The End

Well, as some of you may know, I'm at Pandagon now. And since I'm not Matt fucking Yglesias, I'm done posting here. I don't expect a whole lot to change. This has been nice, and all. But like a worn out condom, there's no need to get sentimental.

Tata

WARNING:THE CONTENT OF THIS POST IS EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE

Click Here to see what evil looks like.

Blue Girl also made me cry today.

Yesterday too.

"I Was Hoping He Was Gifted Sexually"

UPDATE:
I had a brilliant thought over at 3Bulls which I want to add:

"I think I figured out why Bob Loblaw doesn't work for me. It's as if they wrote the character and then just wrote him into the episode like "hey isn't that funny." As opposed to Winkler where they didn't seem to go out of their way to create him. They needed a lawyer for various scenes and wrote him into it. All of the lawyering in this episode was unnecessary.

It's probably the same thing for Rita. Like hey, we got Charlize Theron. Let's create a character for her and plot."

Also, I used the term "retro review" above, and I just want to clarify that these aren't really "reviews" but more accurately criticisms. The difference being that a review assumes the reader hasn't seen the episode. A criticism, or critique if you will, assumes the reader is familiar with the critiqued material. So there's that.

Also Arrested D, returns on October 31. Mark your calender Blue Girl.

Now back to the original post:

I tried to work the title around the "Tobias Funke: Analrapist" joke, which has got to be the darkest joke to have ever aired at 8 o clock on Broadcast television. I also pondered going with Gob's "He's my son you pothead," line which for my money were the funniest moments on tonight's Arrested D. And there were a lot of funny moments. A very solid show tonight. I can't gush too much about it, because I just don't care for the Rita storyline too much. It's easily my least favorite plot in the show's short history. Also, I don't care for the Bob Loblaw character so much. And I don't care for the blahblahblah joke either. Unfortunately, it's not going anywhere. One more complaint, the surrogate dad was kinda funny, but I didn't like it that much. And I think they went a little long with it.

Otherwise, this was classic Arrested Development. I don't feel like it was their best episode, but it was definitely the best episode of Season three so far and was overall a pretty average episode, not appreciably worse than the standard Arrested Development fare. The pacing problems are under control. Gob and Buster are getting their jokes in. Lucille and Tobias, I still feel, are suffering in the writing a wee bit, but I'm just being picky. Funny funny stuff with Gob's "forget me nots" and Buster clubbing the stuffed seal on Rita's backpack. For the third week in a row, they had a clunker in the narration, but otherwise a very strong job by Ron Howard. Especially the "This would be a great time for a commercial break." Begin to cue the music. "But it wasn't" Also, Gob was on fire the whole episode. "In our defense Ma, we're not dog people" Haha. "You lobbed that one over the plate, Michael. Homerun!" And the on the next Arrested Development bit with Steve Holt. So funny.

Unfortunately just as Arrested D has hit its stride, it looks like it'll be preempted for about a month due to the baseball playoffs on Fox, which especially blows, since the Indians found a way to screw themselves out of a playoff spot, and I have no reason to even pretend to care about the outcome anymore. Some are gloomy about the prospects of Arrested D. returning after baseball ends, but I'm reasonably confident, that despite the low ratings, FOX won't pull the plug that soon. One tiny glimmer of hope lies in DVD sales, which provide another source of revenue besides ad sales. A show like King of Queens may do well in the ratings, because Americans after a hard day at work or whatever, might like to zone out to some jokes they've heard before. But a show like King of Queens will never sell well on DVD, like Arrested Development, practically made for repeat viewings and with its hardcore fans, might. So if you can, buy the season 2 DVD when it comes out on October 11. And the Season 1 DVD as soon as you can. Remember, Family guy, a far inferior show, was saved from cancellation by strong DVD sales.

It seems as though the weak ratings are causing bitterness among the writers, too. Like when they're at Fat Ammy's, the American style restaurant in wee Britain, and Rita says "And they laugh at the stupidest things." So Michael responds "Michael: That's your typical american. they're all so juvenille with everything. It's like they're in arrested development." Which led to the narrator's clunker. But still kinda funny. Almost harkens back to the Ben Stiller episode where the bluth company's housing order got cut from 22 to 18, just after Fox reduced their episode order from 22 to 18. Or "why do we even market to this idiot demographic?" Haha. Neat. Also, that bit in episode 2, where Gob is hiding from Steve Holt in the birdcage and then gives Tom a "vitamin" finally makes sense.

Anyway, I'll probably like this episode a lot more on the season 3 DVD, but definitely a good one as is. On the Pitchfork scale I give it a 8.768. No episode next week, but I'll probably do a retro review of an earlier classic episode, instead.

Nominee Blogging

Check out Harriet Miers's Blog everyone. But also check out the sour grapes from snubbed potential nominee J Michael Luttig. I predict funny stuff from these blogs over the next couple of weeks. And then I'll probably never visit them again.

Get Your Roots Out Of My Clusters You Stupid Bitch

I was going to do this over at Ezra's, but then I just didn't know if it was really appropriate to launch a contest this awesome on someone else's blog. As I'm sure you all know, the New York Times recently published the correspondence between Scooter Libby and Judy Miller in the whole "who gave love to the terrorists for partisan advantage?" mystery. In the course of releasing Miller from her promise of confidentiality, so that she might testify about conversations she's had with Libby concerning Valerie Plame and whether or not she was an undercover CIA agent, Libby writes:

"You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover—Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They're in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work—-and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers."

Quickly, over at the daily kos, while taking a break from the important shit, they stumbled upon the very real possibility that this is some kind of coded message. Come on, "the aspens will be turning." "They turn in clusters because their roots connect them." I've seen enough movies to know some codery when I see it. Unfortunately it would be impossible to crack that code with any sort of confidence. Aspens could figuratively mean anything. All I know is that that fucker is not talking about trees.

So in light of my love for rampant and reckless speculation and my deep fondness for creativity. I'm announcing a contest to see who can come up with the best interpretation. And by best, I mean craziest, but crazy in a humorous way, or at least in an angrily and irrationally partisan way. I'm not sure if sincerity will be rewarded or punished in the judging. There's just no way to tell what kind of mood I'll be in. If you have your own blog, I encourage you to post your best shot there and trackback, otherwise you can do it in the comments. Blue Girl has helpfully gotten us started with two separate theories. Check 'em out. But don't be intimidated, I'm confident one of you enterprising sorts can top blue girl. I'm also confident that we're all mature enough to keep our minds out of the gutter concerning that last statement. No one's impressed with your ability to turn my innocuous statements into double entendres, or as the french say, "double entendres." And I don't care if I've told that joke before either. It's called a "running gag" dipshits.

Anyway, we'll see if anyone bothers to enter before we think about prizes. I'm thinking it's probably sexual favors though, courtesy of moi.

"Throwing a Tattoo on a Sexpot Makes… a Tattooed Sexpot"

Remember when Walt Disney made the here-to-fore seedy carnival safe for children? Or how about when Vince McMahon did the same with professional wrestling in the 1980's? The recent attempts to do something similar with porn by Suicide Girls is being exposed as the rank facade it is. Not that they were trying to make porn safe for children as such, but the attempt to market Suicide Girls, not as something seedy and exploitative, but empowering and alternative, with an almost wholesome fondness for the excessively pierced, tattooed hipster punk rockeress next door.

I never really got into the Suicide Girls thing, myself. It seemed too image conscious to be the kind of true amateur porn with which my druthers lie. But compared to the cold sterility of the spread eagled blonde in an anonymous studio, it seemed like a step in the right direction for mainstream porn, if not solely aesthetically, but at least ethically.

Turns out, though, not so much. Check out this description of the site's owner. Clinical Sociopath No?

This leads me to the constant verbal abuse and threats that sean dishes out to models, or anyone who gets close enough to experience his personality. i have heard him call everyone in the office "fucking morons and idiots" on numerous occasions. i have heard him call models, "sluts", "whores", "junkies", "stupid", etc...this list is longer that i care to write. in fact the burlesque tour girls had an on-going joke about this, and actually wrote and taped a piece of paper that read "YOU SUCK! - from sean" on our costume bin. sometimes ya gotta make light of the ugly stuff. i have watched girls (my friends) cry themselves to sleep at night (on numerous occasions) due to his verbals insults and downright mean behavior. i have also heard sean laugh about it later...amused at his own demeaning antics.

now, this is not to say that sean is all evil...he has a very intelligent and charming side. one that i got along with very well with for some time. in fact, if you're on his good side, he's full of perks and favors. he has given me free banners ads, free clothing that often gets sent into the office for sampling purposes, bought me food, let me drive the company car around, and let's not forget i lived in his house for 2 months...where i kept things tidy, ran the occasional errand, and gave him and a couple of the girls private yoga lessons. it was great for a little while, until he started having random outbursts at me and calling me names. in fact i'll share just one experience:

But maybe that's just "prickly management style." From "Dia:"

I'd like to clear up the record that there have been around 150-200 models who left the site, over two years, but about 30+ in the month of September alone, during one Mass Exodus of models, particularly those models who had worked on the DVD or the Burlesque Show. It was by far the most models who had ever left at one time.

I'd also like to mention that the article states pay as being a primary reason for models leaving. Let it not be a point of confusion that these models probably should be paid more, especially those working for $200 a night for mainly sold-out venues across the country, however, it's rarely been cited as a reason for models leaving.

The sentiment of models has varied quite a lot but the resounding theme I hear from the models who recently (the 30+) left are a feeling of disgust at the general Misogynistic tone of the site owner, who has been said to have been especially verbally abusive towards his dancers, calling them, and some other models, very harsh names and berating them, also complaining about an unusually poor standard of treatment, even for this industry. I left this site happily after being asked to leave 3 years ago, though I clung to the allure of the community, when I heard the owner Sean Suhl, state in front of myself and another model that the girls were all a bunch whores, he would never pose for his own website if he was a girl, and that Suicide Girls were some of the stupidest girls on earth. He also said that the only good Suicide Girl model was, as he put it, 1%... a tiny piece in his site... a statement seriously lacking any Punk or Feminist or even Progressive-Minded credibility. Women with strong voices seem to be more likely to wind up archived.

More specifics here And some interesting background here.

As fucking Hugo says

…this is where I find the likes of Larry Flynt (publisher of Hustler) to be less offensive than men like Sean Suhl of Suicide Girls. Flynt doesn’t pretend he’s empowering his models; he embraces raunch with a bracingly candid enthusiasm that even his detractors often find to be — almost — winsome. Fellas like Suhl are out to make money off women’s bodies in much the same way Flynt is, but in Suhl’s case, greed seems hidden behind the rhetoric of edginess, alternative culture, and a rather shallow feminism.

All via Feministe

Bobby Lightfoot and the Sword of Destiny

I meant to post this much earlier in the day, but I got distracted. I'm pretty much only capable of functioning between the hours of midnight and 4 AM, so... hey. Anyway, the first draft of this post went like this:

They used to say when I was a boy, if you wanted to be the best in the world at something, you should probably never leave your hometown. Cause if you did, someday, you'd probably end up stumbling upon Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. And I said to myself, weeel, I just happen to have a crowbar with the name "wolfgang amadeus mozart" inscribed on her. So I had no worries. No one ever told me I might stumble upon Mr. Bobby Lightfoot, though. And I reckon that old crowbar just ain't up to the job. Need something stronger to take out a son of a bitch like Bobby Lightfoot. Like some kind of mystical sword maybe.

But then I thought, that's pretty gay. So I scratched it. But the point here is that Bobby Lightfoot is one bad-assed man and an insightful son of a bitch as well. And I don't feel at all bad for thinking he's probably an asshole.

Just check out this post on Tom Delay's recent legal troubles. That post won him a corndog courtesy of Mr. Res Publica. Goddamn I want one of them corndogs.

But even better in my opinion, was his America at a Crossroads post. And just to loosen up those link clickin fingers, here's a taste.


You see that's what America could be, and what we should aspire to.

You wanna click on that one and then you wanna check out his one on NeoCon polesmoking felcheteers

And if that don't convince you than the problem is you.

Time To Get All Literary on You Motherfuckers!!!

Since it's banned books week, kids, according to those bastards at the American Library Association, I thought it might be time for some trenchant and insightful commentary on a few books that made ALA's top 100 most frequently challenged books. I haven't read many of them. But then I tend not to read very many books with titles like "Daddy's Roommate." But that's mostly just because I'm not a 12 year old boy trying to come to terms with my pa's homo-gayness. Nevertheless, I've read a few. Should we burn them? Well here's my opinion.

1. Scary Stories by Alvin Schwartz
Don't remember much about this one. Fuck it. Let's burn it.

5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I don't know what the objection here might be, except for the constant use of the phrase "nigger jim," a word verboten, even on this blog. Should've called him "Nigger Jed" or something. Good story though. A tale about a runaway slave and an illiterate boy's adventures on the mighty Mississippi. Sounds pretty goddamned American to me.


6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The story of a coarse okie and his amiable retarded pal. A couple dead rabbits later, and I don't want to give away the ending, but the retard somehow ends up president. Burn it.

8. Forever by Judy Blume
Read this one in the third grade. Don't remember much, but the bittersweet tale of adolescent love and the characters' wonderous discoveries of the mechanics of their filthy budding bodies was mesmerizing to 8-year-old jedmunds. You don't ever really change.

13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
"Then Holden found Jesus and died while saving some orphans from a fire. The End." That would have been a great ending. But instead in a gesture of karmic justice, it shall be used as kindling to burn down an orphanage. You fucked up, Salinger.

19. Sex by Madonna
I haven't read it, but I've seen the pictures. Let's put this one back on the shelf shall we? We shall.

41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
I do recall Jem being insufficiently perturbed by Scout's muddy drawers, but that's no reason to ban a book. It's no Forever by Judy Blume, but I kinda liked this one.

43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Pony boy and Soda Pop did indeed save some orphans from a fire or some shit. I feel like it kind of glorifies gang violence though, but not gratuitously, like Grease did. I'm not saying there's not a place for the gritty realism of a film like Grease, but I would rather burn that than this book.


44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
You have a weird old man with nothing to lose but his collection of pig figurines. And two awkward teenagers who spend way too much time with him. The formula for success is right there, but I guess Zindel was too much of a pussy to pull the trigger on it. Burn it.


45. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
This book is filled with good jokes about retarded people, then he gets all smart, and though easier to read, becomes much less funny. I think there's an erotic scene though if I recall correctly. And some real perv shit too. All in all, that makes it my kinda book.


51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
You shouldn'ta written that poem about the Nazi pedophile who kills himself with a discarded douchebag, Shel. I know. I know. Who knew it would be so easy to read between the lines of "Moon Catchin' Net," and discover it's hidden dark meaning. But you can't market that shit to kids ya know? Not in this crappy country anyway.

52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Well then what are we going to read when we want something more prescient than Orwell's 1984? Yevgeny Zamyatin's We? Surely you jest.

60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
A little social commentary never hurt anyone, other than all those Irish babies. But hey, we're talking about hookers here. Not babies.

62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Yeah, so I read a couple Judy Blume books as a kid. Fuck you.

69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
It's too bad Vonnegut's such an asshole, cuz this is a good book. Let's burn Timequake, while reading this one aloud, and toasting marshmallows.

70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
I should go back and read this book, again. I recall it having some cool-assed themes that, having achieved maturity and erudition, might be worth another wade into.

71. Native Son by Richard Wright
A semi-literate black guy kills a white girl, rapes his girlfriend, beats her till "her face resembles a wad of wet cotton," and thanks to a shoddy faux ransom note is able to briefly shift the blame to a highly educated socialist jew. Helluva book. But we gotta burn it.

Read Lauren, Lindsay, and Amanda of Pandagon for some more takes.

Out With The Old, In With The New

House Majority leader that is.

"It's not easy to fill the gap left by our leader, Tom DeLay, who's done a tremendous job, but all of our team is going to come together like we haven't ever come together before." -- Temp Leader Roy Blunt.



Huzzah!

I Used to Be Somebody

Holy shit! Some lucky journalist scored an interview with president for life Sheelzebub. And it's pretty good too. Here's an excerpt:

Will you get moody one day and blow up another country?

I will never live that down, will I? It was a very small country. Has anyone actually missed that country? Does anyone remember which country it even was? I'm serious, because I don't remember which one it was. Some very annoying place with goats and horrid food, as I recall. Not a popular tourist destination, unless hanging out in mud puddles and listening to Michael Bolton croon love songs was your thing. Really, I did everyone a service, but you all act like I was in a bad mood and taking it out on innocents. I was in a good mood, for Hades' sake. If I had been moody, I would have declared it Dick Cheney's official undisclosed location.

Man, so this is what professional jealousy feels like. Poor Jon Stewart. I feel so bad for him now. Not as bad as I feel for myself. But you know, hey, now I know what empathy means. Perhaps I'll console myself by re-reading the greatest series of interviews since Jim "JR" Ross interviewed Mick "Mankind" Foley for WWF television. This is the stuff legends are made of:

Ben Styles
Bernard Goldberg
Tall Saul
Politivi

Les Eclats De Rire Est Mort! Vivre Les Eclats De Rire!

Ratings for Arrested Development, universally agreed upon as the best show ever, the contrarianism of a few douchebag holdouts for some overrated HBO filth aside, are in the fucking crapper. Monday’s episode garnered a 2.7 rating equaling about 3.9 million viewers, finishing in fifth place in its timeslot behind some show called Seventh Heaven. The premiere attracted a disappointing 4.5 million viewers, much less than the 6 million averages it held during seasons 1 and 2.

How can such a phenomenal show have such low ratings? That’s an easy one. Americans are stupid. More pressing is the reality that Arrested D has been barely able to survive with their former ratings. As such, this drop in ratings is a dire threat. A dire dire threat to our supply of comedic material. And I don’t know what to do about it. I feel so helpless. So impotent. What can one man do? I can’t be 1.5 million viewers.

I’ve felt this sadness before. About 15 years ago, FOX had a funny little show called Get a Life starring Chris Elliot. Originally conceived as a grown-up Dennis the Menace, it was about a 30 year old paper boy who lived with his parents, and … did funny stuff. A combination of gross physical humor and a certain wittiness, influenced by the British comedy the Young Ones, made it the exemplar of cutting edge comedy in a popular format of its time. It lasted a scant two seasons, if I recall correctly, abruptly cancelled due to low ratings in its Sunday time slot. That style of humor would live on however in shows like The Simpsons, back when it was still funny (You have to be of a certain age to remember when the Simpsons was funny). Looking back on it, Get a Life doesn’t seem as funny as it did in its original context, just as even the old Simpsons don’t seem all that funny any more either, and even old Seinfeld episodes don’t seem so hot either.

Comedy changes quickly. What was once cutting-edge eventually becomes commonplace, and eventually stale. That’s probably the primary reason why comedies with a strong narrative inclination age better than those without. Ten years later the gags seem predictable and unfunny, and so the story is called upon to bear a greater burden of the entertainment value. It might be hard to fathom now, but ten years from now, Arrested D won’t be that funny. Or at best, it’ll be funny the way a show like – what’s that show with the fat guy and the hot wife whose dad is played by Jerry Stiller? Anyway that one.

Despite this inexorable fate, or perhaps even because of it, we must cherish this time we have with our beloved Arrested D. I know not how much longer it is for this world. Whether its death is to be premature at the cold ruthless hands of a cynical and calculating FOX exec; or if in its struggle, it survives and thrives and grows gracefully, blooming to full maturity, and then gracefully exiting in its twilight with a soft and reverent breath with all due glory and tribute. With hope and a bit of luck we might be fortunate enough to witness the latter, but if not, I’ll be ever grateful for the moments we have and will have shared. Just as I treasure the laughter emitted during the halcyon days of the Simpsons, Seinfeld, Mr. Show, Roseanne, the Wonder Years, Married With Children, and etc etc. Those laughs are gone. Never to be brought back. Such a fleeting, almost sad, joy that comedy is. But today we have Arrested D. And no need to worry from where tomorrow’s laughs shall come.

"I Know What An Erection Feels Like, Michael."

Tonights episode of Arrested Development went by way too quickly. Kind of interesting that they moved the "on the last episode..." to the front of the show, instead of the faux preview at the end of the show. Probably a mistake. The pace is still too frenetic as their trying to work in a bunch of extraneous little plot developments, but I think by the second half of the show, they had gotten everything the way they want it, and they're set up to start working the Arrested D magic.

I definitely enjoyed this week more than last week. But not enough Buster. Hell, not enough Gob. Too much Michael. Something about they're presentation of Charlize Theron is rubbing me the wrong way, too. It's got a real ratings gimmick type feel to it, a "jumping the shark," tone if you will. But overall, I'd say it was pretty solid, but not their best work. Everyone doing a chicken impression was pretty awesome for long-time viewers, but it was probably only kinda funny for new viewers. For a show that seems hell-bent on upping the ratings, ratings they deserve by the way, it seems like they don't give a shit about new viewers who might be tuning in.

Some great lines and gags, including "I guess you could say I'm buy-curious." The newscasters line about a little-IRA. Ron Howard saying "No one's making fun of Andy Griffith. I can't stress that enough." "I shan't kill you then." God I love killing hooker jokes. A lotta lotta good jokes in this one. But there are lingering concerns. First of all, I feel like they're doing to Tobias what they did to Homer Simpson, making his quirks too exaggerated. They're doing the same thing with Lucille, who seems a tad unrealistic so far this season. Also, The show worked in the past based on the family interactions, which now often feel kind of forced. The last two episodes have felt more plot based, and I'm not entirely feeling it. If too much air-time is devoted to Michael interacting with Charlize, we could have an enduring problem. But hopefully, having everything settled somewhat, like how the fuck did George Sr. end up under house arrest anyway? - they'll slow the pace and give us, not just the funny, because it's not just the jokes that make the show so good, but the excellent storytelling that goes with it. I won't even bother pondering why the transition between this episode and the last one was so terrible, and seemingly unnecessarily so. So far we've got a lot of plot holes, but I don't care as long as they right the ship moving forward. I'll buy into it from here on out, but they can't keep doing such weak transitions.

I've never seen a James Bond movie in my life so some of that episode was probably over my head. But I'll say this, having season one on DVD, and having downloaded season two, it's pretty fucking excruciating to wait a whole friggin week to catch the next episode. I'm dyin' here.

Just Posting For the Sake of Posting

Man I'm so bored with political blogging right now. Yawn. You could say that I'm bored with politics generally right now. But man, I'm really bored with political blogging. So much sound and fury over so fucking little. As if all the comments and all the little points scored, from here and yonder, mattered a whit. I mean I suppose I could head over to the daily kos and work myself into a lather over G dubya's fondness for tuna melts or some such. As if that were on par with Abu Ghraib or New Orleans or any of the other multitudes of heinosity. But hey, did you know that the daily kos is as big as the entire conservative blogosphere? Hey, now we're cookin'. I feel so effectual. We've been milking that nifty placards and cheesy slogan gap for decades now. If we'd could only somehow figure out how to combine the two, we might form something really awesome. El Blogacitos Unido Jamas Sera Vencido!

That sound of laughter you hear is by those humorless conservatives incapable of detecting irony.

Speaking of conservatives, someone - I believe it was John Holbo originally - said conservatives were really good at politics, at getting elected. They just weren't so good at actually governing. And part of that is of course that enviable ability to deflect blame. Like hey, don't blame us, we just control every single level of government except for the bureaucracy, infiltrated by liberal fifth columnists who have all the real power!!! And the college professors, and their goddamned literacy. Not. Real. Americans. They not only read books, they write 'em, for god's sake! I bet they've never even cleared brush in their entire lives!!! Oh yeah, and despite all of the evidence to the contrary, the media is really mean too! Not that they can even pretend like they have a bias toward reality, to the best we can presently understand it, anymore. Just the other day, I heard a couple of conservatives laughing - if you can really call it laughing, twas more like angrily and shrilly making fun of - at liberals for "blaming the refusal of people to evacuate New Orleans on Iraq." Not that I've heard anyone say this. Not that it doesn't completely cloud the issues. But you have to admire it. The blame deflection. They're just so fucking good at it!!! Makes me want to kick back and have a drink.

But nothing in that preceding paragraph matters to anyone. It's just spilled pixels. A waste of time. Like Swift said, "It is impossible to reason someone out of something that he did not reason himself into in the first place." Or like what they say, blogging provides an illusion of activism. Maybe to some on the left it does. And not that it can't be used as a tool for activism of sorts. Look at what Mydd and swingstate did for Paul Hackett. They raised money. I still stand by my belief that the most powerful tool at the average person's disposal is how he spends his money and how he lives his life. You don't like the Bankruptcy Bill? Cancel a credit card. The powers that be will pay more attention to that than any well worded rebuke you can get linked to by Atrios. Spending hours reading the latest jabs doesn't change anything. It doesn't really even make you better informed. And it's usually not even that entertaining.

All of which gets me to my first reminder about blogging after having recently done a self audit. Blue Girl did something similar recently with advice that's mostly for people seeking traffic. But I didn't like their advice. And I don't really care about traffic. The only good political blog in technorati's top 100 is Pandagon. And I'd rather have what I consider a good blog according to my standards than a popular one, and these are some reminders to myself on how to better accomplish that.

And so,

1. Political Blogging is almost always boring

2. Avoid the rant. Other than Mark Ames and Maddox, so few are any good at it.

3. People don't care about your opinion so much as how you express it.

4. I forgot this one.

5. Sloppiness as an aesthetic is okay, but you can't get too lazy with your diction and syntax. The well-turned phrase is your biggest strength.

6. Don't post for the sake of posting just to adhere to some ill-concieved self-imposed weekly quota.

7. You can't force joie de vivre.

8. Self deprecation is ill suited for someone as intimidating and intelligent as you are.

9. Remember that blogger will eat your fucking posts, as it did to the first version of this one.

By the by, I did a bit on parental notification laws chez Ezra over the weekend. I tried to be insidious, but I should have been more unaccomodating I reckon. It's not that good.

Also, remember to watch, Arrested D, ce soir. Especially you Blue Girl!

Update: Jesse of Pandagon hits the

"Republicans can get elected. Republicans can promote ideas. Republicans can even demonize Democrats who don't share their ideas. But somehow, parts of that just never seem to work out - particularly the parts involving money. The leaders are never right, the timing's never right, something, but the core of the Republican Party, the people designated to enact this cohesive, structured agenda always fail to do so when push comes to shove. Then, you get the new firebrand (who sounds not-so-coincidentally exactly like the old firebrand) who's supposed to come in and clean house and take us back to the conservative principles that were never actually represented in the first place."

part square on the head.