Changes at MR
Some of you have noticed that we've redesigned the panel on the left side of the screen. A full site redesign is in the offing, but it's still a couple of weeks out. A couple of things to bring to your attention:
(1) The new blogroll. This does not represent all of the blogs that we're subscribed to, nor is it necessarily a list of blogs that we entirely approve of (although we don't strongly disapprove of any of them). They're blogs that are more or less talking about what we talk about and that are more or less recognized as being interesting when they talk about those things. So they're blogs that are updated often and that fall within the interests of MR's core readership: concerned with the spread of political Islam, passionate about pro-Israel advocacy and analysis, and engaged in civil society. Again, we don't agree with everything written on every one of these blogs. A couple are a little too far left for our taste (Jewlicious, TNR, The Note, etc), while several are significantly to our right (Powerline, NRO, just about all of the Israeli blogs, etc). Unfortunately, to the shame of the left, the center-right and beyond are the only places where the alarm is being raised about the spread of the most crude and primitive ideology in at least half a century, and the new blogroll kind of reflects that.
(2) The (J)Blogosphere search engine. This is becoming kind of a pet project of ours, and it revolves around the new Google Coop project that Google just made public. It allows users to create a search engine that searches any list of blogs that you want. We were browsing the site and noticed that a group of prominent climatologists had created a search engine for students and journalists limited to sites that assume that climate change is anthropogenic. Our first impulse was to roll our eyes and think "this is great - now a person can spend their entire existence on the Internet without ever encounter an idea that they disagree with - even over Google". But then we thought "hey, that's a FANTASTIC idea". It's actually not that unreasonable - if you believe that one side just outright makes things up, then there's an obvious imperative to create something like this.
So we created a search engine that we think represents blogs that are more or less in the center – some further left and some further right, but no sites too far on either side. Right now the search engine is more or less limited to sites on our blogroll., minus one or two sites We urge you - we beg you - to kick us over suggestions for other blogs to add. The only caveat is that we'd prefer to keep this as a resource that students can use - something that will produce useful (and true) background for searches like "Chomsky Israel" or "USS Liberty". So if your blog implies that Chomsky is wrong because God gave Israel to the Jews - well, we're sympathetic to your point of view, but that's a different project. But the (J)blogosphere is much bigger than what's on our blogroll (obviously) and so we would greatly appreciate any sites that you can suggest to us. And of course, we would be grateful if anyone wanted to include the search engine on their site for their users to find and use - the code is public and we'll be ecstatic to kick it over to you.
As always, this blog is half vanity project and half public advocacy. Advocacy requires that people tune in and listen, and so your suggestions on the search engine or on any aspect of the site are always welcome.
(1) The new blogroll. This does not represent all of the blogs that we're subscribed to, nor is it necessarily a list of blogs that we entirely approve of (although we don't strongly disapprove of any of them). They're blogs that are more or less talking about what we talk about and that are more or less recognized as being interesting when they talk about those things. So they're blogs that are updated often and that fall within the interests of MR's core readership: concerned with the spread of political Islam, passionate about pro-Israel advocacy and analysis, and engaged in civil society. Again, we don't agree with everything written on every one of these blogs. A couple are a little too far left for our taste (Jewlicious, TNR, The Note, etc), while several are significantly to our right (Powerline, NRO, just about all of the Israeli blogs, etc). Unfortunately, to the shame of the left, the center-right and beyond are the only places where the alarm is being raised about the spread of the most crude and primitive ideology in at least half a century, and the new blogroll kind of reflects that.
(2) The (J)Blogosphere search engine. This is becoming kind of a pet project of ours, and it revolves around the new Google Coop project that Google just made public. It allows users to create a search engine that searches any list of blogs that you want. We were browsing the site and noticed that a group of prominent climatologists had created a search engine for students and journalists limited to sites that assume that climate change is anthropogenic. Our first impulse was to roll our eyes and think "this is great - now a person can spend their entire existence on the Internet without ever encounter an idea that they disagree with - even over Google". But then we thought "hey, that's a FANTASTIC idea". It's actually not that unreasonable - if you believe that one side just outright makes things up, then there's an obvious imperative to create something like this.
So we created a search engine that we think represents blogs that are more or less in the center – some further left and some further right, but no sites too far on either side. Right now the search engine is more or less limited to sites on our blogroll., minus one or two sites We urge you - we beg you - to kick us over suggestions for other blogs to add. The only caveat is that we'd prefer to keep this as a resource that students can use - something that will produce useful (and true) background for searches like "Chomsky Israel" or "USS Liberty". So if your blog implies that Chomsky is wrong because God gave Israel to the Jews - well, we're sympathetic to your point of view, but that's a different project. But the (J)blogosphere is much bigger than what's on our blogroll (obviously) and so we would greatly appreciate any sites that you can suggest to us. And of course, we would be grateful if anyone wanted to include the search engine on their site for their users to find and use - the code is public and we'll be ecstatic to kick it over to you.
As always, this blog is half vanity project and half public advocacy. Advocacy requires that people tune in and listen, and so your suggestions on the search engine or on any aspect of the site are always welcome.
