Here I am

I don't know if this will post to LJ. Who knows. This DDoS attack on LJ has to do with Russian politics, and it's a bit annoying to have to be inconvenienced by that country's political hassles when my OWN country is going to hell in a handbasket. (I'm talking about the debt-limit crisis here, of course ... you can find all the depressing news about it on your own ... too many articles and editorials to link here.)

I need to get back to work on my short freelance article, which is due today, and then the longer freelance article. I just wanted to make a quick post here to let everybody know that I'm still here, and to strongly suggest that everyone who has not already done so head on over to http://dw-codesharing.dreamwidth.org and pick up an invite code. (Or send me an e-mail, as I think I have a few of my own that I've not posted.)

I'm not suggesting that we all abandon LJ, but it's nice to have a non-Facebook place to post when LJ has problems for several days in a row. DW has only about 10 percent of LJ's user base, and it's not based in Russia, so I don't the Russian bad guys care about it as much. And it won't demand your real name like Google+. :-)

Please let me know if you're duplicating your LJ self on DW and I'll put you on my reading list, OK?

Update to my previous post

I just tried to make a short LJ post pointing people over here, and it wouldn't go through. So I'm not even going to try to cross-post this message.

I caught a glimpse of my LJ friends' page, but before I could truly read any of the posts on it, it was wiped out by a "connection to the server was lost while the page was loading" message (or something like that).

*sigh*

Some links about the current situation

OK, I said earlier that there was too much stuff out there on the stupid debt-limit crisis (stupid because it doesn't HAVE to be a crisis!) to link to. But I have found a few pieces that particularly hit home with me. I shall post links with minimal commentary (because I have other stuff to do).

* Lessons from the U.S. Economy's Malaise (David Leonhardt's last piece on economics, as he is moving to another beat)

* One Way to Help the Jobless (though I'm not sure how much it will help)

* The Cult That Is Destroying America (not quite what you'd think)

* The Scorpion and the Frog (a pertinent fable)

* Are Progressives Losing the Larger Argument? (REALLY important to how I view this whole thing -- progressives are NOT being heard AT ALL.)

And, on a different subject, from Wired: Google+ Identity Crisis: What's at Stake with Real Names and Privacy.