With the exception of a few like the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post, political blogging is just another opiate... for the slightly literate rather than for the masses. It makes people think they're doing something meaningful while in fact all it does is use up their energy and time and distract them from taking any real action. Imagine what would happen if one out of every 10 political blog entries, or comments thereto, was instead sent to the writer's representative in Congress? Congress wouldn't know what had hit them. Imagine if one out of every 100 bloggers actually volunteered to go to a battleground state and help work for the candidate of their choice? Ah, but that takes actual work and sacrifice.

I've been diverted too. Not by political blogs, but there's a computer tech forum on the web to which I've made more than 12,000 posts in about six years.. So I know something about what I'm talking about here. Even at only 50 words per post average that's a couple of fair-sized books, more so in fields like mine where half of the page area is taken up by screen snapshots.

The trouble, of course, is that it's just very easy to dash off a paragraph or two worth of forum post or blog comment, and it's immediately rewarding: you get immediate recognition in the form of replies (even if they disagree). Doing anything meaningful: A book, or even a magazine article (or a similar quality missive posted on the web), as always, takes a lot of work, including some work that isn't fun. Nearly every blogger will tell you that blogging is fun. There's probably a lesson there.