"These are the sort of wackos who gun down their fellow students at university."

Who are these wackos who might gun down their fellow students? Felons who have escaped from prison? Angry students who have been bullied within an inch of their life and are hell-bent on revenge? Terrorists who want to destroy all those who oppose them? No, they are .....bloggers, at least according to jealous journalist David Bullard at The Sunday Times who sees bloggers as such a threat that he wrote an entire column devoted to his fascist views of what should constitute freedom of the press.

His take? Bloggers are nerds who can't succeed and are out for his job. Funny, then, how many bloggers are high level professionals who often have much more expertise than journalists and much better and more lucrative jobs to boot. For example, the lawyers at Powerline, the Volokh Conspiracy, Talk Left and other blogs are hardly nerds with nothing to say who are pining away for a two bit journalist job. Bullard's biggest complaint about the blogosphere is that (gasp!) there are no rules! People might say anything, even something racist for which Bullard points out that they should spend time in prison--if only someone could catch these horrible anonymous bloggers. In his fascist world, all speech should go through some sort of censorship process where editors and publishers can determine what is appropriate speech for everyone's ears. It's no wonder so many bloggers remain annonymous, with fascists like Bullard out there who believe that they should be sent to prison for what they say--why come forward?

At the end of his diatribe, he suggests that print journalists call out "offensive" annonymous bloggers to "name and shame" them as well as publish their physical addresses. I would like to see him try, I can only imagine the backlash of the blogosphere to this little stunt. My guess is that Bullard is actually afraid at heart that his work will soon become obsolete because some little "nerd with nothing to say" will bypass him while happily playing air guitar to thousands of admirers.