tell, maybe it will work, or not, newspapers need to make money...I would have liked to hear what Rich thinks of it in terms of limiting the visibility and relevance of Times columnists -- you know, the interesting part of the topic -- but he wasn't about to touch that. Today behind the paywall, Krugman proposes a pair of Bush administration games: "The objective in Find the Brownie is to find an obscure but important government job held by someone whose only apparent qualifications for that job are political loyalty and personal connections.... "...Jack Abramoff is a lobbyist who was paid huge sums by clients such as casino-owning Indian tribes and sweatshop operators on Saipan. Two Degrees of Jack Abramoff is inspired by the remarkable centrality of Mr. Abramoff, who was indicted last month on charges of fraud, in Washington's power structure. "The goal isn't to find important political players who were chummy with Mr. Abramoff - that's too easy. Instead, you have to find people linked by employment. One degree of Jack Abramoff is someone who actually worked for the lobbyist. Two degrees is a powerful Washington figure who hired someone who formerly worked for Mr. Abramoff, or who had one of his own former employees go to work for Mr. Abramoff." Rich himself was on a similar theme yesterday. His lede refers to "the first arrest of a high-ranking member of the Bush administration. The official was David Safavian, the chief of White House federal procurement policy who once worked for Jack Abramoff." More: "You know that the arrest of Mr. Safavian, one of three known Abramoff alumni to migrate into the administration, is the start of something big...The Enron odor emanating from Mr. Safavian is of a piece with the rest of the cronyism in the Katrina preparedness package." 9:37:02 AM   permalink   comment []

BizJournal previews ConvergeSouth. 8:36:15 AM   permalink   comment []

Troublemaker: "How long would a crack house on Starmount remain open? How many times would a house be raided before it was torn down on Keith Holliday's street?" A lengthy howl of a post on institutional racism, economic justice, and the Klan-Nazi killings. Previously: Councilwoman Burroughs-White said, "I doubt that a parade permit would even have been issued for the march if they had wanted to do it in Irving Park, but if it had been held there, the entire Greensboro police department would have lined the streets.  That certainly wasn't the case in Morningside Homes." 8:30:56 AM   permalink   comment []

Frank Rich will be on the Brad & Britt show, 101.1 FM, in the 8:30 timeslot this morning... 8:18:59 AM   permalink   comment []