Conspiracy theorists, UFO wackos hijack president's transparency efforts

One of Barack Obama's most prominent promises, when he was still campaigning for the presidency, was a concerted effort to make national governance more transparent and interactive. Surely it's possible to open up the national discourse a bit more...but what happens when your campaign starts online?

You get bombarded by crazies, that's what happens. I don't recall the exact number, but when the president hosted an online town-hall, I think the ratio of marijuana-legalization questions to questions about the Iraq war was something like 20:1. Now the New York Times is reporting that online discussions on government websites have devolved intoallegations of a UFO cover-up and a revival of those silly "Obama won't release his birth certificate" tales. (By the way, his birth certificate is right here).

The Internet is pretty much the new Wild West - there's all sorts of characters out here. Some of them are on the level, but you never know who's going to start shooting wildly and making life difficult for everyone else. However, there is hope:

On Monday, the White House began Phase 3 of its project using yet another format: a wiki, an online tool that allows a group of people to collectively create and edit documents. Visitors will be able to submit and edit drafts of the open-government rules, similar to how people contribute to Wikipedia, the user-created online encyclopedia.

With any luck, the worthy experiment in e-democracy being attempted here will self-regulate the way Wikipedia has. As I understand it, there is a small but proud and quick-to-act group of editors who spend most of their days defending accuracy of Wikipedia and making rapid corrections to keep it going.

There's a reason direct democracy is difficult on a large scale: when you give everyone a voice, everyone has a voice, and they all tend to speak at once. The long-term success of Obama's transparency initiatives will live or die on the willingness of the mob to cooperate towards a goal of improving the national discourse. If we can get a reasonable, UFO-free debate on a major issue like taxes or health care rolling, then I think we could see voter turnout continue to rise in future election years. [NYT]

The world's most dangerous driver

This guy is either an incredibly brave BAMF, or a menace to society. Either way, he's also a great seat-dancer. [via Neatorama]

A bit of shameless self-promotion

...not that I don't shamelessly self-promote every day on Twitter or anything.

* From mental_floss: 4 Quick Stories About Iran's Supreme Leader. Highlight? The story about him storming out of a state dinner because there were (shock!) women at the table.

* Also on mental_floss, my first Lunchtime Quiz: Lit Slits, Volume I. In each question, you're given a vertical strip xeroxed from the text. Using the font and the out-of-context words you can discern, you have to say what the book is. It's loads of nerdy fun, check it out!

* And, in case you didn't catch the hint in my first sentence: I'm on Twitter. So, you know, if there are any other Twits out there reading this, why don'tcha follow me or somethin'?

I have been published in the Wall Street Journal!

Sort of. I'm interning for mental_floss this summer, and my first article was entitled "7 Civil War Stories You Didn't Learn in High School." Apparently, this Civil War thing was kind of a big deal - the article got picked up by CNN (no, really - CNN) and from there it hit the front page of Digg.

All of this was a wonderful surprise, especially since we're talking about my first article with The Floss here. But now the Wall Street Journal is getting in on the action. Like CNN, they syndicate some articles from mental_floss, and yesterday they posted mine. Now that I've seen my name under the WSJ's banner, I think I can die happy. OK, maybe not. There's still a couple things I'd like to get around to in life.

However, not everyone's happy about my article appearing on WSJ.com. One of my Facebook friends commented:

"...the Journal should really be ashamed of themselves for picking this up. I was under the impression that they're some kind of serious publication, but...I guess all they have left is Civil War trivia."

I don't really agree with him there, although I think it's partly because of my own biases for a particular mold of online journalism known as the "freemium" model. In brief, to operate as a freemium publication, you give a lot of stuff away for free, but the best of the best of your content (the stuff Rod Blagojevich would label "[bleep]ing golden") is only available to paying users. For the WSJ, this happens to be their wise insights into the stock market.

So, in response, I sent my friend this comment:

"The Journal, as a business, needs to draw a broad audience to its site if it wants to keep selling their premium subscriptions. I think it's entirely possible that someone who cares about the Civil War could also care about serious financial issues, even to the point that they'd pay the WSJ to stay on top of them."

In the long run, though, we all know that the most valuable information out there is Civil War trivia. Come on, let's be honest with ourselves for once. This stuff is pretty cool.

Sex Is Like Pizza: Even When It's Bad, It's Still Pretty Good...

These and other twisted gems on the same theme can be found on Cracked.

On Second Thought, Let's Not Go To Camelot

...do I even need to complete the quote? If you're a true friend of mine, I hope not. But for those of you who are abusing my trust, or for the rest of you who don't know me and are confused: linky.

[Picture Is Unrelated]

Jim Gaffigan presents: Hot Pockets!

Jim Gaffigan is one of those stand-up comedians whose comedy albums I've never bought. I've plunked down money for Demetri Martin and Robin Williams, but there are at least 10 stand-up acts who can consistently make me laugh but for whom I have yet to spare one cent.

This blog post can't do anything about that, but it can at least spread the Gospel of Gaffigan a teeny bit more:



If you like Jim's stuff, and you're not as stingy as I am, throw this guy some money and you'll presumably get a DVD out of the deal. Personally, I'm saving up for some Hot Pockets. Hot Pockets! [via Facebook]