When left leaning blog Huffington Post, and others, published a nasty rumor about Sarah Palin just after the announcement that she would be McCain's running mate many of us figured the story was a plant intended to discredit a large part of the knee-jerk reactionary internet blogs. In my mind the rumor was intended to spark a firestorm of blog controversy that would drag many mainstream democrat spokes people into the fray and thereby lower the debate into a dark place and the eyes of constituents. As it turns out the rumor may have been a clever slight of hand maneuver to minimize news that Palin's eldest daughter was pregnant. Regardless the stunt indicated a serious weakness with Internet blogs in regard to fact checking and may have sparked a more devious strategy, which several high profile sites fell for.

Wednesday several sites and mainstream media informed the world that Governor Palin's personal email account had been hacked. The perpetrators were able to make off with sent and received emails as well as address book entries which seemed to indicate that Palin was using the account for more than personal business. To the shock of many Huffington Post and others published detailed screen shots containing email contents and personal information about Palin's family. In doing so these sites may have broken the law, and if prosecuted could face serious repercussions.

However, legal implication aside it's clear that quasi-news sites such as Huffington Post, Americablog, Gawker have clearly taken the bait and are on course to completely discredit themselves and possibly every other political blog on the planet. While the tone and affiliation of these sites is clear the motive and reason is obscure. Are they trying to enact some sort of political change by fostering discontent or are they disingenuous enough to simply try to drive site traffic through controversy? Regardless the site publishers demonstrate a remarkable lack of ethics especially in regard to personal information and they may have taken the risk for naught. Even if this hack wasn't intentional it's unclear if there is anything damning that was garnered from the account. In the end this story may fizzle and fail to accomplish anything, except to draw more scrutiny on news blogs.

For the last several days we've experienced a gas shortage in Charlotte. Whether or not it's due to hurricane Ike or just mindless speculation is up to you. The way I see it the sooner the Colonial pipeline comes back online the better. Sunday I read that there was little damage and the company expected to have it back on line soon. Most of the refineries in Texas escaped damage also so they could be back within 1-2 weeks.

In the mean time gas will start to trickle back into the area and fuel prices will likely resume their decline shortly after. Seasonal demand is drying up, global demand is waning and we could be in for something more serious than $4 a gallon gasoline if the Lehman Brothers collapse is any indication. Guess it's no wonder my buddy over at the bankruptcy filing house is swamped and can't make it to Petit Le Mans this year. Damn you arrogant mortgage lending bastards!

It's been a long week writing code, writing design documents and generally trying to keep up with life. We had a nice rain this week so I'm looking forward to cutting my now green lawn and picking a few more fresh vegetables from the garden. I've also resolved to finally upload the pirate weekend pictures to flickr, which I haven't done yet.

Speaking of pirate weekends it's hard to believe that it's nearly Labor Day and time, again, to head to the beach for fun, sun and crab fishing. After my last trip I think I've hit onto something with the raunchy bait and fully expect to freeze even more crab Sunday night. If my luck holds out the Captain may even be in town for a little sailing action.