Bloggers' Lament

As CNET's Charles Cooper laments:

"With a few exceptions, most of the credentialed bloggers came off like cyberhayseeds in the big city. Many dared for the painfully obvious as they updated their posts. Most of the blogging entries I have read ranged from the insufferably pedantic to the sublimely mediocre. There were exceptions, of course, but the see-me, hear-me tenor of their reporting was only exceeded by the vapidity of the banal commentaries peddled as analyses."

I strained to find a nugget of worthwhile information from a credentialed blogger. I gave up. Even Josh Marshall who is by far the best, and a real columnist and reporter was at a loss for something to say. The rest were pathetic. Jay Rosen who went out of his way to insult my politics and journalistic public education at pressthink in favor of the right wingnuts posting there, had litt;e of reporting value to contribute. Yes, it's tougher than class in the real world. Still, I give his essays high marks for phenomenon watch. And with links that don't dial up lunatics like many in the blogosphere use.

Fog of History

I recommend this article by my current Arnold Expedition book nemesis Dr. Thomas Desjardin. Myth tends to perpetuate when the historical narative lends itself to the misinformation of the writers of it. "We're not getting the whole truth," media detractors say repeatedly. That's true. It's up to us the readers, journalists and historians to to get it right. That's what I tried to do with my ancestor's role in the expedition to Quebec. Major Reuben Colburn had been maligned by past accounts that, in my investigation of five years for the book and screenplay, primary sources didn't support. I set the record straight. Pity that no one in publishing wants to hear it from me.

"You've done your homework," an agent recently said in a rejection letter, "but in the current glutted history market I can't sell this." Outgunned by a doctorate is the translation. Maybe the truth versus myth had something to do with that. I only provided the former.

Reporting For Duty

Kerry's speech was great. Help IS on the way.

Saddam's Gone but....

The infrustructure, especially the elecrtical power, is inept for the harsh Iraq desert country climate.

Delegates Are Extras

Columnist Walter Shapiro, whom I've personally never read, just said this on C-Span. "Why talk to them," he said. He watched it in a bar near Harvard since it's a "television event" some say. As former union extra myself, I don't find it valid but I guess they, the delegates, are paying supporters per se. Thus a vanity press opinion like most of the bloggers. The bloggers are not reporters, they're just a freak show attraction at the event. For the mostpart they hate the conventions and laugh at the process. I disagree. The process IS important and the speeches last night were superb. The critique and counter offering by Presidents Clinton and Carter were devastating to the illogical ideologues that are the opposition. The choice is clear as Clinton illustrated with great panache. Bring it on.

Interior Greatness

I laud Stewart Udall in my book and praise him still. We are both outraged by the Bush environmental assault.

Vanity Blues

I fell on my sword all over the net about the uselessness of POD vanity published books. Yet, these authors, and I use the term loosely just as I do with bloggers and Journalists, such as this gentleman continue to think they're published by microscopic small POD publishers, and Christian publishers when in fact they're really not even on the charts. Dupebility is the key factor in all of this. Interestingly enough this writer's numbers are better for his PA book than the second one that was so-called traditionally published. That's not usually the way it goes.

Book reviewers save for Midwest Book Review don't review these books. Newspapers generally don't except in a local author writes book aspect. It's sad. This man called me a huge boor for saying this. He's not made it as a writer. Most of us haven't, which is the norm not a slam on him. Without this realization one will never actually be a writer of note.

Or one at all.

Blog Triumphalism

Josh Marshall opines and I agree.

"I've never been much for the blog triumphalism that seems always to be so much a part of the blog universe. Blogs make up a small, specialized niche within the interdependent media ecosystem -- mainly not producers but primary or usually secondary consumers -- like small field mice, ferrets, or bats."

I especially like the ecological anaology since I'm a biologist. Just because news outlets adopt a venue like blogging doesn't mean all bloggers are legitimate. That takes credentials such as say, the ones Josh brings to the table. And there are many others. They're drawfed by the ones who have none. That's why it's just another vanity press.

The Liberal Times

Decent defense and analysis by Okrent. "Of course it is," he says.

"But if you're examining the paper's coverage of these subjects from a perspective that is neither urban nor Northeastern nor culturally seen-it-all; if you are among the groups The Times treats as strange objects to be examined on a laboratory slide (devout Catholics, gun owners, Orthodox Jews, Texans); if your value system wouldn't wear well on a composite New York Times journalist, then a walk through this paper can make you feel you're traveling in a strange and forbidding world."

On cultural and editorial areas it has to be since that is where the sound-thinking leads. Reporting news is another matter. There media bias critics need a bigger thinking cap. Being a government stenographer leads to embarrassment. Just ask Judith Miller.

On to the convention. I'm not going. The pay for bloggers isn't good.

Open Source Definitions

I can see now why blog trolls always use definitions from the web committee hive like the open source, anyone can alter online content, Wikipedia. That way textbook examples such as logical fallacy definitions in the academic field can be changed to suit personal biases. This is just one more nail in the internet coffin of credibility.

#1 Publishing Scam Worldwide!

"Welcome to PublishAmerica, the nation's number one book publisher!!"

"Glad you discovered us, on your road towards getting published. We are always happy when a new author has found the way to our door, because opportunity knocks on both sides of it. Maybe PublishAmerica will turn out to be the book publisher that you have been looking for while being determined to get published, and, who knows, maybe you are that one special author who is going to make our day.
If indeed you have been dreaming of getting published, and you want us to review your work, please fill out the form below and let us know who you are and what you have written. Your manuscript will be reviewed by our Acquisitions staff, who will determine whether your work has what this book publisher is looking for.

Meanwhile, take your time and look around here to see who and what we are, what other authors who also had this dream of getting published think about PublishAmerica, and what they think about life as an author with this book publisher. And, by the way, we are indeed number one. No other traditional book publisher has as many new books in print, every day!"

Volume is the key to any scam. Just ask an Irish traveler. After getting my rights reverted back to me and the book discontinued, hence not available and royalities not required by the publisher, it doesn't take much to see that should a copy sell only one party would get the money. I'd be out 82 cents, but it's the principle of the thing. This bunch has none.

Gone

The posts are gone. Poof! yes that's the kind of reporting we want from bloggers: all the views we want you to hear.

Defense at pressthink

There's only one, who may be another professor at, gasp, a public school.

Defense of the panopticon:

"Hmmm...

Do you think Rick Hausen is actually the multitudinous York?

York, if that is you, you need to give the Jayster some slack. He's new to this blog thing, and your banning was a bit heavy-handed, but that can be attributed to inexperience, the limitations of the oh-so-limited Movable Type blogging software, and possibly the influence of some other commentators.

That this blog is getting all Yorked up presents some interesting issues:

For instance, blogging is all about voice, they say, and York has voice (some would say voices) - he has self-published multiple books; he has a blog; he is a journalism student. He has constructed a self, virtually and in the real world. If you visit his website, you can see that he has led a desultory, nomadic life, guided by a sense of history, principle, and self-assertion. He is a gypsy, a working class wanderer. He would be a hero - if he weren't so eager to point out that he is a hero.

But the problem that he has encountered, here (and elsewhere), is that his voice lacks authority. And other commentators have pounced on that lack, to a degree that should shame them, if they are capable of feeling it.

So this is all about authentic voice, not about voices, and how we, socially, confer or deny authenticity. If Mailer is an example, the denial of authority can't be reduced to an egregious egotism - Mailer's picture is next to ego in the dictionary. So what is it? Talent? That can't be, because there are plenty of untalented "authentic" voices out there.

Hmmm... Could it be class? Nah. Not class. This is a classless society. We cybernauts are clever, classless and free. It's not like they hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,
'til you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules.

Nope, class can't explain it. That's not it at all. The epithet "loser" has nothing to do with class. Those crazy homeless squeegee freaks have nothing to with class. Those greedy affirmative-action lazy bastards have nothing to with class - it's government coercion! The literary "deficiencies" of self-published folk narratives have nothing to with class.

I can't explain it. Maybe Mailer could.


Just to affirm that class has nothing to do with it, here's a quote from the Xrlq.com website that posted the tortious defamations of Y:

'If there’s one thing lower than a journalist, it’s someone who aspires to become one. And if there’s anything lower than that, it’s a journalism student who can’t get into a better school than Cal State, which will admit almost anyone with a pulse.'

Posted by: panopticon"

I can explain it. Self-pubbed works may be good, a few actually are, but with the stigma of vanity publishing and lack of filtering that traditional publishing affords there is a guilt by association, boat-anchor-effect no one can esacpe except through real credentials. Blogs are in the same paradigm. I'm not calling myself a folk hero although I certainly believe I am one, I'm indentifying others also unsung that are. So it's not a self-aggrandizement per se, only credit by action and conviction. It's "Profiles In Courage" revisited.

I'm not Rick Hauser whose posts will probably be removed. I'll be looking into the aforementioned defamations from the two conservative lawyer bloggers who skewered me from their perches of anonymity. Stay tuned.

Mailer on Bush

"As I once had a character say in a novel," Norman mailer said in a Poynter Institute interview, "you can't stop a man who's never been embarrassed by himself. And that's George W. Bush. He looks upon the language as a tool. It's a good mallet and chisel to cut into the sentimental needs of the American public who come around like hound dogs to certain words like patriotism, America, flag and security. I always say that America is the real religion of this country.

Author author.

Blogger Blowhards

No question about it, few blogs deserve credibility as this L.A. Times story indicates. Most are unfiltered jingoistic bombasts and one-note sambas of personal bias. The anti-LA Times blogs alone are enough to fill the convention hall if let in. And every one of them is wrong. Not all opinions are created equal. Nowhere is it so obvious in the rumor factory of the blogosphere.

Wilson and Niger

I've never seen such a convoluted mix of smear tactics in memory as this semantical twisting of the trip to Niger by Amb. Joseph Wilson IV. In a defense of his position and statments yesterday with CNN's Wolf Blitzer Wilson systematically debunked every charge that he lied about the trip. He tells the Washington Post as much on a letter about the Susan Schmidt story conservatives use along with the context-free conclusion of the Senate Intelligence Committee report.

First of all the CIA came to his wife Valerie Plame first. Why? Becaause Wilson had connections in dealing with the ministers in Niger in the past. She told them he could be of value because her bosses asked her. Only political smearing can conclude otherwise.

Next, there was no evidence from that trip that Iraq had tried to purchase tons of uranium from Niger. The documents were forged, or fakes. Only the British MI6 contention that Iraq was mentioned as a potential buyer, by a seller in an undisclosed report casts any doubt. But the doubt remains on that so-called report. That's not evidence of Iraq seeking the seller out as I see it. Wilson is vindicated with his own testimony. The senate intelligence committee didn't agree on these two points. Senators Roberts and Hatch continue to insist on affirming a negative and that isn't a unanimus conclusion as stated by the Wilson critics.

William Safire digs deep to find his evidence and give credence to this false statement: "Two months later, with no objection from C.I.A., [empasis mine], the famous 16 words went into Bush's 2003 State of the Union."

Moreover, the CIA conlcluded that there was no solid evidence that Iraq tried to procure uranium from Niger and emplored the White House to remove the infamous 16 words from the SOU address. They didn't.

Masiel's Reading List

David Masiel is close to publishing his second novel the The Western Limit of World according to the SacBee. Good luck with it. Sounds good.

Troll Watch

Good to see some of the Troll's posts were removed from pressthink. Of course a new one has shown up and he's disatisfied with the journalistic media. It's no wonder since he's not a nice person either. The two go hand in hand.

Publishamerica Contract

While I got PA (Publishamerica) to cry uncle on my contract, many more can't get out or fight a legal battle against the barely legal, but nevertheless deceptive scam. The anonymous publishing insider HapiSofi eviscerates the contract on my first-banned site Absolutewrite. Well, second since I was first banned at the Publishamerica forum in just one day for issuing a warning against the vanity print on demand company masqeurading as a real publisher. They aren't. But legal foundation notwithstanding, deceptive advertising is the claim I made about them at the Federal Trade Commission. I never could convey this concept to most of the duped authors who fought me with self-blame and victim remorse. I was accused of being insane by this remorseful PA author many times, who confesses here, and banned from all boards by popular demand even while I battled PA shills in an ongoing flamewar. I lost.

The author advocates of Writer Beware didn't fully accept the FTC complaint concept either, but still warn others off successfully. It's an ongoing effort. Complaints are the key. Many have since taken my advice, so I had some effect at least.

Capture The Forests

Bush timber interests are crowing now with the roadless rule cast aside. I worked on this for five of my 12 years in government service for the U.S. Forest Service, and others. As the NY Times editorial states, everyone below governor wa for this popular rule that restores fishing and hunting to healthy levels from the doom of over-harvesting of old growth and the resulting ecological decline. This rollback won't stand.

David Brooks Brothers

Brooks falls into the same lame argument that a rich Democrat is a subversive operative undercover. All the while, Old Monied W. is just plain ole "not John-Boy Walton." These are too rich Yalies vying for the top spot but the values are policies that benefit the most. Those are democratic values. That's the difference bewtween the two. Take a look at Haley "hatchet-man" Barbour and what he did to medicare drug benefits in Mississippi. That's the difference I'm talking about, missed by Brooks in his sociolillogical analysis.

Writing Facts Group

Writers.net.-ters got their wishes granted and shut down a group I was posting at, but knew nothing about the actual indentity of the moderator. Blipperton's identity is also unknown. That's two unknown entities. I was trying to find out but failed, and now there's no way to know ever. It was alledged from ISP tracking that he was a novelist, David Masiel and writing professor at UC Davis. I don't know. I was only about 85% sure at the time. He would talk to me albeit infrequently, but his goal was to attack the newbie authors at that aforementioned site.

I was banned too, for arguing with Publishamerica shills. (Mike Ditka intro? Yikes.)Insults flew and since only the naive get to use those tactics I got swarmed. This is bound to piss anyone off with a lick of sense. The tactics I don't agree with, but telling some to screw themselves is sometimes necessary. Banning is Orwelian. I can't condone the last tactics that I witnessed at Writing Facts including the hypocritical banning of Mitchell Warren and posting inapproprate picture links attributed to critics. I had nothing to do with it, but make no mistake: groups create their own nightmares. Insult the knowledgable from a position of ignorance and that's what you get. I have no information as to what took place offsite in personal E-mail boxes. Nothing ever came to mine although a mock death threat posted by on writers net by Roy Abrahams qualifies as somewhat less than a term of endearment. Just another novice writer claiming to be more than he is and he followed me to that nut factory of xlrq's whoever he is.

presthink bias

Here's how Rosen closed down the thread, as usual, with a personal ad hominem to me and a testimony about his ehtical nature."I'm not a nice person," Tim, the anonymous troll says.

He closes every thread with psycho-linked diatribes and everyone who isn't insane leaves. Or gets banned for engaging the prick.

Wingnut Rants

This is the list of circumstantial ad hominems from Tim the fake name of the pressthink troll. Notice how all of my life is a sign of failure to him and his supporters. What a strange view, but when your position is weak like Tim what is left to do?

According to the Tim-troll:

"This prick thinks he has something important to say because:
- he is descended from people who were alive in the 1600s,
- couldn’t get a college degree,
- couldn’t make it as a carpenter
- couldn’t make it as an actor
- couldn’t rise above entry level government work (GS-4/5),
- couldn’t get published so he published himself through a vanity press,
- got an A in logic class (brags about it anyway, but labels everything inappropriately as ad hominem circumstantial), and
- he’s accomplished so little by the ripe old age of 51!
- But now that he’s in J-school and might graduate in December of this year, he’s got creds!"

Let's dissect this attack.

1. I descend from liberal patriots who founded the country. That's more than just "being alive in the 1600s."

2. I'm getting a college degree. I could have gotten one if I'd chosen to at the time. I didn't, but not because I couldn't cut it mentally as implied.

3. I was a carpenter for years (yesterday I visited L.L. Bean in Freeport where I worked on the new store in the late '80s) and am still in good standing in the Carpenter's Union. I worked for Bechtel.

4. He says I couldn't rise above entry level goverment work. Since entry level is GS-3, and I was a 5 at both the biological tech series and the professional fishery biologist series that isn't quite true. I suspect had I been a 11, he would say no 12 no credential. It's the Wizard of Oz defense: the bar keeps moving up at the hand of the adversary, who isn't even on the chart himself!

5. See below. I just got an A in logic from Santa Barbara City College's online college from Mark McIntire. Ask him if necessary.

6. Couldn't get published.I didn't try to get my personal memoirs published traditionally. I may yet, but memoirs of unfamiliar faces are difficult sales. Most fail short of scandal, which is infamy and salable from a publisher's standpoint. I tried an experiment and decided it didn't work for anyone who tries this including me. I control all rights to my books and can republish them traditionally later on. If, I can find a market for it from my current work in the traditional publishing pipeline. Had I already done so, the sales figures (always too low for authors save a few) would be used against my worth. This is also common troll tactics.

7. Even when, or if, (I am graduating from CSUN) I graduate, it won't matter because my record of failure and lack of credibility is irretrievable from history, (accomplished so little)and besides I'm just too old.(ripe old age of 51!) I can't know anything. In essence, a complete ad hominem and circumstantial ad hominem attack.


One thing blog trolls can do is link to other blogs that they can build an out of context argument from. It's classic sidestepping propaganda. Really from their position in quicksand what else can they do? Too cowardly to post their own credentials yet quick to use others for ad hominen attacks it's a typical tactic.

It wouldn't matter what the credentials of their adversaries were, as we can see, a Ph.D, and there are a majority of liberal professors and think-tankers who have them, makes little difference to conservative pundits on the internet, or anywhere, yet anti-expert bias takes the baton here from the circumstantial ad hominem of credentials not being enough i.e. I haven't received a degree yet, and have vanity press books so anything I say has no merit, because if it did I'd have risen higher in the food chain of education and business, thus the 12 years as a biologist, and 120 credits of college training mean nothing. It's an attack by circumstance. They have one for all seasons with no off time. As a last resort they call you a troll for participating in the debate and complain to moderators who wimpily come their rescue.

I guess they can't stand to watch the slaughter? How convenient. Being banned from these forums and blog comments is a badge of honor. Mostly losers are the regulars and as they have said, "aren't nice people."

I'm moving on to other things.

xrlq

Well that's enough of this guy: xlrq. Jeff in SoCal my source tell me. That really pins it down. That's the problem with these right-wingnuts who blog anonymously. No one can read just who they are, so in the sea of links about him I hit the first one that gave me a real name. A female wingnut from the pile on the right. Har har. So he spent the day dissing my school and grades from his cave. Crawl back in troglodyte the coast is clear.

British Report

Josh Marshall concurs. No one has seen the so-called other intelligence of the Niger uranium negotiations by Iraq. It doesn't exist from what we've seen to date. Only the forgeries or fakes are real.

The Pattern

The method:Prime Minister Blair's office, particularly in its public dossier, ignored analysts' caveats and qualifications and as the Wall Street Journal puts it, "left out intelligence that wasn't consistent with its case for tough action against Iraq."

Hitchins

Christpher Hitchins a fervent war supporter cites the same lame assertion as all of the conservatives are on the Wilson-Plame-Niger uranium fiasco which this: "The bogus document produced by an Italian con man in October 2002, which has caused such embarrassment, was therefore more like a forgery than a fake: It was a fabricated version of a true bill."

A true bill? Not as far as I can determine it's just more affirming a negative. Iraq was mentioned as a potential customer in an undisclosed document. All we have is an alleged unsubstantiated forgery. Moreover, Hitchens asserts a CIA anti-regime change cabal with the Wilsons in tow. This is wishful thinking at its worst and what we've come to expect from partisan defenders. He may not be one but he's singing the same theme song as near as I can tell. And it's based on leap of faith hope.

Blogger's Aren't Legitimate Yet

Even though I blog, the form isn't regulated enough to be trusted. Let's face it without an editor it's just another vanity press operation. I denounce this blogging relativism from experience both in books and surfing the blogosphere. Not all opinions stand on equal footing. As a Journalism student on the verge of graduation I can't use any blog or vanity press story I've ever written as a clip for the purposes of getting a reporting job. Others, Rosen not withstanding, agree with me.

"That bloggers get front seats bothers Tom McPhail, a journalism professor at the University of Missouri.

''They're certainly not committed to being objective. They thrive on rumor and innuendo,'' McPhail says. Bloggers ''should be put in a different category, like 'pretend' journalists.''

Boston-bound Jay Rosen, a New York University journalism professor who writes for the Web site pressthink.org, says the move ''simply widens the press a little bit. I'm against both dismissal and instant celebration. To me it's more of an experiment.''

Read that, vanity press. Rosen is pressthink, he doesn't "write for them," he, like most bloggers is them in totality like I am here. That's not the same thing as working for a legitimate publication for a paycheck. It's working for free because you can't land a contract. Carries very little weight in the world of media and is an all volunteer army.

Banned at Patterico's Pontifications

"Some of you may notice a frequent commenter [me]no longer making comments. I may have more to say on this later and I may not. For now, I will say only that I have decided that I would prefer not to have his comments on my site any more.

I'd like to make a special request of my readers, that you leave no comments mocking this commenter. It doesn't seem fair that others should leave pejorative comments to which he can't respond. I have already edited a couple of comments accordingly."

That's big of you counselor. No doubt prompted by my comment on Mr. Patterico skewing Sen. Byron Dorgan D-North Dakota as ventiloquist's dummy. Is this justified behavior by a native Texan prosecutor for Los Angeles County? Maybe Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn-D San Pedro, should know about this?

Update: Apparently it was Tom Daschle, not Dorgan.

Rosen

"YOU ARE NOT WELCOME AT PRESSTHINK. I WANT YOU TO LEAVE NOW. Don't come back."

What a strange view from a journalism professor to a current journalism student.

Fooled Again?

Here's the latest out of context attack on Michael Moore by The Who's Pete Townsend a repentant war supporter. His song We Don't Get Fooled Again was denied for use in Farenheit 9-11 in a pay to play exchange between him, Moore and Miramax aka Harvey Wienstien. Townsend couldn't see the use context in time so he denied use of the song at any price. Here's how he explains why the song was politically incorrect for Moore's purposes.

Once I had an idea what the film was about I was 90% certain my song was not right for them. I believe that in the same email to my publisher and manager that contained this request to see the film I pointed out that WGFA is not an unconditionally anti-war song, or a song for or against revolution. It actually questions the heart of democracy: we vote heartily for leaders who we subsequently always seem to find wanting. (WGFA is a song sung by a fictional character from my 1971 script called LIFEHOUSE. The character is someone who is frightened by the slick way in which truth can be twisted by clever politicians and revolutionaries alike).

Hello? The last line Pete, did you read it? Does this not apply to Bush for heaven's sake?

Brother Can You Spare Me A Road?

The great unzipping of environmetal gains is complete.

"The 12 states most affected by the roadless issue, which contain 97 percent of all roadless areas in the country, are Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming."

It's up to the governors. OK well, that means that Republican governors, which are in the overwhelming majority of roadless area states in the west by a ratio of 8 to 3 can choose to keep the Clinton rule or not. Gee I wonder what they will do?

Gentlemen, start your bulldozers!

Fanatical Science Fiction

Here's a media bias diatribe by the TOR-published from North Carolina, Orson Scott Card. It's horribly cliched flawed reasoning that's only evidence of his hard-right redneck bias.

Bush's Fake Fish

More on the hatchery salmon fiasco: Federal Salmon Plan Threatens Species Protections Plan Would Substitute Hatchery Salmon For Natural Populations

What's the matter with Kansas?

Environment highly recommends Thomas Frank's new book now #3 on the charts with My Life and the Da Vinci Code. Nice work all

Bad Press

Ron Chernow on the press then and now: "Our modern tabloid press seems almost tame by comparison. There was no pretense of journalistic objectivity and editors flayed politicians with impunity. Under classical pseudonyms, political operatives gleefully murdered reputations — Washington was blasted as a would-be king, Jefferson as a zealous atheist — leaving the founders somewhat scarred and embittered men."

Of course the tabloid format is held by the conservatives i.e. Boston Herald, NY Post and a host of others that revel in scandal.

And the beat goes on.

Joe Wilson Smear

Josh Marshall sums it up: "So France, Italy and the United States each had reports about the alleged Iraq-Niger sales. And each stemmed from the same source -- the forged documents, the origins of which the SSCI chose not to investigate.

The documents weren't peripheral. They were central, though precisely how and why only emerged over time."

In short no one chose to question the source of the documents, now shown to be forged. How is this Wilson's fault? He told them.

Press Pass

On C-Span right now Lt. General William Odom of the Hudson Institute just debunked a caller's assertion that retired military critics are on the payroll of the press. He isn't and wasn't save for a brief instance in 1991. This conspiracy of the the wingers is just that. "Good effective feedback," Gen. Odom said, of dissenting views on policy and the acceptance of bad news on the ground in a war.

"Without dissenting views from the president we're in bad shape," he said. Odom was against the Iraq intervention. The facts are against Bush et al.

Jeremiad George

More on the push for a last minute decree: "The colony has fallen into moral decay. In order for us to win back the lords's good graces we must restore order. Per his order, marriage is here and forever more between a man and a woman!"

He can post the scroll on the town common bulletin board right next to the stocks and gallows.

pressthoughts

Poor professor Rosen had to give a group hug to the insane flamers on his blog. I've never encountered a more fierce pack of confederate conservatives anywhere. I thought the writer sites were bad with overly sensitive novice novelists, but this is too much. Journo attackers are even more stupid.

"It wasn't because I am a liberal," Rosen said and (an author, scientist and a current journalism student), but because I was insulting to other posters. Huh? When is a debate an insult? People online tend to cry foul when they get better than they can give in the argument. Only mushy relativism can lend credence to the weaker argument. I suffered fool after fool of negative anti-media bias for weeks and tried to counter it. I failed. The pro-Bush conspiracists are so pitiful and vindictive that even liberal professors coddle them.

"I wanted to be banned," chimed Patterico, a right-wing DA blogger in L.A. No counselor of doom, I wanted to win the argument and debunk the myth machine of the right. Wrong forum for that. My mistake.

Imperial Hubris

Environment proudly recommends this book and its conclusion.

Anonymous regards Afghanistan as a necessary war, as do I, and likewise he sees the American invasion of Iraq as "an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat but whose defeat did offer economic advantages."

Banned at pressthink

I was banned, so the wingnuts prevailed again in the so-called liberal press. Fat chance of that.

Opinion Journal

I submitted this to the WSJ in response to Taranto's article on the sunniness and dourness of Kerry/Edwards.

Left-leaning and Liberal don't mean the pejorative context that conservatives believe to most Americans as witnessed by the Clinton/Gore votes. Yes, the last one too.

Liberal values are pragmatic, reasoned, diplomatic and strong in position. They are pro-American yet with a concern for how we are percieved by the rest of the world. Remember we are the strongest, but are outmumbered. Not by terrorists but populations.

Thumbing our noses at the volitile world and selling the farm at home to do it are not well-reasoned stances. Blinkered by ideology and paranoia like Nixon/Agnew, both indicted, is the order of the day and doesn't seem all that rosy to many of us today. The competent ticket and reasoning of the so-called liberal Democratic ticket should be worrisome for the dazed sunniness in the face of contrary evidence on the ground in every area, of the Republicans.

Confused by belief?

Liberty and Liberal go hand in hand. The Hobbesian netherworld we have now needs this change of hands. We will demand it.

Scientific scuttlebutt

From Reuters:

White House science adviser Dr. John Marburger and HHS spokesman Bill Pierce have denied the administration is distorting science. Pierce says HHS is seeking a diversity of opinions.

But Robert Paine, an ecologist at University of Washington who chaired an advisory panel on endangered salmon and trout, said his team was warned by the government to remove facts that undermined policy.

"We were told to strip out specific scientific recommendations or see our report end up in a drawer," Paine said.

The report includes accusations of administration interference on strip mining, drug approvals, and protection of endangered species.

Environment II

I'm starting a new template as an upgrade to the blog.