Site added 2003 June 28: blogs by women: www.realwomenonline.com
Bloggers Asian or of Asian descent organized by country of ethnic origin. Many of the "China" bloggers are resident in the USA although most of the "Ethnic origin: Singapore" bloggers seem to be in Singapore. Japanese bloggers include Tadafumi (a pretty intense guy) who blogs in both English and Japanese (remember, you will probably have to enable Japanese language support in your browser to view a page in Japanese).
Enable Japanese: Internet Explorer: tools >> internet options (general) >> languages >> Add ....
Enable Japanese: Mozilla / Netscape: edit >> preferences >> navigator >> languages >> Add ....
Link added 2003 February 13: a current affairs blog (that's the only way I can describe it) with a strong anti-war bias. Run by a guy who weighs over 200 pounds. Usually you don't know how heavy bloggers are ... in fact, it's long been recognized that one of the unresolved mysteries of the blogosphere is the answer to the question "How much does the average blogger weigh?" I'm about seventy-three kilograms myself) whose IQ has tested out at between 147 and 183 (mine was testing out at about 64 yesterday, when I was in such an extremely fatigued state that I was having difficulty not walking right into a guy who was wheeling a bicycle across the sidewalk.) Anyway, the blog is www.baltech.org/fwbtf/.
Link added 2003 February 11: a blog in Israel. By following a link on the "raed" Iraqi site (listed below) I found my way to an Israeli blog, which is
imshin.blogspot.com. Quote from 2003 February 09 Sunday, from an entry headed "War Again":-
"You know, missile attacks come and go, terrorist attacks come and go. If we've got our name on someone's explosive belt, lovingly embroidered on by his or her Mom or Grandma, there's little we can do if he or she have got past the security forces."
I feel it's quite interesting to look at these blogs back to back, reading the words from Israel then the words from Iraq ... I feel it's ironic that they're both Blogspot blogs, united at least by their software ...
And now I've just noticed that not only has the Iraqi guy linked to the Israeli blog but, also, the Israeli blog has a link going to the Iraqi site, my link to which is below ....
Link added 2003 February 11: a diary written by an Iraqi guy, by someone in Baghdad (Saddam Hussein's capital). The link to the diary (an authentic live-from-Baghdad diary) is:-
http://www.dear_raed.blogspot.com/.
A quote from 2003 February 05:-
"Powell speech is around 6pm in Baghdad, the whole family is getting together for tea and dates-pastry to watch the (Powell Rocks the UN) show. Not on Iraqi TV of course, we have decided to put up the satellite dish to watch it, yes we will put it away afterwards until the next event. I don't exactly like the thought of two months in prison just to have 24 hour BBC (no free CNN on ArabSat which is the only sat we get with our tiny dish)."
Here's another quote which, to me, sounds authentic:-
"Saddam is still meeting officers daily, and we have the pleasure of watching these meetings three times every day. Each batch he meets leaves the place with a 1.5 million Iraqi Dinars check and a brand new car. The latest cars to be put in the warehouses I pass by are Toyota Corollas, all white. The warehouse has around 150 of them (we counted the trucks standing outside). It is said that there are a couple of thousand more new cars waiting just outside Baghdad, parked so close to each other when one of them caught fire they couldn't get to it fast enough, 38 cars burned."
I've added this to the list of sites that I'm personally going to be checking on a regular basis.
Link added 2003 January 18: Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig has a blog here. I found this link on a site devoted to research blogs (academic blogs). Unfortunately Lessig's clickable links are a hard-to-see gray. The research blogs site which led me to Lessig is here, and it's worth checking out, at least for five and a half seconds, just to stare in open-mouthed amazement at its relentlessly pink theme.
Link added 2003 January 17: click on www.kuro5hin.org, scroll down just a little, and on the left there is a list of "New Diaries". This site is "technology and culture, from the trenches", a freewheeling news / technology / Internet combination with radical tendencies (a little bit like www.slashdot.org but with a broader focus, not so intensely oriented toward technology.)
Link added 2002 December 24: highly literary blog/webzine:-
Today I accidentally discovered a highly literate and fairly extensive site, www.kokonino.com when I used Google to search for The Diary of a Nobody, the complete text of which (complete with pictures) is on the site. The site seems to be run by one Ray Davis, apparently a computer expert, who gives us access to his personal page for searching the Internet.
His actual "Newsletter, zine, journal" and weblog (etc) is at www.bellonatimes.com, and is ... well, "highbrow" is a word of condemnation in some quarters, but it seems to fit.
The material on the www.bellonatimes.com site is conveniently listed by topic.
The assumed audience seems to be adult and educated with eclectic tastes. Is there intelligent life on the Internet? Apparently so.
The easiest place to start searching the site seems to be at www.kokonino.com.
Link added 2002 December 22: major :-
Large, literate blog site by a guy born in Japan but raised in Michigan until age 14 ... if you want to get under the skin of Japan, to get below the surfaces, then it's well worth checking out Joi Ito's conversation with the living web ... this guy is a real grown-up, the CEO of a computer company called Neoteny, a guy who is plugged into the government, who can see the establishment from the inside ....
This blog is quite extensive: there's a lot of material here. Because it's not immediately obvious who this guy is, it helps to get orientated by checking out his "Who am I?" page, About Joi Ito or his CV.
Then you could try checking out his Generally Academic Thoughts to get a handle on how much voltage there is here ... or have a look at his thoughts on books.
Obviously, I'm impressed.
Link added 2002 Dec 22: thehomelessguy.blogspot.com ... as you would expect, a blog by and about homeless people. It's interactive: you can post a comment. You can also submit your own material about homelessness (whether you personally are homeless or not.) A bit more interesting than the average blog about "I cleaned my room" and that kind of stuff.
Update 2003 Jan 15: the homeless guy now has a roof over his head, is working, and is blogging at www.thehomelessguy.net. He's quite political ....