drat fink

exposed position

montreal expos to relocate to washington, dc.

guarding the line

quite a week for mr moulitsas. first fluff then kerfuffle, now a byline in the guardian. the road to flame wars and fortune hunters is paved with blogs.

sail or moon

well, my friend who once claimed he was the worlds second best driver has driven his family off a cliff, figuratively speaking. actually it was his soon to be ex-wife that cut the brakeline. had he been buckled in im sure everything would be fine, but he had to go think his marriage was indestructable and got reckless. sorry mostly for the kids, theyre the ones that will suffer the worst of the whiplash. those headrests dont give much support.

but theres a happy ending to this brief tale, at least for me. in exchange for the wife and two kids, my friend has put a down payment on a 46' sailboat to be moored in saint johns. so it wont be long now before i have harrowing tales of the coast guard fishing us out of the drink (im so nautical) somewhere between virgin gorda and dominica. my timbers are already ashiver.

one small leap for blogkind

kos and mydd launch blogpac.

mark your star charts

finally some important news - conan to succeed leno in 2009.

piece out

naomi klein piece about the politicization of coalition provisional authority.

whine and deign

billmon frets about the commercialization of blogs on the la times op-ed page. what a short strange trip its been.

blog on the run

fear and laptops on the campaign trail

face down

two-faced meme is top down from the dnc. does that make certain members of the blogosphere officially sanctioned propagandists, or was there a confluence of interests and attitudes that encouraged its rapid proliferation?

may contain sports-like substance

for my legions of sports-challenged readers, heres one of many stories about seattle mariners rightfielder ichiro suzukis efforts to break the single season hit record set by george sisler in 1920. he needs ten to tie with ten games to play.

have you seen my hoodie?

"What we know as "the Abu Ghraib scandal" has in fact become an increasingly complex story about how Americans in Afghanistan and Cuba and Iraq came to commit acts, with the apparent approval of the highest officials, that clearly constitute torture. The images themselves, however, having helped force open the door to broader questions of how the Bush administration has treated prisoners in the War on Terror, are now helping as well to block that door; for the images, by virtue of their inherent grotesque power, strongly encourage the view that "acts of brutality and purposeless sadism," which clearly did occur, lay at the heart of Abu Ghraib. Even public officials charged with investigating the scandal—these are the fourth and fifth full reports on the matter, with at least four more to come—at the same time seek to contain it by promoting the view that Abu Ghraib in its essence was about individual misbehavior and sadism: "Animal House on the night shift," as former secretary of defense James Schlesinger characterized it, even as his own report showed in detail that it was a great deal more."

bubble boys and girls

"This made Philip Gourevitch a poor candidate to cover a presidential campaign. Hanging out with a pack of reporters, where everyone is chasing the same story (but there really is no story)-- that's alien to his experience, not the sort of thing he does at all. On the campaign trail it's always you, and the press, and the thing: nonstop. And your arrival is always anticipated. You are never coming into a situation as first witness for the public, which had been a Gourevitch method.

On contract at the New Yorker, he needed a new assignment, something fresh to do. Maybe another foreign beat? he thought. Bingo. Approached that way, politics had possibilities. The presidential campaign as a foreign country visited by one of its own citizens."

politinker

politinfo.com - political portal

house party

maison neuve - literary magazine alert

voting blights

feel like revisiting the 2000 election?

sour smell of success

i bitched about this on some comment thread after reading ezra kleins neo-lib apologia for his initial support of the war on iraq. ultimately all those fresh faced voices of reason and moderation just couldnt bear the emotional strain of siding with the dirty smelly hippies. (i blame cartman.) michael berube adds some perspective.

two-step

jon stewart deftly bobs and weaves on the oreilly factor.

leak outlook

"Twelve Examples of Existing Documents That Deserve Unauthorized Disclosure"

Each of these--wrongly withheld up till now--could and should be released almost in their entirety, perhaps with minor deletions for genuine security reasons. (In many cases, official promises to release declassified versions have not been honored.)

1. Reports by International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Guantanamo, Abu Ghrab and other prisons (ships, prisons in other countries) that hold prisoners from the "war on terrorism". (These reports have been provided to the US government but have not been made public.)

2. 28 pages redacted from the report of the Joint House-Senate Inquiry on Intelligence Activities before and after 9/11, concerning the ties between the 9/11 terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia.

3. 800 pages of the United Nations Report on Weapons of Mass Destruction that were taken by the United States during unauthorized Xeroxing and never given to the Security Council members. (The original report was 1200 pages in length but has never been published in its entirety)

4. Membership, advisors, consultants to Vice President Cheney’s Energy Task Force, and any minutes from meetings (January – December, 2001).

5. Documents and photographs concerning/produced by military doctors or medical personnel that document abuses toward prisoners condoned by medical personnel.

6. Documents produced by military lawyers and legal staff that challenge the political policy makers decision to undercut the Geneva Conventions and any other extra-legal procedures.

7. The missing sections of the US Army General Taguba report on prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

8. Department of Justice-Inspector General (DOJ-IG) Report: RE: Sibel Edmonds vs. FBI, completed, classified

9. DOJ-IG Report: RE: FBI Translation Department (security breaches, intentional mistranslations, espionage charges), completed, classified

10. DOJ-IG Report: RE:FBI & Foreknowledge of 9/11, completed, classified

11. Full staff backup to General Shinseki’s 2002 estimate that "several hundred thousand troops" would be required for effective occupation of Iraq.

12. The full 2002 State Department studies on requirements for the postwar occupation and restoration of civil government in Iraq.

mini kit-kats

*shorter kitty kelly
*slate assessment
*matt taibbi on...

mour is more

seymour hersh on democracy now.

duty calls

cursor's derelection 2004 - covering the coverage

study finds breathing key to good health

"TORONTO - Beer, a health food? That's what some Canadian researchers report. A study from the University of Western Ontario finds a brew could be good for you. The researchers say beer has antioxidant boosters that could help fight cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

But the key is moderation. The researchers found three beers would have the opposite effect.

The study was funded by beermakers Guinness and Labatt. But the university says the financial support had no influence on the outcome."

anyone for tennis

i havent watched any of the us open tennis this year but i tuned in to check out the score of andy roddicks quarterfinal match tonight. if you like tennis at all, its worth a look. fifth set. on serve. usa network.

low ebb

some odd national poll results over at talking points. almost looks like nader is taking votes away from the republicans among likely voters. it would be quite humorous if the republican efforts to use nader against democrats came back to bite them in the electoral college.

post it notes

the zogby battleground map still favors....kerry.

no dupes we

the media must be suffering from all sorts of dissonance over the soon to be released kitty kelly tome. theyre trained to get frothy over inconsequential prurient behavior but not when its from a republican, much less one who is a sitting president. check out this laughline from media notes. just like the swifties, right? oh, but you were chasten, no doubt.

"ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said the book "obviously would be subjected to serious scrutiny" before the network reported the allegations, "and if we had the author on we would ask her very probing questions." CBS has not booked Kelley. She is tentatively scheduled to appear on CNN's "American Morning" and "NewsNight With Aaron Brown."

how bout them peanuts

pres carter gets in zells grill.

very small unit

texans for truth

blogs save mankind

"Pho’s oasis is his Web log (www.kevinmd.com/blog), a place to express his opinions, clarify his thinking, or argue a side in any number of debates on current medical topics.

It is also part of a small, but growing, trend: medical blogs where doctors or other health care professionals vent their frustrations, summarize key points in new studies, or correct distortions that find their way into the popular media."

altv

"Al Gore and Joel Hyatt's dream of the television news network for young people moved a step closer to reality this week with the launch of the company's Website, indtv.tv."

hotel chienne

hey there, barbie girl....ouch.

go to the remote

always odd to see a name that is too familiar to go unnoticed. one of this weblogs proprietors lived on my floor one year in college. my only recollection of him is that he won a trip to jamaica on mtv's first gameshow, Remote Control -- think oversized chairs, college sweatshirts and Van Halen videos. the only reason i remember this, at all, is that i, too, was selected to be on the show, but was unable to because i had a final exam on the day they wanted me to be in new york for the taping. that i didnt think to ask if other days were available is surely one of my lesser failures of imagination. i can at least take solace in the knowledge that ive avoided years of acknowledging that i had actually met colin quinn. but sadly i cant deny that this cd was worn out while this had yet to breach the perimeters of my perceptions.

clip job

"Whoa...so Roger Simon is also a liberal lefty academic writing sarcasm?

Any chance Instapundit and Little Green Footballs have been doing likewise?

Posted by: PZ Myers on Sep 07, 04 | 1:23 am

I think it's all up for grabs now, PZ. And if I can put in a plug for my day job, I just want to point out that this is one of the reasons deconstruction caught on among us literary types 25-30 years ago-- because the relationships among "originals," "imitations," and "parodies" really are this damn complicated.

Posted by: Michael on Sep 07, 04 | 1:25 am

I thought Roger Simon was the last honest Democrat?

Posted by: Atrios on Sep 07, 04 | 1:57 am"

competency test

"The voting public long ago lost most of its faith in Bush; to reinforce that loss of faith it is necessary to tell a story about the Bush presidency, one that rings true, makes sense, and gives people an explanation for their personal and economic anxiety. The basic premise of that story must involve a failure of leadership, and that failure is a story of incompetence."

moon lighting

"If House Speaker Dennis Hastert is really concerned about drug profits being laundered into the U.S. political process, he would not be sliming billionaire financier George Soros with that suspicion. Hastert would be looking at a principal conservative funder: South Korean theocrat Sun Myung Moon."

for the love of god power

the ny times biases are showing yet again. michael ledeen, youve got to be kidding. why not just ask chalabi, i hear he's quite reputable.

igypt

"ABC Australia - Legend has it that European Gypsies came from Egypt but a new genetic study has shown they came from a small population that emerged from ancestors in India around 1000 years ago."

fak chekka

"But ascertaining the truth is the responsibility of every journalist in every story. It's the first point in the Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics: "Journalists should test the accuracy of information from all sources." It's the ubiquitous reports that analyze the aesthetics of oratory and speculate on the impact speeches will have on the horserace that ought to be the exception."

stool sample

mydd on sampling errors from the newsweek poll.

also, electoral-vote.com has some other recent polling numbers which are less inflammatory.

and check out mydds presidential outlook numbers.

power of positive thinking

looking forward to the upcoming book tours.

sabbath gasbags

sunday morning chatfestivities and subsequent howlings.

no comment

"Republicans admire predators and prey on what they see as weakness -- for example, openmindedness and fairness. They worship private property, but if you let them do so they will squat on your property and laugh in your face. And they really enjoy making bullshit arguments about free speech when you threaten to delete them -- not because they believe what they're saying, but because they think that it's funny when they use liberal ideas against liberals.

Matt and Kevin, of course, have been blessed by the print establishment, and both have stated that the blogosphere is really no big deal. And certainly, comments section aren't anything very important. So it's quite possible that pretty soon Kevin's comments will close down too, and one more common good will fall to the attacks of the angry, starved ghouls."

twin engines

"On the eve of a Republican National Convention invoking 9/11 symbols, sound bytes and imagery, half (49.3%) of New York City residents and 41% of New York citizens overall say that some of our leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act," according to the poll conducted by Zogby International. The poll of New York residents was conducted from Tuesday August 24 through Thursday August 26, 2004."

dominant gene

"Liberals in the United States have been losing political debates to conservatives for a quarter century. In order to start winning again, liberals must answer two simple questions: what is conservatism, and what is wrong with it? As it happens, the answers to these questions are also simple:

Q: What is conservatism?
A: Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.

Q: What is wrong with conservatism?
A: Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world."

mill town

"About the workings of the right-wing propaganda mills in Washington and New York I knew enough to know that the numbing of America's political senses didn't happen by mistake, but it wasn't until I met Rob Stein, formerly a senior adviser to the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, that I came to fully appreciate the nature and the extent of the re-education program undertaken in the early 1970s by a cadre of ultraconservative and self-mythologizing millionaires bent on rescuing the country from the hideous grasp of Satanic liberalism. To a small group of Democratic activists meeting in New York City in late February, Stein had brought thirty-eight charts diagramming the organizational structure of the Republican "Message Machine," an octopus-like network of open and hidden microphones that he described as "perhaps the most potent, independent institutionalized apparatus ever assembled in a democracy to promote one belief system.""

running numbers

vanity fair's graydon carter does bush by the numbers.

arabian knights

"AP - Cantor Fitzgerald Securities, a bond trading firm that lost two-thirds of its workers in the World Trade Center attack, has sued Saudi Arabia for allegedly supporting al-Qaida prior to the Sept. 11 attack through financing, safe houses, weapons and money laundering."

if you had to choose...

i case you were wondering about that Time poll which gave bush the big bounce, here is a look at the questionable methodology.

you suck, balls

its no easier pinning chris matthews down to an answer than it is the politicians he reportedly interrogates. and he is just as likely to begin sprouting his own personal talking points when pressed for an honest response. for the third time this week ive heard him bluster "my show is called hardball, not success magazine," as if stating it made it true. maybe he was still just too giddy from his made for tv movie encounter with senator zellfire to be trifling with questions about the failures of the fourth estate. that and he seems to be scared of running afoul of the republicans. message to chris matthews: the republicans are watching fox in a big way. how about a show for the rest of us. theres a reason the daily show draws better numbers than you and its not just because its funny.

taxing situation

""Bush in a kind of very secretive way has been moving us one step at a time toward a flat tax," Stephen Moore, president of the conservative Club for Growth, told me last month. My piece "Hidden Agenda," from the October issue of the Prospect, gets into this in more detail."

ad count

richard linklater ad from move on. also, i think the dnc's " broken record" ad is pretty effective.

cotton mouth

i think i read about james wolcott skulking about among the liberal bloggers at the convention. maybe he was out creating a little buzz for his blog launch.

map science

looks like the election may come down to pennsylvania. and theres a fairly plausible 269-269 scenario. other states in play: florida tennessee colorado wisconsin iowa nevada minnesota michigan and arizona. possibly arkansas and virginia. my guesstimate today was kerry 270 bush 268. that required a win in nevada tennessee iowa minn michigan and penn but losses in florida colorado virginia and arkansas. click on the interactive map and make your own predictions.

demanding satisfaction

the general gives zell his due.

classs act

fred kaplan skools the repug speeches.

pasucki

listening to pataki makes me yearn for a euphonious al gore. i look forward to the day when he is the republican candidate for president. here is a man that can make people enthusiastic about a kerry candidacy.

factored in

who found the factor?

kiss off

"Keep the focus on the president's manifest record of failure and he loses this election. Simple as that."

la kings

poor little tv execs lost an opportunity today to exploit the rich careless black athlete and the poor confused little white girl. youd think msnbc could pay her off to keep up the charade. if she understood it was for the sake of ratings maybe shed relent. now all we have to look forward to is the new season of The OC. dawg.

fallow the leader

"[T]he biggest question... whether [the Bush] response to 9/11 has made [America] safer or more vulnerable.... Over the past two years I have been talking with a group of people at the working level of America's anti-terrorism efforts... no partisan ax to grind with the Administration... they have so far been proved right. In the year before combat started in Iraq, they warned that occupying the country would be far harder than conquering it.... [A]mong national-security professionals there is surprisingly little controversy... America's response to 9/11 [was] a catastrophe. I have sat through arguments among soldiers and scholars about whether the invasion of Iraq should be considered the worst strategic error in American history—or only the worst since Vietnam.... "Let me tell you my gut feeling," a senior figure at one of America's military-sponsored think tanks told me recently, after we had talked for twenty minutes about details of the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. "If I can be blunt, the Administration is full of shit. In my view we are much, much worse off now than when we went into Iraq. That is not a partisan position. I voted for these guys. But I think they are incompetent, and I have had a very close perspective on what is happening. Certainly in the long run we have harmed ourselves. We are playing to the enemy's political advantage. Whatever tactical victories we may gain along the way, this will prove to be a strategic blunder.".."

dig deeper

"Jim Lobe argues that the FBI investigation that caught up Pentagon Iran expert Lawrence Franklin is much wider than initially thought, and focuses on the unauthorized transfer to Israel of highly sophisticated military software and designs."

not equal too

"The middle class and working poor are told that what's happening to them is the consequence of Adam Smith's 'Invisible Hand.' This is a lie. What's happening to them is the direct consequence of corporate activism, intellectual propaganda, the rise of a religious orthodoxy that in its hunger for government subsidies has made an idol of power, and a string of political decisions favoring the powerful and the privileged who bought the political system right out from under us." -- Bill Moyers, Keynote speech, June 3, 2004"

not it

id like to nominate jenna and her giggly twin to the drat fink - not terribly serious (apparently) hall of something for their spirited takedown of the republican agenda.

larrys kid

notorious met killer atlanta braves thirdbaseman chipper jones names newborn son shea (as in stadium).

also, not surprisingly, dumb (white) jocks with lots of money trend republican. actually, theyre the ones that are considered bright. one player, carlos delgado of the toronto blue jays did take some heat for being demonstratively anti-war. so, maybe theres still hope for the dominicans.

counter topics

counterspin flip-flops on blogging issue, reenters fray

i love the leader

that is just one painfully absurd question.

remote control

maybe its my recent viewings of pink panther movies but i think john mccain had a minor stroke while praising the clouseau-esque leadership qualities of dick cheney last night. either that or he was fighting off the republican mind control device they had implanted. or maybe the republican mind control device was in a death struggle with the vietcong mind control device for predominance in his addled mind. regardless, it was an entertaining twitch. though, id tell mccain to steer clear of all celebrity poker matches with that kind of tell.

release the floodgates

"It appears to be the case that someone in the Pentagon got wind that Larry Franklin had been flipped, and was terrified that the investigation might go on up the ladder at the Pentagon, in AIPAC, and with the Israelis. So they leaked news of the investigation to make sure that everybody clammed up and shredded everything."

red in the face

lets go to the tote...