Blogging Archives
This is a very large file. For the full smaller digest version, click here.Kevin Drum/Washington Monthly deletes yet another comment (Obama's Global Poverty Act)
Kevin Drum obviously doesn't want his readers to know how much of a hack he is, since either he or someone else at Washington Monthly keep deleting comments from me and apparently from others as well.
The latest in this long line was left earlier today on a post about Barack Obama's Global Poverty Act. It was left on washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_08/014237.php, which links to blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/08/05/this-just-in-obama-is-a-secret-agent-from-the-u-n.aspx from Jonathan Cohn.
Here's the comment, as posted:
------
Let me get this straight: Jonathan Cohn admits he knows nothing about this, but he's basing his mockery on a "quick Google search" and he admits he might be missing something. And, since all the complaints about this are coming from rightwing sites, well, then it's not really necessary to look into the claims, right?
And, then Kevin Drum does an even more hacky job than usual by simply linking to someone else's hackwork.
If there are any intellectually honest BHO supporters, start here and then tell us why the figure quoted is wrong.
Remember: the key part of that is to be intellectually honest, that is unlike Kevin Drum and Jonathan Cohn.
[Note: WM and/or KD have a habit of deleting or editing comments without notice, so this comment may disappear or be different from what I posted. Search for "kevin drum" at my site for examples of comments that were deleted.]
------
UPDATE: I left another comment saying the following:
------
Here's the comment that was just deleted from this thread. Needless to say, this comment will probably be deleted too.
------
Guess what: I was right. At the WM link, out of 22 comments there are only two that have any value whatsoever: one links to the votegopher link (also left in comments here), and another that says "Just read the bill. It's typical Obama. All rhetoric and no substance. Probably unconstitutional as it violates the separation of powers." None of the others address the bill but are simply attempted "jokes", rants about how the GOP is evil, and so on.
The bottom line is that nothing Kevin Drum says can be trusted. By deleting comments from those who disagree, they're removing any fact-checking from their site. Kevin Drum could lie about something obscure and then simply delete all the comments that point out the lie. Anyone who took Drum at his word would have been misled.
Regarding the votegopher comment in comments here, I left this comment there (whew!):
------
It would be fair to state that this bill could start a process that would result in the U.S. spending the amount claimed; see for instance this estimate from the WorldBank: peekURL.com/z1doski
Note also this from the bill: "The year 2007 marks the mid-point to the Millennium Development Goals deadline of 2015." That implies that the bill wants us to continue on the path to meeting that deadline, and doing that is going to require us to spend a lot of money, in addition to doing a lot of other things covered by the MDG.
Maybe next time we can look forward to this site discussing those other MDGs and admitting that BHO obviously wants us to meet all of them.
------
Doesn't the left realize how embarrassing Max Blumenthal is? (Toby Keith, lynching)
The latest example of Max Blumenthal's abject stupidity is called "Toby Keith's Pro-Lynching Publicity Tour Hits Colbert, CBS and More" (huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/toby-keiths-pro-lynching_b_115526.html) and concerns the song "Beer For My Horses" which is apparently also a movie. Discussing all the ways it's wrong is left as an exercise (actually, don't bother), but:
The terrifying spectacle outside the courtroom prompted Jewish families to flee Atlanta in droves. Two years later, after the governor commuted Frank's sentence, a lynch mob spirited Frank from his prison cell, dragged him into the woods and lynched him -- from "a tall oak tree," as Toby Keith sang.
The quote leads to a presumed picture of the lynching showing a tree. Usually when someone puts something in quotes it involves someone else saying something, but the tree is not identified and could be anything. The only hits for "leo frank" "tall oak tree" are from Blumenthal's article; when the "tall" is removed it gets more hits and apparently the tree was in fact an oak. None of that has anything to do with the song since there's nothing in the song even implying a connection to Leo Frank. To Blumenthal, however, that doesn't matter.
Further, the song may be referring to unlawful lynchings, or it may be referring to hangings as ordered by a court; perhaps Max should see some Westerns. The song also references "the long arm of the law", so presumably Keith is promoting lawful executions rather than lynchings.
I'm as sorry to have to put anyone through that as I am at wasting my time discussing this.
Banned by Alternet!
A couple weeks back Alternet deleted a comment I left. Now, after having successfully left another comment, I've been banned. The comment that drove them over the edge is below.Alternet frequently posts articles supporting illegal immigration, and until the last two incidents I've been able to post a dozen or two comments pointing out issues with those posts without a problem. Due to the non-abusive nature of my comments, the issue is that Alternet is afraid of an open debate and only wants an echo chamber.
Here's the email they sent me:
AlterNet commenting privileges suspendedAs previously discussed, I can't find those "community policies" and they didn't respond to the email I sent after the earlier comment was removed.
Grounds: Violations of AlterNet's community policies and/or complaints from other readers.
Here's the comment that apparently caused the ban, which still appears at post time on alternet.org/blogs/peek/93035:
The people being discussed are IllegalAliens, i.e., citizens of another country who are here illegally. Needless to say, giving them discounted educations would encourage even more people to come here illegally with their children. In other words, it would be horrible public policy. Not only that, but every college spot or discount given to an IllegalAlien is one that's taken away from our own fellow citizens. That's even worse public policy.
(Note: the last time I posted a comment here, Alternet deleted it. Hopefully that won't happen again.)
Is my.barackobama.com trollproof? No, you just need to work at it
Back on the 22nd, "Bill Hawkins" started a blog at Barack Obama's site and posted an entry (my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/billhawkins) entitled "Which hate sites should be banned?" The post suggested that BHO take his push to drive hate off the airwaves to the Internet as well, and solicited BHO fans to list some sites that should be banned. Perhaps as a coincidence, I saw this post immediately and watched it over the next several days. Unfortunately, I was shocked to learn that the post only received one comment, and that was generally supporting free speech.
Now, I have absolutely no idea whatsoever who "Bill Hawkins" is, but just in case "Bill Hawkins" is a made-up name and this was a troll, I want to assure others that the weak response doesn't necessarily indicate that trolling BHO's site isn't going to be fruitful. What "Bill Hawkins" should have done is promoted it in some way or some. I'll be sure to recommend that to "Bill Hawkins" if I ever meet him.
The original post is still on BHO's site and is in the extended entry.
"Bill Hawkins'" post follows:
Recently, Obama spoke out forcefully against hate on our airwaves, and promised to do something about it:
The 12 million people in the shadows, the communities taking immigration enforcement into their own hands, the neighborhoods seeing rising tensions as citizens are pitted against new immigrants... they're counting on us to stop the hateful rhetoric filling our airwaves – rhetoric that poisons our political discourse, degrades our democracy, and has no place in this great nation.
I trust Obama, and I know that as president he's going to work with the FCC to make sure that hate is driven off our airwaves. However, that's only part of the problem. There are plenty of websites that spread hate as well.
For instance, as I read this story about a college professor tracing smear emails back to freerepublic.com and other sites, I became more and more outraged. How could a site like that be allowed to even exist? All they do is spread lies.
I feel that Obama must do more. In addition to speaking out - and supporting action - against those who spread hate on the airwaves, he also has to speak out against those who spread hate on the Internet.
I encourage my fellow Obama supporters to offer detailed proposals on what actions President Obama should take against these hate sites. I also suggest we start a list of the most noxious hate sites for future reference.
Together, we can stop the hate!
New DailyKos slogan: Liar, liar, pants on fire, you f#$%ing liar
Presented for your amusement is the diary entry from one "clammyc" called "John McCain, f#$%ing liar" (dailykos.com/story/2008/7/28/165138/698/993/558351):
It's long past time for people to not only give McCain a total pass on his outright lies, smears, "McCain moments" and other absolute nonsense that comes from his mouth. And if he isn't lying, then he is goddamn near senile and shouldn't be President for that reason alone, notwithstanding all of the other very valid reasons that he shouldn't be President... So let's start calling him what he is. A full on liar. Not only "forgetful", not only "misinterpreted", not only "misquoted", not only mean-spirited and stretching the truth... A liar. As in "pants on fire"...
Now you know why I run sites, not "blogs".
More proof of GOP stupidity (Digg division)
I'll leave it to political scientists, political analysts, and psychologists to try to figure out why the Republican Party (GOP) is unable to use the internet to their advantage and I'll just point out one example of how the Democrats and Barack Obama are eating John McCain's lunch.
In the US Elections 2008 subsection on Digg right now, almost all of the popular and "hot" (upcoming) stories are anti-McCain, a couple are anti-GOP in general, and almost all the rest are pro-Obama. Not a single pro-McCain story makes either list. And, several are from the Huffington Post. The only one that doesn't fit that pattern and that saves it from being a complete rout is a mostly impartial joke posting from the lightweight site Gawker.
The titles of both sets are in the extended entry; note that the last "hot" story is the HuffPost entry described here.
Part of the reason why the GOP can't break into either list is partly because many of their leaders probably wouldn't even have a clue what this post is about. Part of the reason is lack of enthusiasm. Part is lack of organization. And, another issue might be that the Democrats are working the system in some way. Since Obama supporters frequently infest blog comments with a swarm of sockpuppets, it's not too difficult to imagine them using multiple Digg accounts to bump up some of those stories. No doubt a large number of the Diggs of those articles are legitimate and obtained through networking on Facebook or similar, but it's inconceivable that all of them are legitimate. And, some might even involve payments to those who supposedly do such sockpuppeting as a sideline.
** Here are the titles of the popular stories **
McCain On The Run: Cancels Press Availability
McCain Attacks Obama's Holocaust Museum Statement
Why McCain's Iraq "Surge" Success Story Is A Lie
Devastating New YouTube Video: John McCain's Neverending War watch!
John McCain's Never-Ending War In Iraq
McCain Gets History Of The Surge Wrong, CBS edits out gaffe
3,000 GIs Mob Barack in Baghdad (Video and Goodies)
McCain Makes False Claims On Iraq Timeline (VIDEO)
McCain Adviser Points to 2020 Iraq Withdrawal Date
McCain is Getting Desperate, As the World Embraces Obama
McCain Camp "Frustrated" With Obama's Trip
Sen. Ted Stevens Falling Down Series Of Tubes In Latest Poll
Obama Far More Popular Among Jews Than Lieberman
S.C. State Senator Posts Osama-Obama Photo On His Website
What Will Our President of Tomorrow Look Like in the Future? [joke story]
** Here's the "hot" list **
The Greatest Threat America Has Ever Faced: the GOP?
Seth Colter Walls: Wexler: McCain Attack On Obama's Holocaus
McCain cancels press avail in light of his Iraq deception
Laugh, clown, laugh [note: anti-McCain, anti-GOP editorial]
Seth Colter Walls: McCain Tries To Cover Surge Mistake With
Clueless McCain Suggests Rationing Vets Health Care
McCain Implies That Oil Prices are Psychological
John McCain says "F**K You!" during Interview
CBS Busted Violating its own Standards to Help McCain
Spreading Lies About Obama's Health Care Plan
DailyKos' Netroots Nation has Mexican government-linked group
All rightthinking comrades will be in Austin, Texas this weekend for DailyKos' Netroots Nation, a convention formerly known as YearlyKos.
A search of the site shows just one session relating to immigration, called nutrootsily enough "How to Win the Immigration Debate and Beat Back ICE's Emerging Police State" (netrootsnation.org/node/864). Put on your diving cap and try to follow their logic:
With Congress held hostage to a vocal minority of hard-line immigration restrictionists stirred up by right-wing websites and talk-radio, the Bush administration has launched a series of showy "crack-downs" that have divided working families and transferred billions into the hands of well-connected DHS contractors, but done nothing to reform a deeply dysfunctional immigration system. We can do better.
Actually, the ones holding Congress at bay are the citizens; left to their own devices Congress would have easily passed amnesty. The contractors bit makes some partial sense, even if I imagine their numbers are off a bit. However, the people who've played a major role in the Bush administration putting on a show are those who support illegal immigration, including DailyKos and others on their side. If they would simply support the enforcement of our laws then there'd be no need for things such as the fence. Likewise, it's those who promote disorder - such as DailyKos and other "liberals" - who make it easy for those whose goal is power over others to push "police state"-style proposals.
As for the presenters at that session:
* Marisa Trevino of the blog Latina Lista
* Joshua Holland of Alternet
* "Duke 1676" of the blog Migra Matters
* Jackie Mahendra of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
The last group is headed by someone linked to the Mexican government. What's a Kos convention without a little collaboration?
On a general note, they also have "identity" caucusi (netrootsnation.org/agenda-2008?topic=identity), including those for African Americans, Asian American Pacific Islanders, Latinos, and Women. Oddly enough, there aren't ones for Whites or Men, for some strange reason. All have the same generic description:
Connect with like-minded folks and talk with others from your community in our identity, issue and regional caucuses.
And, what would the Nutroots Nation be without those who are only known to bloggers, with book signings by notables such as Cliff Schecter, Matt Yglesias, and Amanda Marcotte.
If you register now, you can save 10% if you use the special code GUSHALL at checkout.
Alternet deletes comment (Kyle de Beausset, NCLR)
I've left several comments on Alternet's immigration entries, and as far as I know none had been deleted until the last. That last comment was left on the entry "Minutemen Scream "F@$k You Brown Boy!" at Latinos Attending Obama Talk" by Kyle de Beausset (alternet.org/blogs/peek/91440). That post is just the latest in that leftwing site's long line of far-left articles supporting illegal immigration; note that in contrast to some other leftwing sites, left-leaning commenters occasionally call Alternet on their biases.
The comment is included below; how exactly it violates their "community policies" isn't clear since I've been unable to find out what those are. It doesn't seem to violate the rules of other sites, and I'm going to ask Alternet to explain exactly what the problem is.
De Beausset (aka "kyledeb") operates the site Citizen Orange (citizenorange.com) and contributes to The Sanctuary (thesanctuary.soapblox.net) and he starts the post with the following:
I'm here in San Diego where Barack Obama just spoke at the annual National Council of La Raza (NCLR) conference. NCLR flew me out here and provided with me accommodations at the luxurious San Diego Marriot Hotel Marina. I was given the opportunity after I helped publicize NCLR's latest We Can Stop the Hate video using Digg and StumbleUpon, among other new media tools.
The comment that was deleted follows; unfortunately, I forgot to call them on their false headline in that there was just one supposed "Minuteman":
Thank you, Alternet!
Whenever someone's confused over the meaning of the word "irony", I'll send them to this post. It's truly ironic that the only incident of racism at a La Raza convention Alternet can find is an alleged incident from one loon. "Brown boy" isn't exactly a common slur, and it's quite likely that it was said in response to him being called "white boy". There are also plenty of goons on Alternet's side. Oops: I didn't mean to reduce myself to the NCLR-funded kyledeb's side by engaging in guilt by association.
If Alternet is going to continue publishing open borders articles, let me suggest at the least getting better writers.
Netroots, mondegreen added to dictionary!
America's perkiest newsbabe, Katie Couric, informs us that the words "netroots" and "mondegreen" have been added to the dictionary.
The second word is derived from a song lyric "laid him on the green"; in reference to Katie I'd prefer rondegreen (phwoar), but that's just me.
And, of course, we know about the word "netroots" because it's related to the word "nutroots", the blogging term for FireDogLake, DailyKos, and other sites. Maybe if we write enough letters to whichever company is responsible for the dictionary we can get a montage of their logos added next to that word when it's eventually added.
Youtube's Citizentube blog doesn't want to hear from citizens, deletes all comments
Youtube's "Citizentube" (citizentube.com) apparently doesn't want to hear from citizens, because that blog where they post promos for Youtube's political ventures has stopped allowing comments on their entries. They used to allow comments, but they've even gone as far as deleting all comments which were left on their past entries.
I blame myself, since I pestered Youtube's Steve Grove by leaving the three comments in the extended entry, none of which are there anymore.
1. From citizentube.com/2008/04/announcement-general-election.html
Have you ever heard hype about a new band, and when you listen to them it's just elevator music?
Youtube's "debates" are like that. The "debate" will be like the CNN/Youtube "debate", featuring puffball after puffball which the candidates will simply answer with their stock speeches. And, whoever the moderators are won't call them on their lies or press for a followup.
Youtube is already telegraphing what they're going to do by featuring the superlightweight James Kotecki, someone who wouldn't know a tough question if it fell on his head.
Not only that, but their example of a user-generated question is someone asking "do you think your personal qualities will allow you to be an effective president"?
What does anyone expect the answer to be, "no"?
If I were Youtube, I'd watch out: the questions they're going to allow to be asked might give Sergey Brin Soviet Union flashbacks.
2. From citizentube.com/2008/04/announcement-general-election.html
Let me light a candle by offering this proposal. The only way to avoid a repeat of the CNN disasters is to have bloggers and the like vote on the questions. They'll be charged with selecting the *toughest* questions, not the ones they want answered or anything else. And, their votes for each video will be public. So, if they vote up weak videos or vote down tough videos then they can be held accountable by their readers. And, the votes could be sliced and diced by who voted in which categories, a specific blogger's votes, etc.
On the plus side for Google, this would also cause more people to visit whatever site they host that at because the bloggers could link to a list of their votes.
And, this would also give Google plausible deniability when those tough questions get asked and the candidates get angry: it was the bloggers that selected the questions, not Google.
3. From citizentube.com/2008/04/welcome-to-new-citizentube.html
If Youtube wanted to do a public service they'd encourage people to go to campaign events and ask the questions that the MSM is too corrupt to ask. The MSM includes CNN and CSPAN, two Youtube partners that ran contests and then selected the wimpiest questions of the bunch. Regarding the CNN debacle, see these:
youtube.com/watch?v=nIbDAVQMKGM
youtube.com/watch?v=wm0uWz2BS9M
If someone who's familiar with the issue and who isn't afraid to ask real questions ever engages one of the top three candidates on immigration, the candidate is going to end up looking very bad since all three of them have offered unworkable proposals and have frequently lied or made misleading or incomplete statements. Perhaps Youtube is afraid of encouraging people to ask real questions lest they lose their access. Or, maybe it's something else.
NewsHounds edits comments without notice
NewsHounds is a bargain-basement "liberal" site whose tagline is "We watch FOX so you don't have to": their contributors watch that network and then write up reports. No less than two comments I left on the thread "Ingraham criticizes Washington Post for report, but fails to disprove it" by contributor "Chrish" [1] were edited without notice. Which is pretty rich coming from a site that in the past has offered posts like "Bill O'Reilly cuts mic of US Colonel Ann Wright as she defends her service and stance" and "Jane Hall Gets Mic Cut For Exposing BOR's Hypocrisy" [2]. I guess cutting someone off is OK if News Hounds does it.
The first comment I left was this:
----------
Obviously, Ingraham doesn't read my blog!
Because, if she did, she would have been able to point out how the WaPo author is lying.
----------
The change they made was to remove the link. My name's link was left in place, but by removing the link in the text, they reduced my comment to a statement that could be construed as just a simply reflexive disagreement instead of someone offering proof of the author lying. Note also that their commenting system is Javascript, meaning there's no search engine benefit to leaving links there.
After noticing that they'd edited my comment without notice, I left the original comment with a preface:
----------
Apparently there was some sort of odd technical problem, because the link to my proof that the author is lying is now missing from my earlier comment.
Here's the comment as it was before:
----------
The original comment followed the above. NewsHounds edited the last comment to be just the single sentence "Apparently there was some sort of odd technical problem".
For more fun, I'm going to leave another comment with a link to this post.
The depths some bloggers are willing to go to prevent their readers from being exposed to the truth would be funny, except little Stalinists aren't really that funny at all.
[1] newshounds.us/2008/06/30/
ingraham_criticizes_washington_post_for_report_but_fails_to_disprove_it.php
[2] site:newshounds.us cut off microphone
PBS "Engage" deletes comment critical of Gwen Ifill
[PBS re-posted my comment; see the update.]
The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) has a relatively new effort called "Engage" [1] in which they solicit feedback from their viewers. However, they only want the "right kind" of feedback and are willing to delete or ignore comments that are critical of their (public) network. In this particular case, a comment I left that was critical of Gwen Ifill appeared and then was later deleted. The whole sequence of events - and the comments in question - are included below. If the reader thinks the comment shouldn't have been deleted, please contact PBS and let them know what you think:
pbs.org/engage/contact
pbs.org/ombudsman/feedback.html
I'm also considering filing a FOIA request related to this issue; the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has claimed that they're exempt but has also admitted that they'd comply with FOIA. Yes, I realize that in the greater scheme of things a deleted comment isn't that big a deal. However, PBS is a publicly-funded entity that's supposedly impartial, so such a reaction is justified.
Here's the sequence of events:
1. I tried to leave a comment on the post pbs.org/engage/blog/folks-back-home-are-talking-about-obama-mccain on June 9. It was put into a moderation queue, but never appeared. Now, certainly, some bloggers might not even be aware that they have a moderation queue or it might be so clogged that they ignore it. You can see that as the first comment in the extended entry [2].
2. I tried again with a different comment on a different post (pbs.org/engage/blog/five-good-questions-gwen-ifill) on June 25. That also was put into the moderation queue, and it also never appeared.
3. I tried to leave the last message again on June 26, and this time I used a different user name (NoMoreBlatherDotCom instead of LonewackoDotCom), and I also removed the 'http://' which was in front of one of the links. That's the second comment in the extended entry. [3]
Success! The comment appeared.
However, when I checked back the next day, the comment was gone. PBS had deleted the comment, despite it not violating any of their listed rules: it was on-topic, it didn't contain profanity, and it wasn't a personal attack but simply a discussion of PBS' and Ifill's low journalistic standards.
Note that at the Gwen Ifill link, almost all the comments are supportive, with some even gushingly so: inquiring about who does her lighting, suggestions that she take Tim Russert's place, and so on. Also, a comment containing a link in the body has been there since I left the second comment. If their rule is that comments containing links are moderated, that means that that comment was approved by a moderator and thus they do pay attention to that queue. And, if PBS objects to me including links, then they're playing favorites, saying that a link to metagovernment.org is OK but not a link to my site. Note that for the final comment both links were in bare format, which the user would have to copy and paste into their browser. Note also that there are about 35 comments at the Ifill link, yet there are 63 anchors (the part after '#' in a comment's individual URL) used. That implies that several comments were deleted. What did they say?
UPDATE: PBS sent this response to my email:
Thank you for bringing your comment to our attention. We've taken a look at your post in light of our terms of service, and we've concluded that we should have allowed it on the site. We reposted your comment yesterday afternoon... As the Engage initiative grows and more people participate in our discussions, we're continuing to evaluate our moderation policies. Feedback like yours helps us clarify our thinking about these issues, and we appreciate it.
[1] Their "Engage" site started in October but I found out about it due to a BlogAds campaign they're running. The reader might want to send this URL to sites that are running their BlogAd.
[2] HERE'S THE FIRST COMMENT I TRIED TO LEAVE; THIS WAS MODERATED BUT NEVER APPEARED:
PBS and NPR are just leftier versions of the MSM, and neither do any real reporting and instead just push their agendas.
Examples I can provide come from the topic I cover: immigration.
1. The NPR debate was a sham:
http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/007291.html
2. NewsHour segments on the topic almost always feature "debates" with two people on the same basic side:
http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/007264.html
http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/006003.html
http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/005823.html
3. Instead of following the money, NPR offered a tear-jerker designed to make illegal immigration acceptable:
http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/007616.html
[3] HERE'S THE SECOND COMMENT I TRIED TO LEAVE; THE FIRST VERSION WAS MODERATED BUT NEVER APPEARED, THE SECOND VERSION OF THIS COMMENT APPEARED AND WAS THEN DELETED:
1. Back in 2006, you offered two guests discussing an issue, and they turned out to be on basically the same side. Have you considered that debates between two people who basically agree is how things were done in the Soviet Union and how things should not be done in the U.S.?
Details:
lonewacko.com/blog/archives/006003.html
2. At a "average voter" panel you moderated, a supposed "regular voter" (who turned out to be a wonk) made various inflammatory claims, none of which you called him on. Why didn't you do that? Was he a "plant", similar to what CNN did with audience members with their debates? And, why couldn't you find a regular voter who supports our laws?
Details:
lonewacko.com/blog/archives/005823.html
Questions for Matt Yglesias
Recently, Matt Yglesias of The Atlantic (matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com) has been posting a daily thread soliciting questions that he'll answer from his visitors ("requests"). I've posted a few comments to those threads without an answer, but that just means I'll keep trying. To be frank, the reason I do that is in the hope that one of these days Matthew Yglesias will let someone at the higher levels of the DNC know that the old lies aren't working any more. Specifically, if one of these days MattY would say to someone at the DNC, "my reputation is being harmed by trying to push your support for illegal immigration, and I fear that if someone who's familiar with this issue is able to interrogate Obama on the topic of immigration it's going to have a very negative impact on his chances", that might cause the DNC to change their policies to be more supportive of our laws. One can always hope.
Here are some of the questions. New ones will be added to the top of the list:
12. Discuss this recent GOP loss. Extra credit: contact those who used his previous wins to push their agenda, and see what they say now: Barone, Barnes, etc.
11. Find a public figure who opposes immigration enforcement, and then follow the money. For instance, this shill who I mentioned on this thread from today: matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/06/exurbs_aint_what_they_used_to.php
10. On this recent post, you came out for "comprehensive immigration reform". I pointed out that "reform" would give even more power inside the U.S. to racial power groups as well as the Mexican government. Should we worry about a neighboring government having political power inside the U.S.? If so, what should we do about it? How specifically will that power be reduced should what you support be enacted?
9. What are your thoughts on Barack Obama's latest NAFTA flap? Do you agree he admitted to being deceptive?
8. Will you be condemning New Haven's support for illegal activity?
7. When the Federal Reserve explicitly sets out to profit from money that was earned illegally, isn't that an example of political corruption at the highest levels of our political system?
6. Since you say you aren't part of the establishment, tell us how close you've come to doing some like this.
5. Last year, you told us the NAFTASuperhighway was just a myth (matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/08/the_highway_that_wasnt_there.php). This year, BHO said more than his handlers would want him to: "there's this highway being built in Texas that will facilitate more transportation and travel between Mexico and the intercontinental United States, on up to Canada". Please explain that for us.
4. Please tell us the differences between this Barack Obama proposal on global warming and how things would have been done in the Soviet Union.
3. Please list all the costs of the Katrina scandal, including those which aren't immediately obvious.
2. Why didn't your colleague Marc Ambinder push what should be a big story, the one about McCain and Juan Hernandez?
1. Have you considered asking people outside the cocoon for their take on the issues you discuss, and then a) accurately representing their concerns and b) offering a valid counterargument (if possible)? For instance, take one of the points from my first comment here, and see if you can come up with a valid counterargument.
It it The Onion, or Reason Magazine?
Notice anything interesting about this libertarian-themed "American Voices" feature from The Onion?
Yes, that's right: by an odd coincidence, those last names are the same as the last names of several cherished staffers from Reason Magazine: reason.com/staff
As pointed out here many times, it's often difficult to tell the difference between satire and libertarian ideology, but at least they're entertaining.
Related:
A challenge for Drew Carey/Reason Magazine (and other open borders hacks)
Is Bryan Caplan the world's looniest libertarian? (give every Haitian a green card)
Free the Jefferson 1! (loony libertarians)
An Ayn Rand Institute flashback: "U.S. Should Not Help Tsunami Victims"
Instapundit offers Katrina update, fails to note impact of illegal alien labor on issue
Glenn Reynolds (aka "Instapundit", "Insty", "seasonal GOP hack", etc.) sandwiches (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/020261.php) an excerpt to this article about Katrina victims still living in hotels between "KATRINA UPDATE: Some receiving FEMA assistance unwilling to help themselves:" and "Read the whole thing."
Unfortunately, Insty doesn't appear to have covered the massive Katrina scandal foisted on the nation by both the GOP and Democratic leaderships, under which illegal aliens were allowed to move into the Gulf Coast and work for connected contractors. Absent such competition, those Insty is obviously complaining about would have more motivation to find work, and after all is said and done the influx of illegal labor will end up costing us far more than anything that crooked companies made on the deal.
Certainly, due to Insty's linking style he might have linked to something covering that issue with little more than a "heh" or a "huh", but I doubt it.
UPDATE: While I'm on the general Insty-bashing topic, could someone sic PETA on him?
pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/020283.php
Washington Monthly deletes yet another comment, again
Washington Monthly has a habit of deleting comments I (and apparently others) leave there. Kevin Drum is apparently on vacation so I don't know whether he popped in just to delete the comment I left earlier today on this thread:
washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_05/013790.php.
The author is "Hilzoy" of the blog "Obsidian Wings" who cross-posted it here:
obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/05/taking-tough-ac.html I left the comment there as a test.
The comment that Washington Monthly and/or Kevin Drum and/or Hilzoy don't want you to see is in the extended entry.
---COMMENT BEGINS---
Del Capslock writes: Sure looks to me like Obama's "weakness" is his strength. McCain's experience has allowed him to be corrupted by the Washington machine, whereas Obama brings a fresh and intelligent outlook.
What city is Obama from again? I seem to recall them having some kind of machine there or something, with BHO being linked right into it:
tinyurl.com/4rlhgj
BHO also served foreign interests, and there's a highly questionable McCain staff member that neither the MSM nor mainstream bloggers will discuss. I guess some questionable foreign links are more equally bad than others.
[Note: WM and/or KD have a habit of deleting or editing comments without notice, so this comment may disappear or be different from what I posted.]
Correction: "The Anchoress" is not Ken Mehlmann
Over thousands of posts, this site has had to make very few corrections, probably at most the same number as the NYT makes in a day. However, in the past some unnamed members of the team whose content appears here advanced the belief that "The Anchoress" (theanchoressonline.com, "TA") is actually former RNC hack Ken Mehlmann. It has recently come to our attention that that is false, and TA is actually one Elizabeth Scalia (theanchoressonline.com/about-the-anchoress-online). She is presumably not the UK professional biker by the same name and she presumably previously desired anonymity in order to shield herself from abhorrent reactions relating to rampant BushBotism. This site apologizes for any confusion.
Nico Pitney helps Huffington Post descend to ThinkProgress level
Nico Pitney is the Huffington Post's "National Editor". Until around August of last year he was Deputy Research Director at the Center for American Progress and the Managing Editor of ThinkProgress. And, yes, those are very strong warning signs considering that CAP seems to screen its hires for childishness and stupidity. Nowadays he's helping drive the HuffPost even further down, and, yes, unbelievable as it might seem, it's possible for them to be even lower than they are now. He's made just 15 posts since December (huffingtonpost.com/the-news/reporting/nico-pitney), with the latest being called "Anti-Immigration Protester Needs A Spell-Check" (huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/04/whoops-anti-immigration-p_n_100043.html). A May Day 2008 anti-illegal immigration protester in Houston held up a sign saying "Make English America's offical Language", with "official" being spelled wrong. It was taken by Johnny Hanson of the Houston Chronicle and considering that it's available in that incorrect form on their site I'm going to assume that it wasn't photoshopped.
The sign is certainly ironic, but the point being made is extremely minor. And, Pitney incorrectly states that the protester is "Anti-Immigration", when in fact she's at a protest for illegal immigration and the sign's directive wouldn't impact those immigrants who learn English. I'll leave it up to someone else to figure out whether "spell-check" is the correct form in this context.
I left the comment in the extended entry, which hasn't been approved and probably won't be considering that comments left after it were approved. However, plenty of other ThinkProgress-style comments have been approved: "All graduates from the Dan Quayle School for Spelling!", "It was good of her to highlight the word with 2 underscores too. Love the busy shirt as well.", "makes one proud to bea an Amerikan ;-)", etc. The jokes just keep coming, but only a couple make - or are allowed to make by the moderator - the point I made.
Arianna has been embarrassed by comments left on her site's posts before, and she might want to reconsider whether having lightweights like Nico Pitney throw out red meat is the direction she wants to go in. It might be good for the traffic, but it's not so good for the reputation.
Here's the comment which wasn't approved:
---------
Here are some fun pictures from the other side:
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/05/03/my-immigrant-vagina-is-angry-and-other-militant-may-day-moments/
And, here's a fun question: whose interests do HuffPost posts like this serve? Certainly not the interests of the vast majority of Americans. In fact, those who get a boost from posts like this include the Mexican government, crooked businesses, crooked banks, crooked politicians, racial power groups, and on down the line. Whenever someone tells you something, asking "cui bono?" is a good idea.
Xeni Jardin/BoingBoing deletes comments
Xeni Jardin is a lightweight supporter of illegal immigration and pseudo-hipster (tech division) who blogs at BoingBoing. She offers "Online game teaches immigrant kids about rights of due process" (boingboing.net/2008/05/01/online-game-teaches.html) about a video game which portrays a superhuman ICE agent oppressing people of color (and one young lady from Poland) over legal immigration edge cases (icedgame.com).
A couple of on-topic, non-abusive comments I left on the entry were deleted almost immediately after I left them. And, a follow-up comment combining the two received a moderated message and will probably never appear. In the past BoingBoing has had a forum, then they went to technorati only, now they have comments. So, always willing to inform, I signed up and left the two comments in the extended entry.
Boing Boing readers who drop by might want to consider what else Xeni and/or Boing Boing don't want them to see, and whether they should trust anything they read from her or that site.
Related:
Kevin Drum/Washington Monthly deletes yet another comment
Banned by Crooks and Liars
ABC News' Political Radar edits comments without notice
Comment #1:
#12 is suggesting following the money. Who profits from massive and/or illegal immigration? When (just as an example) a certain blogger from a certain site smears those who support our laws, whose ends does that serve? For those who don't know, Mexico receives around $24 billion per year that their people send home from the U.S., and plenty of companies - and even the Federal Reserve - want a slice of that money, much of which was earned illegally.
In the case of this game it doesn't apply that much since based on a quick glance it seems to involve legal edge cases rather than illegal immigration, but OTOH it doesn't show much respect for - and racializes and demonizes - law enforcement.
For more on the elites, see this
Comment #2:
#22: You might want to reconsider offering an argument for importing a third-world serf class to do our dirty jobs for several reasons, the primary reason being that we've already gone down that road a while back, albeit with some significant differences. Yet, the mindset - and that which supported child labor - is remarkably similar.
The second reason is that "economic" arguments frequently ignore all the costs, both financial and non-financial.
Some changes ahead
In the near future, the following changes will be made in this general order:
1. I'm going to change this domain name to something that isn't stupid. I think I'm going to just redirect every current page to counterparts at the new site, so none of the URLs would 404, they'd just be automatically redirected to the corresponding pages at the new site. I may redirect the non-politics pages to hotsop.com or another site, but those URLs wouldn't 404 either. Needless to say, this is a bit risky vis-a-vis traffic from search engines, but the long-term benefits of a better name are worth it. The problem now is to find that name; even interminable names like "opensourcereporting.com" are taken.
2. More punditry, with attempts to write content for display on other sites.
3. I'm going to attempt to hit the campaign trail and ask the candidates the questions that the MSM refuses to ask. Then, I'll be uploading the answers to video sharing sites. It'd be just great if I could get some form of sponsorship for that. One possibility is a tip jar of some kind. Another is sponsorship by some form of media organization. What makes that very difficult is the general non-partisan nature of the questions, the fact that almost everyone in the political establishment does not want tough questions to be asked lest similar questions are asked of their side, and the fact that the questions would probably be about immigration, a topic that many don't want to discuss at all. And, no one in the MSM would be interested since it would reveal them to be the complete hacks they are.
How to make Amanda Marcotte forget all about the Patriarchy's hegemonical control
The answer is somewhere in this picture:
Unfortunately, it looks like a mole or other cylindrical beast from The Vast Patriarchical Conspiracy snuck into Amanda Marcotte's publishing house and caused them to insert (as into a book) highly questionable images: link. This has caused her to issue a completely voluntary apology: pandagon.blogsome.com/2008/04/25/im-sorry
For an unknown reason I don't want to know about, there are other Amanda Marcotte pictures at these links from her book readings, ordered by how hard I laughed:
majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2008/04/amanda-reading.html
majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2008/04/amanda-marcotte.html
majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2008/04/tonight-amanda.html
majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2008/04/amanda-at-blues.html
UPDATE: Fellow former John Edwards intern/blogger Melissa McEwan responds to the Seal Press Scandal as follows, referring to their press release about the questionable images in the book:
Part of their apology is a promise to participate in some diversity training. It might be beneficial for them to go back and take a Feminism 101 course, too, since they've evidently not learned that dismissing concerns on the basis of humorlessness is about the oldest silencing trope in the patriarchy's book, so ubiquitous as to be positively quaint (in that Alberto Gonzales kinda way).
Another round, anyone?
Righteous panel accuses Amanda Marcotte of misappropriating, not honoring work of feminist blogger of color! Or, something.
I have no idea what the heck is happening here because I'm laughing so hard. Apparently running joke in these parts Amanda Marcotte based in some way or other one of her screeds on a series of others' works. One of those affected has gone as far as shutting down her blog! I have not researched the matter because, once again, I'm laughing too hard.
There's a pledge you can sign here (..."We will not appropriate their work, but amplify their work and integrate their ideas with attribution"...).
There's a hyperlinked copy of the disputed work here:
problemchylde.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/dont-hate-appropriate
Marcotte defends herself here, making a rarely somewhat coherent case that the others are just making it all up in order to play a mean game.
I link, you laugh and decide.
Let's blame John McCain on Ann Althouse (bloggers helped McCain?)
Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times offers "Blogger outreach boosts McCain" (link), an uncharacteristic attempt to blame the resurgence of John McCain on bloggers rather than where it mostly belongs: on constant MSM puffery:Even as talk radio was brutalizing Sen. John McCain in the Republican presidential primaries, conservative bloggers reached a respectful truce with the Arizona senator over touchy issues and gave him what the campaign called a "tremendous positive psychological" boost.McCain's resurgence was more likely due to the MSM, which did things like smear his opponents and those who support our laws (for instance, from Joel Achenbach) or which lied about his immigration stance (examples from Bennett Roth, Elisabeth Bumiller and John Broder, and Ron Claiborne and Peter Canellos).
The main reason: Mr. McCain's blogger outreach, the most extensive of any presidential campaign in either party, helped keep him afloat in the dark days last summer when the major press was sizing up his campaign grave. During those times, Mr. McCain got attention and digital ink from the bloggers he invited to biweekly conference calls, and got a chance to talk policy.
However, that doesn't leave hack bloggers who participated in those conference calls off the hook, who completely failed to ask McCain anything approaching a real question. Those bloggers include Ann Althouse, someone who's constantly promoted by Instapundit despite having little to say. After a couple of her reports of conference calls I left comments with suggested questions and instead, if she asked a question at all it was extremely lightweight. I continue to be amazed that she's an actual law professor.
Others include "Captain Ed" Morrissey. Despite asking a better question recently, every other question that I'm aware of him having asked politicians in the past is something that even Politburo hacks would consider too obsequious. Others apparently taking part in the conference calls were Jim Geraghty from the National Review, PowerLine, one or more people from Townhall, one or more from race42008.com, and Robert Bluey of the Heritage Foundation and affiliated in some way with RedState.
Kevin Drum/Washington Monthly deletes yet another comment
Kevin Drum and/or the Washington Monthly have a habit of deleting perfectly reasonable comments; because of that you can't trust anything you read there. Comments sections serve as a form of check on the blogger or reporter; if they make a mistake someone will probably come along to point it out. If - like Kevin Drum and/or WM - they start deleting comments you never know what's missing, and it might be a comment offering a correction. So, every single thing he writes has to be double-checked before relying on it.
The latest example of a deleted comment is presented in the extended entry, as left on the thread washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_03/013403.php
As for why I'm forced to say "Kevin Drum and/or the Washington Monthly", I don't know whether it's Drum himself or someone else who does this. I asked him about it, but he was too cowardly to admit to doing it himself.
And, even as Drum/WM delete legitimate comments, they continue to have very major spam problem; see, for instance, the toxic stew at the end of washingtonmonthly.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=10203. If you link directly to WM, search engines might consider you part of those spammers' extended networks and that might have a negative impact on your site. I suggest dropping all your links to WM, using the plain text version as I used above if you still need to link to them
I'm not surprised to see Kevin Drum admit that he supports corruption and wants the U.S. to make money off illegal activity.
Nor am I surprised that he can't figure out what that implies: massive PublicCorruption as federal agencies turn a blind eye to lawbreaking.
What would surprise me is if Kevin Drum knew about all the actions the Bush admin has taken in this regard, such as strongarming a change that let banks profit from money that was earned illegally. And, how the FDIC is working with the MexicanConsulate to give home loans to IllegalAliens.
What would even surprise me more is if Kevin Drum could figure out all the costs associated with IllegalImmigration, including long-term costs and/or those without a direct financial impact.
Those Democrats with integrity and who put what's best for the U.S. ahead of the corrupt interests of the Democratic Party should reject attempts to profit from illegal activity and oppose PublicCorruption.
[Note: WM and/or KD have a habit of deleting and editing comments without notice, so this comment might disappear or be edited.]
Sleazy Jason Linkins smears Sean Hannity (Max Blumenthal)
How sleazy is Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post? Sleazy enough to post this smear of Sean Hannity, linking him to white supremacist radio host Hal Turner. The latter apparently used to call in to Hannity's radio program; he claims he and Hannity were friends until Hannity's Program Director told him no more call-ins. Yet, if you do a find for the comment from PhilBoyceWABC on the HuffPost link you'll see that Turner's account of their friendship is more than a bit questionable. Not only that, but Linkins' post relies on the Newshounds blog, not exactly a source of intellectual analysis. And, even worse, it relies on a Nation article from known liar Max Blumenthal which only includes one example of statements made by Turner when calling in and which includes a Turner quote from 2003 in which he said, "I had never judged people on their race, not prior to that point" (thenation.com/doc/20050620/blumenthal). Perhaps the Huffington Post should consider the impact that smear attempts from Linkins have on whatever reputation they currently have.
Flickr now using nofollow tags
About a year ago, Youtube - apparently prompted by Google - added the anti-web nofollow tag to an increasing variety of their outbound links (except for some links, such as those which were on content provided by videomaker.com, something that would seem to violate Google's own rules). You can see the salmon-colored excess here and here.
Now, visiting my barely-used Flickr site (flickr.com/photos/lonewackodotcom), I see that they're using that tag too, for instance on this: flickr.com/photos/lonewackodotcom/265708046 (see the link in the caption). I'm almost positive there was no such tag there before, but I don't know exactly when they added those or if those who buy a subscription or who have some sort of business deal with Yahoo don't have the tags on their links.
Donate a penny for RedState! (needs $25,000 to move from Drupal to Django)
Our friends at RedState have issued an urgent plea [1] for $25,000 so they can upgrade their site from Drupal to Django. In the spirit of helpfulness, I urge everyone reading this to donate a penny if PayPal allows it. But, only if the transactions costs exceed the amount you donate.In the plea, Erick Erickson implies some sort of liberal conspiracy that's prevented them from getting help or something; at least one person calls him on it in comments, and Kos says he offered to conduct a "technology swap" when they had previously used the Scoop system:
...they could have all of our improvements if their developer helped with some patches and whanot. I saw this as a way to spread out the costs of improving the platform amongst various sites.(Other "liberals" weigh in here and here). I'll also add that Drupal is an open source system, and it has a very active user community. In the Drupal forums, no one knows you're a dog, a liberal, or a GOP hack. If they needed help, there was nothing preventing them from asking questions in those forums, and I don't think they'd find too many people who'd turn down money as long as it was coming from at least a semi-reputable source.
But that doesn't fit their narrative of being "censored" by those crazy liberals.
So in other words, as ludicrous as their charge was -- that they were being censored because no liberals offered to help them -- IT'S NOT EVEN TRUE!
Furthermore, Drupal is written in PHP, a very widely used language. And, it's infinitely extensible. It's very easy to completely change everything Drupal looks and acts like simply by writing add-on modules and themes. And, while it would be almost never needed, the core code can be modified at will since it's open source. Any server issues can be handled as discussed at the RedState thread, and Erickson admits that that wasn't even the issue. While Drupal isn't by any stretch of the imagination as well-designed (in an object-oriented fashion) as other APIs (such as as some of the Java APIs), much of that can be mitigated by writing your add-on code in an OO fashion. (If you're reading this as an individual post, some of the sites to the left are Drupal together with custom modules I developed.)
In other words, there's no reason I can see for them to switch from Drupal. While Python is an attractive language, and Yahoo has used it for years, and Django may be less kludgy than Drupal, switching over rather than simply writing a few add-on modules doesn't seem all that necessary.
But, don't let that stop you from sending a penny, just as long as it costs them money.
[1] redstate.com/stories/miscellanea/redstate_has_a_real_need_for_your_help
About the Thomas Crown/Redstate smear
Thomas H. Crown [1] of RedState offers a roundup of the year's events [2] that mentions me:
Second, Lonewacko Blog, if you're reading this -- and based on your obsessively repeated tirade across half the blogosphere and Wikipedia, you are: I banned you, you dirty little racist. I banned you for being a racist, and for showing us that you are a racist. I did not ban you for criticizing George W. Bush, in no small part because where you disagreed with him, I have publicly disagreed with him, you diseased piece of rhinoceros pizzle; I banned you because you decided to share your problems with brown people on this site.
As yet another example of why you can't trust what RedState says, see the archives at this site, or for a quicker read see my last post at RedState, the one that caused me to be banned by Red State.
The last post at RS was simply a quote from an article by Dan Stein of FAIR, in which he used temporally ambiguous language, referring to "illegal aliens" instead of "former illegal aliens who had been converted into legal workers." However, depending on one's temporal reference, Stein's language could have been correct: they were illegal aliens at the time of his writing and would only become legal workers should the "Gold Card" discussed in his post have been enacted. A quick glance shows that FAIR has been mentioned and linked to by RS contributors several times since then.
And, the last time I checked, RedState still has my content on their site, despite my express request that they stop displaying it (and displaying ads next to it). I was unable to find a legal right that RS has to continue displaying my content, yet they've refused my requests to delete it.
And, one wonders why they continue to display my content when Crown suggests it's offensive.
As for Wikipedia, I inserted note of my banning there, but it was deleted in October by someone using the IP address 208.34.234.180, which resolves to a Wilkesboro, NC company called Product Management Inc. with a contact person of Jim Byrd. Whether he has any link to RS is not known.
[1] t-crown.blogspot.com (whether Thomas Crown is his real name or not is unknown; I don't think I've run across him before)
[2] redstate.com/blogs/thomas/2007/dec/31/just_a_drop_of_water_in_an_endless_sea
Alan Colmes has a blog
Radio host and co-star of the Hannity & Colmes show Alan Colmes has a blog here. Please go destroy his arguments.
UPDATE: I thank Alan Colmes for sending some traffic my way. I note also that I learned about his site a few days ago and even started pointing out how he's wrong.
HuffPost breaking news alert: Laurie David stranded at Mojave desert Motel 6!
Before the advent of the Huffington Post, the only way that Laurie David could get the word out about her adventures was through things like typing out articles for the monthly Brentwood Intelligencer. Nowadays, sharing her life with the world is just a click away, as she offers "Dispatch From A Mojave Desert Motel 6" (link):If there is anyone out there wondering if I made it out of Iceland a couple weeks ago, the answer is yes. The freakish high winds finally calmed down long enough to fly home. But if you're wondering where I am right this minute you can find me in the Mojave desert at the Motel 6 in the middle of a freak wind storm!! Believe me I wouldn't make this up...I left the following comment; it hasn't been approved and it might not be. We could debate all day about the correct strategy to use in such cases. Should there just be one hidden zinger? Or, should I go whole hog and include mention of private jets? Should I include conspiracy information about powerful interests blocking Mojave wind farms? In any case, feel free to do better:
Just two hours in (two rest stops and one DVD later) the wind kicks up just past Lancaster and with it a full scale brown out sand storm! Traffic slowed to a crawl, white knuckles gripped the steering wheel and we inched forward. Then a police car blocked the way and said all roads leading to Mammoth are closed till the winds die down.
In an emergency, you have to do what you have to do! We were in a similar situation once, although the motel was a bit more quaint than those garish Motel 6es. I had my PA approach the manager and set things up, and we "bought out" those who were staying in the adjoining rooms so we could get some privacy. There were no other rooms available, and at first most of them didn't like the idea of sleeping in their cars, but as they say "money talks".UPDATE: Still no sign of my comment. Maybe we'll have to wait until she comes back from lunch at the IHOP before she approves or denies it. I note also that she's put this in their "Politics" section with the following tags: Extreme Weather, Malibu Fires, Mammoth Ski Resort, Santa Ana Winds, Weather, Breaking Politics News
UPDATE 2: I changed the title to be more dramatic, but despite that my comment looks like it's been denied. However, I did leave a new comment. At first glance this might appear too over the top. But, it is the HuffPost so this is normal:
I've been driving up 395 for years, and I've never seen the dust storms as bad as they've been during the Bush administration. I think it's even worse than we fear. Not only are they ignoring Global Warming, I think they must be engaging in some form of weather modification or something.UPDATE 3: The second comment was approved. I have nothing more to add.
Banned by Crooks and Liars
The site Crooks and Liars (Crooks & Liars, crooksandliars.com) has banned me from posting comments there. I've twice tried to comment on a recent entry, only to be confronted by a popup saying that I've been banned. I haven't left too many comments there, and a couple have been deleted in the past. Commenting there is usually pretty useless because of all the noise, but, I have lots of domain names and I don't have to provide a domain name, so...
The last comment I left remains ("TLB") in place, so perhaps they've just been too busy to do a full airbrushing:
crooksandliars.com/2007/11/12/
tancredos-psychotic-ad-shuler-should-be-ashamed-to-align-himself-with-him
Note: C&L has an indirect link to the Mexican government through the Blue America PAC.
The growing list of sites which can't handle the heat starts in this post about Kevin Tracy deleting a comment. Other sites engaging in that activity include "Sister Toldjah", New Haven Independent, Think Progress, Kevin Drum and/or Washington Monthly, and many others. And, of course, I was banned by RedState.
Instapundit highlights my comment!
This is truly a watershed mark in my blogging commentary career. Instapundit points to this Howard Kurtz entry and says (instapundit.com/archives2/012323.php):
Using Google for plane tickets is okay. But next time, try using them for . . . Googling. As a commenter at Kurtz's observes: "What should be noted about this issue is that CNN probably has a whole army of interns and low-level producers who could vet the possible questioners. They 'could spend hours Googling everybody', while the top level hacks concentrated on choosing the 'best' questions."
Well, hold on to your hats, everybody!
I am that "commenter"!
And, all those who then visit the Howie Kurtz link, provided that they remember what Insty just said, will perhaps match up my comment at the link with my name at the link ("LonewackoDotCom") and then, through the miracle of deductive reasoning, visit this site.
I would like to welcome that person, and I would like to thank Glenn "Insty" Reynolds for his shout-out.
It's been a long time, since the last "Instalanche" this site received was way back in August, 2003. That was shortly before, visiting Knoxville, I requested an audience. Insty complained of being busy, then didn't reply to my follow-up requests. That resulted in this. Since then, I occasionally sent him tips just to annoy him keep him apprised of my progress, but I stopped after no one still cared what he thinks.
Related:
Eugene Volokh referenced me once.
ABC News' Political Radar edits comments without notice
Earlier today I left a comment on this post (blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/11/huckabees-first.html) from ABC News' Political Radar:If I didn't know better, I'd say the ad was great. And, if I were promoting Huck for some reason, I'd say it was great too!If that doesn't sound like me or make much sense, it's because ABC News edited my comment without notice. Here's the version that I left; this is how it appeared on the site before the edit:
If I didn't know better, I'd say the ad was great. And, if I were promoting Huck for some reason, I'd say it was great too! Thankfully, I'm actually familiar with Huck's record:This isn't the first time they've done something like this, and it's not too difficult to imagine them getting into legal hot water should they edit comments in the wrong way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5Dp7FaKIJo
Maybe ABC could decide to do some real reporting about his record. (Or, perhaps they're waiting until after they've built him up.)
Previous coverage of comments being deleted, bannings, etc. begins in this entry about Kevin Tracy.
Naomi Wolf: prepare for war
I am hereby declaring Blog War on Naomi Wolf.
As discussed at that link, I left a comment on one of her Huffington Post entries. It should have been approved, but it was not.
Now, it has happened again on this post; comment below. This time the address that visited the linked page was from a South Bay Area SBC address; whether it was Wolf herself or one of Arianna Huffington's minions isn't clear.
In any case, I am urging all my minions, retainers, followers, and various hangers-on to visit Wolf's future entries and post comments pointing out flaws in what little argument she can provide. Give her forces no quarter!
--- COMMENT ----
I somewhat trust Ron Paul, but based on their history I'm not so trusting of the far-left/Democrats. For all I know this bill has something supporting Lynne Stewart or the Cuban Five hidden within it. Unfortunately, the credibility of the far-left/Democrats on this issue is below zero. Let me know when someone a bit more mainstream than RP gets behind it.
P.S. I discuss here the comment that you or a HuffPost helper didn't post to an earlier thread:
http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/007067.html
Why wasn't that posted?
Down the Memory Hole with the Los Angeles Times (censors own blogger)
From this:
On Thursday night, L.A. Times political blogger Andrew Malcolm wrote a post about John Edwards's denial of an extramarital affair. When some commenters complained that the story was unsupported tabloid trash, Malcolm replied in parenthetical remarks appended to the comments, saying that it was a legitimate topic because of Edwards's denial.
If I have the sequence of events right, the L.A. Times first deleted the whole post. Then, when Patterico inquired about it they put it back, minus three final paragraphs. They also deleted the parenthetical remarks from their own bloggers. Tidy, no muss no fuss!
It was five years and a week ago today
The 22nd of this month marked the fifth anniversary of this site in its current form; everyone is invited to raise a styrofoam cup of Diet Shasta in commemoration of that momentous event. In early 2004 I listed some of this site's accomplishments and noteworthy achievements. I haven't really done anything since then, but I did change the format of the site since that time so at least I've got that going for me.
Didn't Naomi Wolf like my Huffington Post comment? (Florida taser incident)
Naomi Wolf - who you may remember from the Al "Alpha Male" Gore episode - offers "A Shocking Moment for Society: Tasering at University of Florida" [1]. I left a comment which appears to have been disapproved, thus once again proving false the HuffPost claim that they don't disapprove comments simply because they disagree with the poster [2].Shortly after posting it, someone using the nyu.edu network followed the link in the comment; this was the referer:
http://editorial.huffingtonpost.com/modsuite/?tool=approve&filter_entry_id=&pending=1Since my comment hasn't appeared, I can only assume that it was disapproved. (Of course, perhaps there could be a two-level approval process or something, but I doubt it). While I haven't been able to determine a link between Naomi Wolf and New York University, perhaps she's been given access through their network or something. Or perhaps it's one of Arianna Huffington's web minions, but one wonders whether a
Herewith the comment:
I haven't watched any of the videos, but it certainly seems like there's much more to this than Wolf lets on:[1] There are only so many videos I can watch so I haven't delved into this issue, although (just as a general rule) I tend to oppose tasering people who try to ask questions.
http://michellemalkin.com/2007/09/17/student-tasered-at-john-kerry-forum/
I note also that I was the only person that I know of who spoke out when the S.F. Supes falsely accused someone of committing a crime:
http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/003184.html
Perhaps if Wolf and other "liberals" would pay attention to things like that their words wouldn't ring so hollow.
[2] This has happened many times: my comments on Marty Kaplan's entries have never been approved, and while Earl Ofari Hutchinson might have approved one, most have not made it through the filter. Likewise with Hilda Solis. Oddly, two very negative comments I left on entries from Anthony Romero of the ACLU were approved.
[3] Per the second comment, NYU is actually not public. I note also that one of Arianna's upper-level minions, Jay Rosen, works there (journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink), so perhaps it's one of his students learning to be a good "journalist" or something.
HuffPost blogger telepathically steals my idea, re: Bush in bubble
One of Arianna Huffington's minions offers "Bush Pays Surprise Visit to Reality":
President George W. Bush departed from his planned itinerary on Labor Day to make a surprise visit to reality, later calling the two-hour stop in the real world "informative." ...For Mr. Bush, the visit to reality, while brief, was still significant because it represented his first visit to the real world since being elected President in 2000...
For a few days now, I've been thinking of writing a similar, Onion-style post called "Bush Finally Told Truth". In my post, Bush would have been kept completely in the dark about everything bad that's happened during his presidency, and on some certain day he was finally going to be told the truth about his low approval ratings, the state of Iraq, what happened during Katrina, the various resignations, etc. I was actually quite close to writing that over the past couple days. Odd.
Ana Marie Cox: Mitt Romney not a Christian
Ana Marie Cox (aka Wonkette) can be seen on the Keith Olbermann Show here saying the following:
"I know Mitt Romney is not himself Christian.... or, that's a point of debate..."
Huffington Post prints GOP recruitment post (Eric Stoner, Bryan Farrell)
Eric Stoner ("a writer based in New York, whose writings have appeared in many publications, including The Nation") and Bryan Farrell ("a researcher for Rolling Stone and an independent journalist in New York") offer "Fear and Loathing on the Jersey Shore". The (presumed) couple went abroad (i.e., left Manhattan) and spent a weekend in in the sticks:
Down on the boardwalk we observed a scene that would be recognizable to most Americans: teenagers, junk food, and trinket shops selling an assortment of "ironic" t-shirts. It's not unlike a shopping mall or arcade, pandering to a gluttonous consumerism that is all too distinctly American.
It goes on like that. And, I don't think it's a satire, nor do I think it was intentionally meant as a GOP recruiting tool. It just reads like it. I congratulate Arianna on returning to her roots.
DailyKos delenda est! Bill O'Reilly highlights Hunter Lieberman pic
Unlike Bill O'Reilly, I don't want to see DailyKos destroyed. It would be nice, however, to see them twisting uncomfortably in a strong, very cold wind.
O'Reilly's weapon of Kos destruction is the Photoshop of Joe Liberman and George Bush attached right. The URL of this photo is:
images.dailykos.com/images/user/1054/lieberman.jpg
A visit then to dailykos.com/user/uid:1054 takes us to the diary of one "Hunter" (hunter.dailykos.com), who appears to be a prominent Kossack. Peeling back the first URL takes us to a few dozen other images and reveals someone with a particular obsession with ABC:
images.dailykos.com/images/user/1054/DisneyPathTo911.jpg
images.dailykos.com/images/user/1054/GOP_TV.jpg
images.dailykos.com/images/user/1054/MickeyBush.jpg
images.dailykos.com/images/user/1054/goofyabcrx6.jpg
images.dailykos.com/images/user/1054/wd_abc911.jpg
As well as with General Wesley Clark:
images.dailykos.com/images/user/1054/uc_clark.jpg
images.dailykos.com/images/user/1054/YK_diary10.jpg
And, in addition to some Iraq war images, inside baseball:
images.dailykos.com/images/user/1054/YKCONF2006HEADER.jpg
images.dailykos.com/images/user/1054/YK_diary11.jpg
images.dailykos.com/images/user/1054/uc_cover.jpg
UPDATE: Now, Mike Stark offers "I just returned from Falafel Bill's house" (dailykos.com/story/2007/7/31/9920/91146). He visited Bill O'Reilly's house, spoke with him in his driveway, and planted a few signs regarding the "falafel" incident outside. While some commenters decry his actions, much other moral relativism ensues.
LHF: DUmmies on John Roberts' seizure
Earlier today, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts had a seizure followed by a fall. He's been hospitalized, but apparently only for observation.
For some very low-hanging fruit, here are some words of hope from Democratic Underground posters. Bear in mind that aside from "la la" (530 posts) all are from "Donating Members" with over 1000 posts:
---------------
aquart: Unless he fell on his head, it ain't nuttin'. He can break pretty much anything and still go back to work. Look at Corzine.
ThomCat: I hate to wish anyone ill, but I hope his tenure on the supreme court is a short one.
kaygore: If there is a God, then he is not too young to become the right-hand maiden to Satan in the inner reaches of Hell.
antifaschits: [responding to a request for prayers] why? karma, if it exists, will probably kick this SOB in the teeth. Except, unlike 40,000,000 americans, he has access to the best of the best health care plans in the world. If, unexpectedly, he sees his own frail human life, his ability to suffer and die, his future pass before his eyes, like it does to hundreds of thousands each day in this country, if it educates him about the harm he inflicts on others, then, yeah, I can see hoping for him. But more likely than not, he won't. He will not recognize life as most of us see it. He will continue in his neocon way of viewing things, and simply add fat to the fire when he recovers and returns to the bench.
aquart: Was there lightning?
aquart: [responding to the request for prayers] Okay: Dear Lord, May the evil John Roberts does come back to him and only him, from every place it has gone, from everyone it has harmed.
kaygore: Better prayer. Dear God, Please release Satan's hand-maiden, John Roberts, from his worldly cares and allow him to join once again with the Prince of Darkness in the lowest reaches of Hell. We pray this in the name of your son, our lord, Jesus. Amen.
Bornaginhooligan: I prayed. But it didn't come true.
NoodleyAppendage: See. That's what happens when you attempt to goose step down the stairs. Neocon, pro-fascist horseplay is inherently dangerous.
GoddessOfGuinness: After a fall...He must have tripped on his preconceived notions... ...the ones he didn't bring with him to the job.
Onlooker: I think the hatred is tongue in cheek, but .... How can he be decent when he uses his power to infringe on women's rights, civil rights, and worker's rights? He's a person whose decisions can affect the well-being of millions, and he has done far more harm than good. He may be a decent man in his private life, but he's a dangerous man on the SC.
youngdem: Just because he looks like a decent man doesn't mean he is..He is an evil, UNAMERICAN man... Ted Bundy also looked like a decent man. This one is just a serial killer of fundamental rights.
mitchum: Fuck that noise; he's a goddamn lowlife fascist
la la: was a pretzel involved? n/t
Massachusetts: May Roberts and every other Bu$hco appointed treasonous Bastard rot in hell for their interpretive abuse and misuse of OUR (WE THE PEOPLES), Constitution and Rights! NO SYMPATHY HERE! MAYBE EXXON OR ONE OF THE BIG CORPS WHO CARE LESS ABOUT OUR COUNTRY AND PEOPLE WILL SEND HIM SOME LILIES.
eppur_se_muova: Great, just don't bring him back. nt
mitchum: Fuck him; it wouldn't bother me if that was a one way trip
MovableType wouldn't load, and what I did
I hate Perl. Hate, hate, hate. Absolutely hate it. Did I mention how much I hate it? Unfortunately, Moveable Type is written in Perl, although later versions also have some PHP. Also unfortunately, this site uses MT. So, when I was recently unable to login to my site, I ran through a checklist of things that could be the matter and I eventually assumed that it had something to do with Movable Type trying to reach some URL that was down, and I assumed that URL was one of the ones affected by today's outage at (I guess) Mae West in San Jose (UPDATE: it was at a company called 365 Main, link). Despite hating Perl, I searched through the source and found what I thought was the culprit, and it appears that I was right: MT was trying to access this address: http://www.movabletype.org/news/newsbox.html which, at present, doesn't load.
Bottom line: to stop this behavior (at least on 3.14 or whatever I'm using), add the following line to mt.cfg:
NewsboxURL disable
That goes to this chunk of code:
my $newsbox_url = $app->{cfg}->NewsboxURL;
if ($newsbox_url && $newsbox_url ne 'disable') {
...
We're all going to regret giving Youtube so many links
I like Youtube, but I feel a bit perturbed every time I link to or embed one of the videos from that site. I'd prefer not to give them any links at all, and I may at some future date convert the current links to them to bare links or add nofollow tags.
1. I use a Firefox CSS one-liner that shows whether links have nofollow tags on them in the salmon color. When I visit a YT page, it's like looking at a Washington river in spawning season. Here's part of a screengrab and here's another; note that since that time they've added a nofollow tag to links in descriptions (the only link shown without the coloration at the second link), and they also forbid even bare links in comments: you have to write things like example dot com. However, here's the kicker: some pages don't have those tags on outbound links, like this one: youtube.com/t/studio_article_05 Gosh, I wonder why that would be like that. In brief, YT is - like Wikipedia - a massive link funneling machine, with a ton of links coming in and very few going out.
2. YT is now owned by Google and is prominently featured in search results. While they certainly might take those results at the top from a database not related to their normal index, I'd imagine that YT videos getting links - especially with relevant anchor text - doesn't hurt and may enable some videos to get the top position over others. Combined with Wikipedia being put so high in search results, this increases the change of mischief and manipulation. That would usually work best for those of a more activist - and thus leftwing - bent. Note also that Google has pretty much invaded every aspect of our online lives, or at least is trying to. They also are making some moves of a political nature. I don't trust Google in the least, and I suspect that sooner or later even more people are going to share that view.
3. I use Firefox's FlashBlock plugin, which requires me to click a button graphic before I even see the preview of a Flash movie. Otherwise, it's just a big "F" graphical button. I worry about the impacts that including even just one YT video has on those who use other setups; even on Firefox when I play a Flash movie it usually messes up the keyboard commands, requiring me to click the page before I can use control-tab to move to another tab.
4. The upcoming Youtube/CNN debate will perhaps be an even worse disaster - and even worse for democracy - than the previous debates. First, it's hosted by Anderson Cooper, someone who's perhaps even more of a puffball reporter than his co-hort Larry King. Second, questions like the one I submitted, if asked, could both damage political careers and show just how corrupt the MSM is. So, don't expect questions like that to be asked. Instead, Cooper gives a preview of the types of videos that are going to be selected here.
First, all of the videos shown appear to be asking for what the candidates will do in the future; questions like that will simply send the candidates into replay mode. Does anyone think any candidate (except perhaps Ron Paul) is going to not make happy noises signifying nothing when asked how they're going to prevent a future Katrina-style response? So, why ask that question at all? Why not ask a question about something that the candidates have already done? For instance, did any of them support Bush's plan to move illegal aliens in to the affected areas?
Second, there are at least three joke entries, one with Kermit and two of people in masks. These will be shown in order to provide a laugh break, but with a more sinister purpose: to try to portray those on the internet as kooks, in contrast to respectable "journalists" like Cooper.
5. For something else I've been working with ffmpeg (converts mpegs etc. to Flash movies), and I've installed that locally. It wouldn't take much to host videos here, although getting the player issues right might be a bit tricky. For most of my videos that don't get that many views that would work out OK, but my Teddy Kennedy video got 15,000 views over three weeks which, assuming it's 1Meg, works out to 15 gigs of traffic, something which would cost some money: I think around $2 at Amazon's S3, and even more if I went over my limit at my current hosting company. And, of course, a very significant portion of that 15,000 found out about the video through YT; I probably would have only seen a few thousand if the video were only hosted here. On the other hand, a few thousand coming here would be better than several times that amount going to some other site.
Cindy Sheehan: welcome to my world
St. Cyndi Sheehan - America's favorite drama queen - has been ex-communicated (i.e., booted off DailyKos; I have been "warned"; dailykos.com/story/2007/7/12/91014/1295) due to apostasy: she's apparently going to run against Nancy Pelosi... and as an independent! See, DailyKos is a site for Democrats and designed to elect Democrats. Of course, all of this might not matter if we get those staged attacks she warns us of.
Of course, always the trendsetter, I was banned from DailyKos over four years ago, simply for leaving a comment pointing out how Kos was wrong. Welcome to my club, Sindy.
Sister Toldjah edits, deletes comments
Reaching very, very low into the barrel, one of the comments I left on a post [1] by "Sister Toldjah" was edited, and another was deleted. Almost all comments forms have a box where you enter your URL, and I entered this site's URL in that field; she edited the first message to delete that URL (there were no URLs in the comment body itself). Since I used the name "TLB" as I am wont to do, that URL helps people understand who's responsible for the comment. Note also that, like most other clueless bloggers, she has nofollow tags on those links so there's no real benefit to me from such a link. She also inserted her own comments in my comment; since it was clearly delineated, I'm not objecting to that.
The second comment I left under the name "LonewackoDotCom" and it didn't contain any links in the comment body, only that provided by her form. It was deleted entirely.
Both comments in the extended entry.
Previously in this long series of bloggers not being able to face the Lonewacko heat:
Washington Monthly desperate enough to edit comments without noting they were edited
Should you drop your links to Washington Monthly and Calpundit? (the answer is: yes)
[1] sistertoldjah.com/archives/2007/06/08/
the-immigration-debate-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-and-suggestions/
FIRST COMMENT:
I stopped reading shortly after you falsely stated that Tancredo is "against legal immigration as well". He wants a timeout with very limited immigration, which is not the same as being opposed to immigration in toto.
I note also that George Bush pledged to work for immigration "reform" to both the Mexican people and the Mexican government, so if people have been saying bad things about you due to your support for him, perhaps they were right.
SECOND COMMENT:
That's odd: I left the first comment ("TLB"), and I included a link to my site in the "Website" field on the comments form. Now, the link is not there. I guess some people are afraid of providing access to the other side of the argument.
And, of course, we've had long periods in our history with little immigration, and I doubt whether the Founding Fathers ever envisioned that we'd absorb 14% of Mexico's workforce, so the reply doesn't square with the facts.
Amanda Marcotte: "Break something. Set something on fire."
I think I was the first to point out that John Edwards hiring Amanda Marcotte as his Head Blogger showed how clueless he was. As Exhibit #84214592A-39124, I present to you her new post [1] called "If Paris Hilton makes you mad...". It links to a music video by some nobody, and says:Ignore the sexist origins of the word. "Cunts"=assholes.The first comment on the post is today at 1:22am, leading me to suspect that this was posted very early this morning... Perhaps I could write a Wordpress plugin that would prevent such "early morning blogging".
Break something. Set something on fire. Tonight you can find a way to resist. That asshole with a Bush bumper sticker? It can be removed.
Once again I ask: what was John Edwards thinking when someone there surely must have known that she posts things like this. Should he undergo an MRI to make sure his hair hasn't grown into and taken over his brain?
[1] http://pandagon.net/2007/06/09/if-paris-hilton-makes-you-mad/
UPDATE: It was all just a dream! She's added this update at the top of the post:
To all the people linking to this post, if you gave half as much a shit about the lives of our troops as about the fate of a hypothetical bumper sticker in a very silly joke, then this war would already be over. How hard your life must be if the very idea of finding that someone has vandalized a bumper sticker that proclaims your asshole status would make you freak out. Having imagined a bumper sticker removal, perhaps you can imagine rebuying the “I’m An Asshole” bumper sticker.
Ezra Klein, useful idiot
Pictured right is a blogad currently running on the site (ezraklein.typepad.com) of Ezra Klein of TAPPED (The American Prospect). The ad is for cirnow.org, the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform.
I'm not going to hold someone responsible for the ads on their site... except blogads have to be approved by the blog owner and, more importantly, the ad includes a quote from Klein himself, which links to a piece he wrote at TAPPED. So, one might assume that he doesn't have any problems with the ad's extremely over-the-top emotionalistic support for illegal immigration.
And, one can assume that he doesn't have a problem with CCIR, which, as detailed at the link consists of various far-left groups including:
* One member that has allegedly collaborated with the Mexican government (CHIRLA)
* Another that's headed by someone who serves on a Mexican government advisory council (Juan Salgado of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights; see the letter he wrote to Vicente Fox)
* Another that funds extremists (National Council of La Raza)
* Another that's partly funded by the Irish government (Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform)
From that I assume that Klein either supports those groups and their goals, or he's just a useful idiot who isn't capable of doing research.
Previously:
Think Progress, Ezra Klein, AP downplay organizers of illegal immigration marches
Amanda Marcotte can't even get smears straight (Lou Dobbs, SPLC)
John Edwards' former blogging star, Amanda Marcotte, offers [1] "Lou Dobbs really, really hates Mexicans":David Neiwert has a follow-up on the issue of Lou Dobbs trotting out numbers on national TV about Mexican nationals spreading leprosy that he got from a white supremacist group that pulled the numbers out of their asses. It's fucking disturbed that this man has a national microphone to promote racism like this. And his nastiness is getting nastier.Actually, there are two smears involved here, and she's confusing them. The "white supremacist group" is the CCC, and Dobbs did use a graphic of Aztlan they supplied during his show. That was certainly a mistake, and they should have made one of their own or found it from another source. The leprosy issue is another matter entirely, and Dobbs has since issued a retraction.
I left a comment yesterday and it was moderated despite the only links it contained being in bare tinyurl format. Oddly enough - just like the last comment I left at Pandagon - it didn't show up. So, I'll post a belinked version here and send a trackback:
Meanwhile:UPDATE: The trackback didn't work since my IP address is blocked by Pandagon's servers. Gotta keep that message control in control.
1. Dobbs wife is Mexican and she not only supports his reports she thinks he doesn't go far enough.
2. The SPLC is indirectly linked to the Mexican Government.
3. The DN claim that "the whole Aztlan thing is basically something concocted by Glenn Spencer" is pretty funny. I wasn't aware the Spencer started MEChA.
4. Is that Spencer on the right, with the Aztlan map? (Make sure and check that one out).
5. Who ultimately benefits from such smears of Dobbs? (Hint: crooks who employ illegal aliens and the Mexican Government, among others).
[1] pandagon.net/2007/05/22/lou-dobbs-really-really-hates-mexicans/
Popular Mechanics names favorite tool
Here he is:
In previous tool news:
Fred Thompson: illegal alien amnesty supporter?
Instapundit makes a shocking confession
Tancredo may run for president; Chris Cannon begins smears?
Sleazy Glenn Reynolds, John Podhoretz smear Pat Buchanan
Swampland, but without Wonkette (Ana Marie Cox)?
I continue to be amazed that Time Magazine has stooped to the National Inquirer level of employing Ana Marie Cox - formerly with Wonkette - as their Washington Editor and a contributor to their blog Swampland.
Now, there's something you can do about it!
Simply use Firefox with the Greasemonkey extension, together with this handy-dandy script that will remove all posts by Wonkette from Swampland. This is unsupported and barely tested, but it seems to work. Simply copy it into a file named something like 'wonkette.user.js', and drag that file into a Firefox window and choose to install it. Of course, you need to install GM first. Then, when you visit the site her posts will magically disappear.
Don't worry, you won't be missing anything.
// Remove Wonkette posts from Swampland
// Version 0.0.1
//
// Copyright (c) 2007 LonewackoDotCom
// Released under the GPL License
//
// Removes posts from Time's Swampland blog that are
// written by Wonkette (Ana Marie Cox)
//
// ==UserScript==
// @name Wonkette Bye Bye
// @namespace http://lonewacko.com/
// @description Remove Wonketteishness from Swampland
// @include http://time-blog.com/swampland/*
// @include http://*.time-blog.com/swampland/*
// ==/UserScript==
var spans = document.getElementsByTagName( "span" );
for ( i = 0; i < spans.length; i++ ) {
span = spans[ i ];
if ( span.className == "postedby" &&
span.innerHTML.match( "Ana Marie Cox" ) ) {
span.parentNode.parentNode.style.display = "none";
}
}
Comments too hot for ShopFloor.org (National Association of Manufacturers)
Yesterday, Carter Wood of the ShopFloor.org blog (run by the National Association of Manufacturers) posted a content-free anti-Lou Dobbs post entitled "Running for President on the Fist-Pounding Ticket". I left a couple comments which were moderated and which have not been approved, and I doubt whether they will be. First, the post:Lou Dobbs for president, eh? Well, there's always room for an angry populist to stoke the fires of protectionism and the class struggle... True, most of the celebrities like Dobbs who talk about running for office are more interested in gratifying huge egos and boosting sales of whatever they're selling at the moment... At least a Dobbs' candidacy would invite some scrutiny, accountability, for the contradictions and economic illiteracy [links to this post] he spouts. And surely it would pose at least a minor political conundrum to Democrats who share his views, folks like Senators Byron Dorgan or Sherrod Brown, for example: Support the cause or the party?My comments weren't the best, but it is interesting that they don't want to approve them:
The Drezner link is certainly interesting, since no examples of "contradictions and economic illiteracy" are presented, only a locution nit. Other than a bad link and a smear attempt (the implication he's trying to sell books) do you have any sort of counter-argument to his positions?And:
More on tonight's 60Minutes smear at the link; I found the medical journal article LesleyStahl's crack producers couldn't find.
My earlier comment didn't go through, but let's try again.
You imply that Dobbs has a financial interest in running: self-promotion.
What financial interest does NAM or its members have in opposing Dobbs? How many of your members have a, er, "immigrant" work force?
Could Matt Yglesias be any more of a dude?
As in "dude ranch":
Caption:
Brooks Brothers suit jacket turns out not to go so well with hiking.
Leaving the Great Liberal Northeast for seemingly the first time, pundit Matt Yglesias recently traveled to Taos, New Mexico. I spent a fair amount of time typing out an unheeded comment suggesting that he travel further south and visit Las Cruces, El Paso, and Carlsbad and also that he take a hike at the White Sands National Monument. It's a good thing he didn't take my advice: he probably would have done it in a tuxedo.
In a show of solidarity with, you know, everyone else, he says "Middle America goes on vacation". And, he titles a picture of someone with a baby carrier "Ambitious" ("This woman was actually carrying her daughter on her back throughout a mile-long trail.") First, a mile is nothing, especially since it appears to have been a ranger-led nature trail for tourists and thus probably wasn't in the least bit difficult. On a serious note, one wonders how someone who's such a dude could comment on matters affecting the Southwest such as massive immigration.
The Blogger's Code of Conduct revisited
The proposed "Blogger's Code of Conduct" [1] was once a simple affair, consisting of a few fairly broad provisions. Now, it's mushroomed into a multi-page, a al carte affair where you can "[c]reate your own code by selecting the modules you want". There are 10 modules, as well as a list of variants, discussions of the various variants and modules, and so on. Pretty soon Jimbo Wales might have to ask for more money to hire a Blogger's Code of Conduct administrator.I note also they have a "Criticisms" page [2], containing a highly questionable contribution called "Excessive quarreling in order to cause strife":
Many blogging discussions become heated because of excessive quarreling. Obviously, some people enjoy this, and enjoy "winding up" others. Many of the other issues could be rectified if blog commenters would stop this unwholesome activity.
Since they will not, it's up to we bloggers to do it. I tried to add this to The Code, but it was stripped out after a few days. I'm afraid I cannot and will not support The Code until it is added back in. I will also be telling my thousands of daily visitors not to support the The Code.
We must have the ability to remove comments that are simply designed to get into an argument. If someone disagrees with something someone says, they can go say it on their own site. They have no right to expect me to print it for them, and I will refuse to do that and I will not only remove th