Update: Well, at least they don't hate me because I'm queer. Whew. I feel so much better:

In an email to the Huffington Post on Monday, Harwood clarified that the quote was not meant to convey any displeasure on the part of the administration for the gay community's public advocacy.

"My comments quoting an Obama adviser about liberal bloggers/pajamas weren't about the LGBT community or the marchers," he wrote. "They referred more broadly to those grumbling on the left about an array of issues in addition to gay rights, including the war in Afghanistan and health care and Guantanamo -- and whether all that added up to trouble with Obama's liberal base..."

I have a writing assignment due today. I'm going to make the deadline, but I just looked at the time and I'm sort of amazed at how quickly the morning got away from me. Because I've been reading original sources, analysis and commentary from many different places all morning, and even though I'm a fast reader, it has still taken some time. It's too important to me, a pajama wearing blogger, to check and double source my facts and otherwise make sure what I'm about to write is reality-based and correct, to prepare my pieces any other way.

If I were employed by the mainstream press, I wouldn't have to do any of those things. I could just toss off an anonymously sourced playground insult and add some snotty, insider comment, and call it day.

I wonder if the next Blogger Ethics Conference will have a panel on the latest in fleece and microfiber jammies. I hope so.

Blue Gal:

Tuesday, February 3 is Blogroll Amnesty Day. Old timers know that this holiday has a rather sullen history, but now it is a happy occasion: On February 3, bloggers are invited to post links to five blogs you like, that have smaller traffic than your own. It's a great celebration and a time to discover new blogs and link them and stuff. As I said last year, "not to get all mushy here, but do you know how fucking great it is to be here in the blogosphere? Take a moment. Take it in." Spread some linky love.

Small and newbie bloggers please be aware of the ironclad rule that you are not allowed to make "hey no blog is as small as mine" jokes regarding Blogroll Amnesty Day. The rule is, straight from the queen of the indy blogs herself (ahem), that you are not allowed to complain or mention your blog's low traffic until you have been posting daily for a year. If you're little, link other blogs that are new or still growing their audience, and encourage them to practice their craft daily. Then, show them how.

Ah, I do remember the great "amnesty" controversy quite well. Really didn't show the A-Listers in a very positive light, imho. John Swift sums it up nicely:

remember how difficult it was to get people to notice my blog when I first started out. "Build it and they will come," apparently only works with magic baseball fields. The only way to get anyone to notice my blog was to get them to link to me and that was not always easy. I linked to other bloggers and clicked on those links hoping they would notice my link in Sitemeter. I sent emails to other bloggers asking them to take a look at my latest piece or to add me to their blogrolls. I instituted my "Liberal Blogrolling Policy" offering to exchange links with anyone who linked to me. As more blogs began to link to me and add me to their blogrolls, a curious thing began to happen. More people came to my blog from those links and from Google. And many of those readers then visited the blogs that I linked to. Though it cost nothing to link to someone, I realized that on the Internet links are capital. Every link has value. And when two bloggers link to each other, they both profit.

The self-publishing revolution continues. My comments on this are mostly snarky, and I can't claim to have followed its developments very closely. But right off the top of my head I feel compelled to remind everyone that Lambert allows "self-publishing" on this web site for people, for free. There's a nice little button over to your right if you'd like to show your appreciation for that. Secondly, I'm hip deep in some reading about the Reformation right now, and I'm reminded again of just how powerful "self-publishing" has been in history. For example, English language copies of the Bible were actually eventually banned by Henry VIII; the "reformation" king of England was in theological terms, pretty Catholic in all but allegiance to Rome, and was disturbed by all the sects and dangerous ideas rising up during the period in which he allowed translations to flourish. Turns out this was not a genie he, or anyone, could put back in the bottle. The rest, as we say, is history.

This is one of the "it's happening right now" deals, so if it ends up I'm getting some of the fact wrong, my apologies in advance. The important part of this story is the blogs that are affected. There are not a few famous and important blogs affected by this. Soapblox gives up after hacker attack.

SoapBlox is Dead
by: pacified
January 07, 2009 at 08:15:46 MST
It was a good ride, but it's over.

Thanks for all the fish.

All these hackers messing with our stuff, and we here at SoapBlox have no clue what to do. We don't have enough knowledge, time, money, or care to fix it.

So I hope the Hackers are happy.

If you want the data from your blog, we will get it. But we are not going to try and restore anything.

Consider this the "We're Out of Business" post.

Most of the servers have been taken off line because they were being used to hack and exploit other websites. The hackers install this crap on servers after they get in. SoapBlox's ISP then takes the servers off line.

We do not know when they will come back online.

We do not know if they will come back online.

This is a dire warning for the organizing part of the blogosphere. I expect more in the future. GOS thread on this topic.

Yesterday I was talking about why it really sucks that being right doesn't matter, but who you are in the Village hierachy does. Similarly, I'll confess to being mildly annoyed that Hoss is finally on board the Shrill Supertrain of "Oh my god we're fucked!" to which an important corollary is "and centrist policies aren't going to help anything." Let me be clear: Atrios is and always has been in the camp of the Good Guys, even if there may be valid reason to include him in the universe of Bad Blogger Boyz, for (not) blogging in certain ways or on certain issues. Regardless, my philosophy has always been "it's your blog, write what you want." Even as I recognize that the PB1.0 has come to mirror the Village SCLM, and that 'leading voices' like his set the tone for much of what is written and discussed. Blogging is still different from paid, professional journalism; I don't believe bloggers have any special responsibility to cover anything other than what they're motivated to write about on any given day. But it's slightly maddening to know that Atrios, and others, have upon occasion taking to calling some of us Doomsayers "too doomy" for pointing out that this was going to happen, and that Dems have proven useless about stopping it.

But getting back to the topic, yes, I agree. I don't see it getting better anytime soon. That's exactly and precisely why blogs like this one have moved in the direction it has over the last few months. Agree or disagree she got a raw deal: making HRC the centerpiece of front page news and policymaker's daily discourse won't address any of the real problems facing us. Just as discussing Sarah Palin's sex life won't, or what kind of dog the Obama kids should get won't, or why KO is the greatest media personality evah won't, or why Joe Lieberman is History's Greatest Monster won't...

There are days when I really pity my friend Matt, who has done so much unheralded work behind the scenes as well as out in front, and who sometimes gets sucked into to soon-forgotten but potentially damaging controversies when what he really deserves is a leadership role in the party hierarchy. Full Disclosure: I'm personal friends with some of the people I'm going to talk about here, and not really "unbiased." Which is sort of the point of what most everyone involved is trying to say, I hope.

Backing up, I think we can all agree it's been a long time (if ever) since journalists could accurately claim to maintain "academic" standards in reporting. I'll define "academic" as "ethical, peer-reviewed, critical, and concerned with demonstrable, repeatable truth and full discovery/disclosure," as it pertains to the art and science of reporting. Anyone who disagrees with my premise about the state of modern 'reporting,' just go over to Media Matters and type in the searchbox the name of your (least) favorite media celebrity; the last 8 years have been a treasure trove for regulators (who've gone unused, sadly), comedians, and ethics panel schedulers. Truth has been the most frequent victim, followed to the sacrificial altar of profit and propaganda by ethics, balance, and fairness. Let's don't get started on issues like racism, warmongering, sexism and pro-corporate bias...

Anyway, the whole Lind/Newberry/anyone-else involved-in-this-spat mess raises some interesting questions, separate from those of "who first said what and how" in Matt's post. I'm minded, reading the post and lots and lots of behind the scene emails, communications and previous posts on the topic, to ask: who is a "journalist" these days? How are those people "different" from "bloggers?" What are "credentials?" What is "expertise" and when, if at all, should it be employed, or mandated? I'd like to tackle a few of these because we're at a critical time in the history of the production of information, as the administration changes and revenue streams grow and shrink in various quarters.

In an idea world, there would be consequences for lying, stealing, and being willfully ignorant in the production and dissemination of information presented as "factual news." Opinion would be free, and an option open to all, but also always identified as such. "Public" resources like the airwaves (and as I think should be included, broadband) would be carefully regulated, and public resources would be applied in the production of dead-tree product, such as the nation-wide dissemination of something like The Federal Register, the better for citizens to keep track of the daily business of government. Of course we're a long way from any of that.

But the Founders believed in, and in principle I agree with, the notion of a Free Press. Today, our problem, and at the same time our greatest hope, is what exactly is "The Free Press? This isn't a new topic in the blogosphere, but in the Lind/Newberry/etc case, we've a fine opportunity to look at how that construct is defined, maintained, and understood.

In a nutshell: whom do you trust more, and why?
Unpaid Bloggers? "Online magazine" writers who get a corporate paycheck? Your Aunt Mabel after she's been into the blackberry brandy? Volarus of the Centauri system via the metal in your fillings?

One part of the ongoing Village vs the Blogosphere War that really gets me: it's the easiest thing in the world for a blogger to become "discredited, "but for a Villager, the opposite is mostly true.

Yah, yah, I know a lot of you are convinced he is the Enemy. But for a trustafarian white guy, Stoller keeps earning his progressive creds, no matter what else he may or may not do. From the blog post title of the year:

There are a lot of meetings going on, and that's one reason to be here. The media is here because it's their prom. But in terms of raw power dynamics, progressives are not particularly relevant. Hilariously, bloggers have actually been demoted; in 2004, we could actually see the stage at the Fleet Center, this time, online communications director Aaron Myers has secured us a room in the Pepsi Center with televisions in it.

Heh. Wake up, blogtopia. You're less than children to your masters, and they mock you for failing to grok that way back a couple of years ago, when they voted to condemn you. "But, but wait! I'm standing next to Steny! I must be important!" No, little rube, you're merely fodder for the media superstars who use you to make themselves seem more relevant. When you understand that, you're on the path to actually being Somebody. Not until then.

Eventually, the courtiers at Versailles got too witty for their own good. Tired of our Villagers and their inability to speak with honesty and self reflection? Try this instead. It's totally possible to love someone you've never met, and to be made a romantic again by a single post...

I HAD WANTED in some way to remember Lt. Ehren Watada, as this anniversary of the Iraq Invasion passed us. Remember him? Yeah. Mad respect for this cat. But the media has drowned out that story, it's slipped away, they lost it...we've moved on to Jeremiah Wright and other pressing matters. Here's to you, sir. You are one of the heroes of this war to me.
You know who was a real Citizen Journalist? Brad Will. I feel trapped into making cute video cookies with my weekly deadline. I want to haul my ass down to the ruins of Katrina or spend weeks getting next to some hidden or ignored truth that the public needs to know about spend time building a story, building rapport, investigating, planning...and really busting out wild with something that matters. This is jingles and I want to do a concept album. I feel I am chasing snacky, quickly rotating headlines. Hey, don't get me wrong. It's a way to pay some bills. And I am proud of winning it. But I long to do some good in the face of all the harm being dropped down on so many out there. And I'm more a part of a corporate entertainment empire now than I am in being a useful eye for the public. That's how I'm feeling lately, at least.

Compare and contrast this:

with this:

Why, but why, if we're all a-twitter about race 'n' sex 'n' gender, we don't all read La Chola?
Here is why:

I keep saying how lame a surfer I am, and it's true. New to me! And, for you junkies. There is No Escape, Resistance is Futile.

I shouldn't be here, but I had to look up some stuff and I stumbled across this place and of course got suckered in to leaving a comment. I find the tone, pitch, and language fascinating. This is how "the rest of America" speaks, politically. This is how they think, what they know, don't know. I'm always struck by how...different we are, when it is made clear to me like this.

Back to the slave pits. Anyway, sharpen your tools. Planting time is here, and there's work to do. You know what you have to do:   Read more…

This is totally about blogging and how it can help keep you out of trouble, and not about any particular current topic or issue. So, contrast and compare two comments. A Breathless Intertubes Report! That sort of well, uh, didn't pan out in the actual polls. I'm not picking on JA, I'm just reminding everyone that it's easy believe the hype, but if there were a simple way to create a "revolution" at the polls it would've been done by now.

A different problem here, one that I think really plagues us as progressives. "Life is unfair!" is not the opening line I use to pick up girls or get jobs. And, it distracts our energies from the issue at hand. You make no friends when you essentially lie about 'how bad' it is for you, and how hard you have to work, when it's not and you don't. Or, you do, but so does everyone else. Life is unfair, and thus women and Democrats must stick to pure truth, because even slight misrepresentation comes back to bite us (and never them) on the ass later.

Again I feel like stressing that this is a banana republic now, and when you take developments that way, it all makes a kind of sense. Schlockmeister King introduced me to the saying long ago, "if you can't afford the game or the zoo, go see a politician!" America is too broke to entertain itself with elephants and circuses these days, so this is what we get instead. Still, real live baboons and actually talented clowns are more interesting, or at least that seem that way to me.

This will be a mostly fact-free touchy-feely sort of post, and although the subject is controversial, I want to make it clear that what I'm asking about has nothing to do with the Man himself, and is only about "the market" that is the progressive/liberal political blogosphere. Which, iirc is about 1% of the size of the Harry Potter Fanpr0n blogosphere, but never mind that...

Anyway, Lambert is trying to make me bust a rib, and linked to this post on ways to make trouble and insult people while losing friends and making new ones. It's one of several I have seen recently. It's almost like a new market has been born: how to get 0000s of hits on a brand-new website dedicated to hating the #1 Satan on the interwebs.

I don't care if he "deserves" it or not; I don't care if the site is "as good as always" or not. I do care about what seems to be a what, exactly? Splitting? Breaking into divergent parts? Feuding? in the progressive blogosphere. Just as there is great difference between what career DNC folk want and are working for in this primary. Interesting, as this is happening at the same time the progblogosphere seems to be dividing itself into GOS and anti-GOS camps. Which is ironic and funny, because just as Lord Satan isn't responsible for everything that happens in every corner of the progblogosphere, so too will HRC or BHO be unable to affect the great change in the country that supporters claim and expect. Are "we" once again ahead of the curve, and learning that our heroes have feet of clay, and tools have limits, before the rest of America will?

Anyway, I like Markos and I sometimes find good stuff at his site. I'm not really more invested than that, emotionally, whatever. Sigh, once I was invested in the presidential primary process, emotionally, and more; I wonder if the various camps in the GOS Wars will someday be here too- shrugging and saying, "feh." And perhaps even learning: there's more to do out there than crow about an interwebular ranking; activism, even.

I was doing some post-Donna is Victorious! reading something and I'll paraphrase:

It's sort of like an alcoholic. He may be losing his wife, job, and he may have liver cancer; but until he deals with his alcoholism meaningfully, he won't be able to truly fix any of his other problems. So it is with progressives, and our "core" issues like ending the war or bringing economic justice to a rapidly expanding underclass; and The Problem of the campaign finance system.

Unless and until we find a way to "own" candidates and elected officials, we're all just whistling Dixie. If it's not going to be Revolution, then it has to be by doing to unpopular things inside the system. Raising money (ick), volunteering (snore), and worst of all, pissing off some of our "friends." I won't argue which is the best, because I see no reason why some us can't work on the "50 State" strategy while other work on the "safe district" or "open seat" approaches.

When party invites become more important than 'the story,' you've lost it. We'll see how extending the magic blanket of Seriousness to "citizen journalists" corrupts some of our voices:

The National Press Club, a 100-year-old professional club for journalists, aims to recruit new online-media members through a partnership with Helium.com, a hub for citizen journalists. The deal is expected to be announced on Tuesday.

Example A and the inevitable correction. I could say a lot about this, but instead I'll just say: I can understand John's frustration. Technically, he's not wrong, and we all will pay back the irresponsible "tax cuts," with interest. And what will the rich get, while we snap and snipe at each other about who is more poor? A bunch, I bet.

John isn't hurting, he's got a nice place and some security. But like the poorest, he too can sense how easily the rug could get pulled out from under him. It's less likely that will happen to him than to say, a homeless Latina veteran. But he's right to feel anxiety. This post just seems bitchy and self-concerned, and makes him look unaware of how much worse off the plight of those who will get a "tax cut" suffer. More common than you may think, that particular shortcoming and many of our leading "progressive" voices.

The lesson for the movement: make all tax increases on the truly wealthy. There are plenty of them, they can afford it, include corporations and then no better-than-average "centrists" or "liberals" will complain again.

I use Safari, and I have my bookmarks organized into groups. Some are blogs I read "Daily", some are "Important" but not read every day blogs, "Interesting" and "New (to me)" are some other categories I've incorporated into my navigation utility. I'm about to move one from the "Important" category into "the long list of blogs that had a couple of good posts which made me think they were going to positively contribute in the progressive movement but have since shown themselves to be mostly a bunch of assholes." I haven't yet, I hope not to. But this? Fuck no. Do something similar again soon, and you're gone, B-town. The author's CV, if it's the same guy. You'll love this:

Hell, Handbaskets, and Government Lawyers: The Duty of Loyalty and Its Limits, 61 Law & Contemp. Prob. 83 (1998).

Is Bill Clinton Unconstitutional? The Case for President Strom Thurmond, 13 Const. Comm. 217 (1996).

No, wait, it gets better.

It's very "funny," and worth regular and front page blog posts on "liberal" blogs, to talk about Republican candidates who come in last, next to last, or nearly last. These same candidates get all kinds of free coverage from the media outlets the liberal blogosphere is supposed to "balance." They also have plenty of money to purchase their own ads, money raised from rich people and big corporations and the avowed enemies of the liberal blogosphere.

It's not funny, or worth any regular or front page blog posts, to talk about progressive Democratic candidates who finish just behind the "two front runners," or way behind, or even second in some races. These candidates have little money with which to buy ad time, and are constantly shut out of the primary process by way of lawsuits, media blackouts, and fact-free misrepresentation by the SCLM. They are at the same time closest in policy, voting records, and speech to the "liberal blogosphere."

Discuss.

Snicker. DCOW, but guess who has a crush on PonyBoi? Powerloin!

The folks at First Draft take an unfriendly look at President Bush's extemporaneous comments in the Ramallah press conference yesterday. With equal parts humor and malice, they slice the comments into bite-sized morsels and provide appropriate headings for them. I think I understand the comments all too well and hope to take another look at his statement when I have a little more time.

UPDATE: I mistook First Draft for Professor Richard Landes's The Second Draft. because you're a moron with the reading comprehension skillz of a second grader, you cheeto-snapper. The folks at First Draft are among the sophisticates who refer to President Bush as "Chimpy." Unfortunately, their take on President Bush's Ramallah press conference is on target.

Please read this comment if you're new here. And know that I, and We, welcome and want you here. We want you to read, we want you to comment, we want you to disagree, and most of all, we want you to Prove Your Work. Think we're wrong? Say so, and prove it. We can take it, we love it, and we live for rough, incivil, partisan discourse. Really. No, really.

You can never go wrong here by disagreeing. Or speaking your mind. Or telling us we suck. Just do so with links, and reason, and even emotion. This is a truly progressive blog, in every sense of the word. We don't censor, or ignore, unless you're trying to hog this space by trying to sell or push something that has nothing to do with the project at hand. Which of course is: Saving our Constitutional Democracy. One blog post at a time.

Thank you for your attention. We're not writing here because we want consulting jobs, so don't worry- we take all our readers "seriously." Of course, you can hit that blue box over to the top and right, and send LB some cash to support our servers if you've got it, as it is true that 'free blogging' isn't "free." In our case, it's 200/mo. Any help is welcome.

They just fade away and start their own blogs.

Friends don't let friends start new blogs without a modicum of attention and/or links. Sorry it took me so long, TRex. Keep up the good work.

Seriously, I am so sorry to hear about this. Anyone who has details about his blog, I'd appreciate hearing them.

(CNN) -- Authorities have fired an official in central China after city inspectors beat to death a man who filmed their confrontation with villagers, China's Xinhua news agency reports.

The killing has sparked outrage in China, with thousands expressing outrage in Chinese Internet chat rooms, often the only outlet for public criticism of the government.

The incident has also alarmed advocates of press freedom, who say municipal authorities had no right to attack a man for simply filming them.

Police have detained 24 municipal inspectors and are investigating more than 100 in the death of Wei Wenhua, a 41-year-old construction company executive, Xinhua reported on Friday.

The swift action by officials reflects concerns that the incident could spark larger protests against authorities, whose heavy-handed approach often arouses resentment.

On Monday Wei happened on a confrontation in the central Chinese province of Hubei between city inspectors and villagers protesting over the dumping of waste near their homes.

A scuffle developed when residents tried to prevent trucks from unloading the rubbish, Xinhua said.

When Wei took out his cell phone to record the protest, more than 50 municipal inspectors turned on him, attacking him for five minutes, Xinhua said. Wei was dead on arrival at a Tianmen hospital, the report said.

Look, I'm really busy today and don't have time for this shit, ok newbies/trolls/NSA? People, we let anyone who is a registered user post here because we're decent, open-minded progressive who want to hear interesting ideas and perspectives. Not because we want you to advertise your own blog or website to our C-list (but AAA-list in Quality!) audience.

Spam posts will be deleted, immediately. And if the the ops people think you can sink this blog that way, it won't work. Just stop it.

Thoughts from that Matt guy:

In mid-November, Barack Obama laid down some truly remarkable and transformative proposals for the internet, including a strong embrace of net neutrality. Edwards also put out a series of similar policy ideas embracing openness and net neutrality, chiming in during the very imporant 700 megahertz auction of the public airwaves. Clinton, by contrast, laid out a set of proposals written by telecom lobbyists that did not include net neutrality, drawing praise from telecom shill Scott Cleland. Obama has a stable of experienced and savvy progressive telecom talent to appoint to the FCC, whereas Clinton will probably put a top fundraiser, Susan Ness, who is loved by the broadcasters (not a good sign). The FCC is the body that can simply implement net neutrality and open access, reverse media consolidation, and change our communications infrastructure to put power closer to the people.

Interestingly enough, on the right, Mike Huckabee has embraced net neutrality at least in concept, whereas every other Republican has not. First on a conference call with bloggers, and then on a Tech President video, Huckabee analogized the internet to the highway system and decried a two tiered set of controls.

SOME OF MY regular readers (I do not, at this point, necessarily refer to the bran-eating amongst us, though they are a well-stirred crew, I'm sure) remember the day back in August I casually (you should have seen me, I was sipping a mint julep as I typed) posted on the MTV Choose or Lose '08 Vlogger competition.