read/Write Web

Reporting on not reporting about Flock? Maybe later. It's like; 'If I spoke I'd be the authority about this because of my socialPositioning and technicalExpertese. But I can't right now, so I'm going to tap into the buzz with my placeHolder.'

I like what I've seen so far from Richard MacManus and . I'm watching their feeds individually and collectively until I figure out if their central repeater is going to catch and bounce all their posts. (yep, I'm a greenHorn novice)

My issue, and the impetus for me to be sarcastic towards Richard's post, is that earlier this morning I'd screamed at a talkingHead on my TV for doing the same thing... essentially.

It was a lawyer friend of a lawyer who's wife had recently been murdered. He had no news to add or even information to offer that would clairify what had already been reported. He just grabbed some faceTime to do the lawyers' twoStep about onGoing investigations and not being to elaborate.

It's bad enough that TV Journalists are already interviewing each other for filler when they don't actually have any real sources or information lined up. Whatever happened to that line between reporting the news and being the news?

O.K., this is where I admit that I'm probably sociopathic, and just needed to vent my spleen. But,(!) I'll offer for evidence this quote that appears to me to be nothing more than an attention grab and a shameless plug for peers.

...I've downloaded it and will give it a go as my
main browser for a while. I won't however jump to conclusions and give
you a half-baked review right now. But fear not, for there are plenty
of great reviews around - including from members of the Web 2.0 Workgroup: TechCrunch, WeBreakStuff, SolutionWatch, Dion Hinchcliffe. ZDNet Aussie has a good write-up too.

I hope someone gets the OPML list updating thing figured out soon. I just noticed that they've added numerous authors/sites to the workGroup!
Categories: syndicNation, iRobt, Flock, read/WriteWeb, issues, socialPositioning,

via the dailyKos

Culture of Corruption:

The President's Management Agenda includes controversial policies and proposals such as aggressive use of outsourcing to replace civil servants, reliance on 'faith-based initiatives' and rollbacks of civil service rights. [...]

'Presidents come and go but the civil service is designed to serve whoever occupies the swivel chair in the Oval Office,' Ruch added. 'It is downright creepy that now every museum curator, supervising scientist and chief ranger must be okayed by a high-level political appointee.'

Creepy is, I suppose, the best marginally objective word that can be placed on it. What the Bush administration and Republican Party has done is expand the number of purely political appointees far beyond even normal crony-laden levels, drilling those appointees deeper into various government functions, and giving them unprecedented instruction to short-circuit scientific studies and otherwise enforce 'ideological purity' on the science and everyday function of basic government tasks.

That the Bush administration is openly hostile to science and book-learning is hardly new news, but it is worth reflecting on how quickly they managed to find these new sunken levels of cronyism and corruption, and what a long-term project restoring basic competence to these functions of government might yet turn out to be. We've been losing a great many experienced, apolitical career civil servants, in the Bush years, resulting in a 'brain drain' in everything from the EPA to Energy to Customs to the CIA and DOD. And they're being replaced by campaign consultants, drivers, lobbyists and others who the Party owes favors to.

Hunter's post references 3 reSources on 3 articles with a common central theme.