Pat the Dog has thoughtfully responded to my post the other day about my concerns about anonymity on the Internet.

I tried to post a comment there, but it sadly seems to have disappeared into the ether.

The University of Arizona climate team's monthly Southwest Climate outlook went up yesterday. Things are pretty bad in Arizona.

We're doing OK.

Significantly, reservoirs levels in New Mexico are looking a lot better than they have in a while. But Elephant Butte still looks low.

I don't know who Pat the Dog is. And therein lies a problem.

Back in the day, at the heart of Los Alamos National Laboratory's shutdown troubles, a guy named Doug Roberts, a computer scienctist at Los Alamos, started a frank and deeply useful blog that became a central gathering place for discussions of the lab's troubles. Among labbies and people like us who follow the lab, it was known simply as "the blog." LANL the Real Story was useful for a lot of reasons. But much of its strength derived from the fact that Roberts signed his name. In the Internet world, signing one's name has value. It creates accountability, makes one more conscious of one's words.

Anonymity in the Internet world, on the other hand, creates what psychologists have dubbed "online disinhibition effect ". The disinhibition - the willingness to say things on line that you would never say to someone's face - exists in Internet communications where one signs one's name. But it is far more likely to show up behind the cloak of anonymity. Anonymity allows one to be vile and stupid with no need to be held accountable later for what one says.

You could see this in Roberts' blog. He was civil, thoughtful, hard-hitting at times, but consistently decent. There was a core of contributors who signed their names. They were great. Anonymous posters in the comments on his blog could be uncivil, vile, and often useless. I used to read Roberts' posts, but I largely skipped the comment threads. 

There's a new blog on the scene, focused on the recent Bechtel takeover of Los Alamos management - LANL the Corporate Story. In contrast to Roberts' openness, the new blog is run by "Pat the Dog." Pat, apparently a current lab employee, no doubt has good reasons for withholding his or her identity. But Pat's anonymity has led to rather a surfeit of disinhibition.

A recent cheap shot at the Los Alamos Monitor is a great example. If I knew who Pat the Dog was, I'd be able to have a thoughtful conversation with him or her about the underlying issue of media standards of information gathering and reporting versus blog standards, and why his criticism of Monitor reporter Roger Snodgrass is poorly informed. If Pat had to sign his or her name, he or she might be more circumspect about trashing the integrity and ethics of the Monitor reporter with so little evidence to back up the charge.

There's been some great stuff on the new blog, especially the post last week by John Pedicini, the nuclear weapons designer working on the new Reliable Replacement Warhead. It's worth noting that Pedicini signed his name and stood behind his words. (And John, if you're reading, be sure to invite me to your going away party! ).

But mostly, the new blog has just devolved into a bunch of anonymous complaining and whining . Too bad.

The Congressional Research Service has a team of analysts that produce incredibly useful analysis of policy options before Congress on a huge range of issues. It's like good journalism on steroids - lengthy, detailed, even-handed reports that are used by members of Congress to inform their decision-making. You, as taxpayers, are paying for their work. But you're not allowed to see it directly. The reports are not routinely published.

The result is a sort of sub-rosa world in which CRS reports are circulated among those in the know - journalists, people with Congressional staff connections. But also, apparently, people with money to pay for access, according to Steve Aftergood , an open government activist who has been railing about this issue for years:

Though the general public is not permitted access to the congressional database of CRS reports online, these same reports can be purchased from a private vendor for about $4000 per year, the Washington Post noted yesterday.

"How I get them is my trade secret . . . but I get them all," said Walt Seager, who digs up the reports for Gallery Watch, a legislative tracking service.

See "Information, Please" by Elizabeth Williamson, Washington Post, February 19.

In fact, however, Gallery Watch only gets those reports that are for common use by all Congressional offices. It does not provide the significant fraction of reports that are performed for the use of an individual Member. For the same reason, the claim by Gallery Watch that its reports provide some kind of advance insight into the Congressional agenda is exaggerated. Most of the reports it offers are updates of existing publications, along with others that are mostly undertaken at the initiative of CRS itself, not Members of Congress.

What is true is that current congressional policy on CRS reports promotes a kind of checkbook democracy, in which corporations, other large institutions and wealthy individuals have exclusive or preferred access to CRS products, while the general public is left to fend for itself.