Andrew Spittle is tumbling

I wouldn’t shed a tear if the Washington Post Company were to choose to shutter it’s money-losing newspaper and focus on its core competency in the field of standardized test preparation. After all, why does Sarah Palin have an op-ed on climate legislation in the Washington Post? Does she have scientific expertise? Economic expertise? Knowledge of the state of international climate negotiations? Perhaps during her brief time in the public spotlight she developed a reputation for an unusually solid grasp of complicated policy details? Or is the idea that she’s known for being honest? A good-faith participant in public policy debates? Well, no. And the fact of the matter is that the Palin op-ed actually fits very comfortably alongside the established norms of Charles Krauthammer, George Will, and Robert Samuelson—words on paper that are neither paid advertisements nor serious efforts to improve people’s understanding of the world.

More interestingly, though, it reveals communities which may not be immediately obvious. By seeing what people are linking to, you are also seeing what they are reading. But by using Fever, you are also seeing each link in the context of links made to the same content by others, rather than seeing it on its own. It is that context which is important. Since communities are nothing more than people interested in the same things, and Fever shows precisely this, it means what you are seeing is the underlying structure of a community. The structure was always there to see, but because past feed readers conceptualize feeds as individual and distinct, existing in their own world, rather than as connected — the full community structure was difficult to see.

Just one portion of a brilliant piece from Kyle Baxter about Fever and online community.

Fever: Revealing Communities | TightWind

Note the alternatives Philips offers: You might blog for money. You might blog for fame or influence or as a “loss leader” for your real business. But nowhere in his world is there room for the actual motivation that drives most bloggers: a desire to express themselves, to think out loud, to exult in the possibilities of writing in public — and learn from the pitfalls, too.

The question buzzing around Washington’s chattering classes is the following: is the actual historical moment that Obama inherited — unforeseen in its scope and danger this time last year — the right moment for these instincts? Are his caution and delegation a liability in a period of a dysfunctional Congress, a near-psychotic Republican party and a potentially lethal global depression?

Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) welcomed her new colleague Al Franken to the Senate with a fairly rude remark: “It’s important he go against the grain of his past career and really get to know the issues.

And look: I’m perfectly aware that continuing to air even the faint possibility of this makes a lot of people think I’ve gone round the bend. And maybe I have on this. Blogging obsessively can do that to a person. But if you haven’t figured this out by now, I don’t care much about what people think of me. I’d just like to know the truth, please. That’s why I’m a blogger and a journalist. That’s why I’ve published a lot of things in my time that others wouldn’t. As long as I am not deceiving anyone or publishing untruths, and airing counter-arguments, I think I’m doing my job. Others have a different view of what legitimate discourse is, and I respect that. And I certainly think the brickbats are valid. But this is the way I am. Read someone else if you don’t like it.

TMZ.com is now the hottest Hollywood celebrity gossip website on the planet. So hot, in fact, that when it broke the news of Michael Jackson’s death last week, its world exclusive popped up online six minutes before the singer actually died.