Koufax scouting report: weekend edition
I'm having a look at the Koufax "Most Deserving of Wider Recognition" nominees; here are a few who are new to me, with what seem like representative writing samples.

Red Grange Run --- Dennis Perrin, former writer for Bill Maher:

• Re Chris Matthews: The Bash Chris Matthews campaign buys into and extends the politics of personality and celebrity, and diverts attention away from the real issue, which of course is the corporate stranglehold on the "public" airwaves.
• Re Al Gore: And while we wait for the you-know-they're-coming justifications for President Hillary, we have the spectacle of online libs fainting and fawning at Al Gore's feet.
  
• Re Hamas victory: Much is being said about Hamas' past, but no one I've read is reminding us that Israel helped Hamas take its first serious steps as a political alternative to the PLO.

Dadahead --- "This blog kills fascists"; and when it runs out of them, it looks elsewhere :)

• In Praise of Circular Firing Squads: The Democratic Party is, effectively, in cahoots with the GOP. What I mean is: while I don't think that members of the leadership are actively collaborating with the Republican Party (I'm not that paranoid, at least not yet), the practical effects of what they are doing are almost identical to what the effects of a literal collaboration would be. In almost every instance, the Democratic Party behaves exactly as the GOP would want it to.

I Blame the Patriarchy --- "the patriarchy-blaming blog that never misses dinner":

FAQ: The Moron Section: The answer to all of these is the same: if you are asking this question, you are reading the wrong blog.

Is that a picture of you in the sidebar?
What is patriarchy?
What is feminism?
Why not “humanism”?
Men experience ______, too! What about them?
You used the word “negro.” Are you a racist?
You used the word “fucktard.” Do you hate mentally retarded people?
Why do you want to oppress men?
Do you want me to explain how life begins at conception?
Do you represent all feminists/all women as an elected spokesperson?
Why did you make fun of me/delete my comment/ban my IP? Can’t a guy disagree with you?
Are you a straight white guy in his early twenties doing a parody of a feminist blog?

Whatever it is, I'm against it--- "And I’ve kept yelling since I first commenced it, I’m against it!" This guy (for some reason, I'm assuming a guy -- I blame the patriarchy) was blogging before blogging was possible -- see Whatever it was, I was against it, a collection of notes he's archived to his blog that start around 1986. This one, though, is from last Thursday:

Interesting: In his ongoing efforts to reduce his vocabulary to the smallest number of words possible, Shrub has pretty much stopped using any adjective except “interesting.” Today, for example, on the SOTU: “it’s an interesting experience to walk out there”; on meeting Alito’s law clerks: “an interesting experience”; on the Palestinian elections: “very interesting”, “an interesting day”; on budget talks: “that’s going to be an interesting discussion”. It’s just about the least communicative adjective he could choose, conveying almost no information. It’s public speaking by the lazy for the lazy; the listener isn’t supposed to think any harder about the meaning of the sentence than Bush did in formulating it.

The Abstract Factory --- "Computer science Ph.D. candidate somewhere in the USA." Mix of personal, Ph.D. struggle, academic interests, and politics. Reacting to this post by Belle Waring constructing "intellectually non-ridiculous" arguments in the abstract against same-sex marriage, he writes:

Second, on a somewhat different track, I want to make a larger point, which is that sometimes the well-being of society simply must defer to individual rights. Individuals are ends-in-themselves, whereas society is a means to furthering the ends of individuals. If guaranteeing individual rights commensurate with our values ultimately leads to the breakdown of society, then so be it.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:25:00 PM -- |    

 
Call these Senators first
According to Democrats.com, the following Senators oppose Alito, but also oppose a filibuster:

Mark Pryor (D- AR), 202-224-2353
Ken Salazar (D- CO) , 202-224-5852
Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D- DE), 202-224-5042
Bill Nelson (D- FL), 202-224-5274
Daniel K. Akaka* (D- HI), 202-224-6361
Mary Landrieu* (D- LA), 202-224-5824
Byron L. Dorgan* (D- ND), 202-224-2551
Kent Conrad* (D- ND), 202-224-2043
Olympia Snowe* (R- ME), 202-224-5344

The same link provides a second list of Senators to call, if you can -- ones who are probably anti-Alito, but undeclared on whether they would support a filibuster.

As of tonight, the following Senators are on board for a filibuster: Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Christopher J. Dodd, Richard J. Durbin, John F. Kerry, Edward M. Kennedy, Debbie A. Stabenow, Harry Reid, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Charles Schumer, Ron Wyden, and Russell D. Feingold. That's twelve -- we need 29 more against cloture, and for a filibuster.


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* AOL News: Republicans clear the way for Alito Vote posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:57:00 AM -- |    

 
Cool stuff
Tales of the Nations --- a compilation of folk tales and tall tales from around the world, commissioned by a German cigarette manufacturer in the 1930s, drawn and narrated by one Stefan Mart, and assembled in a great web site by enthusiast Rainer Würgau.*

The wonderfully distinct illustration work was produced by the mysterious Stefan Mart. Virtually nothing is known about him and to date, Tales of the Nations (Märchen der Völker) is his only known work.

So writes "PK" in the equally cool "BibliOdyssey," a bibliophile blog that recently won the History News Network's Cliopatria Award for best new blog... via Timothy Burke, who also won an award for best writing.

How to draw a woolly mammoth --- "Olduvai Gorge" proprietor and natural history illustrator OGeorge (aka Carl Buell) really knows how, and really shows you how -- on Photoshop. He uses something called a Wacom Graphics Tablet, though this sounds more like a convenience than a necessity.
(Koufax "Most Deserving" Award Nominee)**

Turns out there's more to this picture than you thought --- "By Neddie Jingo" and his readers provide the backstory about this fellow, "Superjoel Tornabene": brave, clever, and a little crazy. That's often what it takes, I suppose.
(Koufax "Most Deserving" Award Nominee)

Election Results --- "Five Wells" blogger Mary Ann Sumner:

My inbox is full of congratulations this morning. I'm happy to report that I've just become a Town of Dryden Councilman. I'm not implying gender change, but I don't think the Board has accepted the extra syllable in Councilperson yet. I am now the only Democrat and the only woman on the Board. And I couldn't be happier.

"Five Wells" is actually more about her other interests: books, photography, birds, whatnot. A nice place to browse around.
(Koufax "Most Deserving" Award Nominee)

The Atlanta Campaign --- Mark Grimsley of "Blog Them Out of the Stone Age":

Although I wrote my last post in this series back in August, through the miracle of hyperlinks I can resume the story without much back-tracking. Basically I'm trying to see what light counterfactual theory can shed on one of the bread-and-butter issues of doing operational military history--namely the assessment of battlefield decision-making. I'm doing this by way of a review of Union and Confederate decision-making during the initial stages of the 1864 Atlanta campaign.

Grimsley is a military historian at Ohio State. He covers Iraq war issues, too, and very professionally, as one might guess.
(Cliopatria Best Individual Blog Winner)
(Koufax "Most Deserving" Award Nominee)

Incident at the Canadian border --- or the U.S. border, from "cassandra pages" point of view:

I glanced up at the sky. I wanted to suggest that more security might be gained by issuing passports to all the Canada geese that passed overhead, or perhaps they could send out a few F-16s from Plattsburg to strafe the resting, migrating flocks on Lake Champlain next spring... but by then we were all getting along so well, I didn't want to spoil it. Besides, she really was a nice person, she just had a job that required her to hassle people all day long, for highly limited returns - what would that do to you eventually, I wondered?

"Well, that's all, then," she said, seeming kind of reluctant to stop chatting. "Thanks a lot for your cooperation. I'll just take these plums and you can get on your way..." She looked at us, "...unless you want to eat them right now."

"Sure," J. said. "We'll eat them." We took the two plums from her outstretched hand and bit into them, and opened the car doors.

(Koufax "Most Deserving" Award Nominee)


=====
* The Tales of the Nations site has both German and English pages, by the way.
** Koufax Award, "Most deserving of wider recognition", hosted at Wampum. I've posted a complete list of nominees below as well.
EDIT, 1/28: woolly mammoth, not mastodon, and added Photoshop and Wacom comments.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:38:00 AM -- |    

 
HAVA extension could save your vote
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA), passed in 2002, was ostensibly intended to avoid Florida 2000 election-like voting fiascos in the future. Focusing on the notorious "hanging chad" problem with many paper ballots in that election, the bill's authors provided funds for upgrading voting equipment, and decreed that state and county officials would have to use those funds to upgrade their voting equipment by 2006 or face penalties.

But HAVA is threatening to be a cure that's worse than the disease. In urging a headlong rush to electronic voting, the act ignores the problems presented by many electronic voting systems, including the potential to be hacked and the lack of hardcopy, voter-verified output to compare to the electronic record of a vote. Yet because of the deadline, state and local officials are subject to intense pressure by electronic voting systems companies like Diebold and ESS to buy new voting equipment.

And it's equipment that is proving to be highly suspect. In the 2004 Maryland elections, the "TrueVoteMD" organization was able to document 531 incidents in the 6% of precincts it was able to monitor; in Montgomery County, 12% of machines failed, "some of which appear to have lost votes in significant numbers."

Even more worrying, Finnish security expert Harry Hursti demonstrated last November how Diebold machinery could be hacked by card swipe to produce vote totals opposite to those intended. The demonstration led Leon County, Florida election supervisor Ion Sancho to fire Diebold and seek alternative equipment.

With the 2006 deadline looming, Pennsylvania 8th district representative Michael Fitzpatrick (R) has entered the picture. The Bucks County newspaper Morning Call Online reports:

"U.S. Rep. Michael G. Fitzpatrick plans to introduce legislation in Congress next week to delay implementation of the federal law that has caused a scramble among area counties to replace or upgrade their voting machines by the spring primary."

A Fitzpatrick press release quotes the Congressman:

“The [Help America Vote] Act is pressuring counties like Bucks to adopt untested equipment in an unreasonable timetable. Something must be done to give more time to local communities to make such an important decision and respect their rights at the same time.

Since HAVA’s enactment, there has been mounting concern over requirements to change and modernize Buck’s County’s voting machines. Not only would Bucks be forced to purchase new equipment, but they would be forced to incur a penalty if they do not comply with the Act by March, just two months from now.

“The lever voting machines used today by the county work well and the cost to replace them with new electronic machines will place a heavy burden on an already thin County budget. Counties like Bucks should be given more time to adopt a reasonable solution to the voting machine question and my legislation will accomplish that.”

Why am I so well informed about Bucks County? Because that's where blogger eRobin ("factesque") is from. And she doesn't just happen to follow Fitzpatrick's latest legislative agenda -- she helped shape it:

I was the person who brought the idea for the legislation to Fitzpatrick's office last Saturday so I was over-the-moon yesterday at the press conference.

She and the Buck County Coalition for Voting Integrity were careful to present themselves and the issue as nonpartisan, and it paid off -- Democratic challengers to Fitzpatrick were on hand to shake hands with the Congressman after he made his announcement.

The coalition's legislative strategy is positively Macchiavellian: by getting Livingston's measure introduced and voted on soon, it could give moderates of both parties something to point to instead of the budget bill, which will not be a pleasant thing to defend in many districts. eRobin concludes,

PLEASE call your Congressional representatives today to tell them to find Congressman Fitzpatrick and sign on to his bill (unnamed and numbered yet) - the one that delays the implementation of HAVA until after the primary season to give us some time to figure out how to implement HAVA fairly, securely and economically.

=====
UPDATE, 2/2: eRobin reports the bill is HR 4666. The link leads to the "govtrack.us" tracking web page for the bill, where you can read the text of the bill (once the GPO has published it), see who's co-sponsoring it, and subscribe to an RSS feed about further legislative developments. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:18:00 AM -- |    

 
Dear Senate Democrats: filibuster Alito
Alito is bad enough, but Alito plus Bush is a clear and present danger to this country. Filibuster him. You can do it.*

The editors of The New Republic: Against Alito

Alito was questioned extensively on his views about the theory of the "unitary executive," which holds that all executive power is vested in the president and cannot be infringed upon by Congress or the courts. Alito had endorsed this theory in the Reagan Justice Department and reaffirmed his support for it as recently as 2000. Perhaps most disturbingly, he did not convincingly explain his enthusiasm, as a Justice Department official, for presidential "signing statements," which an executive can use to record his interpretation of a bill, whether or not that interpretation meshes with the legislature's intent.

Jeffrey Rosen, The New Republic: Uncle Sam

Senator Patrick Leahy wanted a straight answer to a simple question. "Wouldn't it be constitutional for the Congress to outlaw Americans from using torture?" the senator asked Judge Samuel Alito during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings last week. Here was Alito's reply: "Well, senator, I think the important points are that the president has to follow the Constitution and the laws. ... But, as to specific issues that might come up, I really need to know the specifics." [...]

A close reading of Alito's answers raises concerns that he might indeed be an advocate of broad and unchecked presidential power. If Alito fulfills these fears on the Court, he could support those who insist that the president's power in the war on terrorism is essentially unconstrained. And unconstrained power can lead to abuses--such as torture, illegal surveillance, or detention without charge--that undermine the core values of American society. [...]

For moderates who have been inclined to give the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt in the war on terrorism, the recent revelations about the scope of a clearly illegal domestic spying program represent a turning point. The administration's unabashed effort to defend its conduct with implausible legal arguments--such as the claim that Congress authorized a program that federal law obviously forbids--have exhausted any reservoir of trust among open-minded citizens. Even if Congress makes its views crystal clear, the administration has reserved the right to ignore any laws that it finds inconvenient. The only thing standing between the president and unchecked power, therefore, is the Supreme Court. That's why, for Republican as well as Democratic senators who believe judges should interpret the law, not invent it, Alito's testimony about executive power must be a cause for concern.

The Nation: The Case Against Alito

After a careful study, University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein described Alito's record of appeals court dissents as "stunning. Ninety-one percent of Alito's dissents take positions more conservative than his colleagues...including colleagues appointed by Presidents Bush and Reagan." A new study by the Alliance for Justice makes the case even more emphatically: In so-called split decisions--the most difficult cases, which divided the appeals court--"Alito has frequently gone to the right of even his Republican-appointed colleagues to find against individuals claiming that government officials or corporations violated the law." He has argued strenuously in favor of the strip search of a 10-year-old girl not accused of criminal wrongdoing; supported warrantless surveillance of a criminal suspect when other courts had disallowed the practice; and tried to strip his fellow judges of the power to grant habeas corpus rights to undocumented immigrants, a position pointedly repudiated by the Supreme Court. [...]

The only exception to Alito's big-government activism comes with the regulation of business. There he seems to be on a one-man crusade to undo decades of regulation, most clearly displayed in a still-astounding dissent arguing that the federal ban on machine guns violates the Constitution's commerce clause--a radical position (exceeding even Chief Justice John Roberts's famously constricted view of the Endangered Species Act) that would shred not only gun-control statutes but a host of environmental laws and other Congressional action. [...]

Far from being a mainstream conservative, Judge Alito represents a malignant future; his entire biography suggests he will swing the Supreme Court toward a right-wing authoritarianism that's out of step with the public and the Constitution.

=====
* Via Dohiyi Mir: "Filibuster, You Idiots".
UPDATE, 1/26: New York Times editorial Senators in Need of a Spine:

A filibuster is a radical tool. It's easy to see why Democrats are frightened of it. But from our perspective, there are some things far more frightening. One of them is Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 PM -- |    

 
The courage to be decent
Laurel Hester is a former Ocean County, New Jersey policewoman who is dying of cancer. She is also homosexual, and when she wanted to make sure her pension benefits would go to her partner. At first, the county leadership wouldn't help -- but now a Republican councilman, Mark Seda has very publicly changed his mind and brought the city council (or "freeholders", as they're apparently called in that community) around with him. From Mr. Seda's press release, reprinted in "The Big Gay Picture":

Like many other people around the world, I've been learning a great deal recently about the issue of Domestic Partner rights that has placed Ocean County front and center on the world's stage through the incredibly courageous story of Ocean County's own hometown hero, Lt. Laurel Hester of the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.

From what I can see, I'm only one of millions who's been touched in a very big way by Lt. Hester's story. If it weren't for Lt Hester's heart-wrenching story, I would probably not have paid much attention to this issue. Her dignity and the incredible bravery she's displayed at the end of her life in wanting to change the world has inspired me to realize that as an elected official I should be standing by her side.

The elected county officials ("freeholders") are apparently now giving way as well. I'm late to noticing this story, which is very well covered elsewhere -- Pandagon, Tiny Cat Pants, and in mainstream media coverage. The sheer Rosa Parks power of Hester's story -- her dignified, unshakable insistence on her rights -- is all hers. This is a story and a woman for the ages.

But what also really drew me in, and what I want make a note of here for my own record, was her friend Dane Wells. The article in "The Big Gay Picture"about him puts it all right in the headline -- Dane Wells: How A Straight, White, Middle-Aged Bush Voter Became A Dying Lesbian's Staunchest Ally. Author Michael Jensen:

"It just never came up," says Dane when I expressed surprise that he had never known Laurel's sexual orientation. "When we worked together, we were both very professional people interested in our work. I know it seems strange to some. That's just how we were. And when she did tell me, it didn't matter at all. It was a neutral thing, like hair color. It didn't change who Laurel was." [...]

Dane Wells has been Laurel's side every step of her fight, making phone calls, writing letters, doing phone interviews, anything to draw attention to Laurel's plight. And at no small cost to himself.

"People whisper about me," he says. "They say that I'm doing it because I'm really gay. Other people treat me...differently." He declines to elaborate because he doesn't wish to embarrass those close to him who are very upset at what he's done. "I'll be punished by those in power, though. I know that much," he says. "I might not even know it's being done, but it will."

That's not the only sacrifice Dane has made. "I pretty much canceled my life from that day forward," says Dane of when Laurel told him she was ill. "Her partner doesn't get paid when she doesn't work. So when Laurel needs someone to be with her, I go. For the past several weeks it's pretty much been every day."

Simple loyalty and decency often look like courage. And when that happens, it's deeply, deeply appreciated, at least by many of us -- straight or gay, liberal or not.

It's by no means the most important thing here, but it would be nice if more Democrats -- whose motto is or ought to be "of all the people, by all the people, for all the people" -- had the courage to be decent, too, instead of triangulating and calculating and fearfully weighing election day consequences to the nearest tenth of a gram.

I don't want to make too much of this -- after all, it was largely Democrats in the New Jersey statehouse who made it possible and legal to extend domestic partner benefits, even while leaving it up to municipalities to decide. But I still can't think of a national figure who will just up and say what's right is right, these are our fellow citizens and they deserve the same rights to bond with eachother before the world that everyone else has.

It might not win him or her the election -- the first time around. Then again, who knows, it might. For those inclined to think this way, it would make "courage" and "decency" part of "the brand." But mainly, it would show some courage, and it would be the decent thing. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:35:00 PM -- |    

 
Blush: I'm a Koufax award nominee
So last night I learned my friend eRobin ("factesque") had been justly nominated for a Koufax award for the blog "Most Deserving of Wider Recognition."* For those who don't know already, this is part of an annual awards celebration for left-wingish bloggers, hosted by Wampum.

When I checked out the list, I was quite ridiculously pleased to find I had been nominated as well. Thank you! Welcome, new readers, I hope you'll find something you like; if you've got the time and interest, try selected posts for some of the posts I feel were better, or more definitive, or something, than average.

Looking over the list, I can personally recommend eRobin's blog, as well as Facing South, Stygius, Avedon Carol ("The Sideshow"), Sisyphus Shrugged, and fellow Tennessee Rocky Toppers Democratic Veteran and CE Petro ("Thoughts of an Average Woman"). They're all A-list in my book. Same for Left Coaster, Daily Howler, Agitprop and others. It's really an honor being part of a list this good.

One of the many nominated blogs I'm not familiar with, but want to check out (if just for the name) is Yep, another goddamned blog. Great tag line: "If you make over $100,000 dollars a year, consider Dick Cheney a great statesman and captain of industry and think that Iraq should be the 51st state, then you may not want to scroll down."

The full list -- so you see who I'm up 'against', and to boost some ratings, however temporarily:

1115, 2 Political Junkies, 3 Quarks Daily, The Abstract Factory, Acephalous, Adventures of the Smart Patrol, Adventus, Agiprop, akou, All Spin Zone, Alternate Brain, American Leftist, The American Sector, Angry Bear, Angry Old Broad, Ang's Weird Ideas, Anne Zook, Anne's Anti-Quackery & Science Blog, Apostropher, Archy, Arms and Influence, Arms Control Wonk, Arse Poetica, Axis of Evel Knievel, Bag News Notes, Barely Legal, Bark Bark Woof Woof, Bark/Bite, Bartcop, BattlePanda, Beautiful Horizons, Bilerico, Bill's Big Diamond Blog, Bionic Octopus, Birmingham Blues, Black Prof, Black Feminism, Blah3, Blanton's and Ashton's, Blog Them Out of the Stone Age, Blue Girl in a Red State, Blue Meme, The Blue Republic, Blondesense, Bootstrap Analysis, Bouphonia, Brilliant at Breakfast, Brother Kenya's Paradigm, By Neddie Jingo!, Byzantium's Shores, Capitalist Pig vs. Socialist Swine, The Cassandra Pages, Circle Jerk at the Square Dance, Coalition for Darfur, Coeruleus The Cognoscenti, Colorado Luis, Comments From Left Field, Common Sense, Conservative Truths, Contrary Brin, The Countess, Creek Running North, CT Blue, Curly Tales of War Pigs, Culture of Life News, Dadahead, Daily Dissent, The Daily Howler, The Dark Wraith Forums, David E's Fablog, Decorabilia, The Defeatists, Deltoid, Democratic Veteran, Demagogue, Den of Iniquity, Dependable Renegade, Dictionopolis In Digitopolis, The Disgruntled Chemist, Doctor Biobrain, Dodecahedron, Dohiyi Mir, Donkey O.D., DovBear, Driftglass, Dynamics of Cats, Easter Lemming Liberal News Digest, Eccentric Star, Echidne of the Snakes, Effect Measure, Elaine Riggs, Electronic Darwinism, Elementropy, Enemy of the State, ePluribus Media, Ethel, the Early-Warning Frog, Everything Between, Expostulation, Facing South, Factesque, Faithful Progressive, The Fat Lady Sings, Five Wells, Flogging the Simian, Frogs and Ravens, From the Rooftops, The Galloping Beaver, The Garlic: All The Cloves Fit To Peel, Geeky Mom, The Green Knight, Grumpy Old Man, Half Changed World, The Happy Feminist, Happy Furry Puppy Story Time, Hoffmania!, I Blame the Patriarchy, I Cite, Iddybud, Idyllopus, Is That Legal, It's Morning Somewhere, Journalists Against Bush's B.S. (JABBS), Jesse's Blog, Just A Bump on the Beltway, Keat's Telescope, The Kentucky Democrat, kid oakland, King of Zembla, Lance Mannion, Laughing Wild, Lawyers, Guns and Money, Lean Left, The Left Coaster, Left I on the News, Legal Fiction, Legally Blonde , Lenin's Tomb, Liberal Avenger, Liberal Street Fighter, Liberal Truths, Liberalism without Cynicism, Liberty Street USA, Limbo, Limited, Inc., Linkmeister, Little Wild Bouquet, Living the Scientific Life, Loaded Mouth, Long Sunday, Looking for Someone to Lie to Me, Low on the Hog, The Low Rent Rat, Mad Kane's Notables, Mahablog, Making conservatives cringe since 1977, Malkin(s)Watch, Mark LeVine, Martini Republic, Media Girl, Meat-Eating Leftist, Merlot Democrats, Metacomments, The Moderate Voice, The Moquol, MoxieGrrrl, Murky Thoughts, Mykeru, My Left Wing, My Very Brain, Naked Under My Lab Coat, Needlenose, Neil Shakespeare, News Corpse, Newshog, Newsrack, The Next Hurrah, Night Bird's Fountain, Nitpicker, No Blood for Hubris, No Capital, No More Apples, No More Mister Nice Blog, No More Mr. Nice Guy, Norwegianity, Nothing New Under the Sun, Nur al-Cubicle, One Woman Wrecking Crew, One Good Move, The Opinion Mill, Opinions You Should Have, Pacific Views, Patridiot Watch, Patriot Daily Blog: thinkings, Pam's House Blend, The People's Republic of Seabrook, Pinko Feminist Hellcat, Political Animals, Political Cortex, Politics in the Zeros, Peace Tree Farm, Past Peak, A Perfectly Cromulent Blog, Phronesisaical, Posthegemony, Prairie Weather, Preemptive Karma, Prometheus6, Progressive Blog Digest, Progressive Gold, The Progressive Trail, PSoTD, The Psychotic Patriot, Pudentilla's Perspective, Pulse, Random Thoughts, The Reaction, Red Grange Run, Redneck Mother, Red State Diaries, Red State Rabble, Republic of T, Resistance, Rhinocrisy, Riley Dog, Rising Hegemon, Road To Surfdom, Saint Nate's Blog, Science And Politics, Scriptoids, Scrutiny Hooligans, Seeing the Forest, Shining Light In Dark Corners, The Sideshow, Simian Brain, Simply Left Behind, Sister Scorpion, SistersTalk, Sisyphus Shrugged, Skimble, Spontaneous Arising, Stayin' Alive, Steven Bates, the Yellow Doggerel Democrat, Stygius, Street Prophets, Stone Bridge, Suburban Ecstasies, Sufficient Scruples, Syria Comment, The Talent Show, Talk To Action, The Tattered Coat, Taylor Marsh, That Colored Fella, Theology&Geometry, Thoughts from Kansas, Thoughts of an Average Woman, Tiny Cat Pants, Tom Watson, To The Audient Void, Total Information Awareness, Unbossed, Under the Same Sun, Upon Further Review, Veiled 4 Allah, The Viscount LaCarte, Xpatriated Texan, xymphora, Waveflux, We Move to Canada, Whatever It Is, I'm Against It, WhirledView, Why Are We Back In Iraq?, Winding Road In Urban Area, Wis[s]e Words, World War 4 Report, World Wide Webers, Yelladog, Yep, another Goddamned blog.

Check them all out, but when the time comes, vote for me! Me, me, me!


=====
* For those tuning in from elsewhere, Sandy Koufax was a great left-handed baseball pitcher.
NOTE: Image by eRobin.
EDIT, 1/26: list added.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:15:00 AM -- |    

 
Respect
Michael J. Totten , whose homebase is in Beirut these days, is on the road in the Middle East and Mediterranean: Turkey, Egypt (where he maybe makes a little much of giving an Egyptian policeman a 17 cent baksheesh), Cyprus (follow the link to a TCS article). Now he's fundraising for a trip to Kurdistan, where he aims to find out

...does Iraqi Kurdistan live up to the hype? Is it actually a nice place? Or is Iraqi Kurdistan a backwater that is only pleasant compared to the rest of Iraq because it isn’t a war zone? Is it culturally liberal, moderate, or traditionally Islamic? How deeply has economic globalization penetrated the place? Do people there think of themselves as Kurdish first or Iraqi first? Does their pro-American viewpoint extend to Europe and Israel? What do Iraqi Kurds think of Arabs, not just Iraqi Arabs but Arabs in other Middle East countries? Is there any hint that the Kurds are using the Americans, or is the alliance a genuine and heartfelt one? How is the economy? Is it Third World or is it at least up to Lebanon’s level? Can Kurdish leaders be openly criticized in public without fear of retribution or punishment? How free and liberated are Kurdish Iraqi women? How much traction does Islamism have in Kurdistan among the conservatives? If it really is a wonderful place, what, specifically, makes it so great?

I've gotten a bit disenchanted with Mr. Totten over the years, but I think his travel pieces are worthwhile reading even if you don't agree with every political opinion he has. Unless you've been to Egypt or Cyprus yourself, anyway.

Plus there has to be a lot of upside to a neo-whatever proving to readers and visitors to his site that he and we can get along just fine with people in the Arab world. So good for him; I'll be interested to see what he sends from Kurdistan.

While Kurdistan in Iraq appears headed towards virtual autonomy, the Kurdish region of Turkey appears to be casting its lot with the rest of Turkey -- assuming that country's European Union membership goes forward. For more on this, see "Kurds in Turkey: The Big Change," by Stephen Kinzer in the New York Review of Books. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:09:00 PM -- |    

 
One step forward, one step back, one step up
John-Paul ("everythingsruined") returns from a long blog hiatus with a comment on the politicization of the Justice Department's Voting Rights section: "In public life, nothing matters more than this." Considering a Reagan-era civil rights deputy's claim that this is just restoring balance to a formerly left-tilting enterprise, he writes:

There is no reasonable way out of this. They do politics and they (rightfully) accuse their opponents of doing politics. It is a partisan political act to try to help poor black people vote, just as much as it's a partisan political act to prevent them from voting. There is no part of the government left that isn't a handmaiden to the elected officials. The only solution is to defeat the elected officials electorally.

Riggsveda ("It's my country, too") won't be blogging anymore: "I don't have the energy or the heart to tackle the criminals ruining my country or the eloquence and intellectual organization needed to lay it out." Actually, she's got all of those traits -- just not all of them right now for blogging. I think writers like Riggsveda deserve our thanks for researching issues and speaking out, but Riggsveda went that one better and did some physical good as well, going to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast last year as a Red Cross volunteer. Go and thank her for that and for her writing. She'll be missed.

Matt Welch has taken a position with the L.A. Times as assistant opinion editor: "I'll be helping shape the section; editing and writing both columns and editorials, hopefully bringing some new voices to paper, and cooking up new schemes in the steamrooms under Spring Street." Matt has always been one of the sane, thoughtful people of the blogosphere. I won't say "he'll be missed," because it looks like he'll continue blogging, and at any rate I'm sure he'll continue writing in the same direct, well-spoken way that's earned him a wide readership. Congratulations, Matt! posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 PM -- |    

 
RTFL (we insist)
It will be important to focus on real reforms if anything substantive is to come of the Abramoff scandal. One of the most important reforms now has its own organizational sponsor, ReadtheBill.org:

ReadtheBill.org is a new national organization dedicated to forcing Congress to post all proposed legislation online for 72 hours before it goes to the floor of Congress. We call this the '72 Hours of Sunshine Rule'. It is needed because Congress has degenerated into chaos. The House of Representatives still has a rule on the books requiring proposed legislation be available to members for three days. But the House waives this rule routinely and rubber stamps huge bills in the middle night, clueless of their content or cost. Senate rules are fuzzier but the result is the same. This chaos in Congress costs every American. Provisions and giveaways slipped through Congress are one reason that the U.S. has a national debt of $8 trillion. These sneaky provisions also invite plain-old corruption.

Via Stygius. The organization is founded by Rafael DeGenaro, formerly of Taxpayers for Common Sense and Friends of the Earth.

The idea isn't new -- I noticed when Representative Brian Baird (D-WA-3) pushed for it back in 2004 -- but maybe it's one whose time has finally come. For more background, see also "The democratic case against Republican rule," "Nice," and "Ways and Means Committee Chairman Not Reptile Alien, Fellow Member Confirms." posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:15:00 PM -- |    

 
Ich bin Klowand


It means, um, "I'm a toilet wall." But far from being a bizarre form of self-loathing, the "toilet wall" phrase is being adopted as an ironic badge of honor by German bloggers after being coined by the head of a German ad agency.

On Thursday, Jens Scholz was forwarded an e-mail originally sent by one Jean-Remy von Matt. Von Matt is one of the principal architects of a slightly bizarre "Du bist Deutschland" ("You are Germany") public service ad campaign, mentioned here last September, which is currently urging the German public to essentially buck up and show a little gumption so the old economy can get going.

The campaign is getting a decidedly mixed reception, and Herr Jean Remy von Matt was upset with his thankless audience; where was all this naysaying coming from? Sure, his envious competitors were one source, but von Matt -- to the delight of German bloggers -- didn't leave it at that; the "glum response" was also

2. From weblogs, the toilet walls of the Internet. (What on earth gives every computer owner the right to secrete his opinion unasked? And most bloggers just secrete. This new low in opinion making becomes clear when one searches www.technorati.com for: Du bist Deutschland.)*

"Spreading around unasked for opinions? That's my job, you peons!" The attitude is ironic, given the ostensible goal of the campaign. From the "Du bist Deutschland" web site:

A positive self image is an important prerequisite for our economic and cultural development. The campaign invites you and everyone else in Germany to dare something new and to participate with fresh elan.

That Herr von Matt would denigrate precisely those Germans who are willing to think out loud for themselves, and who are often the very definition of "participation with elan," illustrates just how hollow the "Du bist Deutschland" campaign really is. I suspect its only lasting legacy will be little "Klowand" chiclets all over the Internet.


=====
* And lo, in an ad man's dream come true, von Matt's wish became Germany's command -- the search was #1 with a bullet over the weekend.
TRANSLATION NOTES: "secrete" for "absondern," which can also be translated as "exude" (see here) or "excrete"...basically, not a complimentary choice of words; "glum response" for "Miesepetrigkeit", which can also translated as "grumpiness." The word "elan" -- dash, vigor -- was used in the referenced German text.
IMAGE NOTE: "Ich bin Klowand" banner by Roland Gruen, via Frank Kerkau.

UPDATE, 1/23: Von Matt e-mails Scholz (and German bloggers in general), apologizing for "thoughtlessly questioning [freedom of speech]," but adding: "But! Even if most of the criticism of my text was constructive and serious, I feel it's a communications disturbance of the peace [kommunikativen Hausfriendensbruch] that an internal mail was driven like a pig through the [German blogging community]." Scholz responds, acknowledging it may not have been cricket [feine Englische Art] to publish the e-mail, but points out the e-mail was directed to co-workers and was simply more PR: "Internal PR, admittedly, so its publication was at least morally shaky, but one moral claim won out over another one with me... I continue to think [my decision to publish it] was correct in view of most of the past and continuing discussion."
UPDATE, 1/25: Jens posts a list of blogger posts linking to his posts, mostly to the original item. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:21:00 PM -- |