…Josh Neuhouser at The Descent of Wonder (recently renamed from Ghost Ship in a Storm) is always a good read for his opinions on the new music scene.

I suggest you go read his weblog, regularly. You just might discover some music you like.

…was not quite as positive as this CNet News.com story appears to imply:

Bloggers unite for aggregation site
By Elinor Mills
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: October 17, 2005, 12:41 PM PDT

A group of bloggers including mainstream journalists from outlets such as CNBC, The Nation and The New York Times are banding together to strike a blow at established media and pick up some ad dollars in the process.

Operating initially as Pajamas Media–a play on criticism that bloggers are “just a bunch of guys in their pajamas”–the site will offer original content and links to affiliate sites written by more than 70 bloggers, as well as basic news feeds from sources like The Associated Press, said novelist and screenwriter Roger L. Simon, one of the founders.

I still have the email around here somewhere congratulating me on being the 300th blogger to sign up.

Now, they’ve winnowed themselves down to 70 or so, and I only received two emails after that initial “congratulations” indicating their changes in business model and overall plans.

Lest I sound bitter, I truly am not. When I first read of their plans, I had significant doubts about the business model they described, and I was not reassured in the first email I received that included the confidentiality agreement and a detailed outline of the business plan.

I duly signed the non-disclosure agreement (I have so many of those in my files that I’ve lost track of them; however, it is easy for me to recall what I cannot disclose, but I can’t tell you about them or why it is easy to recall…), and I sent in a scanned copy of the signed document.

Months pass with no word from the supposed pajama-clad insurgent new media leadership.

Finally after the extended silence, an email explaining how “Pajamas Media” was being split into two, with a rather inadequate justification to explain why the vast majority of bloggers who were at least implicitly promised a ground-floor seat into a “new world of news and media” were being left out in the cold.

I have yet to receive any messages from the secondary part of Pajamas Media (I cannot even recall the name attached to this enterprise) regarding their plans for the unwanted red-headed stepchildren.

Yes, I am a small-fry in blogworld, but I do have some level of pride, both in my work and in my worth even if simply as a human being.

I do not blame those starting up Pajamas Media for rethinking their model (if I found their plan inadequate, and I’m a damn Physicist, what would someone who runs a business for a living have thought???), but a wee bit more communication regarding the evolution of the plans, given we all signed a non-disclosure agreement, would not have been out of line and would have at least shown us small-fry why we were not valuable, but in keeping us “in the know” made us feel valued.

Instead, we were ignored. Not a way to win friends and influence people, Dale Carnegie would be aghast.

I wish Pajamas Media well, but I have little faith that they will turn out to be anything more than just another elite publishing their own bloviations.

Sorry folks, move along, nothing new to see here.

At first when I ran across this story, I didn’t believe it. So, I did some searching, and sadly, it appears to be real.

From towards the bottom of this page from the LexisNexis transcript of the MSNBC show Countdown from October 11, 2005 :

Tonight, a rare one-twofer here, two worsts in one story, a high school senior in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, doing homework as part of a class project on freedom of dissent and the Bill of Rights, tacked a photo of the president to a wall. The tack was placed somewhere on the president`s head in the picture.

The student then took a photograph of the photograph with his own thumb in the frame, giving the thumbs down. So you can see this now. The student then dropped off the roll of film to be developed at the photo department of the Kitty Hawk Wal-Mart. And they called the police, who, in turn, called the Secret Service. Two Secret Service agents went to the high school, confiscated the picture of the picture, interviewed the student, interviewed the teacher, threatened to turn the whole matter over to local the U.S. attorney.

And then somebody realized they had a really bad public relations nightmare on their hands. So the runners-up, the Secret Service, but your winner, the folks in the photo department at the Wal-Mart in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. They are today`s Worst Persons in the World.

The chain of stupidity here would be laughable, if it wasn’t so frightening.

Think about it.

Even if the Wal-Mart employees were stupid for calling the local police, those authorities should have recognized immediately this was a non-issue. Instead, they choose to call the Secret Service, who again should have understood there was no crime here. What happened? They threaten to turn the matter over to a federal attorney.

All over a project on our supposedly protected right of freedom of speech.

I repeat, think about it.

The SchoolNotes.com page for this class in Civics and Economics can be found here.

Ordinarily, I enjoy irony.

I find this one heartbreaking.

Technorati Tags: opinion, commentary, First Amendment, Bill of Rights, patterns in the white noise

At the risk of sounding idiotically pretentious, I have to get this out there so when it comes I can say, “I saw it!”

There is an undercurrent that eventually, whether it be in weeks, months, or years, will be recognized as a critical change in history.

What is that undercurrent?

Damned if I know.

I’ve just been around the block often enough to know the feel of a shadowy pattern in the white noise.

It is my job to spot underlying patterns in data, and I am very good at it, especially when the data is dirty with noise.

I’ve got an unpeaceful, uneasy feeling, and that has never been good.

Something “just ain’t right,” and I suspect that “something” is big.

Hell, like I needed a reason to lose sleep…

Cross-posted to The Moderate Voice.

Given the recent imbroglio over the “unstaged but rehearsed” discussion between President George W. Bush and some members of the Armed Forces stationed in Iraq, along with the widening investigation of the Armstrong Williams/Department of Education matter, the following question arises that is worthy of discussion:

When does “spin” become propaganda?

Leave your answer in the comments, or trackback from your weblog.

The Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds, in referring to a staged event in World War II by implication comments on a more recent staged pro-war propoganda event.

Did the White House announce that the event of 60 years ago that you linked was not staged, Glenn?

I ask because that is exactly what has happened in the more recent case.

Perhaps you should review both your history and your definition of lying.

Although I should give Professor Reynolds a pass on this, he is a law professor, after all.

That is what they teach in law school to the future lawyers, correct? To lie without actually lying?

Indeed…

Basil, at his eponymous weblog, has resurrected the blog interview, and I am on the list of victims interviewees. Due to my anticipated travel over my birthday, my interview has been delayed a bit to give me time to answer the questions.

You have sent in questions, haven’t you?

Go to “The Blog Interviews” page at Basil’s Blog and scroll down to find the link to send your questions. There are a lot of other fine bloggers on the list to quiz, too, so start sending in queries!

A oddity of some of the RSS feeds I have listed in my newsreaders is that for weblogs that do not use post titles, the first three words of the post are used as the headline in the RSS feed. It occasionally makes for some interesting implications, such as this one I read today:

Judy had a…

You don’t even need a dirty mind to fill in the ellipses with something amusing.

I don’t think any more needs to be said to the thinking class:

Obese man dies in mobile home fire
Neighbors, firefighters unable to rescue 600-pound, homebound man

Do the math, people.