PGH Assignment: Setting The Blogosphere's Crosshairs

We were slowly crossing the walkway over the water, looking to our right, admiring the waterfall. It was gorgeous. Folks driving their cars on the bridge to our left were speeding along, oblivious to the beauty around them. The noise of the traffic was obscured by the crashing of the waves as the waters met the sudden cliff. The water turned from a blue to a white as it made the drop, and boiled up as a fine but thick mist, obscuring the fury and frenzy of the waters and rocks at the base of the waterfall. We turned and faced it. Nature in all its majesty and glory was right before us, and humanity in all its self-indulgent hurry was behind us. Ignoring what was behind us, we stood hand-in-hand admiring the scene. All was perfect.

Then the phone rang, and I was jolted awake. Reaching over, I found the cordless and pressed a button. The light came on and a dial-tone sounded in my ear. The ringing continued.

"It's that other phone!" came the sound from the angry woman next to me. Let's just say the wife was not happy about the new phone. But Harvey insisted. But, it wasn't his idea, actually.

I stumbled out of bed and picked up the Blog-Phone. Sounds silly, I know. But when some of the higher-ups in the Alliance take up with a super hero with an inferiority complex, things happen. So, since Bat-Man had the Bat-Phone, and since this certain super hero was now blogging, Alliance members had to have a Blog-Phone.

"Hello?"

"That's not how you answer the Blog-Phone," Aquaman said. I sighed.

"INSTAPUNDO DELENDA EST!" I cried.

"That's better," said our soggy friend. "We have a meeting."

"In person, or can..." I started.

"Now! I've got to go. I've got calls to make," Aquaman said, and hung up.

"See you later, Sea man," I said as I placed the phone back on it's cradle.

"You and that damned blog," said the wife.

"Be right back, dear," I replied.

Making my way past the fish tank -- I was beginning to despise that thing - I turned on the living room light and negotiated the hallway, which was cluttered with stuff I didn't know we had. Entering the office, I turned on the computer. In short order, I was logged on and making my way to the Alliance Web-conference page. They had already begun.

Harvey was speaking. "... and this rogue group could cause disaster. They aren't organized. They are not affiliated with anyone. They are just taking potshots at others and sometimes hitting the mark."

Right Wing Duck spoke up. "Give us specifics."

"Look at Mike Gallagher. Some bloggers jumped all over him the other day about comments he made," Harvey said. "And some Alliance members joined the fray."

I buzzed in. "Didn't Gallagher apologize?" I asked.

Harvey responded, "You were one of those that jumped on him. You didn't get clearance before doing anything. You need to learn a little discipline. Have you checked out my series of Blogging Tips?"

I said, "But it did some good. Gallagher made a statement that said ..."

Harvey cut me off. "When you go off half-cocked like that, sometimes things don't work out. Didn't you write up a little satire about that Danny Schechter guy when he made those asinine statements the other day, calling the protestors in Lebanon 'illegal'?"

"Well, yeah."

"And how did that go?"

"Sank like a stone. Hardly anybody noticed. Nobody cared," I said.

"You need to learn to pick your targets. And if a group works together, we can accomplish a lot. More than each of us separately," Harvey offered. "We were all over the John Kerry/Swift Boats story and the CBS Fake Memos story. Which proves my point. The results that were achieved without guidance could have been even more effective with guidance."

There was a general murmuring of agreement and my computer screen showed lots of heads nodding.

Harvey continued, "We need a way of guiding this power so that we will know who will be the next person brought down by the blogosphere and how it will it happen. Otherwise, we may end up bringing ourselves down."

With that, everyone logged off. Well, almost everyone. I saw one connection still there before I hit "Log Off." It showed an IP address of 160.36.0.66 which, for some reason, looked familiar. I needed to remember to look that up later. Then I paused. I know that IP address. Quickly, I hit the mute button, grabbed an old box of floppies, dumped them out, and placed the empty box over the Webcam, then double-clicked on that connection.

I could see Evil Glenn Reynolds? sitting at a table. He looked to his left and said "Are we disconnected?" I heard Kevin's? voice answer in the affirmative.

The Voice of Doom? continued, "We don't need to do anything just yet. They haven't been able to recruit all the Citizen Journalists. There are too many out there and the Alliance can't keep up. Which means our plan will succeed."

"What's the plan again, boss," I heard Jay Tea? ask.

"I gotta start hiring better minions," Evil Glenn? muttered. He paused, then laid it out. "Okay, for the last time. If I can keep people coming to my Website and sending me tips about stuff they wrote, the blogger feeding frenzy will continue. Heck, some bloggers even just send me information without sending me links! And if this continues, as more and more try to get listed on my Website, more and more will be trying to take others down. They have already been attacking each other. And when they take themselves down, I will be the only one left! Bwahahahahah!!"

With that, he stood up and left the room. I heard a few muffled sounds then a sharp "Oh! Crap!"

Another voice, "What's wrong?"

"I must have missed the disconnect button!"

"Anyone on?"

"I don't know how to read these number. They're big, and there's lots of them. But I don't see anyone in the pictures. We're okay."

"You gonna tell the Boss?"

"No way! And don't you tell him either."

Some more shuffling around and then, just before the screen went blank, "No harm done. No one knows anything about the plan."

No one, indeed.

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