We're Going On A Blog Hunt - Part Five

For some inexplicable reason, I’m up early today, so let’s zip through some blogs.

Let’s wake up to The Huffington Post. HuffPo seems to more closely approximate a newspaper website than a blog, with scores of articles on politics, media, business and entertainment. But then the question is this: why should I be reading this rather than, say, the New York Times? I assume you would eventually work out which columnists you prefer reading, and which to avoid, but it could be tough going working out which is which. Time picked out a few ‘highlights’, such as Alec Baldwin writing on why Hillary Clinton would screw up the US dollar. I’ll file this one under ‘maybe’.

Metafilter is even more of a labyrinth than HuffPo, since basically anyone can post on it. I thought that looking at the most popular articles would be a good way to go, but that seems to be just as random as the home page (or the ‘random page’ – I got an article about 70 year-old performing triplets). I think the key phrase here is ‘community weblog’ – it probably works from a social standpoint. However, most of the posts appear to be of more interest than some person’s photos of their cat, so I might come back to this one as well.

Unlike Gigazine, Beppe Grillo’s blog has an English version, renewing my faith in the homogeny of the world wide web. Beppe appears to spend a lot of his time fuming about the crooks in the Italian Parliament, and probably rightly so. Type ‘psychodwarf’ into the search engine to get a good sample of the range of his concerns – I have no idea who he is talking about, but it’s an excellent image nonetheless.

Engadget is, of course, a blog for all the latest electronic toys. Since I still have minor heart palpitations every time I try to use my VCR, I’ll give this one a miss.

Ace of Spades is supposedly the right’s answer to the Daily Kos, and that looks to be true to the extent that Obama has as much hope of being complemented on the former as McCain does on the latter. But it doesn’t take itself nearly as seriously, which makes it the more entertaining read at least. And the Top 10 lists are great, such as the Top Ten Euphemisms for Self-Abuse in Star Wars (yeah, I know, I’m really fifteen), and the Top Ten Signs Paul Krugman Has Lost His Freakin’ Mind. Like listening to Eminem and watching South Park, I don’t care if I go to hell for liking this.

I’m not Jewish and never will be, so I don’t think The Velveteen Rabbi is meant for me. But that’s not to dismiss it, because it seems to do what it does pretty well. There are poems, recipes, and various musings about Judaism, and while I would rather watch the football, I admire the author’s dedication.