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REUTERS: 22k [Americans] Died Amid Delayed Bayer Drug Recall

“Dr. Dennis Mangano, the study’s researcher, said during the program that 22,000 lives could have been saved if Trasylol had been taken off the market when he first published his study in January 2006.”

read more | digg story

I will comment on this story in this post on Monday Never Comes.

A little paranoia is a healthy thing

Yet another blog from he who could fill out the ones he already has a lot more? Perhaps, but like any good would-be engineer, I’m being cautious. Well nourished and in good spirits as I enjoy a plate of that fine brisket WordPress shares with new users who read the TOS

but at little wary, as I pass my mac and cheese serving over to the next user to the left. Is that bacon in those collards? Oh, well …

In my “Keep an eye on these sites” post on Monday Never Comes, I mentioned the annoying habit a number of sites had, Digg included – that of sticking “rel=nofollow” tags on the homepages links of its users. Digg still does that, but it doesn’t stick such links on the linkbacks given to those who blog its articles. Discovering this left me a little more inclined to use my membership their site, but I soon found another annoying habit of theirs. In order to “blog” an article on Digg, one has to give Digg the password for one’s blog. Not that I’m saying that Digg or one of its employees would put that password to bad use, but long before I had ever heard of the Internet, I had already seen supposedly respectable, trustworthy individuals in positions of far greater authority engage in conduct far more scandalous than a little hacking. No, I’m not going to name names, but we are talking “obstruction of justice” – as much comfort as may be found in the thought that a man must rise to the occasion when others depend on him, real life is far less comforting, and sensible men will prepare themselves for that reality.

I don’t believe that Digg or – more to the point – any rogue employee of Digg – will misuse the password for this blog, in fact I think that’s highly, highly unlikely, and if I didn’t, I wouldn’t dream of filling out that form. HOWEVER, if somebody at Digg does do so, and this blog is vandalised or so misused in my name that WordPress has to delete it, all that I’m going to lose, arise from this introduction and maybe a few decorative touches to be added later, will be the excerpts uploaded by Digg and links to places where I discuss the articles excepted. Further, since I am not going to share that password with anybody but Digg, if it is misused by somebody at some company which is in possession of it, there will be little question left as to at which company that person works, meaning that the buck in this case would be likely to stop very quickly.

Were that to happen, I would be mildly … ummm … “physically loved” … but the offending party and his employer would be far more deeply so, and very little material original to me would be lost. Mainly, what would occur would be that Digg’s pagerank would be infinitesimally decreased, because all non-nofollowed links from my sites to theirs would suddenly be cut. While the reverse would be true as well, I wouldn’t be losing anything in this regard that Digg and its employees couldn’t take from me without possession of the password for this blog simply by deleting my account there, an action that wouldn’t pose the danger to Digg’s corporate reputation that a misuse of confidential information would, and wouldn’t raise the issue of possible federal prosecution – system intrusion is not viewed as gently as it used to be.

Really, then all I’m trusting Digg and its employees to do, as I hand them the password to this blog whose sole purpose is to be an interface between my sites and theirs, is to not choose to do harm to themselves without purpose. While anybody old enough to have a past knows that rationality or even sanity is not a given, to anticipate it in others certainly represents a far shorter leap of faith than does the presumption of good will, and doing things this way does, at least, limit the damage that a rogue company (or employee) can do, meaning that any damage caused by a misplacement of faith will be contained, at least to some extent.

I hope that WordPress is OK with this. I suspect that they are, as Digg does have a “WordPress” option under blogging, but if not, they have my e-mail address, and on the first word I see from them indicating that they are not happy with this use of their system, I will cease and desist without further argument and find a use for this space that they will be happier with, as soon as I can. As I’ve heard of no Digg related scandals, I suspect that there is no real danger, but I hope that any admin reading this will at least appreciate the fact that I gave the issue enough thought, that I made a point of structuring the incentives in such a way to minimize the risk.

That’s my thinking behind the creation of this interface. I’ll leave out the usual sincere hope that you’ll enjoy your stay, because this is more a place you’ll be passing through, maybe a lot should you become a regular reader and I become a more regular poster, which at some point in the near future, I expect I will.