That about covers it.

On Friday, I broke a tasty story about a woman suing Google, claiming bad directions caused her to get hit by a vehicle. Today, I discover our story is everywhere, often with no attribution. Come along and watch how the mainstream media, which often claims bloggers rip it off, does a little stealing of its own.

Woman Follows Google Maps “Walking” Directions, Gets Hit, Sues was the story I posted on Friday afternoon, Pacific Time. I was tipped to the lawsuit by Gary Price of ResourceShelf. Gary hadn’t written about it himself but thought Search Engine Land would be interested in it. He came across it through the regular monitoring of search-related news that he does across a variety of resources (Gary watches many, many things — he’s a research guru extraordinaire). Gary downloaded a copy of the suit via the PACER Service and sent it to me.

No one had written about the case before I put my article up. I know. I checked before publishing. There was nothing out there. So what happened next?

Reading the whole thing is worth it if you want to see the the sausage-making that passes for journalism nowadays.

This is one of the many, many things that drives me nuts about the whole newspaper "paywall" debate. Everyone knows that newsrooms are getting gutted, so where the hell do the stories come from? It's not like there are armies of reporters pounding the street anymore. Those reporters who are lucky enough to have jobs, bless 'em, probably spend a goodly amount of their time researching stories on the net, most likely using Google. And then they write stories that their bosses want to stick behind a paywall.

Any reporting that's the result of anything other than an eyewitness account by the reported is derivative of other people's labor. It should always be credited. I think the author of this piece goes a bit far when he criticizes the Utah paper for not crediting him for being the source of the tip that led to their own original research, but that's a quibble (are we sure he really was?).

What drives me nuts is this attitude among newspaper execs that the derivative works they're publishing are somehow more magically delicious than anyone else's.

Run Jesus Run: aka the 10 second gospel
Made in 4 days for the Experimental Gameplay Project - theme "10 seconds"

Instructions: click on the Flash object to start.
You have 10 seconds to redeem the humanity.
Arrow keys: Run. Space: Do Jesus Things.

PC executable | Mac executable

The game is licensed on a Creative Commons License
Molleindustria March 2010

Is this in questionable taste during Holy Week? Have I done worse? Yes.

Insurers agree that if they provide insurance for a child, they must cover pre-existing conditions. But, they say, the law does not require them to write insurance for the child and it does not guarantee the “availability of coverage” for all until 2014.

There's also no language that says the insurance companies have to actually pay, they just that they sell you coverage (after 2014, of course). Anybody believe they're going to actually change their behavior?

The money quote:

JACKSON: Well, I guess they're afraid of the power of our passion and our numbers and, you know, you might not say Communist, but I watch Glenn Beck and he's taught me well. Progressive is the new word for Communist, but it's the same goal as government control of everything and it's very obvious that Obama is trying to do that. And I don't want to brag, but I sort of called it before he was elected and when I was on O'Reilly and I said he was a Communist and I got a lot of hate mail, but I got some that said I was a prescient which means "a prophet."

A new book, Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America by John Avlon describes the large numbers of Americans who hold extreme views of President Obama. This Harris Poll seeks to measure how many people are involved. It finds that 40% of adults believe he is a socialist. More than 30% think he wants to take away Americans' right to own guns and that he is a Muslim. More than 25% believe he wants to turn over the sovereignty of the United States to a world government, has done many things that are unconstitutional, that he resents America's heritage, and that he does what Wall Street tells him to do.

More than 20% believe he was not born in the United States, that he is "the domestic enemy the U.S. Constitution speaks of," that he is racist and anti-American, and that he "wants to use an economic collapse or terrorist attack as an excuse to take dictatorial powers." Fully 20% think he is "doing many of the things that Hitler did," while 14% believe "he may be the anti-Christ" and 13% think "he wants the terrorists to win."

These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 2,320 adults surveyed online between March 1 and 8, 2010 by Harris Interactive.

The actual percentages of adults who believe these things are true are as follows:

• He is a socialist (40%)
• He wants to take away Americans' right to own guns (38%)
• He is a Muslim (32%)
• He wants to turn over the sovereignty of the United States to a one world government (29%)
• He has done many things that are unconstitutional (29%)
• He resents America's heritage (27%)
• He does what Wall Street and the bankers tell him to do (27%)
• He was not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president (25%)
• He is a domestic enemy that the U.S. Constitutions speaks of (25%)
• He is a racist (23%)
• He is anti-American (23%)
• He wants to use an economic collapse or terrorist attack as an excuse to take dictatorial powers (23%)
• He is doing many of the things that Hitler did (20%)
• He may be the Anti-Christ (14%)
• He wants the terrorists to win (13%)

It gets even crazier when you look at the folks who self-identify as Republicans. 67% say he's a socialist. 61% say he wants to take away the right to own a gun. Fifty-seven percent say he's a Muslim. And fully 1/4 of Americans think he was born outside the US and isn't eligible to be President.

The numbers get truly terrifying when you start looking a educational differences, not just in how high they are when correlated with low education, but how high they are when correlated with greater educational level.

We are well and truly fucked.