Tuesday, April 05, 2005

The future of blogging

From CNET, I’m one among many:

The growth rate of blogs is impressive. Technorati, a search engine that monitors blogs, tracked more than 8 million online diaries as of March 21, up from 100,000 just two years ago. A new blog is created every 7.4 seconds. That adds up to 12,000 new blogs a day, 275,000 posts a day and 10,800 updates an hour. “At its most basic level, it’s a technology that is lowering the cost of publishing” and turning out to be “the next extension of the Web,” says Wharton legal studies professor Kevin Werbach. “Blogging is still in its early days. It’s analogous to where the Web was in 1995 and 1996. It’s not clear how it will turn out.”

DeLay’s slash & burn

First it was Iowa Republican Steve King, now Delay has made it explicit:

“We have unaccountable, out of control judiciary. We are after them,” DeLay said.

“The Constitution gives us (Congress) the responsibility to create courts. If we can create them, we can uncreate them,” he said.

To repeat myself…

Since Marbury v Madison we have had and believed in judicial review. We have a separation of powers in our constitutional democracy.  Democrats respect that. Show me statements where they don’t. The conservative right clearly does not. This is dangerous and destructive.

Via Oliver Willis.

(Maybe Nathan Newman would say calm down.)

Cornyn & Frist updates

More on John Cornyn’s remarks yesterday from Nathan Newman, a voice of reason I like. He says, in effect, calm down:

I’m sorry, I just can’t join in the liberal feeding frenzy around John Cornyn’s remarks that some of those violently attacking judges were no doubt frustrated by their sense of political powerlessness due to judicial activism.

[...]

I think Cornyn is an ass for his particular analysis in this case, but that’s a political judgement. I’m all for hitting the opposition hard for any corruption, hypocrisy or other personal malfeasance, but don’t sign me up for any lynch mob tied to driving sociological analysis of violence from public discourse.

Instead of berating Cornyn for his remarks, let’s welcome him to a broader discussion of the sources of violence in our society. Maybe we can sign him up for jobs programs for the inner city as another worthy endeavor to stem the systematic causes of social violence.

Meanwhile, Frist is backtracking:

Frist, R-Tenn., declined to join with conservatives who have complained about the federal court system in relation to the Schiavo case. ‘I believe we have a fair and independent judiciary today,’ he said.

Via Kos.

IPTV

I didn’t really even know the acronym, IPTV, existed. But Thomas Hawk, who hates to point to the New York Times (I don’t), made this exception:

Although this is not new news, it was interesting in the article where Terry Denson, the vice president of programming and marketing at Verizon’s television group said that “for those who are seeking a bargain, we’ll be a bargain, make no doubt about it.” It might be kind of nice to see a good old-fashioned price war between the Bells, cable and satellite. It might get bloody for the companies but could be great for me, the little guy sitting at home watching tv who is tired of paying over $100 a month.

Given how I hate the cable company, I look forward to the price war too. Just one problem. How long do you think that will take to get to my rural area????

Our (un)popular president

Editor and Publisher:

It’s not uncommon to hear or read pundits referring to President George W. Bush as a “popular” leader or even a “very popular” one. Even some of his critics in the press refer to him this way. Perhaps they need to check the latest polls.

President Bush’s approval rating has plunged to the lowest level of any president since World War II at this point in his second term, the Gallup Organization reported today.

[...]

Here are the ratings for presidents as recorded by Gallup in the March following their re-election:

Truman, 1949: 57%.

Eisenhower, 1957: 65%.

Johnson, 1965: 69%.

Nixon, 1973: 57%.

Reagan, 1985: 56%.

Clinton, 1997: 59% .

Bush, 2005: 45%

Via Kos, who comments, “Can we quit with the ‘popular president’ schtick?”

Peter Jennings’ lung cancer

Yesterday in anchors away the only one expected to stay was Peter jennings. Today this bad news from Romenesko memos:

This morning, Peter Jennings told his senior staff at World News Tonight that yesterday afternoon he was diagnosed with lung cancer. I include below the full text of Peter’s note to the group of people with whom he works most closely. He will begin outpatient treatment next week here in New York. It’s both Peter’s and my expectation that he will anchor World News Tonight during the period of treatment to the extent he can do so comfortably; but, we should also expect him to be off the broadcast from time to time, depending on how he feels. Charlie Gibson, Elizabeth Vargas, and others will be substituting for Peter as necessary and when their other responsibilities permit.

A fan, I wish him well. The text of his email to colleagues is in the extended entry.

Read the rest of "Peter Jennings’ lung cancer" in the extended entry.

Satellite maps

New from Google:

Online search engine leader Google has unveiled a new feature that will enable its users to zoom in on homes and businesses using satellite images, an advance that may raise privacy concerns as well as intensify the competitive pressures on its rivals.

The satellite technology, which Google began offering late Monday at http://maps.google.com, is part of the package that the Mountain View-based company acquired when it bought digital map maker Keyhole Corp. for an undisclosed amount nearly six months ago.

My house:

For all the stir this may cause, it’s nothing new. Before we moved down here we looked at our house, via epodunk.com, a favorite site that’s a terrific resource. Pick your city, scroll down to “Photos and postcards” and click on “Aerial photo of...” It’s not in color but you can zoom in closer:

UPDATE: What Google does that ePodunk doesn’t is way too cool! Type in your name and the city, it adds pointers to your house. Type in “McDonalds” and anytown (!) to see what I mean.