Patrick Ruffini is having server or hosting problems and thus has set up a temporary blog at patrickruffini.blogspot.com.
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An interesting debate has been going on about one warblogger’s reporting in particular and about bloggers and source attribution in general. Apparently, Stratfor accused Sean-Paul, the Agonist warblogger providing minute by minute coverage, of plagiarising their news that are available by subscription only. There are various threads to this discussion. Here is the Agonist one, here Metafilter is asking some pertinent questions about blogs and copyright, and here is the latest from Strategic Armchair Command. Most comments on the Agonist are adoringly supportive of Sean-Paul, encouraging him to carry on providing what they see as an invaluable service to them. Most comments on Strategic Armchair Command who positioned themselves against the Agonist are sufficiently abusive to make someone stop blogging. There are a few comments that break the rank and this one comes from a supporter who sees beyond the gung-ho attitute of some parts of blogosphere in taking on the mainstream media.
And another reasonable sounding voice:
Perhaps there are better or more illustrative comments in the threads I link to above, but I have not had the time to go through the hundreds of comments on the Agonist alone. Some are quite surreal in attacking the very idea of copyright from angles that boggle the mind, invoking anything from Dark Ages to free ideas for all. My view on the controversy is straightforward. For me, good blogging is one based on credibility. Audience is, for most part, discerning and it does not make for good practise to make yourself look bigger & better than you really are. If you can’t come up with new interesting ideas, there is nothing wrong with using someone else’s as long as it’s clear. In fairness, Sean-Paul posts were not meant to be creative, but to be on the ‘breaking edge’ of news. Another essential feature of blogosphere is linkage. Not linking to sources is a cardinal sin for a blogger, in my opinion, and I am often annoyed by the pseudo-blogs that have started to emerge, namely the BBC Reporters’ Log or ComputerWorld blog that do not link and individual posts cannot be linked to. Also, when something as controversial as the war in Iraq becomes the focus of the news, objective reporting and information are not the only factors at play. People’s allegiances, emotions and self-interest often outshout voices of reason and objectivity. And as the commenter in the first quote points out “cracks in integrity” become more apparent. On the other hand, I can understand the race to breaking news as I share the bloggers’ desire to become more influential vis-a-vis the maintream media. We have a few simple rules here on Samizdata.net. A very lenient editor whose occassional editorial spankings are a gentle reminder that minarchy rather than anarchy is the game… Links to and/or attritbution of any quotes and text lifted from elsewhere and although we occassionaly nick a picture or two, we try not to make a habit of it. I would certainly consider it good practise to be careful about using paid subscribtion sources, let alone not crediting their material. And I would certainly not want to see a backlash against bloggers from the traditional media, especially if it is triggered by careless rather than bad practice. I am sure this is not the first or last controversy about copyright and blogs and I will welcome any contributions to the debate. April 2nd, 2003 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
 A true story about Little Bobby Fisk that deserves extensive spreading across the blogosphere.
Full story here, thanks to Tom Paine of Silent Running. March 31st, 2003 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
Our faithful readers may have noticed that Samizdata.net was down. Hopefully, the problem is fixed now and we shall be blogging our hearts out… from a critically rational libertarian perspective, obviously. Some of us have also joined the ranks of warbloggers at The Command Post as we collectively surf the breaking news. 
Click for on-target news March 26th, 2003 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
The reason why there has been a relatively small number of posts on Samizdata.net is the simple fact that we have been glued to our TV screens. We don’t have better access to facts and news than the media and there will be time for analysis later… March 22nd, 2003 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
I followed Instapundit to this:
February 27th, 2003 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
Is this the first ‘blogger-marriage’, I wonder? Regardless of whether it is or not, many congratulations to Andrew Dodge and Sasha Castel who are now Mr. and Mrs. Castel-Dodge. February 24th, 2003 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
I still cannot say the word ‘blog’ in any non-blogger company without being confronted by blank faces and puzzled expressions. The medium isn’t really ‘out there’ yet. But gradual recognition in the circles of orthodox journalism gathers apace although I am not, perhaps, as wildly enthusiastic as I ought to be about this BBC editorial:
The hook of the editorial is the acquisition of Pyra by Google but I suppose that it’s a good sign that they’ve been interested enough by blogging to write about the medium in fairly glowing terms. They do mention one or two blogs specifically and, naturally, both are left-wing but then the BBC can hardly be expected to even acknowledge the existance of anyone or anything that isn’t. Do you think they’ve noticed this one yet? February 19th, 2003 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
Samizdata voted No. 1 Group Blog by a fairly large group of the great and the good of the blogosphere (or the mad and the bad, depending on your p.o.v.) Nice. True. Stiff competition, too. February 10th, 2003 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
In the course of my duties as a occasional and strictly-when-I-feel-like-it culture blogger, I watched, with a view to commenting on, a short profile that was shown on BBC2 TV last Monday night about the great conductor/pianist Daniel Barenboim, a musician I’ve admired and enjoyed the recordings of ever since I first heard him in the nineteen sixties. The show only lasted half an hour and there wasn’t time for much to be said, but one very interesting thing was said, by conductor/composer Pierre Boulez, who, perhaps somewhat surprisingly (trad classical musician versus enfant terrible avant guardist, etc.), is a close friend of Barenboim’s, as well as a musical collaborator from way back. Boulez pointed out that Barenboim is unusual in being a musician whose repertoire and general interest in the world and its affairs have both broadened over the years rather than narrowed. And it’s true. The typical top-flight classical music career starts in a blaze of somewhat indiscriminate fireworks and political pontifications, and then as age sets in our wunderkind becomes a not quite so wunder-mensch, cuts out the political posturing and the extraneous repertoire, and homes in on a gradually diminishing core of favourite pieces, and then disintegrates and dies. Barenboim is doing the opposite. He started out as your typical sheltered prodigy who loved the great classics of classical music to distraction, and ignored just about everything else. But his repertoire has never stopped expanding, and simply as a result of being an A-list classical musician, and especially in his capacity as boss of one of the Berlin opera houses in the years since unification, he has found himself reflecting, if not quite on the wider world as such then most certainly on the place of classical music within that wider world. (You don’t conduct the first Wagner ever played in public in the state of Israel without thinking about that very carefully!) To this end, he writes. Go to his website (see the link above) and you’ll see what I mean. Barenboim is not an actual blogger. He is no daily diarist. Nevertheless, his writings are referred to at his website as a “journal”, and had this site been set up only a few years later, it might have included a bona fide blog. After all, these classical musicians are having to sing for their suppers, to fight for their arts council grants and their permanent recording contracts, and they know it. (And if your appetite for supper is anything like Barenboim’s, you really have to sing, let me tell you. Old style opera in the newly wilting German economy. That’s one hell of a sell.) So, Barenboim writes. My question is: are any genuine Barenboim-level celebs actually finding the time to blog, in approximately the kind of way that we guys do? I rule out writers, because that is not enough of a sideshow to really be a sideshow. But how about sportsmen? Do any movie stars blog? Perry mentions film producer/occasional blogger Brian Linse here from time to time, and he could become very famous if things go well for him. But, unsurprisingly, Linse seems like he’s too busy to put frequent postings on his blog. Either that, or he just can’t match that Barenboim level of energy. (Few can, let me tell you. That’s no big criticism.) I’m guessing that some pop stars blog. But are they any good? Also, I tend to discount them because, if they write lyrics, that sort of makes them writers too. But that’s my question. Who is the most famous blogger? Not famous for blogging, but who happens to blog about the life that does make him or her famous. Anyone? January 29th, 2003 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have long known that the world is essentially a madhouse with no locks on the doors, but when I read that a former Taliban soldier who fought against British and US forces in Afghanistan will be given asylum in Britain because the pro-western government in Kabul is ‘persecuting’ him, I start to really wonder at what the word ‘asylum’ really means. Did rational people object to former members of the National German Socialist Workers Party being ‘persecuted’ in the aftermath of World War Two? A few days ago, American bloggers Andrew and Sasha arrived in Britain, neither of whom have ever fought against British soldiers, or called for the death of Christians and Jews, or joined any organisations like Al-Muhajirun which aims to make Britain a muslim caliphate… …and yet they were nevertheless detained at the airport upon arrival in the UK on Thursday and grilled for nine hours before being provisionally allowed into the country. In fact Sasha’s blog was examined by the Immigration agents and its content used as the excuse to initially deny her entry. It is strange that the content of Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad’s website does not seem to get him kicked out of the country. The state is not your friend. January 19th, 2003 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
This is a terrific idea, and this is how nytimes.com reported it (scroll down to where is says “Sam’s blog”):
Gyford started this project on January 1st of this year. Pepys himself started on January 1st 1660. To make a start yourself, go here and scroll down. I have a small personal link to all this through the late Robert Latham, one of the editors of the latest edition of the Pepys Diaries, and, it seems pretty generally agreed, the best and most complete one. Before going to Magdalene College Cambridge to work on Pepys full time, Robert Latham, a memorably jolly man as well as a great scholar, was a Professor at Royal Holloway College, Englefield Green, which was a walk away from my childhood home, the Lathams and Micklethwaits being good friends. Robert Latham’s son went to the same preparatory school as me and my elder brother. I wonder what Robert Latham would have made of this project. He might have had mixed feelings, because the edition that Gyford is using is, alas, not his, but an earlier and less complete one, simply because only the earlier one is now out of copyright. I’ve always meant to read Pepys but have never quite got around to it. This is my chance. All sorts of people are congratulating Gyford for having embarked on this project, but Pepys himself kept at it for nine years, and I will save my heartiest congratulations for the year 2012 when Gyford is scheduled to complete the job. So far he’s managed just over a fortnight of it. January 17th, 2003 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
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