Blogger creates Google Custom Search Engine for Milblogs
Friday, June 8, 2007, 03:21 AM
Sean Lawson, a blogger doing a research paper about milblogs, has created a Google Custom Search Engine that searches 27 different military blogs.“As part of my research on the paper I am writing about milblogs, I have created a Google Custom Search Engine that searches some of the top milblog sites as rated by milblogging.com, ringsurf, and TTLB. I plan to use this as a research tool for the paper. So, to keep the number of results manageable, the search engine only searches the top thirty sites. In the future, the list could expand, however, as the “Google Marker” for FireFox makes it very easy to add new sites to the search engine.”
To be honest, you could use the Milblogging.com Search Engine which searches thousands of milblogs and you might get better results. The only problem is that it’s far too advanced for the regular user, so many of you might not be able to figure it out. Although, when I first built the website I had my five year old test out the Search Engine, and he had no problems. But please, don’t feel bad. When he was three he was already in the eighth grade, and had written a dissertation on the moral decay of urban
Read more about the Google Custom Search Engine here.
Oh, and thanks to Kathi for the tip. As always, high-five!
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Milblogging.com in the News: Military blogs say the media have it wrong
Thursday, June 7, 2007, 08:35 PM
(Post-Bulletin) The Silent Majority is still too silent. It seems we haven't learned to speak up in the years since President Nixon first used that phrase in 1969. Since then, the phrase is used to refer to any group that is not sensational enough to be covered by the media. Currently, that is the huge number of people who would like to give our military the chance to finish the job that they started four years ago.
Read the entire story here.
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Website Update
Tuesday, June 5, 2007, 07:36 PM
I just wanted to let everyone know that the website problems with the email activations and stuff is going to be fixed in the next few weeks. I’ve been talking about fixing them for three months. Then again, I’ve been in mobilization training for Seriously, the only thing members and visitors really expect from the website these days is that a webpage will come up. Nobody is even surprised by the problems. A regular visitor could type in the web address “Milblogging.com” and then their laptop could catch on fire, and they would just be like, “At least it didn’t explode this time.”
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Doonesbury.com’s The Sandbox: Dispatches From Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will be published Aug. 1.
Sunday, June 3, 2007, 03:36 PM
(KansasCity.com) In October 2006, “Doonesbury” creator Garry Trudeau started The Sandbox. Since then, many soldiers have contributed their writings to the “milblog,” or military blog.
Some of those posts from
Now many of those stories will be gathered into a book. At BookExpo
Read the entire story here.
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Milblogger Sack in Iraq Raising Money for Fisher House
Friday, June 1, 2007, 09:13 PM
Milblogger Sack in Iraq is raising money for the Fisher House. This is a great cause. It’s hard to imagine troops finding the time to do these things, but it’s nice. Wait, did I say nice? I mean, awesome. And yes, this is what milbloggers do, awesome things. I’ve heard being this awesome is illegal like in 167 countries. But this is what milbloggers are all about, being “awesome” and of course, “good looking”. You know, just cause... Read more from Sack in Iraq below:
This program is particularly good, because unlike other race sponsorships, where if you collect a certain amount they will pay your race entrance fee, travel/hotel, etc, the Fisher House team will get every dime of any money that you pledge. Also, they have very little overhead, according to their website 97 cents on the dollar go directly to help the families of wounded soldiers. These guys have a great reputation in the military community and are truly supporting a needed service.
I would like to raise a $1,000 over the next 18 weeks. Please consider a gift to this worthwhile organization. Since I'm running 26.2 miles (I hope!) you could consider a dollar a mile and donate 25 bucks and I'll do the last 1.2 miles for free. This would only require 40 people to contribute.
Learn more here.
Thanks to Kathi for the tip.
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New Milblogs Added: May 8th - 28th, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007, 09:34 PM
I’m not entirely sure how I’m writing about new military blogs, considering most media and pundits are claiming there is a ban on milblogs. Even more amazing, I’m sitting here typing my blog which really doesn’t make any sense. Unless of course instead of “ban”, the media and pundits really mean “allow”. I mean, you’d be surprised how easy it is to mix up those two words. Seriously, when you’re a pundit you get to do things like change meanings, or punch people in the face, or call them demeaning nick names. Really. Like, just the other day on block leave I karate chopped one of my neighbors in the neck at the supermarket for looking at me funny...maybe he’ll think twice before asking someone “How ya doing?”. The Hectic Homefront, Erin, United States, A very proud Marine Officer's wife who is chronicl..., 28 May 2007
SgtDavis.Com, Sgt Davis, United States, I am a recruiter for the NY Air Guard. Prior Army ...,
The American Legion Vision, Not specified,
Bill's Bites, Bill Faith, United States, "Biting" commentary from an outspoken pro-America,..., 19 May 2007
Foreign and Domestic, SSG Dave Thul, Iraq, A MN National Guard SSG deployed to Iraq, 16 May 2007
Provide for the Common Defense, K. (Ham) Beall, United States, Conservative observations on Politics, Military, a..., 12 May 2007
Rmychk's Oh So Optimistic Blog, Rmychk, Iraq, A journey through my now two year deployment with ..., 11 May 2007
Red Storm Rising, LTC Brian Delaplane, United States, Chronicles of the Professor of MIlitary Science at..., 11 May 2007
Naval Warfare, Remo, United States, This blog examines warships that have made a signi..., 08 May 2007
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Milblogs in the News: More on Baseball and Blogs
Wednesday, May 30, 2007, 05:48 PM
(Washington Post) My inbox has been filled with comments from Red Sox fans and MilBloggers ever since I attempted to link the two last week. I used the metaphor of sports reporting to observe that Americans would be better off if we paid even a fraction of attention to the military that we pay to baseball. Also attracting comments was my post describing the tension between the YouTube generation's expectation of Internet access and the military's need to control its own.Red Sox fans essentially said this: Hey, baseball's interesting. As fans, we're a part of something.
MilBloggers said this: War is not fun, and we are not merely fans. In many cases, we are soldiers. The implication was that only they are qualified to comment about their endeavor.
Read the entire story here.
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Milblogging.com in the News: Soldiers React to Blogging 'Ban'
Saturday, May 26, 2007, 08:26 PM
(InternetNews.com) Are American soldiers in Earlier this month, news broke that on April 17 the
Read the entire story here.
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Milblogs in the News: If Only War Reporting Were More Like Sports Reporting
Friday, May 25, 2007, 02:35 PM
(The Washington Post) Let's see if I can do this without insulting either baseball fans or bloggers. Blogging baseball fans, I ask for your forgiveness preemptively.I went to a Red Sox game on Saturday, and up above home plate I couldn't help but notice the press box: five, six, seven tiers of desks, filled with print, radio, television and who knows what other media all reporting every move and anomaly. It dawned on me that there are more reporters covering the Sox, just one baseball team, than cover the Pentagon.
I've been wanting to write about the 2nd Annual MilBlog conference (I wasn't invited), and did write earlier about the brouhaha over the Pentagon's supposed new restrictions regarding blogging.
Read the entire story here.
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Milblogging.com in the News: Milbloggers Upset With Restrictions, But Won’t Stop Blogging
Friday, May 25, 2007, 02:27 PM
(MediaShift) JP Borda runs the Milblogging.com site “Big companies like Microsoft and Dell don’t allow their employees to tell trade secrets, and their guidelines are probably pages and pages long,” Borda said via email. “Why should the military be any different? I’m rank-and-file, and I’m not upset at all, because it hasn’t changed the way I blog one bit. It makes me laugh that the President of the United States states on record that he supports military blogs
Read the entire story here.
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Milblogs in the News: Dr. Laura son linked to lurid Web page
Saturday, May 19, 2007, 01:27 PM
(Salt Lake Tribune) The soldier son of talk radio relationship counselor Laura Schlessinger is under investigation for a graphic personal Web page that one Army official has called "repulsive."The MySpace page, publicly available until Friday when it disappeared from the Internet, included cartoon depictions of rape, murder, torture and child molestation; photographs of soldiers with guns in their mouths; a photograph of a bound and blindfolded detainee captioned "My Sweet Little Habib"; accounts of illicit drug use; and a blog entry headlined by a series of obscenities and racial epithets.
The site is credited to and includes many photographs of Deryk Schlessinger, the 21-year-old son of the talk radio personality known simply as Dr. Laura. Broadcast locally on 570 KNRS, "Family Values Talk Radio," the former family counselor spends three hours daily taking calls and offering advice on morals, ethics and values. She broadcast a show from
Military leaders have long grappled with how to balance positive publicity and operational security with technological opportunities for troops to tell their personal stories.
Read the entire story here.
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Milblogs in the News: Banned Military Blog Wins Prize
Friday, May 18, 2007, 10:31 PM
(WebProNews) Two weeks ago, the world found out that the Irony being the domain of the British, we can thank them for this story; the BBC, the Times Online, and The Guardian, among others, have been all over it. For the report behind the Army’s original crackdown, you can read our WebProNews coverage, but the main thing to know is that the Pentagon wanted to outlaw uncensored military blogs.
Read the entire story here.
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Milblogs in the News: Military Defends MySpace Ban
Friday, May 18, 2007, 10:26 PM
(Wired News) The Defense Department isn't trying to "muzzle" troops by banning YouTube and MySpace on their networks, a top military information technology officer tells DANGER ROOM. Rear Admiral Elizabeth Hight, Deputy Commander of Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations, says that the decision to block access to social networking, video-sharing, and other "recreational" sites is purely at attempt to "preserve military bandwidth for operational missions."Read the entire story here.
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Milblogs in the News: Matthew Burden on Military Blogging
Tuesday, May 15, 2007, 11:47 PM
(PBS) Matthew Currier Burden, a military blogger and author of "The Blog of War," [excerpt] talks to Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa about new Army regulations for military bloggers and why he fears the rules will keep the truth from coming out of Iraq.Interview Excerpts
"It's awfully hard for me to sit there and say you have to come down on these bloggers, when they themselves, especially the senior staff at the Pentagon, are leaking more information than every other source combined."
"When I get into a discussion with a public affairs or even an operational security officer about blogging, I will usually point to the D.O.D. [Department of Defense] website or Army.mil and show them pictures that clearly violate operational security, in their definition."
Read the entire story here.
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Milblogging.com in the News: Defense Departments Blocks YouTube, MySpace Access
Monday, May 14, 2007, 07:11 PM
I’m still not even sure why so many people (particularly, those no longer in the military or those not even in the military) are up in arms about this new Op Sec policy. Numerous people are coming forward in the news as spokespersons, but I have yet to see really any comments by bloggers who are in the military. This latest news about YouTube, MySpace and other sites, is pretty much no different than network policies at most office jobs. And typically, most workers follow the policy, unless of course they hate their job. Earlier in the week, I offered my thoughts on the situation because it was frustrating to hear all these bloggers, pundits and journalists, claim this was an end to milblogging, when I'm sitting right here typing a blog with the support of my chain of command. And several soldiers in my Platoon, including my Platoon Sergeant are planning to do the same once we arrive in Iraq.
Mudville Gazette even took a shot at this website in their "Joke of the Week" in response to all the news about the Op Sec policy, claiming the low number of military blog readers, is due to sites like Milblogging.com using RSS feeds. The very same feeds that bloggers make public to everyone. I'm gonna clarify one thing - I only publish what bloggers allow me to. Any time a blogger has written me requesting I remove their feed, I do so immediately. Most of the time, bloggers are asking me to post their banners and update their feeds so they display properly on Milblogging.com.
Via Mudville Gazette:
"I suppose part of that lack of readers could be due to the folks at milblogging.com ripping off the deployed guys via their rss feeds, but no one reads milblogging.com either."
I'm still confused. All this time I've been responsible for the low number of readers to milblogs? You could've told me I was responsible for pimples or Paris Hilton, and that would make entirely more sense than this joke of the week.
I'll be in Iraq soon enough, so for those of you who remember reading the Jerky Wars, it's game on. Then again, no one really reads this milblog or any others. So, I'm pretty much writing for family who are obligated to read (Hi Mom).
By the way, I only have 72 friends (that’s not a typo) on MySpace, which makes me the biggest loser in my Platoon. I know cats and bums who have more MySpace friends. In fact, I think there is a box of rabbits on MySpace that is more popular. I'm pretty much worthless.
Here's an excerpt from the story regarding YouTube, MySpace and other websites:
(CBS 42, Austin, TX) Spc. Jean-Paul Borda, founder of military blog aggregator Milblogging.com, wrote that the latest policy announcement is unlikely to silence troops posting online: “...the fact that I’m blogging right now, pretty much speaks for itself.”
Read the entire story here.
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Milblogs in the News: Military Hits Blogs First, Then YouTube and More
Monday, May 14, 2007, 07:06 PM
(Beltway Blogroll) Although sensationalized by fans of milblogs, the Army's guidelines on the Internet musings of soldiers are real. Now comes word from AP and Stars & Stripes that the Defense Department as a whole is taking other steps to control Internet access by soldiers.Specifically, the department has blocked access to the YouTube video-sharing site, the MySpace online social network and 11 other sites that are popular among deployed troops who want to communicate with family and friends. Technology Daily mentioned cited AP this morning.
Read the entire story here.
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Milblogs in the News: Military puts MySpace, other sites off limits
Monday, May 14, 2007, 06:58 PM
(CNN.com) Soldiers serving overseas will lose some of their online links to friends and loved ones back home under a Department of Defense policy that a high-ranking Army official said would take effect Monday.The Defense Department will begin blocking access "worldwide" to YouTube, MySpace and 11 other popular Web sites on its computers and networks, according to a memo sent Friday by Gen. B.B. Bell, the U.S. Forces Korea commander.
The policy is being implemented to protect information and reduce drag on the department's networks, according to
Read the entire story here.
Thanks to Wendy for the tip.
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Milblogs in the News: War book wins Blooker blog prize
Monday, May 14, 2007, 06:54 PM
(BBC News - UK)The prize comes as the "My War may be the last frank and open military blog blook", said Paul Jones, chair of the Blooker judges.
Arianna Huffington, columnist and blogger who was among this year's Blooker judges, said Buzzell's book was "endlessly surprising... delightfully profane".
She said it was "an unfiltered, often ferocious expression of his boots-on-the-ground view of the
Buzzell started blogging shortly after being posted to Iraq, writing his website from a cyber cafe in an army tent.
Read the entire story here.
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Milblogging.com in the News: Worry, Frustration on Mother’s Day – Having a son serving in Iraq changes things
Monday, May 14, 2007, 01:21 AM
(SJ-R.com) I have found some soft shoulders on the Internet. Both www.milblogging.com and http://groups.yahoo.com /group/sgtmomsparents are comforting forums in which to vent and learn. The other mothers there have taught me how to order free flat-rate boxes from the post office, where to find help filing my son's income tax returns and what to say to another mother who has learned her uniformed son has had to kill someone.Read the entire story here.
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Milblogs in the News: The Sky Is Falling on Milblogs!
Monday, May 14, 2007, 01:19 AM
(Beltway Blogroll) Several days ago when I wrote about how blogs blow things out of proportion, I based my analysis on the latest netroots attack against Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-
As if on cue, right-wing bloggers answered for me that very day, in the form of hysteria about the Army allegedly trying to shut down blogs by active-duty military personnel.
Reacting to a melodramatic Wired article about broad "operations security" regulations that included references to blogs, the fans of milblogs (and the military) decried the Pentagon as a would-be censor whose dimwitted attempt at regulating free speech would kill the best public relations tool the Army has in the war against terror.
Read the entire story here.
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