I’ve been talking with some friends and fellow bloggers about how we can help educate the public about the issues surrounding Social Security. What’s needed is boiling down the issues into simple talking points that can be understood by busy people who have been hearing for years that Social Security is going bust. In fact, one 1995 poll showed that the younger generation are more likely to believe in UFOs than that Social Security will be there for them when they retire. It will take simple, and compelling stories (built on a foundation of truth) that can be made into effective presentations, oped pieces and ads. Here is an approach I’ve been thinking about: Explain the dates.

One reason that the Social Security issue is so confusing for people has been the decades long sales job that has been run by those who really don�€™t like government being in the business of providing benefits to individuals. They say they believe that individuals are corrupted by Social Security (it�€™s socialism, you know).

When FDR first put the program in place, there were tremendous battles opposing it from the conservative forces. And as we all know now, when George W. Bush ran for elected office in 1978, he was already campaigning on privatizing Social Security.

When Ronald Reagan came into office there was recognition that the program was unsustainable as it was then configured (back then, a pay-as-you-go system where one generation covered the bill for the previous generation) because the baby boomer generation was so much larger in comparison to the next generations.

In 1983, the Greenspan commission was convened to come up with a solution to the problem and they recommended increasing the payroll contributions by a small amount for a number of years so that in essence the baby boomers would be pre-funding their retirement by building up Social Security reserves that could be drawn on when they themselves retired. These excess payroll taxes have been used to buy US treasuries. The treasury notes that have been purchased plus the interest on the notes are what is known as the Social Security trust fund.

Today, when people talk about fixing the Social Security problem they are talking about two different problems with two different dates. When you talk to your friends and family about what is proposed, you should be careful to clarify what is signified by these dates and what the politicians are saying when they talk about the crisis in Social Security.

Read the rest of this entry »

Blogblocks & Blogospheric Solidarity

I have written about Blogblocks before. They are the blog equivalent to television advertising roadblocks…where the same ad will be playing on many channels concurrently. On TV, the roadblock usually involved an as-yet-banned product from your neighborhood pharmaceutical giant. It is often a product that will trick your body into thinking it is still alive, or hear songs from the ’60s playing in your head, not unlike that other purple pill. In the blogosphere, it could be something like photographs of America’s latest Hell, Iraq. You know, those juicy ones that no one wants you to see…

Now what if that were to happen? What if nearly every blog you lighted upon showed the reality of Iraq in stark closeup? Hell, you get to see trucks driving around with fetuses filling your visual field. Why not mutilated innocents Iraqis? No offense, but Jesus would probably hesitate before signing off on such missions. Some missionaries we’ve become!

I think it would be pretty hard for the so-called “mainstream media” or “MSM” to ignore even the phenomenon of such astonishing saturation alone, not to mention the content. But even if they didn’t, it would be pretty hard to avoid seeing it eventually. One could be a veritable Goddard with Time.

Such tools will surely come to pass, and one would hope that, even though it is a soft tool, it would not be weilded lightly, unless that be the corrective medicine needed.

Groupblog Synergy

The Editor & Publisher has a column today by Greg Mitchell which he frames thusly:

Inside The ‘Gannon’ Case: How Blogs Broke It Wide Open
For the first time last month, I was able to follow a “blog probe” from the start, and it was amazing to see the resources and skills the larger sites can bring to bear on a single issue or controversy.

and later on he says:

This is when I really started following the pursuit. It was amazing to see how many participants, at how many sites, took part, and the skills at their command, mainly Web-based. The material the detectives at DailyKos and other blogs drew out of obscure or abandoned Web sites �€” and caches �€” regarding Talon, Gannon, and a dozen other threads was astounding, although I couldn’t quite tell if any of the searches and grabs required talents well beyond the reach of even the most advanced computer wonks.

The Detectives at Daily Kos… And this is just one blog, among many, even among many group blogs digging into the story, fleshing it out.
Now, what if everyone at one or two groups blogs dug in, shared, and presented their findings, so that one could not help but light upon some new piece of evidence or insight. A sort of intrablog blogblock. Groupblog Synergy.

As Bubba Chrishnamerdy says: “Think on these thangs.”

A N O N Y M O S E S

You’ve heard about the Gates, of course

the Gates, the urban fantasy, an invitation to the wild beauty of Central Park in the midst of the urban hustle and bustle of Manhattan

but, you know, it was also… Read the rest of this entry »

Quick, what do these movies have in common?

Mrs. Miniver, Gentleman’s Agreement, Rocky, Ordinary People, Dances with Wolves, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, Titanic, Gladiator.

Okay, try this next batch:

Leo McCarey, Robert Benton, Kevin Costner, Robert Zemeckis, Sam Mendes

You’ve probably figured it out, but let’s drive home the point. Again, look for the theme here:

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy,
Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, Kundun, Gangs of New York.

That first batch are Best Picture winners at the Oscars, the second are Best Director winners, and the final list are a selected filmography of Martin Scorsese, none of which won either prize. Marty is apparently a really lucky hack. Last night, everyone surrounding him won Oscars for Aviator, which is pretty much par for the course. Marty’s films often deliver the gold: 59 nominations over the course of a 30-year career. Apparently, though, that talent is just propping him up.

That was the message last night, when five of the film’s 11 nominations won the statue. For Marty, it was 0-5. Tale of the tape (sorry, I couldn’t resist)?

1980 Raging Bull. Winner: Robert Redford, Ordinary People
1988 The Last Temptation of Christ. Winner: Barry Levinson, Rain Man
1990 Goodfellas. Winner: Kevin Costner, Dances with Wolves
2002 Gangs of New York. Winner: Roman Polanski, The Pianist
Last Night Aviator. Winner: Clint, Million Dollar Baby

There’s a certain beauty to it all, though. Martin Scorsese is perhaps the greatest American director. Welles usually gets the nod, but this is based on his promise, not his resume. Arguments for Billy Wilder do not fall deafly onto my ears. But those for the Fords (John) and (Francis Coppolla) do. Jarmusch I’ll allow, but I don’t think anyone else will. In any case, no one will argue that Scorsese’s not in the discussion. So his exclusion from Hollywood’s “premiere” awards is a wonderful symbol. If the voters in that process are so dull-witted that they choose Kevin Costner over Martin Scorsese, I say great. If ever an Oscar hack argues for that title of “premiere,” we have only to point to Marty.

Last Friday a professor returned several issues of Foreign Affairs for reshelving. One of them caught my attention: the red headline blared Bush and the World, Take 2. I browsed through the table of contents, and it did not disappoint: not a single article about “the folks to the south of us.”

That sent me on to the other issues. One had a comment on the Venezuelan oil crisis and an article on the troubled countries of the “southern crescent”: Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. The other dealt mostly with Iraq and China.

I have grown resigned to American disinterest in their own backyard. There is a potential economic powerhouse in Latin America, and we are ceding it to the Chinese, who have invested over $900 million this year alone. Any halfwit can see that an economic alliance between the countries in the Americas could rival anything put together by the Asian cartels; instead, we spend billions of dollars trying to forestall Chinese economic hegemony in Asia. Doesn’t it make a pretty visual? Americans huffing and puffing over Chinese joint ventures with Singapore while ignoring the red flag flying over every major port from the Gulf of Mexico to Patagonia.

Malevolent indifference has been the official Washington position for as long as I can remember–and further back, if my reading serves me. The United States sees Latin America as either a colony to stripmine or as an infant to guide. If it took a long honest look it could find a viable partner for the next century. Yes, there are a great many problems in Latin America and I don’t mean to imply that it would be easy to manage them. But it would mean reassessing and if necessary dismantling failed policies such as the “war on drugs” (has anybody noticed any significant dropoff in the availability of cocaine in the US in the last thirty or so years?), and the reliance of American corporate farming on government subsidies.

Don’t hold your breath.

Me neither.

Of course I wouldn’t really want this man to read a file about my sex life either:

Unless he asked really nicely.

I’ve been ill for over a week now, so I’ve been too tired to be as upset about this story as I should be. But the second my voice comes back, and I stop coughing long enough to get a good expletive-laden tirade going, you better believe I’m going to be at an optimal level of red-hot enraged-ness. (Is enraged-ness a word? Probably not. But I’m too sick to care.) Until then, I’m counting on the rest of you to take up the charge.

Kansas AG seeks identities of abortion recipients

By RON SYLVESTER

Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.)

WICHITA, Kan. - Two medical clinics are asking the Kansas Supreme Court to intercede in a secret investigation by Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline involving medical records of females seeking late-term abortions.

Documents filed Tuesday by lawyers in Wichita and Topeka reveal details of a closed-door court battle raging since last fall between state powers and individuals’ right to privacy.

The action “arises out of a secret inquisition of nearly 90 women who obtained abortions at two Kansas clinics in 2003,” the legal brief claims.

A spokesman for Kline said the office had no immediate comment but expected to make a statement Thursday. Kline has little more than a week to file his response to the high court.

Two Wichita-area lawmakers say they want Kline to continue to seek the records, which might reveal sex crimes against children. A federal judge in Wichita has blocked Kline’s access to similar records in an unrelated lawsuit.

Until this week’s filing, the existence of Kline’s investigation has been under seal in Shawnee County District Court in Topeka, and hearings were closed to the public. Kansas law gives prosecutors the right to conduct secret inquisitions during a criminal investigation.

Because of the court-ordered seals, the two clinics are not identified in the Supreme Court brief.

Even the patients whose medical records are under subpoena have not been told the state’s top law enforcement officer is attempting to gain access to their files, the brief said.

Lawyers for the clinics say the effects of turning over private medical information could be chilling.

“The logical and natural progression of this action,” the brief said, “could well be a knock on the door of a woman who exercised her constitutional right to privacy by special agents of the attorney general who seek to inquire into her personal medical, sexual or legal history.”

Read the rest of this entry »

An extremely important article in today’s USA Today details the pshycological effects Bush’s war in Iraq is having on our returning military personnel. This passage, in particular, nearly brought me to tears.

Jesus Bocanegra was an Army infantry scout for units that pursued Saddam Hussein in his hometown of Tikrit. After he returned home to McAllen, Texas, it took him six months to find a job.

He was diagnosed with PTSD and is waiting for the VA to process his disability claim. He goes to the local Vet Center but is unable to relate to the Vietnam-era counselors.

“I had real bad flashbacks. I couldn’t control them,” Bocanegra, 23, says. “I saw the murder of children, women. It was just horrible for anyone to experience.”

Bocanegra recalls calling in Apache helicopter strikes on a house by the Tigris River where he had seen crates of enemy ammunition carried in. When the gunfire ended, there was silence.

But then children’s cries and screams drifted from the destroyed home, he says. “I didn’t know there were kids there,” he says. “Those screams are the most horrible thing you can hear.”

At home in the Rio Grande Valley, on the Mexico border, he says young people have no concept of what he’s experienced. His readjustment has been difficult: His friends threw a homecoming party for him, and he got arrested for drunken driving on the way home.

“The Army is the gateway to get away from poverty here,” Bocanegra says. “You go to the Army and expect to be better off, but the best job you can get (back home) is flipping burgers. … What am I supposed to do now? How are you going to live?”

It’s bad enough to have to deal with things like this wyhen you fought in a war that everyone agrees was necessary, and the vast majority of people supported. But, when the war seems like a pointless, hubristic, personal vendetta that had nothing to do with legitimate national security interests, it is different. Your pain is magnified.

Over 12,000 men and women have been treated for PTSD at Veterans hospitals in the past couple of years. The vast majority of them served in Iraq. But even those without diagnosed PTSD, still have to come to grips with what happened to them

Sean Huze, a Marine corporal awaiting discharge at Camp Lejeune, N.C., doesn’t have PTSD but says everyone who saw combat suffers from at least some combat stress. He says the unrelenting insurgent threat in Iraq gives no opportunity to relax, and combat numbs the senses and emotions.

“There is no ‘front,’ ” Huze says. “You go back to the rear, at the Army base in Mosul, and you go in to get your chow, and the chow hall blows up.”

Huze, 30, says the horror often isn’t felt until later. “I saw a dead child, probably 3 or 4 years old, lying on the road in Nasiriyah,” he says. “It moved me less than if I saw a dead dog at the time. I didn’t care. Then you come back, if you are fortunate enough, and hold your own child, and you think of the dead child you didn’t care about. … You think about how little you cared at the time, and that hurts. .”

Smells bring back the horror. “A barbecue pit �€” throw a steak on the grill, and it smells a lot like searing flesh,” he says. “You go to get your car worked on, and if anyone is welding, the smell of the burning metal is no different than burning caused by rounds fired at it. It takes you back there instantly.”

The significance of this story being in USA Today cannot be overstated. It is the nation’s most widely read newspaper, and if something appears in its pages, you can bet that the story is being talked about around the water cooler, or among US citizens who otherwise never read the New York Times, or the Washington Post.

Did you read Richard Stevenson’s NYT front page rock’em sock’em recount of the Passion of the BushCo?    It’s a perfect example of how the corporate press is framing the Social Security fight. If you missed it, here’s a reasonable facsimile for you - with actual excerpts from the article to keep me honest. See if you recognize the narrative amid the snark:

Read the rest of this entry »

Get ready for some pretty strong milquetoast from Robert Reich in today’s New York Times.

But isn’t Wal-Mart really being punished for our sins? After all, it’s not as if Wal-Mart’s founder, Sam Walton, and his successors created the world’s largest retailer by putting a gun to our heads and forcing us to shop there. . . .

The fact is, today’s economy offers us a Faustian bargain: it can give consumers deals largely because it hammers workers and communities.

We can blame big corporations, but we’re mostly making this bargain with ourselves. . . .

But you and I aren’t just consumers. We’re also workers and citizens. How do we strike the right balance?

Reich has long been the darling of new middle class liberals, the kind that populate much of the “left” blogosphere. He’s steeped in foundational liberal mantras about consumer sovereignty and free trade while enough of a social democrat to want more state power over economic actors and a more robust social welfare regime. Reich’s solution to the problem of Wal-Mart?

A requirement that companies with more than 50 employees offer their workers affordable health insurance . . . an increase in the minimum wage . . . a change in labor laws making it easier for employees to organize and negotiate better terms . . . I wouldn’t go so far as to re-regulate the airline industry or hobble free trade with China and India - that would cost me as a consumer far too much - but I’d like the government to offer wage insurance to ease the pain of sudden losses of pay. And I’d support labor standards that make trade agreements a bit more fair.

Well, “slight” price increases are OK, making things more “affordable” and union organizing “easier” is good, “ease the pain” of off-shored workers and make trade agreements “a bit more fair” are to be our clarion calls.

Sounds like warmed over Clintonism. In such a headline op-ed, this is mighty weak tea. Consider in particular Reich’s measured tone and milquetoast ambition here in comparison to the fire and brimstone he calls down when the subject is gay marriage or abortion rights. Abortion on demand is sacrosanct and gay marriage is now the sine qua non of the Democratic Party, but to “hobble free trade with China and India - that would cost me as a consumer far too much”.

I suspect the Dems running for Congress in 2006 won’t be massing under Reich’s milquetoast banner.

Somebody I never heard of before died. And I’m upset I never knew about him before, because he sounds like my type of geek:

Raskin believed a computer should be as easy to use as any other household appliance, like a toaster or a washing machine.

“Have you ever noticed there are no Maytag users groups?'’ he once asked a Mercury News reporter. “That’s because you just put the clothes in, push the button and they get clean.'’

Raskin was also an accomplished musician and artist. His artwork was once displayed at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and he conducted the San Francisco Chamber Opera Society. He also was a model airplane designer, an archer and an occasional racecar driver.

In 2000, he wrote “The Humane Interface'’ and founded the Raskin Center for Humane Interfaces. At the time of his death, he was working on computer program called Archy, which incorporated his research into consumers’ demand for easier-to-use and faster interfaces in computers and smaller personal technology products.

High on his list of features: A product that could save your information even if the computer crashes or you make a mistake.

“He has been preaching to the world that your computer should never lose your work,'’ said Dave Burstein, who is making a documentary on Raskin’s life.

Of course, the older I get, the more I realize that pragmatism, art, genius, all of it falls to third place against the person who can sell.

I never knew Jef Raskin, but he truly was a visionary. And the world needs more of them.

Update: Well, I was doing pretty good overall and nailed all the major categories…. till the final two. And I’m delighted to be wrong on director. Apparently, Martin Scorsese is destined to be the Cary Grant of directing; one of the greatest ever, who may only get a lifetime achievement award to show for it.

Of course, that’s more than most of us will ever get for lifetime achievements, even truly heroic and inspiring people we have all had the privilege of knowing… or being.

Here’s who’ll win tonight, in some of the Academy Award categories:

Best Director
Who I’d pick: The long overdue Martin Scorsese
The winner will be: Scorsese
Notes: Nobody else has a chance except Eastwood. And while Eastwood did a slightly better job by my standards, this will be Scorsese’s first Lifetime Achievement Award.

Best Picture
Who I’d pick: Million Dollar Baby or Sideways, two great pictures for any year
The winner will be: Million Dollar Baby, but The Aviator could easily pull it off.
Notes: Comedy always loses on Oscars Night and the Academy should get its head out of its ass and create a Best Comedy series of categories to rectify this error. Comedy is a major form of movie entertainment and the Drama crowd needs to shed its bias, as much comic genius goes unrewarded through the years as a result. Sideways may have been the best film this year but it’s a longshot because of…. stupid Academy tricks.

Visual Effects
Who I’d pick: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
The winner will be: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Notes: Hard to even see a longshot here.

Make-Up
Who I’d pick: The Passion of the Christ
The winner will be: The Passion of the Christ
Notes: An acknowledgement of The Passion is probably necessary and this may be all there is.

Costume Design
Who I’d pick: The Aviator
The winner will be: The Aviator
Notes: Hollywood likes how Hollywood looked during the Great War and besides, The Aviator has to win the most prizes. Though Finding Neverland is the dark horse possibility.

Art Direction
Ditto. The Aviator

Original Song
Who I’d pick: Accidentally In Love (Shrek/Counting Crowes)
The winner will be: Accidentally In Love (Shrek/Counting Crowes)
Notes: anything’s possible; it was a weak year. ‘Believe’ from Polar Express is the only other contender, I suspect.

Original score
Who I’d pick: My stereo.
The winner will be: probably Finding Neverland.
Notes: One of only two possible bones they can offer Neverland this year.

Film Editing
Who I’d pick: The Aviator
The winner will be: The Aviator
Notes: see ‘Costume Design’

Cinematography
Who I’d pick: The Aviator
The winner will be: The Aviator
Notes: I think this one was earned, but Finding Neverland could be a longshot. If The Passion of the Christ takes it, Hollywood’s selling out.

Original Screenplay
Who I’d pick: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
The winner will be: Nobody, because they botched the balloting. Was Diebold involved?

Adapted Screenplay
Who I’d pick: Sideways, easy.
The winner will be: who knows? But if they don’t throw a bone to Sideways, their bias is worse than I thought.
Notes:

Animated Feature
Who I’d pick: The Incredibles
The winner will be: The Incredibles
Notes: I wish there was competition here.

Best Supporting Actress
Who I’d pick: Virginia Madsen
The winner will be: Cate Blanchett or Madsen.
Notes: The toughest choice in the big awards this year, with Blanchett, Madsen and Natalie Portman capable of winning this one.

Best Supporting Actor
Who I’d pick: Morgan Freeman
The winner will be: Morgan Freeman.
Notes: Clive Owen (Closer) is a longshot but could pull the upset. Alan Alda has a shot as well, especially if The Aviator proves more popular than it seems at this point.

Best Actor
Who I’d pick: Leonardo DiCaprio. This time I think he’s arrived as an actor.
The winner will be: Jamie Foxx, though Leonardo would not be a huge upset.
Notes: Clint Eastwood’s the longshot, but he’s very well-liked.

Best Actress
Who I’d pick: Okay, I’m biased because I love Annette Bening
The winner will be: Too close to call. I think it’ll be Hillary Swank, but my honey Annette could pull it out.
Notes: Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake) out-acted the other two, but is a longshot against two popular women. If Annette gets aced out, I’m rooting for Imelda.

Documentary, Foreign Film, Shorts, etc: Beats me. In fact, all my assessments came solely be seeing trailers and reading reviews, then gauging where Hollywood’s head is at. Educated guesswork, based on mob psychology. Let’s see how close I get.

Bye-Bye, Housing Boom

By Michael Kinsley
Sunday, February 27, 2005; Page B07

Like a roller coaster, a financial bubble has a moment of eerie stillness at the top. Buyers have adjusted, sellers haven’t. So sales dry up. When the New York Times spins a surplus of unsold houses as a sign that “the ongoing problem of a lack of houses for sale” has been solved, it means that you had better not count on the Times to tell you when it’s time to bail.

Let’s step back a moment. All the housing in the United States is worth about $14 trillion. If the value of existing housing (not counting new construction) goes up 7 percent this year, which is the recent national average, homeowners will seem to be about a trillion dollars richer. But will the nation be a trillion dollars richer? No. These are the same houses, in the same place. That trillion dollars comes partly from non-homeowners, who must pay more to buy in. And it is partly illusory. If many current homeowners tried to cash in, the drop in prices would quickly wipe out that trillion.

When the price of something goes up, two things happen: the economy starts to produce more of it, and existing units are worth more. For most of what we buy, the first effect overwhelms the second and constrains it. A rise in the price of a can of tuna fish does not produce many self-satisfied anecdotes from people who have a third of their net worth in Chicken of the Sea. But real estate is different, mainly because it requires land. As the cliché goes, they’re not making any more of it.

Perusing the real estate ads like pornography and imagining what our houses are worth is the great American pastime. But a real estate crash, if it came, would have some advantages. The 19th-century American Henry George explained how rising real estate values harm the economy by operating as a tax on both labor and capital. Money for labor makes people work harder. Money for capital makes people save more. Both make the country richer. Money for land just makes the owner richer. There are all sorts of complications and qualifications, but the basic point is a good one.

People do foolish things under the impression that they are getting richer because their houses are worth more. They save less, they spend more. Egged on by television commercials, they “consolidate their debts” (i.e., buy a new boat) with a second mortgage. And who really gains from soaring house prices? First-time buyers don’t. Nor does anyone who plans ever to trade up. The only beneficiaries are those who are selling their last house, after a lifetime of appreciation. The bigger the house, the bigger the windfall. This is yet another thank-you from America to the so-called Greatest Generation. I’m not sure it’s necessary.

And I’m not sure it will continue. I’m pretty sure it won’t. So I’m going to sell my house before it’s too late. Right?

Are you kidding?

Actually, this is something to think about and think hard. Here’s the issue, because this will have system-wide effects on the economy if the housing bubble has burst in a majority of US urban areas (I’m not seeing it here, the appraisal I just got on my 900 s.f. condo is embarrassing.)

Over-valued real estate has fueled consumer spending for the last couple of years: people have cashed out the value of their appreciation to buy things, and it has been consumer spending which has been propping up an economy that isn’t really all that hot. If housing values begin to come back down to where they ought to be, there are going to be a lot of people paying overvalued mortgages and their credit back-up pretty well shot. They won’t be able to sell their property for the amount it is mortgaged for. The credit bubble comes to a screeching halt and consumber spending plummets. Wage growth has been little better than flat for the last four years (except for the wealthiest, but methinks they don’t read sites like this) so all that spending has to be coming out of credit.

The US is more in debt than it has ever been and if real estate declines, most property owners are already too far in hock to bail themselves out. Watch bankruptcies rise (just as Bushco is working to make personal bankruptcy more difficult) and property values fall. It will take the rest of the economy with it.

What should you do? Begin aggressively paying off your consumer debt and begin saving. I’d stay out of equity markets, they are likely to be unstable while the economy processes this next shock. If you have equity exposure, move it to bonds. If you have an ARM, ditch it as fast as you can. Once interest rates begin to rise (Alan Greenspan be damned, they will to service our foreign debt) I don’t really see a natural cap. You youngsters won’t remember the days of double digit mortgage rates. I do.) The likelihood of a period of extreme economic unpleasantness I’d put at about 50-50. I’m not a gambler but nobody should like those odds. Protect yourself and tell the rest of your families how to do likewise.

One of these things is not like the other. Boys and Girls, can you tell me which one is different……….?

Door #1.

Door # 2.

Door # 3.

That’s right. Nobody’s found any practical value for the dickhead in the middle, except for those novel thinkers who adamantly refuse to use anything but their hand and spit.

Liberals have no values? Get a grip, Mr Leo. It’s all you’ve got.

Give a guy a cheap thrill. Actually, you could give several folks such thrills. And it involves no city bus groping.

Linkage:

Large Mammals
101.Wampum (621) details
102.Redstate || Collaborative Republicanism for the Masses (621) details
103.Gizmodo (620) details
104.Baghdad Burning (618) details
105.Dynamist.com (617) details
106.Say Anything (611) details
107.The Diplomad (608) details
108.The American Street (606) details
109.BuzzFlash - Daily Headlines and Breaking News (605) details

Wampum can move to Playful Primate level with two more links. To get Baghdad Burning, Buzzflash and us there, 40-50 links each oughta do it.

Traffic:

98) Editor: Myself | Hossein Derakhshan’s Weblog (Persian) 4255 visits/day (6791)
99) Pacetown - All a part of life’s rich pageant 4234 visits/day (4479)
100) The Command Post - A Newsblog Collective 4138 visits/day (50)
101) The Command Post 4138 visits/day (10101)
102) Simply Recipes 3979 visits/day (4957)
103) Byron Crawford.com: The Mindset of a Champion 3978 visits/day (5399)
104) Athletics Nation :: An Oakland A’s Blog 3902 visits/day (3916)
105) Suburban Guerrilla 3899 visits/day (268)
106) danieldrezner.com :: Daniel W. Drezner :: Blog 3858 visits/day (99)
107) FreeSpeech.com 3846 visits/day (2195)
108) ProfessorBainbridge.com 3834 visits/day (74)
109) The American Street 3727 visits/day (108)

A few more mentions, a little more traffic, and Susie Madrak and our team can crack the Top 100.

Yes, this is terribly boring stuff to those of you who have , you know, real lives. But who can’t use an ego stroke or two? And when’s the last time you really did much with your blogroll to add some faves, update new site urls and drop the blogs that have fallen silent?

Feel free to ALSO link our State’s Writes page. As we’ve linked to around 1500 blogs, a little more reciprocity would sure be nice. And yeah, we can’t read all 1500 regularly, but our directory has sent other readers to your door, hasn’t it?

The Prizes are done, all changes are in place, except for a pending site redesign, though that’s close. I will be able to go on a real hiatus, skipping computer life completely for a brief bit, once that design is done.

So why not make an easy-to-please guy happy, along with several others, with the very simple act of providing some links?

Okay, then. Back to the more informative and entertaining writers.

Shown are the graphic awards for the Koufax Awards (shown, l to r = Kos’ award, and Roxanne’s) and the Perranoski Prizes.

I’ve emailed the latter out to all winners. On the Koufax Awarrds, I’m awaiting word from Dwight and Mary Beth on how and when to distribute them. But they’re all ready.

Congratulations again, to the winners and nominees!

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

I couldn’t help but utter a low mordant chuckle when I heard George W. Bush speak these words in his inauguration speech, and repeat the call for “ending tyranny in our world” in his State of the Union address.

Because the history of the Bush family — including the current White House occupants, and the power cadre they have gathered — tells us a little about just how W. defines “tyranny.” It’s all in the eye of the beholder.

This was driven home recently by news of the recent war-related windfall that just happened to benefit W’s own Uncle “Bucky” Bush:

William H.T. “Bucky” Bush, uncle of the president and youngest brother of former President George H.W. Bush, cashed in ESSI stock options last month with a net value of nearly half a million dollars.

“Uncle Bucky,” as he is known to the president, is on the board of the company, which supplies armor and other materials to U.S. troops. The company’s stock prices have soared to record heights since before the invasion, benefiting in part from contracts to rapidly refit fleets of military vehicles with extra armor.

William Bush exercised options on 8,438 shares of company stock Jan. 18, according to reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He acknowledged in an interview that the transaction was worth about $450,000.

In an earnings report issued Tuesday, the firm disclosed that net earnings for the first quarter ending Jan. 31 reached a record $20.6 million, while quarterly revenue hit $233.5 million, up 20% from a year ago. As a result, the company boosted its projected annual revenue to between $990 million and $1 billion.

None of this should come as a surprise, really. This is the world of the Bush family, after all.
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One of the more mealy-mouthed moderate males, troll-baiting comments to shore up his declining demographic, has reiterated his periodic pedestal placing of web women, disingenuously declaiming distaffers are too delicate for the demands of political blogging:

… the blogosphere, which ought to be an ideal training ground for finding new voices in nontraditional places, is far more vitriolic than any op-ed page in the country, even the Wall Street Journal’s, and therefore probably turns off women far more than it attracts them.

When this fatuous flea-bite provoked the flailing tail-swats he masochistically fantasized about, he further fanned the flames:

… the reason I suggested that women are turned off by the “fundamental viciousness” of blogging and opinion writing is because many women have told me this (and have told me the same thing in non-blogging contexts as well). Men are so routinely dismissive of women and so fundamentally dedicated to playground dominance games that many women decide they just don’t want to play.

Thanks, but I’ll pass on such pacifying pats on the posterior from Kevie. To me this apologetic appeasement of angry Amazons only indicates that he has unnecessary appendages, and I prescribe a radical and total bris, all the way back to the torso. I’m not a certified mohelet, but on childhood visits to my grandmother’s farm I did get to castrate a bull calf, so I’ll be happy to relieve the white wine and quiche eater of those unused protuberances. If he’s too unaccountably shy to submit to surgery by a female, he can hire someone who has first built up his Dutch courage.

However wimpy his sycophantic squeals since his silly sparking of this sororal slaughterfest, I have to point out one source which seems to strip support from his stance. Buried on the back pages of small town Red state journalism, I read that one unlamented former Congressthing, Dick Armey, says women can be far more venomous than men. Speaking for completely getting rid of Social Security [sic] in Longview, Texas, he commented on another part of Our Noble Lame Duck’s outreach agenda:

Armey also said Republican ambitions to add amendments banning flag burning and gay marriage to the U.S. Constitution are unlikely to be fulfilled. He said organizations that backed the Equal Rights Amendment, a failed proposal to make it unconstitutional to pay women less for the same work [very sic], were well-organized and politically powerful.

“Sponsors of the ERA were the meanest people I’ve seen in Congress, and they were unable to do it,” he said. “So I don’t take amending the Constitution very seriously, quite frankly. It’s a big job. It’s not likely to happen.”

Since that particular meme for comment-whoring has run its course with the close of Estrogen Week, the penile portion of the punditsphere has proposed an even more puerile paradigm, that “Women aren’t as funny as men.” This idiocy was endorsed by a former philosophy student whose pretentious ponderings were so pointless, suggesting that the first JFK had reversed the benefits of “a Yale degree and a Harvard education”, that he was quickly co-opted by beltway blatherers to publish pusillanimousness for pay. Yet, once again, ongoing events provide ammunition for his argument. I confess that, at my most amusing, I could never have devised any comedy as hilarious as this production of a male politician in Maine:

Rep. Brian Duprey (R-Hampden) has submitted a bill to the State Legislature to shield potentially homosexual fetuses from discrimination. LD 908, “An Act to Protect Homosexuals from Discrimination,” attempts to protect homosexuals from death because they might carry the gene that could lead to homosexuality.

This bill as drafted would make it a crime to abort an unborn child if that child is determined to be carrying the “homosexual gene.” Duprey said that no such genetic marker has yet been discovered. But considering rapid advancements in genetic mapping research, he wants legislation in place should such a breakthrough occur. “If the homosexual gene is ever determined to exist,” he said, “I want to ensure that a woman could not abort an unborn child simply because that child is determined to be carrying this gene.”

Duprey received the idea for this bill when listening to the Rush Limbaugh radio show. “I heard Rush saying that the day the ‘gay gene’ is determined to be real, that overnight gays would become pro-life,” Duprey said.

“Most people would agree that to kill someone just because that person might be gay would constitute a hate crime,” said Duprey. “I have heard from women who told me that if they found out that they were carrying a child with the gay gene, then they would abort. I think this is wrong. Those unborn children should be protected.”

Perhaps the closest I’ve seen to this breathtakingly risible proposal was the idea advocated many years ago by a candidate for the Libertarian Presidential nomination, who promised to mobilize pro-gun and anti-abortion voters by supporting handguns for fetuses. But he was cluelessly male, too, so that won’t help demonstrate to Mattie the fallacy of his collectivist calumny.

By the way, I did promise threaten last week to write about penis evolution…well, it was hard, and I was tempted to plow ahead, but with a little stiff discipline I was able to restrain myself. Of course, I did put a penetrating discussion on Pharyngula, a work that, as one of my thesis advisors used to put it, pushes back the foreskin of science to expose the potent smegma of nature.

So, anyway, if you’re interested in erectile stiffness and pumping up armadillo penises rather than the grumblings of an angry socialist, you know where to look.

(Hmmm. I could have titled this “floggin’ the blog”, but that sounds like a euphemism for something else. Or the same thing.)

I’m normally a pleasant-tempered fellow who lives a quiet middle class life, and if you saw me you’d think me just an ordinary schlub. But there are days when I wake up and feel some revolutionary fire and want to march in the streets singing old Joe Hill songs and make the Man quake at our fury. It doesn’t take much to set me off. For instance…this NY Times article, Six figures? Not enough! (and I must blame Majikthise for bringing it to my attention.)

It’s a tedious story: short comments from wealthy executives, each complaining about how $100,000/year just isn’t enough anymore, strung together with demographic factoids about the petty rich. I could feel the anger rising from the first paragraph; Marie Antoinette may have been young and stupid and shallow, but there’s also a sense that she deserved the guillotine, unkind as such sentiment may be.

Maureen Spillane, an executive at a shoe and handbag maker in New York, always thought a $100,000 salary equaled serious success. Like many professional people, however, when she finally broke the barrier, she was a bit deflated to learn that it was hardly salvation. It still took her several years of “hoarding away” and avoiding standard Manhattan indulgences - fancy food, fancy clothing - in order to afford a down payment on a one-bedroom fixer-upper on the Upper West Side.

I’ve been to New York a few times—a great city, and yes, it is expensive—and I’ve seen who lives there. Very few make anywhere near $100K; the article mentions that only 7.5% of the full-time employed in NY fall in that bracket. Somehow, I don’t think Ms. Spillane’s idea of fiscal restraint would exist in the same plane of reality as the single mother working as a clerk with no health insurance, or the truck driver barely making ends meet.

There was a time not long ago when earning six figures was a significant milestone among upwardly mobile professionals. If you were young and single in one of the nation’s big cities, you could live in a building with a doorman, drive a European car, eat at fine restaurants and vacation in Jackson Hole. For married people it meant a suburban home and college savings accounts for the children.

Not that long ago, when I was growing up, a significant milestone for my father was making it through one of Boeing’s regular cutbacks without getting laid off…and he tended to get bounced from the payroll about once a year. I remember when he finally made that five-figure salary—a grand $10,000/year, for a family with six kids—and what a difference that made. It meant we could live in a home where the roof didn’t leak and the wind didn’t whistle through the tears in the tarpaper and rats didn’t nest in our mattresses (I got to the point where having rodents scurry under the sheets wouldn’t even wake me up, but gosh, did they smell bad.)

While a salary of $100,000 is still “rarefied,” said Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington in charge of its living standards program, in many regions “it’s not uncommon for households in that range to feel pinched.”

I used to commute to work in North Philadelphia from my comfortable home in the suburbs. Have you ever ridden the train through Philly? You get to see the back side of the slums. The place looks like bombed-out wreckage, with buildings slumping into crumbling piles of brick and lath adjacent to empty lots of weeds and cracked asphalt and broken glass. I vividly recall the moment I was staring out the window of the train at a shell of a building, one whole side and corner gouged out of it and sheathed with a tattered film of gray plastic (it looked like Godzilla had taken a bite out of it, and left a coat of viscid slimy saliva over the gouge), and the wind blew aside one massive flap to expose two children sleeping on the floor. I felt like yanking the emergency brake and howling in anguish, “We have to do something!” But no, I just sat there choking on my pity and we kept going.

I think that household might have felt “pinched”.

Passing the $200,000 threshold these days appears to be a ticket to the good life much in the same way that crossing the hallowed $100,000 barrier was during the prime yuppie years of the 1980’s. About 1.9 million tax filers (or less than 2 percent) reported gross adjusted incomes between $200,000 and $500,000 in 2002, the last year for which the Internal Revenue Service has compiled statistics. The year a similar percent of tax filers had incomes between $100,000 and $200,000 was in 1987.

I remember those prime yuppie years! They were good years for me and my family. I was newly married, we’d have our first kid in 1983, and we spent most of that decade living in Eugene, Oregon as graduate students. On a salary of $5,000/year. We did have access to inexpensive health insurance and subsidized student housing, so it wasn’t quite as dreadfully poor as it might sound, but there sure wasn’t much slack in the budget. My dream of the good life then was a time when we wouldn’t have to live on a diet of Mac&Cheez-Food three days a week, when I wouldn’t have to scavenge change from the sofa in order to get a paperback at the used bookstore, when our idea of splurging on a vacation wasn’t taking a walk down to the movie theater for the bargain matinee.

I achieved my dream a few years later when I graduated and got my first post-doc at the princely salary of $15,000/year. And everything since has been nothing but gravy. Maybe these yuppies ought to get a real taste of poverty before they’re allowed to whine about how they “need” $200,000 to live the good life.

The real point, perhaps, is the dreaming itself, the sense among many professionals that there needs to be some light flickering on the horizon to get you through the long hours and the stress of a career. In that sense, Mr. Coleman said, the dream salary of today is the same as it’s always been. “It’s beyond reasonable expectation,” he said, “but not beyond hope.”

Ah, yes. Hope. Hope that one can earn something more than $9/hour, with minimal benefits, without fear that your boss will fire you if you stand up for your rights. Hope that you can keep your kids fed and clothed without working two jobs. Hope that retirement doesn’t mean living on dog food while waiting for the first illness to cost you your home, your independence, and your dignity. But as long as the top tier keeps sucking up an undeserved proportion of the wealth in this country (and demanding more!), we may just have to give up on hope and settle for outrage instead.

I think last week’s “Where are all the women bloggers?” dust-up has resulted in alot of readers discovering that women also give good discourse. Hooray!

A few week’s back, Danny Blogaduche jumped on the “women aren’t as funny as men” bandwagon. As such, I predict that the next generation of the “where?” meme will be “women blog, but when they do they aren’t as funny as men.” To head that off at the pass and in celebration of Estrogen Week, I offer the following links to humorous posts by women bloggers.

Bitch Ph.D. on the silly Alabama ban on sex toys:
“A young girl, fresh and innocent, purchases her first vibrator. She becomes addicted to sexual pleasure, masturbating constantly, and neglecting her studies and her family duties. Her hair becomes greasy and unkempt, and her eyes unfocused, and she begins to steal money to purchase more vibes. Anything, anything! to feed her habit. Next thing you know, she’s lost touch with all that is Good and Holy and is prostituting herself on the street, mere pennies for a blow job, anything to earn money towards a rabbit vibe.”

In response to The Gates, Liza Sabater gives us The Crackers.

Jo has to be the most prolific, most stream-of-consciousness blogger in the sphere. And humor punctuates nearly every post at Spanglemonkey.

michele is right. She sucks at Photoshop. However, this photo is funny nonetheless.

Go read Preemptive Karma Carla’s Shorter Vatican.

Nearly everything flea writes is a scream, but I found yesterday’s entry particularly funny and I’m not sure why.

I mostly wear my sarcastic heart on my sleeve. Majikthise is much more sneaky about it.

The extremist groups crowed that they took down Dan Rather and proclaimed their glee was based on his faulty reporting, when in fact, their contempt for him was rooted in the fact that he dared critique the object of their idolatry: George Bush. (and note that I no longer consider it necessary to say ‘rightwing extremist’ groups because it’s become redundant and raises partisan hackles over a point both sides should shrink from: extremism in defense of stupidity IS a vice).

In fact though, an aging newsman nearing the natural point in his career that he’d move from fulltime anchor work to parttime news specials work may have had his timetable sped up by a few months. But the event shielded a greater sea change, the decline in viewership of televised national news. The medium enjoyed a three network monopoly for decades, but with several 24/7 news networks competing and the rise of the internet, that declining eyeball share means networks have to be more sensitive than ever to viewer dissatisfactions or their ad revenues drop. In turn, if they’re part of publicly traded companies, investors shy away.

The bar is set lower for extremist groups to have an impact.

It’s entirely a different scenario when political front groups for extremists are exposed from behind thin veils and their credibility collapses completely. Such is the case with the ‘demise’ of Talon News. Even their departure is a probable ruse.

Talon News is not fallen to spare itself or its most visible founder from bad publicity. By taking itself out of the line of fire the intent is to spare scrutiny of the idol they promoted, George Bush. Furthermore, if past history is a guide, those involved in such PR efforts posing as news will be seen again in some future incarnation, performing tricks to enthrall the public while turning tricks for their political masters. It is a profitable business, after all, sucking up to powerful men, making certain their boots and booties are licked to a fine spitshine.

If there is anything comparative in the fates of the most visible leading men in these two organizations (CBS and Talon), it is in the judgment of the two principals. Rather recognized that his record as a journalist could withstand a few mistakes and that by sparing his employer a faster decline in revenues (as he would have been a lightning rod had he stayed), he could again see the day when his news specials will have an impact.

Jim Guckert, on the other hand, has chosen a riskier course. Promoting himself as a legit newsman being victimized for his sexuality, he hangs onto the spotlight like an addict to his meth. Whether he does so at the behest of more powerful entities or does so of his own volition is anybody’s guess. Either way, it is a perilous situation he finds himself snared in.

I’m baaaaaaack! If you thought I was going to slink away - then you don’t know much about me. Someone still has to battle the Left and now that I’ve emerged from the crucible, I’m stronger than before.

Despite all the pleas from the Left to go over to the ‘dark side’ and expose the ‘corrupt Bush administration’ simply isn’t going to happen. My faith and my ideology are rock solid.

Someone has to battle the Left and it’s got to be him. Presumably he sees no one else doing this critical job for the nation. As for his ‘crucible’, I’d say he strapped it on himself.

He, or his handlers, are promoting the spin that he’s the victim of liberal hypocrites targeting his gayness, trying to offset his real liabilities, as a procurer or pimp who was given unprecedented access to White House officials and served as their useful tool. As his websites suggest he was promoting prostitution - still illegal in most of the US - and promoting gay sex with military men - which can get military men dishonorably discharged. He is a victim only of his previously poor judgment.

David Corn wrote a cautionary - and flawed - piece directed at liberal bloggers and Guckert quickly linked to it, calling Corn his ‘friend’. Based on Corn’s concluding paragraph, even Guckert’s claim to friendship displays his flawed judgment at work.

If his lust for the spotlight is at the direction of others, and the spin fails to dissuade the rising call for deeper investigation, the spin will be tossed, as will Guckert. If anything will keep the clamor rising, it’ll be his continual appearance in the public eye.

If he stays in the spotlight of his own volition, adding to the pressure on the White House, and has no aces up his sleeve, he ought to remember that history is full of once-useful tools becoming nobodies. Or worse, becoming a detriment, with coroner reports later insisting there was no foul play involved.

But what if he does have an ace? What if his past life and present have intertwined in somebody’s bedroom, of other members of the press corps or even White House officials? In that case, I’d anticipate criticism of him from those quarters would be muted with most questions deflected. Kinda like the response that’s happening now.

Whatever the game that’s afoot, whether Guckert or others are orchestrating it, there’s no doubt that Guckert may be the biggest victim yet, willingly or unwillingly dancing towards his doom.

I don’t say that as a conspiracy theorist predicting his demise. I say that as a pragmatic observer of political events in history and in my lifetime. There’s more than enough indications that there’s a rotted fish in this pool. Sure, as Corn notes, there’s a whole lot of unfounded speculation about the smell and I’m making my share of speculations here. But most Lefty bloggers know the fish isn’t Gannon. At best, he’s the baking soda covering the scent. At worst, he’s merely fish food. And the surest way to end all the speculation is a thorough investigation.

Corn’s worried that will limit the chances of bloggers to gain access to the press gaggle. I do not think that’s a loss at all. So little useful arises from evasive press conferences anymore that it amounts to opposition activists looking for ‘gotchas’ like Scouts on a snipe hunt. As much as this president tries to control the news outflow, he should pay for his PR just like anyone else selling something - and not with our taxes. Wild speculation carries as much truth; let’s end the pretense and kill the press conferences completely.

My original point still stands: Rather is a professional journalist, the extremists haven’t killed his career, and I’ll put my money on my belief that the old horse has a few good races yet in his old bones. Guckert has never demonstrated any capacity to do more than steno work and will only persist as a caricature of a journalist if it’s in the best interests of the person who hires him to keep his rodent hide on the wharf.

The extremists exposed a mistake. The watchdog bloggers on the left exposed a fake. The difference is rather plain.

As a final note, read his latest screed. Setting aside the missing words and commas in some of his convoluted sentence constructions, he makes a ludicrous comparison between the Left and McCarthyism, implies that we sought to wound him fatally and - in his choice of a title - puts himself on a par with a journalist people are mourning the loss of. So beyond the monster ego and incompetence, there’s also a complete lack of class.

Which is exactly what he wants. His outrageous behavior making the story about him, instead of locating the rotted fish.

In July of 2003, the Athens Bar Association decided to file a lawsuit at the recently established International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague against Tony Blair based on allegations of war crimes in Iraq. While some felt that this would discredit the ICC, others seemed to believe that this would not go very far and I was routinely shellacked in the comments to that post, so I thought it would be worthwhile to revisit this issue. As Marcela Sánchez noted here in the Washington Post:

The Bush administration’s concern that anti-U.S. interests will manipulate the court appears unfounded. After all, the court can only try the most heinous crimes and only if and when the countries of those charged are unwilling or unable to try them themselves. The court’s actions in its first year demonstrate that much. Its chief prosecutor rejected requests, for instance, to try British forces accused of abuses in Iraq, determining that Britain’s strong judicial system can handle the litigation.

Let’s look at the situations and cases page of the International Criminal Court. As one clearly see, the two situations into which the prosecutor’s office has opened investigations are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda. The key points here are these:

The OTP [Office of the Prosecutor] has been closely analyzing the situation in the DRC since July 2003, initially with a focus on crimes committed in the Ituri region. In September 2003 the Prosecutor informed the States Parties that he was ready to request authorization from the Pre-Trial Chamber to use his own powers to start an investigation, but that a referral and active support from the DRC would assist his work. In a letter in November 2003 the government of the DRC welcomed the involvement of the ICC and in March 2004 the DRC referred the situation in the country to the Court.

The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has determined that there is a reasonable basis to open an investigation into the situation concerning Northern Uganda, following the referral of the situation by Uganda in December 2003. The decision to open an investigation was taken after thorough analysis of available information in order to ensure that requirements of the Rome Statute are satisfied. [my emphasis]

So, simply put, the two investigations that the prosecutor’s office has initiated were done so at the request of nations that had requested the investigations and the one situation pending in the Central African Republic was also brought to the court at the request of that nation’s government. Apparently ham sandwiches are safe from the ICC.

This is not good enough for the Bush adminsitration. Faced with a threat that doesn’t exist, the president is using the cudgel of foreign aid to pressure nations into signing agreements exempting US citizens from being turned over to the ICC unless the US approves.

It gets worse. The UN Commission (suggested and requested by the Bush administration) that submitted its report on the atrocities in Darfur suggested that the UN Security Council refer the situation to the ICC, a step which is necessitated by the fact that Sudan, like the US, has not signed and ratified the treaties establishing the ICC. The Bush administration makes the following recommendation according to Samantha Power, founding Executive Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy:

But the United States so mistrusts the International Criminal Court that President Bush has instead proposed that the African Union and the United Nations create a Sudan tribunal based at the war-crimes court run by the United Nations in Tanzania. “We don’t want to be party to legitimizing the I.C.C.,” Pierre-Richard Prosper, the United States ambassador for war crimes issues, said in late January. That’s an about-face from the American stance in 2002, when Mr. Prosper criticized the very same United Nations ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia that he now hails. Citing “problems that challenge the integrity of the process,” like a lack of professionalism among staff, Mr. Prosper demanded that the interminable proceedings at those courts be wrapped up by 2008, regardless of who was left at large. Justice at these courts, he said, “has been costly, has lacked efficiency, has been too slow, and has been too removed from the everyday experience of the people and the victims.”

This idea is monstrously inefficient:

The ad hoc court could cost as much as $150 million annually. By contrast, the supposedly bloated international court, which is already investigating multiple crises simultaneously, will cost roughly $87 million in 2005. Couldn’t that same $150 million be better spent on arming and transporting African Union peacekeepers into Darfur to prevent the massacres from being committed in the first place?

When I posted on this issue several times this month on Beautiful Horizons, I was taken to task for thinking that referral of Darfur to the ICC and potential indictments were the way to solve this problem. I never said that, but I do believe it could have a positive impact. So does Ms. Power and my knowledge on the subject is puny compared to hers. Ben Ferencz, the man who prosecuted the Einsatzgruppen at Nuremberg believes passionately in the ICC as do the organizations listed here.

In spite of all evidence to date; in spite of the built in safeguards incorporated into the ICC’s procedures and in spite of evidence that indictments could have a salutary effect on the situation in Darfur, the Bush administration is determined to strangle this baby in its crib, simply because of some groundless belief that Americans will be targeted for prosecutions.

I guess that’s why they call them reactionaries.

This final installment of the series looks at news readers that use software you already have to deliver content. The �€œsoftware you already have�€� can mean either your browser or your email client.

The down side to using your email client is pretty obvious: if you want to see the content in its original form, and particularly if you want to read and participate in comments or follow embedded links, at some point you’re going to have to jump to your browser. The up side is that once you’ve downloaded your email that content stays with you until you trash it, so this might provide a convenient alternative for those who are tempted by stand-alone readers that would allow them to read offline. And email clients are already equipped to inform you of new �€œmessages�€� in a way that’s unmistakable.

I didn’t spend a lot of time checking these out because personally I have no interest in having news and blog feeds in my email. And while a number of these services suggest that they would allow you to compose blog posts in your email client and �€œmail�€� them in, that’s another feature that didn’t tempt me. I’m an obsessive user of the preview feature in Movable Type (and now WordPress). It doesn’t get published until I’ve previewed it and checked the links. And I would think that bloggers who rely on the user-friendly tools in their blogging software to assist with the HTML coding would be even harder pressed to make do with an email client for composing posts.

That said (does Bush really say that a lot?), there was one blogger who pinged a previous post of mine on the subject and wrote that he thought it would be sweet to get a daily email with the headlines in it. There’s a way, Darcey.

Read the rest of this entry »

Rob at Realitique wants to get a definition for “luntz.” He has his at the link. (I’m already stealing the idea, I don’t want to steal his whole post.) Here’s my suggestion:

It’s awful close to “lutz” which is a skating jump named for Tomas Lutz, who created it. In that tradition I think “luntz” should describe an stunt perfected or pioneered by ol’ Frank. So you’d get this:

Jim/Jeff luntzed the WHPC for years before being exposed by investigative bloggers, who found his questions and ready access suspicious.

Luntz: to successfully masquerade as an objective member of a group while hiding your connections to powerful partisan forces.

More recent luntzers: The Big Pharma shills on the FDA panel that decided that Bextra and Vioxx were safe to prescribe.
With the White House Office of Propaganda cranking up for another four years, we should be able to find dozens more examples of luntzing every week.

Benjamin Wallace-Wells has a riveting piece, “Battered Women”, over at The Washington Monthly, on the devolution of the “sport” of boxing and its culmination in the pornographic spectacle of women boxers. His description of the audience at a typical fight contains this memorable passage:

“For 50 bucks, you can buy yourself an armchair seat on a balcony ringing the room, from which you can peer down over the room. These, however, are always filled with older Italian men, the Unindicted Co-conspirator set, fat and inert in their little chairs, each one looking like a marshmallow stuffed into a shot glass. “

Here he paints a picture of the actual fight:

“The worst male fighters know how to play defense, but these girls looked like they’d never been trained. They didn’t even try to protect themselves. There was no effort to dodge, no shifting of weight, no clever, calculated movement of feet. Both girls just kept charging, swinging both fists at the same time. It was like watching six-year-olds fight before they’re old enough to realize that they might be hurt: All you want to do is make it stop. The action in the middle of the ring was an inchoate tangle of limbs and fists. Thirty seconds into the whirling, Angie fell down, striking the mat violently, as if she was attacking it. Jessica waved her arms above her head chaotically�€”a caricatured Rocky gesture�€”a huge grin on her face. I thought to myself that these two must be the worst girl fighters in the world. But it turned out that six months earlier, Jessica had placed second in her weight class at the National Golden Gloves�€”this was as good as it got.”

As you might guess, Angie fares badly in this freak show. He goes on to consider the recent Eastwood movie, Million-Dollar Baby, whose early scenes he finds rather sanitized, but whose brutal ending feels real:

“…the fantasy that has built up dissolves in a ring scene of sickening brutality, and the movie’s last 30 minutes (though they feel like a dramatic fraud) end up showing the guilt and tumult that develops in those who back a fighter who has been left near death, and a girl fighter at that. In this, the film doesn’t cheat.”

Personally, I’ve always regarded boxing as morally only a little above the level of dogfighting, and I don’t think the entry of women into the ring is a step forward for the species. With any luck, the whole enterprise may die out in a century or so, though as Wallace-Wells points out, the growing lack of interest in it seems to have just sent it into a kind of subterranean subculture of even greater violence and brutality than existed in its heyday. It would nice if, during the debates on the merits of Million-Dollar Baby’s“anti-life” ending, the parties to the argument would raise the issue of what the continued toleration of such a sport says about us, both liberal and conservative. The subtitle of Wallace-Wells’ essay is “Female boxing is brutal and hopeless”. But a better subtitle would leave out the gender qualifier altogether.

Freud didn’t know. Lawrence Summers doesn’t seem to know, and we all talk about what he said and whether he should have said it and whether anyone should criticize him for saying it. Even I have joined in the chorus.

But Molly Ivins pulls us back to reality by pointing out that some young girls in Texas are fighting much bigger problems than any possible bias against women in hard sciences:

Among the nasty horrors awaiting us is H.B. 1212, mandating parental consent for the performance of an abortion.

We already have a parental notification requirement in Texas, so how much different can consent be? Of course you don’t want your underage daughter getting an abortion without your knowledge. What parent would?

But there are those occasional horrible exceptions, which is why the judicial bypass exists. If a minor can go before a court and prove she either cannot or clearly should not notify her parents, a judge can grant her exemption from the requirement. The system barely works now, and the new bill would make it all but impossible for most girls by limiting venue to the girls’ county of residence and those neighboring it, and other changes. There are 254 counties in Texas, and as surveys have shown, most of the county clerks don’t even know there is such a procedure, much less how to file one (”Honey, I have no idea,” is the classic response). The problems of small-town application should be apparent to all.

She goes on to give some examples of cases where the judicial bypass is needed. Just one example suffices here:

Social worker for a 13-year-old: “She ran away from her foster home and was gone for eight weeks. Now she’s in an emergency shelter and is pregnant. Her mother is deceased. Her father raped her when she was 8 years old and is still in prison for it. I knew her when she had to testify against him. I don’t know if I can convince her to go back to court, but she definitely wants an abortion.”

Hmm. What do women want?

Elsewhere, in the wide world outside the United States, women want to survive, largely:

Global policymakers scheduled to hold special U.N. talks starting next week must boost women’s share of resources and political standing in the developing world if they hope to make a significant dent in world poverty, researchers say.

The Washington, D.C.-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on Wednesday urged policy makers ‘’to take action in three critical areas to advance women’s status in developing countries: increase resources in the hands of women; reduce discrimination against women; and place women’s issues at the forefront of policy action.'’

Its call, contained in a statement, came in advance of a review of progress made in implementing a sweeping plan of action adopted in Beijing, China in 1995 to advance gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. The Feb. 28 - Mar. 11 talks, which also will recommend further action, are to be held at U.N. headquarters in New York under the aegis of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.

‘’Across most of the developing world, women are on the frontlines in the fight against hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation,'’ said IFPRI, which belongs to a larger network of national and international agricultural research centers funded by the World Bank, U.N. agencies, governments, and philanthropies.

‘’While most women in the developing world serve as the primary caretakers in the family, they often lack the power and resources to carry out this role effectively. Unequal access to land, education, and other key resources undermines development efforts,'’ the group said.

So. And what do the wingnuts think that women want? Here* is what the wingnut bible by Frank Luntz says about women:

Bush did better among women, particularly young married women, than any GOP candidate since 1988 because of *security* concerns. Security will keep these women voting Republican if they are addressed directly and personally. And since women value *time* over *money*, your strategy should include your successful efforts to promote legislation that in some way provides women more free time.

In other words, wingnuts plan to keep women scared, in a leisurely way, of course. Now, this is a political battle that the Democratic party should win easily by just taking women seriously as human beings and as voters. A good way to begin would be by asking all kinds of women what they actually do want.
—
*You can download the wingnut bible here.

From Loveland, Colorado comes this troubling tale of one young man’s efforts to unionize his small department in the WalMart empire (in his case, an auto service division, consisting of 18 workers).

In a somewhat rare event, 21-year old Joshua Noble managed to get the majority of workers at the shop to sign statements demanding a union election. Maybe it was those fabulous wages, benefits and working conditions that not only Loveland’s WalMart workers, but all WalMart workers enjoy.

Anyway, the company pulled out all the stops, including sending headquarters “experts” on the evils of unions (”they’ll charge your dues!” “you’ll lose your jobs if they make you go on strike!” “They’ll drive WalMart out of business!” [as if…] “unions are so uncool!“), and, eventually, after a rather hard-fought battle, the vote was 17 to 1 (presumably Mr. Noble himself) in favor of the company after the company’s successful haranguing efforts.

But wait. We’re not done. Yet a more troubling aspect was that the company brought in ringers: six hand-picked anti-union workers were hired by WalMart precisely to vote against unionaization. And WalMart prevented the union from sending a representative to observe the election. In short, this is how we do things in America now: merely holding all the cards of intimidation and other means of… persuasion… is not enough. The potential bargaining unit had to be gerrymandered and stacked by WalMart, and the election conducted opaquely, in order to ensure that the world’s largest company (1.2 million workers) remains the world’s largest totally non-union company.
Well, not the most troubling, really. Mr. Noble and the union can appeal to the (Bush Administration appointed) National Labor Relations Board. And the rest of his shop can get the hell back to work….

Frankly, as the company will doubtless remind them, they are lucky to have jobs at all, even as in other contexts, such as North of the Border, WalMart has chosen to close stores altogether rather than toloerate even the risk of unionization.

Welcome to the future. We have a behemoth of a company that just keeps getting bigger, and that provides many of its workers with a benefit package so generous that it’s workers rely on public assistance for things like their health care, housing and food… Smaller local and regional businesses (and the jobs they provide) are left in the dust, unable to compete on price with WalMart, whose lock-up purchasing contracts from outfits abroad (usually in East Asia) would be illegal under American anti-trust laws. Oh– jobs making things here that would be sold here also manage to get lost under this arrangement. And yet, Americans have come to view all of this as not only normal, but a representation of WalMart’s success as a company. I mean, if you can’t buy a television set for $7, what’s the point of being alive?

What are you people looking at? Back to work!

Joe MUST go!

We have the big guns on the job now: Rush Limbaugh. He is bringing freedom and democracy to Afghanistan, while perhaps also checking on the local harvest forecasts. (Just kidding on that last bit, maybe on all of them). Media Matters for America notes that Rush is adding a sideline of exporting progressive-bashing to the U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan:

While in Afghanistan to highlight America’s ongoing relief efforts in that country, nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh delivered a partisan attack against a “political party,” an apparent reference to Democrats, in a discussion with American troops. Recounting his remarks during a phone interview with guest host Roger Hedgecock on the February 22 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show, Limbaugh noted that he told the troops he wouldn’t “go politically correct on them” by hiding liberals’ “opposition” to the troops and their mission:

LIMBAUGH: And, by the way, folks, if you’re wondering, I didn’t go politically correct on them. I told them exactly who’s saying what about them in an opposition fashion. I told them what I think is the sort of phony-baloney, plastic-banana, good-time rock ‘n’ roller of some members of the American left saying they support the troops but they don’t support their mission –

And I haven’t run into anybody who has snickered. They’re eager for the truth here.

Oh my. Eager for the truth, and Rush is the man to deliver that? I hope that he remembers to mention the hundreds of dollars I have spent on care packages to the military, the evil progressive that I am. But of course he won’t mention that or any of the other pro-troops acts we liberals are guilty of. That would detract from his message.

Though some of the things Rush is saying over there make me wonder if he has fallen off the wagon. He almost sounds like a feminist here:

The top talk host said he actually met with some Afghan women who are leading the literacy and voting rights efforts, who explained why they were suddenly so anxious to vote.

“What changed from two years ago to today?” Limbaugh asked. One of them finally stood up and said, “Our government finally said we, as women, have human rights.”

“And it made them feel confident to stand up to their husbands, brothers and men and go out and vote just like we saw in Iraq,” he said.

Wasn’t it Rush who coined the infamous “feminazi” as the term describing women who believe in equality of the sexes? And I’m pretty sure that he has never before advocated for women to stand up to their husbands, rather the reverse. - Not to worry; when Rush gets back home he’ll be bound to explain all this in his usual style…

George W. Bush, still fresh from his $40 million inaugural balls has silently thrown his hat in the ring to be the next Pope. Sources near Vatican City say Vatican leaders held an audience with White House Political Advisor Karl Rove during the Commander-in-Chief�€™s European visit this week.

Pope John Paul II, 85, remains seriously ill, raising the possibility that the church may require a change in leadership for the first time in nearly three decades. Normally, the Pope is chosen from the College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church, a tradition that could keep Bush from the office. �€œIs the Pope Catholic?�€� Bush reportedly asked with surprise.
Bush �€” purportedly a member of the United Methodist Church �€” remains silent on the possibility of ascending to the leadership of the massive faith-based empire. As the chief executive enters the lame duck period of his leadership, insiders believe Bush is highly interested in the idea of issuing encyclicals and riding in the Pope-mobile. �€œWe are all �€œcatholic �€” with a small c �€” and I think the Church could become a great vehicle to launch a great Crusade,�€� Bush reportedly told aides when first asked about the position.

The Christian Right in the US says Bush would make a proper Pope, and could possibly maintain his leadership of the US simultaneously. �€œThere�€™s nothing in the Constitution about being Pope and President at the same time,�€� the Rev. Jerry Falwell pointed out. Falwell himself is suffering from pneumonia in a Lynchburg, Virginia hospital and says Mr. Bush is even more pro-life than John Paul II. �€œMr. Bush would make sure that every unborn child is delivered �€” even if there is a risk that the baby will grow up to be a lesbian�€� Falwell noted. �€œthen he can deal with her like he dealt with Carla Faye Tucker.�€�

John Paul II will be remembered for breaking with many papal traditions. The first-ever Polish Pope traveled all over the world, spreading his message of charity and chastity. Bush reportedly expects to follow in John Paul�€™s footsteps, traveling the world to spread �€œfreedom�€� from North Korea to Berkeley, California. While John Paul II would literally kiss the ground of every new nation that felt his footprint, Bush will follow the kissing habits of still another Roman Catholic, Don Vito Corleone.

White House insiders say the administration shares a mutual respect for the Roman Catholic Church. �€œThe Church inspired us to pass �€œNo Child Left Behind,�€� an insider recalled.

As I said, these prizes are, in part, an experiment. Unlike other fields of endeavor, blogging advavances on internet time. Which means better publishing and alternate media tools requiring regular change, and a high turnover rate for those who dedicate themselves to the medium. ‘Publish or perish’ has taken on an entire new meaning in this sphere.

I doubt we’ll see many bloggers devoting ten years to the craft, never mind twenty or more. Even among the highly rated, the wall of burnout is often hit as early as two to three years into the venture. Thus, I don’t think we can adequately honor folks by waiting a decade to judge a body of their work. Which is why I think it’s time a Hall of Fame award is established.

The rules I set to qualify for this award were: the blogger either had to have already received a total of three Koufax awards, with the awards won in at least two different years. Or the blogger had retired from blogging. Or had passed away.

One of the chief reasons I was motivated to do the Perranoski Prizes at all arose from the death of a fellow blogger who I wanted to find a proper way to honor, Aaron Hawkins of uppity negro. Not only was he one of the earliest blogs to rise in popularity to a celebrity status, but Aaron was genuinely - online and off - a nice and good-hearted man. In this world, too often, ‘nice’ and ‘good’ carry a sense of quaintness, of old-fashioned virtues quickly acknowledged and then dismissed as kind of square. There was nothing dismissable or quaint about Aaron. There is nothing easily accepted in losing his presence or his pleasance.

If I’d launched this endeavor and he hadn’t been nominated, I’d never consider taking this past this year. As it turned out, he was nominated and was one of the three Hall of Fame entrants for 2004.

I hope the folks at Wampum will consider taking on this category in the future. And here or there, I think we should broaden the name of the award to the Aaron Hawkins Hall of Fame Award.

Hall of Fame Award

With the conditions I set, not very many people could qualify, except by retirement. I discovered after I created the 3-prize qualifier, only Atrios would have fit the bill in 2004 and in 2005, only Jeralyn Merritt and Juan Cole would fit that bill. Adding Perranoski Prizes as equivalent would add Joshua Marshall and Markos (Kos) Moulitsas to that list.

The condition of retirement was also put to the test as all three of the ‘retired’ nominees came out of retirement after they were nominated. Two of them post at this blog! Clearly, I didn’t think through the qualifiers enough…

So once again, a modification is necessary and in the spirit of inclusion established at Wampum, I propose the rules be modified, as follows:

1) Death, of course, remains a qualifier. So, too, for any blogger suffering from a terminal illness, as it’s better to give honors while folks can appreciate them.

2) Anyone who has been a finalist for two awards (Koufax or Perranoski) can be eligible.

3) Anyone who’s been retired at least 90 days is eligible. And if they subsequently return to blogging? So what? This is a recognition granted by peers that the blogger’s contributions deserve a special honor. Honor doesn’t change when one’s vocation or avocation changes.

So with that in mind, here’s the nominees, largely as I described them when I announced the finalists.

Aaron Hawk of uppity negro. The name itself describes the joie de vivre and spirited attitude that drew many fans to his pioneering blog. The site continues, run by his family and friends, carrying forth his spirit, while adding their own. And aren’t we all an aggregate of the spirits who care for us?

Atrios of Eschaton. A pioneering political commentator who rocketed to national attention with the story that dumped Trent Lott from his Senate leadership position, he�€™s been a force ever since. I believe Atrios (aka: Duncan Black) left a position as an econ professor to blog fulltime, in addition to appearances on Air America and elsewhere.

Billmon of Whiskey Bar. Between nominations and today, this erudite master of prose, deep research and quote compilation has reopened his bar, but still qualifies for the final voting. Whenever bloggers hear ‘great writing’, he’s always one of the first who comes to mind.

Emma of Late Night Thoughts �€�. Known for her family tales of Cuba, her stories of Cuban ex-pats, and far more, this weaver of vivid reality has provided a view of Cuban-American politics, in Florida and Cuba, from a personal and familial viewpoint that promotes understanding. Her political views and personal tales on a broader range of subjects, always fulfill. She retired in February 2004 but has joined our blog as a Monday blogger, in 2005.

Hesiod of Counterspin Central (no longer online). Another of the well-recognized early political bloggers known for his pointed commentary and advocacy of a more aggressive progressivism, Hesiod is a rabble-rouser in the fine tradition of the best known patriots and pamphleteers that stirred the country to independence from Great Britain. Retiring last Fall, he is a part-time blogger at American Street, too.

Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo. A freelance writer working inside the beltway who also rose to national stature with the Trent Lott debacle, the contacts he�€™s developed, his research and his persistence at pushing a story or meme have kept him among the best read political bloggers ever since. I’m sure many in the old media would love to hire Joshua full-time, yet he maintains his independence, giving greater freedom to his influential voice.

Our congratulations to the first three entrants to the Hall of Fame: To Billmon, to Duncan Black/Atrios, and to the family and friends of Aaron Hawkins.

Which leaves one award. Normally, I’d do the Hall of Fame last, but I think you’ll see why I altered the order this time.

Best Humanitarian Blog

Here’s the description I provided at the outset:

While this has an element of �€˜expert�€™ to it, it�€™s expertise that has specifically advocated for or advanced the human condition. So a law blogger might deserve it for their work to end capital punishment - online and/or offline. Or an eco-blogger might deserve it for advancing the understanding of global warming. Maybe the blogger raised funds for a cause. Maybe they are recognized by their peers for research in a specific area. Maybe they�€™ve advanced or promoted music therapy for developmentally delayed kids.

It can be an individual, a group blog, or a group of blogs working together on a project. Also please note: since the point here is progessiveness in the advance of a humanitarian outcome, political ideology doesn�€™t matter. So a winner here could be an identified conservative or libertarian. The key is whether humanity has benefited.

I’d add that my idea of ‘progressive’ is not confined to any party, though my bias suggests it’s more evident in some than others. A progressive humanitarian, to my mind, provides the highest form of partisanship, the truest form of pro-life that can be achieved (setting aside the typical usage of the word).

Other categories point to skills that arise chiefly from the mind, eye and ear. This is the category that defines a values statement for progressives. Adverse to the worst choices politicians make for expediency, for political or foreign policy ideology, they often can be characterized by their reluctance to get down into the mudslinging and snarkery of modern political discourse unless the problem-creators are so egregious that it demands fire to be fought with fire. Though some can fight as needed to defeat a foe of the living, the humanitarian nature of these bloggers is evidenced by their default choice to seek dialogue to achieve results, with conflict reserved as a final alternative.

The nominees in 2004 were:

Jeanne d’Orleans of Body and Soul, who covers a wide range of issues including her own maternalism.

Dave Pollard of how to save the world, covering environmental and science issues, chiefly.

The group of semi-anonymous bloggers at Sudan: The Passion of the Present, who speak to remind the world of an ongoing genocide there, reminding us that there are values that should be universal, regardless of race, nationality or the preponderance of natural resources - like oil - that draws capitalists (as capitalism is not, in itself, a human value).

Zeynep of Under the Same Sun draws information from across the globe moreso than many other bloggers. Zeynep’s own words define the endeavor best.

Marybeth, her husband Eric, and Dwight Meredith at Wampum, who were brought together via their blogging about family members with autism. Dwight, a Georgia attorney, and the politically active Williams family team in Maine, who cover American Indian issues along with the other political matters of the day, make for an exceptional group endeavor. Together they transcend regionalism, racialism and other issues that divide. And their Koufax Awards are but one example of the inherent generosity in their souls.

I’m tempted to throw out the votes and just call them all winners, as they truly are, and will be, award or no award.

But two of them ended up in a flat-out tie. Not close, but vote-for-vote tied. Our congratulations to Body & Soul and to Wampum for this feat, for defining moral values so well, and our congrats go also to the other nominees for their service that elevates life so well.

And that goes for all the other nominees and winners and the voters who honored them so. Congratulations, and thank you, to all.

___________

Note: A proposal I’ll make. The folks running Wampum should cherrypick from these if they wish to add and subtract categories in coming years, taking the lead on the progressive awards. Remaining categories, including any new ones that times and events may inspire, should be left to the Perranoski Prizes.

But these Prizes should be mobile. Should other bloggers wish to host them, they should notify me. From those applicants, the teams at American Street and Wampum will pick the host for the following year.

I haven’t advanced this idea to either team yet, so this is not official yet. But if you’re interested, please, drop me an email. It’s been more fun than I imagined, despite some hard points. Sharing the process of giving honors, just seems in keeping with the spirit.

sorry, we meant “msm” for “mainstream media,” not “mtm” for “mary tyler moore.” although upon further reflection…

the latimes finally runs a piece on the gannon/guckert story, and, what a surprise, completely misses the point:

left-wing bloggers soon revealed that the reporter, whom colleagues knew as jeff gannon, was really named james dale guckert. they also disclosed that talon news was owned by an avowedly partisan website called gopusa. the website in turn was the creation of a conservative texas political activist named bobby eberle.

that stirred a furor over how a seeming republican agent got clearance to attend white house briefings as a journalist. soon gannon resigned.

then gay activists, indulging in what one media critic called “bloglust,” posted on the internet homoerotic photos of gannon advertising himself as a $200-an-hour gay escort.

“i’ve made mistakes in my past,” gannon told the washington post’s media critic, howard kurtz. “does my past mean i can’t have a future? does it disqualify me from being a journalist?”

the piece misses so many of the actual truths invovled in this fiasco, that we were forced to write a letter to the editor of the latimes:
Read the rest of this entry »

Best Designed Blog

Please note that there’s a new URL for annatopia, one of the nominees here and in a previous category. Now go take a lok at the other nominees and compare them directly.

BlondeSense�€�

Chepooka

Crooked Timber

James Wolcott

Long Story Short Pier

Por um Punhado de Pixels

Rox Populi

The Poison Kitchen

The Talent Show

Trailer Park Girl

There’s quite a range of styles there, and I found it interesting that there’s a healthy gender balance in this category, as well. And all are substantive bloggers (though admittedly, Trailer Park Girl and Nemo Nox were new to me at the outset of this contest). Several are people I tried to recruit to this blog and a pair of them I succeeded in recruiting to Open Source Politics (Patrick Taylor’s Poison Kitchen, and to American Street (Roxanne Cooper of Rox Populi). And most readers will recognize several of the best-loved political blogs in this group, old and new.

Design, like art, is in the eye of the beholder and there’s no way I can critique each without offending somebody, so I’ll let your eyes be the judge here. But I will critique the winner. The voting moved towards an older blog that’s always been pleasing to design aficionados, Kip Manley’s Long Story Short Pier and a newer blogger, our own Roxanne at Rox Populi.

With her regular title graphic changes, all very attractive, Roxanne - a freelance journalist in the alternate media and a blogger, like Kip, who can match her design excellence with her reporting and opinionating with the best of them - won this in a fairly close contest. Both deserved to win it, by my standards, so there were no vote-count irregularities to grant it to my teammate, over my state-mate. ( Update: Roxanne directs sales and marketing at AltWeeklies.com, but is not a journalist in the traditional sense.)

We extend a ‘HOO-YAW!’ and a highfive to Roxanne on her win, and believe Kip and the other contenders should be proud of the support they got that brought them this far above thousands of others. (wait… is it boo-yaw or hoo-yaw? Is my age showing? My boxer shorts aren’t.)

Walt Kelly Best Toon Blog

Named for the creator of the first champion political toon, Pogo, the nominees for this award included Abu Aardvark, Barry Deutsch whose Amptoons and other works regularly grace his Alas A Blog, the popular toonist, August J. Pollak @ xoverboard.com, Hugh Macleod, the marketing whiz who puts out gapingvoid and David Rees of get your war on.

Frankly, I was puzzled by the nomination of Abu Aardvark, a Middle East specialist, for this category, as I read him fairly often and don’t recall his tooning on display. All the others, though, are exceptional nominees with very broad followings, and the voting reflected that. One commenter noted that since Tom Tomorrow at This Modern World didn’t even get nominated, our contest was suspect. I was surprised by that as well, before the comment, though I again attribute that to my failure to get the word out to enough people and places. Yet among such talents as these, he’d still have a tough competition, in any case.

Every last one of these belongs on your blogroll. Think about the mood we’d all be in without the comic relief of toonists like these, along with the humorist bloggers. Simply put, they keep us halfway sane (which in my case is no small feat) in an age of political brutality.

One of these also, technically, is not a blogger. Yet his work was so overwhelmingly popular that the voters would not be denied. One commenter even indicated he liked this toonist’s other strip better: my new filing technique is unstoppable. Certainly. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t include his latest GYWO (It’s Guckert-esque!) or note the improbability that a toonist would have not one, not two, but four toons featured on his site. Among social commentary toonists, that’s an unheard-of feat, and it’s just another reason he emerged as a very deserving winner this year, blog or no blog.

Congratulations to David, and our thanks to all these toonists for their support of our mental health.

And that leaves just two more prizes. Which will be in my final post a little later today.

For all Koufax Award winners, please note Dwight’s post, as well as the second comment there, which is mine.

I’ll get those out to the winners this weekend, along with Perranoski Prize graphics.

I�€™ve been holdin out on this for a while now but I feel I gotta respond to a number a recent allegations made by vocal commentator an box resident Ol Man Crazy. Mr. Crazy has made a lotta unsubstantiated claims about me lately an I asked him privately to retract em but he just throws a buncha ol soup cans at me instead.

First of all I have to strongly disagree with Mr. Crazy�€™s thesis that I helped Harry Truman an the moon men plant a homin device in his brain. For starters I have never met President Truman who died in 1972 about a decade or so before I was born nor is there any conclusive evidence to suggest that Mr. Truman ever had contact with moon men or any moon technology. If Ol Man Crazy had done his research he would have known this but instead he goes on with this unfounded an irresponsible speculation.

Also I have to contest Mr. Crazy�€™s claim that I am the Mean Mad Marmalade Man come to steal his marmalade. I�€™m not familiar with a Mr. Marmalade Man or his attempts to harass Ol Man Crazy but as a member of the neighborhood watch group I certainly would like to help Mr. Crazy out with his situation. I would certainly never try to steal his marmalade. I didn�€™t even know Mr. Crazy owned or made a brand a marmalade but if I wanted some you can bet I would buy some from him at a reasonable price.

And even though I didn�€™t want it to have to come to this I feel like I have to point out that Mr. Crazy has been misrepresentin himself. There�€™s no evidence at all to suggest he is the Grand Duchess of Pillsbury or in fact a duchess of any kind. Nor is his travelin companion Monsignor Cat an actual cat or a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical officer for that matter but instead appears to be a shoppin cart fulla duct tape. I wouldn�€™t go as far as to call this fraud or anythin but I feel like Mr. Crazy�€™s public has a right to know.

Anyway I believe Mr. Crazy owes me an his listeners an apology.

President George W. Bush and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin shocked the world yesterday when they met the press following a closed-door meeting to announce that they’ve been having an affair for three years and will marry some time this summer. “I wasn’t lyin’ when I met him for the first time and said I saw into his soul,” Bush declared to a stunned press corp. Washington Post staff writer Michael A. Fletcher broke the silence with a “slow clap” that soon erupted into thunderous applause as Putin gently rested his head on President Bush’s shoulder and slowly began to weep. Registry will most likely be at the GUM Department Store in Moscow and at Fleet Farm locations nationwide.

Yesterday, we were treated with the spectacle of George W. Bush extolling the virtues of a “free presss,” that actually held him “accoutable.” Unlike in some unfree places (like Russia). Yuck. Yuck.

“Q To follow up on the issue of democratic institutions, President Bush recently stated that the press in Russia is not free. What is this lack of freedom all about? Your aides probably mentioned to you that our media, both electronic and our printed media — full coverage of the manifestations and protests in our country. Our regional and national media often criticize the government institution. What about you? Why don’t you talk a lot about violations of the rights of journalists in the United States, about the fact that some journalists have been fired? Or do you prefer to discuss this in private with your American colleague?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I don’t know what journalists you’re referring to. Any of you all still have your jobs? No, I — look, I think it’s important any viable democracy has got a free and active press. Obviously, if you’re a member of the Russian press, you feel like the press is free. And that’s — feel that way? Well, that’s good. (Laughter.) But I — I talked to Vladimir about that. And he — he wanted to know about our press. I said, nice bunch of folks. And he wanted to know about, as you mentioned, the subject of somebody getting fired. People do get fired in American press. They don’t get fired by government, however. They get fired by their editors or they get fired by their producers, or they get fired by the owners of a particular outlet or network.

But a free press is important. And it is — it is an important part of any democracy. And if you’re a member of the press corps and you feel comfortable with the press in Russia, I think that is a pretty interesting observation for those of us who don’t live in Russia to listen to.

But no question, whether it be in America or anywhere else, the sign of a healthy and vibrant society is one in where there’s an active press corps. Obviously, there has got to be constraints. There’s got to be truth. People have got to tell the truth, and if somebody violates the truth, then those who own a particular newspaper or those who are in charge of particular electronic station need to hold people to account. The press — the capacity of the press to hold people to account also depends on their willingness to self-examine at times when they’re wrong. And that happens on occasion in America. And that’s — that’s an important part of maintaining a proper relationship between government and press.

I can assure you that the folks here are constantly trying to hold me to account for decisions I make and how I make decisions. I’m comfortable with that. It’s part of the checks and balances of a democracy.

And so I’m glad to hear you’re editorial comment, so to speak, on your comfort with the situation of the press corps in the Federation of Russia.

Excuse me, but “the folks here are constantly trying to hold me to account for decisions I make and how I make decisions?!?” Is that on Bizarro world?

The US press corps (particularly the networks and cable news stations) have pretty much either laid down and died when it comes to holding your ass accountable for anything, or are actually in the tank for you and your administration.

At least in Russia, the compliant, pro-Putin media has the excuse of being forcefully coerced into it in many cases. Our pissant, yellow-stained media does it because they are a bunch of spineless cowards and sycophants.

UPDATE:

Let’s briefly discuss the latest developments in the Chicago court case in which a man claimed a former lover gave him oral sex, saved his sperm, and used it to get pregnant (she said she conceived through regular sexual intercourse).

After he was ordered to pay child support for the kid, he sued the woman for “emotional distress,” claiming that her actions caused him to experience nausea, headaches, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, and feelings of being “trapped in a nightmare.”

He also sued her for the theft of his sperm.

However:

The Illinois Appeals Court said Wednesday that Phillips can press a claim for emotional distress after learning Irons had used his sperm to have a baby, but agreed that however the baby was conceived, Irons didn’t steal the sperm.

“She asserts that when plaintiff ‘delivered’ his sperm, it was a gift,” the decision said. “There was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request.”

So, ladies, you get to keep the deposits you’re given, and do with them what you will. (Unless, of course, you two make an agreement that he’s just lending you the deposit, and you will return it to him in good condition following a successful delivery.)

And guys, you should refrain from gift-giving unless you can be fairly certain that the recipient won’t present you with an unwelcome little bundle in nine months or so. Self-gifting, although it has been said to cause blindness and hairy palms, usually doesn’t result in headaches, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, or feelings of being trapped in the nightmare of $800 a month child support payments for 18 years.

I’ve watched the Koufax Awards for all three years they’ve run and have been amazed how it’s mushroomed from one year to the next. But then I thought about comparing it to the Emmys or Academy Awards. There’s a finite number of Hollywood folk or nationally recognized musicians. Perhaps ten or twenty thousand of each, with maybe 1% having any shot at a prize.

Blogs number in the millions already. Of the progressive political blogs, I’d guess there’s 10 or 20 thousand already, so 1% of that is 100 to 200 bloggers with a shot at an award. And at this rate of growth, in a year or two, that 1% could easily be 1000 talented folks vying for a prize.

The amount of work Dwight and Marybeth and Eric had to do to work through the process this year was unreal. I tried to keep track just three days and with all the ways folks word their nominations, it required constant decision-making and a ton of work. I just can’t fathom what they’ll face in the next year or two - perhaps nervous breakdowns.

Did you know it costs $200 just to nominate someone for a Webby Award? Sure, that pays for an actual awards show, but it also reimburses the folks involved for their work. Other than tips that likely pay for bandwidth at best, the folks at Wampum take on their project as volunteers. I admire that. It’s gotta be a labor of love.

So why did I start the Perranoskis? My love’s in short supply, after all. Bloggers rant and snivel and whine and I already have my own teenagers to contend with. It’s not something that’ll make me popular, except among a handful of winners. As best as I can explain it, I did it because I’m a few keys shy of a keyboard, if you get my drift.

I worried I’d get snowed under, but in fact, I did such a pisspoor job spreading the word that the nominators and voters were surprisingly few. Less than 200 overall, counting the emails.

Thank God.

I had several aims, actually and a chief one was simply the recognition that there’s so many different kinds of talent that go into blogs. The bulk of it is writing, certainly, but with photobloggers and video creators and toonists and artists, there’s a lot of other content, too. And every year, commenters at Wampum note they wished this category or that existed.

So I decided to make a few more exist. I thought it’d be a novel experiment to see which categories would draw the most votes. Wampum had 13 this year, and I created 9 (though a couple were ones they’d had previously, like the Drysdale Award, for the best conservatives who engage us amicably in debate.) Based on the number who voted in the final round, I’d say 6 or 7 of the categories should continue.

Best Tech Achievement Blog was the least popular. Few were nominated and it drew the least number of votes. Either the political bloggers are not that interested in tech, or it just doesn’t fit their ideas of liberal progressivism. Best Moving Image Blog drew more votes, but the problem there was a shortage of people to nominate. If the awards continue next year, I’d likely roll this category in with the other artists and call it Best Non-Text Content Blog, or Best Other Media Blog.

That said, let’s move on to the prizewinners.

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“It’s not the sex, it’s the pseudonym,” say the protesting-too-much sore losers who want no one in the White House newsroom except sadistic scab-pickers. Liberal anger at Guckert a.k.a. Gannon sounds like just the latest outburst of their antipathy to free enterprise, since he was actually making a profit at something they prefer to think of as so worthless that it should only be given away for free. But if we consider their absurd premise that a known nom de plume for web writing compromises media “integrity”, then they should drop their claims of hypocrisy against conservatives, because no factions come to the court of internet equity with clean hands.

Jim (or Jeff) only changed his name, but one blogger actually changed his sex on the web. On December 29 a new blog appeared called “Libertarian Girl”, supposedly by a young woman in D.C. Just like Jeff (or Jim), he has now stopped posting at his old site, after his own turned on him and uncovered his secret identity. Perhaps they became suspicious because “her” confused postings were a parody of their dogmas, like this heretical rant:

Breast augmentation surgery is a negative sum game. The surgery increases the recipient’s attractiveness (because men are so stupid), but only at the expense of other women whose natural breasts become less attractive in comparison to the increasing population of surgically augmented women. …

The typical liberal response might be the desire to make the surgery illegal. But I disagree. If a woman wants the surgery badly enough, she should be allowed to obtain it, but only if she pays back the externality she causes. So I call for the implementation of a breast implant tax.

His real mistake was posting a picture. On February 13, “Catallarchy” blew the whistle:

Ever since she began blogging, people accused Libertarian Girl of being a fraud. Her critics claimed that a libertarian blog run by a young, attractive female is too good to be true, and that the author is probably just a guy desperate for attention.

… something is beginning to smell fishy. Wazoo turned my attention to this personal ad on a mail-order bride website, containing a photo of �€œViktoriya,�€� who shares a striking resemblance to Libertarian Girl.

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Here’s a memento I picked up at CPAC. It’s a figurine honoring the contributions of three of America’s greatest patriots, Malkin, Hannity, and O’Reilly, to the democratic ideals embodied in the Glorious Conservative Christian Cultural Revolution.

A helmet tip to boingboing.