If you are ever inclined to ignore government corruption, just think about these poor parents in China. Their children were killed in shoddily constructed schools during the recent earthquake, and they have no chance of getting any justice.

If you really want to understand this year’s election, read this piece in the London Review of Books by David Runciman. As Runciman points out, the election has essentially broken down by demographics. This is no surprise, because that is how politics always works. The number of people who vote on reason is amazingly small. Moreover, everyone is suspicious of the few people who do so, because they appear to have no group loyalty. I’d get depressed, but there’s no point.

CNET Networks was bought by CBS today. It is all over the web, but here’s a straight story. One of the weird things about acquisitions like this,  is that they give rise to a bunch of stories like this one at Wired. Why do reporters even bother talking to anonymous employees? I can guarantee you that none of the employees interviewed have any idea what CBS’s plans for CNET are.

If TechMeme stats were money, then CNET Networks would be wildly profitable. Statbot did a study of all-time posts on Techmeme, and once again the CNET Networks’ properties (News.com and ZDNET) were way ahead of the other contributors. Check the study out at Statbot.

A while ago, Techmeme was abuzz with Michael Arrington’s plan to crush CNET. So, using the Techmeme leaderboard, I decided to look at the relative influence of the two brands. On the surface, TechCrunch is in the lead with a 7.01% presence to News.com’s 4.44%. However, if you add up all the CNET entries and compare them to the combination of TechCrunch and CrunchGear, you will see that CNET is in the lead with a 10.54% presence versus TC/CG’s 7.21%. Now, that’s still pretty good for TechCrunch, but I think it’s a good indication that CNET is nowhere near as irrelevant to conversation on the web as a lot of people like to think. For reference, here’s all the CNET properties that made the leaderboard, and their presence percentage:

• News.com 4.44%
• Webware 0.93%
• Between The Lines 0.86%
• The Social 0.71%
• Beyond Binary 0.57%
• All about Microsoft 0.56%
• Outside the Lines 0.5%
• One More Thing 0.46%
• Geek Gestalt 0.31%
• Crave 0.3%
• Googling Google 0.3%
• Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report 0.21%
• Zero Day 0.21%
• ZDNet 0.18%

and, boy are my arms tired (Sorry, couldn’t resist). Here’s all the places I visited:

• The Post House
• Club Macanudo
• Carlton Hotel

Why all these places have to use Flash on their web sites, I don’t know. I heartily recommend two out of three of them. I also ate at a great sushi place (called 28 Asian Cuisine) on 28th Street across from the Ziff Davis building. I can’t find a web site, but they’re easy to find.

From the AP:

The New York Fed has announced modifications to its new Term Securities Lending Facility (TSFL). The TSFL auctions will now allow schedule 2 collateral, instead of the schedule 1 collateral previously proposed. Schedule 2 collateral will now include collaterized mortgage obligations (CMOs) and AAA rated commercial mortgage-backed securities

In other words, they will take any kind of worthless security the banks and security dealers want to pawn off on them.

I need to buy a new laptop, so Mark Evan’s post on Are MacBooks Just Trendy? really resonated with me. I think the answer is yes they are trendy, but also they are good.

It is great sadness that I learned today that Russell Shaw has died. Russell was a talented writer, and a blogger for ZDNet. May he rest in peace. Here are some other reactions to Russell’s death:

Dan Farber

Dan York

Andy Abramson

UPDATE: Here’s the ZDNet Post from Larry: Rest in peace Russell Shaw; We’ll miss you.

So, the stock market rallied today based on S&P’s affirmation of MBIA’s AAA rating. What was their justification for affirming the rating? That MBIA was able to sell notes at 14% interest to raise $2.6 billion of capital. Name me any other AAA rated institution that is forced to pay 14%. Guess what? You won’t be able to find one. 14% is what junk bonds pay, not AAA rated bonds. Read the details at The Big Picture.