Not Gone Or Forgotten

Merely life has gotten in the way of blogging.  Which has taken more and more space in the backseat after marriage, kids, work, church, life, somewhat active social life, even more active kids life and meals. 

Will work on posting more even if it's just some quick headline links. 

Unearthed: The First Draft Of Steven Bloom's "What's The Matter With Kansas Iowa"

His final and slightly more polished piece is posted at The Atlantic or you can check out what he really thought from his first draft, uncovered by Iowa's own, umm, Iowahawk.

But seriously, save yourself the trouble of the published piece and go read his first draft:

On Iowa's western frontier lies the Missouri River, which girds a huge, sparsely populated agricultural region anchored by Sioux City (pop: 83,000) in the state's far northwest and Council Bluffs (pop: 62,230), across from the Nebraska hub of Omaha. Eskimo Pies, the original I-Scream Bar, was invented by a Danish immigrant in Onawa, a tiny town not far from the Missouri, and today you can visit an Eskimo Pie display at the Monona County Historical Museum there.

This concludes our break into folksy quaintness. Now it is time to resume our deep journalism dive into the psychic chasm of this rustic hell on earth.

In between the two great, garbage-clogged rivers, Iowa is a place of bizarre contrasts. The state is split politically: to the east of Des Moines, Iowa is solidly Democratic; to the west, it's rabidly Republican. Bizarre enough for you? Well. hold on to your hat because Iowa's two U.S. Senators are emblematic of this progressively solid vs.rabies-infested-evil Jeckyl-and-Hyde schizophrenia: Fundamentalist Republican Charles Grassley and Ultra-liberal Democrat Tom Harkin. Grassley is a decrepit 78; Harkin is a youthful 72. How's that for top-notch journalistic contrast?

Music Man Iowa Stubborn - watch more funny videos

The Righteous Rant Of The Day*

*To borrow a quill from Brer Bob's ink pot,

Today's rant goes to Jeff G. of Protein Wisdom and why being a pundit never means having to say you're sorry.

To recap: those of us who were apoplectic about the debt ceiling deal Boehner brokered to save us from a “default” and a credit downgrade, are now living with a debt downgrade, no real cuts in entitlement spending, a President able to work his campaign message, and significant cuts in defense spending that the Democrats will blame on Republicans whose desire to protect “the rich” by resisting “revenue increases” has made the nation vulnerable militarily.

Please read the whole thing.

What's puzzling to me was the support Boehner received during the budget deal from the rank and file when most everyone else could see what he was walking into.

Wednesday Night Video Dump: Primus And A Bit Of A Blogging Update

As it might have been noticed, there's been a considerable lack of updated posts these last few weeks.

Most of it is real life catching up and sometimes playing politics on a blog falls off to the wayside. It happens when a job (albeit part time) happens and soccer season kicks in for my kids.

Not to worry. In a couple of weeks, the season will be over and the normal incoherent ramblings will begin anew.

Can The "Tea Party Downgrade" Label Stick?

For the person who follows politics, it shouldn't.

The administration’s knee-jerk responses are somewhat inconsistent: if S&P was wrong to downgrade the debt, and the downgrade was based on a mathematical error, then it is hard to see how the downgrade can also be the Tea Party’s fault. (In the legal world, this is known as pleading in the alternative: when sued for borrowing a neighbor’s pot and breaking it, the defendant answers that he never borrowed the pot; the pot was never broken; and the pot was already broken when he borrowed it.)

Of the administration’s alternative theories, the most ludicrous is the claim that the Tea Party, the one group dedicated to doing something about the nation’s spending and debt crisis, is somehow to blame for it.

Via Insty.

"Nobody Hate's Republicans Right Now More Than Conservatives"

With the budget being passed today-- albeit over 800 days late-- not too many people are going to know the outcome of it. Naturally, the bill has to be passed in order to find out what's it in to paraphrase Nancy Pelosi.

I'll admit, I've been a bit out of pocket for most of the day so what I hear was only a 3 second blurb at the top of the hour.

I do have a nasty suspicion that the bill is a definite compromise (where both parties walk away feeling screwed but thinking the other guy was screwed over more so) than a good old fashion barter (where both parties walk away feeling richer than before).

No final wisdom (Wisdom? Here? HA!) just the link to The Other McCain's place for this:

You might think a notoriously reckless driver like Hunter S. Thompson would have wised up to this Clintonian scam, but his deep-in-the-bones hereditary hatred of Republicans was incurable. And I’ve often wished I’d had the chance to meet the guy and explain to him what I’ve come to understand: Becoming a conservative doesn’t mean you have to quit hating Republicans.

In fact, looking around the blogosphere — or listening to Mark Levin on the radio — the past few days, I’d dare say nobody hates Republicans right now more than conservatives do.

In Some Minor Blogging News Today

This blog is in the Weekly Spotlight at the Eye of Polyphemus. To paraphrase Joe Biden, this is a big frakking deal.

If you haven't checked out Jamie Jefford's blog yet, it's a must read. Especially for Trekkies as he has gone through the entire Star Trek: Voyager series, reviewing them one by one. He's done the same with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for those die-hard fans as well as political commentary.

To Bring You Up To Date About The Debt Crisis

I don't like using the word, 'Crisis' because the debt problem was too obvious for too long to too many. 'Crisis' are buzzwords many politicians like to use in order to pass things they normally can't during normal times.

But the people who caused the crisis are trying to fix it. Which in any other scenario would appropriate except this is the US Congress.

Anyway, Big Government has this to bring you up to speed on the issue:

f you have been getting information from the mainstream media you may think tea partiers are forcing Republicans in Congress to; cut the budget so much people will be forced to push grandma’s wheelchair off a cliff or, are trying force the country into default guaranteeing Obama won’t be reelected.

Not true! It’s all about not having too many mouths to feed.

The debt ceiling’s the congressionally approved amount the federal government can borrow. The ceiling is currently set at $14.294 trillion. The country’s debt hit that figure on May 16 and we are currently approaching $14.6 trillion in debt. Thanks to some “re-arranging,” the Treasury Department says we won’t “run out of money” until August 2.
[. . .]
Our debt problem has been kicked down the road by both parties for too long, if not fixed soon according to the CBO; there will be “too many mouths to feed.”

The debt has become a big issue, not solely to the tea party but for the mainstream voting public.

Special Message Just For Paleo Pat

This is a bit of inside blogging baseball but the message needs to get out. The blog will return to its normal incoherent self soon.

The easiest way to become a pariah on the right side of the blogosphere is to go after Michelle Malkin. Which is what Paleo Pat did. The background information about Paleo Pat or Chuck Adkins or whatever else he goes by this week.

Charles Patrick Adkins is an asshat. That is all.

Update: The word has gotten around.

Weinergate: How It Really Went Down

More or less.

What do you expect from Iowahawk?

Round Up Of Pictures From Last Week

Either these weren't enough for a post on their own or I couldn't make them fit in with some other posting.

Thanks to Lance at The TrogloPundit.

And this is where I do an impression of Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs:

Open Thread:

Interesting note about that comic. It was written by Batton Lash, who is doing the Obama Nation series of cartoons over at Big Hollywood.

A Couple Of Blog Cleaning Notes

About the lack of posting from this past week: I needed a break. Spring break rolled around and I was home with my kids so blogging took a backseat.

But as Jeff Goldstein has Darleen Click, Dan Collins has Dahlhalla and Little Miss Attila has, well, Little Miss Attila, I begged and pleaded for Viv to step out of semi-blogging retirement and throw up a few posts.

Thank you, Viv.

Things should be getting back to the usual incoherent postings as usual from now on out.

This Is When You Root For Injuries

And lots of subpoenas for discovery. Lots and lots of subpoenas.

Today, a group of bloggers led by union organizer and journalist Jonathan Tasini filed a class-action suit against the Huffington Post, founder Arianna Huffington, and AOL, which acquired the news-and-blogs site in February.
Tasini, the lead plaintiff, has been a blogger for Huffpo since December 2005, when the site was just seven months old. According to his blogger page, however, he stopped posting on February 10, three days after the purchase of the site by AOL was announced.

Read the whole thing.

Progressive bloggers willingly worked for free under Zsa Zsa are suddenly waking up to the fact that they have been had? This is tastier than a bacon and bratwurst breakfast burrito.

Who did they think would profit from a vanity web portal named Huffington Post? Chumps and rubes if they thought that she would 'sprinkle the wealth' down to their level.

The Puff Ho bloggers were told that speaking truth to power was it's own reward. Now they are finding out there are better rewards. Money.

Update that's more of an addendum: I was about to publish this when I saw the Pigford comment:

I can just see it now: A Pigford-style settlement for former HuffPo bloggers, former non-HuffPo bloggers, people who have attempted to blog for HuffPo, people who know someone who attempted to blog at HuffPo

Heck yeah! I'm a victim too! I was thinking about blogging at the Puff Ho Huffington Post (better play it respectable), where do I sign up for the class action suit?

Update II: Linked back by The Other McCain.

Update III: Little Miss Attila jumps into the fray.

If You Are In The Seattle Area

Via Camp Of The Saints.

Michelle Malkin's cousin is missing.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

STATEMENT FROM EDGAR AND JASMIN PEREZ

PARENTS OF MISSING UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON STUDENT
MARIZELA PEREZ

Seattle, Wash.
March 12, 2011

Contact: Edgar Perez, 609 – 646 – 0905

First, we would like to extend our deepest thanks to all of the citizens in Seattle and across the country who have spread the word about our daughter’s disappearance on Saturday, March 5, in the University District.

We would like to thank Seattle law enforcement and the University of Washington staff, students, administration, and campus police for their ongoing support and assistance at this difficult time.

And we would like to thank all the local media outlets that have covered Marizela’s case with vigilance, compassion and sensitivity.

We remain hopeful and we will not rest until we find Marizela.

As the police investigation continues, we are releasing today video clips of surveillance video from the University District Safeway on 4732 Brooklyn Ave NE Seattle where Marizela was last seen on Saturday, March 5.

She was wearing a dark jacket with hood over a light-colored sweater with hood, denim jeans, light brown suede laced boots, possibly wearing green eye contacts, carrying a denim drawstring backpack with rainbow butterfly screen print.

We are asking for anyone who may have seen Marizela after she exited the Safeway sometime in the 2pm hour on Saturday, March 5, to please contact SPD immediately.

As our family has mentioned in flyers all week, Marizela is taking anti-depressants. We are concerned about Marizela’s safety, health, and well-being. She is in a vulnerable state of mind and it is urgent that we find her and bring her home safely as soon as possible.

This has been a heart-wrenching time for us and for all of Marizela’s friends, family, and supporters. We appreciate the public’s continued thoughts, prayers, and help in locating Marizela.

– Edgar and Jasmin Perez

So Who Is James Wolcott Exactly?

Other than Vanity Fair's version of Andrew Sullivan without the Trip Palin obsession?

No, seriously. I have never heard of the guy before and all of a sudden, his name starts to pop up all over.

Or is this an inside blogging baseball and doesn't matter?

Arianna Huffington's Business Plan For Blogging Success

Step 1: Start a blog
Step 2: Have over 6ooo bloggers work for free to provide content.
Step 3: Profit!!!

So let me pass on a message to those 6000 unpaid bloggers. And I'll do what I can to put it into terms so that they can understand:

Bloggers of the Huffington Post, unite!

For far too long, you have toiled gratis under Arianna's watch at her vanity project, The Huffington Post. Where her blog entries can be summed up as 'Current Events' and 'Thoughts From Wherever I'm Vacationing At This Week' while you labored writing the stories that really mattered.

For what, you may ask yourself? For her financial benefit? So she will receive the accolades from her peers? All of it undeserved and all of it while she sat in her pixelated plantation with you out in the data fields, gathering content.

For what did Arianna do to deserve a pay out in the range of 300 million? Write roughly a diary entry a week? And who is to say that she actually wrote them herself?

It was the work of you, bloggers, pounding away at your proverbial typewriters in the hopes the script for Hamlet would materialize. The Huffington Post is yours. You created the content and drew in the commenters. Yet you get no peace of the pie. For 300 million, Arianna can at least supply gift packs of Visine and Tylenol for the computer glare.

Now is the time to come together and stand in a united voice-- in a blogger's paradise-- to let her know that she will no long be able to enjoy the spoils of your labor anymore.

Speaking Truth to Power is no longer acceptable as its own reward, now that Arianna is the Power. In her quest for profit, she sold you out for her own greed. Using you to enrich her to where she is no longer the Bolshevik but an out and out dirty Bourgeoisie. And by working for free for her, you sold her the rope she hung you with.

No more! No more carpal tunnel syndrome and wrist supports! No more eye strain from trying to Google Republican's home addresses. No more organizing bus trips to see Jon Steward in Washington DC. No more stories about Trig Palin being the son of Bristol Palin and not Sarah.

An online strike might not be as effective as a traditional strike with boots standing outside a fence. But when the submission box to Arianna's vanity site slows to a trickle, the editors will have no choice but to listen and pay you what you are deserved.

This is where you bloggers-in-arms need to hold fast. Should any other progressive blogger show any independent thought to move across that line in cyberspace and submit something, anything, make an example out of him or her. Expose their skeletons from they have tried to hide deep in the closet. Publish their parents address where they are living in the basement. And, in the rare case it should actually happen, publish their boyfriend or girlfriends address also. This is how you keep unity in line. This is how peace is kept within the ranks.

Unite for a better blogging tomorrow. Unite for a more fair blogosphere. Unite for a social justice with equal outcomes with regards to blog acquisitions. Go on a strike of the mind and the heart and do not give Arianna the time of day.

It's the social justice way to go.

Edit: Tightened up some of the verbiage from last night.

American Online Buys The Huffington Post

Via Insty.

Does this mean that the Huffington Post will now be mailed to your house on DVD?

In one of the biggest digital publishing deals in recent memory, AOL has agreed to pay $315 million for the Huffington Post, the pioneering web-only newspaper co-founded by Arianna Huffington.

The deal is AOL CEO Tim Armstrong's latest and boldest attempt to transform the declining company from one that helped millions of people get onto the internet through dial-up connections to one that informs and entertains them in a broadband world, or as he called it, a "new American media company."
[. . .]
AOL's Patch unit, a series of hyper-local news sites, will be folded into Huffington Post, which has long sought to expand its local-content strategy. Local advertising has become a closely watched sector given the growth of locally focused startups such as Foursquare and Groupon. AOL made new investments in Patch this past year, expanding into 775 towns across the U.S. Each town has its own website with typically one editor and a handful of freelancers, a content-production model similar to the Huffington Post, which runs on an army of more than 6,000 unpaid bloggers and a paid staff of 88 editors and writers, all posing more than 600 articles a day. [Bold mine]

Those 6000 unpaid bloggers won't see a penny for that 300 million either. No word if David Epstein-- noted practitioner of incest-- would still be welcome at the AOL/Huffington Post.

The Purple Avenger links to this about Tim Armstrong in the Washington Post:

The New York-based company posted a net loss of $782.5 million, or $7.42 per diluted share, for 2010, compared with a profit of $248.8 million the year before. Total revenue slid 26 percent from $3.2 billion in 2009 to $2.4 billion last year.

Financial results for the fourth quarter painted a brighter picture, with a profit of $66.2 million, or 60 cents per diluted share. That bested Thomson Reuters analysts' estimates of 46 cents per diluted share.

During a conference call Wednesday morning, AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong reiterated his position that "2011 is the year we stop working on the turnaround and start working on the comeback."[Bold mine]

Which leads to the obvious question, just were did AOL get the money to buy this?

The last word goes to Da Tech Guy who has this:

There is one side thought that instantly comes to mind however. When you are buying something like the HuffPo you are not only buying the structure and the “writers” so to speak, you are also buying the commentators.

Video: Obama, Still Unfocused On Jobs

Via Instapundit.

For a guy whose entire career was built on nothing but talking, he looks like he blew his speech last night. Maybe the ugly reality of last fall's election is finally hitting home.



Da Tech Guy has a good round up of other reactions to the SotU speech.

My favorite catch, 'Countless New Jobs'.

And if you've lost Mickey Kaus. . .

3) Tactfully leaves out cheap unskilled labor as an explanation of other countries' competititveness;

4) Nuclear power: It's back (still);

5) Obama's earmark veto threat seems ill-advised, since he will probably have to eat it. This will be the Beltway CW, but that doesn't mean it's wrong;

Behind The Name Of This Blog

It was a phrase straight out of the book, Atlas Shrugs. When I read the passage in the book, it struck me as a terrific name for a blog.

And the following part of the book is no less relevant today as it was then.

The part in question:

"I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago," said Dr. Hendricks. "Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward.

“I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything—except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the 'welfare' of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, only 'to serve.

“That a man who's willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards—never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy. I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind—yet what is it that they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it—and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn't."

Foreclosures Hit Close To Home

Via The Other McCain.

Stogie at Saberpoint is going through a tough patch.

Our savings kept us afloat for a year. When it was gone, I borrowed the equity out of my life insurance. That's gone too. We were hoping to ride out this recession, to survive until it was over. However, it is the longest lasting and deepest recession I have ever seen. And I remember when Eisenhower was president, to give you some perspective. (Okay, okay, I actually remember when Truman was president, but I was VERY young. Practically a fetus, mind you.)

It's just a matter of weeks before I lose my home. I never, ever thought I'd be in such a predicament. This happened to other people, sure, but not to me. I am a college graduate and a CPA. Accountants were supposed to be immune from unemployment. Not any more. The fact that I am well past 50 doesn't help. Seniors and new grads are the hardest hit.

Be sure to read the entire thing.