The Seventh Sense

Busy, Busy....

Show rehearsals, CLE seminars... it's all too much.

I missed blogging about the Super Bowl.  I missed the Trump endorsement.  I missed all the follow-up to the Komen scandal (that  Handel resigned, as well as she should).  And I missed the Prop 8 upholding, although there isn't much to say about that (it's the SCOTUS that matters, baby).

But I'm back.... sort of.

The Protest

It has already begun. Inc case you haven't heard, Wikipedia will not be available today, January 18th 2012, what is to be "Protest SOPA and PIPA Day" of sorts. 

Other major sites, such as Reddit, TwitPic, Mozilla or Boing Boing are following suit.

And Google is still available, but they make the point, too:

What's it about?  Watch...

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

 

Want Some Good Blog Reading?

Jon Swift was a blogger from a few years ago who may have been one of the best bloggers ever.  His satiric writing is legendary, like that of his namesake.  Unfortunately, Jon Swift (aka Al Weisel) died suddenly in February 2010.

One of Swift's pet projects was a year-end Blogger Round Up.  Al/Jon asked bloggers far and wide, famous and in- and not at all, to submit a link to their favorite post of the past twelve months and then he sorted, compiled, blurbed, hyperlinked and posted them on his popular blog.  His round-ups presented readers with a huge banquet table of links to work many of has had missed the first time around and brought those bloggers traffic and, more important, new readers they wouldn’t have otherwise enjoyed.

That tradition lives on.  Vagabond Scholar has picked up the Swift Roundup mantle.  If you want some really good blog reading from this past year, go there.  Some posts take only a minute to read; others longer.  These are the best posts of the year, as chosen by bloggers themselves. They are ALL good, and they are voices that you would otherwise be unlikely to hear.

Back At Blogging

With Christmas Day in the rear view mirror, and life returning to normalcy, I hope to be back to blogging shortly (and hopefully with renewed energy and accuracy).

Harsh But True <> "Ad Hominem"

In a brilliant piece yesterday, Paul Krugman gives voice to a phenomenon that I, too have noticed lately, to wit, that rightwing commentators, pundits and bloggers (Patterico's Pontifications, I'm looking at you!) can't tell the difference between a valid, albiet brutializing, policy argument, and an "ad hominem" argument where you just call someone a name.  Paul, you have the floor:

Greg Sargent takes us to Paul Ryan’s latest speech, in which Ryan expresses outrage over what President Obama is saying:

 

Just last week, the President told a crowd in North Carolina that Republicans are in favor of, quote, “dirtier air, dirtier water, and less people with health insurance.” Can you think of a pettier way to describe sincere disagreements between the two parties on regulation and health care?

 

Just for the record: why is this petty? Why is it anything but a literal description of GOP proposals to weaken environmental regulation and repeal the Affordable Care Act?

 

I mean, to the extent that the GOP has a coherent case on environmental regulation, it is that the economic payoff from weaker regulation would more than compensate for the dirtier air and water. Is anyone really claiming that less regulation won’t mean more pollution?

 

And Republicans have not proposed anything that would make up for the loss of the measures in the ACA that would lead to more people being insured. Let me also point out that whatever else you think of it, Romneycare — which is essentially the same as the ACA — clearly has sharply reduced the number of uninsured people in Massachusetts.

 

So Ryan is outraged,outraged, that Obama is offering a wholly accurate description of his party’s platform.

 

Let me add that this illustrates a point that many commenters here don’t seem to get: criticism of policy proposals is not the same thing as ad hominem attacks. If I say that Paul Ryan’s mother was a hamster and his father smelt of elderberries, that’s ad hominem. If I say that his plan would hurt millions of people and that he’s not being honest about the numbers, that’s harsh, but not ad hominem.

 

And you really have to be somewhat awed when people who routinely accuse Obama of being a socialist get all weepy over him saying that eliminating protections against pollution would lead to more pollution.

Emphasis mine.  Touche, Paul.

The Rumors Of My Death....

... are greatly exaggerated.

Shows, bronchitis and life have taken a bit of a toll.

What did I miss?  Steve Jobs death.  Sad.  Occupy Wall Street.  Encouraging.

...and probably thirteen Republicans debates.  Priceless.

Regular blogging to resume........ (wait for it)..... nnnnnnnoW!

Fixed/Updated Live Webcams

My rolling webcams section in the right column was looking sad, so I took out webcams that didn't work, and added some new ones (like Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica).

From The Archives

This is what THE SEVENTH SENSE blog masthead looked like when it began in the Middle Ages:

Death Of A Blogger

The great Jon Swift has died.

Swift was a mock-conservative who declared that he received his news through unbiased sources like Rush Limbaugh.  Of the economic downturn, Swift wrote:

“At a time when Wall Street executives are being forced to give up their private planes, limousines, bathroom renovations and multimillion dollar bonuses, the idea that a homeless man has been allowed to hold on to his cellphone while others are making sacrifices is more than we can take.”

The writer behind Swift was Al Weisel. He stopped blogging for no apparent reason almost a year ago.  (Ironically, his last post was about the death of a fellow blogger)

And now, sadly, Al Weisel himself has died, as reported by his mother in a comment on Swift's blog:

Al was on his way to his father’s funeral in VA when he suffered 2 aortic aneurysms, a leaky aortic valve and an aortic artery dissection from his heart to his pelvis. He had 3 major surgeries within 24 hours and sometime during those surgeries also suffered a severe stroke.

I obviously didn’t know Al personally, but his writing was superlative.  He was doing Colbert long before Colbert was doing it -- the sort of satire his cognomen’s namesake would have heartily approved. 

A Special Thank You

Thank you to The Seventh Sense's senior beauty pageant correspondent, Heather, for gracing the website with pictures of hot girls.  I fear they will overtake the rest of this site in terms of popularity.

But so what?

'Sup With The Lack of Blogging Lately?

Oh, a show.  Work.  Life.  Burnout.  All that.

Plus, not a lot to say that is particularly insightful.

Haiti was bad, but I guess everyone knew that.

Scott Brown being elected to the U.S. Senate was bad, but not as bad as everyone made it out to be.  He's a liberal Republican from Massachusetts, which is on a par with a moderate Democrat from any other state.  He's probably to the left of many Senate Democrats, so I wouldn't sweat it out.

Really, the ONLY thing that really struck me as comment-worthy was last week’s ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, where the court declared that corporations and unions may spend money on political advertising that urges the election or defeat of a candidate for public office.  Obama called it one of the worst decisions in the area of public interest; conservatives praised it as a reaffirmation of the First Amendment.

Obama was, of course, right, and conservatives were wrong.  The First Amendment protections of free speech apply to individuals (as do ALL the Bill of Rights).  Remember, we recognize rights as things "endowed by our Creator" to us.  God did not contemplate that the oil lobby would have free speech rights.

I fear that decision will impact our political landscape profoundly and negatively, but there are sound arguments that disagree with me.

Anyway, I'm more-or-less back.  And maybe I'll even have a "guest" contributor soon, too.  So, stay tuned.

A New Widget For My Left Hand Column

My blog is worth $5,645.40.
How much is your blog worth?

More than I thought, to be honest.

FTC Establishes Rule Governing Bloggers

I don't think bloggers should (or necessarily can) be regulated, but this strikes me as a good idea:

The Federal Trade Commission will require bloggers to clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products.

It is the first time since 1980 that the commission has revised its guidelines on endorsements and testimonials, and the first time the rules have covered bloggers.

But the commission stopped short Monday of specifying how bloggers must disclose any conflicts of interest.

The FTC said its commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the final guidelines, which had been expected. Penalties include up to $11,000 in fines per violation.

The rules take effect Dec. 1

The New Typepad

Typepad has got some nice little tweaks (blockquotes for commentors, for example), plus a totally revamped backend.

I like it so far. 

Technical Difficulties

Apparently my YouTube postings aren't coming through (thanks for letting me know, Brett!).  Ok.  Well, I'll see what I can do....

Publius Outing Ends In Apology

Somewhat unexpected but the right thing to do, Whelan apologizes for exposing the identity of Publius.

Publius moves on.

The debate, however, doesn't.  While most in the blogosphere, including many of Whelan's colleagues, understand why a person might have personal or career-related reasons for blogging under a pseudonym, there are still a few who don't:

My view is that "publius." having elected to debate Ed, has no complaint. For in a debate between a blogger who identifies himself and one who doesn't, the anonymous blogger has an unfair advantage -- he is not constrained by the full range of consequences normally associated with being exposed as dishonest, sloppy, or unintelligent.

This is a bullshit argument.  First of all, Publius wasn't "anonymous"; he was pseudonymous -- and that's an important difference.  As Publius, he has a web presence.  This means that his arguments could be exposed as dishonest, sloppy or unintelligent (if they indeed were), since his arguments are for all to see.

But some conservatives can't seem to separate the argument from the person.  For them, they rail against pseudonymous bloggers because their existence removes one of their favorite debating tools: the ad hominem attack.  The main benefit of pseudonymity is that it forces the reader (or dissenting party) to engage with the IDEA being presented, rather than the personalities involved.

Ironically, the original pseudonym "Publius" was used by Madison, Jay, and Hamilton when writing The Federalist Papers.  They used that name precisely because they wanted to sway people on the strength of their arguments, and not get bogged down in personality cults.  But some in the conservative blogosphere simply cannot poke holes in arguments as arguments; when backed against the wall, they need to attack the arguer, and pseudonymity stands in their way.  Until he came to his senses and apologized, Ed Whelan was such a man.

John Hindrocket adds:

In my opinion, the idea that a goofball like Blevins [Publius] has some sort of "right" to smear Whelan anonymously, without taking responsibility for his assaults, is ridiculous. Be a man, for God's sake. Or, for that matter, a woman...

Anyone who has followed this dust-up knows that Publius' attacks were comparatively mild, as Internet-speak goes.  (Frankly, "goofball" is harsher than anything Publius wrote about Whelan).

And really, isn't "being a man" (or for that matter, a woman) being able to take tiny "epithets" in the course of debating discourse?

Moreover, it doesn't really reflect the facts of this matter.  What happened was that Whelan wrote an admittedly sloppy post, was smacked down (gently) by Eugene Volokh, and Publius merely commented on it, echoing another blogger’s comment that Whelan was a judicial "hitman".  Somehow this means that Publius, by noting other blogger's comments, engaged in an "assault".  [Read the full background here]

There is, to my mind, only one reason where the "outting" of a pseudonymous blogger would be relevant, and that is where he takes a position that is contradictory or hypocritical.  For example, if a pseudonymous blogger takes a position against, say, gay marriage, and it turns out that the pseudonymous blogger is himself gay married, then revelation of that aspect of the blogger's identity may have some bearing on the debate.  But such outtings are lilkely to be few and far between.

This is an entirely different issue than "anonymous blogging" (or, even worse, blogging under someone else's name or under several different names).  But of course, nobody blogs anonymously -- they do, however, comment anonymously.  Comment threads, however, typically are where Internet etiquette virtually disappears, and that is generally understood.  Anyone who can't handle that heat should simply avoid commenting or reading comments.  As Publius himself said:

“It’s one thing for an anonymous commenter to come in and just be a flame thrower, but what I do is I write pseudonymously, and I have a reputation of my own. It’s an online reputation. It’s a reputation that I care about, that I’ve invested a lot in, and I don’t want to be embarrassed in the blogosphere. I try to think through my arguments. To say there’s no real world effect, I don’t agree with that, because if I write something stupid, I’m going to get called out for that. In fact, I have written stupid things and I got called out and it affected my reputation. So I do have some reputational incentives to be honest, to be respectful in all these things.”

In any event, I think The Moderate Voice sums it Pseudonym-gate nicely:

His apology shows that “the marketplace” displayed a clear sentiment — and that a consensus did emerge. Whelan took in and considered that consensus and reconsidered.

The result? This unfortunate incident has now established a “norm.” In the future, someone will have to have a pretty good, darn reason to reveal the identity of someone who writes under a pen name and who asks that his or her identity be kept anonymous.

Outting

One of my favorite bloggers is "Publius" -- a really smart guy and excellent writer.

Some wanker on the right outted him, for no other reason (apparently) than to be a douchebag.

The First Blogger...

...was, arguably, Doogie Howser, M.D.

He was blogging before there was the word "blog".

His "personal journal entries" from 1989-1993 are archived here.

Sometimes We Forget...

... that there are real people behind these words you see on the computer screen.

Weird

It's not only strange that the White House has a blog, but now it is even liveblogging.

Best Job In The World

Queensland Island in the Great Barrier Reef is trying to up its tourism profile, and the way they intend to do it is to hire a blogger.

Requirements?  Hang around the island (swim, snorkel, etc) and blog about it:

The successful candidate will be asked to keep a blog and photo diary in exchange for six months rent-free on Hamilton Island as part of a $150,000 salary package that includes return airfares and travel insurance.

 

Tough job, but I guess someone's gotta do it.

British Guy Thinking About Putting Movie-Like Ratings On Websites

Fat chance of it happening.

But just in case, I ran my website through a content-reading thingee, and now I've got my rating already here on the right sidebar.

Weblog Award Finalists Announced

Full list here.

It's a good place to go if you want to be exposed to various well-written blogs that you didn't know existed.

Yes, Virginia, there are well-written blogs out there.  The blogosphere is much much more than political rants and pictures of peoples' kittens doing the gosh-darn cutest things.

You Are What You Blog

Typealyzer ingests the contents of your blog, and based on that, does Myers-Briggs psychology test on the blogs author.

So this is me:

ISTP - The Mechanics

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generelly prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

Not bad.  I'm actually an INTP.  And the S-N is borderline.

Oh, and then there's this...

Good to know.

But like others, I wonder:

Methinks the web is getting too smart for its own good. Granted, my personality type probably isn't too hard to figure out even from a 30-second conversation, but it's a little unnerving that some heap of silicon can do it. If they can already do this, how long will it be before our robot overlords take over completely?

Okay, I Think I'm Done Tweaking The Blog Design Now

Fixed some of the annoying things, like things being centered all the time.  Learned a lot about CSS in the process.

Comments are now in descending order (earliest comment first).

Added a search engine somewhere in there.

Took out Heather's Hangman (among other things), because Heather's gone AWOL with her new baby and shit so, you know, screw her.

Obviously a new look.

Load time seems better, if only marginally.

Of course, your browser experience may vary, so if something looks askew to you, or if you have a suggestion or peeve (pet or otherwise), let me know in the comments to this post.

UPDATE:  Okay.  Added a tagline randomizer, too.  Wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  Now I just need more taglines....

Yeah, I'm Screwing With The Design

Okay with you?

About This Site

I write plenty for this site; I don't visit very much.  But it is becoming increasingly clear to me that load times are kinda slow.

I think I've got too many bells and whistles, even for those with fast Internet access.

So, yeah.  I'll clean that up at some point.

At some point.

RIP Olive Riley

At 108, she was unofficially recognized as the world's older blogger.

Her blog -- The Life of Riley

She died this past weekend from, well, from being 108 years old.

One Post Wonder

Seems like lots of people start a blog, and then give up immediately.

Here's a blog that collects other blogs that have but one single post:  One Post Wonder.

Facebook's Grammar Problem

As a new convert to Facebook, I've notices that its news and updates feature lack grammatical correctness.

For example, you might read that "John Smith has a picture to their profile."  (Emphasis mine).

That's because Facebook doesn't take into account one's gender.

But that's going to change.

Site Changes

I added a widget in the left column with my Google calendar.

I added a widget in the right column listing my Facebook status updates, as well as those of my friends (click the arrows in the title bar).

UPDATE:  And the clock.  Let me know if there are any problems....

Seventh Sense Changes

(1)  Due to the news that Typepad has improved its spam blocker, comments will no longer be moderated.  That means that your comments will appear within minutes after you have posted them.

(2)  Comments will be automatically closed 3 months after an item is posted.

Blogging Traditions

John Cole starts a new blogosphere tradition: your 10,000th blog post should be about your cat.

Ok.  Well, this is my 5,511th post.  Maybe I'll have a cat by 10,000.  But I doubt it.

Testing One, Two.... Is This Thing On?

Wow.  A coding error of some sort stopped all my posts from posting. 

I think I fixed the error.....

Death Of A Blogger

Fortunately, the blogger was a puddle.

Yeah, you read right.  A puddle!  Located at the corner of Jay and Plymouth, a couple blocks east of the Manhattan Bridge, the "puddle" has been blogging since February 1.

It dried up today.

Busy Busy

Light No posting today, it seems.  Lot of things in the fire.  Preview audience tonight for The Foreigner, too.

You're not missing much.  I really had nothing to say, except for a few rather meandering thoughts about Lost.

Read This...

From the NYT Review of Books:

Many bloggers really don't write much at all. They are more like impresarios, curators, or editors, picking and choosing things they find on line, occasionally slapping on a funny headline or adding a snarky (read: snotty and catty) comment. Some days, the only original writing you see on a blog is the equivalent of "Read this.... Take a look.... But, seriously, this is lame.... Can you believe this?"

True, that.  At least for me.

How To Make A Blog Work

Reuters:

A successful blog "kind of opens the kimono and from a brand point of view lets people know who you are," says Rob Frankel, a Los Angeles-based branding consultant who has advised clients ranging from Re/Max to Honda Motorcycles and Sea World.

A promise to my handful of readers: at no point will I ever -- ever -- appear in a kimono (closed or open) -- on this blog.  Success be damned.

I thought you might find that reassuring....

The "New" List Of Blogger Cliches

From here:

The "New" List of Tired Old Clichés:

In Which I: In which I suggest that the "in which I" construction has had it's 15 minutes. Really. In which it was enough. In which it has been beaten to death. In which it is so tiresome, even mocking it is annoying. I must stop this breathless tirade, however, and MoveOn.

Breathless: Breathless prose, breathless objections, breathless reporting. I don't know if this is a result of Global Warming, but I think it is high time we get some air back. I've had it up to here. Start breathing, ladies and gentlemen. No more breathless ... ness. This abused adjective has literally lost all meaning.

Literally: The word literally is literally being drug in the street and shot every five minutes. It has literally been corrupted worse than William Jefferson (D-La). It has literally gotten up at 11:00 PM, half an hour before it went to bed the night before, ate cold poison for breakfast, licked the highway clean with its tongue, worked 28 hours at mill, and paid the miller for permission to work, and when it got home, its father beat it to death with a broken glass bottle and danced about on its grave. I literally need people to stop using literally as if it literally is the word figuratively or virtually the same as virtually. That is, quite literally, Enough. Of. That.

Single. Word. Sentences.: We. Have. Got. To. Stop. Doing. This. Sure. we. like. doing. it. Yes. I. can. hear. the. emphasis. in. my head. But. for. goodness. sake. literally. everyone. is. doing. it. Talking. thus. is. sure. to. leave. us. breathless. It's. time. to. quit. while. we. are. ahead. We. don't. need. period. gate.

Gategate: Watergate. Filegate. Chinagate. Plamegate. Rathergate. Hookergate. Troopergate. Zippergate. Piegate! (That last one was personal. Steal my last piece of pie, you get a gate named after you). Yes, those were single word sentences. Is this literally the only way to explain that something is a scandal anymore? Has it come to this? Tired. Of. It. It's time to retire the gate suffix. Gate is the new breathless.

New is the new old: 30 is the new 40? Google is the new Microsoft? Unless boring is the new interesting, it's time to put this out of its misery. Purple is the new pink? Really? Purple. The new pink. The. New. Pink. Really?!?? REALLY???!??!?

Really?: Really? Are you really going to use really? You're really going to do a bit that Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers literally tied to a pole and lashed to death ... Really? Blogs don't really have to take the fall for this, but, here's a hint: we really can put a stop to it.

Here's a Hint: Here's a hint, shut up! Affected sarcasm and anti-hip hipness are, of course, uber hip. We all do this, but, here's a hint: when you beat something to death, the affected unhipness is replaced by actual unhipness. Not. Cool. Here's a hint: Your "snark" is the new "lame".

"Clever" use of quotes: Meh. Let's face facts. This "cliché" is essentially immortal. It makes our "points" seem "smarter", it's "subtle" and people "like" it. It's the "sarcasm", stupid.

It's the laziness, stupid: This one isn't used around these parts as much. The kossacks still find it a useful convention but then, kos kids aren't exactly known for great "conventions". This one needs to be literally destroyed. And yes, I have been ending each of these items with a segue to the next item on the list. Figured that one out all by yourself, did you?

Figured this one out, did you?: The purpose of a phrase like "figured that one out all by yourself, did you" is clear. It's supposed to be sarcastic and cutting; a biting indication of the target's Johnny-come-lately status in re whatever topic you're breathlessly discussing, but here's a hint: when it is a used-up, washed-out cliché, the bite is gone. Old "sarcasm" is the new embarrassing comment, stupid. At the end of the day, it just doesn't get it done.

At the end of the day: At the end of this list is the one that grates the most on my nerves. At the end of the day ... what? "WHAT?" What at the end of the day? Better yet, why at the end of the day? Do you really want to keep using this? Really?!? Or how about "when it comes right down to it" or "when it's all said and done" ... I'd like to know it was going to stop. At the end of the day. Today.

I plead guilty to some of these, but I admit I get annoyed at the misuse of "literally".

Merry Xmas, Y'all

Headin off in a few hours to New Hampshire.  Gone for a week.  Won't probably blog much.  It's Xmas.

I was going to do this really awesome thing where you could track my whereabouts in realtime online as I drive through Virginia, up to Albany, and across Vermont.  Would have shown my EXACT location on a Google map, my altitude, how fast I'm going, etc.

But I couldn't get the technology to work.  Almost did, and if I had another couple days of free time, maybe I coulda done it.  Oh well.

Be good, everyone.  Have happy holidays.

Typepad Update

Sporadic blogging.  Something up with Typepad.  Bear with me while they fix the technical difficulties...

UPDATE:  Problems fixed.  For the record, it wasn't Typepad.  It was some coding I did this weekend for the site.  Grrrrrr.....

UPDATE NO. 2:  Hmmmm.  It's now listing all my posts for the past several months on the lefthand column....

Additions To Webcam

I've had three webcams to the right hand "Live Webcams" column.

(1) Lindsey Lights, a live shot of the well-known house in Ontario Canada with an incredible light display set to music (you're better off, however, watching the live video stream when it is up and running)

Here's a Youtube of last year's display:

(2) Some webcam in Lewisville, pretty close to my house.

(3)  NASA TV

Evaluation Time

HillaryClinton.com:

The Volokh Conspiracy (blog of prominent law school professors):

CNN:

Emily Mark's blog:

The New York Times political blog (The Caucus)

The White House website:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Model-based Embedded and Robotic Systems Group (affiliated with the Computer Science and Artifical Intelligence Laboratory) website:

This blog:

Dammit!

Light Blogging For A Few Days

Okay, well.  It's the day before Thanksgiving and everyone is gearing up to go to Grandma's house, or to get up at zero o'clock so you can drag giant Shrek balloons down Manhattan, or to do things that will stay in Vegas, or to spend a few days of much needed down time before tech week (that's me), or to sing along with Legally Blonde, or whatever.

In any event, nothing much will happen, at least nothing blogworthy (as opposed to the things I write about?  Hmmmm)....

Happy T-giving, yo.

Santa Claus's Blog

He's no longer during monthly posts in the "off-season".  Bookmark it.  (And that's his personal blog.  The blog of the corporate parent can be found here.)

The Golden Wingnut Award

Over at The Washington Monthly, A-list blogger Kevin Drum has been holding tallying the votes for the Golden Wingnut Award, an award he just made up for the wingnuttiest blog post ever.

The winner by a substantial margin was John Hinderaker of The Corner for his July 28, 2005 masterpiece containing these words of unforgettable wingnuttery:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile....

Other nominees and the final vote tally are as follows:

By the way, there are legitimate blog awards going on right now.  Even if you don't want to vote, the nominee lists are good for finding blogs in areas that interest you.

RELATED:  They may be on strike, but that doesn't stop Hollywood writers from blogging about the strike.

Moving To The Dark Side

John Cole of the popular conservative site, Balloon Juice, has been getting increasingly annoyed with his party for the past few years.

And now he's done it: he went and registered as a Democrat.

A bit of an embarrassment is that Balloon Juice was nominated as one the finalists for Best Conservative Blog of 2007.  Cole is not phased -- he holds his conservative bona fides close to his heart.  He just doesn't think the Republican Party under George Bush is very, well, conservative (big spending, spying, etc.)

There's A Blog For Every Subject Nowadays

Case in point.

Wear Me!

Yea, that's right. I'm merchandizing.

No, I don't profit from this.... I'm just screwing around (but, yes, you can buy this stuff).

The U.S. Government Blog

That's right.  The United States Government has a blog, because that's what all the kids are into these days, and the U.S. Government is nothing if not "hip".  It's been up for a month now.

It's called "Gov Gab: Your U.S. Government Blog".  I'm not lying.  Look at the url.  It's a dot-gov.  Not a dot-com.  Not a dot-net.  A dot-gov.

This is a good idea and long overdue, because now we can see what the United States government is up to, and become the informed citizenry necessary to the functioning of a vital democracy.  Take, for example, this post from a couple of days ago:

Little Tiny Grasslings

My husband struggled all summer to grow a new lawn to replace the awful clover and weeds that were growing in our 10’x 10’ front yard. He started in June, first with some regular grass seed. Faithful twice daily watering resulted in only partial success so he moved on to a more fool proof product, you know, the seed that’s covered with newspaper and fertilizer (the stuff that’s bright blue?). I guess it’s supposed to make the germination process a little easier since the newspaper keeps in the moisture and the fertilizer helps it grow. Faithful watering of this particular seed worked beautifully and --

Wait, WTF?!?

There's so much I've already learned about my government, just from this (partial) blog post.  For example, I had no idea that the U.S. government:

• was a woman
• was married
• had a very small front yard

Wow.  They didn't teach that stuff in civics!

So who writes the U.S. government blog, the blog of the most industrialized and powerful nation of all known humankind?

Is it the President?  No, silly.  He's a busy man.  Besides, he's just one man.

No, sir.  Blogging for this great country requires six (count 'em, six!) bloggers.  You can read their bios here, but here's a typical bio:

Sam is a twenty-something Southern belle who brought her pointed-toe shoes (now peep toe) and passion for all things accessories to the federal government 4 years ago. When she's not relying on the kindness of bureaucrats or telling anyone who'll listen about all of Uncle Sam's great resources, you can find Sam shopping for the latest bargains, planning her next exotic vacay, or cheering on her beloved Georgia Bulldawgs. Other passions: flea markets, banana pudding, and celebrity gossip.

Ooookay then.

But for me, I need to have a face to go with the blog.

And so here it is, ladies and gentleman, the face of the United States government:

His name is Jake.  He likes Dave Barry, and -- I'm not making this up -- spends time "negotiating meal times with his cat".

Pledge allegience to him.