Trend: big media as blog hosts?

Big media and blogs - the latest love story? The French newspaper Le Monde has begun to offer its readers weblog hosting in partnership with Typepad.
The newspaper's top 10 blogs features a mix of the blogs its own journalists and those of its readers. At number one is Langue Sauce Piquante, written by the newspaper's language correction team.
Other exemples include and the Herald-Sun of North Carolina offering blogs to local political candidates and the blogging service by the online magazine Salon, powered by RadioUserland.
Big media as blog hosts - will this become the next big thing? It will be seen if would-be bloggers want to ally themselves to a particular media organisation, and all the associations - good or bad - that brings.

American Dream with Craigslist

In this post a woman claims that she owes Craigslist her life. Some excerpts:
As crazy as this sounds, my husband has built his life through Craigslist. He moved to Los Angeles about a year and a half ago from New Zealand (Why? I wonder the same thing…). When he came to America, in pursuit of the America Dream, he was broke and homeless. One auspicious day, a stranger let him in on a little secret - Craigslist! Thus began his new life… Through his animal instincts, he first used Craigslist to find shelter. After finding the perfect Hollywood apartment, he needed money (being an immigrant, the landlady wanted a $5000 deposit). Naturally, he searched the jobs section of Craigslist. Unfortunately, after trying to complete the jobs, he was still a couple thousand dollars short. Again, he went to Craigslist for help.(...)

The blogs of Variety

The bible of the entertaintment industry, got into blogging:
EEG News, covers entertainment and elecronic gaming,
Bags and Boards, and
The Stylephile about fashion. Well done - all three of them.

The cult of Mac

As a long time Mac user I have to say: What a great book!

The new García Márquez novel

Finally! It's here. The latest novel by Gabriel García Márquez, "A Memoir of My Sad Whores". It beginns like this: "For my 90th birthday, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of mad love with an adolescent virgin.” With such a promising start, and coming two years after the first volume of his memoirs, one might well have expected this book to be a semi-autobiographical accounting of a life spent in brothels. Plus: A review.

The ugly side of Walmart

The New York Review of Books discusses several books which deal with the harshness of the working conditions at Walmart's at its long history of sex discrimination. The workers pay the price, the management celebrates its success:"With 1.4 million employees worldwide, Wal-Mart's workforce is now larger than that of GM, Ford, GE, and IBM combined. At $258 billion in 2003, Wal-Mart's annual revenues are 2 percent of US GDP, and eight times the size of Microsoft's. In fact, when ranked by its revenues, Wal-Mart is the world's largest corporation."

Snapshot at sunset

They call it the "Golden State" for a reason...

View from Mount Wilson, north east from Los Angeles.

Bush: More debts to fund social security

The White House said today for the first time that President Bush's plan to add personal retirement accounts to Social Security would be financed in part by new government borrowing that could top $ 1.000.000.000.000. Or: 1 trillion. The federal budget deficit hit a record of $412 billion in the 2004 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, and the Congressional Budget Office has projected $2.3 trillion in accumulated deficits over the next decade. Sounds promising, doesn't it?

No body count

What a chilling article Naomi Klein published about the situation in Iraq in the Guardian. She writes that the U.S. military openly eliminates anyone - doctors, clerics, journalists, anyone - who dares attempt to document civilian casualties in Iraq.

Prescription drug us at record hight for Americans

Americans, long considered one of the most medicated peoples in the world, are swallowing more pills than ever, according to a report released on Thursday by the U.S. government. A total of 44 percent of Americans had taken at least one prescription drug in the prior month when surveyed in 1999 and 2000, compared to 39 percent during the 1988-1994 period, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The popularity of antidepressants, anti-inflammatories and drugs designed to control cholesterol and blood sugar levels helped fuel increased prescription use among all adult age groups. - Brave new world...

California: Secession from the U.S.?

Unsatisfied with the results of the Nov. 2 elections, a newly formed organization called Move On California has begun to look at the possibility of a California secession from the United States. Jeff Morrissette, a Santa Barbara resident and founder of the Committee to Explore California Secession, established the organization in reaction to the events of the 2004 presidential elections. A goal of the organization is to provoke meaningful conversation concerning change for the future. Although Morrissette admitted that he does not know if secession is the right answer, he said he wants to give the idea serious consideration.

Rain

Thunder and rain in Southern California.

Well, the rain keeps on coming down
It feels like a flood in my head
And that road keeps on calling me
Screaming to everything lying ahead

And it's a winding road
I've been walking for a long time
I still don't know
Where it goes
And it's a long way home
I've been searching for a long time
I still have hope
I'm gonna find my way home

And I can see a little house
On top of the hill
And I can smell the ocean
The salt in the air
And I can see you
You're standing there
And you're washing your car
And I can see California sun in your hair

And its a winding road
I've been walking for a long time
Still don't know
Where it goes
And it's a long way home
I've been searching for a long time
Still have hope
I'm gonna find my way home

All these dreams took me so far
And I felt I just couldn't go on
And I want to hang
Out the window of your car
And see just how good this baby can run

'Cause it's a winding road
I've been walking for a long time
And I still don't know
Where it goes
And it's a long way home
I've been searching for a long time
Still have hope
We're gonna find our way home

It's a winding road
Still have hope
One day we'll find our way home
It's a long way home
I've been searching for a long time
Still have hope
We're gonna find our way home

It's a long way home
It's a long way home

("Winding Road", by Bonnie Somerville, from the film soundtrack of "Garden State")