If you do anything online today, make some time for Dick Hardt’s Identity 2.0 presentation at OSCON. Thought provoking and spot on.

Browse. Search. Subscribe.:Damn straight Dave. Damn straight. There have been solutions talked about, but none have taken hold. It’s a problem that still stands begging to be solved.

Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone, Yahoo!’s first original content effort, has launched. But where’s the RSS?

Philadelphia Magazine trashes the Philadelphia blogosphere and its successful efforts to raise awareness of LaToyia Figueroa. Read Richard Cranium’s response and Will Bunch’s rebuttal.

Decline in male college attendance is a serious national problem. – but no one is talking about it. How about instead of blaming efforts to improve women education we look at the effects of poverty and culture on today’s men? Nah.. this will probably denigrate into a blame fest and so it sits as a growing problem.

Daily Kos and Atrios miss Media Whores Online. Pre$$titute$ is a good alternative, but what I miss is the late, great, Spinsanity – nothing came close to providing clarity in the muck. FactCheck.org just doesn’t have the bite and is less effective.

Google is preparing a move into classifieds search. If I was working at CareerBuilder – I’d be worried – “Commercial classifieds sites such as CareerBuilder, Cars.com and others have to weigh the additional audience Google could deliver against the potential loss of revenue. Analysts, including us, predict that advertisers will move to free sites if they become convinced that they will reach an audience as large – or larger – on a search engine than on a paid advertising site.”

LiveJournal has added a feature that lets you navigate communities by school. It gets slagged at Metafilter but I think this feature is very cool.

ProgrammableWeb has a cool matrix up of Web 2.0 mashup apps. Check it out.

The church-state barrier has taken some major hits this past week – House OKs Faith As Head Start Hiring Issue and FEMA Plans to Reimburse Faith Groups for Aid. Richard at the All Spin Zone isn’t optimistic.

Raleigh NY is having success improving public education by using integration by income. More at A Little Urbanity. via Ed Cone.

Garret points to an interesting article (and site for the bookmarks) Urban Food Production: Evolution, Official Support and Significance. He comments that with such a current emphasis on ‘self reliance’ and events like Katrina showing that we are – indeed – on our own – you should see more links out there like this one.

Speaking of self-reliance, no matter what folks might think, it’s hard to have good teeth without health insurance or good health insurance that provides for regular dentist visits. Jeneane Sussum is wondering if America is setting itself up to be a nation of people with crappy smiles…So we let go what we have to let go. Our teeth. And we make due. And we’re glad if we can just make our health insurance premiums every month. And those of us who once wouldn’t be seen without perfect enamel and every six month cleanings smile a little less often these days…. The New Yorker, in stomach twisting piece would seem to agree.

My prayers go out the folks in Rita’s way this morning. Remember to give.

The Commission on Federal Election Reform has released its report – urging paper trails (Wired). More at VerifiedVoting.org. Locally, check out the Committee of Seventy for information on voting rights and reform.

via Global Voices, Ma-Schamba, a Mozambique blogger shares that Live 8 is nothing but broken promises.

Atrios gives an update of his efforts in DC to convince the powers that be not to regulate free speech on the Internet as ‘political speech’.

Jay Rosen gives his thoughts on TimesSelect and shares a compliment for mine on this week’s newspaper staff reductions (thanks!). Me? I will never link to a TimesSelect article. It’s bad enough linking to something that eventually falls behind an archive wall, but I can’t link to a for-pay article. It’s what keeps me from linking more often to The Atlantic as well.

The news is that Cheney killed testimony on Able Danger.

And for more frightening news, there are 115 sick of avian flew in Jakarta.

AOL is to begin its VOIP rollout October 4th. Speaking of AOL, it has dropped the ‘beta’ tag from its new portal and has begun marketing.

At Fool.com, by Seth Jayson: “Why I Fear Google WiFi”: “How much of your life do you want to put at Google’s disposal?”

And for you porn hunters – a job for you – the FBI is looking for recruits: “The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against “manufacturers and purveyors” of pornography — not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults” War on terror? Got that handled. We have other priorities. Your tax dollars at work.

If you need a giggle (and I do man, I do), check out JWZ’s guide to turning your hamster into a fighting machine.

Katrina has opened up an opportunity to talk about class and race in America. If you read anything today, read “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid” in Harpers magazine. There has been terrific progress in Philadelphia, but there are many, many factors stacked against us. A recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer shares a major case in point – “Philadelphia (is) among the nation’s poorest counties and Chester, Burlington and Bucks among its richest”. How do you think this helps or hurts education funding? And don’t you think that’s self-reinforcing?

Ed Cone takes note of John Edwards who has been championing how “Personal responsibility combined with smart government can beat poverty, that’s the message. Don’t have babies out of wedlock in your teens and we’ll make sure you’ve got a chance.” That’s Bill Clinton’s old message. Notice the two part goal here: Personal responsibility and smart government. It’s a message I believe in.

Speaking of Bill Clinton, he has finally begun to share his views on how things have been going – and it’s not pretty. Tellingly, if you watch Memeorandum it appears that most folks talking about this are Republicans who are appalled that Clinton opened his mouth. And most Democrats are just sitting idly by when they should be cheering him on. Just like old times. Pandagon tears apart one of the popular ones.

America’s response to Katrina, and the two-tier society it exposed for all to see is not looking so good abroad, even in Britain. Just look at the tone of recent articles in the Mirror or Sky News.

Amongst the stories of system failure that have come out of Katrina, folks should recognize there are many more times the number of stories of survival (Washington Post) that tell of strength, ingenuity, quick thinking, courage and compassion.

Rita is growing to hurricane strength and Galveston might issue an evacuation order today.

A shout out of thanks to all who have been donating and finding ways to help in the wake of Katrina. There are so many great examples to share across the web, but one I’ve been meaning to mention is Shelley Powers and her Critters for Critters campaign. The auction she is running I believe ends tomorrow, check it out. And if you can donate to the Humane Society.