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January 06, 2004

You know something's wrong with your life when...
... the lady behind the drive-through window at Taco Bell recognizes you and doesn't even have to ask about your salsa preferences.
trackmania 1.5

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Labels without glue
: There's a tempest boiling below with some folks -- not many -- decreeing that I can't call myself liberal because they don't approve. Since it's my liberal blood that's boiling, let me tell you what's wrong with that:
First, these people simply don't know what they're talking about -- because they're talking about me. They don't know what I have to say about abortion, the environment, health-care reform, taxes, gun control, gay marriage, separation of church and state, human rights (even of Iraqis!) -- and, frankly, I don't need to tell them just as I don't need to bid for their approval. They make their judgment because I don't agree with them about the war and because I dare to criticize my fellow liberals when they deserve it and because I don't chant along with every bit of cant bashing Bush and his administration.
Second, these people are setting themselves up as judges of what and who are liberal and not. That's not for them to say. But more important, that's essentially exclusionary. And I thought that liberalism wanted to be inclusionary. I would think that at a time when liberals are out of power, they would need to be inclusionary, they would want to sell the viewpoint, to draw people in, not kick them out. But these people want to snipe; it's sport for them, I guess. But it's bad strategy. If you keep telling people that they can't be liberal, if you keep calling them "right-wing" with venom in your voice if they dare to disagree with you, then you will drive them away and you will lose the next election. It's stupid.
Third, when putting up signs with such labels, or trying to take down mine -- you're not liberal, you are right-wing -- it's a very short walk to Bigot Street: You're not black enough. You're too black. You're not Jewish enough. You're too Jewish. You're not gay enough. You're too gay. Pick your ethnic slap and slur. How far do you want to go, people? It's all on the same route on MapQuest.
Fourth, it's single-minded and simple-minded and just wrong. Life isn't this simple; even politics isn't. Read Totten or Simon. They gave up the liberal label because they thought it was too simplistic and because all of this disgusted them. I still hold onto it -- except you don't want me to. Well, to hell with you.
You know who you are, each and every one of you.
And you know what? You owe me an apology.
Shame on you. You'd think a liberal would know better. You'd think.trackmania 1.5

: Michael Totten has a few things to say.trackmania 1.5

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The wrong memorial
: So they selected the World Trade Center memorial.
I'm terribly upset.
It is Reflecting Absence, the bathroom-floor design: pools lined in cold tile meant to display emptiness where the towers and their lives stood, all dripping with tears, the names of the lost engraved in haphazard order because that's the way they were taken.
I want to scream.
Here is what I said about it when I saw the model. It has only settled worse on my soul since.
This is not how we should remember and learn and honor and teach and fight and defy and grow and heal.
We are rushing into this and we will regret it. trackmania 1.5

: UPDATE: Michele is equally unhappy about the choice. We've exchanged email about it for we're both upset. trackmania 1.5

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Anonymity
: The Preacher is wrestling with the question of anonymity. I'll just say this: Whether in a blog or in a comment, I have much more respect for the person who has the guts to use his or her name. trackmania 1.5

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Moveon already
: I just watched the 15 MoveOn ads against Bush. And I have to say that I now think the war was wrong.
Gotcha! January fools! It'd take more than seven and a half minutes of pop polemics to brainwash me.
The ads all followed the assignment: Skewer Bush in 30 seconds.
And it's the assignment that bothers me. The assignment only extends the problem with liberalism today: It's all about being against. It's all about no. It's all about bad dog, bad.
How much better it would have been to assign these creative masses to come up with ads that present a positive view of a better world without Bush and with a vision we can grab onto and support with pride.
But there's none of that. This is all about bashing. That's what MoveOn is about here. That's what the campaign on the Democratic side is about these days -- bashing Bush or each other.
This isn't World Wrestling, folks. It's our country. It's our future. It's our lives. It's our world.
Hell, I'm a Democrat. I voted against Bush. I should be the perfect audience for this: I'm Mr. Undecided; I can't find a candidate I like; I'm dying to hear a vision I can buy. Instead, this only turns me off: More bashing, more carping, more complaining, no ideas.
It's time to get past the complaining and do something.
It's time to move on, MoveOn.trackmania 1.5

: More: Driving to a church meeting tonight, I kept thinking about this. What bothers me is that it's venting, just venting.
Now venting feels good but it is essentially an immature response; it's foot-stomping of the sort we all did when we toddled and we were supposed to get past that, to learn how to accomplish what we want instead of just complaining about what we don't want.
But maybe Andrew Sullivan is right (below) and venting is really what the Democratic campaign is all about.
Howard Dean is the Venter-in-Chief.
And that's what bugs me about him.trackmania 1.5

: AND ONE MORE THING... A comment talks about the ads professionals have made in campaigsn over the years and that got me to realize what else really bothers me about this: I expect the professionals to make bashfests, sadly. But I had hoped for something better from the people.
But, you know, I'll bet there were better ads in the bunch, with more vision and hope and the ethic of building. But the jury Moveon picked wouldn't pick those ads.trackmania 1.5

: In the comments, I also get pissed when someone tries to say I'm not liberal. Go see my pissyfit at the pissant (oh, no, a label!) there. I have to go to a church meeting now.
And, no, just because I'm going to church, it doesn't mean I'm Republican. The most liberal people I know are in church...trackmania 1.5

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Writer for hire
: Michael J. Totten, who regularly impresses many hereabouts, has jumped from the screen to the printed page and, having experienced the smell of the newsprint and the roar of the press (and the pay of print), wants more. If I were still editing a print magazine, I'd be hiring Totten and some other talented folks hereabouts. But I'm not. But you are (and you know who you are). So give him a shot. Find new talent, new blood, new voices. trackmania 1.5

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The writer with the shopping cart
: Greg Allen gets exasperated with Hubert Muschamp's latest World Trade Center suggestion in the NY Times and concludes, delightfully:

If the Times were the 1/9 train, Muschamp would be the guy who gets on at 103rd, whose jabberings scare the passengers boarding downstream into other cars.

trackmania 1.5

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Jackogate continues
: More criticism of Sharon Waxman's story that tried, lamely, to argue that CBS paid Michael Jackson for his lame 60 Minutes interview. USA Today quotes Don Hewitt calling The Times story a "colossal lie." trackmania 1.5

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The juicy bits
: FastCompay's blog gives us the X-rated parts from the story of the AOL-TW merger.trackmania 1.5

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GoogleNews or GoogleViews?
: GoogleNews' sources keep getting stranger and stranger -- all the while, it still does not include weblogs.
I just did a search on "MoveOn" to find the link to a NYTimes story for a comment on the Hitler commercial (below) and on that list of results at GoogleNews, I found: CounterPunch, GOPUsa, PHXNews, Mens News Daily, NewsMax, RushLimbaugh.com, WorldNet Daily, TownHall.com, CyberCast News, Christian Broadcasting Network, One Thousand Reasons, ChronWatch, Guerilla News Network, Alternet, Muslim WakeUp!, Center for American Progress, Intellectual Conservative, FrontPageMag.
Now clearly, I have nothing against opinion online! Many of these sites are nothing but opinion and have less analysis and balance and news judgment and more of an axe to grind than many a fine weblog.
Google benefits greatly from weblogs; as fear keeps Monsters Inc. powered, links keep Google powered. You'd think they'd include at least the top bloggers. I want that as a reader service: I'd far rather find what Josh Marshall or Andrew Sullivan or Mickey Kaus has to say about this than most of the sites I just listed!
And whether with or without bloggers in the mix, the list of sources is getting rather funky. I'm not saying that shouldn't be part of a Google news search but I am saying that they often clutter up the results when what I'm looking for is just a quote or a fact or a date, not a tirade.
So here's a suggestion, Google, for a new service to go alongside GoogleNews:
GoogleViews: a complilation and search of top opinion from editorial pages, weblogs, advocacy sites.
If you like GoogleViews, you can give me a share of stock....trackmania 1.5

: UPDATE: Dana Blankenhorn calls GoogleNews' discrimination against any content created by weblog a "scandal."trackmania 1.5

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Hollyblog
: Star-Ledger TV critic Alan Sepinwall is blogging the TV critics' junket.trackmania 1.5

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Context and content
: More on the stone-skipping nature of advertising via word-coincidence on Google vs. the richer relationship building of sponsoring content.

CNet CEO Shelby Bonnie underscored the value content providers offer to marketers and advertisers. Bonnie said that the search and directory and comparison-shopping companies are essentially offering commodity services similar to yellow-page advertising. These services fulfill demand, as opposed to content providers, which create demand, he suggested. To this end, marketers will be driven to advertise on the content pages to influence buying decisions and create demand.

That has always been the value of advertising in content; that has been what has supported the content industry (vs. the directory business). Branding will happen associated with content (that's the relationship I was talking about); messages will get across associated with content (that's why campaigns are advertising on weblogs). [via PaidContent]trackmania 1.5

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iPod mini
: Happened in on the Steve Jobs keynote just as he introduced the iPod mini: 4gigs of memory... 1,000 songs... half-inch-thick... size of a business card... comes in colors (silver, gold, blue, pink, green)... $249.
It's a clever positioning, putting the customer between a rock and a hard place. Hmmm. I can buy a flash player for $199 and get 256megs of memory to play 60 songs or I can spend another $50 and get this. And once I've made that leap, well, what the hell, another $50 and I get a real iPod for $299 and they just increased its drive from 10gigs to 15gigs.
I wish I could buy music and put it on my phone. I can't. So I'll proabably buy the mini. (And maybe that will work with that @)$&@#^#%^$&#&@#^ Audible.)trackmania 1.5

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Gotta love the 'Gun
: Britney Jean Spears' annulment decree.trackmania 1.5

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Make the citizens the stars
: Anil's right: It's smart of The Times to quote so many weblog comments in this story. trackmania 1.5

(Silly style nitpik: Why is The Times style Web log sted weblog? Catch up, folks.)trackmania 1.5

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Sullivan on Dean
: I can't quite grok Andrew Sullivan's essential endorsement of Howard Dean. Is it:
(a) the cynical act of a Bush backer who wants him to face the weakest foe?
(b) a resurgence of Sullivan's Clinton-bashing: Anybody Clinton hates must be a friend of his? (And anybody Clinton backs -- Clark -- must be "a crackpot.")
(c) the secret, forbidden longing of an in-the-closet Democrat?
He seems to disagrees with and dislike Dean on most fronts and yet thinks that having Dean represent the Democrats will somehow be like an ideological dose of Metamucil.

The Dems haven't given themselves an opportunity to vent about the way they really feel - about those benighted rednecks, dumb-ass preppies, preposterous puritans and economic snake oil-salesmen they believe are now running the country. It would be really unhealthy for America and the Democrats to repress that any longer. They'll give themselves a collective hernia. Dean represents an opportunity for honesty, for relief, for a true cultural clash.

No thanks, Doc. I think you've misprescribed. Dean is more of an irritant to the collective colon. What we need, instead, is a good dose of political Pepto.
trackmania 1.5

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Context lite
: Wonk commends to our reading Nate Elliott's column that calls Google's AdSense program a "house of cards:"

AdSense is a house of cards, built on a foundation that forces advertisers to overpay for contextual ads. If Google allowed separate bids, it would risk losing revenue on multiple fronts: from the lower bids, the loss of distribution, and the loss of revenue share. The company bet it could keep prices high and revenue shares low as it built this program. But with smart advertisers turning off their AdSense ads, it's time for Google to give advertisers what they want.
Google must create a separate marketplace for bidding on AdSense ads. Contextual advertising will be a very large business. At appropriate prices it can be a very effective advertising tool. Forcing advertisers to pay inflated prices can only stunt the business's growth and hurt Google's reputation as a fair and friendly company. Creating a separate marketplace would probably also force Google to reveal the revenue share it offers publishers. An added measure of transparency would surely be welcome.

Google can't -- and shouldn't -- do it all. Others will -- and should -- do what Elliott wants.
Google is the last mass medium. It deals in big numbers. It is forever hungry for inventory. It is essentially shallow. Whether you are buying an ad on a search term or on a term that happens in (cont)text, you're essentially buying a coincidence. What you really want to buy is a relationship.
trackmania 1.5

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Neowhine
: David Brooks writes his obligatory neocons-are-just-regular-guys-not-conspirators column -- "con is short for 'conservative' and neo is short for 'Jewish' " -- and that's fine until the end, when he makes a sweeping generalization that is oddly paranoid and conspiratorial, considering that he just -- properly -- debunked conspiracy theories:

Still, there are apparently millions of people who cling to the notion that the world is controlled by well-organized and malevolent forces. And for a subset of these people, Jews are a handy explanation for everything.
There's something else going on, too. The proliferation of media outlets and the segmentation of society have meant that it's much easier for people to hive themselves off into like-minded cliques. Some people live in towns where nobody likes President Bush. Others listen to radio networks where nobody likes Bill Clinton.
In these communities, half-truths get circulated and exaggerated. Dark accusations are believed because it is delicious to believe them. Vince Foster was murdered. The Saudis warned the Bush administration before Sept. 11.
You get to choose your own reality. You get to believe what makes you feel good. You can ignore inconvenient facts so rigorously that your picture of the world is one big distortion.
And if you can give your foes a collective name — liberals, fundamentalists or neocons — you can rob them of their individual humanity. All inhibitions are removed. You can say anything about them. You get to feed off their villainy and luxuriate in your own contrasting virtue. You will find books, blowhards and candidates playing to your delusions, and you can emigrate to your own version of Planet Chomsky. You can live there unburdened by ambiguity.
Improvements in information technology have not made public debate more realistic. On the contrary, anti-Semitism is resurgent. Conspiracy theories are prevalent. Partisanship has left many people unhinged.
Welcome to election year, 2004.

It has always been thus. The labels go way back as do the idiots and so do their little clubs. Don't blame that on "improvements in information technology." If anything, those who partake of those improvements can't help but get exposed to more worldviews; I've found that it makes them more flexible. Those who don't want to partake wouldn't be flexible anyway. Technology isn't the boogeyman. Ignorance is. trackmania 1.5

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International
: New:
Top blogs in Canada.
: Living in China.
: Living in India.
: Living in Latin America.
: Southern Exposure.
: Sun of Iraq.trackmania 1.5

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Before and after liberation
: Iraqi blogger Omar reports from the small town outside of Bashrah where he will be practicing dentistry:

The sewage system is incomplete, garbage is everywhere, communications are difficult, the people are simple and peaceful but are really poor, the whole town looked like ruins. In other words; people there are still living in the 18th. Century.
These areas seemed to be suffering from neglect for decades, and one would think that the government might be unaware of the presence of this town, but this is not true. Those towns and villages were not only isolated from the rest of the world , but from the rest of Iraq as well.
Those people were being abandoned (on purpose) and punished by orders of the dictator, and this applies also to many other areas all over Iraq.
The people there have always showed their rejection to the Ba’ath regime, and even took their weapons to fight SH, the lucky were killed and the rest had to live and suffer from the revenge and humiliation of the tyrant.
We saw tens of destroyed tanks on the sides of the road, Saddam had 5000 tanks before 1991; the cost of each one was enough to pave a street, build a public clinic or supply clean water for a village. Saddam had about a thousand aircrafts; the cost of each was enough to build a town. And he continued to build his army, along with his palaces after the gulf war. So I don’t think that (lack of funds) was the reason for the peoples’ misery.
However, beside all these painful scenes, we found some good things over there:
The medical care centers were the first thing to be rebuilt and reequipped after the liberation, and a small new house was built there for the doctors to stay in.
there is no problem with electricity and gasoline as we noticed....

trackmania 1.5

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