Warren Olney is emblematic of what’s wrong with modern journalism.
Warren Olney’s “To the Point,” the PRI show carried by NPR affiliates across the country, has long struck me as a bit of a parody of NPR. The name, for starters. I can’t remember the names of any of the faux NPR stations in “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City,” but they’re all names exactly like [...]
Records about those pardoned Mississippi killers have gone missing.
Earlier this month, in the last few days of his term, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour pardoned five men, including four convicted murderers, who worked in his mansion. The AP FOIAed the records about their pardons and—darnedest thing—there aren’t any. The attorney general says that they’re nowhere to be found. This is headed to court in [...]
VDOT tracking snowplows via GPS, sharing their position.
Chicago recently announced that they’d be sharing the GPS-tracked positions of snowplows online, for people wondering when their neighborhood would be plowed, and what roads are cleared. Now VDOT is doing the same in Virginia, although only upstate. →
The Chicago Sun-Times will no longer endorse candidates.
The 71-year-old paper isn’t convinced that endorsements mean much anymore, and are worried that the practice gives the appearance of bias in their coverage of politics. So they’re giving it up. I wonder if this is the beginning of a trend, or of the Sun-Times will stand alone? →
Disqus research finds that “pseudonyms drive communities.”
Discussion hosting service Disqus has crunched the numbers on their enormous database of comments and found that people writing under pseudonyms (as opposed to anonymously or under their real name) contribute substantially more comments than others, and those comments are rated more highly than others. People writing under a real name are a close second, [...]
Scientific American: The Impracticality of a Cheeseburger
Remember that blog entry I wrote last month about trying to make a cheeseburger from scratch? Scientific American has a short article based on it in their February issue. Page 24. I haven’t picked up a copy yet, but I’m sure going to. →
I seem to have this website.
I publicly launched Richmond Sunlight five years ago this week. Upon its launch I gave it to the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy because, as I wrote, “they’re non-partisan, they have an attention span longer than a housefly, and they have access to resources that I don’t.” I concluded: “I’ll run it for them [...]
New York Times: Inside the Fed in 2006—A Coming Crisis, and Banter
“The transcripts of the 2006 [Federal Reserve] meetings, released after a standard five-year delay, clearly show some of the nation’s pre-eminent economic minds did not fully understand the basic mechanics of the economy that they were charged with shepherding.” It’s a significant understatement to say that they didn’t “full understand” the economy. Their discussions make [...]
The New York Times is wondering if they should provide the truth.
The Times’ public editor is asking, in the form of a blog entry, whether the media should be in the habit of pointing out when a subject is lying. That is, a politician says that black is white, should the reporter covering it point out that, in fact, black is black? It’s shameful that this [...]
ESPN: Shotgun Golf with Bill Murray
“Shotgun Golf will soon take America by storm,” said Hunter S. Thompson in this 2004 article. I would definitely play this, though I’d be even more likely to play it with Bill Murray. →
The Lookout: The Texans who live on the ‘Mexican side’ of the border fence—‘Technically, we’re in the United States’
The fence between Mexico and the U.S. isn’t always on the border. Sometimes it’s over a mile away, leaving Texans’ homes on the wrong side of the fence, sandwiched against the Mexican border. They’ve had their property split in two by the fence, and some homeowners have found that the Border Patrol guards not the [...]
ABC News: Expert—Wastewater Well in Ohio Triggered Quakes
There has been increasing concern over the past year that hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) can cause earthquakes. I don’t understand the seismology well enough to understand the specifics, but the premise is simple enough: pumping millions of gallons of water, diesel, brine, and other liquids into the ground is liable to have an effect on the [...]
Wikipedia: Academi
Remember how Blackwater changed their name to “Xe Services,” to outrun their reputation? Well, it caught up with them, so now they’ve changed their name again—they’re “Academi.” Nowhere on academi.com does the word “Blackwater” even appear. →
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Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Charlottesville, VA, USA. more »
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