We live in a democracy

Keith Olberman slaps around Don Rumsfeld and others who would question the patriotism of those with the common sense to question leaders who claim they know better and then go on to demonstrate exactly the opposite. The only one I’m willing to follow with complete faith is God. Everyone else should be subject to as close a bit of scrutiny as the media and citizenry can bring to bear.

LOTD: 8/29/06

-Take the Web2.0 Awareness Quiz. Lots of fun. [via Joel]
-A Wired story on wikis has been put on a wiki for community editing. Don’t edit the quotes but feel free to move the content around or make other changes as you see fit.
-Flickr adds geo-tagging. I’d comment more but my keyboard is a bit wonky after I drooled on it while playing with it.
-Yet another clueless company making an awkward and untargeted pitch.

The Constitution

Intel-Dump, via Ryan Anderson:

The argument that the president can ignore the law and the Constitution because some nutbag terrorists are attacking us is false. We have faced much larger threats than Osama and company. We fought our Revolution without betraying the principles of that same Revolution. The main principle behind our system is that we have a limited government, that the government has only the power that the People give it, and that the government is subservient to the People, not the other way around.

No exceptions. Ever…

Any government that decides to bypass the People or the checks and balances in our Constitution becomes an enemy of the Constitution, and of the People. Supporting such a government is not patriotism, it is treason.

We’re all the internet

A bunch of goofy characters get together for a good cause, to promote net neutrality.

[via Adrants]

Embracing new media

I find an fun symmetry between this post by Josh Hallett, where he calls companies who visit blogs but don’t contact the bloggers “prank callers” and Robert Scoble’s taking Google to task for going to the New York Times to announce their Google Apps project.

Josh expresses the frustration (something I’ve had myself) of bloggers who are writing about a specific company or industry but who aren’t being contacted by people at the company or in that industry. The frustration doubles when you see visitor traffic from a company you’ve talked about in your stats. And he (and I) is not just talking about the occasional accidental Google search that brings someone around your place. We’re talking about concentrated hits, all coming from one company. It’s great that they’re monitoring, but now is the time for engagement. Bloggers have the potential to do a great deal of good and a great deal of harm. But having dropped someone a line every now and again can do wonders. Damage can be mitigated – or at least you can get your point of view across – if you, as a company representative, have made yourself available as a resource for a blogger.

Then there’s the story of Google Apps, which was announced in the New York Times and other mainstream, old-media outlets. Scoble lists the number of search industry and tech bloggers that would seem like no-brainers to include on a media list for a launch like this by Google. Almost none of them were given any sort of heads-up or asked to take part in the announcement. The sole exception was Om Malik, who passed on the offer because of the embargo requirement.

So why did Google go to the MSM over bloggers? There’s lots of speculation and I’m not going to engage in that. But those bloggers are the “influentials” that a company – in this case Google – needs to be keeping tabs on and accommodating. Eric Eggerton is even outright asking if it’s better to leak to bloggers and let an announcement build until it penetrates the MSM instead of going big and then seeing if a conversation follows.

If you work for a major company have you identified your base of influentials?

BONUS READING: PR people love them some blogs but don’t know quite how to use them for their benefit just yet. Most companies, though, still have no idea what RSS is.

New blogs – just what I needed

If you find yourself just not having enough blogs or RSS feeds to read, both Mack Collier at BMA and David Armano at Logic+Emotion have round-ups of highlights from existing blogs or pointers to new blogs that have launched. Get your RSS readers ready and carve out a few more minutes in your day to keep up with these great outside-the-mainstream voices.

Round-up: 8/25/06

• The separation between church and state isn’t a lie, at least I don’t think so. I always take its foundation to be when Christ chastised his followers to “render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar’s and unto God what is God’s.”
• Gary Hart talks about the neo-con ideological creep into all facets of life, including religion.
• Good question: Why are conservative groups so up in arms over the FDA approval of Plan B when its reach likely won’t come near that of the common birth control pill? They do basically the same thing. And notice how the arguments the “religious” groups use include the atrocity of older men seducing and pressuring underage girls. That’s deliberately to create a sense of outrage.
• Finally. People are beginning to stop drawing a straight line between Republicans and religious integrity. Took long enough. This despite the best efforts of “Patriot Pastors” who have been using their pulpits as Republican speaking platforms.

Church Fires Teacher for Being Woman — Beliefnet.com

Just because Timothy didn’t want women to be teachers is no reason to continue that attitude.

LOTD: August 21

• Lifehacker points to a great screencast on how to use WordPress
• The Baltimore Sun’s Hanah Cho has a great item about using technology in the presence of others, and what might be going too far
• BusinessWeek’s Karen Klein makes a case for a company blog, even for internal use
• VOTE: Fast Company asks “Do company executives really understand how people use their products?”
• Recently, AOL released stacks of search results from its users, which somewhat enabled anyone with about 15 minutes and a mouse to figure out a decent profile of any of the individuals included in the “release.” Wired’s Annalee Newitz shares what might be the top ten “dubmest privacy debacles” that we’ve seen
• Jeremy Pepper summed up his experiences at the Second Life Convention in four posts, check ‘em out here: 1, 2, 3, 4. If you’re interested in SL and don’t feel like just paying someone to figure out how to get you started, then this is a good start for your reading.
• While we’re on Second Life, check out who’s next to join the SL train
• Bloggers are checking out the Web 2.0ishness of newspapers online

Christians during wartime

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Gory – Christianity Today Magazine

“Where were the Christians during the Civil War?”

Good question. Can someone answer where they are during the current war?