Wall Street Journal assistant editorial features editor Joseph Rago doesn’t think much of blogs:

The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps.[. . .]
[Most blogs] are pretty awful. Many, even some with large followings, are downright appalling.
Every conceivable belief is on the scene, but the collective prose, by and large, is homogeneous: A tone of careless informality prevails; posts oscillate between the uselessly brief and the uselessly logorrheic; complexity and complication are eschewed; the humor is cringe-making, with irony present only in its conspicuous absence; arguments are solipsistic; writers traffic more in pronouncement than persuasion.

Larry Ribstein, who is on the cutting edge of writing on the impact of blogging, responds to Rago here and bores in on what is really going on here — blogging’s dilution of old media’s impact on the distribution and shaping of information to the public. Does Rago really believe that the old media’s approach to distributing and shaping information examined here, here and here is the best way to present reasonably complex issues to the public?
Moreover, another key utility of blogs is the linking to articles in newspapers, magazines and specialized journals that the reader probably would otherwise miss. For example, corporate law bloggers such as Professor Ribstein and Stephen Bainbridge have greatly facilitated the public and legal profession’s understanding and discussion of often misunderstood business law principles that otherwise would have been relegated to rarely-read law review articles and an occasional backpage op-ed. The linking process increases the efficiency of the distribution of information and often refines that information. That such flow of information may be accompanied with a blogger’s opinion of the information is really beside the point. Those opinions will be alternately illuminating, worthless or in-between, but the reader does not lose the ability to evaluate the information or the opinion.
Curiously, while a WSJ editor decries the proliferation of blogs, Peter Lattman’s WSJ Law Blog is one of the best blogs to emerge during 2006. Go figure.

The blawgosphere — that is, the world of law-related blogs — has really come of age over the past couple of years as a research source, so it is becoming increasingly important to have a tool that facilitates research contained in blawgs.
BlawgSearch is a search engine that Tim Stanley and the folks at Justia.com have developed that focuses one’s search on blawgs (Tim’s blog post on BlawgSearch is here). It is in beta right now, but Tim and his crew are adding blawgs on a daily basis. While using it on a variety of issues over the past couple of days, I have found the coverage to be excellent already and far more focused than blawg searches on more generalized engines. Check it out and include it in your bookmarks. This looks like a winner.

The Wall Street Journal ($) begins the new year by rolling out a new blawg called — somewhat unimaginatively — “Law Blog,” focusing “on law and business, and the business of law.” Former Forbes Magazine reporter Peter Lattman — who is an attorney — is the lead writer for the WSJ Law Blog, which will include contributions from reporters and editors at The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. Law Blog is a part of the WSJ’s rollout of this flashy new Law news page, which the Journal says will focus on “news, trends and buzz for lawyers at firms and in-house law departments, as well as the business people who work with them.” Check the new blawg and page out.

My family and I enjoy attending events in Houston’s fine downtown theater district, so I am pleased to see that the district has put together this handy and good-looking website. Houston is one of only five U.S. cities with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts disciplines of opera, ballet, music and theater, and its theater district is wonderfully-centralized in a several block area of downtown Houston. Check out the website and attend a show in the theater district during the holiday season — it’s a great way to spend an evening or weekend afternoon.

The University of Chicago’s loss is Tufts University’s gain.
Hearty congratulations are in order for Professor Drezner, who is one of the pioneers of the blogosphere.

DanielDrezner.com — maintained by University of Chicago assistant professor of political science, Daniel Drezner — is one of the first weblogs that I regularly reviewed and it remains one of my favorites. Over its three year existence, it has become one of the most popular academic blogs in the blogosphere.
Professor Drezner disclosed this past weekend that his application for tenure at the University of Chicago had been denied and that, as a result, he will be moving on from his position there. This New York Sun article (hat tip to Howard Bashman) is already speculating that Professor Drezner’s popular blog was one of the factors working against him in the notoriously stuffy academic world of considering tenure applications. Larry Ribstein — who is at the forefront of addressing academic issues relating to blogging — has more analysis here.
Regardless of whether Professor Drezner’s blogging had any effect on the rejection of his tenure application, my sense is that this is a temporary setback for him. He is an insightful commentator on politics generally, and on foreign affairs and political economy issues in particular, so he will not be without gainful employment opportunities for long. UChicago’s loss will be someone else’s gain.

With the microsimulation of road traffic, you can now create your own traffic jam in the comfort of your home.

Check out this creative interactive map to the federal courts organized by federal circuit.
This is just another example of how the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has embraced technological advances in streamlining litigation in federal courts. The ECF (electronic filing) system that is available now in most federal courts is the prototype for electronic filing systems in other courts around the country.