Attack of the Fashion Bloggers

Question is – what does that mean?

That’s a start. But when are people going to start asking how it is that a load of people with a desire to go legit in the world of political commentary could affiliate themselves with a website whose special brand of bigotry has made it a household name for rabid right-wing racism against Arabs?

LGF is one of the key weakpoints in this whole enterprise. Guys, look up: there’s an elephant in the room!

But what do you think of the new Open Source site? Is it fun to use and workable? I notice a lot of flabbiness in the writing.

…

And why should anyone care what these bloggers think? Who are they? Unless you’re already sold on blogging, the teasers are laughable: “Blogger Joshuapundit seems quite unhappy,” “War to Mobilize Democracy is ‘nervous,’” Anything They Say “is pleasantly surprised.”

She seems to have got under their skin, too. These weaknesses go much deeper than silly debates over names and trademarks, or who they’re inviting to speak at a function. I visited the OSM site yesterday, and as she suggests, its not particularly fun *or* workable. Nothing about it was inviting, and I was loathe to surf anywhere past the homepage.

I’m not really complaining, just sort of… amused and astounded.

You don’t seem to be reporting on OSM/Pajamas so much as actively working for its defeat. Regardless of popularity or pageviews, that’s kind of sad, but you seem to have your reasons.

By the way, while we’re on the subject of infringement, I notice that in the masthead of the DennisThePeasant blog, there is a prominent display of a character name (Dennis the Peasant), trademark line (“Help, help! I’m being repressed!”), and a photograph (Michael Palin as Dennis the Peasant) from a copyrighted film (Monty Python and the Holy Grail). I trust DennisThePeasant is not just using that material assuming some sort of fair use (in that it constitutes the identity of his entire blog), and that he has obtained the proper permissions for doing so.

Every ax-grinding reaches a point where additional efforts will only degrade the blade, Dennis. Others are reacting to Open Sores now, and will judge it on its merits. Your personal beef is obviously very interesting to you, but perhaps a bit less so to others.

But in any event, this is Mr. Jarvis’ blog and it’s impolite to use up too much of it on issues of limited relevance to others. Note that I’m basically on your side, and that I’m simply commenting on your methods.

I wish them all the best, though.

Oh and Open Source Media – the *real* OSM, has posted about this here:
http://www.radioopensource.org/open-source-media-in-case-youre-confused/

They bring up creative commons licensing rightly because they GET what that those two words mean.

That bit of the licensing I posted previously which – Jeff – you probably should remove because it is probably in violation of – shows just how….

closed…

this thing is.

Open source? Bullshit. That’s what it is.

Come on…

It would never occur to anyone that I would carry this through to the Launch date and then let it go?

And the only people who think bad “buzz” is better than “no buzz” are those in Hollywood. How’s that industry doing these days?

PJ has made all sorts of silly mistakes and managed to come to their opening day with more enemies than Bush, but there it is and so what? Now the question is whether they succeed or fail in the ad selling business, and if you’re right they’ll fail, and that will be your reward.

By complaining about them all over the internets you’re also making buzz for their business, which is really quite ironic.

I’m shocked.

All I can say is I’ve had exactly two complaints about what I’m doing in the last month. My traffic, as of today, has increased tenfold over the past month. My links and backtracks have increased twentyfold. Nearly all of it coming from Liberal/Left sites who despise Roger and Charles even more than I (some of it is amazingly vicious). As I am a member of the VRWC, they aren’t there to bask in my political orientation.

Bottom line? Dirt seems to sell… And you may find this hard to believe, but Roger Simon and Charles Johnson have pissed off a whole lot of people who wanted to get involved in PJM/OSM… he didn’t cheat them, he just dropped them the moment they were no longer of any use to him. I’ve got a folder stuffed with emails from bloggers complaining about how badly they were treated by Roger. And lots of them are happy I’m doing what I’m doing.

Roger and Charles had the choice of compensating myself and our fourth partner for dealing with as they did and they chose not to do so. I wanted my pound of flesh, and this is how I chose to get it. People have killed over less money that I’ve lost in this deal, and given that, he’s lucky it was me he screwed, rather than someone with a real mean streak and a gun.

I have repeatedly embarrassed them, and I have been told by someone within the OSM circle who has DIRECT knowledge that at least one of Roger’s venture capitalists reads my blog every morning… That’s what got Luke Ford fired and got OSM’s New York telephone number working. So chances are, tomorrow Roger’s going to be getting a telephone call about whether OSM has a legal problem involving trademark infringement. That’s the whole point of what I’m doing right now… showing the world that the boy wonders are winging it.

And if it isn’t pretty, well, it isn’t pretty. I can live with my part in it.