This article is a few years old, but I thought it worth sharing: it's the story of William Zantzinger, one of the subjects of this song:

The Joys of Netflix: Sinking a presidential campaign is now only a mouseclick away...but lets hope the MSM is more aggressive this time than they were in 2000, when they let this story slip through the cracks.

A good example of why you should never combine drinking with blogging, here. Apparently, the writer believes that the reason the Lakers didn't win the NBA Championship this season is that Kobe is a lazy n*****.

The Netroots, in a nutshell:

The most significant fact of American political life over the last three decades is that there is a conservative movement and there has not been a liberal movement. Liberalism, to be sure, has all the component parts that conservatism has: think tanks, lobbying groups, grassroots activists, and public intellectuals. But those individual components, unlike their counterparts on the conservative side, do not see one another as formal allies and don't consciously act in concert.If you asked a Heritage Foundation fellow or an editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal how his work fits into the movement, he would immediately understand that you meant the conservative movement. If you asked the same question of a Brookings Institute fellow or a New York Times editorial writer, he would have no idea what you were talking about.

The netroots have begun to change all that. Its members are intensely aware of their connection to each other and their place in relation to the Democratic Party. The word "movement" itself--once rare among mainstream liberals--is a regular feature of their discourse. They call themselves "the people-powered movement," or "the progressive movement," or, often, simply "the movement."

--Jon Chait, TNR [May 1, 2007] Chait touches on all the reasons I feel uncomfortable with "the movement," even as I appreciate the gains it has helped progressive politics make in the last few years: the tendency towards group-think and the party line, the vapid sloganeering, the disinclination to discuss (or write about) public policy, and the vilification of those with whom you disagree (and TalkLeft has a good critique of some of Chait's specific points).

Perhaps the most telling observation Chait makes is that the netroots are the mirror image of the propoganda machine that brought the right wing to power (minus, of course, a liberal version of Fox News). We forget at our peril that it isn't simply Republican policies that have damaged America, both internally and in our world standing, but also its destructive philosophy of governing and campaigning. There is nothing to prevent the Democratic Party from becoming as corrupted and discredited as the Republicans unless they repudiate the destructive behavior that has become rewarded by the system in the last twenty years. Instead, the netroots seem more inclined to emulate that behavior.

My nephew, Charles Ruderman, attended his first Dodger game last night, and it seems he had a good time...







Pics compliments of his Uncle Jimmy...the mess on his face can be blamed on the Dodgers, who beat Arizona, 2-1.

Today is the fourth anniversary of the official end to the war in Iraq, the date that America "accomplished" its "mission." Where will you be commemorating Uno de Mayo?

Kevin Drum points out something that has been obvious to me for a few years: kids today are just smarter than I was at the same age. Or, they have earned a heckuva lot more credentials in the academic sphere than I had when I got accepted to Reed College twenty-six years ago(with Berkeley as my "safety school," available when I divorced myself from all Portland ties after my freshman term). I was a B-student at Harvard High, with good-but-not-spectacular SAT's, letters in track and cross country, and special distinction ranking in forensics. My community involvement was minimal, to say the least; other than volunteering on a couple of political campaigns, there wasn't anything worth mentioning.

Today, those credentials would barely get me into a state college, at best. Of course, I would be more motivated to improve my qualifications were I a teen today, but the spectre of incurring close to a half million dollars in student loan debt might have soured my ambitions in that regard. In any event, the closest I could get to Berkeley now is watching the Golden Bears at 14-Below.

Presented, without editorial comment:



Speaking of which, last week we heard the heartbreaking news that Natalie Nelson is engaged. And not to some rich fratboy a-hole, neither, but to SC's starting center last season, who was just picked up in the second round by Carolina. Congrats to the lucky couple, and CRAP !!!

Brendan Nyhan has a good post up about the history of Republican efforts to paint anti-war efforts by the Democrats as objectively pro-terrorist and "appeasement." Since public opinion on the war has steadily and consistently moved in favor of the Democrats since the war against Iraq began back in March, 2003, it's safe to say that the rhetoric has failed. There's nothing like a failed occupation to cast hawkishness with a jaundiced eye.

We have to be very careful not to draw the wrong lessons from Iraq. Obviously, what we've learned is that diplomacy, alliance-building and multilateralism are good things, and that a true ally is sometimes the country that says no; if we had listened to Chirac's warnings, many thousands of people would be alive today, and U.S. power and influence might not be at a low ebb. But the reason why "appeasement" had such a negative connotation for so long was that a perfectly reasonable policy of negotiating with an adversary was taken to a ridiculous extreme in 1938. Appeasement hasn't always been a dirty word: it was, after all, British policy toward the United States from 1815 to 1917, and it's been American policy towards China since the mid-70's, although we don't call it that. In the aftermath of World War I, when tens of millions perished fighting a war for objectives that simply weren't worth it, it may have seemed a smart idea to be a little more careful the next time a territorially-ambitious despot came to power in Europe.

The problem, of course, was that Hitler was a madman who acted irrationally, who wanted a war with the rest of the world, and no amount of negotiations was going to appease him. Had Britain and France reacted to Hitler the same way it reacted to the Kaiser, or in the alternative, if they had appeased the Kaiser in 1914, a lot of unnecessary bloodshed could have been avoided. And America cannot be afraid of defending itself and its allies by using force in the future, just because the Bushies were so incompetent and reckless in fighting Iraq.

Schilling for Your Thoughts: It was REAL BLOOD, he insists.

Paul Begala presents a marvelous defense of the Man from Searchlight:

Mr. Broder has moved with ease from the elite comfort of the University of Chicago to the smug confines of Arlington, Virginia. And so he looks down at a man who rose from among the hard-rock miners and hard-luck hookers of Searchlight, Nevada to be the most consequential senator of his time. While David Broder was thinking great thoughts at his elite university, Harry Reid was working his way through Utah State. While David Broder was pontificating, Harry Reid was working his way through law school as a cop on Capitol Hill.

(snip)

Perhaps Broder's bed-wetting tantrum against Reid was spurred by the certain knowledge that while Harry Reid has been telling hard truths, Mr. Broder has been falling hard for transparent lies.

Whereas Reid called for Donald Rumsfeld's dismissal long ago, Broder vouched for Rummy, writing, "Overall, Rumsfeld left me with the impression that he is aware of the risks of war with Iraq, but confident they can be handled."

While Reid has called for investigations into allegations Karl Rove broke the law, Broder vouches for Rove: "Let me disclose my own bias in this matter. I like Karl Rove.... I have eaten quail at his table and admired the splendid Hill Country landscape from the porch of [Rove's] historic cabin...." Mighty cozy in Karl's cabin, isn't it, Mr. Broder?

I doubt very seriously that Harry Reid is bothered by Broder's comments. Reid has faced down Vegas mobsters who planted a bomb in his family car. He's unlikely to be intimidated by George W. Bush's housebroken lap-dog.

The Broder column referenced above is here. Atrios would be doing us all a favor if he just retired the banal "Wanker of the Day" designation and replaced it with an "honor" based on the bootlicking sycophancy of David "He came in here and he trashed the place, and it's not his place" Broder.

Christine: Tucked away inconspicuously, on page 2 of the local sports section this morning, was perhaps the most interesting article published in the LA Times in some time, and certainly one of the most courageous ever published in a mainstream newspaper.

Is the "G" hard or soft? Best blogtitle of the day....

Rather than whine about how mean MoDo and the others are to our candidates, here's an effective counter to the "$400 Haircut" attack that Edwards should have used.

For some reason, I've always associated this performance with the Monterey Pop Festival in '67 (I believe they backed Otis Redding), even though I'm sure that it's more likely some German TV broadcast from that period. Awesome playing by all concerned:

Not knowing the context of the rant, I studiously avoided commenting on the Baldwin Controversy last week. But I think there's one aspect that seems to have been ignored, and that is the fact that Alec Baldwin didn't say any of the things on that recording to his eleven-year old daughter. He said it to an answering machine on a telephone that "belonged" to his daughter, but was really under the custody and control of his ex-wife.

It's a big difference. People often feel liberated when they reach an answering service or voicemail rather than the intended recipient of their phone call, more free to vent their frustrations, talk smack or yell things that they would never say to the other party during a phone call, much less say face-to-face. Among my friends, this is known as the Tessmer Effect, after a mutual friend with a tendency for leaving long, often barely coherent messages on our voicemails replete with rage and poetry. Our friend can often go up to ten minutes without seeming to catch his breath on one of these messages, and I've always wondered why he didn't direct that energy into stand-up. Or blogging, for that matter.

Of course, we're middle-aged adults rather than eleven-year olds; whatever psychological scars we may have received from abusive language was generated years before. But it does lead to the other aspect of this controversy that hasn't received play, which is that there's no persuasive evidence yet that the little girl ever heard any of this message until it was leaked by her mom to the tabloids. She's eleven. She doesn't "own" anything, much less a cellphone.

The attack on Baldwin (and it's a fair one) is that you normally don't say those things to a grown woman, much less a pre-teen, but the context of the phone call (him not being able to have contact with his daughter in the middle of a bitter divorce) makes it seem like he was directing his comments at his ex, and not necessarily his little girl. And considering that Kim Basinger's first response to the message was not to go to court to get a restraining order against this madman, but to leak the recording to TMZ, his rage at that target might be understandable.

UPDATE: Maybe he should have taken these words of wisdom to heart:

Because her Harajuku mascots have needs too !!!

Sad to say, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the Bush Administration can't even get something like remembering the genocide of the Armenian people right. Referring to Congressional passage of a resolution urging the President to use the "G-word" when observing the anniversary of the mass slaughter bewteen 1915 and 1923, Matt Welch notes:

President Bush won't say "genocide" on Tuesday. In the words of Condoleezza Rice, the administration's position is that Turks and Armenians both need to "get over their past" without American help.

But this issue won't go away. Watching Rice's linguistic contortions in response to harsh congressional interrogation by Schiff, who has become the Armenians' great House champion, is profoundly dispiriting; it makes one embarrassed to be American. Of all issues subject to realpolitik compromises, mass slaughter of a national minority surely should rank at the bottom of the list.

Hitler reportedly said, just before invading Poland, "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" It's a chilling reminder that forgetting is the first step in enabling future genocides. Yet Hitler was eventually proved wrong. No temporal power is strong enough to erase the eternal resonance of truth.

In fairness, it should be noted that Clinton was just as chickenhearted when it came to appeasing the Turkish government on this issue, but Bush and his allies were never reluctant to use the term "genocide" when attempting to goad the nation into war in Iraq, and certainly haven't urged Jews to "get over" past crimes against them.

From Kausfiles:

Alert emailer S.F. asks if NBC, when it broadcast baseball games, refused to show video of fans running onto the field. Most broadcasters don't, on the grounds that it would only encourage more attention-seeking disruptions. ... If that's NBC's practice, why is it OK in order to prevent the disruption of a baseball game but not to prevent mass murder? Just asking.

It's hard to say what NBC's policy is to fans disrupting sporting events, since the only team sports they cover now are ice hockey (where the fans are walled off from the rink) and Sunday night football, a sport that for obvious reasons (ie., Mike Curtis, 1971) doesn't have a lot of fans running onto the field during games. I think the policy of not covering renegade fans is one that Vin Scully and the Dodgers have tried to follow, but I don't watch enough baseball nowadays to know about the networks.

In any event, is that analogy apt? People who run on the field are drunks who are trying to get attention, so denying them attention is the whole point. Obviously, if a fan were to run out on the field and attack a player, that would be covered, as it was several years ago when two White Sox fans attacked a Kansas City Royal first base coach, or when fans ran out on the court in Auburn Hills two years ago to go after assorted Indiana Pacers. Cho was a crazy person trying to rationalize mass murder; it's not like he was trying to get on the evening news by walking across campus naked. Murdering thirty-two people was his attention-grabbing act; the tapes he sent to NBC merely capitalized on that notoriety. And I dare anyone to watch his "manifesto" and think that he's anything other than pathetic.

Besides which, I always thought Kaus was in the forefront of the critique of modern journalism as being too staid and bland. Isn't this exactly the sort of media coverage that attracts an audience, in that it treats the audience as adults, and is not worried about whether what it's doing is "responsible" or "Pulitzer-worthy." Does he want NBC News to start acting like the LA Times?

Grooooooovy, man:



But who is the middle-aged white guy behind him?