Joke’s on who?
: I fear that bin Laden exec Abu Zubaydah is playing us like a sitar.
The NY Times today quotes American officials saying that we’re getting valuable intelligence — including hints that took us to the alleged, would-be dirty bomber.
But note Nick Denton today saying that bin Laden et al would not have have trusted a Chicago hispanic street thug and USA Today yesterday saying that Ashcroft oversold the threat of the dirty bomb.
And I have to believe that Zubaydah is chortling every time he launches a scud of disinformation our way. Sometimes, it leads to panic on the Brooklyn Bridge. Sometimes, it could lead to us arresting somebody he probably didn’t like — namely, the dirty bomber. Sometimes, what he says really will happen. And we won’t know what’s what.
He’s getting the last laugh.
Life at the speed of blog
: Had a nice cup of coffee today with Bill Quick in Manhattan this morning. Between wracking our brains to find some way to make this wonderful blog thing pay, I mentioned that I had just discovered N.Z. Bear’s Blogosphere Ecosystem and Bill said, “You’re so late, Jeff.” I braced myself: Had this been around for a year and I just found it? No, about two weeks, Bill said. That is late in our world. I stand humbled.
Anyway, Bear’s rating system of links within our world is fascinating. I find I’m pretty high on both incoming and outgoing links (“ultimate link slut” is the official term) and that’s the way it works: quid pro quo.
See also Denton’s discussion of links vs. traffic and the differences between blog elves and war bloggers.
Blog reading tools
: See also Bear launching off of my post on the NY Times blog story to some good ideas on what else is needed to make blogs grow — including better tools for reading (read: tracking) blogs. I know somebody smart working on something like this….
