I am not one of the anti-linking people, although it sure may serve as a convenient "argument" to you here. The issue in question is you don't seem to be conce

I am not one of the anti-linking people, although it sure may serve as a convenient "argument" to you here. The issue in question is you don't seem to be concerned with the media as a 4th branch of the government, you don't see the independent press as crucial component of our political system. I'm quite active politically, and what I have learned is that we, as citizens, have the only tool at our disposal which we can use to fight back against corrupt politicians and various interest groups: i.e. call for a massive media attention. At first glance, Internet should help here big time, right? Well, wrong: Independent web campaigns just don't work: it takes a lot of time and momentum to become visible, often you need the public to intervene ASAP: sometimes it's about saving city parks, sometimes its about public outrage against converting a public interstate highway (paid for with taxpayers dollars) into a toll road controlled by an out-of-state company, sometimes its about ah fuck it, HN is clearly the wrong venue for this. Entrepreneurial programmers simply seek "data" they can crawl and re-post with their own ads, who gives a flying fuck about 4th branches and all that boring offline stuff, right?