The leak story is bigger than the leak 

I wonder if the mainstream media will have the presence of mind to look at the big picture during the special prosecutor's probe into the CIA leak. Will the discussion on the conservative blogs devolve into minutiae, and will broadcast and cable TV follow down the same petty path? Or will a few noble souls stand up and say "It's about the campaign to sell the war; why don't we talk about that." I guess I trust the big papers and news magazines to have a little more perspective, but their influence is declining.

Speaking of daily newspapers, the Chicago Tribune's page one headline today is "Party like it's 1959" in honor of the White Sox win. What I noticed was the 144-point headline. It seems like the respectable papers are going more tabloid all the time. Used to be you didn't run a 2-inch headline unless war was declared. When I was home last weekend in Michigan, the Delphi bankruptcy announcement got the same size head in the Detroit News: "Crushing blow." Poor Michigan, once the pillar of industry, now all washed up. Nobody ever talks about the domino effect of the big auto companies. The little plants all over the state that stamp out radio knobs or door handles, or the service businesses that support the industry. It's really sad.

Boy did I ever wander off again. How could I tie this all together? Rewrite my post headline in $25,000 Pyramid style? "Things Michael Moore might talk about."

I'm not sure if Moore would talk about baseball or not, but the Sox and the World Series and 1959 make me think of Field of Dreams. Shoeless Joe and the eight men out -- and didn't Ray mention something about the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn in the opening narration of the movie. Wasn't that around 1959? Maybe not. I haven't been into baseball in recent years, but I used to be. Grew up with the Tigers and saw Norm Cash hit a grand slam once at Tiger Stadium. Followed the Cardinals when I lived in St. Louis, was at game 7 of the 1981 series, and saw Lou Brock play his last game. I cried when he stole a base for old time sake...

A tool for slimeballs: RSS to Blog 

Ugh. Read this if you want to feel worms crawling over your skin.

Sometimes I wonder if there might be a way to attack internet scammers of all stripes through prevention -- at the source, in addition to working the reactive angle by coming up with technological countermeasures. The way the system deals with spammers is like an insect elimination method that assumes bugs will come to your garden or house, and the only way to be rid of them is to kill them off once they arrive.

Same goes for internet security, which always makes me suspicious because hackers and security experts often seem to be two sides of the same coin. Maybe there's more money to be made in reactive measures than there is in prevention.

I'm not saying I have any viable prevention ideas, but maybe other people do. The only weapons I know how to use are implements of psychological torture. Like shame. Shame wouldn't work on the supply side -- people like the purveyors of this RSS to Blog software, or the people who make and sell things like scripts that harvest email addresses from web pages. They're shameless, probably beyond redemption.

But the demand side could be worked. Certain buyers of this stuff might be persuaded that there's no honor in making money by ruining the search experience or forcing their messages on people who didn't ask for them. When I was in the PR agency business, my proposal for this would have included working on the "influencers," in this case probably internet marketing experts. Popular marketing site editors, speakers and authors would be approached through email and on the phone with suggestions for including respect for consumers in their teaching. The influencers would be reminded that a high-road message would earn them more respect, and that the low road is not only dirty but so yesterday.