Friday’s Mini-Report

December 29, 2006

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson’s (D) 60th birthday is today, and while his condition is no longer front-page news, the latest updates are encouraging. Johnson’s office released a statement yesterday noting that while the senator remains in critical condition, he has improved. According to his neurosurgeon, Johnson is “gradually being weaned from the sedation.” In the statement, the senator’s wife says, “Tim continues to give us great hope. While we were both looking forward to celebrating his 60th birthday with our family and friends, I know the celebration is just postponed.”

* Whaddaya know, the entire Bush war cabinet adopts Ahmadinejad look.

* Right-wing talk-show host Michael Reagan went so far as to compare Gerald Ford to Saddam Hussein today: “Saddam Hussein is a lucky man — in no time at all he can expect to have his reputation vastly improved … If you doubt that scenario, consider what we are now witnessing with the death of former President Gerald R. Ford.” Wow.

* It’s a shame to see former New York Mayor Ed Koch slip so far from solid ground: “George Bush is a hero to me because he has courage. The president does what he believes to be in the best interest of the United States. He sticks with his beliefs, no matter how intense the criticism and invective that are directed against him every day.” It’s enough to make me feel really sorry for the guy.

* AT&T officials seem to have delivered a major victory for net neutrality, though rumor has it the announcement may not be quite as encouraging as it seems.

* When Crooks & Liars has one of those video clips that everyone checks out, let’s just say, everyone checks it out. Three of the top five most popular blog posts of 2006 were C&L items.

* Josh Marshall has some poignant thoughts on Saddam Hussein’s execution.

* Brilliant at Breakfast has a provocative post comparing the blogosphere to high school. It’s definitely worth reading.

* Politics TV did a nice job doing a mash-up of the Coke polar bear ads with a global warming message.

* I don’t intend to wade too deeply into the “lonely Kerry” waters again — right-wing blogs were wrong; I don’t want to rub their noses in it — but before we leave the subject entirely, Frank Lowenstein, Kerry’s foreign policy staffer who was with Kerry in Iraq, has issued a statement that sheds quite a bit of light on the subject. I don’t expect the conservatives to apologize or correct their posts on the subject, but it’d be the honorable thing to do.

* Nitpicker scored a cool interview with Paul Krugman. The clip is online as via YouTube.

* And Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) is so desperate to score points with the religious right, he’s threatening to block a scheduled pay raise for state lawmakers unless they agree to a referendum banning gay marriage. It’s all for show — the raises are guaranteed by law — but Romney apparently wants to try and impress the religious right one last time before he leaves office on Jan. 4.

If none of these particular items are of interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

Open Thread

On typos:

“The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is cuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey teter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I wlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! “

  • When Crooks & Liars has one of those video clips that everyone checks out, let’s just say, everyone checks it out. Three of the top five most popular blog posts of 2006 were C&L items.

    Gosh those numbers seem small. 801 links made the top post win?

    So if you had the time and energy to create 800 blogs and then linked to one post from all of them you’d have the most popular post?
    Could be done. Hmmmm.

  • Somebody needs to tell Ed Koch that acting with reckless abandon and foolish disregard is not courage. If that were the case, the guys on “Jackass” would be national heroes. Any idiot can do what Bush does.

  • I agree with Josh that the Saddam hanging is a shameful spectable, but in a sense that IS justice for the pompous ridiculous murderer.

    On the other hand it does seem like a story out of Tales of Colonial Times with the British version of justice in its colonies.Tie me kangaroo court down, mate.

  • Can’t Mitt no. Satisfaction.

    Mitt is obviously willing to waste taxpayer time and money and hijack governmental process to do stupid candidate tricks for the evangelicals.

    The evangelicals are his audience but the guys holding the score cards are his corporate masters. This one gets a 8.5, 9.0, 6.5 and a 7.0.

    So once again, Mitt: how many spouses can’t gays have?

  • Dale (#1), I love that misspelling thing and have sent a form of it out many times. Back when I was teaching at Western Washington University (’70-’02) I can’t tell you the number of times some faculty member, in either a formal meeting or casual lunchtime conversation, would complain about students’ spelling.

    I was always a stickler for spelling (re-enforced by a stint as campus newspaper editor back in college), but I also thought insisting on it was really a form of snobbery. I’d point out to my colleagues (and mention it in virtually every class) that a few centuries ago you were regarded as ignorant if you lacked Latin and Greek (or Hebrew or German or French). I read somewhere that the 26 authenticated signatures of Shakespeare are each spelled differently. The only reason for standardizing spelling was the invention of the printing press (locals only needed to know the local spelling). Now the dominance of the printing press is coming under severe question with the increasing prevalence of electronic media. (I just corrected two typos and one misspelling in this paragraph, with the help of a spell-checker). The cycle will be complete when technology makes it possible for everything to spoken/audio, as it was in the days before writing.

    I don’t necessarily go along with all that, but it does make for interesting arguments.

  • Brilliant at Breakfast has a provocative post comparing the blogosphere to high school. It’s definitely worth reading.

    Interesting perspective. The Kewl Kids and the rest of us.

    I happen to have a blog story on my blog. Without much more ado, here it is:

    This is how it went for one new blogger.

    After 30 days he had written 42 posts, gotten 922 comments and 304 trackbacks.

    He had 268,060 unique visitors (211,947 first-time visitors and 56,113 repeat visitors) Technorati moved his ranking from 488 to 289 in 2 weeks. And 1,479 sites maintain 2,843 links to his blog. About 4,231 people get his blog via RSS feeds and 428 people get it through email.

    Typical, eh?

    Oh and the guy’s name is Guy Kawasaki, the former Macintosh marketing guru and author.

    It’s not what you write, it’s who knows you.

  • Very interesting, Ed #7. It makes me remember how pulsatingly alive our language actually is. (I guarantee you I will make at least one typo during this message I’m writing. (Just caught one!) )

    They say that if you just went back 100 years it would be almost impossible to have a conversation with people you met.

    I wonder if a tendency to spot typos is a strength or a weakness.As the comedian said, “It’s a dull person who can only spell a word one way.”

    You mention Local Spelling. Isn’t that what hip hop slang is? Especially with the spelling variations like Boyz?

    I notice that in this time of spell-checking that most typos are real words in the wrong place. Like and for an. Is there a term for that?

  • ” And Mr. Koch, if President Bush asked us to jump off a bridge, would you … oh wait, yes, he has asked us to jump off a bridge and there goes Ed Koch … “

  • It’s a shame to see former New York Mayor Ed Koch slip so far from solid ground: “George Bush is a hero to me because he has courage. The president does what he believes to be in the best interest of the United States. He sticks with his beliefs, no matter how intense the criticism and invective that are directed against him every day.”

    Ed Koch has been living proof that being an idiot is no impediment to political success his entire life. All this does is remind those old enough to remember, and explain to those too young to know, that he’s a halfwit.

  • Ed Koch has abandoned rationality. You make a hero out of someone who sticks to his BELIEFS even though he is dead wrong?

  • Bush has gone from existential to post-modern, naschkatze#12. There is no right or wrong in politics. He was voted best Hero and worst Villain. The people around him tell him he’s right. Why would he consider other opinions?

  • Trivia Queston: What is one thing Koch often said that George Bush never says?

    Answer on my blog, no no no just kidding. Answer in a later comment.

  • Dale: “How’m I doing?”

    (Though “I am not a Christian”, which Koch supposedly said in response to some question about turning the other cheek, is an amusing alternate answer.)

  • I know I’m late here, but I had to comment on this:

    Brilliant at Breakfast has a provocative post comparing the blogosphere to high school. It’s definitely worth reading.

    That’s funny … I wrote almost the exact same post nearly a year ago (I’d give a link, but my site’s blocked here at work). Maybe I should sue for copyright infringement.

    😉

    • Comments are closed.