Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

CAUSE FOR LAMENTATION - BLOG POSTS VAPORIZED

Last night several days' worth (nearly a week) of  blog posts were accidentally deleted from my blog.  It will likely be impossible to recover or reconstitute them.  I  am stunned and saddened by this loss.   My blog posts represent a good deal of work, and because they generally offer comment on events or ideas deemed significant enough to elicit a notice, I truly do feel this loss greatly. 

Thank you for your interest in this blog. I am encouraged by what seems a growing readership.

BLOGGERS DO BETTER INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM THAN PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS

Do you doubt that?  Then read Mark Steyn's post.  Here is his first sentence:

As Jonah and I have written here previously, "climate change" is not only a scientific scandal but also a massive journalistic failure. . . 

Read on. . .

LIGHT BLOGGING LATELY ... COMPUTER ISSUES

Which remain to be fully resolved . . .

ARE "Google" AND "YouTube" PRO-ISLAMIC AND ANTI-CHRISTIAN?

It sure seems that way.  When the Google story broke -- "Google Blocking 'Negative' Stories on Islam," Google said it was just a snafu.  But now, as Pamela Geller points out, YouTube is operating in exactly the same manner. (Google owns YouTube).  Check it out.

I discovered the bias independently.  For a long time (throughout most of 2009), anyone who googled "Muddling Toward Maturity Blog," would be taken to "Muddling Toward MaturityBlog: Anti-Christian" - one of the subcategories on my blog!  I had to write the following message, dated May 26, 2009, to those who used Google to come to my blog:

WEIRDNESS WITH THE GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE AND "MUDDLING TOWARD MATURITY"

For those who have ever used the Google search engine to find "Muddling Toward Maturity," you are probably aware that Google always brings people directly to one of my sub-topics, "Anti-Christian."  I wonder why that is so.  Does Google have a bias?  I don't know, but be that as it may,  I have many other topics!  If you have newly arrived at the "Anti-Christian" sub-topic, please check current posts here.

(This message was first posted January 19, 2009.  Because Google continues to send searchers to the "Anti-Christian" sub-topic, it requires reposting.)

Today things are better.  Now if you google "Muddling Toward Maturity Blog," you are taken to my home page.  But the 2nd item listed on Google is "Muddling Toward Maturity Blog: Anti-Christian."  I have scores of sub-categories on my blog, many with more posts than "Anti-Christian."  So why does the Anti-Christian category come up as the second listed?  You answer the question.

RECOMMENDED WEBSITES AND BLOGS - PART ONE

A friend new to the internet sent me an e-mail asking for websites and blogs I would recommend.  I sent an e-mail in response, annotating each suggestion offered.  Below is what I wrote, (my first installment):

My personal reading habits include a daily look at the Drudge Report - http://www.drudgereport.com/ - which contains a hodgepodge of news links.  It has proven influential down through the years and is read by millions.  Matt Drudge broke the story of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.  Many people check the blog several times a day.

National Review Online - http://www.nationalreview.com/ - publishes a daily website with a variety of articles, but they also publish a blog, The Corner - http://corner.nationalreview.com/ -  to which writers contribute throughout the day.  They often link to important articles appearing elsewhere on the internet.  It's

DOUG ROSS' FABULOUS 50 BLOG AWARDS

I found these awards interesting.  (HT: Atlas Shrugs)  Some I expected and refer to often (such as Pamela Geller, HotAir, The Corner, Michelle Malkin, and Drudge).  Some I would look at from time to time (such as Big Government, Gateway Pundit, Doctor Zero, MEMRI Blog and Michael Yon).  But here are new ones:

• The 'YouTube This!' Award for Best Video Blogging goes to: Pajamas TV.

• The 'It's Awfully Hot Here In This Sauna' Award for Debunking the Religion of Warming goes to Watts Up With That.

• The 'Nine-Hour Nostradamus' Award for consistently being ahead of the story goes to: The Astute Bloggers.

• The 'Salvador Dali' Award for Most Creative Blogging goes to SondraK.

And still more. . . 

INTRODUCING "NEWSREAL" BLOG

I read quite regularly David Horowitz's FrontPageMag website.  Today I learned that some of his own articles are cross-posted at "NewsReal" blog, a "David Horowitz Freedom Center" outlet with the subtitle, "Keeping the Cable Guys Honest."  I hadn't known of the blog before.  Drop over and see the conservative critique of leftist stuff that appears on cable.  Click here.

Top Blogs for January, 2009

Here are the top (i.e. widely referenced) political blogs listed by Wikio.  And here are the top business blogs, and here the top technology blogs.  Links to other "top blog" categories can be found on any of these pages.

BLOGGING CONTINUES BELOW but I am encountering technical problems with this blog . . .

My blogging platform - Typepad - is trying to figure out why the right third of my blog comes up blank when you first access my blog.  If you click the title of any of my posts, the missing material appears (a list of recent posts, a list of categories I have blogged under, and my archives).  I hope the engineering folks at Typepad will be able to find and fix the problem soon.  They are working on it.

Update 8/13/08 - It seems to be fixed.   Wonderful!

THE BLOGOSPHERE - PAMPHLETEERING OF THE 21ST CENTURY

So argues Donald J. Kochan.

Top 100 Christian Blogs According to Joe Carter at "Evangelical Outpost"

Update Note: See also the post, "100 Christian Books that Changed the Century"

**
- Joe Carter says:       (HT: Hugh Hewitt)

This is not a list of the "best Christian blogs" (whatever that might mean) but rather the top 100 blogs that I have found to be the most convicting, enlightening, frustrating, illuminating, maddening, stimulating, right-on and/or wrongheaded by Christians expressing a Christian worldview.

The selection process is, by necessity, intensely personal and unapologetically subjective. There are a number of Christian blogs that are written by brilliant thinkers and stylists yet, for one reason or another, have not captured my imagination in the way that the following blogs have done. The list is also reflective of my rather narrow field of interests and associations. By and large, the bloggers that are included are from the conservative wing of evangelicalism and Catholicism. There is also a peculiar range of focus. Philosophical blogs are overrepresented, for example, while "This is where I’m at right now"-style introspectionists are all but excluded.

.  .  .  For now, I've listed the top 20 that have had the most influence on me over the past year and listed the others in alphabetical order.

1. Between Two Worlds
2. JollyBlogger
3. The Scriptorium
4. Challies.com
5. WORLD mag blogsa

The Limited Power of the Blogosphere to Affect Politics

Dean Barrett has some sobering observations to make.   Maybe he is a little too pessimistic.  Maybe, also, his comments are more relative to the USA than to the rest of the world.  I don't know. 

The Most Popular on the Web

Forbes.com has published what it calls the Web Celeb 25. 

The Forbes.com Web Celeb 25 is a list of the biggest, brightest and most influential people on the Internet. From bloggers to podcasters to YouTube stars, these are the people who are creating the digital world from the bottom up.

To generate the ranking, we first defined "Web Celeb" as a person famous primarily for creating or appearing in Internet-based content, and for being highly recognizable to a Web-based audience. . .

This website introduces all 25.  It's interesting and an education in itself.   It's a new world.

A kid with a video camera has access to as large an audience as the biggest Hollywood star. A mom with a blog can attract more readers than a best-selling author. And an opinionated entrepreneur can become a guru to millions.

IS BLOGGING CONTENT PRINTED IN SHORT BOOKS (PAMPHLETS) THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE?

Adam Bellow, son of novelist Saul Bellow, writes in the Columbia Journalism Review of his vision to help foster the rebirth of pamphlets -- 4-by-6 inch, $4 booklets with an average of 60 to 80 pages.  He sees pamphlets (sold on the internet in pdf form and then sent as bound hard copy) as an affordable, more permanent way to disseminate ideas to both blog readers and the general public.   

Me:  I think it's a fascinating idea.  Bellow is right.  We are in the midst of enormous intellectual ferment.  Inexpensive booklets produced from blogs or by bloggers -- and published by Bellow -- is intriguing.

IS THE "MY SPACE" FAD ENDING?

Today's Washington Post carries the article, In Teen's Web World, My Space is So Last Year.

"I think it's definitely going down -- a lot of my friends have deleted their MySpaces and are more into Facebook now," said Birnbaum, a junior who spends more time on her Facebook profile, where she messages and shares photos with other students in her network.

It's an illuminating article , well worth reading.

Incidentally, current popular teen sites last month (as tracked by Nielsen-NetRatings) were "Snapvine.com, PLyrics.com, Picgames.com -- none of which appeared among the top 10 for April, or the list a year ago."    In youth culture, change is everything.   (HT: Drudge)

THE BLOGS RUSH LIMBAUGH READS REGULARLY

I'm not a person who listens to Rush Limbaugh very often.  It's not that I don't like him.  I do.  But I don't listen to the radio much at all.  Once or twice a week, though, I find myself in the car driving to the post office at a time when Rush Limbaugh is on the radio.   In the 10 minutes or so I am in the car, I appreciate hearing what he's talking about.  Today I found it interesting to learn what blogs he reads on a daily basis.  Here's what he says (from yesterday's radio transcript):

I'm going to tell you the blog postings that I regularly read in my RSS reader. I've communicated with many of the people who run them. They're fabulous people, starting with National Review Online, then Hugh Hewitt and his Townhall blog, Captain Ed, Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters. The three lawyers at Power Line. These are resources that I have added to everything else that I use for show prep which makes show prep an ongoing, never ending thing. Red State is another site.(I hope I don't forget anybody.) Little Green Footballs.  I don't want to leave any out. A.J. Strata, Strata-Sphere. I don't want to leave anybody out here.  The American Spectator.  You here me talking about these. I'm referring to two days' worth of posts on this one site.

.  .  .  .  I knew I was going to do it.  I left out some blogger names that I routinely read.  One of them is Michelle Malkin, and she's just fabulous and extremely valuable.  The American Thinker, which I cite and quote on this program constantly, and Debbie Schlussel-- and I'm sure there are more. Not all of them are on my RSS reader. Some of them I have to go look for.   (HT: Kathryn Lopez)

DRUDGE IS KING

Matt Drudge savors a report  that ABC  News, the Washington Post, and other news sources all read his Drudge Report and in fact proclaim: "Drudge Rules Our World."

In the stampede of books attempting to make their mark this season comes THE WAY TO WIN, by longtime political reporters Halperin and Harris.

The political director of ABCNEWS and the national politics editor of the WASHINGTON POST make it official in their new insider tome on DC politics and how it's played: The four words in every newsroom and campaign headquarters are: Have you seen DRUDGE? . . .

Mark Halperin and John Harris write "Matt Drudge rules our world." They say, "With the exception of the ASSOCIATED PRESS, there is no outlet other than the DRUDGE REPORT whose dispatches instantly can command the attention and energies of the most established newspapers and television newscasts."

Halperin and Harris explain: "So many media elites check the DRUDGE REPORT consistently that a reporter is aware his bosses, his competitors, his sources, his friends on Wall Street, lobbyists, White House officials, congressional aides, cousins, and everyone who is anyone has seen it, too."

This is all very interesting.  I freely confess that I "check out" the Drudge Report several times a day myself! 

UPDATE: 10/1/06  ABC News says "Drudge Report Sets Tone for National Political Coverage."

WILDLY POPULAR TEEN BLOG SITES

Our local newspaper carries a major article today on the two most popular teen blog sites, www.myspace.com (41 million members) and www.xanga.com (31 million users).    Yesterday's Breakpoint offers some perspective plus valuable  links to other articles discussing this phenomenon.    Safety is a major concern.   Addicted kids call themselves "MyCrack addicts".  A glance at the MySpace site reveals a huge amount of of sexual titillation.  I don't think parents will want to be unaware of these sites.