http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Sun, 1 Sep 2002 18:08:04 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/09/01/180804.php Ann Salisbury"No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session."-- J. Gideon TuckerI spent a good part of my April reading the book "The Third House:Lobbyists, Money, and Power in Sacramento" written by Jay Michael and Dan Walters with Dan Weintraub. (It's listed on Amazon but there's no ISBN number for it.) Both Walters and Weintraub work at the Sacramento Bee and know their stuff. The authors explain the rise, methods, and effects of lobbyists in California's capitol, Sacramento. There's plenty of history, along with juicy modern day anecdotes. Michael was a Sacramento lobbyist, and Walters' daughter is now one. (One wonders how that happened given Walters' consistent skewering of the state legislature in his Sacramento Bee columns.) The last chapter of the book is a reprint of a series of articles Weintraub wrote when he worked for the Orange County Register. It details the saga of one "good government" lobbyist's attempt to have the California Legislature pass a recycling bill. This chapter brings to life the principles that Michael and Walters discussed in the earlier chapters.This book is fabulous, albeit a bit depressing. From it, I've drawn the conclusion that regardless of how much reformers might be interested in "returning government to the people," special interests and their hired guns are highly adaptive species (think bacteria which mutate in response to antibiotics).As the old saying goes, the two things you never want to watch being made are laws and sausages. Books345@blogcritics.org Sun, 1 Sep 2002 18:08:04 EDT