I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Yo dude, we're famous!!
As a rethug, I would like to personally say Bush is a cockmaster for dismissing Kerry's challenge for monthly debates.
disgusting.
It's harder for the Repubs to count on large numbers of people not knowing the truth when the bloggers are on their case 24/7. Nice going, guys.
Hey WH'ho, you checking in today? ignore us at your peril.
I say that in a loving way of course. 
Atrios is really Carlos Watson!
Actually, when I think about it, I have started to see things said in comments,or in posts on blogs I frequent showing up in mainstream print or on the air.
I don't know about you guys, but it makes me feel like I'm not just screaming in the dark with no one listening.
We need a t-shirt "Bloggers- We've Got the Power"
It should be noted that John Kerry supports Israeli Apartheid. But, I guess, he's not Bush.
As a rethug, I would like to personally say Bush is a cockmaster for dismissing Kerry's challenge for monthly debates.
Dude, if you're that disgusted I urge you to come over to the light. We're more fun anyway.
But don't the wingnuts have their own blogs, too? I seem to count at least as many of them as of the righteous ones, if not more. But blogs are good, yeah. Even my tiny voice is now being heard by more than the four walls.
We need a t-shirt "Bloggers- We've Got the Power"
I still think that "I Am Atrios" says it all...
We're one step away from turning loose a viral marketing wave.
Let's start a campaign to force "Wolf" to change his name back to Leslie.
Hey -- we've got the power!
new meme for the Kerry Campaign
Bush doesnt flip flop, HE JUST FLOPS
just a thought
Way to start a revolution, Atrios!
As I said when commenting about the piece yesterday, it needs to be stated that talk radio of the Right will never allow criticism of itself to the degree that the Left allows criticism of the Left in blogs. This being said, though, it is worth noting that I've heard several stories of litmus tests resulting in banishment (especially from the Democratic Underground) and that the responses of a few in these spaces have had less charm than those one might find at Free Republic.
I would think that a willingness to allow for differences of opinion would be a desirable quality of the Blogosphere.
If Atrios does go on TV, will he wear a paper sack ala the Unknown Comic?
I am Atrios!
i saw this yesterday too. i hope it is making a difference. the level of discourse i see on these threads is soooo much more intelligent... well i don't really want to compare it to right wing single browed commentators like hannity or rush, in fact there is no comparison.
i sometimes wonder if the prerequisite for being a republican is having the emotional and intellectual iq of a 10 year old spoiled brat. then i see president bush and i know the answer.
But don't the wingnuts have their own blogs, too? I seem to count at least as many of them as of the righteous ones, if not more. But blogs are good, yeah. Even my tiny voice is now being heard by more than the four walls.
Echidne
The difference is that the right wing bloggers are just repeating the party line which is already out there in the right wing "liberal" media. The lefty blogs are presenting an alternate view which does not have an institutional base.
I was Atrios before being Atrios was cool. . .
You da man!
Salt Water,
There have been virulent bacteria who have posted here in pyrotechnical displays of paranoia, narcissism, ego and sheer vandalism. They have either been banished or grew bored and wondered away on their own. I don't know about DU, but I do know that, in general, this and other lefty blogs put up with a lot. All it took for me to be banished from Freeperville was one post about Bush screwing the country and ZOT! I was history.
But, as a rule, I think the discourse here is freer, even if it does get a bit rough at times.
uh, wonder should be wander. D'oh.
But don't the wingnuts have their own blogs, too? I seem to count at least as many of them as of the righteous ones, if not more.
Yeah, but they're mostly insane. And the commentors, if allowed, are mostly frothing at the mouth, driveling, inarticulate wackadoos. Who'd pay attention to that?
If you want to hear real, intelligent discourse, you have to come into the light.
We need a t-shirt "Bloggers- We've Got the Power"
I still think that "I Am Atrios" says it all...
True, I was taking a swipe at the obnoxious t-shirts the press wore at Howard Dean's last press conference. They think they have the power, I suggest they think again.
I got banned from a freeperville site and then sent a terse email from them like I cared.
Isn't Kos of the Daily Kos taking credit for this as well?
shorter four legs good: even our trolls are higher quality...
Writers for Late Night and Jsy Leno read Talkleft. And it does provide for a rapid (if not rabid) response.
Reporters in general seem unimaginative and lazy and the blogosphere gives them a lot for just a click
Right wing blogs suck. Boring and illiterate, and almost always wrong with the facts.
Like the Mallard Fillmore comic strip.
Once in a while they post something amusing, usually unintentionally.
I guess Ricky Vandal is the highest quality troll freeperville can produce.
How many times does Wolfie have to "discover" the blogosphere?
This is at least the third in my addled memory.
I want a grey turtleneck with a discreet 'I am Atrios' logo on the cuff. A secret handshake would be even better.
hmmm, cheap me mat have to make my own 'i am atrios' tee and see if anbody i meet knows
what it means.
Kerry is coming to my kids community college tomorrow. We made up a big sign with Harry Trumans face on it. The voice balloon says " Give 'em Hell Kerry". Cute huh?
I am Atrios!
I have started to see things said in comments,or in posts on blogs I frequent showing up in mainstream print or on the air.
I had a small thrill when I heard Peter Overby repeat something I'd said on the Dean Defense Force blog last summer. No attribution, and it was during the big hype time for Dean, but it was the first time I'd heard the crossover between media.
Someday there will be a story about how I've changed American politics or something. In the meantime, I'll just have to be happy that Atrios' own Inky mentioned my blog when they did a roundup of the blogosphere in the wake of Saddam's capture (blogwhore). I just have to keep blowhoring...
Funny how the right-wing blogs took off first -- I remember the SCLM hawking the hell out of AndrewSullivan.com a couple years ago. Then people started running into left-wing blogs, stunned to find themselves confronted with rational analysis, confirmed facts, and long-form quotations, and now the lefties are the ones getting the attention.
It never fails to amaze me how uncompetitive the right is in a truly open marketplace.
Interior of Rethug Star
Scott McClellan: We've entered the Time/Warner system.
Rove and two DeLay staff thugs enter with Carlos Watson. His hands are bound.
WATSON: Grand Moff Cheney, I should have expected to find you holding
Rove's leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on
board.
CHENEY: Charming to the last. You don't know how hard I found it
signing the order to terminate your life!
WATSON: I surprised you had the courage to take the responsibility
yourself!
CHENEY: Mister Watson, before your execution I would like you to be my
guest at a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No
web log will dare oppose the Dear Leader now.
WATSON: The more you tighten your grip, Cheney, the more web logs
will slip through your fingers.
CHENEY: Not after we demonstrate the power of this station. In a way,
you have determined the choice of the web site that'll be destroyed
first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of secret Democrat weapon, I have chosen to test this station's destructive power...on your home web site of CNN.COM
LEIA: No! CNN is peaceful. We've got Wolf Blizer whoring for the Dear Leader night and day. You can't
possibly...
CHENEY: You would prefer another target? A military target? Then name
the weblog!
Cheney waves menacingly toward Watson.
TARKIN: I grow tired of asking this. So it'll be the last time. Where
is the secret Democrat weapon?
Watson overhears an intercom voice announcing the approach to the Time/Warner web site.
WATSON: (softly, with a slight smirk) Instapundit
Watson lowers his head.
WATSON: The secret weapon is Instapundit.
CHENEY: There. You see KKKarl, he can be reasonable. (addressing
McClellan) Continue with the operation. You may fire when ready.
WATSON: What?
CHENEY: You're far too trusting. Intstapundit is too remote to make an
effective demonstration. But don't worry. We will deal with your Rebel
friends soon enough.
WATSON: No!
INTERIOR: RETHUG STAR -- BLAST CHAMBER.
ROVE: Commence primary ignition.
A button is pressed which switches on a panel of lights. A hooded DeLay staffer reaches overhead and pulls a lever. Another lever is pulled. Rove reaches for still another lever and a bank of lights on a panel and wall light up. A huge beam of light emanates from within a cone-shaped area and converges into a single laser beam out toward CNN.COM. The web site is blown into space dust.
hey i'm a good troll...
I said Atrios needs a tissue at every report of job losses and I wasn't banned.
unlike DU
A secret handshake would be even better.
YES! I've always wanted to belong to a society that has a secret handshake.
Can you invent one for us, please?
It never fails to amaze me how uncompetitive the right is in a truly open marketplace.
agrajag
That's because 99% of their rhetoric is crap.
Darn. Didn't edit out a Leia. I'm going back to my room now...
How many times does Wolfie have to "discover" the blogosphere?
This is at least the third in my addled memory
Everyday is ground hog day for Wolfie.
OT: Can we please have that fucking picture of dear leader removed from the sidebar adv? I just have the urge to slap that smirk of his face.
cosmic grappler, my comments were specifically about the criticisms I've recieved of late for daring to suggest that rumor mongering about Perry on Eschaton is as admirable as rumor mongering about Kerry on Drudge.
Am I not entitled to voice that opinion without being accused of being a 'Troll'? Not that such accusations deter my intention to voice my opinions, but they do serve to create the appearance that some here have an epidermis similar to that of posters and administrators of some Right blogs.
Echidne -
I know the Tri-Delt secret handshake and the Elk secret handshake and am happy to share. Sometimes they get confused, but since they're secret, it isnt mentioned. They're both pretty dull tho - perhaps someone has a good one to contribute?
They[Democrats]'re using these to excite their own base, just like conservative talk show radio does.
Blogs (esp. of the lefty variety) are not the same things as conservative talk radio. Right wing radio and TV like Fox news is one-way communication: from think tank talking points to "professional journalists" to "media personalities" and then straight down the throats of passive viewers.
Blogs ideally are two-way communication. I don't want Atrios and other big blogs to become a tool of the Dems, hopefully they can be a tool for the Dems. Party officials should look to blogs as surveys to gauge what issues are important to citizens, distributed research, development and testing of policy issues, etc... I think the Dean campaign pulled a lot of material straight from the blogs, and good for them.
Looking beyond the next election, blogs can lead to a more participatory democracy, based on a more democratic distribution of information.
Big A!
As Mel Gibson was saying just the other day, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
Salt,
I was a witness to that and I do think you got roughed up for nothing.
But, you're still here. That's good.
The egregious trolls (America's Memory, The multi personalities of Tom Smith, et al) who show up get fairly respectful hearings until they get tired of not being the center of attention and start throwing poo.
I don't put you into that category, and I doubt if many others here do either.
But we do tend to be protective of Atrios. And you know why? Because
I AM ATRIOS!
Let's start a campaign to force "Wolf" to change his name back to Leslie.
Hell, if we really do have the power, let's get him to change his name to "Donna."
Here's an even better dealie:
According to a pal who has a friend in the Tonight Show band, the reason that Leno is smacking Bush nightly is solely because test marketers have determined that Bush is now more unpopular than popular.
As my bud's bud (who shall remain nameless) says, "we pander--and Jay is pandering to prevailing sentiment now".
I've heard or seen many things I've written online for several years now. Last night, listening to Phil Hendrie on AM radio discuss pro-gay rights, he quoted me verbatim from four years ago from a website I used to post at. It doesn't even surprise me when it happens anymore.
Talking about right wing blogs... I was just browsing lucianne.com.
What a hoot! Light on the critical thinking -- heavy on the Ad Hominem.
Here are some examples of posters from lucianne.com talking about Ted Kennedy:
Reply 12 - Posted by: scal, 3/13/2004 5:25:59 PM
Hey,fat boy, Have you heard from Mary Jo lately.
Reply 13 - Posted by: Texas Ranger, 3/13/2004 5:26:13 PM
Open up another bottle, Teddie and go back to sleep.
Reminds me of a great quote:
"If you can't answer a man's argument, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names." --Elbert Hubbard
My first reaction was "he's just figuring this out?" But if, out of 400-something million Americans, only "15 to 20 million people are now actively using the Internet and these Web logs in particular," that means most Americans don't. (Not even sure how you'd describe a 'blog to someone who didn't ever use a computer.)
* * *
Maybe blogs are the left equivalent of right-wing talk radio. That would make Atrios & Kos the versions of Limbaugh. It would also suggest that programs to put computers and 'Net hook-ups in the hands of kids and people who don't have access to them are in our favor.
Your candor and considerations are appreciated, cosmic grappler.
I just got done watching "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" again for the umpteenth time.
Atrios and the other bloggers are this gens Jefferson Smith.
Frank Capra gets it.
I said practically these exact words to some folks in DC yesterday, then went back to my hotel
Hey, what the hell is going on?
First Calpundit and now you huh? You gonna start writing a blog for the Post?
shorter four legs good: even our trolls are higher quality...
TheWanderer
tanks, mon. 
Mr. Salt Water taffee.... we weren't really rumor mongering about Perry since some of us had really, really, really good sources. And since the rumor happens to be true. In spite of Perry's denials. The fact that your comments aren't bleeped are proof enough that we're different than the right. Go try to post something positive about Kerry on one of those boards and see how fast you get banned.
it's kind of creepy to hear one's action's referred to as "exciting the base."
Anyway, it's clear that the blogs have taught the Dems how to do Oppo, and reporters how not to be afraid anymore.
Another freeper site I posted at and was quickly banned from, the wingers were like cave men communicating with each other with grunts for comments. You could almost smell the gun oil, black powder and sweat emanating from that site. Scary.
Yeah, Atrios, what were you doing in DC yesterday? having a little chat with Mr. Blumenthal maybe? You know that Conason has given up his daily column (he's gone to twice a week) so why not give Atrios a forum?
(Plus some money would be nice...)
yeah, wtf is a gym teacher doing in DC?
and why does atrios call them "so-called Web blogs"?
and since when are we shaping the agenda? last i checked, "Duhh" was not a headline from the AP. we are shaping the agenda when libruls launch SnarkTV our very own network.
smarter atrioses, please!
Oh, I think they banned me because I told them real men didn't type on computers.
BWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!
You could almost smell the gun oil, black powder and sweat emanating from that site. Scary.
Actually when I hear that kind of talk I smell disinfectant and other hospital smells. Asylum type of smells.
Since the comment boards are open to all, sometimes very informed posters, right from, say NASA or other gov. or industry places add bits of information which would be unobtainable in the format of a newspaper. That's the best part, even if you have to scurry past the trolls to read them. Good jokes and other funny stuff, too. But Jeez, so many blogs, so little time.
The difference is that the right wing bloggers are just repeating the party line which is already out there in the right wing "liberal" media. The lefty blogs are presenting an alternate view which does not have an institutional base.
pamur
Also, the right-wingers' blogs have kind of run out of steam, at least the few I used to look at often, which I assume are the big names, since I've heard of them.
A good example is Den Beste, who rarely posts new stuff anymore -- quite a change coming from one of the most long-winded bloggers around -- and when he does he just recycyles the same old themes. "France is bad. We're winning the war against terror in Iraq. I'm an engineer so you must accept what I say without question. Apple is doomed. Don't send me email about anything I write." Did I leave anything out?
Actually when I hear that kind of talk I smell disinfectant and other hospital smells. Asylum type of smells.
four legs good
It was asylum-like. Really weird ones there. It was like they just sat around posting an occasional meaningless fragment of a sentence.
Gave me the willies.
Live by text tags, die by text tags. Only the first sentence was supposed to be in Italics.
chilly willies
It was a freeper Guns~n~Ammo site.
Yeah, willies.
I've checked out those sites
I know what you mean.
Atrios and the other bloggers are this gens Jefferson Smith.
Blogs and Haloscan are a MUCH more efficient form of information dissemination than, say, schoolboys with printing presses.
I Am Atrios!
I know what you mean.
Another Bruce
Whew, glad someone else knows what I mean because it's so hard to explain what it's like at those places.
Atrios is really Carlos Watson!
Atrios is really Wendy Carlos!
Article in this month's Vanity Fair, now TV - I hope fame and fortune don't go to everyone's head---
I don't know how long you think you're going to be able to keep moonlighting like this Tucker.
Hear about the Real Free Press and moisten your trou, Wolf Ditzer you fucking power-worshipping coward.
if atrios was on TV, they would have to put a blue dot over his face!
Ending up on Blitzer in one form or another only means a particular idea is harmless.
That total strangers send you Tivos and laptops should make you proud, however.
I don't know how long you think you're going to be able to keep moonlighting like this Tucker.
Hey--Atrios was in DC. Calpundit is currently "out of town." Some big conspiracy being hatched by these two? Hold it, or is it Atrios = Calpundit?
It's all starting to become clear...
So many thoughts, so little time.
First off, there are only about 270 million Americans, not 400 million. Thank Yaweh.
Next. We are yet again at the cutting edge of social change. When do we get issued those cool red "S"s on the yellow background? Or is it yellow "S"s on a red background? Damn. I can't remember.
Me? You talking to me? Yeah, I'm Atrios, why?
Atrios is William Carlos Williams? Huh?
Hey, Salt Water, the reason people often get banned from DU for presenting the "other side's" arguments is because DU is a forum for Dems and fellow-travellers (like me) to hang out. It's kind of like a private club. I wouldn't go on FreeRepublic; I would hope (against hope) that Freepers would have the common sense and decency to stay the hell off DU. There are a lot of places on the Web for people to bash it back and forth (like here, for instance); DU isn't one of them.
I am Atrios!
Protesters were at Walmart a couple weeks ago. If the above turns out, it is a picture of what I saw...HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I AM ATRIOS....too....
After L'affaire Trent Lott the mainstream press has to pay attention to the blogs or they're going to miss the big story and look like idiots.
Atrios- Talking to people in DC? Glad to hear it! It's about f'in time.
This is a nice idea, but it's junk, basically. Try googling Salman Pak (the supposed Iraqi terrorist training camp). You hit like 10 pages of blogs about how it was a terrorist training camp, before you come to the actual report from Hersh on how it was nothing, and the US knew it was nothing.
No one can corroborate this but my wife, but well before I was doing any blogging or reading of blogs, she told me about moveon's first online advertising drive that netted them spectacular returns for their first antiwar message -- within HOURS, not the days they expected it to take. She told me this and the whole picture dropped into place: I predicted right then that if `they could harness this energy for the forces of good instead of evil' or something like that, that the Internet could completely change the political fundraising and organization calculus. Which is happening.
About the same time I started reading blogs, moveon did its virtual march on washington which was also a phenomenal success (quick sidenote: before high-speed internet i can't imagine this whole thing taking off as it has). Then came Dean/Trent Lott/Wesley Clark-the now forgotten but foreshadowing agitproperties-O'Reilly dust-up which helped spotlight the internet, and then everything's zooming now. There is a virtual legitimate news-service in blogdom now that exceeds anything any single newspaper and certainly any network can come up with. It serves as a corrective to the flawed output of the deadline- and competition-driven regular press and as an agenda-setter in its own right: The Trent Lott downfall is deserved blog legend now, Josh Marshall's work HAS to be having a needling effect in DC and there are numerous examples besides. It's also useful to see how members of the supposed mainstream press reveal their petty prejudices in their own blogs (Sully, Kaus).
There is already a hearty contribution system built quite literally out of thin air that has to piss off the GOP royally.
It's happening, folks.
Public discourse is completely different now because of forums like this. Hanging out here has all but blown my former addiction to reading letters-to-the-ed columns. I still do -- but it's frustrating because I'll read some letter sent in by a total winger and think, "If this were posted at Eschaton, about 30 other posters would be lined up to feed this guy's crap back to him." Here, everything comes out, all voices are heard, the only thing that will get you filtered is extreme obnoxiousness -- and miraculously, some in the mainstream press actually pay attention. I doubt any of them ever tuned in to, for instance, the execrable political message boards they had (maybe still do) on AOL years ago. God knows how many people poured God knows how many words and how much passion into those forums, and it was all wasted. No more. Whatever the nature of this change, it hasn't even STARTED to reverb yet.
Silleigh -- that is SO true! I've also noted that ideas in the op-eds are presented as if they are new, when I know that they've been kicked to death on the blogs already. (So now I find myself screaming at the paper instead of at the tv, which is a fun change of pace.)
Yesterday a friend who's active in supporting Democrats, but isn't a big computer user, asked me to recommend some good political blogs. It's becoming apparent that if you're not reading Atrios, Josh Marshall, Kos, etc., etc., you're out of the loop!
Am I not entitled to voice that opinion without being accused of being a 'Troll'?
No, you are not, but you are entitled to voice your opinion and not (hopefully) be banned for it.
If anyone in the Kerry campaign is reading, I had an idea for an ad. If you want it, it's yours:
SETTING: An assembly line.
Shift workers going about their business. All of a sudden one disappears. The workers next to him look puzzled, but go back to what they're doing. Then another guy disappears, then another, and so forth.
NARRATOR: Almost three million jobs have been lost since George Bush took office. Bush favors special tax breaks that reward big corporations for sending jobs overseas. In fact, his top economic adviser called outsourcing "a good thing." But John Kerry wants to close these loopholes. He opposes using taxpayer money to send jobs overseas. John Kerry wants to establish a jobs tax credit to keep American manufacturing jobs right here in America."
On "right here in America", all the workers who had disappeared suddenly reappear and are greeted by their co-workers.
Or something to that effect. A little simplistic, maybe, but such are campaign ads. Maybe you could also do a white-collar version, in an office, with cubicles. I don't know how effective this would be, but like I said, if you want it, have at it.
Bloggin
We Bloggin!
I hope you like Bloggin too!
Liberal Blogs = Open Source Think Tank
yeah. i love getting turned onto details and news that i can read about, in truncated form, in the paper the next day or even the one after.
and it's a rush to see memes appear in other places, though i'm still a grasshopper.
the left will always have better forums, because we allow more views and are actually funny.
i do worry about the hammer coming down on these forums, given their effectiveness.
anyone seen the new decency bill?
anything there that could be used to shut blogs down for a spell?
like i should be advertising this.
"Talking about right wing blogs... I was just browsing lucianne.com"
I just went there and Was going to register,cause you HAVE to.I got this message:
"Our automated registration function will be closed for the foreseeable future. If you want to register and post replies on this site please Email Registration3@LComHQ.com with your request and your working E-mail address and you will be placed on the waiting list."
Why does the right hate America?
The "War" President.
So Dubya says 'I'm a "War" President. Doesn't that have a real, specific meaning? Words do matter.
It's not a bad analogy, but like all anologies it's limited. Some differences:
1. Comment Sections - (Shystee talked about this as well). When not overly-policed, they can be very effective in keeping a blog honest. Obviously, nothing comparable exists in talk radio. ;-> Even with commentless blogs, people can post criticism on their own blogs. Less effective, but still better than anything radio has to offer.
2. Links - Again, helps keep the blogger honest (if people use them) by providing the original story or context for a quote. Radio offers stories in a neat little package. Blogs invite the audience to explore on their own.
3. Written vs. Oral - Some people write very passionately, but the voice provides additional ways of manipulating an audience's emotions (and winger radio makes full use of them). Reading also allows for rereading, which tends to make purely emotional arguments less effective.
4. Market Share - Like it or not, blog readers are still a minority. Maybe that will change someday but right now Rush reaches a lot more people than Atrios.
5. How Audience Is Perceived - Partly an effect of market share, but still significant in it's own right. Dittoheads are seen as 'Middle America', Atroids as 'geeks'. If people thought blogdom represented the average voter, everyone would have agreed that Dean was the most 'electable' candidate.
6. Convenience - You can listen to the radio while driving, at work, making dinner, etc. Blogs are a lot more costly for the audience in terms of time. This contributes to both 4 and 5, and also makes radio less dependent on externals like employment status, type of employment, etc.
I agree that blogsphere can get people riled up and bring issues into the mainstream like radio can. But they're still two very different media and very mismatched combatants. Let's not get complacent about talk radio just because we've got the internet.
I posted this over at Daily Kos..I'm cross posting it here too since it concern Atrios. And how!! (Atrios was profiled just as much as Kos in the piece).
------------------------
Da-hamn..forget the CNN mention. I just got the April issue of Vanity Fair in the mail, and HOLY KRAP. James Wolcott has a major piece in the magazine called "The Laptop Brigade" about blogs. And who is prominently, I repeat, prominently profiled? Who else? (Kos) As Dickhead said "Big Time". A picture of the home page on the first page of the article, and a picture of Kos further into the article that takes up quite a large portion of the page. Also prominently profiled was Atrios. Along with a host of others (Josh Marshall, TBogg, Kos alumni....)
Wow.
Run and go buy your issue. You'll be treated to another letter from the Editor, Graydon Carter, ripping into the Bush Admin and the whole voting mess we're about to be hit with (he's way harsher than many of the Blogs every month), an in-depth expose entitled "Hack the Vote" about electronic voting machines, and two fascinating pieces - 1) Neil Bush's marriage fiasco and his mess of a life, and 2) The Rise and Fall of Conrad Black.
This is one magazine that has recovered from it's 2001 slide into keeping it's hands off Bush while the nation was recovering , to coming back with a vengeance. Each month they tear the administration another hole whether it concerns civil rights, the environment, Bush's habit of lying, the mess Perle/Cheny/Wolfowitz created, etc. you can fill in the blank. A must have for every fed up American that's living through the worst presidency in our nation's history. What gives me a rush (I take what I can get) is that this is not a magazine with the circulation of 100,000 catering to a niche market. Their circulation is *huge*. The amount of people they reach gives me hope.
Anyway, what a week it's been for Kos. Another week of JK saying something "witty" off-mike, and we're all set.
Oh what is it you want?
What is it you want?
What is it you want to change?
What is it you want to change?
We lost the radio
I am alone
We lost the radio
We are alone
I need you radio
for what you are
We need you radio
'cos you're a star
I am the radio
you are the radio
we are the radio
you are the radio
we are the radio
we are the RADIO
Radio..radio..radio...
What is it you want?
What is it you want...to change?
-Smashing Pumpkins
I of the Mourning (live)
That song is my anthem for the blogosphere.
We are the radio.
So what is it you want to change?
BTW..
I'll say it again. I hope you have contingency plans in place Atrios for your servers. Come October, this place will be HOPPIN...
Million hits a day?
Easy.
When Atrios posted, "Well, what can I say. Every journalist involved in this fraud should just kill themselves in shame."
It was like I was Atrios! I've posted the same thing here many, many times.
Maybe I'm Atrios.
Atrios - you're welcome to piggyback onto my servers, at www.gwpda.org. A friendly little local group of nerds, with BIG SERVERS and BIG IDEAS. Actually, it's a rather nice idea - the Great War and Atrios, striking back against the shrubbery?
Anyway. Let me know. Memory don't cost squat these days.
Let's remember to not keep this among ourselves. Blogging and reading blogs becomes most politically important and effective when it breaks through the filters of mainstream media and influences mainstream media topics covered and their accuracy.
Cool. Wolcott posts in here occasionally.
I started blogging early last year. After a few days and months of enduring Bushco, I commented here that blogs would be our talk radio, because I could already see that blogs could reach anyone who had a computer and had the opportunity to learn about them.
More and more media outlets have given blogs attention in one, actually, long year. The Dean campaign was especially influential.
A new day has dawned, and we have the advantage. It is a beautiful thing to behold.
It would be nice to think we could keep both parties on their toes.
One more difference, and perhaps the most important:
7. Instant activism (or Links, Part II) - Blogs make it absurdly easy to initiate a e-mail campaign or donation drive. If Rush says, "Write a check for the RNC," dittoheads may shout, "Yeah!" but before they get around to actually doing it the enthusiasm's probably worn off. A donate button cuts the lag time to zero.
Liberal Blogs = Open Source Think Tank
Liberal Blogs = Open Source Think Tank Liberal Blogs = Open Source Think Tank
dammit, stay with that, run with it in all directions...
just a thought
Wow, you folks got banned from Freeperville for much worse offenses than I did - basically, my crime was in posting about how people who really take personal responsibility to heart and believe in the free market can find work even in a bad economy, if they are willing to do whatever job they can find. (This on a thread where the Freepers were all whining about being unemployed.) I committed the sin of mentioning that I had done it (found work different from what I had been doing when the economy went south) and I'm a liberal. Zip! The post stayed up for perhaps 20 minutes, and I got notice that I was banned from ever posting again. Boo-hoo. No insults, nothing offensive in my post, other than the mention that a "lazy" liberal had gone out and made a job for herself while the freepers were all online bitching about how they couldn't find any white collar positions comparable to the ones they'd been laid off from (which remained unsaid in my post).
As for those of you who have heard your words issuing from the mouth of mainstream pundits, I'll be a happy girl when I hear them start talking about the Clenis™. It's already in use all over the lefty blogosphere; perhaps Wolfie & co. consider it beneath their dignity to use the term.
Jennifer, the Clenis™ is yours.
We know.
pie - I appreciate your recognition, but still pine for the recognition of the media whores to legitimize my meaningless existence as one of the "little people".
A secret handshake would be even better.
YES! I've always wanted to belong to a society that has a secret handshake.
Can you invent one for us, please?
I want to second this. Having a secret handshake that is posted to the Web would be perfect for this place. It captures exactly the mixture of openness and close community on-line forums can generate.
This is totally irrelevant but...
Actually when I hear that kind of talk I smell disinfectant and other hospital smells. Asylum type of smells.
I was a psychiatric tech for a short time. The hospital I worked in had a very distinctive odor on the patient floors that I can't describe. It wasn't at all unpleasant, I think it was mostly from the cleaning compounds housekeeping used. In any case, it was very different from the smell of every med-surg floor I've ever been on.
No doubt the progressive blogs are making it more difficult for the RNC and their corporate media cronies to control and corrupt information and achieve their goal of a one party state. However, we also know that these thugs can be very creative in finding new ways to limit what people can read, write, hear, or say. Expect them to broaden the application of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) as well as threaten to use decency and libel laws to intimidate the ISPs of Web Sites that expose and ridicule their big lies. Also expect TV, radio, newspaper and some online pundits to start mouthing off more regularly about how anonymous and freewheeling blogging and posting encourages the spread of rumors and panic.
Rightwing blogs are pretty much ignored because:
A) They repeat white house and GOP talking points.
B) They aren't as entertaining as talk radio, and conver much the same ground.
C) They are not as partisan as Democratic-leaning blogs, which do coordinate with one another, and stay on message to a certain extent.
I think blogs do their best work when we debunk attacks on Kerry or tghe Democrats, and reporters can use our posts as jumping off points for tehir own stories.
Also, when we highlight the latest crew up of the Bush administration, which might not be getting national coverage. We can expand on the issue, and give some more background.
As l,ong as we provide good material, we will have influence.
so when does Karl Rove begin attacking blogs as evil and un-American?
"We've already seen that they use the Internet to raise money, but also they may turn out voters using this critical weapon."
Well, D'uh! '...they **_MAY_** turn out voters...'?
If I give money, I/m sure as hell gonna vote.
To paraphrase Somberby...what did we ever do to deserve this type of public discourse?
I am not Atrios.
We are Atrios.
First! Yes!
Sounds familiar ...
Did anyone read the stuff just before this?
This may be another Dewey beats Truman. Remember 1948? Everyone thought Harry Truman was going to lose. The polls going into it thought he was going to lose by five points. "The Chicago Daily Tribune" posted, "Dewey Beats Truman." It could happen again.
And why do I think the polls may not be reliable this year? Because Republicans, not Democrats, but Republicans are putting the most ambitious voter registration drive arguably in history. They're looking to register a million new voters this week alone, three new million voters overall before the election. And a lot of those people, when pollsters call them and in other way try and find out their preferences, won't be on those lists.
In other words, they're telling us, if the polls say Kerry's winning and Bush pulls out a "miracle" victory on election day, it's because of sekrit Republican voter registration drives, not because Diebold stole the election.
Really.
Would I be a bad person to mention the elephant in the room here, and point out that the left finds blogs a more congenial medium than talk radio because, typically, we are smarter, better educated, more articulate, more rational, and more intellectually independent than our counterparts on the right?
If so, then I guess I'm very, very bad.
Would I be a bad person to mention the elephant in the room here, and point out that the left finds blogs a more congenial medium than talk radio because, typically, we are smarter, better educated, more articulate, more rational, and more intellectually independent than our counterparts on the right?
If so, then I guess I'm very, very bad.
No, you'd be right. We're not just more so of all those things, I don't think the right is any of those things at all.
renato: so when does Karl Rove begin attacking blogs as evil and un-American?
A bible verse for every occasion: Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full!
Headline: Easier Internet Wiretaps Sought Justice Dept., FBI Want Consumers To Pay the Cost
http://tinyurl.com/27lnl
Comin' up: Every blog you read supports the eeeevil terr-ists It's coming. You know it's coming. They've been itching to get at the Internet for years. Under the mantle of the War on Terra they'll continue the onslaught. I do think though that the Internet IS the djinn that will not go back in the lamp.
Link is tiny. Here's the WaPo URL:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp...-
2004Mar12.html
Excerpt: "The Justice Department wants to significantly expand the government's ability to monitor online traffic, proposing that providers of high-speed Internet service should be forced to grant easier access for FBI wiretaps and other electronic surveillance, according to documents and government officials."
so when does Karl Rove begin attacking blogs as evil and un-American?
About five minutes ago, judging from the above...
The blogosphere and talk radio are indeed tilted to the center-right, far-right.
Now leftist domination of the universities is under attack and there is a new realization out there about bias in the media.
Something new, my friends, is blowin' in the wind. Get used to it.
I think the figures on left blogging might be low. Lots of the people I talk to discuss what they've read on the blogs and most of them are about as far from computer geeks as it's possible to get. Mechanics, carpenters, farmers (well, that's me during the growing season. Only two I can think of have a professional connection to a university.
None of them is reading Clown Hall except to have a sort of mean laugh.
Blogs require reading. Reading usually precedes comprehension. Comprehension sets one toward the path of truth.
Us complex & intelligent progressives cannot simply idle in front of a TV and take it all in as truth - nor even have the radio on - radio and tv are the simplest and dumbest-downed of all media.
Newspapers are all run by rich old white men; so the progressive voice is not heard there either...
THE PROBLEM WITH AMURCA IS SMART MUST PROVE ITSELF TO DUMB AND STUPID IS SIMPLY BELIEVED BY DUMB. (hence right-flinger popularity in tv & radio -stupid simply believed!)
I am Atrios!
We could do Kerry a great service by having someone who peruses the liberal blogs, notes the good arguments, and forwards them to the campaign in a summary form. But it already sounds to me as though the Kerry folk are doing this.
The blogosphere and talk radio are indeed tilted to the center-right, far-right.
The same quantity-over-quality method espoused by Goebbels.
Spew enough bullshit with enough frequency and volume, and eventually people will believe it.
I'd rather have the insightfulness and intellectual honesty I find on most leftish sites, than just lots and lots of crap like one would get from Republican talk radio goons, or places like Free Republic.
I despaired that I had no girlfriend until I saw a man with no hands.
Hey Atrios,
You also rated a mention on Book TV (C-Span 2) this weekend by Eric Alterman. Congrats!!!
One of the best blogs is Arthur Silber's http://blog.light-of-reason.com. This guy is a great writer, with lots of acerbic wit, passion and intelligence. He really doesn't like the Bush Administration, for ethical reasons. Silber has even more credibility in the sense of being a libertarian type, and thus more believable in terms of "bad apple" motivated instead of "wrong fruit" partisanship. I say: make common cause against the common enemy, as more and more non-liberals are coming around.
(PS: he also could use a few bucks. Just a few would be afordable, no? If you look at his writing, you'll see that he deserves both that and more exposure.)
One of the best blogs is Arthur Silber's http://blog.light-of-reason.com. This guy is a great writer, with lots of acerbic wit, passion and intelligence. He really doesn't like the Bush Administration, for ethical reasons. Silber has even more credibility in the sense of being a libertarian type, and thus more believable in terms of "bad apple" motivated instead of "wrong fruit" partisanship. I say: make common cause against the common enemy, as more and more non-liberals are coming around.
(PS: he also could use a few bucks. Just a few would be afordable, no? If you look at his writing, you'll see that he deserves both that and more exposure.)
If you post a secret handshake, is it a secret anymore??? Also some libruls (like me) enjoy gun oil and blackpowder. Please don't tar all gun owners with the same brush =)
Ol' Froth
If you post a secret handshake, is it a secret anymore??? Also some libruls (like me) enjoy gun oil and blackpowder. Please don't tar all gun owners with the same brush =)
Ol' Froth
Gah! Stupid double posts!
One of the best blogs is Arthur Silber's http://blog.light-of-reason.com. This guy is a great writer, with lots of acerbic wit, passion and intelligence. He really doesn't like the Bush Administration, for ethical reasons. Silber has even more credibility in the sense of being a libertarian type, and thus more believable in terms of "bad apple" motivated instead of "wrong fruit" partisanship. I say: make common cause against the common enemy, as more and more non-liberals are coming around.
(PS: he also could use a few bucks. Just a few would be afordable, no? If you look at his writing, you'll see that he deserves both that and more exposure.)
Hey -
I don't know why my post keeps repeating, except that I have been horsing around and cliking lots of links on multiple windows. All I can say is - just go ahead and check out that website.
Hey -
I don't know why my post keeps repeating, except that I have been horsing around and cliking lots of links on multiple windows. All I can say is - just go ahead and check out that website.
Does anyone know where to find this "George Washington study" on blogs? I'm working on a book on the blogosphere and am very interested, but can't find it anywhere.
(BTW, hopefully interviews like the one referenced here with Wolf Blitzer will finally make it impossible for the editors to whom we are pitching the book to say that they just aren't sure blogs are important enough for them to justify a book.....) Thanks!
-- Joel
P.S. Four Words:
GEORGE HERBERT HOOVER BUSH
YES, YOU ARE RIGHT ATRIOS, I TOTALLY AGREE
Interesting how Liberals mostly prefer wide-ranging discussion as opposed to being shouted at from the idiot box.
Whoa! What happened to all the comments?
Anyone?
Bueller?
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