Embarrassing or Otherwise?

Your decision. The Poor Man, however, cannot be upstaged. Thanks to The Editors for the chance to be hoist by my own petard. Again.

Scandal!

Need to print something out. To avoid wasting ink I reset the colours:



Then after I'm done, I go to Sadly, No! What do I see?



A fucking piece-of-shit logo, that's what I see.

Goddamn you all to hell!

Man is She Dense.

Come on.

One of the main things that draws me to writing about something is the desire to make fun of people who are taking themselves too seriously, like those bloggers who were so dorkily proud to be lunching with Clinton.

This right after a pretty-please vote-beg.

Vote The Moderate Voice, for the sake of mockery everywhere.

Accountability

I've been thinking a little bit - a very little bit, so apologies in advance for saying something everybody has said better - about accountability. With all the pooh-poohing about the inherent deceptiveness and badness of blogging, it seems a little weird that there exist two mechanisms for accountability in blogging that the media haven't had, for the most part:

Comments
Links

This is changing of course, as people abandon or embrace static content for discourse, but a decent blog will have comments and people who link to posts on it if the posts are decent.

Neither of these things is an arbiter of truthiness, but comments in particular are really valuable, as people will call you on your bullshit or correct you on your errors if you're trying to shovel it past them. This is still not real accountability, as idiots can post, comment, link, and censor with impunity but I think dishonesty is ordinarily pretty easy to recognize.

In any case, this is a far greater accountability than pundits generally have to deal with, so suck on it, finger-wagglers, until you have the decency to exchange ideas with your readers instead of deliver them. Comments also necessarily deal in the dreaded incivility. You'd think that saying "this idea is stupid" (as long as reasons are laid out) would be a welcome thing, given the recent misadventures undertaken as a result of everybody important being too chicken to confront a dangerous idiot. There's always a little heat with the light.

So welcome the bloggers. Only the ones with comments though. And give the incivil a big wet kiss. We hate that.

A Poem By My Four-Year-Old

People on the news
Make snafus.

God's a Shit

Found a copy of "To a Baby Born Without Limbs" from The Anti-Death League by my favourite cranky Tory Kingsley Amis:

This is just to show you who's boss around here.
It'll keep you on your toes, so to speak,

Make you put your best foot forward, so to speak,

And give you something to turn your hand to, so to speak.

You can face up to it like a man,

Or snivel and blubber like a baby.

That's up to you. Nothing to do with Me.

If you take it in the right spirit,

You can have a bloody marvelous life,

With the great rewards courage brings,

And the beauty of accepting your LOT.

And think how much good it'll do your Mum and Dad,

And your Grans and Gramps and the rest of the shower,

To be stopped being complacent.

Make sure they baptize you, though,

In case some murdering bastard

Decides to put you away quick,

Which would send you straight to LIMB-O, ha ha ha.

But just a word in your ear, if you've got one.

Mind you DO take this in the right spirit,

And keep a civil tongue in your head about Me.

Because if you DON'T,

I've got plenty of other stuff up My sleeve,

Such as leukemia and polio,

(Which incidentally you're welcome to any time,

Whatever spirit you take this in.)

I've given you one love-pat, right?

You don't want another.

So watch it, Jack.

Extra Althousian Denseness

Rarely has a thread been so thoroughly demolished. Excellent work.

Altmouse Replaces Firedoglake!!!!11!1!1!!

Breaking news! A nobody snubs one and elevates another!

Frankly I have a use for the word "cunt" - my sole use on a woman was to the face of someone who was treating my mom like a slave in a really unbelievable way and I was pretty mad - but the whole FDL weirdness seemed so mean-spirited and gangish that I don't much want to hang out there. I like mean people, but to be so full of it that you say "You don't rate that kind of placement on our blog"... Kind of a turn-off.

As far as the politically correct angle goes, well, I still think calling a woman a bitch is a grievous insult, but as someone funnier than me recently wrote (and who I forgot the name of) maybe cunt is the new bitch and we'll be cunting up a storm in a decade or so.

But ending on a good note...Altmouse's wheel is squeaking again and it seems a lotta folks are supplying grease.

I'm At Peace

Many thanks to John Galt. Really!

Dynasty was Socially Responsible

I love me some soaps about average-looking limeys working dead-end jobs. Turns out the American model is, like, better, according to people who disapprove of things.

What if They WIn?

There are, after all, plenty of people who get called names. On the internet, for instance.

Okay, I Got Challenged

So I'll pick on some poor schlub to do my part.

Meet the New Boss

It's a new era in Washington, that's for sure.



A big thank you to Josh Marshall for being the boss of a useful operation.

First, They Came for My Satellite TV Provider

Seems Those Iraqis Don't Want Foreign Troops Around

Who knew?

My Cat Ate My Pez.

The little fucker.

Free Time

See Thers.

I Love the Wikipedia

Oy Vey

Banning burqas seems like a stupid idea AGAIN. They're pretty obviously a nasty tribal method of oppression, but if someone wants to wear 'em for fetish night they get arrested?

Don't Know Why I Do It But I Do

Every now and then a little trolling just feels right. And if it's over on Pam's site you know you're not going to really harm anyone who isn't already out of their mind.