Hilarious headline laugh of the day comes from Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit:

MAKE WAY FOR A FRESH CROP OF DAILYKOS DIARISTS: “The staff of Newsweek will shrink dramatically, after 111 staffers on its news and business sides accepted a buyout last week.”

As a passionate blogger, I always like to see more folks joining the craft.  Even the U.S. Government.  So it’s a good thing, for instance, that there’s an official State Department blog, called Dipnote.

Sure, it’s not the most bloggy thing we’ve ever seen.  It’s more typical of a PR organ than an interactive conversation.  But heck, baby steps, right?

Sometimes, though, the steps can be in the wrong direction.

Like when the blog is used to determine what U.S. policy should be in, say, the Middle East.

Consider this recent Dipnote posting:

Question of the Week: Should the U.S. Engage Hamas in the Peace Process Between the Israelis and Palestinians? 

Talk about interactive.   The comment section literally exploded, to use a Middle East term of art.

It’s probably not an unhelpful thing to ask that question — but more as an intellectual exercise in a place other than an official State Department outlet.  After all, shouldn’t they be the ones with the answer?

No wonder this exchange occurred at a later State Department press briefing with spokesman Sean McCormack:

QUESTION: Sean, on Dipnote, the question of the week is actually: Should the U.S. engage Hamas in the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians? Can you explain why this is up for discussion within the State Department since you very firmly have said that Hamas is considered a terrorist organization and you won’t (inaudible).

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, it’s not — again, it’s not a question of policy. This is our official blog. It’s not — it’s meant to generate conversation among people.

QUESTION: Are you taking notes of what people within the Department are saying? Taking note of what people are saying within the Department on this?

MR. MCCORMACK: We always take a look. I personally always look at the blog. I’m the one who started it. So, you know, we always take a look at what the comments are. But it doesn’t — that doesn’t mean that it’s going to change the policy. The policy is what it is.

QUESTION: What’s the purpose then, Sean, to have that? What’s the — there must be a reason for this question to be up there versus another question. So what are you taking out of the whole thing?

MR. MCCORMACK: I didn’t write this particular question, but again, it’s meant to generate — I mean, you guys here are asking me in a public forum these kinds of questions. This is just another form of a public forum.

QUESTION: So is it meant to just sort of solidify and confirm your policy that you should not talk to Hamas? Are you expecting the parties to –

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, it’s a –

QUESTION: — I haven’t looked at it recently.

MR. MCCORMACK: No, the whole idea behind the blog is to try to build a community of people who are interested in reading about and discussing and providing their inputs to — on matters of foreign policy. It’s an attempt to let — and this question isn’t indicative of it — but it’s an attempt to let people on the outside who may not have any interaction with the State Department, who don’t have the opportunity to travel with the Secretary of State, to get a little bit of an insight to what we do at the State Department and why we do it.

We’re also interested in hearing the views of people outside, both positive and negative. There’s — if you look at the blog, there’s criticism of the State Department, there’s criticism of U.S. policy there. There’s also statements of support. There are people who are asking questions. It’s, to my mind, a critical way in the 21st century of interacting with publics and communicating with publics and hearing what they have to say, not just broadcasting out but also hearing what they have to say.

I mean, we put — I mean, to your question, Nina, we’ve put all sorts of questions up there previously talking about Cuba policy and all sorts of other things. It’s not a statement of policy; it’s just something that the questions tend to be very topical and to generate discussion. There are a lot of people with a lot of different views, a lot of people that don’t share our views with regard to terrorist organizations.

No, the State Department shouldn’t stop blogging, in whatever form they think blogging is.  I doubt any other country has such a vibrant open forum.  But let’s equally hope they don’t blog away a strong U.S. position against terrorists, or anything else.

We’ve marveled in the past about newspapers extending their brand in many fascinatingly different blogging ways.  The Baltimore Sun, for instance, has a blog about pro wrestling (tackle that, “Wire”!)

Today we feature a Washington Post blog — from the zany folks who write obituaries — Post Mortem.

A sample entry:

One thing about writing obits — we never get complaints from our subjects.

Death jam!

Why would anyone write this in the Weekly Standard?

Just like John F. Kennedy inspired us to go to the moon, Hillary Clinton would inspire us to, well, blog.

That’s fine with me.  As a blogger, I enthusiastically welcome more bloggers to our noble craft. Eighty million blogs–give or take, oh, ten million blogs, depending on the time of day–just aren’t enough. We always could use more. So why not a blog from, say, the U.S. Bureau of Seed Regulation? Or the Department of Redundancy Department? What harm could that do? Not any more harm than that done by a spam blog advertising nothing but sexual prowess and refinancing opportunities.

Find out more by clicking here.

Earlier this week a colleague told me the government was planning to subsidize the purchase of television sets. I scoffed, thinking that’s something the government surely would never do, and anyway, why not subsidize books?

Turns out my colleague was right, as evidenced by this government-issue $40 coupon to purchase digital TV.

Think that’s the extent of the government bailing out dinosaur media?  Think again.

Check out Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger’s farewell column on the media in the weekend WSJ (click here, password required).
A fascinating — and stunning — tidbit:

… the vast array of investigative reporting and foreign correspondence assembled at American newspapers over the past several decades is being cut back at all but a few publications, as papers succumb to the pressure to cut costs.

Many journalists and academics see in these cutbacks a threat to the democratic ideal of a well-informed public. Some urge turning to philanthropy or an expansion of public television as a way to fill the gap. Others have begun to argue for a government subsidy for newspapers — an unlikely prospect for now.

“Unlikely” aside, the fact that a government subsidy of newspapers is being considered at all is quite alarming, on two fronts: 1)  Must the government solve everything?  Homer Simpson put it best, in another context: “Donuts, is there anything they can’t do?”  Likewise: government, is there anything it can’t subsidize?  And (2)  If a form of media is dying, let it fail on its own accord.  It’s called the free market.  Heck, one day I’m sure blogging will decline in popularity.  Let’s hope that when that happens, no one calls for a government subsidy of blogging.  Although truth be told, if the feds will be handing out money to blog, you better believe I’ll be first in line.  But really hating it.

Des Moines Register editor Carolyn Washburn, who moderated the recent Republican and Democratic presidential debates to such dismal failure, gives her side of the disasters in a Register piece (hat tips to Instapundit and Riehl World View).

My favorite part:

… it’s a healthy experience for all journalists to be on the other side of the notebook and camera now and then. It’s good to experience what it’s like for our readers and sources to be covered, and what it’s like to be shot at by bloggers and people who leave disgusting personal comments on stories.

You gotta love how she smoothly links bloggers with disgusting people.

OK, since I’m a blogger, I’ll give it a whirl. You want disgusting?  Here, let’s put it a way Ms. Washburn would understand: Show of hands, how many you want to see me eat refried beans with my mouth open?

OK, next question.  Fifteen seconds.  Does this look infected to you?  Think it needs ointment?

Last question.  Thirty seconds.  Who dumped a whole truck load of feces into the swim meet? Who delivered the medical school cadavers to the alumni dinner?
And a follow-up …Is this a great photo or what?

Pity the poor, tame Japanese blogger.

We learn this from today’s Washington Post:

Blogging in Japan, though, is a far tamer beast than in the United States and the rest of the English-speaking world. Japan’s conformist culture has embraced a technology that Americans often use for abrasive self-promotion and refashioned it as a soothingly nonconfrontational medium for getting along.

Bloggers here shy away from politics and barbed language.

So, essentially, the Japanese blogger is weak-kneed, namby-pamby and adverse to engaging in online combat?

Here’s a potential solution, an idea to get them more edgy …

A Friday Washington Post business section article about Silicon Valley’s resurgence offers this:

… there is less risk involved in investing in the wacky stuff.

Guy Kawasaki, the founder of Garage Technology Ventures and the author of best selling business books, for example, recently put money into a startup that was named “the worst site ever” by a technology news site. The Web site, called Truerumors, lists rumors that are true. The cost to launch the site was less than $13,000.

You can check out the site here.  Naturally, we looked first for political stories, but they weren’t as prominent as we hoped or expected.  This story, however, gets some play on the site:

Presidential candidate, Barack Obama spoke to high school students on Tuesday about his abuses of cocaine, marijuana and alcohol.

We stumbled over this review in Forbes.com of “Shooting War” by Anthony Lappè and Dan Goldman  ($22, Grand Central Publishing, 2007) and couldn’t resist the art…

We’ll review the book if we can get a copy.

Well it’s finally happened.  A mainstream big-city newspaper features a blog about …. pro wrestling.

It’s The Baltimore Sun’s Ring Posts blog — written by Kevin Eck.

All snickering aside, as a blog it’s quite a good one.  Well written with interesting articles and newsy takes on the, um, sport.  And it takes tough provocative stances.
We love good blogging — so we like Ring Posts.  It’s worth a read.  But it’s also worth considering whether the blog’s existence is an indicator of the broader fear that old-style papers face about losing younger and infotainment-driven readers.