Bloggers and blogging – Page 30

Is it really a wiser choice?

One article that I allocated last week when I hosted Carnival of Maryland 37 was from the local blog Lost On The Shore, and it argued for investing more into mass transit as oil prices show no sign of subsiding in the near future. Obviously the investment Tom argued for would be from our already-bloated state government in concert with other East Coast states along the I-95 corridor and would ideally result in a high-speed rail system similar to those found in Europe or Japan.

I’ll give him credit for having enough sense to realize that this would be almost by necessity a system limited in geographic scope because, even at 150 miles per hour, train travel is nowhere near as timely as air travel on a coast-to-coast basis. However, there already is one large obstacle to bringing in a high-speed rail system and it’s not really the cost for infrastructure – the roadblock is called Amtrak. While Tom brings up the fact that Amtrak trains are sold out far in advance, having a heavily subsidized entity already in the rail market all but prohibits the sort of private investment that could make such a enterprise worthwhile. Unlike the freight business, passenger rail became too much of a burden after the advent of the interstate system made auto travel easier and faster so by the early 1970’s no large-scale railroad player remained in the intercity passenger rail business. (Thinking about passenger trains also brings to mind one of my favorite books, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. But I digress.) In stepped the federal government and Amtrak was created.

Unfortunately, each time Congress has mentioned slashing the huge subsidies for train travel – particularly during the heady days of the Contract With America – Democrats and the rail unions (but I repeat myself) have mustered up the votes and the sympathy to continue Amtrak’s gravy train for another budget year. In the meantime, the condition of the tracks slowly deteriorates and obsolete labor rules are kept in force so that anyone who wanted to compete on a level playing field with our national train service could probably clean their clock in little to no time. But that taxpayer subsidy slants the board in such a way to discourage competition.

(It’s definitely an aside, but over the weekend I had the opportunity to ride on Baltimore’s light rail system. While it was convenient enough, taking my friend and I to the gates of Camden Yards, the quality of service left something to be desired – in particular the dearth of trains at a time schedulers should know will be quite busy.)

I also wanted to talk a little bit about bus service and local transit options. I have no idea what the fare is to ride Shore Transit, only that I see a bus go by my house every so often when I’m home and paying attention. And perhaps with the price of gas what it is right now, a more full bus may mean that the service actually comes closer than ever to breaking even. However, my experience is that transit services of that type (particularly paratransit) operate at a loss. In Ohio, where such items are allowed by state law, every few years there would be placed on the ballot a property tax levy or renewal to support Toledo’s regional transit system and it would always pass despite my objections. Here in Maryland, a portion of the state gasoline tax helps defray costs – of course with fewer people driving that shortfall in gasoline tax collection is eating away anything gained by increased ridership. It’s a typical Catch-22 in government; when the people do what’s asked of them they lose in the long run anyway. As a matter of fact, this AP story yesterday by Jim Abrams warns of a possible gas tax increase due to – you guessed it – people using fewer gallons of gasoline because they’ve cut back on driving.

To me, “Fedzilla” (I told you I liked that term) is presenting far too many obstacles to more efficient, cost-effective transportation. By subsidizing an overhead-heavy railroad with our tax dollars it’s discouraging someone who may want to come in make the investment in infrastructure necessary to build the rail system Tom desires. By not allowing and encouraging oil exploration domestically they’re leaving gasoline prices higher than they could be if they simply got out of the way, and the price of diesel fuel is crippling the trucking industry – especially small independent operators. And by threatening to increase taxes even more on each gallon, they’re perpetuating a scam that sends money to states to build bike paths or further subsidize modes of transport which simply aren’t cost-effective or useful to many workers, some who, like myself, need to have their car available for field work or other job-related items.

Given the choice, I’d prefer to allow the market to decide how best to move people around. Oh yes, it already has, which is why practically every household in America has a driveway with a car on it. With rare exceptions, that car is the most convenient mode of transportation to get from Point A to Point B and it’s only because the price of oil has reached intolerable levels that much discussion of the mass transit issue has ensued. Being the kind of guy who likes free choice, I think our best approach to mass transit is to let it sink or swim on its own merits, and something tells me that the call wouldn’t be made for a bus on every corner if gas prices return to more appropriate levels.

Crossposted on Red Maryland and That’s Elbert With An E.

The missing links

They aren’t really missing. I’ve done what I promised to do last weekend and consolidated my political links into one Election 2008 category on the left-hand side.

I realized that another advantage of this was fixing an problem which occurs on some computers with lesser resolution (like my PC). As it stands now my 640 pixel wide pictures I use crowd out the links on the right-hand side. This will no longer be an issue as I’ve moved all of the Maryland and Delaware races (plus others of interest, a list that will grow as time goes on) to the left column. This will also allow me to more easily manipulate the listings, particularly after the Delaware primary on September 9th.

As I bid to appeal to a larger audience, this effort will continue. I’m not content to be a big frog in a small pond anymore.

By the way, I’ll be upgrading my website to WordPress 2.6 later this evening. It shouldn’t be an issue, but in case I have one you’ll know why.

Putting the lie to Andy’s ratings

I don’t know if I inspired a Maryland blogosphere row by doing my own General Assembly rating system here on monoblogue, but late last week I came across a post on another site I occasionally contribute to called the Pro-Maryland Gazette. On that post, “Bud the blogger” made the claim that State Senator Andy Harris was the highest-rated Republican in the General Assembly by the Progressive Maryland group, arguably one of the farthest left bunches active in state politics. While a 44 rating doesn’t put Harris into moonbat territory by any means, it was an interesting tactic for a Kratovil supporter to point this out and possibly siphon a few of the more conservative voters into not showing up at the polls.

On the other hand, while I have some misgivings about the company he keeps, Nick Loffer picked apart the Progressive Maryland system with a post on the Salisbury News website. (It’s definitely a wheat post among all of the chaff.) Loffer notes that two of the Progressive Maryland votes were unanimous votes for a particular issue and another one wasn’t necessarily a clearly partisan issue as both parties split into factions. Loffer also points out that the Progressive Maryland ratings were weighted heavily toward their pet issues, and finally links to a file (as I do for this post) showing Harris’s much more believable 15% rating this year, a legislative year which also includes in their case votes for the 2007 Special Session.

(Local readers should note that I took the liberty of checking out their results for Districts 37 and 38. Most ironic is that “Republican” Page Elmore has a higher PM score than Democrat Jim Mathias among District 38 politicians – my ratings have results fairly close for the two during the Special Session, not so much in 2008. Not surprisingly, longtime District 38B representative Norm Conway talks conservative in the district but votes far-left in Annapolis.)

One flaw I see in the system is the dearth of votes that Progressive Maryland bases their rating scale on. In comparing theirs to mine, fewer than ten votes doesn’t hold a candle to the over 60 House votes and 70-plus Senate votes I have used. I also delve into amendments which were proposed but may not have survived the legislative process in order to show where one could be for an idea before being against the final bill, or vice versa. It was also a method I used to weight issues a little bit but the large number of votes should show a good pattern and as it turns out Andy Harris is one of the most conservative people in the Maryland General Assembly; in fact, based on the overall ratings he would probably be my body double in Congress since we agree on so much.

So it was a nice try Bud, but something tells me Progressive Maryland isn’t going to be placing its money or resources behind Andy Harris in the First District race.

Carnival of Maryland 37

Once again, I’m pleased to play host to the Carnival of Maryland, now well into its second year and going strong. The submissions this time were quite diverse and covered a number of subjects – I enjoyed reading them in order to compile this post and so should you.

Having the Independence Day holiday fall between Carnivals allowed me to make a look back with 6 Things To Consider and Steven Atkinson’s post on July 4th – not the most recent edition but the much more important one which occurred on July 4, 1776.

The history doesn’t stop there, though. Usually we have Maryland bloggers who expound about whichever subjects they wish, but in this case it’s a blogger of unknown origin who talks about a Maryland-related subject. This time it’s a site called Executed Today, and while Jason’s site sounds like it would be on the macabre side, Four For Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination is a fascinating read for Maryland history buffs – oh heck, you don’t have to be that parochial to enjoy it.

I’ll move the timeline up a little bit more with a post from Clark’s Picks taking a look at the life of a crooner of a bygone era – but you might be surprised at what two things entertainer Cliff Edwards claims the most fame with.

Of course, there are those who wish to create their own view of history past, present, and future in worlds we have yet to know. While they may seem a little on the odd side, that segment of society has plenty of money to spend and Randomonium author Cayusa discusses that side as well in May The Force Be With Us. Come to think of it, Baltimore would be a pretty good place for them to gather.

I’ll stay on the subject of fantasy a little longer because C of M regular (and benevolent headmaster) Attila has his idea for a new movie poster called Nino: First Blood Part 2 at Pillage Idiot. While Attila’s no PhotoShop maven, the idea comes across just fine and it also serves as a nice segue for me to look at the politics of the present day, a frequent subject in Maryland’s blogosphere.

A year ago, the conventional wisdom thought that the war in Iraq (part of what I call the Long War) would be the dominant issue in Campaign 2008. It always comes back to pocketbook issues, though, and this year all of us have seen that which was in our wallet now being handed over to those who extract black gold from the earth. On his site Annapolis Politics, Brian Gill distills a semester’s worth of Oil Economics 101 into a treatise appropriately named The Economics of Oil. The also suitably-named Mike’s Nether Land (hosted by Mike Netherland, naturally) also broaches the topic and ties it in to a local Congressional race with his post Dependence on Foreign Oil?

You can also have a second helping of Mike’s thoughts as he bids to direct the national Republican Party with Saving The Party, Part I. (Being a member of said party, I’m interested in where he goes with parts two, three, and so forth.)

Zinzindor shifts the political focus inward to the Free State most of us call home with what you could term an appropriately-timed post. (Usually after the post-July 4th summer clearance, the next big retail push is the “back to school” sales commencing in mid-July.) For a lot of parents, now is also the time tuition bills come due and his Leviathan Montgomery post on our state’s current tuition freeze takes a hard look at who really benefits.

Another point of political interest is explored by Joyce of Creating a Jubilee County. While the subject is her home county of Prince George’s, the topics she discusses can be applied to almost any other suburban county in America in one way or another. And so it is with my contribution for this Carnival.

Like Brian Gill did on his contribution, I spent several weeks studying for my submission this time around called A time to be accountable. It goes without saying that discussing the voting patterns of our General Assembly is a state-specific task, but the idea can and should be replicated wherever there are those like me who believe government needs to be limited in order to function most effectively and preserve the maximum possible amount of personal rights and freedom.

Perhaps the most freedom one can have is to be not even aware of possessing it; instead simply going about the functions and tasks necessary for survival and adapting to whatever conditions are placed in that path. A frequent contributor to our Carnivals is The Ridger and this one is no exception as she provides pictorial looks at some of what nature provides and the rest of us take for granted. I encourage you to check out and enjoy both Dance at Dawn and Images of a Maryland Dawn at her site The Greenbelt.

Normally when I put together the Carnival of Maryland I like to have about 10 to 15 submissions, as I’ve found that having that number presents the reader with plentiful and worthwhile reading options depending on their interest while providing me the opportunity to do a writeup of optimal length for my site – not too long (well, in the eyes of most people anyway) nor too short. In this case, counting mine I have 13. I could call it superstition, but in truth I wanted to bring up a couple other posts which weren’t submitted but I thought made for good reading as I perused the Maryland blogosphere.

One of these is actually a relatively brief but informative five-part series on Maryland political blogging by Adam Pagnucco, a contributor to the Maryland Politics Watch site. While he’s a participant on the opposite side from me, Adam does look at bloggers both conservative and liberal in his series.

The other post I’d like to highlight is one of many from a blogger who is also more or less my opposite politically but presents his arguments in such a way to promote thought, instead of the more prototypical liberal sites which seem to suffer from varying degrees of Bush Derangement Syndrome and serve just to lower the level of discourse. I’m happy to say that Lost on the Shore isn’t one of those and this post called A Wiser Choice is one of many there worth reading whether you agree with the argument or not.

So ends this edition of the Carnival of Maryland, number 37 in a continuing series. For the first time, the Carnival will remain here on the Eastern Shore for a second big show as the ROTUS blog hosts edition 38 on July 27th. It just moves from the lower part where I live to the upper part where ROTUS is written.

Thanks for stopping by and reading.

Renewing the APB for Eastern Shore bloggers

Next Sunday I’ll once again play host to the Carnival of Maryland. This will be edition number 37 and the fourth time I’ve served as home for this vagabond sampling of Maryland’s best blogosphere work. (I’ve previously hosted editions 7, 17, and 27 – see a theme there?)

I know we have a whole host of talented writers on this side of the bridge and sometimes it’s tough to attract the notice of people who read a lot of what’s on the internet. The vast majority of active blogs tend to have a readership that’s fortunate to reach three figures in a week. My totals are a little larger than that but still every little bit of exposure helps.

Nor do you have to write about politics to be featured. In the past I’ve had some outstanding submissions about nature, science, sports, history, and a variety of other subjects which weren’t political. I don’t even have to agree with them, all I ask is that they’re written reasonably well. Personally I’ve contributed to over 30 of these carnivals and no one’s complained yet about what I submitted.

So pick out your best stuff, go to the box that’s currently residing in the lower left-hand column which advertises the Carnival of Maryland, click on it and follow the instructions. Or just use this link. Ideally I’d like about 10 to 15 submissions so I can do a write-up of reasonable length about each one.

I’d also like to point out that tomorrow should will be the debut of the three pages I discussed last week, provided I find no more errors in my information or its compilation. They culminate what has been several weeks of research and work both on and off the internet – hopefully you’ll find them useful in becoming more informed about the political world. I also have another feature which may or may not won’t quite be up yet when this post comes online. (I’m told it will more likely be later in the week.) This addition will be quite apparent once I get approval for placing it on the site.

It’s all an effort to make this website more useful as a tool for research and thought, along with a batch of fun stuff that I toss in every so often to keep it lively.

Sprucing up the site

After looking at this site over the last 2 1/2 years and maintaining the same template for much of that time, I think it’s time to make a few changes. However, at least for the time being I’m going to keep the same template but rearrange some items and perhaps take advantage of some new opportunities which have been laid before me.

When I upgraded the site to WordPress 2.5, I found out that it changed my link list in two ways I don’t care for – they became alphabetized rather than random and the descriptions became items only visible when one’s mouse hovers over them. All the while, the other beef I had with this particular template was that my link categories also appeared alphabetically, which made me have to be creative in order to arrange items as I wished.

What I think I’m going to play with over the next few days and weeks is reordering the site to place my political items in the left-hand column, manually rewriting the code for links if I have to, and keep the non-political links and items to the right column. I’m also going to expand the scope of linkages to include more races (which is why I want to be able to determine the ordering myself) and begin working on additional pages for items I’d like to maintain for readers’ easy reference. (I’m working on three new pages which will debut tomorrow.)

Now maybe there’s some code wizard out there who can tell me how to do this and make my life easier, but failing that possibility I’ve managed to make this venerable template work thus far and I think I can squeeze a little more life out of it. At some point in the next year I’m sure I’ll go to a new look, although I’ll probably keep a similar color scheme. No hot pink here.

The commentary will remain the same, though – even though some may find it boring and/or call me stupid, people still come here to read it and they’re not looking for the proverbial 14-car pileup.

I do feel a little bit snubbed, though. In an otherwise well-written and thoughtful five-part series on the state of Maryland blogs on the Maryland Politics Watch site (as an example, here’s part 5), writer Adam Pagnucco looked at readership on the conservative side in Part 3 and didn’t include me! In truth, I think I had my Site Meter data hidden for part of that period and that’s probably why. I can safely say that my totals for May would fall in between the Howard County blog and Annapolis Politics, numerically a little closer to the former. My peak would have been earlier – thanks to the Rushalanche last October – and I think that number would rival the other two five-digit figures shown (but make my May dropoff look that much more severe.)

Anyway, aside from not chaining the parts together for easier reference, Adam has put together a nice brief overview of Maryland’s blog world worth checking out as a primer.

Attracting notice across the border

While the border in question is just about five miles north of me, thanks to my friend Elbert (who “stumbled” onto the post I’ll refer to) I’ve found out that our First District race is attracting commentary in Delaware as well; specifically at the Delaware Liberal website. However, writer “delawaredem” couches his (or her) argument around the fact that the Club For Growth supported Andy Harris when he toppled longtime incumbent Congressman Wayne Gilchrest back in February, so the wish was for the Club to “train their self destructive lasers on (Delaware at-large Congressman) Mike Castle.” It’s a supposition that anyone the Club For Growth deems worthy of the seat would be too conservative for Delaware voters to elect. Of course, delawaredem forgot to throw in the Eagle Forum, which has become a favorite whipping boy of Harris’s Democrat opponent Frank Kratovil. Both organizations stand firmly on the conservative side of the spectrum; naturally, they’d want more in Congress who are in tune with their views. Certainly delawaredem would prefer someone who has the favor of George Soros, moveon.org, Emily’s List, and like groups.

Being on the periphery of the state, I know only enough about Delaware politics to be dangerous to myself. However, one complaint levied by commentors on the Delaware Liberal post was that Mike Castle, like Wayne Gilchrest here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, hadn’t done a tremendous amount for the Delaware GOP. Given the fact that the field for the 2008 Governor’s race on the Republican side in Delaware originally featured the same players who slugged out the 2004 bid to unseat Governor Ruth Ann Minner, the criticism may be a valid one. Similarly to Maryland, the electoral politics in the First State is dominated by one small geographic area of the state and the rest suffers because of this oppressive tyranny of the majority.

Further restraining the growth of the Delaware GOP are instances where their caucus cannot remain united to accomplish the goals they can attain. The most recent example is failing to override Governor Minner’s veto of eminent domain reform, a move that greatly disappointed the property rights advocacy group Castle Coalition. With property rights being a pet issue for me as well, that little news item piqued my interest and apparently Delaware government retains its free rein to take property as needed for the purely fiscal purpose of increasing the local taxation base.

Returning to my original point, I have to wonder why the Club For Growth instills so much fear in liberal circles. To be sure, those of the progressive stripe have the own club for growth but as I alluded to in the last paragraph, that growth involves the amount of power and influence government at all levels exerts over one’s life. Furthermore, the ideological “purity” that the Club is being tagged for definitely extends across the aisle to the Democrat side – remember, this is the party that dropped its support of Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman just six years removed from being their Vice-Presidential nominee because he didn’t follow the liberal orthodoxy on the Long War (e.g. “Bush lied, people died.”) Nor can you get too far on a national level in that party if you’re pro-life or in favor of school choice, for example.

I think what bothers the left most about those candidates who have gained the support of the Club For Growth is that they’re not really Washington insiders. While it remains to be seen how things will bear out with candidates the Club supports if they’re elected, these hopefuls seem like the type who aren’t going inside the Beltway to amass a power base and probably loathe the place and process enough that they wouldn’t want to be there unless they had to be. Quite simply, they’re not angling to be part of the DC culture, and fortunately for State Senator Harris he lives close enough that, while maybe not commuting daily, he would have ample opportunities to get out into the district on a regular basis and stay grounded with real people conducting real lives.

It truly is unfortunate that those who live just a few miles north of me in Delaware apparently won’t have a real conservative choice for Congress as we do here across the Mason-Dixon Line. As in Maryland, the GOP needs to work back to the grassroots level and begin holding the Democrats accountable for the taxes they raise, the private-sector jobs they fail to retain, the schools where academics start to slip because kids are being taught improper environmentalism rather than proper English, and how all of this comes at the expense of those counties who see through the slick packaging liberals try to sell them and vote for limited government.

All this can be done, as evidenced by a governor of some repute you folks in Delaware had a couple decades ago named Pete DuPont. Something tells me that had the organization been around in that era, the Club For Growth may have supported him too.

Crossposted at That’s Elbert With An E.

Hush Rush first, then the blogs?

A tip of my walking hat goes to The Waterman for bringing the opening graphs of this John Gizzi column at Humanevents.com to my attention and putting his two cents’ worth on the subject as well. Hopefully this marks a return to blogging for The Waterman, if even just for his school’s summer break.

The premise of both is a push by Nancy Pelosi and company for restoring the Fairness Doctrine, which radio broadcasters followed for decades until it was put to bed by President Reagan. Almost immediately came the birth of talk radio as we know it, a medium that is dominated by conservatives like the aforementioned Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham, as well as the more libertarian Neal Boortz. On the other side, liberals like Al Franken, Ed Schultz, and their comrades on Air America have a much tougher time keeping an audience.

One commentor on Gizzi’s post wondered if the Fairness Doctrine would extend to National Public Radio, which is notoriously left-wing on a national scale. Leaving aside my prejudice against any government involvement in radio programming, I suspect that may fall under the same rules as your local newspaper, which toils under no such restriction on presenting equal viewpoints and for the most part doesn’t. Rare is the editorial page that presents both sides of a particular issue; I think the only time I’ve seen that attention to equality is the editorial pages of USA Today and it’s been years since I read the paper. And even if a newspaper does devote its editorial page to both sides of an issue, reporting has no similar standard.

Nor is there any thought of doing the same to television news. Study after study shows that more affirmative and positive coverage goes to left-wing issues and candidates, while the conservatives and their pet issues are belittled or ignored. A prime example of this is the Long War, where the only coverage anymore seems to be of the rare setbacks in the effort. The mulitude of successes in Iraq and Afghanistan only seem to get a lot of play on conservative internet sites, where bloggers from both sides compete on a relatively level playing field.

I know Rush railed a bit against this today, but I’m going to go ahead and project what could happen – after all, I’m doing this more as an opinion piece than hard news.

Let’s turn the clock ahead a year and say that the Fairness Doctrine is reestablished by the House and after surviving a valiant but futile filibuster attempt in the Senate after a few RINO’s sell out, the measure is signed by President Barack Obama. (Are those three scary words or what?) I don’t think Rush immediately loses a large number of stations but lesser lights like Laura Ingraham or Mark Levin would probably see their radio shows dropped in a number of markets due to the coordinated complaints of left-wing groups just chomping at the bit to take down some of these thorns in their side.

So where do these folks go? Well, some may get into internet broadcasting and that’s where the trouble for us bloggers could begin. As has happened in many an instance, liberals take one little step to start the trek toward domination and absolute power and incrementally usurp more and more freedom. Like the frog who’s unaware of the water in the pot heating up around him until it’s too late, most people don’t notice their rights taken away until they have none left.

It may take an election or two but sooner or later Democrats (if they stay in control of Congress) might decide that perhaps the equal time restrictions should apply to the internet and that websites like the ones affiliated with the radio broadcasters I noted above also have to be linked up with websites which provide an opposing point of view. The fear I have is that some ISP’s may just decide it’s not worth it to have politically-oriented websites and drop all of them, leaving information distribution in fewer hands.

I’m certain some of you are reading this and thinking that Michael has gone off the deep end of the conspiracy pool. But think about what used to be property rights in this country, particularly where “endangered” species or wetlands are involved. Perhaps free speech will win the day and the Fairness Doctrine will be beaten back as permanently as can be done inside the Beltway. But pay attention to the debate because those who wish to control the information you have access to could be targeting the internet with their next salvo should the effort to hush Rush pull through.

A comment truly worth posting

I know I’m playing the tit for tat game here, but there wasn’t much in the news that I could come up with a unique angle about and after one recent comment it’s good to know that I have friends too:

And your blog is such a wonderful font of useful information Albero? I looked, as far as I could tell it was flooded with worthless posts about local Wicomico area events and snarky attacks on individuals. You had a single piece on a national issue that was immediately visible, and that was George Carlin’s death.

Suffice to say, but your blog is worthless. I’d much rather read here, regardless of its readership levels since it actually offers evidence, insight, and analysis. Perhaps if you’d take a break from the rapid fire, empty-air postings you could come up with something half as intelligent.

Yeah, it’s a cheap shot (especially since Joe doesn’t create every post) and I’m definitely lowering myself to subterranian levels by playing this game, but it feels good to do so once in awhile. As for the group of anti-Albero bloggers to which I supposedly belong, I’m going to make one request of the folks who run the Pro-Maryland Gazette, and that is to tighten up the discourse commenting on any of my crossposts there. I don’t care if folks have a problem with the arguments I make, but leave the nasty personal attacks on Albero out of the comments. Certainly there’s enough on Salisbury News to be critical about without making accusations about Joe that I find pretty disgusting myself.

All right, now I feel better. Time to get back into stuff which really matters again.

AP pressures bloggers

This started out as a comment on Michelle Malkin’s site, but I decided to make it into a post here.

While I appreciate the attempts at humor from all the commentors above who want a crack at Michelle’s money, this “new tone” by AP opens up many a can of worms.

For starters, what if Michelle writes a newspaper column that takes a quote from an AP story and decides to place a reprint of it on this site? Would “fair use” in the print media overrule the payment due for the blog post? How about if Michelle uses the quote on FOX News?

On another front, as a dittohead I know Rush Limbaugh has quoted extensively from AP stories, again under “fair use”. Will the AP send him a bill if he reprints a transcript of the monologue on his website?

These questions definitely don’t seem to be covered because many of the major players in the blogosphere are also employed as providers in other areas of media; Malkin and Limbaugh are just two examples of this cross-medium phenomenon.

Obviously, I toil with a much smaller sphere of influence but this decision by the AP could affect me even more. For example, my local paper has been known to do “hybrid” stories where the hometown reporter adds items to an AP story that detail a local angle of some sort. If I take the quote from a local paper on such a story, would I still be liable to the AP?

Another question arises on simply linking to a story without quotation. You’re still using the story to make an argument, so in theory either one of two outcomes is possible: there’s no charge because you’re not directly quoting from the story; or, you’d be charged for every word even if you only cared about a couple sentences. I can only guess which way the AP would decide on that question.

Michelle properly notes that bloggers like me enjoy being linked – in my case, I also crosspost on occasion between three other websites, Elbert’s (#22) happens to be one of them. Would liability fall equally among all crossposted blogsites or just on the originating site, and how would they know which site originated the post? As another example, I can post to Red Maryland first then come back to my home site, or vice versa.

I know the AP is looking to fatten their bottom line and perhaps control the dissemination of their information. But I think fair use is fair use regardless of the reprinting media. When I cite a story as part of a post, I give credit to both the source and the writer (e.g. a Baltimore Sun story by Mary Gail Hare). Conversely, if people wish to link to my site all I ask is credit and the link back to the post.

We may be seeing the opening salvo of a new war between the “drive-by” media and the “pajamas” media, with the strategy being one of attrition through deeper pockets. Fortunately, I have enough news sources who are practically begging me to get their word out that I can do my work but some others may have a difficult time keeping on the straight and narrow.

News you can use, but can you believe it?

Just so you know, I’m speaking for myself here. No one puts words in my mouth.

During the week, a website purporting to be a local news source placed online this post about a scandal involving a now-former employee of a local business. Let me begin by noting that I am an employee of the company in question and have been for the past 3 1/2 years. The man accused of shifting money out of the HOA account into the company’s account was also my campaign treasurer in 2006. However, that account was a non-continuing account (at the time, this practice was allowed by election law) so it was closed shortly after I was elected to my current office. In 2010 I’ll simply ask someone else to be my campaign treasurer.

If you read the comments to the Tony Tank post, many are under the belief that the company who employs me is practically at death’s door. Did we have to let go employees? Yes, there were two good men who we had to lay off, and everyone involved has had to make sacrifices. However, we are continuing on and new projects keep coming in the door for our reduced staff to do. One could even argue that we’re now lean enough to be ready to pounce when the inevitable upturn in business comes. I’ve been in the architectural field for over 21 years and, like most other construction-related businesses, my chosen field is quite cyclical. But people have to build and improve at some point. We still have three registered architects (myself included), a registered engineer, and a LEED-Accredited Professional (again, that’s me) on staff along with others who do their jobs pretty efficiently. If the doors closed Monday, I’d be as shocked as the dozens of clients we serve.

This brings me to a discussion of the Hobbs Road development, another favorite target of the commentors. It’s true that there’s not been dirt moved at the site, but I can attest to the fact that permits are still being sought to do so – otherwise, I’ve been drawing roadway and infrastructure plans and details over the last several months for naught. Perhaps one should question instead the wisdom of those who developed the still-vacant office park near the intersection of Old Ocean City Road and Beaglin Park Drive or the spec building that is an unoccupied shell without even a floor in the Sweetbay subdivision. Again, it can be argued that the timing will be right for the infrastructure at Hobbs Road to be completed just about the time building begins to boom again. Unlike the other office parks, the Hobbs Road development will feature other uses including hotels and restaurants to take advantage of its location. Imagine the synergy between any possible restaurant/nightclubs and Perdue Stadium during summer evenings like tonight promises to be.

One of those comments to his post was to “ask Michael Swartz” since I work for the company involved. No one asked me but that was my response anyway. Now I’m going to turn my attention on how this “news” was gathered.

The root of the post was a comment, apparently from a previous one. The lead author of this “opinionated only” blog is one who’s been known to do what I term “fishing expeditions” (not to be confused with phishing for identity theft). Knowing there’s a topic out there where he may not have all of the information he wants or needs to run with his story – or with his vendetta – this blogger will put up an innocuous post and rely on whatever (anonymous) comments he gets to fill in the blanks and advance the story line. Of course, if the comments are found to be untrue he can always make the excuse, “well, it was a commentor on the post – it wasn’t me writing that.” Or he may have missed it going through all of the comments we’re told he has to run through.

Regardless, in running with this particular story he’s besmirched the reputation of a company that has served the public for over 15 years at a time where it’s already reeling because of one bad apple in the business. Further, he’s allowed solely speculative information that could do harm to this company’s core business and that of one of its prime clients to be aired. There are still legal matters to be settled in this affair but apparently the original victims have been made whole. I also happen to serve with the attorney in question on our county’s Republican Central Committee and whether you agree with his means or not he’s doing the task his client assigned him to do.

I know that in the press much of the news is made through the mining of anonymous sources, and that’s not really the issue here. But when news leaves the realm of what is and moves into the areas of rumor and innuendo, those actions put all of us who take the time to express our thoughts on the internet with websites like mine into the same category. Some readers may recall about two years ago the local bloggers here in Salisbury were called a “cancer” by one local politician and I’m still a little angry about that brush tarring all of us, deserved or not.

When I take the time and put on the reporter’s hat, my goal is to relate what really happened at the event I’m covering. At some point we’re going to find out all that actually occurred in the Tony Tank affair and hopefully those guilty will be the ones who pay the largest price. In the meantime, it may be best to cast a skeptical eye toward news that’s simply made rather than reported.

Crossposted on the Pro-Maryland Gazette.

The new buzzword: smear

A couple days back I characterized the campaign of Barack Obama as one that could be described as a number of buzzwords slickly produced and selected after extensive focus-group testing. So it is with the term “smear” apparently.

Doing some good marketing himself, fellow blogger Bob McCarty clued me into the new Obama campaign site dedicated to spreading the “truth” about him, and how he managed to turn the tables a little bit. (It’s there, you just have to scroll down a little bit.) This “fight the smears” site was also extensively discussed on Rush’s show today.

With Obama’s campaign moving several legitimate points of discussion into the category of “off limits”, I’m not too certain what his campaign is going to accomplish by creating such a site except for portraying himself as a victim of those racist Republican bloggers who spread lies about his religious background and took Rev. Jeremiah Wright out of context, at least until Barack himself threw the good pastor under the bus. Victim my ass.

However, it does bring up a point that, at least as far as focus-grouped and tested buzzwords are concerned, the meaning of a smear is pretty well known and understood to be one of spreading untrue rumor and innuendo to give the opponent of a particular political candidate an advantage. Perhaps the best known smear attempt was during the 2004 Presidential campaign, where forged documents were hyped as proof President Bush avoided military service. Of course, the attempt backfired once bloggers noted that particular fonts were not in use yet when the note was supposedly written in the early 1970’s. In that case, it was bloggers who revealed the truth; but in other cases bloggers obfuscate matters with rumor and innuendo to gain advantage for themselves or their group. Many times it’s a partisan effort but other times what may pass as news is later found to be simply an effort to gain advantage for other reasons like competitive advantage or as a way to get back at others. It’s one reason why blogs are slow to gain traction as news sources unless they’re affiliated with a legitimate print or media outfit.

This is actually leading me into tomorrow’s post, and in the entertainment business it’s called a tease. But I have some thoughts on recent events that can shed some light on a particular item of interest and possibly a motivation behind that which was said.