Tootin My Horn

Just for the record, two of my latest post were on otherwise obscure subjects -- just because I'm about sick to death of arguing about the primaries.

However, from the world of blind squirrels and all that, Keith Olbermann also covered the same stories tonight on Countdown, making this one the runner-up on Worst Persons, and this gem came in first on the Best Persons segment.

I should have much more traffic. Tell your friends just how fucking awesome this damn blog is, right now. Look up the number to that old college roommate and call.

Do it!

Call them up, everyone you know and tell them to make this blog their homepage and read this damn thing every day. Even when I haven't updated it, check out the archives. There's good shit here.

Heh, now if only the voodoo doctors would shrivel up and steal some neo-nazi's penis. Now that would automatically make this place the number one item on google for weeks.

Blogging Is Like A Drug

And Kevin needs some dough to get another fix -- so help a brother out.

And while you're at it, take his and Ara's advice and Go Read Dick Cavett in the Times. You'll be better for it.

There's A Word For That

Tremayne at Open Left describes the phenomenon where like minded folks tend to gravitate together, the "birds of a feather" syndrome, to explain why certain blogs whose community have gravitated towards one candidate or another -- and sound ridiculous to people not in their tribe.

I just wish the word didn't sound so dirty.

Beware: The Edwards Cultists Have A Home

Those wacky kids from the EENR at Daily Kos and some other progressive community blogs have made themselves a place to hang out and spread the gospel according to ... them.

Originally the Edwards Evening News Roundup, it has morphed into the Edwards Evolution, Next Revolution. {http://www.eenrblog.com} and finally got the hell off the Great Orange Satan.

Sign up today. You know how important those low user numbers can be.

(Please note that due to the fact that the word "blog"" appears in their url, both China and the United States Air Force will block all access to this site. The NSA? Not so much. They want it all.)

Link Luv

As promised, I made some additions to my blogroll to include all our friends at American Street.

In going through the process, I realized that many of the important blogs I read every damn day were not on the list, so I updated the blogroll with these very important sites:

Balloon Juice
Bruce McF's Midnight Oil
Cogitamus
Emptywheel at Firedoglake
Greenwald at Salon
Just Foreign Policy
Krugman
Left Coaster
Mahablog
Majikthise
Orcinus
Sadly No!
Talk Left

Skippy, you've been there from the start.

Your Blog Soon To Get More Readers

For those who see a rise in their hit-counter as a measure of their virility, this news should get you sweaty all under:

The federal government should be able to read all communications on the Internet, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell said during a New Yorker interview.

Lawrence Wright, who interviewed McConnell for a piece in this week's issue, said that McConnell has developed a cyber security policy that would include such a provision, but President George W. Bush has not announced it yet.

Anyone concerned with basic privacy, like their email, purchasing records, banking practices, or search queries, might have a different take than the average flattered blogger typing into the ether, hoping for a comment or two that confirms they aren't just writing to themselves.

Actually, I'm kinda miffed to think that some disgruntled nerd at Homeland Security surfing for chuckles hasn't already been reading my stuff. Hi Charlie! How's the old lady?

(h/t DU)

Get Off My Lawn!

Facing sobriety and yet another mid-life crisis, a blustering wingnut blogger threatens his unruly commenters with the online equivalent of a grumpy old man in his robe and boxers yelling at the neighbor's kids, wondering what happened to his newspaper.

Another Convert from the Dark Side

No, not another reformed Republican, a new Macophile!

Avedon's Sideshow: Indespensible

Saturday: 1 US Soldier, 58 Iraqis Killed; 35 Iraqis Wounded

What Digby is to long form analysis (read: Righteous Rants), Avedon Carol mixes the links we like with the insight we need.

Maybe it's the perspective from blogging across the pond, maybe it's the continued quest for the perfect bra.

Whatever it is (besides the fact that she occasionally tips her hat my way), Avedon is the BOMB. She's not number two after Digby in my heart. She's first in her own category, all her own.

I think it's a spin off the old Limbaugh saw where he tells his Ditto-heads what the news is, to think about it. Avedon tells me what to read, and why it matters. Digby tells me why I should be pissed off about it.

It occurs that I may sound sexist or worse, patronizing because I've singled out two female bloggers as my fav's. It also occurs that they were, by far, my "Go To" bloggers -- every day -- for over a year before I had a clue they weren't dudes. Truth is, it never occured.

(And yes, I thought Avedon was just being a male chauvinist pig for the Bra Of The Week thing in a cheap effort to attract viewers. I viewed, but never questioned for the longest time -- didn't think to click on the thing for the longest time.)

[And just as an aside -- do we have to give Skippy credit every damn time we write "Blogtopia?" Just wondering. I'm also wondering if Avedon will ever model any of those fantastic bras.]

Don't Miss Out

Hey Kids. Now you can get updates to all the Dispassionately Liberal goodness sent directly to your email inbox.

Don't miss another episode!

Click Here for Email updates, or look for the link on the right sidebar.

Subscribe via Email

OR

Subscribe in a reader

Meta For Feed Reading

I've changed my default feed to Feedburner. If you access me via an aggregator, update your feed subscription accordingly:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/NLMK

You now have the option of subscribing via email at the link to the right.

End Of Post

Breaking!! Goat Blowing Not Denied By Kaus

Unnamed internet sources have suggested that a trail of chewed soda cans and Cheeto crumbs leading to his apartment confirm the anonymous rumor that Kaus Blows Goats.

Micky Kaus has yet to answer these charges. The original source of this scathing indictment could not be located, but may be hiding out at PETA headquaters.

Suspected of somehow being involved in the case, Duncan Black, Olliver Willis, Melissa McEwan and Matt Yglesias could not be reached for comment, because I was just too busy listening to Rush Limbaugh while painting fungicide on my toes to call them for a response.

Balance

If ever there was an example of how nearly impossible it is to be some kind of moderate centrist in the current political climate, read how Joe Gandelman struggled, wrote and rewrote his take on the lynch mob mentality Wingnuttystan exhibited when they went after 12 year old Graeme Frost.

Maybe it's just easier to take sides in the digital divide. Maybe I should admire Joe for taking such pains to be fair. I don't. The fact that it was so difficult for him to present the situation objectively tells us something, that such moderation is an artifice. The terms fair and balanced in our political discourse lost their meaning years ago.

Go with your heart Joe, write what you feel, not what you think fits within some contrived standard of mediocrity that sets you above the fray. If your quest for the elusive middle ground in all things is really some kind of audition for the opinion pages of beltway elite who pride themselves on Broderite "balance" above all, I fear you will lose your soul in the journey. It's clear you can tell when behavior is flat-out wrong, you instinctively feel it, write it, and cross it out upon reflection of what people might think of your quixotic endeavor.

Sometimes you can tell at a glance when one side is just plain wrong, goes too far. The Frost case was an easy one. What good is that reputation for objectivity if you don't use it to condemn egregiousness when that is clearly what is called for. If you don't use it, if you don't occasionally employ that "more reasonable than thou" reputation to clearly call a long-handled, manual dirt removal device a spade, you will indeed lose that opportunity. No one will give a hoot about your opinion because you strive so very hard not to have one.

So instead of sharing with us the agonizing mental gymnastic you went through to arrive at the obvious conclusion that this episode where Malkin and her hoards went after a defenseless child for no good reason was beyond the pale, just come out and say it. Say it! Say they are bottom-feeding vermin and their behavior removes them from further serious discussions of policy or that infusion of a warped ideology that could lead them to believe they were within the realm of human decency has no place in this or any other country.

Don't beat around the bush, Joe. It'll feel great. You know what they are, predicted it, wrote it, and "cut it out." Learn from this Joe. Trust me, they are motivated by an evil you cannot comprehend.

Now, With Extra Liberalness

Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers of MyDD fame have started a new progressive blog called Open Left.

As the name implies, it's wide open folks. Get your user ID while they're still hot!

MarKOS Has Jumped The Shark

So much for in-depth analysis from the center of the progressive blogosphere. Frankly I'd expect better insight from Ann Coulter than this tripe. I think we should start up a donation page to buy MarKOS a clue.

'No freakin' Clue':

In some ways, I dig our field -- all our top-tier candidates can beat the best the other side throws at us. They are raising more money, getting more buzz, drawing bigger crowds, and are on the right side of most issues. Obama, Clinton, Edwards and Richardson have the possibility of being good presidents. And I'll have no problem getting behind any of them when the final results come in.

That's a reason why I have no urgency to pick a horse in this race. We'll be generally okay with any of these guys.

The first red flag simply has to be the complacency MarKOS displays in brushing aside the GOP machine when it come to what will happen a year and a half from now. (That's 3 Friedman Units for those of you keeping score.) You cannot misunderestimate the attraction of the "You're Fucking Kidding Me" candidate the Republicans will foist on this weary nation -- especially when you run a site dedicated to electing liberal Democrats to Washington DC.


But that's not enough for our KOSsack Field Marshall. He then goes on to list the low-points of each of our top tier presidential candidates, essentially saying that while he had no problem with any of them becoming the nominee, he's not especially thrilled with the choices he's been given.

• Clinton -- a bamboozler on the war, Bush-like in her stubbornness to recant her AUMF vote, and will hurt down-ticket races for reasons I can't figure out and MarKOS fails to even try to explain.
  
  
• Edwards -- OMG! MarKOS can't get past the F-ing haircut story. Yes, this is "serious" stuff folks. Don't brush it off because there's a sinister meaning there somewhere and it gives MarKOS an icky feeling, rising to the level of a "disaster." (Jeebus, MarKOS must have contemplated hari kari after the Dean Scream.)
  
  
• Obama -- Oh my, two years into his first-term, the junior Senator from Illinois hasn't figured out how to make the upper chamber of Congress dance to his bidding. Where Edwards was painted as "stupid" for a billing mix-up on his grooming expenses, Obama is cowardly for a voting record that's safe, not stupid.
  
  
• Richardson -- MarKOS didn't like Bill's appearance on Meet The Press, and informed us that you cannot be both a Red Socks fan and a Yankee fan. You're right MarKOS, That's the whole ball-game for the candidate whose experience alone would put him in the White House if the system were geared to promoting the most qualified person for the job, instead of the most popular. YEEHAARRRRRGGGGG!!!!

*Note to future historians.

• Hillary Clinton did not start the war in Iraq, no democrat did.
  
  
• Howard Dean did not lose the nomination because he screamed after the votes were counted in Iowa. He lost because the vote count showed he came in third to Kerry and Edwards, respectively, despite the prognostication and best efforts of blogtopians like MarKOS. Likewise, Edwards will lose Iowa only if he runs a similarly amateurish ground campaign there (he's not). After winning Iowa, Edwards can go to the next contests perceived as a winner -- not a loon, unless he shaves himself bald.
  
  
• Barack Obama ain't stupid, and MarKOS is far too young to remember what real democratic leaders sounded like. Jack Kennedy didn't win the hearts and minds of a generation by transforming the Senate. No sooner did Bobby Kennedy take the New York Senate seat now occupied by Hillary Clinton, there was a buzz about him running for president. But he didn't even enter the '68 contest until after the New Hampshire primary. Bobby did not win the California primary on the eve of his assassination because of his voting record in the Senate, but because he was a champion of civil rights, the working poor, and because he had that same intangible quality Obama taps into that makes him inspirational and immensely popular.
  
  
• Bill Richardson ain't stupid either, and would make MarKOS look like the pimply-face neophyte he is if they ever sat down together before a camera crew. Another thing to note about Richardson is that unlike the would-be kingmaker of blogtopia, Bill doesn't believe his own press clippings and has a much more grounded sense of who he is and the limits of his influence.
  

MarKOS caused a shit-storm with his vapid analysis, and maybe that was his intent. MarKOS ain't stupid either. He stirred the pot with this and brought out every partisan to do battle in the comments and diaries. Maybe this was intended to get all of the rancor out of our system so we can unite after the dust settles.

Or not. After all, the Daily KOS is as much an entertainment -- and a source of income for MarKOS based mainly on the unpaid writings of others, with all the bells and buzzers you can only get there. And that is the attraction of D-KOS. MarKOS make it so slick as to be irresistible, an interface to die for and a diverse community that puts recognized scholars and famous politicians on the same field as average folks with enough time to play at blogging instead of Nintendo.

Maybe MarKOS is just a bit too impressed with his own self-importance, and not sophisticated enough to do the heavy lifting necessary to pick a horse and ride it. It's easy to pick apart a pundit or politician, instead of trying to lead on issues yourself. Some would call keeping your options open at this point the safe bet, as long as you aren't supposed to be a "leader."

And that's probably what irks me the most. Obama is criticized for failing to lead, when MarKOS can incite thousands to a cause with a stroke of a key. Hillary can't catch a break despite being everything MarKOS is not, an accomplished and respected leader of a real political organization, not a virtual one. Richardson is dis'd on style points alone instead of getting even an acknowledgment of his diverse qualifications and record as a true problem-solver, when MarKOS (as far as I know) never even attended a school board meeting let alone wrangled with the problems associated with a real job as an elected official.

And what can I say about MarKOS's take on John Edwards. Really dude? The Haircut? That's all you got? How 'bout along with that clue we're buying for the King of the Great Orange Blog, we throw in a subscription to GQ. That kid could benefit from some proper grooming himself if he ever wants to do something besides sitting in front of a computer screen in his underwear eating cheetos.

It's Called Laying Low

Every once in a while you just need to refresh the mental batteries. It's good for the soul and brings fresh perspective.

I highly recommend it. Even if you only go as far as your backyard, take that vacation, that mental break.

Whether you do some traveling only to discover you've probably missed your chance to change future history for the better by throwing some evil Machiavellian out an open hatchway at 10,000 feet, or you come to the realization that some things do indeed change, profoundly so, but usually it's a change for the worst.

So if you missed me, that's more than gratifying. If you didn't even notice I've been rather quiet lately, you're not the only one.

I now return you to your original blogging experience.

Adam's Back

Adam is back to blogging, and blogtopia is all that much better for this kind of insight you'll find at his new blog, Mighty Forces:

If Michael Moore made a movie about how puppies are cute, the right wing crapweasels would tie themselves in knots finding new ways to hate those ugly goddamned puppies.

Speaking of MM, the irrationally obsessive Michael Moore despiser, Dean Esmay, is a proudly self-proclaimed Neo-Con. *Hey Dean, glad you finally admitted you have a problem. Admission is the first step in recovery. Now if you could only put the bottle down...

So you know, Adam and I share the distinction of being in the same club as every other liberal who had the temerity to comment on Dean's blog, and were of course banned from that bastion of self-deluded hatemongers and extremists swimming in their cest-pool of an echo chamber.

But we're not bitter.

Blogging Locally

Somehow, it just seems so much more, um ... natural(?) to talk to everyone while sitting here in the comfort of my bathrobe. But yesterday Lisa Renee made me put on a suit and tie and dragged me to a campaign workshop hosted by the Lucas County Young Democrats to present at a panel discussion on emerging technologies.

Lisa Renee, of Glass City Jungle and Liberal Common Sense, had done a few of these things before, talking about how candidates could use blogs, different kinds of bloggers and promoted the free aspects of the medium. John Spalding of Make a Difference was also on the panel and gave a very professional presentation on a new project of his, a steaming TV station, and talked about the cutting edge of technological developments in the Intertoobz.

I totally winged it. But I'm told I didn't make a complete fool of myself talking about using the medium to present your views and persuade people through discussions, influencing lurkers, and exploiting the fundraising and recruitment possibilities blogs can provide for zero cost (except time).

Anyway, I think that's what I talked about. Things get blurry when I have to wear real clothes.

It's one thing to relax when you do public speaking by imagining the audience in their underwear. Right now, the thought of giving a speech in MY underwear is decidedly disturbing.

::shudder::

Next time, I think I'll leave the tie at home and actually jot down some notes and prepare something in advance.

I did learn something there. There's a tremendous need to educate the uninitiated candidate about what possibilities exist in cyberspace, and how easy it is to create and maintain an effective web presence for their campaign through blogs.

I sat through about an hour and a half of a presentation on fundraising and voter outreach, and the only thing they discussed that is remotely related to what we do in Blogtopia was sending e-mails out to prospective donors -- and that was at the bottom of the list.

When I see the volume of cash donated to political campaigns on the web, and nobody even mentions the idea of including a simple fundraising badge on a local candidate's web page, I realize there's still a huge vacuum and plenty of room for the Toobz to grow into the town square.

Bringing in money gets any politician's attention. But the real power of blogs is publishing and shaping the message. More, much more could be done at a local level. The gap between how the national candidates exploit their web presence and what the candidates are doing at the local level, many of whom don't even have a web page, is astromomical.

I'm probably spoiled. When I do a post about John Edwards, I can go to his web page and not simply find a bullet-point list of his positions on the issues, but links to press releases, full articles from the media on everything he's done or doing, text of speeches and fully downloadable white papers detailing his plans for America's future -- plus one of the most sophisticated interactive blogs out there.

I don't expect everyone running for city council to have something nearly as elaborate, but geez, at least get a blog!

Thanks Lisa, for getting me involved.

My neglected tie collection thanks you too.

(Also I'd like to thank fellow Edwards supporter Ben, and Brian for putting it all together -- and a special shout out to City Council Candidate Karen Shanahan, who "gets" it.)