What signal are we sending young people? Trim your sails, be politically correct, don’t say anything that will get you flamed by one constituency or another. And if you ever want a job in government, national journalism or as president of Harvard, play it safe and don’t take any intellectual chances that might offend someone. In the age of Google, when everything you say is forever searchable, the future belongs to those who leave no footprints.

via Op-Ed Columnist – Can We Talk? – NYTimes.com.

American officials said Pentagon investigators are convinced that Assange is in possession of at least some classified State Department cables leaked by a 22-year-old Army intelligence specialist, Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland, who is now in custody in Kuwait.

via Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange Hunted by Pentagon Over Massive Leak – The Daily Beast.

If you’d care for a more entertaining take on Assange, check out his interview with Steven Colbert.

Administration Takes a Hard Line Against Leaks to Press (NY Times)

I would submit that, unless lives are imminently in danger, government transparency should be expanded to its fullest — including the “good stuff.”

Esteemed journalist James Fallows pens an article about how Google is trying to create conditions that will help pay-for-journalism survive in the free, online news world. He clearly lays out the problems of sticking with print and convincing advertisers of the value of an online ad.  The real interesting part is the last third: how we might start to find and pay for good content. From the perspective of Google, this makes sense–more reliable searches with better content.

My blog has been quiet for awhile because I’ve been “too busy to read.” I’m working on that problem, because reading and writing are too central to how we think.  It’s like I’ve been holding my breath for a month.