The First Entry

In preparing for this blog, I've been looking around at some of the other blogs out there on the Internet.  The one thing I've noticed most in my reading is that typically, the comments are more interesting than the blogs themselves.  Perhaps this is because I've been reading mainly political blogs, and we all know that politics is one of the most controversial issues in the news.  Thus, those who respond are going to be passionate in their comments and even attack the person who wrote the blog if they hold opposing views on the subject.

One blog I read that particularly caught my interest was posted by Ken Layne on the AOL Political Machine yesterday morning.  It was written in response to President Bush's last State of the Union address, but before he actually delivered the speech.  In short, Layne described the difference between now and seven years ago (when Bush gave his first State of the Union), not in political terms, but using everyday examples.  The most prevalent example refers to "that new iPod you got for Christmas in 2000" that never even existed because iPods didn't come out until October of 2001.  Of the ten comments on the blog, five criticized Layne for his "liberal ranting," while the remaining five praised him for his negative opinions of our president.

In reading blogs, it is important for the reader to be conscious that the person writing the blog may be ill-informed.  A few weeks ago, after the New Hampshire debates, I was reading a blog posted on AOL.com.  In the blog, the author even mentioned that he had only watched 15 minutes of the debate.  Therefore his brutal opinions attacking the candidates were not exactly credible.  However, what about those people browsing the AOL News section who were not aware that this was the opinion of a blogger and not an actual news story?  They may have taken the blog as a news story written by someone who was covering the debates (after all, the political blogs are found under the news section), rather than the opinion of one person who only watched it for a mere 15 minutes.  In short, bloggers should just not write on topics on which they are ill-informed, especially when their blogs are being posted on major news sites, such as AOL.