Government blogs, ctd.

The State Department has one, too.

Predictably, while I know that the White House site is going to be in many ways more where the action is and where a lot of important information will be deployed, I find State's version (DipNote) far more engrossing reading. I suppose this is why I'm an International Studies major.

I just wrote four and a half pages on how long wars, particularly in a context of overpopulation (i.e. excess labor capacity), create mercenaries. I spent about an hour and a half on it and I have no idea if it was much good or not, but it was an interesting mental exercise and I look forward to being able to apply some of those thoughts to Blackwater et. al. when this class gets there (we're still in ancient Persia, so it'll be a while).

The mind reels

The first post at The Briefing Room, the White House's new blog, is up.

Go read it. I was just sort of nodding along with the described program of what this website will do, and then I had a shock when I remembered that the website I was reading about wasn't a journalistic organization, it wasn't one of TPM's new projects--it wasthe freaking White House.

I'm having a hard time comprehending this. In a good way.