A Spork in the Drawer

Ossification

This is something I've been thinking about lately, particularly this item:

3. Norms and practices. Bloggers have undermined the blogosphere. Bloggers do not link to each other as much as they used to. It's a lot of work to look for good posts elsewhere, and most bloggers have become burnt out. Drezner and Farrell had a theory that even small potato bloggers would have their day in the sun, if they wrote something so great that it garnered the attention of the big guys. But the big guys are too burnt out to find the hidden gems. So, good stuff is being written all the time, and it isn't bubbling to the top.

I appreciate all the points and I can't say any of this surprises me but the blogosphere has changed and become a less vibrant and less interesting place.

[Via Kevin Drum.]

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Adding, I also think that opposition to Republicans in general and the BushCheney regime in particular was an energizing force but now with Democrats controlling Congress and the White House it's becoming obvious that said Democrats are little better than those they replaced. This has a dispiriting effect.

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Well That's Sobering

8 people read this blog regularly.

8.

Introduce yourselves, 'cuz we could have fun with this.

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Monday Poll

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A Short Break

Everybody's written what I would have written any way so why be redundant?

Normal weekend features remain scheduled and my regular brilliant insights will return Tuesday.

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I Got Nuthin'

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Monday Poll

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Morning Has Broken

I wonder which Democrat will be forced to denounce somebody today.

Perhaps a picture of some pop tart's bare shoulder will surface and distract everybody!

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More Fairness

In response to Roy Edroso's The Official Village Voice Election-Season Guide to the Right-Wing Blogosphere: A confederacy of dunces the always brilliant Thers gives us The Official FDL Election Season Guide to the Left-Wing Traitorsphere.

(My personal favorite: The entry for Amanda Marcotte.)

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Useful

The great Roy Edroso of alicublog gives us The Official Village Voice Election-Season Guide to the Right-Wing Blogosphere: A confederacy of dunces.

Know thine enemy!

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Blogs Are Not The Enemy

Devilstower has a terrific post up at the Great Orange Satan:

Punditry has always aimed as much artillery at the people who deliver the news as it does at those who make it. There's a very good reason for this. Before you can convince someone of a lie, you need to make it more difficult for them to check your information. If you establish from the start that NPR is communist, MSNBC and CNN are slanted, and every newspaper this side of Journal's editorial page should be printed on pink paper, then any exaggeration you deliver becomes the de facto standard. Impugning the validity of other news sources is the first job of a successful pundit. They don't seek to be your sources of information by passing along reliable news. They do so by constantly assailing the legitimacy of other sources until you're left shaking your head at the absolute ignorance of everyone but Rush/Bill/Sean/Ann.

[...]

In response to the assault from less factual sources, media both accelerated the already existing trend toward mingling news and entertainment and -- in the most twisted move imaginable -- sought to imitate the mudslingers. They joined the war not by upholding their standards, but by dismissing them. And again, they did so for the reason that Keen indicates as the break between amateur and professional: the perception that there was more money to be made on the less truthful side of the aisle.

Definitely worth a read.

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Housekeeping

New additions to the blogroll: Roy Edroso takes the right down a peg or twelve at alicublog, the wonderful Susie Madrak whacks them at Suburban Guerrilla, TRex snarks a trail at IamTRex, the Rude Pundit is, well, rude, local boy Bram goes local at the local Pittsburgh Comet, and a gathering of fine femmes can be found at the Pittsburgh Women's Blogging Society.

Those, and many more, can be found to the left (!).

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It's Quiet

Almost too quiet...

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Brother (And Sister) Can You Spare A Dime?

Dave and Sara are holding a fundraiser over at Orcinus. Toss a few pennies their way so they can keep up the fight against the radical (and not-so-radical) right.

As a bonus, if you contribute you'll make Jonah "Doughy Pantload" Goldberg cry.

And that's a good thing.

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Surprising

58%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

[Via LGM.]

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Crap Crappity Crap Crap

All this time and dangerblond isn't on my blogroll?

Consider that rectified.

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Mentioned In Passing

Well, it looks like I haven't been posting much. (You've noticed that? Clever Dick you are!)

Anyways, I should be back after the first of the year BUT with a difference: less politics & current events and more arts & culture. (This is where you all go "YAY!!!")

(As for politics: One of those horrible Democrats will win and one of those even more horrible Republicans will win. One of those horrible people will be our next President (YAY!!!) And Ron Paul is a Nazi (<-Bait).))

Anyways (again) sometimes I'll post a whole bunch a day, somedays not at all. Deal with it.

Oh, and for the design of this place? Five out of five say I should keep the blacky goodness (YAY!!!)

So, um, YAY!!!

(Now go do something useful.)

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What Say You?

I've received e-mails and some comments that say that the white text on black background is hard to read.

Consequently, I'm thinking of changing the look of this here place.

So, the few of you who still read this nonsense: Should I make this more readable?

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Stop The Presses!

Friend of Lindsay Lohan sues blogger!

Humanity on tenterhooks waiting for the outcome!

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Brilliant!

I removed this post because it revealed my extraordinarily poor reading comprehension skills.

And I gave myself the "Idiots" tag as punishment.

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Take The Challenge!

While always a gibbering idiot it would appear that Billo is actually becoming more insane.

Win a pony!

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Professional Sockpuppetry

This comes as no surprise to me as this little blog had an infestation last year but LunkHead has found that the rightists are recruiting professional blog commenters Professional Blog Warriors. Have a look:

Despite my small elite readership it's entirely possible the we'll be seeing the results of this recruiting drive before long. Pathetic.

But as someone once said, bring 'em on!

(Oh, and check out winningcampaigns.org (I won't do a link). One word come to mind: Sleeeea-zeeee.)

[Via Atrios.]

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Fun!

Given my opinion of the Apple iPhone how could I not post this:

[Via PZ.]

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Whoa

Josh Marshall's place has a spiffy new look.

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Noted In Passing

For some reason Wordpress has banned me from commenting on Wordpress blogs.

If you're on Wordpress don't think I don't read you; it's just that Wordpress...well, y'know (see above).

By the way, anybody at Wordpress: What's your problem???

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WTF?

I'm rated "R"?

[Via watertiger.]

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And A Blog Shall Lead Them

Max Blumenthal:

[Via Atrios.]

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Dueling Thinkers

In an excerpt from his upcoming book, Glenn Greenwald argues that George's Manichean views have done tremendous harm to the US. BooMan disagrees with Glenn's use of the word "Manichean" and insists that BushCo™ is motivated by Straussian cynicism.

This is all much more interesting than I've made it sound.

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Revealed!

The great and mysterious digby makes her public debut.

Amanda has the video.

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Of Double Standards

digby:

So I make myself some coffee and open my dead tree version of the NY Times this morning only to see a call for blogger ethics on the front page. How interesting. Another call for "managed civil speech" (which is claimed to be "freer" than unfettered free speech.) There was no word on who would be the managers of such speech, but I think we can count on those who call for it to be the ones who feel they are most qualified to define and enforce it. (Apparently, this will all be done "voluntarily" and will be dealt with through purges and link boycotts and the novel concept of moderated comment sections. Or something.)

Meanwhile, on the media page is a story about the execrable Don Imus and the fact that he routinely makes racist, misogynistic and eliminationist jokes on his show while half the Washington press corps spends time there kissing his ring. For some reason that kind of "incivility" doesn't upset the journalistic prima donnas half as much as the uncivil blogosphere does.

Read the whole thing.

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In Re: Blogs

The LATimes
notices blogs:

In December, Josh Marshall, who owns and runs TPM , posted a short item linking to a news report in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette about the firing of the U.S. attorney for that state. Marshall later followed up, adding that several U.S. attorneys were apparently being replaced and asked his 100,000 or so daily readers to write in if they knew anything about U.S. attorneys being fired in their areas.

For the two months that followed, Talking Points Memo and one of its sister sites, TPM Muckraker, accumulated evidence from around the country on who the axed prosecutors were, and why politics might be behind the firings. The cause was taken up among Democrats in Congress. One senior Justice Department official has resigned, and Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales is now in the media crosshairs.

Damn straight that JMM should get credit.

And then:

Duncan Black, an economist who writes as Atrios on his website, Eschaton, receives hundreds of comments for almost anything he posts. Thursday morning, he posted a short note saying he would not be writing much that day as he was going to be traveling. Within the hour, 492 people posted comments on that. A political reporter at a metropolitan daily might not get that much reader response in a year.

OPEN THREAD!!!

Most bloggers, in fact, are not journalists and do little if any reporting. But most bloggers don't claim to be journalists. They're bloggers. The incivility charge is true too. Many bloggers use bad language, but so occasionally does the New Yorker, and no one accuses it of lacking manners.

Damn, Terry McDermott "gets it".

I stay away from arguments on the whole blogging thing but this is a good article.

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