Our WikiWorld: Mike Caulfield deconstructs a recent WP writer’s bemoaning of the “cult of the amateur.” [via]

Oh and this happened: student ‘Twitters’ his way out of Egyptian jail.

This harks back to a sentiment I uttered immediately after having joined Twitter myself - how long until someone tries to use the service as an alibi in a court of law?

It’s been a couple weeks…but the Friday Roundup is back. Ready?

• Wired: The right-wing hater machine gunning for Obama Larry Lessig? [Also at AT] Why won’t they just let Jesus be fabulous?
  
• LAist: Headline I’ve been waiting my whole life to read - Justine Bateman, ‘Drunk College Students’ Team Up to Save the Internet.
• So, this exists: Committee to Protect Bloggers.
• Ars Technica: Canada is not immune!
• Edge (Boston): Landmark Canadian gay bookstore going up for sale.
• BusinessWeek: Does she look like a music pirate? [via]
• Save The Internet: “Piracy” = smoke screen.

And additionally, out of my own excitement, Michael Zimmer is joining the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Information Studies, where I am currently a graduate student. He had some pretty rad things to say about it…

Happy Weekending!

Apparently, blogging can kill you. (AT has some great coverage of the NYT article)

Not sd&if-style blogging, of course. We liken ourselves to the lazy river, as opposed to that four-story inner tube ride with the dark tunnel and the sheer drop where you’re constantly losing your swimming trunks.

No, folks, here at sd&if all nudity is voluntary.

Friday! Let’s see what we’ve got…

• RI v. TP:  Ray Beckerman at Fordham IP Conference.
• Ars Technica: Blog commentary is no substitute for academic peer review. Surprise!
• Techcrunch: Craigslist - now with blog. As if the “Missed Connections” and “Casual Encounters” didn’t keep you busy enough… [via]
• Slashdot: Net neutrality and Canada, eh.
• Crooks and Liars: “Abortion” banned from world’s largest database on reproductive health?
• WP: Verizon chief says, “Net neutrality is bad, but cell phone watches are obviously going to be awesome.” This post will self-destruct in 5…4…
• WVWV: Who’s your favorite female blogger? [via] Give ‘em props, because The Daily Show sure isn’t.
• School Library Journal: ALA speaks out against NSLs.

And, since we’ve been a little obsessed with music this week (go see Shine a Light!), here is my Muxtape. Go forth, listen, be merry…and Muxtape. Leave us your mixes in the comments!

Happy weekending!

How to Argue Online. [via]

Wired reports that blogs can, indeed, be used for good or evil. A 2006 Joint Special Operations University report recommended that the Department of Defense hire (sshhh!) secret bloggers to trash talk critics and support public relations efforts.

Amusingly, the report notes that potential creators and maintainers of such blogs may require “cultural and linguistic training,” and much less amusingly, predicts that “If a military blog offers valuable information that is not available from other sources, it could rise in rank fairly rapidly.”

What should the future Word of the Year term for faux bloggers be? Does a word for them already exist?

The sun is shining. Readership is up. Spring is (tentatively) here. It’s a good day at sd&if. So, let’s recap the week, yes?

• Bloomberg: China, the Olympics, human rights, and…LeBron James. The article gives a brief, but pretty solid, overview of the many ethical challenges facing athletes, companies, and countries going into this summer’s games.
• Variety: Iran goes on censorship blitz.
• WP: Net Neutrality’s Quiet Crusader. SPOILER: It’s Ben Scott of Free Press.
• Gizmodo: Comcast n’ BitTorrent BFFs! Hilarious.
• ArsTechnica: Gotta solve that TCP congestion, dudes.
• Daily Star, Lebanon: Persepolis unbanned.
• Sun-Sentinel: Generacion Y, one of Cuba’s most popular blogs, being blocked by Cuban government.
• Boston Globe: On the privatization of libraries. Which, also, makes me want to crawl out of my own skin. Not the article, but the issue.

That about wraps it up for me this week. Ben will have With Us / Against Us done sometime between now and…well, all bets are off, folks. And, what the hell, go Wisconsin! And that’s something this Gopher grad never thought he’d say.

Happy Weekending!

UPDATE: So much for Wisconsin. I guess I’ll go back to being a Gopher fan. Which should make Ben happy.

Ars Technica: Depressed turn to blogging as coping mechanism.

Yes, the approval of an implied (yet largely nonexistent) readership is like chicken soup for our souls.

We hawked a few interesting blog stories from Gawker:

• Henry Kissinger doesn’t know what a blog is. [via]
• Insider law blog single-handedly sets women’s movement back 52 years; Gawker tacks on another 21. [via]
• 90 Day Jane: sexiest suicide site yet. [via]

90 Day Jane actually serves as a pretty great springboard for a discussion of intellectual freedom and the internet, don’t you think? The ethical and creative and political challenges are myriad and doubly interesting when you consider whether or not the site is fictional…

UPDATE: 90 Day Jane is no more. She outed herself and took the site down. *Sigh*