Author: Andrew Sullivan

Fallows and Crook say the "scandal" is silly. Clive:

The idea that 400 journalists, academics and assorted hangers-on could plot to do anything, even if they agreed they wanted to, is laughable.

Jim:

In the other listservs I know — about China, software, aviation, defense, cybersecurity, etc — some people's careers could be gravely damaged if their least judicious single sentences were used against them out of context years later. I really, really hate to see that done to young people now. "Have you no sense of decency?" is the right question for Andrew Breitbart. It's also the right question for the Daily Caller, whose editor (Tucker Carlson) asked for membership in the dreaded Journolist — and was turned down — just before it began seriatim publishing of damaging and out-of-context quotes against young writers.

I didn't know Tucker had tried to join, which makes this even more school-yardy. And I agree with Jim's disdain for leaking private airing of views. Where I remain discomfited is that this list-serv was not around a specific, specialized subject, like the ones Jim cites – but around an entire political philosophy which already dominates too much of the elite media. It is this tendency to groupthink and exclusivity that concerns me. Which is why I'm glad this thing has been killed off.

"You know, physically, he was just a pussy," – Mike Tyson on Che Guevara in Details magazine.

Here's the moment when freedom and equality became real for gay and lesbian Argentinians:

Sad, isn't it, when the rest of the world leads America on the advancement of human freedom and equality?

Scott Adams supplies them:

A conversation, like dancing, has some rules, although I've never seen them stated anywhere. The objective of conversation is to entertain or inform the other person while not using up all of the talking time. A big part of how you entertain another person is by listening and giving your attention. Ideally, your own enjoyment from conversation comes from the other person doing his or her job of being interesting. If you are entertaining yourself at the other person's expense, you're doing it wrong.

You might think that everyone on earth understands what a conversation is and how to engage in one. My observation is that no more than a quarter of the population has that understanding.

I think of it as a friendly tennis match. There is no attempt to score a point or win a match. There is merely the enjoyment of each other's company, an open-ended engagement that should and does lead nowhere, and an eagerness to play. This facet of behavior – playing – is in many ways, as I argue in Intimations Pursued, the highest expression of human freedom. It is also the highest expression of civility. We need more of it. And the blogosphere – at its best – achieves this.

Clay Johnson wants web developers to run for Congress:

Great developers are systems fixers and systems hackers. There is no system more ripe for elegant process hacks than the United States House of Representatives. Put a developer in Congress, and they’ll start exposing data on their own. They’ll build systems to make it so they can hear from their constituents better. Just as Ted Kennedy had his staff make the first Congressional website, a developer in Congress will seek to use new technology to make their job easier. That’s what hackers do.

(Hat tip: Alexis)

Information Is Beautiful illustrates the cognitive surplus:

I was listening to writer Clay Shirky talk about cognitive surplus – the idea of spare brainpower in the world’s collective mind just sitting there waiting, wanting, to be harnessed. He had a stand-out statistic that snagged my mind. I thought I would visualise it.

This is a jarring thought:

A paper by Diego Comin, Erick Gong, and myself was just published in the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. We collected crude but informative data on the state of technology in various parts of the world in 1000 BC, 0 AD, and 1500 AD.

1500 AD technology is a particularly powerful predictor of per capita income today. 78 percent of the difference in income today between sub-Saharan Africa and Western Europe is explained by technology differences that already existed in 1500 AD – even BEFORE the slave trade and colonialism.

Glenn Reynolds defends the right to photograph the police:

In Britain, the country's police chiefs' association is attempting to educate officers about the rights of photographers. So far, nothing like that has happened in the U.S., but it should. Trying to block photography in public places is not only heavy-handed and wrong but, thanks to technology, basically useless. With the proliferation of cameras in just about every device we carry, digital photography has become too ubiquitous to stop. Let's have a truce in the war on photography and set our sights on the real bad guys.

Dish coverage and commentary of the Breitbart-Sherrod controversy here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and a reader dissent here. (Meanwhile, POTUS signed a major bill.)  On the Journo-scandal, Andrew challenged Chait, doubled down, and Ezra defended his defunct forum. Andrew also kept on the Hollywood scandal (multiple dissents here), defended himself from Tablet's charges, and meep-meep'd over the GOP. Scott Horton dug into the WaPo series and Ray Sanchez reported more on the police state.

In Palin watch, Goldblog sounded an alarm over her stance on Israel, her group blog peddled a revolting ad against the NYC mosque, readers rushed to defend religious freedom, another underscored the absolutism of her base on Trig, and Larison betted on Romney. Her latest mama grizzly surged in the Georgia governor's race.

In assorted coverage, Hitch grappled with the US-Israel problem, Christopher Papagianis and Reihan wonked out on homeownership, and Jonathan Rauch sees marriage equality as a foregone conclusion. Vice magazine shot a short doc down in the Gulf while Dan Ariely reminded us about the rainforests.  A look at a uniquely Green skyscraper here. A love letter to the Old Spice Guy here.

MHB here, VFYW here, and FOTD here.

— C.B.